The Winds of Change

There has been a debate raging within my tri club about changing, or not, the club kit and design. This was fuelled by an after-swim-in-the-pub-conversation between members started by Anne-Marie a few weeks ago.

There are some who are against changing and some who are for - I stated my case early to say that I am in the latter school of thought. I think the current design is too cartoony (see picture of me stripping off at 2008's Vitruvian aside) and doesn't portray the club as a serious club. Some members, regretably, just don't like change, which is a shame because surely that's what makes our society so rich and diverse. But, then again, I suppose we do live in a democracy so everyone is entitled to express their own point of view.

This Sunday, on a windy football pitch in Edlesborough, my (and Adam's) team (EB Lions Under 11's) managed their first point of the season in what was a thrilling bottom-of-the-table clash against Dunstable Colts. 1 - 0 up at half time, we found ourselves 2 - 1 down until the dying seconds when we equalised.

The look of joy on my players' (and their parents') faces when the ball went flying in was priceless - it was their FA Cup Final and testament to their tremendous hard work at training in recent weeks. Now we've got our first point under our belt things are gonna change - I can feel it in my water - and the boys' new found confidence is going to take them flying high for the rest of the season. Things have changed for them, and most certainly for the better.



I haven't really put my heart and soul into training for the last couple of weeks. I had told myself that I would ease back into things gently, but all this half-heartedness isn't really doing me any good. OK, I am enjoying the mountain biking immensely, but I think this is simply a tactic to delay getting back into serious training.

I need to get back onto the open roads, onto the turbo trainer, into spin classes, if I am going to make head-roads (no pun intended!) into my bike times next year. And I need to do it quick because December and January are notoriously very, very busy months work-wise and training usually gets put back on the back-burner. Running too - I have a great plan set out for me by Mark K, but last week I did only one of the 5 planned sessions. It's simply not good enough, and things HAVE TO change. Things WILL change.

Here's what I did this last week:

Monday – swim - club swim - intervals and pyramids and run - interval pace run
Tuesday – rest
Wednesday – bike – night-time MTB ride at Ashridge with members of my tri club
Thursday – rest
Friday - rest
Saturday – run – easy, slow run at 9:20 m/mile
Sunday – bike - another thoroughly enjoyable MTB ride at Ashridge with A-M - it got dark quite quickly and our bike lights were totally inadequate so we retired to the pub after a couple of hours

I've done a quick mind-map of what I plan to do following my new-found vigour, but am having trouble uploading it - hopefully I will find a way of doing it during the week.

EDIT: Here it is:-



Bit of a mess, isn't it? It's at its initial stages at the moment so I will be expanding it over the coming week or two with a view to mapping out my entire season. With a little bit of flexibility mixed in there too, of course - the odd mountain bike here and there won't do any harm, I'm sure.

And those pesky kids get me on the runaround each week at training - that's enough exercise for one day, that's for sure!