Lack of volume.

I have had a really frustrating week as I have been ill again. I've been feeling very run down and supremely tired along with a gobful  of mouth ulcers.  Life has been very busy and while I have not exactly been burning the candle at both ends, I have been struggling to get enough sleep and combined with general life stress has been a bad combination nation. So this week has been a very low volume one and pretty much this weekend has been a weekend off rather than the two tts that I was entered for. Hopefully this rest break will give my immune system a chance to get a boost ready for a good block of hard training.

Race wise, I've entered the Cahlotteville 50 in May which could be a good opportunity to go under 5 hours for this distance. It's a pretty fast course so that could be a distinct possibility. I'm also thinking about the Newbury 12 hour which is quite early season and will help me get some big endurance miles before The Outlaw. I also need to do 100tt to get a BBAR qualifying time and this year the National 100 is the local Hounslow event. I'm not sure that my current best time will get me a start but I will ping off an entry and see.

First TT of 2017

At this time of year, most time trials are sporting courses (hilly) with the idea of prepping riders with a last shot of endurance before hitting the fast DC courses. There is also the odd Medium Gear event which is where riders are restricted to a 72" gear or less. I believe the idea behind this was that it would force riders to endurance spin on a fixed wheel bike. So today it was the KPRC Medium gear 25m tt. Thankfully, I didn't need a fixie to ride but just had to ensure I didn't change out of my selected gear. It was also stupidly windy this morning so my plan was to hit the hills hard knowing that I wouldn't be able to spin downhill without a lot of bouncing in the saddle, and these would therefore be enforced rests anyway.

It turned out to be an ok ride. I ended up third behind Dale and Simon. To be fair I was quite a long way back behind them both with Simon catching me about 2 miles from the finish. But bearing in mind that my last few long rides have been pretty rugged , I was feeling a lot stronger and I am gradually clawing back some fitness after my couple of bouts on manflu. I was able to keep up quite comfortably with Simon on the couple of hills I followed him up but I just didn't have the gearing or leg speed on the flats and I was bouncing all over the saddle which was decidedly uncomfortable. Next weekend is a 10 on the Saturday and a 25 on the Sunday if I can get a pass for Mother's Day.

Only one run this week; a gentle 4 miles after work. Need to do more.