This years three peaks & life after weddings.

I have no idea how this years three peaks is going to go. Back in May I was pretty fit then in June I felt I hadn't done all the training I needed to do for A Day in the Lakes. Still, I finished and in a time that showed I was a lot fitter than the year before. Despite that, my recovery period rolled into pre-wedding chaos with only a couple of weeks in between where I actually did some hill training.


At least from that point I had a solid base to take away on honeymoon, not to mention to return to in September when I got back to work.

We did a lot of endurance style training in Scotland which has pretty much convinced me that I will be able to finish the peaks, even if I don't do a good time. 2 munroes in 5 hours and 22km with heavy rucsacs counts doesn't it.

Knowing I wasn't going to have enough time to do a good job of the 3 Peaks, I decided the best way to get back to training through the winter was to set myself targets for the middle of winter, ie. The 'cross nationals which I haven't done for a couple of years, given my own lack of fitness and the risk of being pulled out after 20 minutes. This plan also gave me the opportunity to re implement the bike training I did when I dabbled in road racing without having to worry about too much running and swimming training at the same time.

I've been doing spinning and strength training for two weeks now and I have really enjoyed it. Despite it being short duration training, I discovered last weekend that it is having the desired effect and increasing my training endurance and my cyclo-cross at the weekend flew by in no time. Just as I was trying to decide whether to take a rest week or not, I have been hit by a massive, shitty cold exasserbated by the aspiration of a fly during the race on Sunday which has enforced the rest issue. Sadly it's coincided with a really important yet boring training course which I both really wanted to do but am finding very hard going.

Thursday Friday I intend to rest good and proper.

So with the culmination of good training, bad training and my head being in a pretty good place, it's difficult to know what might happen on Sunday.

I guess this like most other years will be a suck it and see hope I get around kind of event. I really hope there's another one next year.

In other news I have accepted an offer on my house in Wootton Bassett.  It is not what I wanted but from my reaction to the news I can deduce that not having a house in Wootton Bassett is what I want.  It's a lovely little house which I will miss but I don't use it anymore.

I accepted the offer reluctantly but now I am looking forwards to buying a house in Sheffield.  For some reason it feels like the grown up thing to do... despite the fact that the grown up thing to do is to hold onto it until the market comes around.

If I look at it this way:

"I will be the one living in the more expensive house - not Maureen"
Then it all feels OK.

It feels like a forwards step.  It feels like getting the HSBC off my back.  It feels like I won't have to fear that the under-cover rental operation will land me in trouble.  


C'mon Sheffield, come to Trep.