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!