Another Competitive Event...

The Americans have been doing some renovation work to the indoor pool here and they celebrated the grand re-opening with a biathlon. 400 yard (yes, yards, remember them?) and a 5km run that started at the unholy hour of 6am! I surprised myself on many counts just by getting to the start line - it was very early, swimming was involved, running was involved, cycling wasn't involved! It was a very civilised event as well; we started in waves but the following wave didn't start until the last person in the previous wave had finished - how nice was that?

I went off in the last wave due to signing up late rather than an indicator of my swimming prowess and cracked the 400 yards in 6:15; not bad I thought for someone that hasn't been near the water for 3 weeks. Transition was as smooth as ever (LOL!) and I was onto the run in 6:58. The run course was the same as the 5km Fun Run from a couple of days ago, with a little added on to get from the pool to the run course. My run took 22:15 for an overall time of 29:13; I was happy with that. The winner was some young racing snake in a time of 26:20something and he was a good 45 seconds ahead of second place.

So another good day and the mojo is definitely returning.

Christmas Day 5km Fun Run

Just a quick note to say that I managed to get myself out of bed in time for the Christmas Day 5km Fun Run (a complete oxymoron; running is NEVER fun!). Well, well, well, I surprised myself by finishing in 20:44, my fastest 5km run time since I left IOT in 1999. I feel somewhat more motivated now so perhaps the New Year will bring some discipline on the nutrition front and get that half stone shifted.

As an aside, the family sent me a nice bundle of Christmas gifts, one of which was a picture of my daughter and the dog, taken in the living room of our house. In front of the TV. A BRAND NEW VERY LARGE WIDESCREEN TV!!! Apparently my face was an absolute picture! The trade off for that has got to be a new bike, surely?

Train smart folks.

And a Merry Christmas. Again!

Training in Qatar

So how is the training going out here?

It started really well; after 2 weeks of acclimatisation and getting back into the training mindset, I had a good 8 weeks of what I called "strength & conditioning", basically doing weights, core, stretch and flex with a little bit of general aerobic work and some swimming. Nothing too strenuous. Then the turbo trainer and bike arrived and I got into some good old fashioned turbo sessions.

And then it went horribly wrong. I suffered a severe back pain whilst, of all things shaving, and the muscles in my lower back stiffened up considerably for no apparent reason. It took over a week of gentle exercise and stretching for me to be able to train properly again. And then the mind proved weak. I walked to the pool one day and when I got there had absolutely no inclination to swim - stuff it. So went cycling instead. Haven't been to the pool now in 3 weeks, that particular aspect of training has been set completely aside for the time being. I've done some running but that has also fallen foul of the "Can't be Bothered" Fairies and so my time is spent cycling, either outside on my borrowed MTB, on the spin-bike in the gym or on the turbo trainer, and core, stretch and flex work.

Following the threads on the forum it seems you can't mention turbo training without mentioning tabata at the moment. And I blame Sags and Neill G entirely for the additional pain I am putting myself through. As if the 30-minute FTP test wasn't bad enough (especially when the results showed an 8% drop in peak power since the Summer), doing the 6 x 6 min session and then adding the 6 x tabata set on the end was just AWESOME. The plan is to ride a bike of some description every day, with a turbo session at least every other day (done as Level 2, Level 3 and Level 4 sessions, then repeat) with recovery rides or gim sessions on the inbetween days. If the mojo returns then I may do some gentle swimming and running as well on these days, but only after the bike stuff has been completed.

So what bike bling have I bought? I have a ceramic bearing bottom bracket and rear jockey wheels ready to fit when I get home, and should also be collecting an 82mm deep front wheel. I'm on the lookout for some new tribars to complete the bling for 2009 and have narrowed it down to 2 choices - all will be revealed in due course.

In the meantime, keep training smart. For those of you in the UK, be careful out on the roads. It can be dangerous out there.

It's been a while ...

since I managed to get on here. But adversity being the mother of all creation (is that right?) we had an IT faff on our usual system (that prevented me from getting on here) but the alternative seems to let me. Bravo!

Life out here is OK; yes, separation from the family is not good but comms are excellent, much better than on previous dets I have done so am in regular contact with them all.

Training started really well, but over the last few weeks we have been busy at work making gettin to the gym difficult. And I was sidetracked for a couple of days with some very good news from the Desk Officer. I'm averaging a little over 10 hours a week since I started my training diary at the beginning of November and I'm now into a cycle specific period; unfortunately I'm just not getting the volume in that I had hoped for. Still, it's better than what I have done in previous winters so I should emerge in the spring a better cyclist. The ice cream and cookies are proving VERY hard to resist; so hard in fact that I'm not managing it.

So HMS Centurion in Gosport is my next destination towards the end of February. Not sure what my plans are for 2009 other than the Quelle Challenge Barcelona; I did say on the forum that I wouldn't do Dambuster, mainly because its a long way away, but I'm already reconsidering that, especially if all the quick guys head off to Northumberland for the day. Will definitely be getting in some cycle-sportives and 10, 25 and 50 mile TTs. I've been doing some retail therapy whilst I'm out here and although I will be riding the Prince of Darkness again in 2009 it will have some upgrades from the 2008 version, hopefully they will make me faster.

Today is 22 December so all that remains is for me to wish all you fellow Bloggers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and look forward to seeing you all in 2009.