Sunday was the ‘Magnificat’ 127 mile Sportif from Newbury, down and around Winchester, down towards Portsmouth then back up over the South Downs. Turbo Man and I pushed out initially together, with no real plan than to stick with it as long as we could. After an hour or so, he was starting to drop me on the hills – he has a compact chainset but I don’t have such a luxury. He came into the first time check 6 mins ahead of me. Just before the ride I had changed saddle (back to a specialized BG one) and unfortunately struggled with a bad back to find him 30 mins ahead at the end of the second section and he finished an hour ahead. I really couldn’t put any power down and spent miles 40-70 sat up trying to get comfy. The back pain was so bad after 60 miles that I was thinking about throwing in the towel, but borrowed 1000mg of Ibrufen from a fellow rider (thanks Jase) and pushed on to the finish. I don’t know what gain in height Turbo got from his GPS, but the official route claimed just under 9000’ of hills, and one of the riders who crossed the finish line with me had a final readout of 11 600’ of climbing. It was a tough day out though! Congratulations to Dave - a great confidence boost to have that under his belt a week before going to France.

One ‘off’ from worn tyres (going too fast into a roundabout) has meant 2 more ordered from Chain Reaction this morning for France. The slow grind up the 10% inclines has meant that I could do with getting my hands on a 12-27 from somewhere, but, happily, I feel fine in myself after the ride and things are looking good for France a week on Sunday.

It’s been a month since my last update and it’s only 3 weeks to go to IM Nice, but things have been going well.

Swimming. I have recently restarted swimming in earnest, and have been using the fantastic facilities over at Easleigh, a measured 400m lap open water swim. The lake is around 1.5m deep which has meant that it has warmed up quickly and this, coupled with the excellent weather over the last few weeks has meant that the water is up at 20 degrees C! The wetsuit swim-thing all came flooding back and after only the second session there I was timed at 1:12 for the Ironman distance swim (3800m/2.4miles) which is probably good enough to get me in the top 3rd of the swimmers on the day. A couple more sessions last week and a couple more to go, and the swim should be OK on the day. I might cut a couple of inches off the bottom of the legs of my wetsuit to get my legs a little lower in the water, as I feel that I am still a bit high and losing some leg propulsion.

Cycling. Going well. I have had some more sessions out with Turbo Man and, whilst I have done nothing over 60 miles, it has all been done at speed so I do feel that my biking fitness has improved – I am certainly quicker on the roads than I was 2 months ago. How I measure up in the heat of the South of France will remain to be seen though. This weekend brings the Magnificat Cycle Sportif; a 127 mile ride. Whilst it’s not a race, it is a ‘best effort’ to meet the bronze/silver/gold standards set by the organisers, so I will use it as a race simulation, using all of the kit and nutrition that I am going to use on the day. It will be interesting to see how the day goes, and how the new nutrition goes down. It will be my first time using Infinit nutrition (having used SiS for years).

Running. Taken a bit of a back seat, because I found that it was affecting the quality of my cycle training; I have kept it to 2-3 fairly hard sessions of 1-2 hours per week, (in order to reduce recovery times) but now, with only a couple of long rides left I will be able to lengthen the run distance. I am hoping to make the biggest gains on the bike and I know that my increased bike strength has helped my running; the weather couldn’t be better for long runs at the moment as well!

A couple of weeks or so since my last update. I have spent 3 weeks away in Scotland, training in the hills on the West Coast, and, whilst the volume has not been too great because of the pressures of work, the quality has been good. Every bike session has been hard, and I have managed to ramp up my swimming volume as well.

Now that summer is here and the mornings are lighter I am managing to get out and about – swimming before work and cycling until after eight! It’s great to be able to go out without overshoes, buff and winter gloves, whilst having to watch out for black ice all the time. It’s going to be another 2 weeks before I get a free weekend to have a ride out with Turbo Man and see how I am getting on, but the indications are good. It would look like he is peaking as well, so there is no guarantee that the gap has narrowed though!

Thanks for the comments - the seat height thing was a 'not marking the height before I took the post oout' faf, when I put the bike in it's box. I know, I know, it's basics, but the best guess felt a bit too low as soon as I sat on it, but not 'wrong'.
The swimming always seems to come back quickly, and I am aware that I need to work on endurance now if I want to get out the water on the day with anything left in the tank!

Forecast this week is fantastic, Spring has arrived in style and hopefully I will be able to get some quality sessions in.

Happy training!

Training in Scotland.

I am spending some time on the West coast of Scotland with work and couldn't hope for a better location for training. The pool is less than 500m away from my room, and the hills are ensuring that the cycle training is worthwhile. I have swum only 3-4 times in the last six months, but two of them have been this week and I already down to 1:25/100m, which keeps me under 6min/400m, which was the benchmark when I was swimming 3 times a week. James and Mick were right; neglecting the pool to work on the bike has not hurt my swim at all.

I am working on getting my bike seat height just right; I lowered it 10mm yesterday and it didn't seem to hurt; I have set myself a 1 hr route (with 1000' of climbing in it) and will race around it several times over the coming weeks to see if the seat height makes a discernable difference.

Happy training!

A rude awakening.

Who forgot to change their clock forward when they went to bed on Saturday night? Me, that's who. So there I was, laying in bed thinking about getting up for a nice cup of tea and a slow start, when Turbo Man's text arrived, asking if I was still coming out, or had forgotten to change my clock. From horizontal to vertical and pedalling in 7 mins isn't bad. But it did mean that I probably wasn't best prepaired for the South Downs sportive route, 100+km before breakfast, and by the end of the ride it would be fair to say that I didn't have that much left in the tank. However, it was a good ride in dry weather, without strong winds and with good company. Well worthwhile. I can feel it in my legs today though. I am feeling confident that I am ahead of where I was before IM Germany, so I now need to build on it and take it forward.

Mixed week.

This week has been really productive, with some real quality sessions-up to max hr daily, and feeling like I am growing stronger daily. The week was capped by 3 1/2 hours on Sat am, a new route taken from a local sportive map. I knew when we went out that I was feeling a bit under the weather and it rained the entire time we were out. Sunday morning brought a sore throat and cough. Time to dig the Zinc and vit C out of the cupboard. Saturday's ride was also memorable for 2 puntures. Although I thought that I had got the flint fragment out of the tyre, the second tube went within a couple of minutes. I got home and after inspection, ended up binning the rear tyre as it was full of nicks, cuts and bits of flint.

On the plus side, all the bikes in the garage got a service and clean this weekend (even took a cassette to pieces, that's how thorough it was, and the single speed mtb went on ebay to make some room for my next planned purchase...