back into training.

On Boxing day i had a 4mile XC race, i decided to go early and do 3 laps (1mile each) as a long warm up. The course was really tough; it had lots of hills so i actually did work off the Christmas food! Afterwards i did another lap and a cool down, but the next day i felt really sore! so i decided to have a legs off day. Our first swim session for a few weeks was hard, it was a 2hour session and the main set was; 15x100m f/c off 1:30 followed by 10x200m off 3mins. I pushed myself on the 200's and was coming in on 2:25 every time, which isn’t bad considering i haven’t been in the pool for a while.
Thursday i did a 90min ride, with some hill repeats thrown in. The legs still giving me grief from the XC run. Then we had another 2 hour swim session, we did 5.5km, nothing interesting mostly f/c and a similar set to the night before.
Friday i met up with Bob for a ride, i had no idea how long or hard it was going to be i just followed him, apart from every time it was headwind and he made me go on the front!
We rode for 3 hours altogether but with a 20min cafe stop in he middle so we could refuel.
Later that afternoon i did a 3.5km roll through swim session, lots of varied stroke and technique work, i treated it as a recovery session. Then i went straight into the gym and ran on the treadmill for 40mins working on high cadence.
Woke up today and felt really tired but i had arranged to meet Jutta for a run, so we ran for 90mins at a comfortable pace, any other day it would have been to easy but today it was bordering on comfort/pain. Now i plan to recover for the rest of the day.

It's been a while since I’ve posted as training is pretty slow at the moment because of the Christmas Holidays and the bad weather.
I haven’t been doing much swimming recently because the pool had closed for 8 weeks, it is so frustrating!
As for cycling, well, I’ve been riding about 4 hours a week, depending on the weather, and I have been doing more indoor sessions. I really need to get the hours back up again on the bike. I did go out today for over 2 hours despite the icy roads.
Running is going really well, doing lots of longer runs, and XC races. Came 3rd overall at the RAF Cranwell XC race but I won the U20 age group! It was a great course, although I would have liked a few extra km's.
Hopefully I will post again within the next week or so when my training starts up again....
Have a great Christmas! xx

I was back on the Turbo on Sunday because the winds were so bad outside, so i got the latest issue of tri news and cycled away for 1hour45min before going straight into a 30min progressive run. Then in the evening we only did a 4km swim because it was time trials. I did a 2km warm up, then a 1500m TT (18:38:02) It hurt so bad, and to think i have to do that now in a triathlon! But i've never done it before so it was a PB! Afterwards i did a 500m cool down.

Monday the winds were much calmer so i went out and rode a 75min loop to the beach and back which is completely flat, i felt really sore and was uncomfortable the whole time.
Then i swam 4.5km, we did lots of drills and kick (which hurt my legs even more) The mainset was 10x100m and we had to come in below 1:12. I was on fire! eventhough it was short course i was doing below 1:10 each time, i felt really good, smooth and effortless.

Tuesday i met up for a long XC Run with Janine, Jane and thier coach Malc, we ran for 1hour30mins, it was a great run we worked hard but had a laugh at the same time.
That evening the swim session was 4.5km again. The mainset was 5x300m as 200m pull 100m swim which was good for me as longer distance pull really makes me feel like im working.

Just more training!

I went out on my bike early on Monday, I rode a 90min loop before heading home because I was feeling kinda crappy. Then I rushed off to Loughborough which is about a 2 hour drive away for a meeting at British Triathlon. I ended up being longer than I expected and, despite trying, I didn’t make it home in time for the swim session which annoyed me but it was out of my control.

Tuesday morning there was torrential rain but I still met up with Janine to do a 17km XC run. The farmers decided to start ploughing the fields so we got covered in mud, it felt like I was running with bricks on my feet! It took us 1hr20mins but it was a great run and I am looking forward to the same thing next Tuesday.
Later that evening we did a 4km swim session, the main set was 10x100m hard, I was told to make sure I kept under 1:15 and I was averaging around 1:12 so I was happy with that plus it felt pretty smooth.

On Wednesday I did a very hard bike session I pushed all the way for 90mins and the route had a few good climbs in it too. Then I had a few hours to refuel with a roast dinner before heading out on a 50min steady run with Jutta.

Thursday I went to the gym and did a brick session; 2x (30min bike 10mins run)
Then I went straight into 40mins of stretch and core work.

For the first time since I got back to the UK I got up and did the early morning swim! We did 5.6km long distance work; the main set was 800m then 2x400m followed by a max distance 10min swim and 12x100m off 1:30. Surprisingly I felt really good and worked hard so it ended up being a great workout.
Later on I decided to do a longer brick session so I did a 1hr15min turbo (wind trainer) session, then straight into a 30min progressive run.