Chris Waddel

Amateur Ironman Triathlete

The amazing way Morgan (cycling specialist physiotherapist) and Nadine (running and adventure coach) are working together is incredible: I really feel very lucky to be able to work with such a fantastic and experienced team, so the months ahead are really exceptionally exciting!

A personal ambition for me in Ironman Triathlon was to break 10hr30min, and for family-related commitments I had a three season period to achieve this goal from a starting point of 15hr17min in IM Wales 2011.

Having worked hard for three years with the genius team at MyProCoach, I started the 2014 season promisingly in June with a 6th place at the Boskman 2/3 distance IM while racing at my long-distance race-pace. While Boskman was a fantastic result, it left me with an injury to my right foot that meant running more than 40 minutes was virtually impossible.

Six weeks later I pulled out of Outlaw IM just one mile into the run, having left T2 at 6hr38min. The injury was just too painful to run on.

So I had eight weeks until my next ironman race to somehow deliver on 3 years of training and sacrifice towards a single ambition. The medical consultant route to resolve the issue, including cortisone injections, had resulted in little progress after several weeks. On the advice of my coach Phil at MyProCoach I went to see the physio team at CycleFit: Morgan in turn referred me to Nadine Horn at Balance to sort out my running, something I am extremely grateful for.

In the space of a month, as a consequence of Nadine’s experience and knowledge, she had identified the issues with my running technique which were causing the injury’s symptoms (effectively the forefoot being overloaded). What is more, she had managed to work within the constraints of my injury to come up with a new run technique that avoided aggravating the injury.

On September 14th I started Weymouth IM, still injured. 10hr18min later I crossed the finish line …

I have one last ironman race in 2015 which I really hope will be quite special. Already the technical data from the changes in my running style suggests that working with Nadine over the coming months will make me considerably faster as my style improves, and hopefully means my run times will be more in line with my performances on the bike.

The amazing way Phil and Nadine are working together is incredible: I really feel very lucky to be able to work with such a fantastic and experienced team, so the months ahead are really exceptionally exciting!