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!