Kevin's Training (And Adventures) Diary of 2023

A quick addition to review where I am and what is left for me to do before the end of the year. I have a holiday the first week, and a holiday the last week, so I have time. But I have other things on so depends how many other adventures we get up to in that time.  Running.  I have 119 miles to go. That is 3.8 miles a day. Definitely do-able, but I need to either do every day in a Marcothon style, or put in a bunch of decent distance runs.  Biking. I have 200 miles to go. That is 6.5 miles a day. Again, do-able, but a marcothon approach isn't going to work for that. I don't have the commitment to get on the turbo every day. I also still need to ride 12 new routes or trails so I need to toughen up and go outside in the cold and get some longer rides in. Mountain biking I am not going to make, but have known that for months and basically haven't ridden that bike since I snapped the frame in Italy.  Swimming. I have 15.9 miles still to swim. This one looks ambitiou...

Last proper race of the year done.  I had a decent day out at Dundee Aquathlon. Swam 12:20 for 750m in a lane where there was a lot changing going on between the other athletes. Then ran a 19:30 for 5k on a lumpy course in the cold and rain. Neither are my best, but for this point in the season I am happy with both.  I also went out with Slioch and did a 23:17 Parkrun. We could probably have gone faster, but I arrived late and had to skip my warm up, and by the point in the race that I felt I could go, he had decided to settle at the slower pace.  A bit short on the bike as I missed a spin session and the weekend was so grey and cold that I decided not to bother going out as much as I had planned.  I also ran just about enough to keep my backlog shrinking (by half a mile over the two weeks).  My big win was in the pool though. I did two near-hour-long swims at the weekend to clear more than half of my swim backlog, and at the same time took me to my second longe...

How did we get to week 45 already?! I have had a couple of good weeks. I have put in a lot of miles, with some of them at decent speeds. I have picked off some little bits of backlog, but with the increase in the base numbers that comes from the s-curve on my plan, they are not making quite the impact I had hoped.  I effectively have to do these, from now until the end of the year, and some extra cycling, just to hit my targets. I would also have to go on a serious binge of the smaller session to catch them up. I have the space to do that, and it looks like my only remaining race this year will be Dundee Aquathlon next Saturday as I might miss the remaining cross-country races in an effort to use up my remaining holidays in a more fun way.  I need to get out on the mountain bike more. This is just a case of toughening up and going out in the cold and wet rather than hiding on the turbo trainer and the spin bike. I do need to sort out the dropper post on my fancy mtb, but that ...