New Year, New Coach and New Pad

Firstly, I suppose I should start with a bit of an apology. I have not really had any post worthy stuff to add on here for a while. The main reason for that was that I have had a few things to arrange since the end of last season and now I finally think that things are in place to kick off 2007 with some hard training in preparation for the 2007 season.

The biggest change is that I now have a new coach. Steve Trew will bring a whole wealth of information to my training. He was part of the team that went out to Sydney Olympics in 2000 and also coaches a number of the top triathletes in the UK at the moment. No, this does not mean that I am going to be getting a place at Beijing or London 2012, but at least I'll have some of the best advice available. The emphasis at the moment is pretty much endurance, going through cycles of mainly run and mainly cycling weeks. I have been with Steve since the new year, but the first week was hampered by a cold that I had known was coming from before Christmas. It finally got hold and wiped me out for a few days and then training for a while after was hard work. Things seems to back to normal now though - i.e. sore legs :-)

I have also moved house at the weekend and am now quite a way outside of London. So far though, I have no regrets at all about moving this far out. This link takes you to the new pad...yep, the one right in the church grounds.

As you can see in the top left hand corner, the Thames is pretty close and there is also a pretty good pub right there.

There are quite a few positives to living here including the fact that the Thames Tow Path is only 5 mins away and along there we probably have some of the best running around...I did 12 miles yesterday just running to Hampton Court Palace and back - all very nice. For cycling as well, I am actually near the countryside now so I can pretty much just leave the house and be straight onto quiet roads...it used to be about an hours riding to go far enough north to get past the the busy sections when I lived in North London. There is also a running track 5mins away and the Turbos do a few of their training sessions pretty close by as well so I'll be heading down to them to see what they are like.

Other than that, things have been pretty quiet. I have done a couple of 10k races and knocked out a couple of 38 minutes - not all that fast but okay for this time of the season. My biggest concern at the moment is my swimming fitness. Christmas meant a lot of time out of the pool and then when I came back, I had the illness for a week or so. As a result, i probably missed a good few sessions. The problem with swimming is that you can very quickly lose your fitness. I am trying my hardest to get back into it now though...time for the big paddles to get those arms working again!

My next big race is the Wokingham Half Marathon on the 11th of February. The Wokingham half was my first half marathon that I ever ran last year. The main aim there was to beat my dad's PB. I seem to recall I just made it...the face of agony explains how hard it was though...