Goodbye to Christchurch

With less than a week remaining of our stay in Christchurch, I've been reflecting back on this winter spent her. Although not exactly as per plan for me with the foot injury forcing my withdrawal from Ironman NewZealand, it has been an excellent period of training. The foot injury has enabled me a great block of focus on swimming and gym work which are the hardest things to keep going consistently when i am traveling between locations. with the cycling that i have been able to do on top of this, i've had a good run of big hrs weeks, but able to keep the 'load' in my legs manageable by not running. I expect that this 2 month 'base' in these areas will have set me up well for the rest of the year (even though my swimming is getting slower by the day, it seems!) - and it may even be a good thing not to be racing now and loose all this fitness in post race recovery.

Right now, I'm close to tiring though - this week has been a right muddle with my switching sessions around to better suit my mood, which is a sure sign that I'm fatigued and motivation is waning. Hardly surprising since this will be like a fourth consecutive week of 40+hrs. However this is my last chance for this sort of consistency for a while - ironman week and the period of travel and relocation afterwards will make training a lot more difficult to organise and force a bit of a lighter load, so i'm keen to keep it going. It's also giving me a real feeling that our trip to Taupo will be a 'holiday' i can take a few days to relax and support steven in his race.

Until i get to my mum's in Taunton ( on the 22nd march) access to gyms in paticular, but also pools, is going to be difficult. Since Qunitana Roo have delivered the new CD 0.1 to somerset (cant wait to get home!!), i will not be bringing the Obi back from new Zealand so will be without a bike for a week or so. This is good timing for a short break from cycling, since i have averaged 370miles/week since arriving in NZ!

And I now have the building back of my running to focus on. Once in Taunton i can get in a nice routine, with only the weather to contend with. I am also able to eat well and sleep a lot when i am there. Half marathon targeted for april 11th as a 'completer' perfect to begin my preparations for lanzarote, with a month on the island to follow.

So it has been a fab winter down under -and we are pretty confident of returning ( so much so that steven has left a pair o wheels!) -but i'm also really looking forward to returning to blighty (brrrr), catching up with friends and family and hitting the trails on my own two feet.

For now, though its time to slap on the F50, and go sweat out them intervals on my bike!