The winter plan: part 2

I have been jotting down what my winter training is actually going to look like and this is what I have come up with so far.

Running. Following my really enjoyable run at Luton I want to build on that so in a fit of madness I went and entered the Edinburgh Marathon. It falls nicely at the end of May, meaning that I would have had a clear 7 weeks or so to get over the DW. I'm going to run 4 times per week, doing one long run up to 2 hours, a tempo run of about an hour and then whatever recovery or speed sessions I need to do. I don't think that this will be a problem as I am bloody loving running at the moment and I am extremely excited about Edinburgh. I will be aiming to get under 3.10 before having a crack at another marathon in the autumn. My immediate goal is the Tadworth 10 mile race on January 2nd.

Cycling. It's time to turbo. I did my first turbo session of the winter this evening and it was as rubbish as I feared, but thankfully I have all winter to improve my lactate threshold (lucky me!). Two of those per week and a road or mtb ride of about 2-3 hours at the weekend should see me right, plus a lot of commuting.  I've bought myself some mtb shoes and cleats which should arrive from Wiggle any day now (bday pressie from parents-  :-) so I might have to put my money where my mouth is and enter some mtb races. I will be rubbish but I am assured that they are fun. Hmmm.....

Kayaking. Adam and I are paddling again at the Royal and the aim will be 2 paddles per week. Up until Christmas it will be all K1 stuff in Laances. We've done a few already and so far all good, trying to slow down our stroke. We did a stroke counting drill which I nicked from swim training, trying to use as few strokes as possible to get to a distant landmark to try a glide the boat more and get our stroke higher. I have absolutely no idea if that's what we should do but it makes sense to me. It seems that the lads at the MPCC are kindly going to let us have the Mystere again to use for the DW, which we are extremely grateful for. We'll start up again in that proper in January, when we will start to think about the Waterside series. Yes, you read that right; the races that we swore we would never do again. I just think we need an interim goal between now and the DW and while the Watersides are not particularly DW specific, except being on the same course, they will give us something to train for. Also, with our level of ineptitude, completing them in their own right will be a considerable achievement.

GAME. ON.