SUPRISE, thrills, spills, strength and pain! Oh and my BDAY!

I need to start this blog by saying I had one of the most incredible weekends of my life, I past my Masters officially (finally), confirmed I will be moving into my first house (still renting), has my highest every finish in the Birmingham XC league and man alive they are fast, rode very well at a local cycling race/reliability (race not a race, those cyclist crack me up), but most of all I had the best pre-birthday present ever. My amazing girlfriend got together all of my friends and surprised me with a bday party! I was clueless! amazing night......still overwhelmed. Just all in all a very happy and successful 3 days! But not now have the fatigue to battle with, with any true hard, grit your teeth effort there is always DOMs, this is the hard part to deal with. I really don't like being fatigues, find it hard to deal with the rest of the world when I feel like this, work and socializing are tough. I just want to train and sleep and get through it and out the other side.

Now the Winter is defiantly here and the temperature is here there and everywhere. At the moment things look like they are improving and this is a good sign as race season is almost here. I'm excited to now think about racing multi-sport again. I have had some ups and downs during the winter like most I imagine and now want to come out of it and see if training has pain off, all the sweat dripped on the spin class floor, the cold hands and feet when outside on the bike and running the icy paths combines to make me stronger and faster.

Birmingham League XC - Malvern Cycle sport reliability 

Racing in the Birmingham top division this year has been some experience. The quality has been unreal, the winner of 2 of the races has been Phil Wylie who is possible the best pro duathlete in the UK at the moment finishing 7th at the duathlon world champs last year. This weekend Tom Lowe http://www.tomlowe.org http://triathlete-europe.competitor.com/2012/02/16/interview-tom-lowe who is a fantastic athlete finished 28th at the weekend just to put into perspective the quality of the field.

I was able to produce my best performance in a XC race to date, the race the last XC of the season so alot of people wanted to end on a high. The pace set off fast as usual, and continued to be for the first lap. I was somehow able to keep with a high pace and felt fine, just felt like I was able to sustain a good pace (dont get me wrong  blowing). I was able to continue this throughout the race and after 20mins find my rhythm as usual, after this I was then able to push on and keep pushing through to the finish! I was up with runners that I havent even seen before so this showed that I was going faster than previous races and finished strong with a 56th place, which was a fantastic finish to the XC season. Worcester the team I race for dont have a deep quality racing team but they are great bunch of guys and I love to race for and with them and have enjoyed the season although it has been tough and we have unfortunately been relegated to the second tear (kinda nice to think I will be able to push for a high finish next year). All in all a very successful race.

http://www.birminghamccleague.co.uk/

Finally it came to a weekend when I was able to make a reliability (cycle race, not a race, most certain a race), due to weather, commitments, illness, fatigue or whatever has got in the way so I was very keen to finally be able to ride and see if all the cycling/spin and measured effort etc had actually been working. My legs were tired due to the XC race and there was an opportunity to ride with a very fast group who were aiming to do the 52 miles in sub 2.20 (they did 2.18), But never the less I went with the 2.45 group. We actually finished the ride in 2.22, not shabby and very fast. With two major climbs that I knew very well I always felt that I was going to be able push up them and keep the pace, which is exactly what happened. Although I have been working hard indoors recently, you still have major doubt in you mind that you might not be able to transfer this to the road and or be able to sustain it for the duration of 50 miles plus. But the race went well and I held on to be in the final group throughout the race, which I was very pleased about.

https://www.strava.com/activities/252698695

Pre Bday suprise

Well this had to be one of the most amazing things if not the most amazing thing that has happened to me, I was expecting to go out for dinner and enjoy a nice quite night with my girlfriend. Dinner for two to celebrate my birthday this coming weekend 14th Feb!

But oh no......We walked into restaurant and then towards the back rooms, which was all fine and I didnt suspect anything, until.....the curtains we drawn and then pulled back and all my friends were there.....SURPRISE!!! what an amazing thing, I literally was overwhelmed and replying to people saying happy birthday with the same back to them. I was literally lost for words and still am completely. My girlfriend has helped me through some kinda hard times the past month or so, and we are not every closer. I love her to the end of the world, she gets annoyed at how tired I am, how many hours I train, but completely understands........well most of the time anyways.

So a Fantastic training and racing weekend, and I am sitting here writing this extremely fatigued, very hungry (even after just eating), sugar and coffee free.....for the moment, thinking I am never going to feel normal again hahahaha dam fatigue!!!



 Too true!!