March 2007 -

What a month! Really busy at work, having to split my weeks between Haworth (west yorks) and home. On the whole though training is going well. Been splitting my training into 5-6 weeks phases, with this phase focusing on developing my VO2 capacity, so lots of long intervals (5-8mins), working near max in the last few mins!!! Im also trying to work on my strength/endurance, so im back in the gym 2-3 times doing circuits (bit of a shock to the system), but starting to feel the benefit. Distance wise im up to 13miles on the run, 40miles on the bike and swimming 3km. Im managing to do 3 runs, 3 bikes and 2 swims (with a bit of juggling) and these are based on 1 long session, 1 interval session and then 1 paced session.
Competed for the first time in 18months - Clumber Park Duathlon. I planned to race it hard, so could get a feel for what was missing at the moment. Was hard, but i expected that, on the first run, i felt i was in a 100m race!, was defo lacking speed compared to the other, but seen as i haven't worked on that yet, no surprises. On the bike, again i just felt good and strong, but there was still not a much 'there' as i want, felt like the edge was missing a little and also i started to cramp in my calf's, so had to easy back on the hills which was a little annoying! Still got a good time and was ahead of what i expected. The final run (as expected) took 3km to settle into, but i felt as though i was defiantly running stronger, the further i went (very encouraging given that i have 26miles to run after the bike in 5 months time!)

All in all, a very positive phase, im slightly in front of where i expected to be at this stage. The next 6 week phase starts 26th march and is based on threshold work (should be fun!). Still undecided as to whether im going to race a Bala yet, would like to, but im not sure i can afford the time off to rest afterwards.