Back to Base

Well I haven’t raced for 5 weeks now and I’m starting to get withdrawal symptoms!! This is the longest I’ve ever gone for without racing! I had entered Barton Marina Standard Distance on 10 June but unfortunately it got cancelled due to a lack of interest and although I was really disappointed at the time, I think the break from racing is doing me good. It’s given me a chance to return to base training and get the hours in without the pressure of tapering, racing or recovering. It’s also been nice to spend some weekends watching Chris race instead of the other way round! He came 10^th at the Brecon Sprint Tri a couple of weeks ago at his second attempt at the event (despite still doing no swim or run training!) and he won the Shirley Roads 50mile TT event on the Tandem with his cousin, Phil.

Not only were they 13 minutes ahead of the next Tandem but they won the event overall beating the first place solo rider by nearly 3 minutes. Mind you, with a time of 1:46:20 for the 50 miles I’m not surprised the other riders couldn’t get close to them!  It was really amazing to watch and every time we looked at the clock his Dad and I were jumping for joy as we knew that if he didn’t burn out dramatically that they would smash the 1:50 mark they were aiming for....and they did!

2011	Swim	Bike	Run	Total Hours
Sat	1k	21 mile (Forclaz)		3.5
Sun	2k	60 mile (L’Epine)	4 miles	6.5
Mon	4k	60 mile (Revard)	4 miles	6.5
Tue	1k	20 mile (cycle path)	8 miles	4
Wed		20 mile (hill reps)	5 miles	2.5
Thur	4k	70 mile ride (Bison)		6
Fri		50 mile ride (Sesaine)		4
Total	12k	301 miles	21 miles	33

Last week I had my training week in the Alps which was a great opportunity to get some longer rides and runs in and although I cycled a lot less miles than last year (rainy weather and a fear of descending coming into play), I did run and swim a lot more, in fact I loved the running and swimming! Most mornings we swam the width of Lake Annecy which was about 4k in total there and back although sometimes my sighting was so terrible that it seemed a lot further than that! On our first attempt at this voyage I couldn’t sight at all coming back across the lake (I had no idea which building I was supposed to be looking for) so eventually pulled myself out of the lake into someone’s back garden! After realising the fence was way too high for me to climb

2012	Swim	Bike	Run	Total Hours
Sat		45 miles (Forclaz & Les Chaux)		4
Sun	3k	40 miles (Semnoz)	6 miles	5.5
Mon	4k	50 miles (Arpetaz)		5.5
Tue	4k	25 miles (cycle path)	11 miles	4
Wed	1k	20 miles (cycle path)	10 miles	3.5
Thur		40 miles (Forclaz & Bluffy)	6 miles	5.5
Fri	2k		5 miles	2
Total	14k	220 miles	38 miles	30

over it was (reluctantly) back into the water to swim along to the next garden! Once I was over the fence it was a good 800m run along the main road back to where I should have been. It must have been so funny for car drivers who were driving into Annecy on a rainy Monday morning to see a random person in a wetsuit and yellow hat sprinting down the road! I was relieved when I made it back to see the others! 

The mountains seemed a lot harder than last year and although I think I’m definitely a stronger cyclist this year, I struggled on the climbs. However, I still managed to chick some of the men up the Forclaz although my cheeks were literally purple and the sweat was pouring off me, haha!

Lots of my friends have been racing at various races like the British Sprint Champs, Blenheim Elite and quite a few are racing this weekend at Dambuster. My next up and coming races are the Northampton Olympic (24^th June), Cowman Middle Distance British Championships (8^th July) and Bedford Olympic (29^th July) which is an ETU qualifier for the standard distance in Turkey next year. I’ve left my options open after that to see what I fancy next. Really looking forward to ‘Part 2’ of the 2012 race season and hope to have some great performances and fun times! The next 10 days or so will be spent sharpening up ready for my first standard distance of 2012, I’m excited to see what I can do.