Time to give it back...

So last weekend was all about us. This weekend however, was all about others. Tom & I managed to return the love as we ventured up North to Edinburgh for the weekend to support a load of our mates running the marathon, more about this in a mo.

If I'm really honest I can't tell that only a week ago we did Lanzarote Ironman 09. Now, I know for sure that doesn't mean I've miraculously recovered. But I do think it means that my body can soak up the stress of the race having coped with high volume training for the last 5mths and artificially recover well. The deep fatigue that you get from Ironman, I have no doubt, is still there. Apart from a bit of a dry cough & annoying throat thing that manifested itself after the flight home my little legs are feeling great, my brain hasn't gone into melt down and I know that after a few more light sessions I'll be looking forward to some real training as we speed our way to Switzerland, the clock is already tick tocking!!

With little or no training done this week (two very light runs and a 3km swim) I'm starting to feel lazy and watching the throng of marathon runners today made me itchy to be back on form. It's all about time though. No good jumping into high volume, intense sessions in a desperate bid to return to match fitness. No, I'm afraid it's a slowly, slowly, catchee monkee approach to Switzerland for the next few weeks. Getting back into routine as of tomorrow (Monday) probably back to two sessions a day but NOTHING challenging. A conversation that I had with Steven Lord & Jo Carritt at the awards ceremony in Lanza helped immensley. They're right when they said that between now and IMCH we can't get any fitter, it's about recovering while maintaining and getting in to peak condition and that I believe is certainly achievable and doesn't appear to warrant any great deposits of mental energy (which is what I was afraid I would be needing post Lanza.) So that's great news, tick on as was and get the body back into the routine and the fitness I had going into Lanza, ready to rock n' roll on July 12th to put myself through the whole thing again!!!!!! Bring it on, & whatever the outcome, first, last, puke, poo, this could very well be my last IM event for a long while so enjoy it I shall :)

Right, enough about that. Today (as I said earlier) we went to support at the Edinburgh Marathon. Un-seasonably (but very welcome in a purley selfish spectators way) weather saw blue cloudless sky from 7am this morning. We had a load of runners from our club Virgin Road Runners either running in the team relay or venturing out for the whole 26.2 miles.

Walking to the start line this morning I could feel the anticipation and nervous anxiety rippling through the throng of scantilly clad runners all blinking at the sky wondering if there was a chance the sun might just dissappear for a little while...a 26.2 while! The journeys and stories that unravel when you meet people as to why they going to run, what it means to them, what it means for them and why they want to do it is certainly what makes we humans special people. I love spectating as much as I love racing because when it gets hard and you're in need of love there's always someone standing in a random street somewhere who'll give you the much needed love and so it was great to be out there shouting encouragement to one and all.

I don't want to miss anyone out of well done's so I'm just going to say well bloody done to you all, you were fab and I hope you're enjoying HUGE celebrations, we loved seeing you out there today.

So, time to say goodnight, time to hit the hay & get back some much needed kip. Thanks to Jaz, Surinder & Janice who let us gatecrash in their apartment last night x

Oh and big ups to Michelle Simmons (a fellow triathlete blogger) who did Hawaii 70.3 yesterday and had a storming race, 1st out of the swim & bike in her age cat :) :) :) Loving it.

Week Seventeen in pix (can't believe how quick the days are whizzing by) is here for you to sneak a peek :)

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnndddddddddddddd sleep...zzzz