Race season is looming

After all the winter hard work, it will soon be race season for me. Training has changed several times over the past few months. During the depths of winter it was base training, long slow miles. In the spring this changed to pace work, and now its short sharp intervals and lots of brick sessions (bike-run... repeat as many times as necessary!) The focus now is training at race pace.

Periodised training is all very logical but always makes me feel like I am slacking! I have spent so long believing that you must ‘train you socks off’ that when I have a recovery week, or a pre race training week, I feel like I am being lazy! This all probably sounds quite illogical, if you knew my training schedule, but I am so used to having to cram everything in around my teaching job, my online jobs and family life.

The first World Qualifier race is coming up soon in Eton (22 May) and that is my first target race. I Time trialled my new TriUK sponsored Argon18 E112 last week, to test it out, and oh my goodness what a disaster! Before I even rounded the first corner the chain fell off, and half way round, I topped a hump backed bridge when the seat fell! So I did the remainder of the time trial half sitting, half standing, thinking, well, I would have to carry on if it was a qualifier wouldn’t I? This in itself is a momentous occasion for me: neither incident fazed me, yes: I was a bit peeved, but I completed the time trial, still in a reasonable time, and was not angry about the incidents that had occurred. Better there than in the warm up race I have next weekend, I decided. This time last year I would have completely lost it, and perhaps even not completed the race for fear of posting a rubbish time!

I have had a good solid winter season, and I am feeling confident about the races ahead. Yes, 5 races in 6 weeks, with the 6^th being the European Championships, is rather a daunting schedule, but I am confident that I as well prepared as I could be, and my mind set is much more improved, thanks to NLP and Kim Ingleby.

First warm up race next weekend (8^th May) – let the season commence!