One Man Down

The week got off to a mentally challenging start with my first weekend away on an Endurance Running Coaching Course in Gloucester. Like all these types of things I find them hugely mentally challenging and come home knackered, the bonus now being I don't have to rush into work first thing Monday morning and have time to let things settle in my mind and work out how I will put the ideas into practice. The running club will be subjected to some experiments over the next 5 weeks or so before I go back for the next stage of the course.

At last the weather has picked up and Spring appears to have sprung! That of course means that at least one of our group is immediately smitten by the lurgy. George was and laid low last week, and still only just ready to start training again and now Mark finds himself unable to breath and subjecting himself to afternoons watching black and white movies lying on the sofa.

My week has thankfully been much better, sorting the garden, planting out my veg and sorting out all my end of year business admin etc. The bike is also back on the road having had some new bearings fitted which seems to have sorted out the annoying clicking sound from last week
 
On Thursday I was invited by Mark to go on a  ride with  a couple of local triathletes that he is involved in coaching. They meet quite regularly once a month and have a swim, ride and run day where they complete what is almost a half iron-man in terms of distance but without the rushing around in between stages.

Grafham Water

Swimming is not my greatest strength so I passed on the "opportunity" to swim for an hour and met the riders, Heather and Pedro, at Grafham Water for the cycle bit. I was a little daunted by the thought of trying to keep up with a couple of "Iron" people. It was clear from the start of the ride that I was a couple of miles an hour slower than they were used to riding at and I had to quite quickly get into the mindset that I was going to be working a lot harder than my normal longer rides in order to stay in touch. Heather and Pedro were great riding partners though and were very supportive, making sure I didn't get left behind.We had a really pleasant ride around some beautiful Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire countryside, I often wonder why anyone would want to leave this country, I can,t imagine many more beautiful places to live around the world. I do agree with Pedro when he said it could just do with being 3 degrees warmer!

From a  training perspective it was a bit like moving up a group at the running club, you know you're going to have to work harder to keep up but you're also aware that its doing you a lot of good to be challenged. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was quite chuffed to have completed 40 miles or so with a 2mph increase in my average speed without any significant issues and feeling really comfortable on the bike. I was however very glad that I hadnt committed to the 9 mile run that Heather And Pedro went on to complete afterwards.

Not sure what then plans are for the next week, it depends on Mark getting his lungs back. The weather seems to be set for a few days so with luck we might get out for a couple of decent rides next week. We need to start knocking out a couple of 3hour rides a week to build the stamina and then we can start doing some longer runs at the Spring warms up.

Onwards and Upwards.