It's been a bit of a mixed bag for me since my last post. Christmas has been and gone along with my training plan for the holidays. I had high hopes of racking up some miles whilst off work, but, that fell by the wayside when I pulled a muscle in my back. This meant I only got out for a couple of rides before Christmas, before having an enforced week off. I then managed to get a good week of training in during the first week in January before I pulled another muscle, this time in my neck. I am currently on another few days off due to this neck injury.

There were a couple of good points over the last month. I finally managed to get out on the road and put some miles in. I had reasonably good speed at 25 kph riding endurance and a heady 27 kph riding threshold. Since I haven't started threshold training yet this was no real surprise.

Prior to my neck injury I had manged to complete 4.5 hours of endurance training and 45 mins of threshold training in one week, which was my best week so far. Hopefully, once my neck has sorted itself out I can get back into a good training routine and get some good miles in.

I've also got a retest with Dr. Garry Palmer on the 9th of February, so, I'll be able to confirm I'm still training in the correct zones.

3 Month Check Up.

We've had a busy week, or so. Last weekend we had a birthday party for Kirsten and the other eight babies from our NCT (National Childbirth Trust) group. We all had a lovely afternoon, with party games (for the adults) and soft play for the kids. Kirsten is teething again, so our sleep is a bit disturbed at the moment, last night she kept us awake for three hours between 12:30 and 3:30. She has had another tooth come through and a second is very close, so, obviously causing her some discomfort. Added to this the fact that Kirsten only wants me during the night, means, that noone is getting much sleep at the moment.

The low point of the last few weeks was definitely yesterday. We went to BCH for Kirsten's three month post op check. We were under the assumption that this was mearly a formality, as she has been doing so well. Unfortunately during the scan Dr. Stumper found that the artery from her heart to her right lung is restrictive (we knew after the operation that there was a slight restriction to her right lung) and causing the blood to back flow into her heart. This, unfortunately, means she will need another operation in March to widen the artery. This operation will not be as major as the previous one, as it's not open heart surgery this time. She will need to have a catheter inserted and a balloon used to expand the artery to reduce the restriction. This all sounds very straight forward, and we have been told not to worry about it, as it's not urgent, but, it has brought us all down a bit and put a dampner on things.

We are all looking forward to Christmas now. Kirsten loves all the lights and decorations and squeals every time she sees a Christmas tree. We will have fun next year when she is walking, I think the Christmas tree may get undecorated many times.

Training Week 7

Week seven of following Dr Palmer's training plan and I have successfully met my initial target weight of 79.9Kgs. I am still doing all my training on the turbo trainer, but, I am now increasing the duration again, this means I don't really have an opportunity to have an early night, which would be handy sometimes. I've also borrowed a speed and cadence sensor from Steve, so should have a measure of my improvement from the endurance training over the coming weeks.

So, next step in Dr Garry's training plan is to add a threshold training session once a week. Clearly this is going to hurt a lot more than the training I am used to, however, it's for a shorter duration. I will need to do this until January and then I will need to have another session with Dr Garry to readjust the training to better match my, hopefully, better cardiovascular fitness.

I still haven't managed to get back out onto the road to see what benefits the training is giving to my real pace. Hopefully I can get out for a ride before Christmas. If I'm able to ride endurance on the route to and from work, then I may start commuting again, as this would mean the training will have a smaller impact on my time at home and means I can go to bed earlier. Currently it's taking me nearly half an hour to drive to work due to the traffic queues caused by the high numbers of staff on site.

This is all great planning, but, currently the things I plan never work out that way, so, I'll just have to play it by ear and see what happens.