Happy Birthday Mum...

It's been a few weeks and as you can see Ellie has finally lost her wobbly tooth, that was refusing to fall out. Much to her amazement and joy her very own tooth fairy visited and left a shiny coin and a nice note....

18th May was my Mum's 60th Birthday. I hope I have inherited all her genes that keep her looking so young!!! My Dad had organised a surprise weekend for her, we just about managed to keep everything hidden and secret from her. We travelled to surprise her on Friday night, then Max and Rachael and Auntie Jan and Uncle Gary arrived on Saturday. Dad had worked so hard. We had a party tea (mainly for Ellie and Evie) and later in the evening he had arranged a meal and all the trimmings. On Sunday Sarah and Jan whisked my Mum off to Ikea. Sarah employed some great delay tactics, Ikea hotdogs, wrong turns, 36 point turns etc etc to keep Mum away until 2pm, mean while.....balloons and banners were organsied, tables appeared from hidden locations, drinks came out from the shed and Waitrose delivered the food. Dad had spread the word and Mum's work collegues and friends from the village started to arrive. Amazingly Mum didn't twig on to Sarah's strange behaviour and when she got home all was revealed.

It was a great afternoon, with particular highlights being Sarah playing jazz saxophone, and my cousin Nathan playing some chilled out tunes on his guitar. The guests were certainly impressed! Mum is off to a very nice hotel in the Cotswolds with her friend to enjoy a chilled out weekend of pampering, very well done Dad and Happy Birthday Mum xxx

This coming Saturday see's me race the Beaver Middle Distance Triathlon, first race of the season, really looking forward to it. If I am honest I think I was training harder 8 weeks ago and in better race shape, however I still think I am in a good place and am intrigued as to how well I will go. Not been swimming for a while but there's no change there. Belvoir Castle is the race venue, it looks like a great location for a race and should be very spectator friendly. We have got Ellie and Evie a pink pop up tent so that should keep them entertained as they wait for me to come through on the bike or on the run. There are plenty of guys from the club racing so it should be a good day.

Finally get a load of this. Tommorow is the start of the half term holidays, between now and 1st September I have 4 weeks of work and 9 weeks of holiday, something wrong there!!!!!

Finally, finally the new Head Teacher at our school is going to be a Head Mistress, she starts in January. Over the two days of interviews she seemed very nice and is currently Deputy Head at a very good school in Bury St Edmunds. I am quite excited, she will bring plenty of new things to our school, have very high standards and high expectations, and hopefully shake the place up a bit.

See you next week for a race report.



P.S Nearly forgot: Huge congratulations to Tom for another amazing Ironman performance at Lanzarote, 10:23:43 He might not have qualified for Kona but he gave it his absolute best during training and on race day, and one can not ask for anymore than that, great work Tom.

Quality not Quantity...

Another busy week has gone by and not much training in terms of volume has been achieved, if I was training for an Ironman I would be a little concerned, BUT I am not....The proof of fitness and performance is in the numbers and today the numbers look pretty damn good. I joined Tom for a session we did last year, multi laps round a very challenging 13.7 mile, 425m of climbing circuit taking in some big hills through Leathley, Pannel, Norwood and Farnley. In addition to the climbing it is usually pretty wind over the top, all in all a tough circuit. Last year I rode 5 laps, in about 48 to 51 mins per lap. I then ran off the bike covering 14 miles in an average of 8.39 min/mile. A perfect Ironman session.

This morning I rode 4 laps in 45.30, 45.37, 46.56 and 47.05. I rode hard, steady on the climbs (as much as is possible when it hits 16%) and then worked hard to ride a high cadence, but with power in the pedal strokes on the descents and drags. After 54 tough miles I spun back to the parked cars and got ready to run. The plan for the run was to go easy for a mile then hit it hard with 10 miles being my target distance. 8.07 for mile 1, followed by 7.39, 7.50, 7.31, 7.48, 7.57, 7.54, 7.45, 7.38. I stopped and took on water and some nutrition at the end of each mile, done at a very leisurely pace taking between 15 and 30 seconds. I went through 8.5 miles at 7.57 average but that was probably more like 7.35 I ran a lap with Tom at 7.25 and a lap with his mate Ben at 7.10. By far the fastest I have run in a brick session. I was working hard but no cramps occurred and after such a hard bike I felt great.

So is there a morale to today's post. A morale no, but I guess two things strike me. Number one; training for Ironman during 2007, 08 and 09 doing lots of long steady riding and running has built a big base of aerobic fitness. Number two; This year doing more quality sessions, faster running and time trial efforts during most rides has got me in a good place with regard to performing hard over 2 to 4 hours. So quality over quantity seems to be working just fine.

Beaver Middle Distance Triathlon is my first race of the season on 29th May, I am excited about it now having landed a great session today. A few more quality sessions, a bit more swimming and get a grip of my diet and I'll be flying round Belvoir Castle.

Sarah has played another Saturday night session on her Saxophone at Caesars Restaurant, once again it went down really well. I think they would have her play every weekend if they could, well done gorgeous, you are a super star.

My legs feel pretty smashed now so I think it's stretch time and bed. Have a great week, enjoy your training and have fun...

P.S Didn't have a photo from this week so here's me in Spain 6 weeks ago having finished a tasty climb...

Spring Explosion...

Well Spring is definitely here, everything is exploding into life yet I seem to be going in the opposite direction. I remember a spell like this in 2008 during April. I'd trained really well through the Winter and was super excited that Spring, and the warmer weather was on the way, then when it arrived I went into virtual hibernation. Currently I am pretty low on motivation, to train and if I am honest to do much really. I don't know why, but I really must snap out of it!!

My last 3 weeks of training have been rubbish, 6 1/2, 4 1/2 and 5 1/2 hrs what is that all about. However in amongst that I have ridden a great 3 x 8 mile TT session and had 2 of the best runs I have had for ages. A 10 mile off road run as 4 x 2.5 miles (out and back) increasing the pace, where my final 2.5 miles was run at 6.53min/mile. Yesterday I did a 12 mile (out and back) where I the first 6 were at 7.25min/mile and into the wind I returned at 7 min/mile, nor was I busting myself. So although I am not in a great place regarding my motivation and desire to train and do things, I seem to be performing pretty strongly.

Sarah has written her first post on her blog all about her music. We went to have a meal at Caesars Restaurant the other Sunday, and were entertained by a wonderful Jazz Saxophonist!!! I hear Sarah play all the time whilst she teaches, but seeing her on the stage, properly performing was a first. She is super talented, everybody loved her music. She is playing on Saturday, and it looks like a pretty full restaurant....

Evie is doing every bodies head in with her moods and constant answer to anything and everything "I want to", I guess she is only 2....

In 3 weeks time it is Ironman Lanzarote. This time last year I was gearing up to race it, I cannot believe a year has passed (I still have the tan lines on my back where I burnt) . I am enjoying not having to put in the really long training hours this year, but as Lanzarote and the European Ironman race season begins there is a big part of me that wishes I was doing one, hmmm next year????

Right that's enough from me, it's bath time for the girls and then I am going to take the Ceepo for a quick hour to clear my head and prove to myself that I can get out and train in the evening.

Enjoy the Spring time flowers, it really is a beautiful time of the year.....