Senior to Vet

Training over the last couple of weeks has been nicely chilled out, low intensity, and generally just ticking over before starting my next big training block later in November.

Sunday 14th October saw me run my last race as a 'Senior', it was my local Half Marathon, The Great Eastern Run. Always nice to be able to run out of your front door to the start line as part of your warm up. I had no big aspirations about the race, but thought it would be nice to try and beat my number (55). All went well on the day and I ended up with 51th, a new PB of 1:17:01 and a nice negative split. A nice happy ending to racing as a senior.

Sunday 28th October saw my first Vet 40 running race, the Fenland 10 mile. A flat, but exposed course. I didn't have the best preparation, after a lovely surprise birthday meal on the Friday night with friends and family, I was up early (well not too early) on Saturday morning to get a steady 50 miles in on the bike. After about 30miles my gears weren't shifting to well, I looked back to check out the rear mech and the next thing I know, I'm on my backside in the middle of the road, with only a couple of bruised ribs and a grazed knee, I was lucky. So Sunday morning I was feeling a little battered but had a nice steady run of 58:26 to finish 7th. Not a bad Vet 40 debut.

Next year's race plan is starting to take shape, firstly with the Virgin London Marathon. Then with my main focus back on Ironman, I've entered IM France as my first 'A' race of the year this is in Nice on the 23rd June. As a build up race I've entered IM 70.3 Mallorca, this will be my 3rd visit to race on the Island and I'm looking forward to ripping it up again, this year without the pressure of qualifying for the World 70.3 Champs, this year I have new goals !!!!

Oh and my 2013 ride has finally arrived ... 

Can't wait for the guys at TFN to get it built up for me.... watch this space ... :-)