Catching up

Again, I am somewhat belatedly catching up with myself.  I've just had two weeks off work (and still two more working days to come) and I'd planned lots of training and blogging about it but somehow other things got in the way.  Mainly I was very tired after a busy few weeks which meant that when I stopped I didn't have the energy to do the things that I wanted to (like a solid week of training!). 

I still managed a few good sessions in my first week off which was spent at home.  I did an awesome 5k run in the sun one day which made me feel brilliant when I realised that this time last year I hadn't even started Couch to 5k (and then made me feel a little anxious as by this time next year I'll have run a half marathon!).  I also headed over to Richmond outdoor pool (about 80 minutes drive away) to meet up with my Tuna Friend Fiona for a swim.  We met via twitter when we were both doing the inaugural Eton 10k last year and have kept in touch since.  We enjoyed swimming in the sun and doing some drafting/sprinting drills in the virtually empty pool.

Then Mr Tuna and myself were off on our summer holiday in Cornwall.  We've come down to the Festival of Sport in Marazion which is this weekend.  We were excited to visit an area of Cornwall new to us and also have the chance to recce bike/run routes etc.

Unfortunately this didn't quite work out as planned either.  Owing to the hills.  Now Oxfordshire isn't exactly flat, and there were hills on my recent 40 mile sportive, but they weren't anything like these hills.  On our first day we joined in with a 20 mile sportive and it took as long as the recent 40 miles owing to a huge amount of stopping and starting and walking down hills.  On the second day we recced the bike route for our tri's this weekend - one lap for my Olympic Distance and two for Mr Tuna's half ironman.  I was nearly in tears and we were only driving around!  It was constantly up and down and the roads were quite narrow.  After a lot of agonising, I decided that with two swim races to go after this weekend, I didn't want to beat myself up and need a fortnight's recovery from the 40k bike ride and that even though 750m swim make a sprint tri seem a little pointless to me (hardly worth putting the wetsuit on) I would switch to that distance.

On the plus side, the increasing discomfort of my bike as revealed by the hills led to drastic action in the form of a trip to Cornwall Cycles for new handlebars.  The very helpful guy in the shop couldn't believe that there were such wide bars on a woman's bike!  He kindly fitted me with new bars, a short stem and wonderful pink handle bar tape whilst we had a cup of coffee.  I can't say that it really improves my ability to get up the hills but I feel so much more comfortable and natural and it's easier to do hand signals so I may even manage to take a drink sometime soon!

Some good swimming has been done.  On the way down we stopped at Bude Sea Pool and I had a lovely paddle around for an hour.  Mr Tuna found it a bit chilly without his wetsuit which he'd left in the car, and I certainly got brain freeze when I put my single-hatted-head into the water.  But it was a beautiful location, and I managed 5 minutes in without my wetsuit at the end!



We also visited Penzance Leisure Centre which had an unexpectedly nice pool with very well trained lane users who let faster people past without question!  Always a bonus.

Today is the first day of the Festival of Sport.  Mr Tuna set off on his 100k sportive at 9am whilst I remain at the holiday cottage making his birthday cake (which with its sporting theme will no doubt merit a mention on here).  I've got a 3k swim race round St Michael's Mount at 2pm.

Sorry for the long update!  Hopefully tomorrow whilst I'm watching Mr Tuna do his first half ironman after my sprint tri I'll have time to write about today's swim and tomorrow's tri.  Til then!