A week gone by

So - I did try to do my blog early then this but alas I chose a time when the server was down.. doh! Silly me.

Well I think I had a fairly ok training week last week. Had a good swim session with the Tri club on Wednesday - focusing on drills again which was useful. Both head position and a good high elbow. Drills were - err interesting and thankfully I didn't manage to drown, although breathing was sporadic and did entail inhaling several mouthfulls of water.... Not surprisingly the coach did make note of this and said we'd work on in a few weeks time. Didn't get a second swim session in though through the rest of the week which was a little poor - my swim is no doubt my weakest event so I recognise I need to do more drills and spend more time in the pool - must do better, so no gold stars on the swimming yet ;o)

Woke up on Thursday with a bit of a cold so obviously ignored it and managed to go Hockey training Thursday evening which was a good session. Also managed to incorporate some loose interval/ sprint sessions a little unstructured but I find hockey a good way to do some faster stuff without having to think/ plan it. Not sure I'll be able to carry it on but hockey season ends in March so won't disrupt Tri season.

Friday I woke and unfortunately felt worse then Thursday, sore throat and possibility of first Autumn cold - no fun. Not wanting to get any such lurgy I took standard immediate action drills (ok should have done these the day before), vitamin c, echinacea etc etc, also and somewhat unusually for me I did actually decide to listen to my body and took the day off from any exercise too. Seemed to work as by end of business Saturday I was feeling much better despite a full game of hockey! Hurrah!

On to Sunday - what a glorious day. Not only did I get an extra hour in the day due to the official end of summer time, but it was fantastically sunny too (how ironic - sunniest day in about a week!). Got out on the bike and had a really good ride around 35k. My friend Claire joined me, or should I say I joined her. She's much fitter then I so took the lead most of the way which meant I got a bit of help in the slipstream! Still I'm really happy as it was my longest ride to date (and so also a little saddle sore!!) - it was a fab ride! Concentrated on not mashing and getting a cadence of >= 90rpm for the most part. Am particularly weak on hills (ok not so much hills as slopes as it's not too hilly where I am!), but will work on that later. Really want to concentrate at the moment on building time in the saddle!

So I don't think I quite managed all my targeted training for the week but not far off it which was good. So will give myself a rating of ok - but could try harder! "Official" pre-season training is now a week away, when I'll start to concentrate on the content of my sessions a little bit more.

Yawn - how do you get up in the morning?

Sigh - so I had good intentions of going swim training last night but the couch caught me and a good book - so I didn't make it out (far to dark and miserable).... Must do better! Although at least I did make it to the gym for some strength training (light weight lots of reps)

So I thought I'd maybe get up for a run this morning but Autumn is really coming to us and really the sun didn't even peak out itself until about 0800... so there was me all keen - in my duvet - at 0700 as the alarm tried to waken me from my slumber... alas with no light to be seen my body was obviously in hibernation mode and didn't wake - in fact I only stirred 30mins later when my wet cat decided to jump on my head (a mixture of wanting some food and excitable cat-i-ness about being soaking). Hum! None the less I have done my run this evening - at least it was dry even if it feels like it's getting a little chilly. Not wanting to overdo it ;o) I did a v.easy 6k at about 10k/hr pace, try to concentrate on keeping HR relatively low (146 avg), and strike rate high. Have to say I generally find it wierd and quite difficult running slowly-still it's what I think I to do in order to build up my stamina etc. Went out it my tights (of the running variety!), canterbury winter long sleeve top and light-weight gillet oh and a cap. Just about the right amount of gear - was neither too hot or too cold. Ipod was also welcome company - a random mixture of Queen, Elton John and Green Day! So at least I've got the run in and don't feel too wacked.

Should be swim training tomorrow - I've been to the Weds session run by the local club once before. I have to say I was well pleased to find out that there were some swimmers equally as weak as I, meant I didn't feel like such a dodo in the slow lane! Lots to learn - previous lesson was all about body positioning in the water, great how keeping your head looking down makes you swim noticably higher in the water. Looking forward to learning some more stuff tomorrow (assuming I'm still awake come the evening - what with the light going by about 1830 means I'm sleepy within the hour!!)

.... Right thought of the day... why is my cat (which is black) getting lots of white/ grey hairs!!??

The first of a few

HI!! OK the training doesn't start until tomorrow but thought I'd start a blog to keep me honest on my endeavours to pursue my first Olympic distance tri next year. I did my first (and only to date) triathlon in August (sprint400m/20k/5k) and was really surprised at how wonderful and welcoming all the participants, marshalls and spectators were - and have to say when I staggered out of the swim and on to my bike I felt like the preverbial pig in muck- I loved every minute of it, including the madness of trying to run at the end which was entertaining. I ran (ok more like waddled) my way around the 5k and could only cheer (whilst gasping for breath) at the athletes who coasted past me - amazing!

So why a triathlon?!! Well I guess I'm a little sporty which will help my endeavours. My usual sport being hockey (field that is) but now I feel I'm not motivated to keep my fitness up for hockey as I've had a year away and not motivated to want to perform at my previous standard and so although still playing there's no inspiration to maintain/ improve fitness which was previously the case. So a new challenge was needed; i love being fit and wanted a goal other then hockey which would inspire me enough to want to put the hours in for training and keeping fit.... and so I found the Sprint Tri in August. The event was run by a local Tri club so I'm lucky I can join that and get some training in a structured way (particularly swim which is - er entertaining for want of a better word - picture lots of splashing and getting nowhere fast!).

So I've got a great book which helps both with goal setting and working out a training programme.. can't remember it off hand but it's something like "The Triathlon Training Bible" and it's excellent. My schedule starts officially in a couple of weeks - but at the moment I'm starting to put in increassed hours (gradually) as I'm intending to start off with a 8.5hr training week. Whether I manage this much remains to be seen - but that's part of the reason for the blog as hopefully it'll keep me honest! My rough intentions for this week are 2 hours swim (join the tri club!), 2 hours bike, 1hr easy run + 3hrs hockey (training and match)... blimey now I've written that down it sounds like a bit... so we'll see how it works out... hopefully work won't get in the way ;o)

OK enough wittering on for now - let's see how it goes!