Almost evens

I have had a lovely couple of weeks' training. Everything, and I mean everything has gone right. First of all, swimming. With the Grafman Tri at the end of this week it dawned on me a couple of weeks ago that it might be necessary to a) buy a wetsuit, and b) use it.  :-/.  I didn't have time to go and try a load of different types on so I took a punt on an offer from wiggle and got one from there. Thankfully it fitted like the proverbial (rubber) glove so last week I headed off to Heron Lake with Simon to do my first two proper open water swim sessions in a couple of years. A couple of kilometres per session  and I felt really good about it. It was a bit of a plod but much, much better than I thought that it would be. I had a tough sprint session with Kingfisher last night and I'll try to get a gentle set in on Thursday. And that will be me done. About 10 kilometres so far for the year; I don't want to overdo it too much. ;-)

Running has been steady, injury free and relaxed. A little bit of fartlek to mix things up and some long runs of 10-11 miles.  The best bit has been my cycling. I have managed to get out for some mid-week rides after work and the tt season is in full swing. Last week I got a personal best over 10 miles with a 23:45 which I was so happy with; the first time that I have gone over 25 mph average for a tt. It just so happened that four days later I had a 25m tt. A 25mile TT is a great test of aerobic endurance and it has a wonderful mathematic symmetry. 25 miles in one hour equals 25mph, or 'evens'. Back in the day, this was a very hard feat with steel bikes, spoked wheels and no aero benefits. These days it is undoubtedly easier to achieve but it's still seen as quite a milestone for cyclists to aspire to and  similar to a sub 3 marathon for runners.

My pb from last year was 64:45 on the Van Nic, so a long way off but with me on my Argon I knew that I should be able to better this with a fast morning and I thought that a low 62 would be a good result and achievable with my current level of fitness.

The morning was fast with very little wind but the course, G25/53 is not a particularly fast one, with a few long drags at the end. I hit it pretty hard from the start and was pushing through the whole event and by 19 miles I thought that I had blown up as I climbed towards the Hop Oast roundabout. Thankfully, the last 5 miles are fairly flat or downhill and I was able to keep pushing a pretty big gear.  I went purely on rpe and didn't have a clock on it as I didn't feel that I would be particularly close to the hour, so I was really shocked and pleased to record a 60:56! On a faster course, a bit more aerobic endurance work and with a cycle computer I reckon a sub 60 25 should be on the cards. It's quite a nice feeling knowing that I can do it rather than hoping that I can.