An exam and a race

To say that the last week has been a whirlwind would be an understatement. Starting in Sydney and ending in Armidale, I’m pretty certain I’ve gone through every emotion possible.

First, Sydney.

My WSET journey rolls merrily along with my first exam under the new diploma structure last week for the D2 Wine Business unit – a one hour exam consisting of three questions of varying weighting and what was essentially a brain dump.

As with the last exam (WSET Diploma marches on…), my fear here is a simple proposition – did I write enough. I’m confident, with a couple of exceptions, that most of what I wrote was factually correct, I’m just not sure I wrote enough of it.

Time will tell, of course, and with 9 weeks to go between now and when we can expect our results back, the expectation right now is that I’ve failed. Anything better than that will be a complete surprise.

But, almost ironically, I’m ok with failing this exam. This is a pure theory unit – there’s no tasting component, so no extra spend on bottles, no training the palate, nothing that adds expense to studying the unit (other than the resit cost) so if you’re going to fail a unit, this is the one to fail. Resit would be March or June next year, which also sits nicely between exams for other units so I’m going to be ok with failing this one.

That being said, passing the unit would be completely fine as well.

Following the exam, we dived head first into the world of sparkling wines and that will be all consuming over the next few months. The exam for this is towards the end of January next year so there is a lot of time to nail the theory and train the palate up.

All in all, I’m really looking forward to getting stuck into this unit. Sparkling wine is one of my real loves, from Champagne to sparkling Shiraz and everything in between (well, maybe not demi-sec prosecco…).

Secondly, Armidale.

Anyone who follows me on instagram (@pjfoodandwine) will know all about my trials and tribulations on the injury front.

The TL;DR of it is after a 4km training run in Canberra on concrete footpaths (first serious hitout on something not dirt or tarmac), and in fairly basic running shoes, I developed some kind of leg injury on my right leg. I still trained, albeit lightly, after developing the injury but it never really healed – just became manageable.

I decided I’d give myself until the race briefing (15 minutes before the start) to make a decision on whether to race or not. Of course, once I got to the start line, there was only ever one outcome.

The race itself started well enough – very quick kilometer splits compared to what I had been running and by the 3 kilometre mark, I was well on course for a 5 kilometre PB (although, this only became apparent after the race when I was looking through the Strava data). Then the pain started, and when that started, my energy levels started to wain.

About 600m down the road, my leg and energy gave way completely and I slowed to a walk. That first walk was only 100m before I started running again, but within a further 200m I was back to walking. Add in the only hill on the course and I ended up walking around 400m of the 5 km total – making sure I run the final 500m or so

My official time was 31:33. My PB over the same distance is currently 30:15.

A couple of things here: I started running towards the end of July this year with no real prior efforts in the sport. I’m not a runner by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a term I’m growing fond of and I look forward to the day that I really accept that term applying to me – but given this, I would have been chuffed with this time only a few weeks ago.

Secondly, I probably could have run through the pain barrier if I really wanted to. I could have slowed my pace down, slowed my heartbeat and recovered whilst still maintaining some kind of form and technique (and pace). Had I done so, and after analysing the data, I likely would have run sub-30 minutes and mentally, I’d be in a much better place than I am now.

I have, however, developed quite the leg injury and it’s difficult to walk without pain medication. Would the injury be more severe if I’d pushed through? It’s difficult to know exactly, but part of me doesn’t think so.

Being able to build that mental fortitude to push through is my biggest barrier right now. I’m not talking about taking stupid risks with injury, but about pushing the pain to one side, ignoring the sapping energy levels, and just giving 100%. It let me down yesterday, and I need to work on strategies to go beyond. That will come with time.

For now, there’s going to be very little running for the next little while. I have engaged a running coach to work on form and technique – doing a sub-5:00/km split is achievable, I firmly believe. Where my peak is, I have no idea, but I know I’m not going to find it just on my own.

I have a doctors appointment on Wednesday and have been given the phone number of a guy locally that does Bowen therapy in an effort to get me back on the road sooner rather than later. I don’t want to undo all the gains I’ve managed to achieve in the last few months by sitting on the couch more than I have to.

So that’s where things stand on this Monday morning. I’m glad to have run the race, gotten the medal, and hit the finish line; and I’m relieved to have the exam out of the way. For both running and the WSET the immediate term is the same – we await the results, whilst at the same time push on.

Let’s see what the new year brings.