In case anyone is thinking that I perhaps drowned in The Great North Swim - I didn't! I am still alive and very much kicking and one day soon I will get my act together and do a race report about it!
The problem is its coming up towards the end of the busiest term of the year in school and I can barely keep up with what I need to prepare for that, then mix that together with Tri Training, meetings and courses and I don't have enough hours in the day!
So a quick round up of the past 10 days!
The day after The Great North Swim I ran The Liverpool Rock n Roll Half Marathon. It was exceptionally windy and I was disappointed with my time but after Open Water swimming the day before I suppose it can only be expected! I will hopefully get a race report written about this one too very very soon!
On the Monday after Liverpool I did school running club and ran the cross country course with the kids and then immediately afterwards thought it would be a good idea to drive to Windermere and cycle around the lake! This is 27 very hilly miles and unsurprisingly my legs felt very tired and not very cooperative!
This is the bike route for the Windermere Tri, and I am not convinced I will be able to run 10K after cycling up those hills!
On Tuesday it was back to Windermere but this time for a swim in the lake from Cockshott Point with the Tri Club! Although it was quite a nice evening the lake was fairly choppy! Since we didn't have our usual kayak support with us we decided against crossing the lake and just swam parallel to the shore instead! We did just under a mile and then enjoyed cake and coffee afterwards!
On Wednesday I had another trip to Windermere for another swim in the lake, this time from Millerground with a friend. However, in my infinite wisdom I decided to combine this with a recce of the Windermere Tri Run route! The route is actually a 1 mile circuit repeated 6 times!
This could be exceptionally mentally challenging when exhausted after swimming and cycling on the day!
I successfully did 2 laps and then disaster struck towards the end of the third lap! I had a very painful twinge in my left calf! I stopped, stretched, walked for a bit and then tried to run again! But my calf was not going to play ball, so I hobbled back to the car and headed to Millerground in plenty of time to meet my friend to swim!
Although the lake didn't look it, it was frighteningly choppy, but I persevered and wouldn't let a few waves get the better of me! Its all good mental preparation for the day!
There was one point when I got ever so slightly anxious however - when a boat was heading straight towards us and from the way it kept coming I don't think it could actually see us despite having bright swim caps and tow floats with us! We decided it was probably a good idea for us to swim back towards shore just in case! I think we were probably hidden from view in the swell of the waves but thankfully we managed to swim to safety in time!
Again I swam just under a mile - seems to be my standard lake distance!
On Thursday my calf appeared to be OK so I decided to go for a little run to test it!
It wasn't OK at all, and I only managed half a mile before hobbling back home feeling very stressed and depressed!
I immediately made an SOS call to my physio who informed me he was on holiday until the 3rd July! How dare he be only holiday when I NEED him! However, I did manage to find an alternative physio and booked an appointment!
Fridat was a well needed rest day, and on Saturday I decided to test to see if my calf would object to a bit of pedalling and ventured out on my bike!
Thankfully, I felt no pain at all and managed 17 miles at an average speed of 14.3 MPH!
So with running being off the agenda completely, on Sunday I went for another ride, and did 33 miles at 15.2 MPH, which is a speed I am delighted with!
Last night I decided to have another go at cycling around Lake Windermere, and found it just as hilly and as hard as last week - but at least I now know where all the hills are and can prepare myself for them on the day! I even met a fellow lady cyclists part way round who was also doing a recce of the route for the tri! This time I did the 27 miles at an average speed of 14.3 MPH!
Tonight, I went to see the new physio! Thankfully, she doesn't think I have done any serious damage to my calf and after a good massage and some stretching exercises she thinks I will be good to run on it again on Thursday! Fingers crossed for that one!
Straight after physio it was back to Windermere to have another swim in the lake with the Tri Club from Cockshott point! There was 17 of us swimming tonight so we thought we would be OK to cross the lake with the kayak as support! After last weeks near miss with the boat I was feeling slightly anxious about being in the middle of the lake with nowhere to hide but it certainly made me swim faster to get back to the safety of the shoreline!
So all in all a very busy week and now just 11 days until my first standard tri!
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