It’s that time of year again - where I post a quick summary of what I’ve been up to running and triathlon wise this year past year. This is primarily for myself to look back on years to come but may be of interest to others!
After the main ‘highlight’ of 2011 being the Brighton Marathon there wasn’t much else of note that year. Towards the end of the year I started building up again (run and bike, with a bit of swimming) for a busy first half of 2012.
January started with the most amazing holiday we’ve had topped with an Ironman distance triathlon in New Zealand. A month driving around New Zealand in a big camper van and a little race thrown in half way through made for a superb January.
Back to the UK in February and I sacrificed cycling for a couple of months of focussed run training in preparation for the London Marathon in April. I wanted to ‘safely’ run a ‘Good For Age’ (GFA) time which would guarantee me entry for the next two years. Based on my age I needed to run under 3 hours 10 minutes. A steady run saw me finish in 3 hours 09. Perfect.
Four weeks later and it was mid-May and my usual visit to the Bognor Prom 10k. Conditions were perfect and I absolutely smashed my 10k PB. 36 minutes 44 seconds. That’ll take some beating. I was delighted with that.
Back on the bike I went and quickly got some miles in before my second Ironman distance race at the start of July. The race went pretty much according to plan and I finished a little under ten and a half hours. That was my third marathon of the year and it was only the 1st July!
It was time to ease off a little bit now and this certainly came with a bang - literally in September when I fell off my windsurfing board and cracked/broke a rib. After 10 weeks of pretty much no exercise whatsoever I slowly started cycling and running again at the start of December. I’m not 100 percent healed and I think it will take some time before all the pain goes but it’s great to be back training again.
The plan now is to build up steadily before a busy Spring/Summer. I’m doing an Ironman triathlon in May and also have plans to run the London Marathon in April, but most probably more as a training run than a flat out race due to its close proximity to the Ironman.
Finally, here’s the usual (and getting busier) yearly graph of my running numbers.
