Recovery, 10miler on the bike

Well it's nearly 10 miles and with a wee bit of tweaking I can see it being a good 10 mile tester.

It was a recovery day after yesterday's session. The legs felt reasonably ok so I picked up the pace on parts of the ride home.

It did have a scary moment where two cars decided to skid alongside me in a bid to take over. I wasn't too happy about that and made a few squeaky sounds myself.

Long drive tomorrow so the legs will have another easy day.

Lunchtime Reps and Evening Cycle, 19miles

Excellent session with the elite Grid boys at lunchtime. Will, John, Rob and a new lad Rob made up the numbers for 20x30s on/30s off.

The first few were pretty straightforward. I'd decided to pace off Will who normally leaves me for dust, but he was off form and it was the new lad who was blasting. On rep 7 I decided to keep up with him. Bad mistake. It was downhill from there and when someone said that's 12 done I nearly cried.

13-19 were painful but somehow I hung on and finished strongly on rep 20. For some strange reason the Garmin only saved my heart rate so I've no idea how fast things were and how they deteriorated.

In the evening Susan and I took off for a 19 mile loop round Markyate and Flamstead on the bikes. The pace was easy after a tough day but very enjoyable.

Whoops! Bonk! 6 miles

Oh dear oh dear. Major bonk on a short 6 mile slow run this evening.

No lunch, no fluids and a hot day conspired to finish me off down by Redbourn Golf Club.

I was going slow but started to wobble badly. Managed to scavenge some blackberries to give me a bit of a boost and see me home.

Good reminder to get the basics right even if it is just a short one.

Hopefully I'll be feeling better by lunchtime tomorrow when I've reps planned with the Grid elite.

Run, spin and a herd of deer.

Short 3 mile run this morning after dropping Louis at nursery. Took it steady and just wanted to get the legs going.

This evening I was out with Susan for the loop round Preston. 25 mile-ish and over the last 2 months she's really improved. Tonight her average was 13.5mph, in June it was 11.7. She's still not happy.

We saw an amazing site over by Brockett Hall. A heard of deer, probably 20 or so, in the road ahead of us. Luckily they ran into a field and then ran parallel with us for about 40-50 yards before diving across the road ahead. Could've been scarier but there was a bit of distance between us.

Cracking evening and a

Catch up, swim, bike, run.

Monday after a really good weekend. Yesterday was an opportunity to see world class triathletes close up at the London ITU world championship event in Hyde Park. It was a dress rehearsal for next year's olympics and a huge success for Team GB. Alistair Brownlee won, followed by brother Jonny in 3rd.

The pace of the athletes was unbelievable and a true inspiration.

So last week I finished off with a tempo run on Friday evening. 3x2.08miles in zone 3.

That was followed by 48miles on the bike on Saturday, split between morning and evening. Sunday was a rest day and the world championships.

Tonight was a swim session and I must admit I'm knackered after it. Feeling very tire and although I'd planned a 5k loop, I'm not sure I'll make it out.

It's been a while but the building has begun.

Ok, so its been a bit hit and miss. No blogging for ages and a few false starts on the rebuilding.
But the last few weeks have been decent and so I think its safe to start the regular blogging and to set a few targets.

The building phase has begun for the NewForest Half Ironman in September. I completed it last year but failed to get under 6 hours, mainly because my run fell to pieces. That can be fixed.

I'm also keen to get the pace back into my running. I've let the reps drop out of the schedule and this is the time to get them back. I did 6x800m last night as a start . The week will have two quality run sessions included from now.

Tonight was an easy 5 miles in zone 1 & 2 along the Herts 10k route. Lovely evening for a run.