Shocking I’ve been a bad blogger,  as I haven’t written a post for over a month ;-(

So what have I been doing and why reappear now ?

I have been training – a lot. On 8th September I will attempting my first middle distance half ironman triathlon at Henley on Thames.

Swimming, cycling and running my short legs and arms off. Peaking at 150 miles training miles covered in a week within 14 and a half hours of training. So apart from work, triathlon training and doing my police specials training I haven’t had much spare blogging time.

So a quick catch up on last month, August;

I have joined a cycling club and been out with them on a 42 mile and 75 mile long weekend rides. Very welcoming and friendly, had a good chat to the coaches about the reasons why I joined and found new cycle friendly routes and a couple of killer hills.

My first ride with Chippenham wheelers will be remembered for a while as an incident packed ride. I was stung by a wasp on the knee which resulted in it swelling to size of basketball & hurting like hell. Lost two water bottles as I hit potholes – recovered one. Rolled home with a couple of other casualties of sickness, puncture & exhaustion. Visit to Boots sting relief cream, but started to feel sick – wasp poison coursing through me 😦 Still 40 miles completed with lovely coffee & cake stop in Tetbury.

However as the afternoon went on all was not right -unbeknown to me, it seems at 46 years of age I am allergic  to stings. A visit to the Dr who confirmed a bad allergic reaction and an infection so adrenaline shot and 10 days of antibiotics which knocked me about further making me feel nauseous and lacking all energy.

 

Police specials training has continued each and every Wednesday evening and all day Saturdays. I sacrificed two training days for revision but it paid off as I got 100% in my final formal exam – phew 🙂 Also had gym induction so free gym and circuit classes for me.

I managed a PB at my local Parkrun on the bank holiday weekend ( rare Saturday off from Police training ) and that was chatting all the way round with my friend – hubbies says “Shut up and run ! you’d get a PB every time” At least its a good indicator along with my swim and bike time trials that I am getting stronger and faster through a planned training program.

I did a lake Olympic distance triathlon which was in the heat wave so was no wetsuits. Fine by me and I was only 1 minute slower without my wetsuit than when racing in the Bristol tri a month earlier.

So In the 17 weeks I have been following a training plan from coach Neil I have swum / ridden / ran a total of 1409 miles.

My biggest training session was a 4 hour bike ride followed directly with a 40 minutes run, all 280 minutes were in a torrential downpour Over 2 litres of water was drained from my bike when I stored it away. I changed into a dry top and socks for the run – shouldn’t have bothered as they were soaked through in two minutes of leaving home.

Against the plan I have been 9 minutes down on the swim, 91minutes down on the bike and 240 minutes up on the run. The bike was most affected after the wasp sting when on antibiotics and 2 days for police revision.

My biggest news is that I have committed to the Big one in Bolton, yes ironmanUK 2014.

That is the main reason I have jumped back into the blogging world as I want to capture my journey through nearly a full year of training. Along the way I will also be doing the toughest half ironman on the planet ironman70.3 in Exmoor.

 

I did my last training ride on Sunday, a nice steady run to Marlborough for coffee and cake. Now taper week and madness commence.

So far I have washed and lubbed my bike, sterilised and cleaned all water bottles with Milton, had a go faster haircut, cleaned my fish tank out losing my wedding ring in the bottom as too loose now I have lost weight. I have actually dropped at least a dress size since starting my training for Henley Half triathlon.