Winter is coming…

Its taken ten weeks but I’m now back to reality after IM Wales. I’m also back to training after a near 7 week break, which saw me find inspiration for this blog post after becoming totally addicted to Game of Thrones! I am now nearly up to date at series 5 and have been as consistent with watching the series as last seasons training!

The time after Wales with all the support and congratulations has been phenomenal and I never expected so many people to be interested and to give such support. My employers, Syngenta, have been fantastic and extremely generous. Firstly they wrote a report for the intranet site we have and posted this Worldwide through all our sites. The report was also published in the local paper, The Examiner and the report is now laminated on my Mums fridge! Syngenta Huddersfield have also offered sponsorship for the event next year. The full registration cost which I paid the day after the race has been covered, so I can’t thank Carl Sykes enough for this support. Raceskin kit for next year will include the company logo and will be on my kit to go to Hawaii.

I started back training around 3 weeks ago and the weather was unusually warm for the time of year, I managed most of my bike rides in bibshorts and jacket or gilet, I even had some runs in shorts. In the last couple of weeks reality has struck and with Britain now categorising its weather systems I have seen Abigail and Barney and winter is definitely coming! To combat this I’ve made some purchases this year. The Specialized winter boots I have bought are faultless. I have messed about for the last couple of years with overshoes and they are fiddly and usually only last one winter. What a treat these are, boa wires are easy to tighten and the velcro straps make everything water tight.

I have move into the Raceskin long gloves now and the quality of these are exceptional. Roubaix top which is comfortable and warm then a soft leather like grip which is a really top quality touch. There not waterproof but for the cold dry days there perfect.

I have received the phase plan for next year and again I am going to have focus on improving my swim, the Hawaii swim is non-wetsuit usually and I need to be as strong for this discipline as I can be. There will be more focus on the bike in the coming months with extra targeted and quality work planned on the Computrainer. Running I will be ticking over and looking to hold the same level through the winter. When spring comes the emphasis will split back across the three disciplines.

The next few weeks will be testing current fitness and setting the benchmarks for improvement. I competed in the Abbey dash 10k race last week and can happily say I’d rather race Ironman than run 10k week in week out! There tough but with a 37.13 finish time when the weather was less than ideal its a good starting block for 2016. I am booked into a swim workshop with TTC to look for all the things I’m doing wrong, so I could be there a long time. Then there will be a FTP(functional threshold power) test. For everyone that’s ever done a FTP test you will know how horrible they can be so something to look forward to there.

I have started to plan some races into next year with season opener likely to be Slateman in Wales. I have also entered the Leeds ITU event. A local one for me and a chance to test myself against the best in the world. I will be looking to add a couple of half IM races to this then the build to Kona..

..So winter is coming but lots of things to look forward including Christmas :-))

Massive thanks for the continued support of Raceskin and TTC and the support of all at Syngenta Huddersfield.