January training

Time for review of January.... This year I'm aiming to be an epic one having entered my second ever ironman, some 6 years after my last and enough time to have forgotten all the training involved. One of the things I enjoyed doing last time around (when I was a far more consistent blogger), was to reflect on the month gone and think about some short term, next month goals... Keeping some short term aims helps the journey to the bigger picture. 

So with that said below is a summary from sports tracks of most of my training ... Differences between mileage/ sped on for biking on strava is mostly my indoor rides I sync Zwift to strava (which shows more km the Garmin records)... Some strength sessions also missing below... But think it will provide a starting point at least!

Summary of January:

On the surface nearly 27 hours of training in the month feels like it's heading in the right direction, however scratch at the surface and we see a bit of a start/ stop/ start/ stop month. Start of the month at work (start of the half/ end of the last) always presents known time constraints... Which is fine and once I'd have felt some sort of training guilt with that but now accept it is what it is. I then had a good consistent block of about 10 days... Then 5 days ago I got this sore throat thing doing the rounds so have missed the last 5 days which is less the ideal....

Swim

Well I'm happy with having done a couple of swims over 3k. I'm happy that at the start of the month (after a few swim weeks off over Xmas) that my form went from feeling like jelly to fell like it was coming back together a bit. I know 2 swims a week make a big difference and know I will get stronger with consistency.

Still having some ear issues but combating that with trying different ear plugs, the olive and tea tree oil ear drops also seem to help clear the water out (when I remember to put it in before). Anyway I'm enjoying my swim at the moment and a little frustrated with only one swim last week (shortened by issues with too many people in the pool!)

My aim for February is to gain some consistency; I'm hoping to be over the bug to participate in the Tour of Sufferlandria but will hopefully squeeze in some recovery swims in that time as well as the tour rides. I want to continue getting a better feel for the water and stronger.

Bike

Whilst I biked quite a bit in the virtual world in January (largely zwifting) I did, err... No rides in the real world... And to be honest I'm a bit disappointed with myself with that! Once I swapped for bad weather which is fine but once really just disorganised so ended up doing a tempo indoor session rather then long easy outdoor session. Strangely strava has me over 300kms ... 

Overall I'm happy with the time on the bike during January (despite lack of any biking in the last week), I'm enjoying the mixture of sessions the coach has been setting this month and really the only complaint with myself I could have is to get out more. Ironically then I won't be going outside from 6-14 Feb as I'll be suffering indoors with my fellow sufferlandrians... As we are away the last weekend of February I'll say now a wish for good weather the weekend of 20/21st and pledge for a ride outside!

Run

Well I'm surprised to say that I'm quite enjoying my run at the moment and I've finally found a pair of trainers which don't give me a blood blister for starters which is probably helping matters! I've probably been most consistent with running over the last 4 weeks and have even done an "easy" 16k which whilst wasn't easy actually wasn't absurdly horrible either. Should have been doing another 16+k run today but throaty thing has stopped that. I'm still slow and don't expect that to change but the consistency has certainly got me faster (for me in my mid 40s!).

I expect my running for Feb to be slightly less overall as the ToS will likely have an impact. Looking forward though to a race at the end of Feb, although originally supposed to be half marathon looks like we are relocating our weekend so will be 15k.. So will have to race harder then to make up!!!

On top of the above there has been a couple of entertaining strength sessions, although I confess these are the more likely sessions I miss. I think next month I should also post some stats on missed sessions... More red the green in Training Peaks is never a good thing! 

First and most important thing for February though is to shift this bug properly and then get into the swing!.... Vichy VIchy VIChy......