E_P_I_C

today was a great day for swimming, exciting plans and cake. unfortunatly it was not a great day for getting design infomation issued or knees, but you really cant have everything.

swimming - feeling so low on energy and motivation on wednesday, which i put down to onset of a cold that i skipped the evening swim session. an evening spent queitly whatchig tv seemed to have done me good as i felt 100% the next day and determined to make up the lost workout. reckon that they'd filled the pool with fast water that evening as i was feeling comfortable at a considerably quicker pace than target, even whilst doing the set on my own in a public pool. this morning's swim session was similar - usually my friday swim is a sleepy and half-hearted 90 min effort to maintain a steady pace...but this morning i was again shaving seconds off my target rep times throughout the session. it could be that i am just a little less fatigued this week, which i have found really impacts my swimming - and if so its worth my while monitoring this as my pool motivation improves dramatically when i can see improvements like this.

exciting plans - this is the best part - we've just confirmed our places for EPIC camp New Zealand!! http://www.epiccamp.com/newzealand09/index.html it was such an insane training experince in Italy last year, and being the home turf of Scott and John, the guys behind the Camp I get the sense of real familiarity with people coming back year on year. some real stars too, going by tales that we heard whilst out in italy - i also think its a larger group with a harder hard-core. it'll be great to see a few of the guys who we met out in italy as well as meet a couple of professional iron-girls who i gather are signed up. and with the ironman 4 weeks after the end of camp, we are looking at a pretty long trip to the other side of the world now too.....which will certainly make winter training a bit more palatable!!

cake - we said farewell to Ola, the architect from Poland, today. she baked a cake - which we all agreed was the most delicious cake ( a sort of unbelievably light chocolaty almondy tarty cake) that anyone had ever tasted. we felt rather sorry that she had witheld this talent untill her final day....but it was probably for our better health. so thank you Ola, and good luck with your ventures in Poland and if you ever come back to visit, bring cake.

home

Mum loves the coast, my sister loves the forest, but for me its got to be the rolling expanse of moorlands. here's one of my favourite veiws, taken on one of my favourite rides from the top of Dunkery Beacon (one of my favourite beacons!.

It's great to get back to somerset for the weekend. After an early start I arrive in time for breakfast at my mum's before heading out onto Exmoor on the bike. This Saturday i'd planned a 3 or 4 hour ride, to be back in time for a nice leisurly afternoon with mum; a spot of shopping in town and resting up after a tiring week. But the sun was out and the sky perfectly clear and I could not resist the temptaion to explore a couple of new routes up an over the Beacon. I only just made it back to Taunton before dark, and in time for the carnival.

It was a hard ride - almost 7 hours in the saddle, covering 95 miles over the tough Exmoor terrain (I ride much of the route of 70.3UK and the "Exmoor Beast" cyclosportif) with only a couple of breif stops to check map, take a pitcure and pick up some flap jack at Whedden Cross - and I was glad to be able to set my own pace. I felt strong, but not powerful. It is interesting that it's bike form that I seem to loose the fastest and then find hardest to re-gain. Last year, despite plenty of long rides, it was summertime before I really began to feel strong on teh bike. So, I will be looking to start my campaign of power-specific bike training (which did the trick last year, in the end) much sooner in my season's schedule next year, with the hope of being ready for IM new zealand, in march.

That' s my justification of missing quality tiem on the high street with mum anyway - i need to make the most of this period of leisurly endurance rides admiring the views!

up, and running

Having eased myself back into training for the winter, the last couple of weeks have seen some very enjoyable training. Feeling refreshed, focused and.... basically not totally physically wasted, I’m finding renewed enthusiasm and energy. This could prove to be double edged sword – whilst I’ll continue to enjoy training when it is going well keeping my motivation high, the enthusiasm and energy that I have for harder sessions is hardly appropriate for the time of year – certainly contradicts my own training plan which should consist of 8 weeks building aerobic base - and will no doubt take it’s toll before too long. But just as long as I keep this in mind, and remember not to let the hours run away with me (18 last week, 25 this week) and recover effectively, I have a great winter’s training to look forward to with some interesting events lined up to keep me on my toes...

Winter racing is all about running really. The cross country season started yesterday with the first of the Met League races. A gorgeous day, certainly not the weather I’d associate with XC, but with the usual, totally disproportionate amount of fear of the hard 6km cousre we were about to run far too fast for out own good. Without much expectations in this scene, or with my current state of fitness, I started a few rows back and took my time working through the runners ahead. The lead girls as ever were way out of sight very quickly but in these events your score is based on position, not time so those unable to make the pace, don’t chase. I worked my way through the field , breathing hard but steady (unlike some of the wheezing and sobbing that you get to hear on these intense events), started the second lap in 20th position (which is my benchmark for cross country races), and finished 13th. There were a lot of drop-outs due to either the heat or just early season lack of fitness, but I was pleased with this position, and to score for my club.

We’ve also got the Regents Park 10k series http://www.chaser.me.uk/series_results.php?a_seriesid=3 to keep us going – the first being last Sunday. A day of torrential rain and mucho reluctance after a fairly solid 70 mile ride the day before, which itself was off the back of a Friday night long run of 15 miles. To be honest I turned up only in order to set a benchmark for the rest of the series, to be sociable with the good turn out of Tri London that these races attract and familiar faces from previous seasons. Despite my being really quite late, ,I was relieved that the start ad been delayed…and the morning took a further turn for the better when I was handed not only a prize of Runners Need vouchers but also my entry fees back! Apparetly I won last year’s series – having only raced 3out of 6 races and only actually won 2 of those. So if nothing else it was certainly getting out of bed and soaking wet for. I also had a very enjoyable race spending the entire 3 laps chasing the lead woman. She got a start on me, with a couple of other girls. But having Gabriel on the start line with an unspoken challenge helped me with my early speed and I soon dropped the other female contenders and had the one in front within sight. Kevin came by me (we have very similar race results and a little competition there too) so I tried to pick up pace, passing Gabriel in the process. I was unable to stick with Kev though and watched his back disappear. My focus then was to chase the lead, around 15 seconds behind her I felt that I had the psychological advantage as well as superior endurance, and didn’t try to close it until the final 2mile lap. Oh, and then did I push. I pushed and pushed until my lungs nearly came out my arse, but despite this, and all the encouragement from spectating friends, I could not reel her in. Of course she had known I was there and had something in reserve too. The best I could do was put a little squeeze on in the finishing 400m, and settle for second knowing that I could NOT have worked that race any harder. I was rather surprised, given the effort that I’d put in, that my time was 40:41. It’s not a fast course but I managed under 40 at the end of the last series. But – I really could not have run harder and it’s a benchmark.

Still on the running theme -Monday saw the start of 40 runs in 40 days. Last year we spotted this link: http://mdotdoc.blogspot.com/2007/10/30-runs-in-30-days.html
and thought it was an excellent idea for kick starting the running without overdoing it on speed. Several club members found their running much improved after the end of the period, and I continued the theme expanding from 30 in 30 to 40 of 40 in 40 and finally, leading into IM Germany, 50 of 50 in 50. I’m currenty7 days and 6 runs into this one. Not having run today, I ‘owe’ run, which means that tomorrow I’ll need to run twice for at least 40 minutes each time. This means that instead of riding to the pool, I’ll run - it won’t cost me too much extra time. In fact, tat’s the great thing about the challenge – suddenly you’re running everywhere! And being time, not distance, based you very quickly learn how long it takes to get from your regular As to Bs at a easy pace. The ability to bank runs or o into debit, makes the challenge a little easier to manage than simple running everyday – not only from a time point of view but it does allow a little recovery if the legs are feeling the strain, or if my ride turned out to be a lot longer or harder than intended.

The hope is that with these regular 40-60 min runs, plus a long run and a short race each weekend I’ll be in decent shape for the coastal marathons http://www.endurancelife.co.uk/event.asp?series=1 that I’ve signed up for in Dorset in November and December!

relucant to re-boot

yes it's been a bit quite around here, i've not felt like posting anything for a while. i s'pose that it's the triathlon related nature of this space which puts it into the catagory of things that i've been avoiding for the last few weeks whilst i concentrate on getting unfit and letting go of the 2008 season. I've not been logging the light exercise that i've undertaken during this period, measured my weight or monitored my morning heart rate.

not to say that i've not been thinking tri. there has been considerabe analysis of the year past and even more directed towrd the year(s) ahead. funds have been sent to Ironman for teh privalage of racing Ironman newzealand ( march 2009), ironman lanzarote ( may 2009) and the biggie ...ironman Hawaii (oct 2009). Race goals and training objectives drawn up in complicated spreadsheets over cans of lager and junk TV. all looks very impressive...and now the time has come to start the campaign towrads these fabulous results.

but you know what? i don't really feel like it. i'm really enjoying the sessions that i'm doing, and executing them far better than i'd expect given the fitness that i've lost since Wisconsin - i suspect due to not being tired! however, my motivation to do the session is very low. in fact i'm finding that i'm lacking motivation for most things, except for science fiction. hmmm. of course i'm slightly frustrated about not being on a certain polynesian island right now (the one who's name must NOT be uttered in my presence), and maybe just a bit S.A.D.

i suppose it's time to confess to being maybe a bit more than a BIT sad. i'm an obsessed triathlete, there's no doubt and the last three weeks have really brought this realization home. without the fug of fatigue or the whirr of rushing from training to work, from work to training, training to bed; without the preoccupation with distribution of kit between home/office/stevens/laundry and calorie intake with the correct nutrients in the correct proportions...i find myself seeking distraction, and failing to find anything that quite fills this void - i'm actaully a bit bored.

so why this reluctance to get stuck in and on with it? on the one hand it's the knowing that fairly soon i'll be back in the routine that leaves no room for anything much else in my life, on the other there's the fear that there is no longer much else in my life..and a sense that perhaps i ought to invest some time in re-establishing the neglected social networks and cultural connections.

or it could be that its just fucking cold and dark out there ;o)