It’s almost the end of August, the end of the summer holidays, the kids are back to school next week and we get our new first year medical students too. It’s also my final (3rd?) attempt to peak my fitness for triathlon in 2015, which is probably tougher mentally than physically. I got it right the first time for the Welsh Champs, and felt like I did a pretty good job of recovering, training hard, and recovering again in the 3 week period between that race and the European Champs in Geneva. My performance there was pretty good, coming out of the swim with the winner in my age group, and biking a pretty good effort. I had a strategy to try to slow the raising of my core body temperature which turned out to be important as I picked up a bunch of places on the run. Ultimately the heat got to me and I went bang on the run with about 800m to go, but I’ve got some ideas of how I can prepare myself physiologically for future hot races. I wonder if I could have pushed the middle lap of the run harder, after hurting a lot on the first lap. Statistically the best part of my race was the swim. That’s never happened before. Maybe I’m getting somewhere in the water at last!
Tomorrow we’re off to XTERRA England in the Vachery Estate in Surrey for another camping weekend. I fixed the tent poles last night and bought some huge pegs after getting battered by winds in North Wales. XTERRA was great fun last year, for me and the family. The course is great, and it has a more relaxed feel with a big emphasis on fun. And beer. I wonder if it will be different this year, with a stronger field as it’s also the European XTERRA Champs this year. My biking legs have been good, I’ve done hardly any swimming, and my running legs are falling off but I’ll give it a good crack!