Kevin's Training (And Adventures) Diary of 2023

I ran a marathon last weekend. Probably not the best idea so close after three world champs races, but it fitted in with the weather and Lorna's work. Also not well planned in terms of prep as the previous day I an a 20:44 5k with the dog, swam 2.2k, and rode wy good road bike outside for the first time this year.  I had planned to do it this weekend in Edinburgh, but I forgot to enter, and the charity place I found as a back-up only had Half-Marathon spaces and didn't realise until they sent me their entry form. I did just run it solo and self-supported. It was wet when I started and I didn't quite realise how wet my socks got early on. I had purposefully carried spares as a precaution, but didn't change them when the route dried and by mile 15 I had some blisters. I did then stop and change but it was too late. The dry socks slowed the growth a little bit, but I was still reduced to a couch-to-5k style walk-jog-walk-jog for most of the last 5-miles.  I managed a marat...

So the last fortnight was dominated by racing really well in Ibiza, and then attempting to recover, completely failing to recover, and then racing really badly at the North District Championships. I managed to rack up another win in the 400m Hurdles, but I think it was the worst time I have ever run. I also managed to damage my hip in the process and ran a frankly terrible 5k on the back of it.  A lot of the failure to recover had been from the stress of my car not starting when we got back from holiday and a week later there has been no progress on that, and from work and job interviews.  I have somehow managed to fall quite far behind on running miles despite putting 6 running races in to the last fortnight, but my plan to run a marathon distance some time this month should cut that in half before my next update. More of a problem is that I am suddenly behind on swimming and with Bucksburn pool closing I am going to struggle to keep up my planned mileage, never mind catch up...

This was back on the savage course from the Cross Duathlon two days earlier.  I purposefully held back on the swim. I started at the back of the pack and then gradually moved through the field as we went. I managed to get in behind the group for a bit and was getting towed along nicely out through the tide and swell, I then lost touch with them as we made the first turn but got into a separate group with three of us working as our own mini pack and gradually passing some of the younger age groups as we made our way back in.  I came out of transition with my fastest ever 1,000m swim time, but feeling fairly relaxed having not over-worked in the water. It was a very long transition and again I was pretty clean through transition, although I did stop for socks and a drink, and was comfortable going out on to the bike.  The bike was not quite the course from the Duathlon but was 98% the same. The 'dangerous' section that they took out was a bit that I had no problems on and a...

This was one of the most savage courses I have ever run on. A lot of the "run" was actually a scramble along the rocky Ibiza beach, other bits were sliding through scree, two sections were even run across topless beaches.  I purposefully held back on the first run. The start video shows me just tootling along at the back of the pack. I knew it was going in to a bottleneck about 250m round the corner and everyone was going to be walking at that point. I arrived just as that queue was clearing and managed to just roll gently in to the climb and gradually started working my way through. I came off the run just behind two of my GB team-mates who I had expected to drop several minutes on. I was pretty clean through transition and was comfortable going out on to the bike.  The bike was not the most savage course I have ever ridden, but it was close. I had ridden every part of it successfully during the recce but obviously others hadn't. Some of the climbs and twists were spitti...

I had a decent swim. The clock suggests that it was slow, but actually I think it was long (more evidence for this comes with the Cross Triathlon result.  I wasn't in the lead pack but I was still in with plenty of my age and we caught a chunk of the younger group that had a 5 minute start on us. I was managing to draft well with the guys around me and I also came out of the water around swimmers who would normally be long gone as I arrived in transition.  Official swim time was 20:02, but I have it on garmin as 1,257m and plenty of people had longer than that. I was out in 32nd place in my age- group (237th overall). I then had an absolutely storming run. I think 19:09 is my fastest ever 5k in a multi-event race. I basically spent the whole race going past people. And took a whole load of first time victories over other GB athletes.  I posted the 14th fastest run time, hauling myself up to 23rd overall and 6th GB. That seems initially like a drop from last years 12th pla...