Game on

First tri of the season on Monday! GAH!

It's been a long time coming and I've actually been training since December.  Consistently.  Unlike any of the races I've done before.  However, due to social obligations I didn't have any long sessions at all last weekend and due to wanting a rest day this week, there's none this weekend either - just a bimble down to the sprint bike leg, a spin around it, a swim and then a bimble home again.  That will have caused a bit of dropoff in endurance, but hopefully not in the power/speed that I've been doing a bit of training on.

I'm really quite excited.  I'm hopeful of an appreciable improvement on the bike leg.  I've been doing some structured training around power and endurance on the bike which has made one heck of a difference to my hill climbing and my distance capability.  But if there's a course change on Monday due to the stupid roadworks that have been on the Thames Turbo course for months, there's no comparison with previous races.  And that'll be annoying.  I crave benchmarks and comparisons to tell me how and if I'm improving.  I'm hopeful of a strong swim that's less draining than before for the same speed.  And I have no idea about the run, but there are three factors at play there; lots of long slow running, a change in running style to stop heel striking, and a bunch of speed/power work.  So it's hard to tell whether I'll be slower or faster there.

There is a 5km "time trial" for me tomorrow morning (a parkrun - probably Roundshaw) which should give me some idea of run speeds for Monday - my first all-out 5km in a very long time as I've been doing either 15km+ runs or really short intervals sessions for the last couple of months.  So we'll see about that in the morning.