My main training bike is in for a service and can you believe it they’ve discovered the frame is bent. Must have been from being knocked off just over 2 years ago. Slightly annoying because when it happened I went to Condor for replacement wheels and such like and asked them how to tell if the frame was bent. Based on what they said we decided it wasn’t. When I explained to the mechanic at Mosquito I’d been knocked off he described exactly where I must have been hit – he was bang on.

So, even though I’ve ridden it for a couple of years without a problem that may just be sheer luck so I don’t think it’s sensible to continue with this long term. Am I gutted ? Am I hell ! Yeh, I love the Merckx but I ride so much I knew I’d love to be on a much better bike. So… top of the list are an Independent Fabrication –  Ti or Ti/Carbon mix or a full carbon Parlee … at the moment I’m thinking the latter. A new bike will further enhance my motivation to get out.

I’ve had a good long sleep in this morning and a rest / early night last night. So after several days of hard training my resting HR is down at 38. Still a ways to go compared to last year but below 40 tends to be a good sign.

Tuesday night we did a turbo session. It went awesomely well. I was slightly nervous about it since I’d already done 8.5 hours training that day and it was a tough session with most of it at or above my 1 hour critical power level. I was just able to push out the power and am slowly increasing what I’m using as my LT power for these sessions. Now it seems I need to base it at about 290 watts. The final minute of the hard efforts I was holding 420 watts. Very pleased.

Wednesday was a 3 run day as is becoming standard. A paced run of 8.5 miles in the morning with Jo. Not as fast as we’d have liked as it was treacherous in the snow. At lunchtime I went out with Stephen. He is definitely  getting faster, it was cold so we set off at pace but it never eased off. It ended up faster than the morning run and we covered 9.5 miles. In the evening I jogged to and from swimming – so a 3 mile run sandwiched a 4k swim.

At swimming I drifted to the back of the fast lane. The times the guys were doing ahead of me were slower than what I used to knock out. One goal this year is to get back to those swimming levels ready for Kona. The past couple of years have seen me throttle back on the swimming to concentrate more training time on my cycling. It’s certainly improved my overal triathlon performances but my swimming has slowed. A target now is to bring it all together with super fast swimming as well.

Yesterday I so up for getting out on the fixed. It was very cold but I dressed appropriately and was perfectly comfortable. I managed 6 laps before meeting Jo and then Fiona. We kept a pretty steady pace throughout and for the last few laps I was able to push really hard for certain sections. felt really strong. Ended up getting 51 pre work miles in – awesome.

Despite achy legs I forced myself out to run at lunchtime. It was the day everyone gets told about promotions, salary etc… so we decided to reward ourselves with an extra lap of the park. Pleased with how I was running, managed to focus on trying to keep my running efficient for the 11 miles we were out.