Week Nine Dec 18th – Dec 24th

Bad week for training, first of all was traveling back to japan Wed – Friday with bad weather causing delays, then coming down with the cold/throat virus that seems to afflicted half the population. Very little done and what I did do was laboured and slow.. motivation is low, results going backwards, so this will be a brief report to keep negativity down.

As an aside, this is written on Sunday 24^th Dec, but posted on 26^th – pleased to say that after few of days’ rest, things looking much brighter – more to follow shortly)

Mon
Swim – 4 x 100 warm up
4 x 25 hard, 4 x 50 hard, 6 x 200 paddles, pull buoy and band, 3 x 100 easy c/d

Well that was the plan but having no paddles  or band and in 16m pool, meant this was a bit of a mongrel workout, but got it done and enjoyed. Was still feeling relatively ok.

Gym, 60 mins strength work. Beginning to feel bit weak as the effects of the illness start to show.

Tuesday
Bike turbo
15 mins warm up
6x 6 seconds max effort off 54 rec
6 x 10 max effort off 50 sec rec
6 x 30 seconds max effort off 30 sec rec
6 x 1 min max effort off 1 min recovery
10 mins cool down

My long trip back starts Wednesday so was happy to slip in a training session beforehand. Did this on a spin bike in training shoes, which was very different! I have fallen in love with intervals so enjoyed this, even if only at 70%, as illness bites.

Wednesday – Friday
Travelling

Saturday
Swim. Can feel the cold/throat, not killing me but very tired, which along with the jet lag after 3 days of travel is making life tough Went to pool to try and knock out the 3 x 800m. Was feeling shitty, only managed two for 1.6km and gave up.
Long Run – tried again in evening to get back on track with a run. Was terrible, slow and painful, my legs felt like lead. Did 50mins at 5:59 pace, felt like I had done a marathon.

Sunday
Was planning to do the bike, but exhausted just getting out of bed,  decided I’m better served trying to rest and get better. This Christmas will be spent sniffing and sleeping.

I am really hoping I start to feel better by Tues, as that will be the last 4 days to train before I have to head back to Europe, and will have crazy period travelling again

Need to rethink my plans, it’s really hard to get training done with all this travel, especially it has a habit of making me run down and susceptible to illness Also become acutely aware that there I no way I will complete my challenge to qualify for South Africa HIM finals, so motivation is all at sea.

And what should be the start of a huge adventure gets even more complicated as I don’t have anything set up in Spain yet (yes, my big plan to train in warm weather for the winter is here, should be about excitement and ambition, right now I am on too much of a downer to even ensure I have access to a bike).

One good thing is my knee has had a chance to recover, so swelling has gone down a bit. Yay, should be happy for small mercies!

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