I thought I’d give a quick update on what I’ve been up to the past few weeks. Starting with swimming - I’ve had a couple of weeks away from the pool as I’ve got a bit of shoulder pain - it’s not from swimming, but I think I’ve just been sitting and/or sleeping awkwardly! Anyway, I’m planning on going for a splash later this week and we’ll see how it goes.

I’ve been getting a bit more consistent with my running and a couple of weeks ago decided to make full use of an entry to the Spitfire 20 mile race that I’d paid for a couple of months ago. I quickly got a couple of long runs in as a rather rushed build up and then had a steady run in the sunshine around some lovely roads somewhere deep in Surrey! 20 miles was more than enough for me and following on from my previous training update I’ve now withdrawn (well, deferred my place) from this years London Marathon. I hope to give it a proper go next year. Long runs at the moment are no ticking over at about 13 miles or so.

In addition to the long runs I’ve really been enjoying my regular parkruns and had a fantastic run just over a week ago when I helped pace a junior runner around the course at Bushy Park to a super speedy time. Great fun.

Cycling-wise I’m starting to build up the miles slowly but surely. After about six months of riding my road bike now that the weather has been getting better I’ve switched to my lovely triathlon bike. Before getting back onto the tri-bike I did one final smash out on the road bike on the indoor turbo trainer. This is a session that takes a little over an hour and the main part is 20 minutes of pure torture. From here I get an idea of my bike strength (and how much I can sweat in 20 minutes). The numbers were good and I’m happy with how things are headed.

Although I’ve got a couple of Ironman races entered for this year the main thing that’s going to destroy me is something called Epic Camp. In August I’m going to be headed to Canada for two weeks to ride over the Rocky Mountains with a group of like minded fools. I got an email from the organiser a few days ago which summarises what’s in store pretty well:

“Training - you need to be extremely fit for this camp. We average 140km/day for 12 days with a massive amount of climbing. 4 of the 12 days are 190-210km [around 118-130 miles] along with as much swimming and running as we can get in.”

So, from reading this I think my main focus for the year is to get myself fit for Epic Camp and then see what happens after that!

Finally as I’m thinking about races and training during the summer months this years Ironman season is really starting to get going and this coming weekend I’ve a number of friends who are headed to South Africa to race. I’m looking forward to tracking them online and wish them the best of luck and hope that they race strong and will be wearing flower lei’s at the award ceremony the following day….