11 weeks till IM Nice

I can’t really believe that I haven’t managed to write a blog for a couple of weeks - yet again!. Writing this post has been the only part of my life I’ve been slacking in. The end of the financial year I am sure is busy for every full time worker, wanna-be full time athlete! Working as a Physiotherapist within the NHS this is no different – budget cuts!! (There’s never any money anyway) and staff taking all their annual leave in the usual mad panic, has meant for a couple of very busy months. But excuses aside I’ve been pretty slack. Its now 11 weeks till Ironman Nice and my plan from here on in is to do a week by week short update. But before a quick rundown of last weeks training - I’ll just quickly run through the interesting things I’ve been up to.

The day after I returned home from training in spain i had an interview for a Band 7 team lead of Acute Rehabilitation. I got the post :-), not ideally timed with Ironman Nice on the Horizon. However, it does mean a promotion into a new post, which I can develop as mine, working in Acute Rehabilitation (i.e head injuries, spinal cord injuries and the likes). The only negative is that the post is within our sister hospital, almost 20 miles away so my 5 minute cycle to work will be no more. However, the commute across to Hastings from Eastbourne will add some great bike miles to my training, in the winter months.

Training on the whole has been going reasonably well. Swimming is still my love/hate sport. A couple of weeks back I was making some good progress and holding my stroke well in longer/ harder sets this past week however saw me exploding dreadfully in a 20 x 100m off 1:40 set. I’ve still to master the art of diving and keeping my goggles on! No matter how tight, they always come off during 25m sprints – well that’s my excuse for never going below 17 seconds.
Biking has also been going well; longer rides are becoming a lot easier now the suns coming out to play. I did my first Time trial event last Sunday – a solid effort on a cold windy day. A 2up with no partner as mine, Yvette Grice – preparing for Ironman South Africa, came down with a chest infection. A dreadful time, but having made the most of the Easter Weekend, being off work and getting in a couple of long bikes in the days preceding I was happy with my effort. Pushing through the pain from 5 minutes in, did remind me why I love 25 mile time trials. On the plus side – I can only go quicker next time! Yesterday I got in a solid 5 hour ride at 80% threshold, covering 93 miles. Then the easy spin home rounded it up to just over 100 miles. Yes I did have to ride a bit further up the seafront and did 5:34, rather than 5:30, but I couldn’t resist once I was that close.
Running has taken a back seat due to a bit of a calf niggle, which has seen me make friends with the cross trainer. But I have managed to finish listening to the entire Twilight saga, so it has had its positives. I have been able to start running again this week, which has been perfectly timed with the arrival of a nice big boxes from Zoot, containing new run shorts/ t shirts and Trainers – A pair of Advantages for training and Tempos for racing. The pair of Advantages had a test run this morning – very happy legs in new shoes!
Next week is my last week of 2 hour morning swims (good thing or bad thing?), as I start my new job the following week.