*Not* a good end to the year

'What could possibly go wrong?' I spoke too soon.

A fab Christmas day with the olds and the Outlaws was followed by waking up on Boxing day feeling utterly rubbish with a full, streaming head cold. Also, while playing around with my new Garmin 410, my gps watch that I had bought for myself that Mrs Wheezy dutifully wrapped up for me to open at Christmas, I only went and dropped it into a mug of tea while I was playing around with it. I could not have done it if I had tried. Thankfully I fished it out fairly quickly and it seemed to work ok. My ineptitude knows no end. So I am necking vitamin C like it's going out of fashion in the hope that I can be healthy enough to start the Marathon Talk #Jantastic Spring motivation challenge again. The good news is that up until my cold, running was continuing to go well with some half decent speedwork sessions. So it looks like a few days off while I let this cold run its course and then I will ease back into some regular run - bike stuff.

A good end to the year

A much better week feeling back to normal. I'm just bloomin' loving running at the moment. The rain and wind's been lashing down but it's been so good doing some regular running with a bit of confidence. Mid-week I even did a fartlek run. Nothing too heavy and I was sloshing through a waterlogged playing field, slipping and sliding about in my trainers and the very soft ground lent itself to staying relatively injury free. Perfect. I think that I have finally got the better of my feet but I guess I will not know until I start to do some harder and longer speed work. But at the moment it's all good.

I suppose I should look back at this year and see what went right and what didn't. What did go right was the DW. I'm glad Adam and I nailed that one on the head. The culmination of a lot of hard work and effort and still a great race to do. The other thing would be my 10 mile tt best time coming down completely unexpectedly. Still nowhere near fast enough for my liking but a pb's a pb. I Also got an e-mail to say that I had won a total of £18 in race winnings during Phoenix tt races. That makes me a professional athlete, right?  ;-) Other than that, this year's been pretty poor with my foot injury colouring everything and I think that led to the major mojo dip which other than the few tt races saw me not competing at all. I am pretty confident that next year will be different.

So, what about next year? I guess I need to nail some targets to the mast.

1. Marathon PB. Currently 3.18. Realistically, sub 3.10 should be doable, sub 3 on a stellar day, sub 3.15 for a London marathon 'good for age' time as a minimum.

2. Olympic tri; sub 2.20. Qualifying for the World's is very unlikely but sub 2.20 may well be within my grasp if I can....

3. PB my 10 and 25 mile tt times. Ideally 23.30 for a 10. I'll probably need to invest in some aero help to achieve that, but you can never own enough bikes.

Ultimately, I just want to race a bit more and be fit enough to do so. I know I was pretty much saying the same thing last year but I don't have an excuse now. I've sorted my feet, I'm enjoying my training and I've entered some events. What could possibly go wrong?  ;-)

Last week managed to turn itself from a potentially solid week's training into a very mediocre week. The bubbling stomach that had given me some discomfort during #turbovember showed its true colours. On the first weekend  Little Wheezy had her second dose of the vomiting bug going round and then four days later Wheezy Junior had a dose which had him off of school for 2 days. With a guaranteed  inevitability, on Saturday afternoon I started to feel more and more crappy until I eventually had my head down the porcelain telephone and then it was a solid 24 hours in bed feeling r.o.u.g.h. So a weekend long run with Simon and  a turbo session was obviously canned. I feel so much better now than I have for a couple of weeks though and I don't think I realised just how much I was fighting off. I still managed 2 turbo sessions, 2 short runs and a swim so  it was not all lost but hopefully I can kick on a bit towards Christmas. And my feet are still behaving themselves.  :-)

Speaking of Christmas I have bought myself my present. Sue didn't see any point in going out and buying it as she was worried about getting the wrong one so I was allowed to buy it for myself and I got one of these;

Garmin 410

I have not run with a gps watch properly before. I have used Strava to record my runs in the past but it only gives a record post-run. I want to be able to run my intervals, marathon pace runs and long runs at the correct pace to get the maximum training effect and use heart rate zones properly. No more guessing and running by feel; it's time to get scientific and hopefully this small investment will take me a step closer to sub-3. The only problem is I've got to wait until Christmas day before I can use it, so between now and then it's more steady running building leg strength.

I've also entered another race, the Watford Half Marathon which I'll use as a gauge to my marathon fitness. Onwards.

Running and stuff

While I am glad that #turbovember is over I am also glad of the kick start that it's given me. It was a shame that a chunk of it was conducted while I was fighting something off but it got me spinning the wheels regularly and made it a habit and I need to keep that habit going. The cold snap that we are having has made the prospect of long, slow bike miles not a pleasant prospect so having read some threads and websites and with a change of focus to shorter racing next year, I have also decided to change how I do my bike miles. I am going to cut out the 'junk' miles and focus on shorter sessions either on the turbo or a weekend road interval session on the local tt routes that I know are accurately measured. No more than 2 hours with tt paced intervals and short rests after a warm up. I know I can ride a bike slowly for a long time, but that's not what I am trying to achieve for next summer where I am going to have to ride really hard for 60-80 minutes then get of and run hard. Except for weight loss, slow miles are not going to help with that kind of racing and in the last 4 years I have only made small gains on the bike, through lack of consistency and not training effectively enough when I do. The more technically minded might call it 'reverse periodisation'; I call it being race specific. It's not going to make me slower...

Another run this morning for 75 minutes, I think Simon and I covered about 15kms, a fast start, a slow middle and a fast end. I just felt that little bit stronger than last week and I was running much better at the end. I absolutely frickin' love running at the moment, much helped by the glorious conditions that we have had for the last three Sundays. Please, please let it continue. Still taking it easy, stretching, wearing the right shoes, padding my shoes, running on soft surfaces where possible. I cannot see what more I can do and it seems to be working. I will be taking part in the #Jantastic Spring motivation challenge next month which will be when I really kick-off my marathon training but at the moment the aim is to run 15 miles comfortably by the end of the month, which looks pretty doable at the moment.

So at the moment, I have the following events entered for next year;

Votwo Duathlon in March - 5k/20k/5k

London Marathon - April

East Grinstead Tri May - 500m / 26k / 5k

Dambuster Tri in June - 1500m / 40k / 10k

I'm going to look for an early half marathon and another half or 20mile race before London and another tri in May. I am going to need the race practise before the Dambuster to sharpen up a bit Hopefully, all being well I may have a tt bike to race on as well. I admit it; I am going to buy some speed but I'll need every bit of help that I can get and you can never own enough bikes.