The Project

Its been a while since I last posted so I have missed a few sessions on here... I'm not going to do a long catch up because it would be a bit much.

Had a great week this week - Monday I went to the Tri London swim club which is always a challenging set and always feel like a great session. Tuesday was the running session in Springfield park, we were working on Muscular Endurance, hill repeats, and trying to keep the same pace on every hill repeat.

I did a 22km (5 laps of Regents Park) TT, came in at 39:53.... I love doing this TT, especially early in the morning when there is no traffic and the weather was glorious. Here is the Garmin link ---> 22km TT
I'm going to do this TT every week for the next 3 weeks, noting down all the variables and looking for improvements.... hopefully in time/speed.


This weekend I will fit in a swim, long run and the a bike/run brick too.

The New Project

I have decided that I want a Time Trial / Triathlon specific bike. I bought a frame from ebay, got a great deal! Its a HED V04 TT frame, its a beauty. Over the next few months I plan on building this bike up, making it a real machine and hopefully get it up and running for my race in September. Im going to try and get all my stuff second hand and keep the cost down. Ive added some pics for you to drool over... or not...

The first pic is of my frame, the second pic is of what it could look like..... I WISH.

Long Ride - Richmond Park

I did my 'long ride' today. Normally my rides take me up to Hertfordshire on a loop I know well and like, but today I decided to find my way to Richmond Park and see what all the fuss is about.
The journey down there was a bit of a nightmare, not knowing where I was going and getting lost a couple of times made it hard to enjoy. My route took me across Blackfriars bridge and through south London down busy roads and dual carriage ways. Once I made it there though, it was worth the hassle. Richmond Park is something else, its beautiful, large, busy and full of wildlife. At one point there was a large (30 or so) herd of Deer just chilling in the fields which was a nice sight and unexpected considering the hustle and bustle outside of RP. A loop of RP is about 10km, maybe a bit more and is mostly flt but does have a couple of short sharp ascents too. I did 3 laps of the park.
The journey back was much better but still not great. I decided to cross the river asap and just ride all the way along the embankment until I got to St Pauls Cathedral area then headed north to home. All can be seen on the Garmin link. I pushed it harder than my last rides, or I intended to but with all the traffic lights, getting lost and horrid roads it turned out to be a quite slow ride.

Garmin link ---> Long Ride

First Real Brick Session

I have done no swimming this week as yet, I may be able to fit some in tomorrow at some point but either way it isn't ideal! MUST TRY HARDER.....

Thursday I did a hard turbo session, should have been 1hr 15min session but I pushed it hard and stopped at 45 mins. It was a session building on speed, so you can see on the Garmin link where I did the intervals as my HR spikes and so does the speed. Garmin link ---> Speed Turbo Session

Yesterday I went to the gym after work and did 30 mins rowing, a steady pace, then some conditioning work... quite an easy session.

Today, on the other hand, was not an easy session, it was my first proper brick session. I did an hour on the turbo, a decent effort, not pushing hard but not taking it easy either then hopped straight off the bike and went for a 10k run down to St Paul's Cathedral and back. All in all a great session.

Here are the Garmin links:

Bike -----> Turbo Session

Run -----> 10k Run

Mid week long-ish run

I didn't do any run session on Tuesday as I said I would in my last post, instead I slept in (to 7:30, if that counts as a sleep in) and worked late. I did my run on Wednesday instead, a nice long run in the early evening light down to the Tate Modern Gallery and back. An 11km run dodging cars, pedestrians, cyclists and stop start at most of the traffic lights. But, even with all this, it is a favourite run of mine, one that I used to do regularly but haven't for a while, I have been favouring the Hampstead Heath / Highgate Westhill run instead but maybe that is to change.

Here is the Garmin link ----> Tate Modern out and back run

Back in the UK

Had a good week in France, plenty or R & R and training too. Monday and Tuesday I put in 30 mins on the rower and some gym work followed by 30 min runs. Wednesday I went to the beach with the wetsuit and did some OW swimming, under estimated how hard this was going to be as I haven't done any OW since last June. The Mediterranean was a lot colder than I had expected and it was a windy rough day. So, 20 mins in the sea. A nice reminder of what it is like and that I need to do some more OW swimming, which I will be doing from May time.
Friday I went on a long ride, up the Col De Vence ( a cat 1 TdF climb) and then down to Cagnes and along the sea front to Nice and then back. Here is the link ---> Col De Vence Ride

Back in the UK now and back into training. Today is Bank Holiday Monday so a good chance to put in a good effort and get back into my usual routine, if I ever had one?! I went to RP to put in a Med-Hard 40km timed effort, not a TT or all out but not far off. I had hoped for a better performance but the real test will be in a couple of months when I have done a lot more speed work. The link includes the ride to and from Regents Park, if you want to see my 40km effort click on the 'Splits' option and click on the middle split. Here is the link ----> Regents Park 40km effort

The coach who normally does the run session on Tuesdays at Millfields Park is away for a couple of weeks so I will be off out running tomorrow to do my own running session.