As Ned Stark and those who live in the North like to remind us, Winter is coming.  The clocks have gone back an hour, and soon it will be dark at 4 pm.  Now any sensible person uses this time of year to put on a nice big jumper, get out the red wine and chill on the sofa, waiting out the winter.  Spring arrives and we all emerge from our winter lairs, usually a few pounds heavier.  We start to think about maybe doing some exercise for the upcoming summer.  Triathletes start to panic that they should have done more over the winter!

Well this year this is not going to be me.  My training has taken a real back seat the last couple of weeks because I have had a cold that simply would not shift.  Finally this morning I am feeling OK again and am looking forward to throwing myself back into some exercise.

Over the last 4 weeks I have managed to complete the following.

• 2 hrs 51 mins of swimming, covering just over 5km
• 9 hrs 40 mins of cycling, covering 242km
• 31 minutes of running, covering 5.77km
• 3 hrs 40 mins of strength training work

• I missed the Wiggle South Downs Sportive (sorry to have let you down Waitey) due to a combination of illness and mega cramping that I am still getting from time to time,
• I pulled out of the Great South Run, due to concern that pushing myself to do 10 miles would set my shin splints off again.

There were also a few highlights.

• I have started attending Triathlon specific training sessions which I love.  I will post about these separately, but they are great and am really enjoying it.
• So far I have managed to lose about half a stone (without really doing anything too major) so am hopeful I will be able to lose some more over the next few months.

One thing I have learned from all of this training I have been trying to do lately, is that patience is a virtue that you simply must have.  Sometimes it is impossible to train due to work or personal commitments.  Sometimes you get ill/injured and cannot train.  These things cannot be legislated for.  There is no point getting frustrated or annoyed at these little setbacks.  All you need to do is make sure that when you are well, not injured and you do get a chance to train you use that session wisely and give it 100%.  

So with that in mind, it’s off to the gym tonight for some strength and mobility work.  Turbo Trainer and then a brick run on Tuesday, Wednesday will be Bike/Mobility/Swim at the gym, Thursday on the Turbo and a swim at the gym on Friday.  Saturday is a trip to Twickenham to watch the Barbarians vs Australia, which will undo all of the good I have done myself.  

Oh well.   🙂

TTFN     James