At 2am on Monday morning I walked backed into my front door, under a dry but chilly night sky feeling pretty tired. The 8am alarm was a rude awakening an no early morning outdoor swim to wake me gently but ahead I had two days of interviewing, a Leadership Presentation from the Chief Constable to stay awake to on Monday evening which was a very long day and a careers fair attend today.

The full on start to the week made me appreciate our time more and what we had in Mallorca on the training camp, when all you have to concentrate on is swim, bike, run, stretch, eat & sleep. No work distractions, no faffing about looking for cold weather kit, no meetings, conference calls, commuting or looking for Euros for Belgium METRO.

Mallorca training camp day 7 – double dipper day & departure.
The last day of camp started with our sunrise swim in the outdoor pool, its amazing you slip into the pool in semi darkness but after completing one of Neils (x2) warmups the sun has risen and tinted goggles are required. This was an easy end of week recovery swim and gave us a chance to practise the tri medley whilst trying not to swallow some much pool water.

The tri medley is a challenging drill set, perfectly and beautiful demonstrated by Beth. This was brought back from St Moritz by Neil from a Brett Sutton camp. We had had varying degrees of fluidity, success and near drowning incidents whilst practising.
St. Marys pool if you see me floundering I’m just practising the Tri Medley for triathletes don’t jump in and stop me until Ive finished all 4 lengths  ! Then feel free to revive me, offer me coffee or just fish me out.

That was our official training week over, bikes needed to be broken down and packed or returned to the ever helpful Xavi at VIVA Blue Spa, bags to be packed, a last chance to do some kit washing in the free laundry. Then it was free time until our 8:30pm pick up.

My last day in the sun I chose to head to the beach, without my wetsuit and with my non-polarised goggles to do a short sea swim. Success I deliberatly kept it short just 20 minutes and swam out and back from the lifeguards station to the buoy line, so just about 1km in total. Yes the sea was as flat as pancake, blue skies and clear water with starfish an minnows swimming around under me.  The others chose to go for a run in the midday sun – nutters !

Happy days – No seasickness 🙂 so finished the sea swimming season on a high and positive feeling with a good sea swim to remember. No feeding the fish today.

Then it was time to absorb the weeks training and the last of the summer sun and stock up on vitamin D. This week has been my greatest volume of training minutes (excluding yoga session) per week this year. This is the volume I have been absorbing Monday a rest day and & Tuesday when after an easy 40 minute swim fell asleep for 2 hours on Tuesday afternoon whilst at the kitchen table over lunch, to be woken up by the puppy wanting a wee. More training volume than April camp the other peak, as I was only out for 5 days then.

So what better way to finish off than make use of the pleasure pool at the hotel and grab a sun lounger and relax.

Plans for the next camp are coming together for April in Mallorca and camp in Aix, France in May. Keep an eye out on Performance Edge website for details.

For me it is 40 weeks and counting to OUTLAW 2016, so this week has kick started my training, given me a sunny boost to the start of training, now winter training reality -head down, trail shoes on, waterproofs found and back to my local indoor pool. Will also grab a dog or two for company on some easy runs.

And finally as it is 21/10/15 Back to the Future day has arrived, my future is OUTLAW, shame I can’t do the run section on a Hover Board.