Things didn’t quite go to plan after my end of season break. As soon as I started trying to come back to some training I got an injury in my foot (plantar facitius). Then on top of this I had quite a spectacular crash on my mountain bike, momentarily knocking myself out, injuring my shoulder and fracturing a rib which combined with my foot injury left me unable to swim or run so I was confined to spinning lightly on the turbo for weeks. Then to top it all off, just as I was thinking of starting to cycle properly again I got a cold which developed in to a chest and ear infection. I was in a pretty bad way when I arrived back to Milton Keynes after spending the Christmas holidays back home in Ireland but its best to get these things out of the way now rather than mid season!
Although it was only December/January I couldn’t help feeling so far behind on all of my winter training. I was missing out on all the base miles and strength work that I felt I should be doing. What made things worse was looking at other athletes tweets, blogs and facebook updates about how well their winter training is going. I decided to stop thinking about what others were doing and to accept that everything happens for a reason and I wasn’t meant to be fit or training properly. In fact when I think back to last year I remember how fit I was in January and to be honest I was far too fit. I was flying in January, February and March especially at some early season Duathlons and by the time it came to July I was pretty tired. This year things are shaping up a little differently and I definitely wont be the one who’s flying in the early part of the season this year!
One thing that kept me going was the thought that I would be going on a training camp in Lanzarote in early January plus the fact that we would be staying at the amazing Tri Sports Lanzarote Villa (http://www.trisportslanzarote.com/). An all inclusive training camp in the sunshine…. Just what I would need to get myself patched up and back in to shape!