Not often I am number 1

I received an e-mail earlier this week from the organiser of the SCCU 50mile time trial that I took part in a couple of weeks' ago and it turns out that I won the handicap! My prize? A whole £20. I am quite chuffed and I can put this towards my tt bike; it should buy about one eighth of a seat stay. I think this does actually qualify me as a professional athlete. ;-)  Unfortunately the only reason I won it was because when I last did this event I went over 3 miles off course, therefore I was always going to get a significant pb. Oh well, a win's a win.

My first week following Coach Cox's training plan has gone well, except for the swimming, which was laughable. Russell has scheduled me to do one swim session per week for the next month to get me back into it. Arrogantly, I have always thought that because swimming is so technique driven and my technique is pretty good, that I could jus pick it up again, no problem. I was truly rubbish. What technique I have has seeped out of my body over the last 18 months. The set that Russell wrote for me was quite gentle with only 1500m of swimming and with long rest intervals but I felt like I was swimming in soup. My 100m times I can barely think of without breaking into a cold sweat at how far I have fallen. At least there can only be improvement from now on. The only other error on my part was that I had organised a ride with some friends from work on Tuesday when the schedule stated I should be doing turbo intervals, so Tuesday became my longer ride, doing 44 hilly miles while my 'interval' session will be the Bec 25 mile tt tomorrow.

Talking of tts, I am starting the process of getting myself a tt bike. Planet-x had a great offer on their Stealth bike with Sram groupset, but the only problem was it was going to be pretty difficult to get to actually sit on one. I cannot spend a fortune on one and it will be really important that I get a good fit, so I am going to get a bike fit over the summer and then see what frames might suit me (long legs, short body, average height, therefore I seem to fall exactly between most manufcturers small and medium sized frames. Small if I want full on tt mode over short distances, medium if I want something more comfortable. Decisions decisions) The Planet-x does offer great value but if I am honest I would like something a bit rarer and at the moment, one of these is very tempting;

An Argon 18 E80. It's an aluminium frame, with internal cabling, hidden brakes and very aero. There are some good deals on complete bikes and framesets at the moment with a Shimano 105 groupset (I like Shimano) and with a set of Planet-x wheels like this one pictured, I think I would have a pretty fast bike to tt on (if it fits of course). Anyway, I 'll get the fit done and then take it from there.