After a pretty decent start to my triathlon training in October the wheels fell off a bit in November mainly down to a cold I picked up. It never got too bad but I felt terrible for an hour or two after waking up and pool chlorine just knocked me for six. I could continue to try to explain away my woes but really they’re just excuses. I get one or two colds a year so hopefully I won’t pick up another one until after July 2013.
More after the jump
When I did shake the effects of the cold I noticed that my bike is improving, my ability to run in low HR zones is increasing and my swimming has gone backwards – as much as I hate the wet stuff it’s clear to me that I can’t afford to miss swim sessions if I’m going to get myself onto my trusty Boardman AiR in a condition to ride 112 miles.
I did have a few good sessions during the month including one ride where I found myself exploring some new roads including coming the back way up into Shirenewton, my standard hilly TT course, before smashing my PB for the descent and beating my biggest strava rival Chris’ best time into the bargain. This ride had earlier got itself off to a false start when I reached the main road before realising I didn’t have my helmet on and ever cautious I had to head back up my hill to fetch it. Better safe than sorry.
I’d noticed a few days before that there was a popular Strava segment nearby which consisted of a flat time trial between two main roads. The previous best was 5:03 and I reckoned I could do it in 5 minutes with a bit of effort and so it proved as I crossed designated end in 4:59 but I did slow in the second half so still improvements to be made. By the time you read this blog my KoM will probably be taken by an entire pack of the Monmouthshire Wheelers rumbling by in a group ride but as it stands it’s all mine.
That was my only ride of note for the month, most of the others were on the turbo including a long session during the final Grand Prix of the season. I started 15 minutes before the lights went out and told myself I’d ride until the chequered flag – at one point the repeated delays caused by safety cars and rain had me convinced that the FIA were aware of what I was doing and were picking on me.
Running is going OK but I’m actually looking forward to doing some longer runs in daylight on Sundays – it feels like it’s been a while.
End of the month saw me take a, not really needed, training break as we went on the Eurostar to Lille for a few days as a weekend break/ Christmas market trip. Was a nice enough trip but the eating done during the 4 days won’t have helped my training much! One thing I did do on the weekend was finally read Andy Holgate‘s book Can’t Swim, Can’t Ride, Can’t Run. I’ve been aware of the book for a long while, since Andy posted on TriTalk that it was doing well on Amazon maybe two years ago, and Kathryn bought it for me last Christmas. She’s read it but I’ve always had audiobooks or Kindle books I’ve been reading so I made a conscious effort this weekend. One thing I can say if I hadn’t already cracked and entered the Outlaw I’m not sure I’d have finished the book without wanting to enter one. I can only imagine how many people that single 215 page book has driven to enter the water 226KM from the end of their own Ironman experience.