It Is All About The Bike!

Training last week topped 13 hours and I am slightly tired. I had plans to attend the RAF Triathlon training camp at Club La Santa in Lanzarote. However, Julie is still not well and it would not be right to leave her at home for a week while I spent a week in the sun doing what I enjoy!

So, it was business as usual at home. I was away with work all of Friday and could not train. This shifted my rest day and I did a 40 min run on Saturday, followed by 30 mins spinning on the turbo. The run was completed with 30 sec strides on descending recoveries – start at 90 seconds recovery and decrease by 15 sec until the last stride is completed with 15 sec recovery then repeat.
On Sunday, it was up early and meet Turbo Man for a longish ride. I opted to ride with Turbo instead of St Ives CC, as Turbo will soon be gone due to his posting – sniff, another training buddy disappears! Anyway, I thought that Turbo was going to dish some pain out and I waited patiently to be hit with a blistering attack. As it was, Turbo was lost in his new found cycling enthusiasm and he was more than happy just to be on his bike pedalling. Turbo is now truly a pure cyclist! I wanted a couple of longer tempo efforts and I had a loop that we could complete twice. Turbo has explained what happened on his blog but I think that he was merely toying with me – pretending to drift off the back to fool me into thinking I was going well! This happened a few times on the way back too, as we cycled up some very small inclines. It is kind of him to try and make me think that I am going well on the bike but there really is no need! I know that he will be dishing out some speed in the months to come and it will be interesting to see his progress as a cyclist.

I completed the ride on Sunday on my TT bike again, as I am concerned that I have not got the miles under my belt in an aero tuck. Having ridden my TT bike in races since 2006 I thought it was time to replace a few parts. So, on Saturday I fitted a KMC Silver Lightweight Chain.

11/25 10 speed cassette and Token silver ceramic bearing jockey wheels.

The quick link on the chain is so easy, when compared to the Campag once only fit method. The bike feels smooth and fast. Time will tell if the legs can actually make it go smooth and fast!

Great runs at the weekend from RAF Triathletes at the Fleet Half Marathon. Mat Stephenson, out of retirement, showed us all that you never lose your genetic gifts as he ran a personal best 1:15:38. Daz Sharpe still produced 1:23, despite some illness and injury problems. He was disappointed but that merely shows that he is a class performer and the best is still to come from Daz. Mike Masters suffered in the ‘heat’ (what heat?!) but continued despite not having the best of runs by his standards. That said, there are plenty of people who would love to run sub-1:40 for the half-marathon.

Today I cycled to the pool and floundered around like a fish with no fins. Phew, I find swimming so hard! I cycled back and consumed any food within a mile radius before completing an hour run steady with big Nige Porter. Tired now. An easy day tomorrow and then some bike run efforts planned for Wednesday. I hope to get to the track and do 30 x 200m in sets of 3. This is after a bike interval session. I may well do some tabata blasts to jellyfy my legs before the track work.