Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

A couple of posts ago I listed our race plans for 2014 - here is how things have been going so far.

On the swimming front we are doing ok - probably averaging 3 swims a week but could do better. My swimming mojo comes and goes but I am confident that we will get a good volume of open water swimming in this year. It will need to start early though as our first Tri event is mid-May! My best week of swimming was 3 'Birthday Swims' in 7 days featuring 51 x 100, 43 x 100 and 44 x 100! This Friday is my Birthday swim so only 42 x 100 for me!

I can safely say that I have never biked so much over the winter. We are running spin classes in the Studio four times a week with all sessions either 1.5 hours or 2.5 hours long. These are all great workouts and everyone works so hard in them. The biggest challenge is balancing the intensity - you can only do so much zone 4 & 5 in a week before your legs say no. Going forwards I can't wait to being able to ride outdoors in the Spring and just logging some easy long miles. It will be interesting to see how this big winter long bike focus translates to riding on the road. 

Running is the one area where we are having a bit of a struggle. As you can see from the pic below, exercising outside is problematic and on many days just not possible. Running in -13 I can handle, but -24 with wind chill I cannot. It is hard to run when your clothes are frozen! 

I was lucky enough to make it home to the UK for 10 days in January and managed to log over 100 km in 7 days. This was all outdoors and I saw my pace and endurance improve with every run. Since I got back I can definitely feel the benefits of this running block as I am running faster now than at any point last year but I am lacking endurance. I ran 2 hours on Monday at a pretty good pace but you have to work so much harder in the cold and it really wears you down. Our first race (Around the Bay 30k)  is 4 weeks away so we are praying for a break in the weather to at least get a 2 week run focus in. It is not an A race so we'll just need to see what happens but it would nice to be feeling good for it!

Happy training everyone!