Once again it's a joint blog, this week written by me (Tom). H is away on a photo shoot and I've been on the go since 5am and it's now half-past bedtime so a quick update is the order of the day...
H has, for the first time ever, managed to time an injury to perfection... there's never a great time to pick up a niggle but if you really have to do it then there is such thing as a good time. With her running going pretty much as well as it ever has, the seeming endless stream of snivels and sneezes nothing more than a distant memory and an awesome race performance in the bank (last week's 1.32 half marathon on a ridiculously windy, ridiculously complicated and seemingly long course) this Thursday's 20 miler saw what can only be described as a Some Mothers Do Ave Em comedy sketch! Still, coming out the other end with nothing more than a slightly strained ankle the prescribed rest days could not have been timed better seeing as she's a) got a really busy work week and b) taking it easy before a hard effort at next Sunday's Wilmslow half marathon.
As for me... well, running and biking continue to move forward on almost a daily basis. I managed to knock out 18:24 at parkrun yesterday which is only about 7 seconds off my PB (achieved this time in 2008 just before I ran 2.49 in London) and followed that up with an easy three and a half hours on my bike in the afternoon. This morning I was up at 5am for two TT style laps round the infamous Pool Triangle time trial course... my all-time pb for one lap is 29:57 so doing the double in 67:20 at 7am on a windy day in March... and clocked another 5:15 in the saddle this afternoon to keep my 16 x 16 challenge running with 112:30 banked after seven weeks. I wish my financial bank account was a healthy as my two wheeled version ;)
There is of course something missing... swimming? Well, with Lanza eight weeks on Saturday it's seeming unlikely that I'll be able to do much more than cross my fingers and HTFU. Nothing seems to be helping and the latest is that I'm looking at a private MRI scan this week on my neck and upper back to look for evidence of nerve compression. If the race was tomorrow I'd get in there and tough it out, probably without loosing a qualification costing amount of time... but it's not... it could of course get better, but then again the continued lack of pool time certainly won't be helping... cross you fingers for me ;)
The title of this week's post??? Well, having set myself the training load that I though it would require to get to Kona I have to admit the last seven weeks were perhaps the toughest of my life. Combining a full-time job, podcast monster (loving every second but boy does it eat time) and a huge training volume was far from sustainable and ever so nearly finished me off. The University's Easter break, which started yesterday, could not have come a moment too soon and by Thursday I was most certainly cooked. It's seems however that by the absolute skin of my teeth I've made it to this much needed four week block where recovery and rest can once again live side by side with Ironman training and all the other general life type things... with nine week's to go things are looking brighter by the day... well... some things ;)
See you next week,
T & H x
No comments:
Post a Comment