Gotta have goals

December has been a rather slack month. In terms of swim (what's that?), bike and run I have been very much in recovery, doing sessions as and when, with very little in the way of any structure. It's no coincidence that with the major race on the horizon being the DW, that's where my focus has mainly been. The really good news for Adam and I is that there is now a small group of us who are preparing for the DW and who can meet up to go for a paddle. Last Monday was one such paddle with Adam and I being joined by Rob, who is hoping to crew up with someone for the race in 2013. It was a perfect night for a paddle; not cold, beautifully clear and with very little traffic on the river, except for an unusually large amount of geese and swans. Normally my high powered Petzl headtorch and a rather eccentric  high pitched squeal is enough to get them out of the way. As the three of us paddled up to Kingston Bridge in Laances I found myself plunging into a group of Geese, one of which ended up bouncing off the front of the boat. Thankfully, the combined mass of 85kilos or so of boat and paddler didn't seem to do any lasting damage and it honked noisily away into the air. As Adam and Rob chatted I kept on with my 3 stroke pause drill to accentuate the catch and was slowing the stroke down again. On the way back after we had looped around Raven's Ait I was passed by a rowing four; I was completely distracted by them and there followed an almighty clang and the K1 came to a complete standstill instantly. I had run straight into a  floating mooring, but instead of it being a lightweight plastic ball it was a floating metal beer barrel. Oh s##t!! A quick check revealed that the boat didn't have a scratch on it, let alone a hole, but with two collisions in one paddle, it was time to get off the river before I hit something more substantial, like a bridge, pontoon, floating home, fisherman etc. Once January hits though, Ad and I are going to have to start getting some solid miles in the boat. Technique focus is still really important but we will also have to get those two hour paddles in. I will have to build up my tolerance to Ad's sense of humour, extreme flatulence and generally rubbish jokes.

So as I said, December's been slack. I have lost fitness but I have done just enough to make the decline relatively small. More importantly, I feel ready to get back into some good quality training and one of the things that's going to help me with that is the Marathon Talk podcast's, #Jantastic campaign. Basically, you sign up to do a certain number of runs each week (in my case 5) and you accrue points for meeting it and lose them if you don't. There's no prizes to be won, but as I found with the TriTalk's  October of Running Challenge, it's enough to make me take that first step out of the door, which is always the hardest one. This will give me the impetus that I need to start my preparation towards the Edinburgh Marathon in May and a sub 3.10 time. In order to give me a triathlon goal I have entered the Cotswold113 half ironman. Slap bang in the middle of the season it should give me the springboard that I need to work towards an end of season Ironman. My feeling is that if I can get down to sub 5 hours at Cotswold then that will give me the base I need to realistically go sub 11 on a long course. Both big asks, but you've gotta have goals.