Progression

Training has been going well and most importantly with the required consistency. The volume has remained relatively low amount with my main focus being on swimming, cycling has started to increase towards the end of the month.  April continued with the same theme, it is still some way off from my main race of the season and I don't want to be too fit at this stage as am constantly reminded by Coach Coulter!! (I actually think its because he's suffering up the hills and wants me to slow down!!).  I'm starting to feel my cycling strength return and my run speed has also increased for the same effort.  The weather has been quite grim in March and showed no signs of improving as we moved into April, this saw the need for several turbo sessions in the evening after work.

The clocks changing have made a big difference to my frame of mind and has made sessions easier to fit in.  I have found training quite hard of late, it's not so much the training sessions themselves although fitting regular 20+ hour training weeks in is quite challenging in itself as well as my full time job and I've felt the strain it puts family life under.  My Daughter turned 5 in March and rightfully requires ever increasing amounts of activities to keep her happy, my amazing Wife takes a massive amount of credit for this and I'm sure there are times she forgets what I look like (maybe not such a bad thing!!).  Hopefully all my hard work will pay off and we can all enjoy a family holiday in Hawaii.  I try to lessen the impact on family life by swimming in the mornings which means getting up a 5 am to fit in my 3 x 90 min - 2 hr sessions but there is no getting away from the fact that if you want to do well at IM races you need to put in the volume which means regular long rides or runs straight from work that has me returning home after 8.30 pm, it is then a quick shower, food, 10 min relax and I mean 10 minutes, then in to bed as early as possible for another early start.

The lighter nights have also meant a return to my usual run loop around a local man made lake but lately I've been having a running battle with a section of brambles (looks worse than it actually was!)

March
Swim: 45 km
Bike:  969 km
Run:  121 km

April
Swim: 48 km
Bike: 1285 km
Run: 150 km

I've been looking at events to enter to blow away the cobwebs and have decided to enter the British Middle Distance Championships at the beginning of June and also the Llandudno Olympic at the end of June for some valuable sea swim practice.

Hopefully my next blog will include some pictures of that rare yellow thing in the sky !! Bye for now.