Well a new Year is nearly upon us and what a year I've had. A year ago I was in Basra having an early night with a can of blackcurrant fanta.... a year later and I'm having a peaceful evening in with a good mate and some nice tucker.... 2006 has been a long year personally, and one which has seen me change as a person probably quite significantly due to the experiences that came with the start of the year in particular. I'm looking forward to 2007 and all the experiences life will bring along - particularly the London Michelob Triathlon in August!!! :o)
Training this week has gone pretty ok - easier as I was off work, but hard still as I still had the "Christmas must catch up with mates and drink beer" bug!! Although thankfully only one day of that this in the last week!!! Got a really good core session followed by excellent swim session in on Friday. During the swim I did a good set of drills and a few tempo lengths to get through an hour and 2.1k, all felt really good. As a reward I then had an afternoon out on the town... oh dear, although the pints of London Pride did go down well and the company was fab!! Woke up early saturday with a sore head!!
As punishment therefore I had agreed to help a friend out digging over their garden - what felt like hours of hard labour in the rain to repent of my sins of the day before! Still wanted to punish myself some more so did a 5k hill session on the treadmill in the gym... only one word for that... UGLY!
Today I was supposed to be doing a mtb orienteering thing with my mate Claire. Alas I have had a senile moment and thought it was today but when I checked the time on Saturday afternoon on the web I discovered the date of the event was the 30th - yep that would have been Saturday morning then.. doh! so missed it. Not to be outdone though the local gym had a 1.5hour spin session - so we both did that instead which was actually quite enjoyable (in a warped sort of way), just for good measure I left the bike and got on the treadmill for a quick 1k run. Legs held up well and not too much wobbling - amazing!
Well better get out and start celebrating (with elderflower cordial and fizzy water - honest), the arrival of the New Year!
Wishing all of you out there and your families one fabulous celebration tonight and a happy and peaceful 2007.
Adieu!
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Spring is on the way - honest
Yes - before Christmas we obviously had the winter solstice and so we're getting around 8hours of sunshine a day... well ok if you could see the Sun we would be - although I did hear someone say they saw it for an hour today... ;0) I have to say I missed it. The thing about winters here is there is nothing to them - neither too cold or too hot, just grey and very little sunshine. Well at least I don't live further north where they have next to no chance of any sun at all do you won't catch me anywhere in Scandinavia in the next few months eh ;o) ... but still as I said Spring is on the way - the birds are even in song in the morning already and yes there are the first sign of tulips, daffodils and the like coming out - but hey isn't this just all a little too early? Time will tell if they all get beaten back my some sort of winter that's not come yet. We have had a few days of minus temps all day (that was when the fog was here last week ), but that's about it.... not that I guess that I'm complaining as have to figure out far too many layers to wear when I run in the cold ;O)
OK - on to this week. Did a really nice run on Christmas Day. Later then usual I set off about 10am, without the santa outfit (which I did contemplate wearing)... met quite a few dog walkers all wrapped up. Hit the bridle ways of Finchampstead and had a really lovely 7.5k outing. That of course allowed me to indulge in the rest of the day! Excellent day too, over to Mum and Dads, brother, his wife, my two nephews (8yrs and 2mths), Nan, Aunt and Uncle - phew a busy day!
Took Tuesday off and took Dad's dog to the beach with some family friends. At least the dog got an excellent run around, think she's been flat out ever since!!!
Wednesday I took in a steady swim, some drills and a 400m (disappointingly still just over 9mins for that) in total about 1500m. Club training doesn't restart until next Wednesday so I would like to get a couple more swims in before that.
Today I took to my bike, could have risked the outside as it was brighter then it has been (still no clear skies), but the road was damp and slippery all day although a mild 8degrees. So didn't do it but caught 2 episodes of Alias (series 1 again) to get me through an hour or so on the bike. Did an easy 10mins warm up then 5*1k intervals with 1k easy, after that another 10k small gear cadence >90. So felt like that was a good workout.
The 'plan' for the rest of the week is 1-2 more swims, at least one run and I've entered a 2hour mtb orienteering event for Sunday. Now I've done some of these before and they're quite a laugh, although currently the weather forecast is not too funny looking!!! Still it will be entertaining if nothing else.... especially if the storms arrive as predicted.
Right that's it for now - and would you look at the time - well past my bedtime, I need my beauty sleep after all.
Oh yeah and Muffin the cat has also enjoyed his Christmas although he's really not getting into the exercise thing like his Ma - seems to be doing lots of stretching, cat snoring and eating. Well sounds like he's got really into the Christmas spirit!
Tally-ho!
OK - on to this week. Did a really nice run on Christmas Day. Later then usual I set off about 10am, without the santa outfit (which I did contemplate wearing)... met quite a few dog walkers all wrapped up. Hit the bridle ways of Finchampstead and had a really lovely 7.5k outing. That of course allowed me to indulge in the rest of the day! Excellent day too, over to Mum and Dads, brother, his wife, my two nephews (8yrs and 2mths), Nan, Aunt and Uncle - phew a busy day!
Took Tuesday off and took Dad's dog to the beach with some family friends. At least the dog got an excellent run around, think she's been flat out ever since!!!
Wednesday I took in a steady swim, some drills and a 400m (disappointingly still just over 9mins for that) in total about 1500m. Club training doesn't restart until next Wednesday so I would like to get a couple more swims in before that.
Today I took to my bike, could have risked the outside as it was brighter then it has been (still no clear skies), but the road was damp and slippery all day although a mild 8degrees. So didn't do it but caught 2 episodes of Alias (series 1 again) to get me through an hour or so on the bike. Did an easy 10mins warm up then 5*1k intervals with 1k easy, after that another 10k small gear cadence >90. So felt like that was a good workout.
The 'plan' for the rest of the week is 1-2 more swims, at least one run and I've entered a 2hour mtb orienteering event for Sunday. Now I've done some of these before and they're quite a laugh, although currently the weather forecast is not too funny looking!!! Still it will be entertaining if nothing else.... especially if the storms arrive as predicted.
Right that's it for now - and would you look at the time - well past my bedtime, I need my beauty sleep after all.
Oh yeah and Muffin the cat has also enjoyed his Christmas although he's really not getting into the exercise thing like his Ma - seems to be doing lots of stretching, cat snoring and eating. Well sounds like he's got really into the Christmas spirit!
Tally-ho!
Monday, December 25, 2006
Ho Ho Ho!
Merry Christmas!!! Tis the season to be jolly tra-la-la-la-la...la la la la.. or something like that eh? OK time to confess it's been nearly two weeks since my last blog and I think I can safely say there is a correlation between how much training I put in and how regularly I do my blog... you will gather therefore as I've been a little lax on the blog front I have also been lax on the training front. Lack of will power has seen me go to too many festive gatherings and consume the wrong type of hydration (ok more like right type of dehydration depending on your view!). Still Christmas comes but once a year... and I wasn't here last year (in the sense I wasn't in the UK) so I guess I've been making up for it.
I'll keep my training diary brief then (well I have little choice in that matter!)... The week of my last blog (starting 11th I think) I did err grand total of err 1 hour of training... yep shocking.. and that was on the Sunday. By the time I'd got to Wednesday 13th I'd been commuting for over 16hours, the next day I went to Ireland for a flying (social) visit so by the time I got to Friday I was well and truly pooped. Saturday I cleared off the Christmas shopping list so that left Sunday to go for a run... and suffer I did.. a week of living the high life and lots of travel took it out of my legs. So steady 9.5k in an hour (although did slightly beast myself for last 2k which I raced home in a little over 10mins).... On to the last week then (told you this wouldn't take long...)... Managed a good day on Monday, both strength session in the morning and swim session in the evening. The swim was as much of a nightmare as the previous days run had been. Felt more like a dead weight then a light flipping dolphin in the water! Still did my lengths... and then the week started to go down hill again, nothing Tuesday and another social occasion on Wednesday up in London again. Couldn't help myself (I evidently have the self control similar to the breaking strain of a kitkat)... so started on the champagne at 1pm (yes 1 in the afternoon) and it went from there... so that kinda wrote off Thursday really. Still managed to slightly recover my position by an hour on the turbo Friday and Saturday with an hour core stability work Saturday too. Blobbed out yesterday. So totals for last week a rather generous 5 hours, although I feel like I really barely did anything.
Still Christmas day is here and I give my body a present today - a nice steady hour run through the fields - will be doing that as soon as this blog is done. Hey and I've got some skins(tm) to try on. I've heard rave reviews for a long time about these in terms of aiding training/ performance. Never really that sure but have worn them for both bike sessions last week and had no muscle soreness at all after. So either they really are ace or I wasn't working hard enough!! ;o) You can take a look at the skins website here .
I actually have some time off work this week so have no excuse for missing my week training goal.... hold me to that one then!
OK so time to get out on to the roads and fields. Leaves me to say to anyone reading this I wish you and your family and friends a really happy and peaceful Christmas wherever you are. Especially those who have loved ones serving overseas either with the armed forces or serving a cause close to their hearts. Take care.
I'll keep my training diary brief then (well I have little choice in that matter!)... The week of my last blog (starting 11th I think) I did err grand total of err 1 hour of training... yep shocking.. and that was on the Sunday. By the time I'd got to Wednesday 13th I'd been commuting for over 16hours, the next day I went to Ireland for a flying (social) visit so by the time I got to Friday I was well and truly pooped. Saturday I cleared off the Christmas shopping list so that left Sunday to go for a run... and suffer I did.. a week of living the high life and lots of travel took it out of my legs. So steady 9.5k in an hour (although did slightly beast myself for last 2k which I raced home in a little over 10mins).... On to the last week then (told you this wouldn't take long...)... Managed a good day on Monday, both strength session in the morning and swim session in the evening. The swim was as much of a nightmare as the previous days run had been. Felt more like a dead weight then a light flipping dolphin in the water! Still did my lengths... and then the week started to go down hill again, nothing Tuesday and another social occasion on Wednesday up in London again. Couldn't help myself (I evidently have the self control similar to the breaking strain of a kitkat)... so started on the champagne at 1pm (yes 1 in the afternoon) and it went from there... so that kinda wrote off Thursday really. Still managed to slightly recover my position by an hour on the turbo Friday and Saturday with an hour core stability work Saturday too. Blobbed out yesterday. So totals for last week a rather generous 5 hours, although I feel like I really barely did anything.
Still Christmas day is here and I give my body a present today - a nice steady hour run through the fields - will be doing that as soon as this blog is done. Hey and I've got some skins(tm) to try on. I've heard rave reviews for a long time about these in terms of aiding training/ performance. Never really that sure but have worn them for both bike sessions last week and had no muscle soreness at all after. So either they really are ace or I wasn't working hard enough!! ;o) You can take a look at the skins website here .
I actually have some time off work this week so have no excuse for missing my week training goal.... hold me to that one then!
OK so time to get out on to the roads and fields. Leaves me to say to anyone reading this I wish you and your family and friends a really happy and peaceful Christmas wherever you are. Especially those who have loved ones serving overseas either with the armed forces or serving a cause close to their hearts. Take care.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)