Tean 10 Mile TT Crawl

Well, after the Tean 10 mile club TT last wed, I am not that happy. I clocked 24:38 by my watch (24:40 official). Not great and I had hoped that I was in better shape than that. I am thinking that my endurance is better than this time last year; however, my top end speed is obviously not there. Part of me thinks that the slow time is just age catching up. But I need to park that thought and just say "so what if it is?!". I enjoyed the blast on the bike and I have hardly completed any intense training sessions - so I can't expect much more. I need to merely keep training intelligently and keep enjoying the racing.

This pic was taken by Gary Main, an ex-RAF colleague now producing some quality sports photography. At least it isn't another turbo training shot! So what next? My calf is slowly recovering and I have started easy jogging. Still not sure that I will make the start line at the next Darley short duathlon. I'll have to make that call nearer the time. I have a dose of the lurgy right now too - maybe the rest will do me good!

Bike Comeback... Run Go Back! Doh!

try. So this calf niggle seems to have dragged on for well over a month now. I thought that it had recovered but after 1k of a run off the bike it pulled again. After an injury free winter and a half decent running base accrued I am somewhat frustrated. The second Darley duathlon is getting closer and I'm now doubting that I will make the start line. This morning I did manage to complete a full set of run drills. I need to take the running very gently now to avoid a relapse. I am getting more quality bike sessions completed, helped by the better weather. Yesterday I felt it was time for some longer sweetspot work. So it was back to my TT stomping ground between Denstone and Uttoxeter to ride an hour at sweetspot. I maintained an NP of 235W. Slightly higher power than aimed for but a good session nonetheless. With the ride there and back it ended up as a 40+ mile session average speed over 20mph. Now I need to get some TTs in to check the form with a number on my back - always makes a difference! The Tean club 10 mile TT series should be under way. I did a couple if these last year when I was virtually doing no training and struggled to get under 25 min. With a pb of 22:41 I would be happy with alow 24 min or, with good conditions, a 23+ clocking. Stand by for the next update.

Testing Weekend

After the session last Saturday that involved a timed 10mile effort on the evo2max nebula Road bike I repeated the 10 mile effort on my TT bike. It was similar conditions and a 24:20 clocking was OK in my unfit state! So maybe I can get some bike form back and build on my current fitness levels. A lot will depend on how this pesky calf strain heals. The next Darley Duathlon is on 8 June and I would like to have a blast on this short course event. Let's see how things develop.

Set Backs

Hello virtual world. Ages since my last Blog. To be frank, not an awful lot going on in my tri ventures. I have had a number of set backs with illness and injury - old age! I have been saying that for the last 10 years! I was feeling like I was getting back to some sort of shape and had entered a local duathlon series. These 3 races are short at 2.5k/10k/2.5k. However, the course is on a local airfield and traffic free. So a good fun race series to start off with for 2018. A calf pull put pay to the first race that should have been on 3 May 18. I had been running well off the bike and certainly capable of running well under 4:00 min per kilometre no matter how hard I ride on the bike. Oh well, the next race is 8 June and I hope to be back to health to enjoy the race. I have upped my bike training due to the fact that I am not running. Yesterday was a glorious sunny day - the first I can remember for ages. So I took the Evo2max out for a spin. A mixed session consisted of a times 10 mile pushed on the Uttoxeter/Denstone road and some hilly efforts. The 10 mile was surprisingly fast at 24:30. Maybe I should enter dome TTs on the Specialized to see if I can get back to decent bike shape!