A week of ups and downs.

Its been a fun week, I have been riding the rollercoaster of ups and downs so to speak - nothing life threatening but it's been interesting.

I am however still here, its all good. I certainly need to improve my amount of sleep so the downs don't get blown out of proportion, even though I am tired after getting back into swimming more I have only myself to blame, plenty of AG athletes do more hours but they get better sleep, time to change the 'start' and 'stop' clock on my sleep pattern.

So, Saturday last week I had a coached swim session in the endless pool at TriCentral in Trafford Park. I know I am not the most efficient and certainly not the quickest swimmer but it's now official, I am also not the prettiest either (stroke, not bone structure).

Watching your stroke back is akin to watching the cringworthy contestants on X-Factor, you know its awful but you can't help watching just in case it gets better, this was indeed an eye opener, when I swim on my own it's tough when someone with a worse stroke than yours is swimming 1-2 secs per length faster, you wonder how, try the video approach, it all becomes clear, so the down, realising the enormity of my next 6 months, but ....... the 'up', knowing now how to visualise the way to correct it.


Into the week, I took part in the Roade Sprint Triathlon in Northampton, its a late season blast and its also where I work part of the week. Firstly, I am not a sprint triathlete, I can say that after I get my backside handed to me by younger and faster athletes but its true, I prefer the longer distance, so this was supposed to be fun.

My employer, iPSL, use this local series of races to encourage staff who are maybe non triathletes/single-sport athletes in work to either do the relay or take the plunge for the whole thing. However, one of my bosses takes it quite seriously and we have a little bit of competition between us. He completed IMUK this year in a very respectable time and this was our chance to race together head to head. It turned out to be a very close affair. The result, I beat him by 24 secs and managed to not get chicked by Yvette Grice, my second 'up' of the week.

Now the 'down', I managed a respectable 59.44 but was royally spanked by a fair margin, I was hammered by 6 mins by the winner over a sprint distance, even though its end of season and I have been training 4 weeks, that still smarts.


Next was more an international down for me, we all woke this week to the headlines,

'Contador tests positive for clenbuterol'

Oh come on, not again, for the love of ....

I didn't think I would have a massive opinion one way or another but it damages a sport I love, regardless of how he ingested the said drug, most people will see the headlines and just switch off with their mind made up. It makes it all the more apparent that this news has already made peoples minds up when the majority of athletes I follow on twitter setting up for Kona next week spent most of the week deriding professional cyclists, who in their eyes should just put in harder work, they have a point, I just hope no-one in triathlon tests positive as the shadow over cycling is one I never want to see over my sport.

On the 'up' side, I became a world record breaker this week, woohoo, with a couple of hundred other people when we went all SQUIDGY with Soreen at the Manchester Velodrome, I put my stint in around midnight on Friday for 2 hours and loved being part of something that raised money for good causes and meant I got a good workout. Well done to all the cyclists and organisers, I feel more challenges of that type coming up.


And to the last, we got the great news that this week we were eventually getting our french doors fitted, superb, we have saved and waited for months to have these put in, really should have been for the summer and Teya but better late than never. As the guys arrived to start I picked up the morning post and put it on the side and made them a drink, then retreated upstairs to start work for the day.

By lunchtime they had finished, as you can see they did a great job and its already got plenty of use by Teya now she knows its a door to freedom.



As they leave, I make myself a cup of tea, stand back to admire the doors and open the post from this morning,

'INTENTION TO PROSECUTE'

WTF !!! The trip to Northampton for the triathlon had delivered more than just a win over my boss, a bitter sweet ending to the week rounded off with a speeding fine on the M6 in a 50mph contraflow. And yes, it was me, bugger.

Training

10.5 hours this week, I was cut short a little by the horrendous weather on Sunday, spending hours on the turbo wasn't my idea of fun but I managed 90 mins. I feel tired but my legs don't have any pain, they are a little heavy but I need to make sure I am resting better and recovering with more sleep.

I was happier with my swims more than anything else, I learnt 2 main things to correct on Saturday in the endless pool and have applied both of them to the sessions. Its slowly getting easier but I am still drinking mroe than I should do.

Things will take time but I know that, I am very excited about the winter season coming up and under no illusion that it will be as bad weather as last year and the main focus is to HTFU and just get out there.

Coming up this weekend is the culmination of the long distance IM season with the World Championships on Saturday in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, 12 months ago we were there and its an awesome place to be. I will hopefully be watching from 5.30pm Sat on Universal Sports who should stream the whole thing live.

And just for those that need a reminder, I have watched this video more times than I can remember in the last 12 months - the aim, to go back.

IM Hawaii

Go full screen and loud !!