Wednesday 4 March 2009

I'm back!

Yes folks, I’m still here! Had a crazy month or so, hence the silence. Some of you may know that we were flooded out of our home last year… we (naively) chose to project manage the whole reconstruction / reinstating process ourselves. It’s been like a second job… but we’ve got back in. (Despite the carry on, it was probably worth doing it ourselves as many of our neighbours are still not back in – pros and cons!). So normal service is resumed…

There has also been a ‘third job’ going on all the while…. Yep, training. And training hard. I’m completely focused on my May Coast to Coast attempt and of course The Worlds is shaping up to be the race of my life. Many aspects of home life have been compromised due to our house situation, but my training has not (I missed one session over the move week…). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; Charlotte’s support is incredible. (Soloists aint really solo).

The intense effort training sessions have been REALLY hard. I’ve not trained like this before and I won’t lie; it hurts like hell! But the initial shock is subsiding. At first I cowered before a session; now I can’t wait for the big efforts as I can feel myself getting stronger all the time. You can get used to anything…

So much good coaching advice tells us to cut out the dross hours and maximise the quality. My coach Will Newton is certainly applying this principle. Beside the physical benefits, it’s also worked really well with the chaos of the last few months. I remember discussing riding hours with Rob last year and we talked about ‘freeing up’ time for other aspects of life, rather than spending hour after hour on the bike. Recent events were not what I had planned freeing up time for back then…. but I’m sure glad I adopted this training strategy because I simply could not have done the regular 6, 7, 8 hr rides I was doing last year given the circumstances….. and I’m fully on it for my main challenges (as opposed to being de-motivated by ‘not having enough time’). Funny how things pan out!

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