2007 RECAP

Well I think it's time (if a little late) to recap my first season in triathlon. What a year! Pretty much surpassed all expectations despite the broken hand at the beginning of the year and the stutter that created to the start of my training.

My season goals were to;
1. Complete sprint 400/20/5 in under 1hr25!
2. Finish my first Olympic distance Tri

Did the first much earlier then expected and as for my first Oly - well how much did I enjoy that!! I'm really proud of achieving these two. But if you had said to me a year ago "oh put down a half marathon too" I'd have laughed! I never thought I'd ever want to do a half marathon let alone enjoy it. The triathlon 70.3 dream though spurred me on to want to do one of these and so an unexpected late season goal appeared too.

My training goals were, on reflection, perhaps a little random:
1. Swim: break 9' for 400m!
2. Bike: build up to regular 3hr training ride
3. Run: Break 25' for 5k and 55' for 10k

Given my lack of confidence and ability in the swim a year ago I thought 9mins for 400 would be really difficult. However, consistent training of 2-3 sessions a week (one of which was a club coached swim) saw me blasting through this time early in the season. The difficult thing will now be showing the same level of improvement. Well in fact I've got to get back to swimming like a fishee given I've not been concentrating on the pool much these last couple of months!

I also decided quite early on (given some good blogger advice) that a regular 3hour ride was not necessary for Olympic distance so that one was pretty much ignored. Similarly for the 10k/5k run times. I think these run times are still aspirational for me, but due to a lack of running in my training I think these were a little unrealistic this season.

I've learnt a lot about myself and the sport over the last year. I've also had a fine excuse to buy some great kit, gadgets galore and triathlon books!!

Next year my focus is without a doubt 70.3 - I really can't wait to get stuck in! Although I do want to do London again at Olympic distance. That was such a huge event and such fun I just want to do it again.

I've decided not to do Swiss 70.3 which was my original thought but to do the UK 70.3 down in Devon. Quite simply I will have more support in the UK with hopefully my family being able to come down to shout me on. It made a real difference knowing my Mum and Brother would be on the half marathon course so giving them the opportunity of being there to support is quite important to me - just need to bribe them to get there now ;o)

I'm working on getting my training plan sorted, pretty much starts at the beginning of December, with this month now dedicated to ensuring I get an increasing level of training with at least 1 swim, 1 bike and 1 run in per week.

Oh and the other thing I'm going to experiment with is my training week starting on a Saturday rather then Monday. This may seem a little bonkers but from a psychological point of view I figured if I get a high percentage of my weekly training done at the weekend then come Monday I won't feel so stressed about what I need to get done in the week. Yes - told you it seems a little bonkers - but still, each to their own ;o)

Now on to another matter. Since my old laptop died (without no back up) I've obviously lost all my bookmarks - including all those blogs I often read for inspiration! This is a little annoying! So I'm going to put those links at the sidebar, once I find them again - why did I never do this before!?!