Got my backside in gear a little more this week and started doing some turbo work. The bike is definitely my worst discipline so it needs the most work. Coupled with the fact its the one that also covers the most distance, I really do need to concentrate on it. At the minute, I’m just doing some turbo sessions to get some miles into my legs, I’ll start properly with a structured training plan after Christmas.

I’ve also got an off road bike now, and I’ve been messing about on that. Its good fun in the mud, harder work than on the road, or at least it feels like it is. Its also helping with my biking skills which need all the help they can get.

The one thing I have started properly is my swimming. I used to be quite a strong swimmer in my younger days and I’ve been quite impressed how I’ve been able to pick it back up. I’ve done the IM distance of 2.4 miles a couple of times in the pool, so the swimming is probably the one I’m most confident about, which is usually the opposite for most triathletes.

The thing I’ve noticed most is for the majority of my swims, my time hardly changes for whatever distance I do. I’m generally locked into the 2 minutes per 100 metre speed, and just keep at that all the way through my swim, regardless of distance. I need to try and gain some advantage going into the cycling so if I can gain 5 minutes on the swim, that’s me hopefully a couple of kilometres or so up the road from everyone who will be much better cyclists.

I’ve signed up for a 6 month training plan, and looking at it, the best way to increase speed is interval work. Oh good I thought, so after an hour in the gym on Wednesday, I still had an hour and a half to kill so I did some swimming intervals. It was hard work but hopefully if I keep it up, I’ll feel the benefit. I did a warm up of 600 metres, then 10 100 metre swims with a 45 ish second break between them, followed by a 400 metre warm down. I wasn’t sure what time to aim at with the 100 metre swims, so aimed at 1 minute 45 seconds. The pool was a little busy but only had to take avoiding action once thanks to a couple of older ladies just bouncing up and down the pool. They managed to create quite a swell as well, so it wasn’t just a nice, calm pool!! All my swims bar the one I mentioned above were below 1.45, in fact 7 were below 1.40 so next week, I’m aiming to keep all below 1.40.

Really felt like I’d been in a session when I got out, which I guess means it did some good!!