Boy, am I glad February is over. Spring is on its way, race season is approaching and it’s not long until I can start to cash in on all the hard sessions I’ve banked over the winter – let’s hope I get a good exchange rate!
I feel like I’ve had a pretty solid winter all things considered. In January I was lucky enough to escape the snow and spend two weeks at the awesome Trisports Lanzarote (www.trisportslanzarote.com), which truly is the perfect environment for winter training camps. The villa is quite stunning, the food (all your meals are provided) healthy, plentiful and delicious, there’s a 25m pool in the garden and the location is idyllic. But what makes it truly unique and wonderful are the owners, Daz and Debs, who have perfected the knack of making you feel at home and keep smiling, no matter how hard you’re training.
February has been harder if I’m honest. It’s always the toughest month for me – race time is a long way off yet, the days aren’t long enough to make evening training outside much fun and you’re putting in lots of hard hours training without the validation that comes from testing yourself at races. Though I’ve done a few local running races to keep me interested I haven’t done anything proper yet. So all in all, I’m glad it’s done! Money banked as it were. Now it’s time to start adding the icing to get me ready to start racing in late April.
I’ve got a few fun races coming up to spice things up a bit including Cambridge half marathon next weekend, which starts and finishes literally metres from where I live. It’ll be a hard ask to beat my time of 1.18 from last year but I’m going to give it a go and see what I end up with. Sore calves probably! Then I’ve got 10 days in Majorca at the end of March and will start my season properly with the European Duathlon in Horst in April where I’ll be the defending champion – which is not something I like. I much prefer to be the underdog and fly under the radar! It definitely feels like there is a bit more pressure and expectation on me to do well this year, and I’m aware I need to learn to deal with that… After the duathlon I’ll focus on 70.3’s until September and plan to end the season with probably two Ironman races to try and get some points towards Kona qualification.
I really am itching to start the season – bring on the speed and bring on the races. And bring on the first outing on my swanky Vitus TT bike – I can’t wait to ride it!
