New Addition

After a 2-month wait the latest steed has arrived:

This is the Evo2max Nebula R9 - funky name huh?! It really is a dream of a bike. It's extremely aero and very smooth. The power transfer is awesome, especially when the hills appear and you get out of the saddle. The aero wheels purr along too and this bike will eat up a rolling course. I have some training wheels to put on it but these kind of spoil the aero effect:

Nevertheless, I have learnt by bitter experience that the carbon aero wheels need to be saved for the serious racing most of the time - 2007 sportif crash wrecked my Corima carbon wheels. This bike will be great for those technical and hilly courses. Until I can do it justice, I will get some dry miles in and enjoy the riding. The saddle will have to be changed as the middle cut-out style of perch just does not suit my behind! I have sourced a vintage San Marco Triathgel saddle on Ebay and that arrives soon. Why do all the decent bits of kit get binned by the manufacturers?!

The 7 Week Training Cycle - Has Been to Decent Shape?

After 4 weeks of decent training I now have 3 weeks until my first race. I hadn't realised just how out of shape I was. I guess an odd ride at the weekend just isn't sufficient to maintain race fitness. No shocks there! After week 1 I started to feel accumulated fatigue and any session seemed hard and the legs were extremely heavy. I knew it would be a case of just pushing through and remaining consistent. Only this week have I started to feel any where near sharp. I am trying to complete a mini reverse periodisation and then ease up the week prior to the Darley Duathlon. Today I completed sweetspot efforts on the turbo and mixed in some single leg TRX squats. The sweetspot efforts felt better than last time whilst achieving similar wattage. I also threw in 30 sec ftp efforts every 3.min. An overall weekly total of 12+ hours is also my largest volume for some time. I plan to race the local 10 mile TT soon to gauge my fitness on 2 wheels. Onwards and upwards! Oh yes. Note to self-start swimming!