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!