Last week I spent a brilliant week in Lanzarote with some of my Pirate pals.  In what is becoming an annual tradition, we head to the Canaries for some winter sun, and for a triathlon training week.  Well, sort of.  Mostly it’s a cocktail drinking week with training thrown in.  Last February I smashed the cocktail bit of the trip, and did the sum total of zero training.  This year I kept up my drinking credentials (random stagger-induced bruises attest to this), but also managed a little bit of training in the form of three short runs and an even shorter swim.  The lack of swim training resulted from what can only be described as a ‘fucking baltic pool’.  I’d promised myself I’d do a proper swim before flying back late Saturday, but I woke up with the fear, and couldn’t face making myself that cold on purpose.  I do of course realise that Lanza is surrounded by a rather vast ocean, perfect for failing about in, but I couldn’t be assed with the faffage of wrestling with a tiny towel on the beach and getting sand everywhere.

Anyway, it was a wonderful holiday with my fabulous friends, and a much-needed break away to relax & reflect.  I really enjoyed the three runs we did; it reminded me how much fun it is running with other people.  This year I’ve promised myself a return to triathlon after a rather lengthy hiatus.  I do love supporting all my pals in their tri adventures, and i’ve happily been doing that for years, but it’s time to actually do something for myself this year.  The Cotswold Classic on the 5th of August is my A race if you like, so everything now is geared towards that race.  I’d already decided to use a training plan from beginnertriathlete.com and I’d printed it off all ready to start on the 19th March.  I’d also worked back a few weeks to figure out how much training to do in the 6 weeks or so leading up to the start of the plan, and had calculated the hours to aim for each week in preparation.  However, some good chats on holiday has meant I’m changing my plan slightly.  For the next couple of weeks my aim is to do 2 swims, 2 bikes and 2 runs per week.  I’ll up that to 3 each per week after that, and essentially follow the first couple of weeks of the programme in terms of structure/sessions, albeit initially i’ll reduce the time/distance for the sessions, building up each week until the start of the plan.

The next couple of weeks are going to be really busy – I’ve a lot going on that isn’t training related, so it’ll take some organisation to fit it all in, but that’s okay.  Today was spent unpacking and putting all my holiday washing on, then food shopping for the week (though i’ve bought enough to last until March I think; the freezer is creaking).  I’ve cooked a chicken, made some soup and decided to make some breakfast muffins so i’ve got lots of food ready for the week ahead (sauté some bacon lardons, finely diced peppers and chopped kale in butter, stick in a muffin case, pour over whisked eggs and bake in the oven for 25 mins.  So good!).  My bag is packed ready for a swim straight after work before I’m out for the evening.  As they say, proper planning prevents (piss) poor performance, so I thought I’d best get my Ps (or peas) in a row.  I’ve also been adding all the training sessions to Training Peaks, which i’m going to use to record & track progress as I go.  It’s a bit of a faff, but you can copy & paste sessions and being able to turn them green as you tick them off is always satisfying and motivational.

So the plan is to use this blog a bit more to record my training week by week, to help me see the bigger picture and keep more of a diarised record of how it’s all going.  I’ll be back soon to report on my successes!

Happy Sunday folks 🙂

x