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.

Back to work, 46.8miles

Not a bad week. Out 6 days and a tad over 46 miles completed.

Sunday with Paul and Anthony started the week off well even if it was a bit painful. Monday I took an easy loop with Anthony and added an extra loop which took it to 11 miles. Tuesday was a newish route over the fields and down passed Redbourn Golf course before picking up the 10k route home.
Thursday was epic. Anthony's first set of lung busting reps. 6 x 800m and his performance was really strong, pulling away from me on the last rep. Brilliant.
Friday I managed a cheeky loop involving the fields and Nicky line again, I threw in a loop round Park Avenue to get a nice 4 miler.
Saturday I was down Redbourn, the Redbournbury mill, Childwickbury, West Common and home across the fields. A snitch under 10 miles but another nice route.

So that's two weeks of building. I need to keep the routine going and get the reps done every week. Probably time to put a few races in the diary to give me some focus.

Fatboy Run, 11.8miles

Paul had been to Florida for 2 weeks. No running, American portions, all-inclusive etc, we hoped that he'd be a fatboy and trundle along at our pace. However, who comes back from that sort of trip lighter?

So the fatboys were Anthony and me. We struggled to keep up with Paul, who struggled to keep the pace near 9min miles. There wasn't much to blame for the lack of pace but we tried, the heat, the gale force wind, the steep hills/mountains. Nope none of them really helped make the sorry state of affairs in any way credible.

Still, it was a good laugh and we did get into double figures for the run.