The 2009 Season

Well, it has been quite a while since I posted anything on here, so perhaps it is best to give a bit of an update as to what I am hoping to do in the 2009 season. First of all, I suppose it is best to start from where I left off with the Kingston run. That run, although successful in terms of keeping a steady pace was not really where I had hoped to be at that stage but the pressures of work had seen collapse in the amount of training I was doing and I was pretty much just running on retained fitness from before I started the job. For some time after that things continued in pretty much the same vain, little training and lots of work, and then the holidays came round and I decided to take it a bit easier, mainly in the hope of avoiding any real illness and then, low and behold, just before new year, I was taken down with the flu for over a week.

I finally restarted my training again at the start of January, coming back with a 42:45 for a 10k in one of the Regent's Park series...albeit, this was the first day I had felt better since the flu. It was during this race though that I realised just how overweight I had become and also, how unfit I had become since the end of last season. This was the exact kick up the backside that I needed however and since then I have been training hard and losing weight. In a way, it is quite interesting to start again after having a proper break - something I have never really done.

I am actually enjoying pretty much all my sports again as I am seeing a real gain in fitness almost day by day. I am slowly but surely regaining my love for the treadmill, albeit, I think I am a couple of months away from my 10 mile sub 60 minute runs on them. The swimming at Camden Masters is starting to improve with each session and I am actually starting to feel good in the pool again. The watts on the bike are almost back to where I was just before the holidays and I know where I was what sort of watts I need to hold on my main sesssion to be as fit as I was when I did the 53:17 last year and I am confident that I will be able to get above that this season, based on my current progress anyway.

The cycling is actually a lot more important this season as well as I am going to focus on TT's primarily but also doing some triathlons. Although I am doing less triathlons compared to last season, my focus this season is going to be a 70.3 Half Ironman race towards the end of the season in Antwerp - this will be my second middle distance race of the season (doing Lisboa early on) and who knows, I may even do well enough to get a slot for Clearwater. My other 'A' races are all TT's as I'm gonna try and put in a decent show at the National 10, 25 and the Team Time Trial races. You should be able to see from the table below, this will mean staying at the top of my game for about 2 months which I think should be okay, well, I think it is better than doing what I normally do whereby I try and stay as fit as possible for the entire season. I am starting to think that there may be something to this whole 'peaking' business.