Tom's 28 day challenge...

The good news is that following last week's success at the Brass Monkey half marathon I've struck a rich vein of swim form. Every Thursday H and I complete a set of either 8 x 200, 6 x 300 or 4 x 400 metre efforts in the pool whilst a few hours earlier our mate Roger will have done the same thing many thousands of miles away in Australia. During the day we email our respective results round the world and spend the following seven days plotting how we might squeeze out an extra few seconds in the race for a weeks worth of bragging rights ;) Last year Roger was living in Leeds and so we'd do the session together once a week and I'm pleased to say that since his move down under last autumn we've managed to keep the tradition going... anyway, this week we were doing the 200s with the session laid out as;

400 warm-up

4 x 200 off four minutes

400 easy

4 x 200 off four minutes

400 cool down

Although my 400pb (set about six months ago) is 5:40 and these are only 200s a total of 8 reps for the session had so far seen my best effort an even mix of 2.52s and 2.51s. On Tuesday I managed to find 2.51, 2.49, 2.47 & 2.47 for the first four and 2.43, 2.44, 2.49 and 2.52 for the second four. Although I clearly blew after number six, I also reckon that a sub 5.30 400 is possible at the moment and am therefore confident that my swimming is, like my running, as good as it's ever been... HOWEVER as I said last week, and to be honest as I've said about a million times since starting this blog... IT'S ALL ABOUT THE BIKE, unfortunately I'm great at working on my strengths but not so great at working on my weaknesses... until now.

For the month of February I'm going to set myself three clearly defined and measurable goals, all of which are designed to work on areas of my training which I've successfully neglected for far too long.

What I'd like you guys to do is join me in setting your own three personal 'weakness focused' goals with the aim of coming out of the winter as more rounded athletes. It would be great if you'd post your goals (and your progress each week) via comments on our blog and hopefully we can all benefit from a little motivation as the long dark nights and grey winter days continue to challenge us on our athletic journey.

From the 1st to the 28th of February I will achieve the following goals...

1) 48 hours of cycling
2) Drink two litres of water EVERY day (not including training intake)
3) Spend a minimum of ten minutes stretching EVERY DAY

If I neglect my swimming, running or Internet guffing (three things I'm currently doing well in) over that time then so be it, but those three goals WILL be achieved and hopefully I'll become a little more bendy, a little less thirsty and most importantly a little faster on two wheels ;)

The challenge doesn't start until next Sunday so you've got a little time to think about what you would personally like to achieve... the only rule being that they must be process based goals (i.e. stretch every day) rather than outcome based ones (i.e. be more flexible)

Anyway, hope to see some interesting comments...

See you on day one!

T.