Club La Santa and all that

Oh - so my blogging for April wasn't great was it..... but my training wasn't so bad (lucky thing!)... Well I spent my week at Club la Santa in the sunny island of Lanzarote and had a completely F.A.B time. A week on a beginners Tri camp with lots of similar minded people is to be highly recommended to anyone taking up this sport - and for those actually already in it, yes we did have some definitely NOT beginners on the course but everyone did their best, everyone was really friendly and everyone supported each other. So overall it was GREAT!

To summarize really we ran pretty much every morning, swam every day and biked every day (bar one when I just couldn't sit on that saddle anymore ;o) ....)... here's a summary of my personal triumphs (in no particular order);

• Completed by first 40k+ bike ride....
• Got confident all over again about being on a bike (BIG SMILES)
  
• Completed by first 60min non-stop (no walking) run of the year
• Did my first ever non-stop 30min swim (don't ask me the distance as I lost count!)
• Did my first (and second) wetsuit swim
  
• Swam faster then before... did some 100m splits (fast) in 1:42 in a wetsuit and 1:52 without .... GO KAREN GO!
• Did my second ever Triathlon (a mini; 400m/ 17.4k/ 4.7k in 1hr12mins)

So I was a very happy (although tired) person when I got back last Thursday! Took things easy Fri/ Sat then on Sunday I even ventured out on my trusty stead followed by an evening splash around.

If anyone is reading this (does anyone read this?) and wants to know more then I'll happily email you back. We got some good stuff about strength and conditioning on the camp too; allegedly the sessions are only 45mins long - there must be time in my week to fit a couple of those in?!

Summary for April:
Swim: 8hrs 37mins - 16.7km
Bike: 11hrs 01mins - 227.8km
Run: 7hrs 11mins - 57.9km

TOTAL: 26hrs 49mins and 302.4km
(Blogs = 3 Poor effort - must try harder)

Not surprisingly this outstrips last month by some way, after all I did spend a "holiday" doing nothing but training! But I am suitably chuffed to pieces as I am still in one piece (pretty much). Average then is 53mins a day and 10.08km. So much for the increase of 10% per month....
Swim.. 7.2km to 16.7!
Bike... 119km to 228
Run... ok so this didn't get it's 10% and actually went slightly down (boo hiss) 59.5k to 57.9k

Obviously I'm not necessarily expecting to get the same volume in this month but now I know how much I can do then there's no reason, with careful diary management and some dedication why I can't maintain a level somewhere between my March and April totals.

The main theme for this month is to take my biking from Lanzarote and get going on the English roads (which incidentally don't seem as good!) and really build to my 3hr weekend ride. Open water swimming has started at a local(ish) lake so I'm going to be going there once a week. As for the run - well keep on plodding is the motto I think.

Of course I have an impending trip to San Francisco which will no doubt hinder so I'll have to plan some rest/ adaption for those few days.

Today, being the first Tuesday of the month, is Tri club run and curry night. So will be off to that later for a slow plod and a well deserved curry and gossip!

Will blog again this week - honest guv!