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End of season recovery time
Things have been pretty quiet for me on the blog front since the 24hr World Solo Champs and it is because I haven’t really done all that much. Most of the following week was spent in Sydney before the horrible 25hr flight home. The 2 weeks that followed were also very quiet, I rode my bike if I felt like it, which was maybe once or twice!
I have tried to keep myself fairly active though, starting to play Squash again for the first time in about 10 years. It is a great sport and it is nice to do something a little different, although the risk of injury is a little higher than most sports but I try not to think about that. I’ve also been running a bit, mostly off-road thanks to my awesome new Salomon Speed Cross 2 shoes and even entered a 6.5 mile race a few weeks ago. I finished the hilly and muddy course in 45:47 which was far better than I expected but I suffered with sore legs for almost a full week afterwards!
After a great introduction to cyclo-cross last season, where I even managed to win a round of the Welsh CX series I was hoping to continue where I left off. Unfortunately after a few weeks of very little cycling my legs have not really been up to the task and of the 3 rounds that I have entered I have struggled to finish as strongly as I had hoped. I have had two 5th place finishes in the Senior men category and as each round progresses I am slowly feeling better but I had hoped to be doing much better. I’ve made the decision to enter the Welsh CX champs in early December, so hopefully I’ll have a better race there!
At the moment I am not really “training” for several reasons. I always take a break around this time of year to recover physically & mentally after what has been a very long and hard year. Right now I don’t know exactly what races I will be entering, but my main focus will probably still be 24hr solo races, hopefully including the World Championships again. Doing the Grand Raid Cristalp gave me a taste of what races there are outside of the UK and I would love to do more of the ultra-marathons that are about.
Although it is still 2010 I have a few upcoming races that will be the start of my 2011 season build-up, starting with the Brass Monkeys 4hr enduro races. I’ve also had my arm twisted to enter the Strathpuffer 24hr, an event that I promised I’d never enter! What is more I have entered it as a pair, which is something else I said I would never do again after a tortuous 24hr pairs race I did way back in 2005! 17hrs of darkness, perhaps sub zero temperatures and a fair chance of snow and ice – should be fun!!
By the next time I update my blog I will hopefully be stuck into winter base training with plenty of motivation ready for another long and hard year on the bike!
