It's all about the bike...

The pic above is of me doing my first race of this season (Eton sprints) on my brand new spangly Quintana Roo Lucero (which I love) and today I did my last race of the season on my speedy stead. From here on in and over the coming gruelling Winter months it will be time for me to effectively strap myself to a tortoise and get out there and ride, ride, ride... not on my Roo but on my trusty road bike with it's slow winter training tyres and no aero bars. Just me my little legs and the road. No more cold water swims, no more deep section wheels to help me go that little bit faster and no low aero position to cut through the air with. Plain old hard yakka is what's on the horizon for Turton over Winter.

What a fantastic season, I've loved it all and hey I'm an IRONMAN, how can I not be happy with how the year has gone! Dublin Marathon is next in 6 weeks time so all I need are my legs and feet (although I've got a bit of a gammy ankle which I'm hoping won't be anything serious.) I raced well today I thought. Talking about it with Tom before hand I'd decided to concentrate on the bike section and only that really as I tend to not quite perform as well as I'm capable of. So I ploughed through the swim -literally, it was a windy, windy day & I felt like I was swimming in the Atlantic it was that choppy - got on my bike and worked as hard as I could irrespective of the consequences for the run. I know I can run well off the bike but I don't always supply the goods on the bike so I just pushed it and worried about the run when my feet hit the tarmac. I had a good ride for me, my heart rate data shows my inconsistency's but that's something to iron out over the Winter months and the run went better than I had expected giving that I was pushing the bike. All in all another good day, a great way to end the season.

I'm seeing Liz Foley our brilliant physio tomorrow to see what I've done to my ankle (typical to injure it in the last week of the season) and then if it's okay it will be full steam ahead for 6 weeks of running for Dublin. As it's not been a target race for me I'm happy to just run it and see what happens. A no pressure race, I love them and often do better than I expect. Switch off a little bit from triathlon as a race and get the battery's recharged. Spend November recovering from the marathon and just kick back for the month, let my body recover & most of all let my brain rest. I want to feel the eagerness and the thrill of getting back into training over the Winter months and I won't be able to unless I take this step back from where I've been for the last 5 months.

I swim well and it's improving steadily. I run well and I'm not concerned about that. But I do need to push forward with the bike so there's my focus after my break. Bike, bike, bike and a bit more bike. Learning from the master (and no that's not you Tom!)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIl5RxhLZ5U

I'm hoping to be busting my ass on my bike over Winter... bring it on!!!!!

See you out there kids...

H. x