Thursday 1 January 2015

2014 - Triathlon in the back seat

2014 - Triathlon in the back seat

Rewind back 16 months and after completing my second 70.3 in 2013 (well Vitruvian so slightly shorter than a 70.3 - but the shorter distance is made up for in ascents) in a respectable time of 5:14 everything was on track to proceed to my main target - Ironman Wales in 2014.  After spending several months in late Summer '13 talking my training partner into also signing up for IM Wales, one day he casually texted me to say he'd signed and paid up - however I had to break the slightly uncomfortable news that we were expecting a baby so I would be deferring a year to 2015.  Whilst my wife was keen for me to do it, I couldn't do it on minimal training around a new born baby as a) for me its about giving it my best shot rather than ticking a box b) i might die trying!!!  So after some bad planning re timings my wife and i welcomed a 2nd May baby into the world - perfect timings for the wife with a summer holiday (sorry…summer maternity leave) - but for the triathlon season the timings couldn't be worse.

Through spring and early summer I began committing to work on my bike (32 miles a day) a few days a week- and thoroughly enjoyed it so built some good base miles.  I also attended a taster session at the Lee Valley velodrome which was amazing - i'll be going back for L2 and fully recommend it to anyone to try.  But then from June / July I was working away in York for 6 weeks - which meant that my weekends were taken with family time. So in summary this Summers been and gone with little to write home about apart from some decent runs in August with x2 top 12 places.  After that however training was quiet juggling working away a lot and helping with the 3 children, followed by a hamstring strain in Nov/Dec and 2 weeks of manful over christmas/NY - meaning that this years gone out with a whimper.  At a personal level it has been a great year for work, spending some quality time with the children and obviously welcoming a new beautiful addition to our family, but you are probably a triathlete reading this and don't really care about that side :)

So anyway as I move into 2015 it will be a busy, if not pretty daunting 7 months ahead - starting with a new expanded role at work starting from Monday also with a fair bit of business travel, then Ironman Bolton in july (plan was I'm Wales however we are away so can't do this so plumped for Bolton instead) and obviously a 7 month old and all that entails.  Thankfully my wife is 100% supportive of my triathlons (I go slightly crazy when I don't train!) which makes things easier.

My immediate goals are:

  1. Re-join a swimming Club - I left my local club in Jan 2014 after the coaching team informed me that they had to favour the clubs competitive Masters swimmers over others (so slower swimmers were being put in the faster lanes) despite the fact that I pay the same and train the same - if not harder.  Awkward!  May have to swallow my pride and return.
  2. Invest in some decent lights and start my bike commuting again.
  3. Get my hamstring 100% before starting to ramp my running miles up.
  4. Sign up for marathon / half IM asap - probably the swashbuckler
  5. Attend L2 session at lee Valley velodrome

So not the best blog i'm afraid but anyway thats off my chest, so onwards and upwards from here.

Wishing you all a happy new year and hope you achieve all your dreams in 2015.

Cheers,
Rich

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