<\/p>
\u201cDo you know what nemesis means?\u201d asks the character Bricktop in the cult British gangster film Snatch<\/em>. He goes on to explain that it is: \u201cA righteous infliction of retribution, manifested by an appropriate agent\u2026\u201d and we\u2019ll leave the rest of the quote there! <\/strong><\/p>\n Everyone has a nemesis. For Superman it was kryptonite, for Batman it was The Joker, and for my friend Anthony, it\u2019s cheese. But for me, it\u2019s a bit more awkward than that, because mine is my own leg.<\/p>\n It may sound harsh to be listing parts of your own body as instruments of divine retribution, but it certainly feels like it\u2019s working against me in a highly malevolent fashion, frequently causing me to gnash my teeth more than during a Cliff Richard centre court singalong.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> The leg in question is my left one. My right leg behaves itself beautifully and sets the standard for how I expect my limbs to behave. It\u2019s flexible, muscular, it bears the kind of adventurous-looking scar which draws admiring glances from other triathletes, and, most importantly of all, it gives me no pain.<\/p>\n My left leg, however, gives me nothing but aggro. Its list of shortcomings include a hamstring so tight you could slice bacon with it, a knee riddled with tendonitis, a calf so solid you could crack walnuts on it, and an Achilles tendon which throbs with pain so often that during those rare moments when it isn\u2019t hurting, I feel like I\u2019m ascending to Valhalla on a beam of light.<\/p>\n Worse though, my leg gets cramp. And not just the sort of cramp that makes you squeak \u2018Ow!\u2019 and slows you down a bit, but the stops you dead\/crippling\/doubled over\/can\u2019t actually move cramp that leaves you standing rigidly in some contorted position like one of those town centre living statues.<\/p>\n It always hits me in exactly the same spot \u2013 on my left inner thigh \u2013 and it has dogged me for years. The first time I remember it coming on was 17 miles into the run at Ironman Canada in 2006. Canadians have honoured the spot with a blue plaque because I broke the Guinness World record for the most number of swear words uttered inside 10 seconds.<\/p>\n It got me again at Ironman Lake Placid, and Austria, and Lanzarote (although to be fair it wasn\u2019t in the top 10 of problems I was having that day). It then cunningly left me alone for a while until it snuck up on me in a Birmingham League XC race, before disappearing again and then sideswiping me halfway round a coastal ultramarathon, leaving me tottering dangerously close to a cliff edge, giving me the distinct impression that it was almost certainly trying to kill me.<\/p>\n It\u2019s on my mind at the moment because it\u2019s now hit me in four races in a row, and nothing I do seems to make any difference (please don\u2019t write in with suggestions, I\u2019ve tried every salt tablet, rehydration drink and energy gel in the history of expensive supplements).<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> I can only conclude, therefore, that this is a deliberate campaign to thwart my attempts to qualify for Kona, which I would definitely have done by now if it weren\u2019t for this (plus my apathy and incompetence).<\/p>\n The only thing that seems to keep my leg in check is hurling abuse at it, most of which involves threatening it with amputation. This can backfire, though, as I discovered during a recent race in Suffolk when I could feel the cramp about to bite and shouted \u2018Oh p*ss off!\u2019 \u2013 just as another athlete overtook me.<\/p>\n He looked at me curiously, so I hastily explained, which caused him to chuckle heartily and confess that he sometimes did the same \u2013 it was like a limb-haters support group.<\/p>\n At the time of writing, I have five races in the next five weeks, which raises all sorts of exciting possibilities for my leg to harm me, so I\u2019m seriously considering racing with a hacksaw in my hand.<\/p>\n I know what most of you\u2019re thinking by now \u2013 just rest it, it\u2019s clearly injured. But you don\u2019t understand, it\u2019s gone too far for that, it\u2019s a fight to the death now, me versus my leg. And only one of us shall emerge victorious. Legend \u2013 there can be only one.<\/p>\n Top illustration credit:<\/strong> Daniel Seex\/220 Triathlon<\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By Martyn Brunt Published: Tuesday, 16 August 2022 at 12:00 am \u201cDo you know what nemesis means?\u201d asks the character Bricktop in the cult British gangster film Snatch. He goes on to explain that it is: \u201cA righteous infliction of retribution, manifested by an appropriate agent\u2026\u201d and we\u2019ll leave the rest of the quote there! […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":16743,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"4"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2022\/08\/why-my-leg-has-become-public-enemy-no1-scaled.jpg",2560,2012,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2022\/08\/why-my-leg-has-become-public-enemy-no1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2022\/08\/why-my-leg-has-become-public-enemy-no1-300x236.jpg",300,236,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2022\/08\/why-my-leg-has-become-public-enemy-no1-768x603.jpg",768,603,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2022\/08\/why-my-leg-has-become-public-enemy-no1-1024x805.jpg",800,629,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2022\/08\/why-my-leg-has-become-public-enemy-no1-1536x1207.jpg",1536,1207,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2022\/08\/why-my-leg-has-become-public-enemy-no1-2048x1609.jpg",2048,1609,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Martyn Brunt Published: Tuesday, 16 August 2022 at 12:00 am \u201cDo you know what nemesis means?\u201d asks the character Bricktop in the cult British gangster film Snatch. He goes on to explain that it is: \u201cA righteous infliction of retribution, manifested by an appropriate agent\u2026\u201d and we\u2019ll leave the rest of the quote there!…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/16742"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/220triathlon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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