Back to the grindstone!

“Check back here in a few weeks” were my parting words from my last blog post. I’m not sure when a few weeks turned into a few months, but it clearly did, and the pain and suffering of my post-Brutal battered body is already a distant memory. I believe I also stated in that blog post that I was going to have some end of season down time… I am notoriously bad at doing this as, let’s face it, I have a few dependency issues where exercise is concerned and start to feel lazy and irritable after two days without any, but I believe I have managed to have my own version of an end of season break. It definitely isn’t the complete two weeks off that many triathletes indulge in, but I cut my training volume right back to just 7 hours a week and, crucially, the long bike rides were knocked on the head and I felt I only needed to do an hour before cutting straight to the coffee stop part! Crucially, my body does feel less tired and ready to tackle the next block of training, which starts in earnest today.

I mentioned that some changes were afoot in the Dominey camp. Well, after much deliberation, I have decided to enlist the services of a professional triathlon coach…. I didn’t need to look far as Matt’s cousin, Chris, is a professional tri coach and personal trainer, based in Cornwall, and so I am keeping it in the family and handing over the control of my training to him. Last week marked the first week of my plan but, as I was up in North Wales and wanted to take advantage of the mountains and get out and about in the hills, both running and on the bike, the rigid plan got tweaked a bit, so this week marks the start of my training regime proper. Having someone else tell me what sessions to do, when to do them, how long to do them for, at what pace, at what heart rate, at what effort level, represents a massive massive change for me. Up until now, I have always done as I pleased. I have never so much as followed a basic plan from a triathlon magazine or from a website. I haven’t even planned a week ahead. My previous method has been to wake up, see what the weather’s doing, see what I fancy doing, and do it. Yes, I made sure I included a couple of weekly swims, three or four bike rides and three or four runs, plus a modicum of S & C work in the form of yoga and core classes, but, largely, my weeks have been unstructured. This new regimented approach will take a lot of getting used to, not least because I am now accountable to someone who will instantly notice if I miss workouts, adapt them, or, more likely for me, add in extra sessions.

We are using the software Training Peaks to chart my progress. Chris uploads my workouts, I complete them, my Garmin syncs with my TP account (like it does with Strava) and Chris can instantly see all my data from the session: pace, H/R, time, distance etc. As its name suggests, this software helps Chris, as my coach, to help me to work towards crucial fitness peaks that will coincide with all my targeted races. Again, a completely new way of working for me as my previous approach has been to just maintain a high level of fitness all year round and then taper off before any big races, but otherwise do a similar training volume week in, week out, all year round. I have no doubt that the prioritising and peaking method will bring results; mostly, if it helps to curb my tendencies to over-train and prevents me from feeling so tired all the time and picking up the myriad of illnesses I seem to attract so frequently, then it will already be worth it. If it brings me more medals at next year’s championship races, then it will be super worth it!

We have already pencilled in a handful of target races, with the early season duathlon qualifiers kicking things off in February and March. I have already qualified for next year’s European Sprint Duathlon Championships courtesy of my silver medal in Soria last year, so a trip to Ibiza in October is a scheduled highlight of 2018. The World Duathlon Championships also take place in Europe next year, in Denmark in July, so they are a target too. However, as I seem to be more of an endurance athlete than a speed queen, we have decided to target the standard distance (10k run – 40k bike – 5k run) for the worlds, before dropping down to the sprint for the Euros. Nothing is a given though, first I have to qualify and that will be a tough ask in itself. With the qualifying race being in February, the weather could very easily be naff, and so I have a back-up race pencilled in just in case. Most of my training between now and then will be heavily weighted towards the cycling, to get this slightly weaker of the two disciplines up to scratch. My previous approach to cycling over the winter months has been to do a couple of spin classes a week and to get out on the bike whenever the weather is favourable. My new plan focusses more on quality turbo sessions (good job I still have several episodes of my Downton Abbey boxset to work through….), with twice weekly social rides and the occasional visit to the velopark in Torbay for some tempo rides.

We had discussed the viability of me moving up to Half Iron triathlons next year, as I coped well with the distance at the Brutal, but with the timings of the world dus in July and the Euros in October and the very different training patterns needed for them compared to half iron tri training, we felt that sticking to sprint triathlons next year and keeping the main focus on the duathlon is the way forward. This will also allow me another year to really work on improving my swim in order to be more competitive when I really do want to give the 70.3s a good crack.

All of the above comes with the caveat that we are trying for a mini-Dominey, and so the aforementioned plans may well be thrown out the window at any point… however, we have been trying for a mini-Dominey for the past two and a half years without success, so we are just carrying on with our lives as normal, making plans as normal, and if we have to scrap them, well, we won’t mind one iota. I simply cannot put everything on hold as, quite frankly, I will go mad without a focus to distract me. And to all the people who have commented – albeit in good faith – that I should maybe just cut back on the exercise as that might help, sadly, it won’t. Believe me, if it would, I would give it all up in a heartbeat. But even my GP says to keep training and keep my competitive focus as it helps me to cope with the huge range of emotions that comes with desperately wanting to do the most natural thing in the world to a woman, to become a Mum, and being unable to.

Yesterday I enjoyed a run out at one of my favourite local races, the Templer Ten. It's always been a happy hunting ground for me, having run it 4 times and won it 4 times, so I was thrilled to take a win there again yesterday. Despite not having trained beyond 6 miles all year, my body held together well and I managed the 10 miles without too much of a sufferfest in the closing stages. It's good to know that the running legs are still there, lurking beneath the chunky cycling thighs!! But that marks the end of the autumn fun and now it is head down and back to the training grindstone this week, then next week we are heading out to Madeira for a little spot of relaxation and winter sun, where my training focus will shift to swimming and running, before returning to a week of baseline testing sessions (including running and swimming time trials and the dreaded FTP test on the Watt bike). Using the data from these, Chris will then plan my next block of training. Working so precisely to heart rate and training zones is not something I have ever done before, I have always just gone on feel and rarely even worn a heart-rate monitor, but I trust him and his approach explicitly and, to be honest, it’s rather nice being told what to do for a change; it takes the pressure off me making my own decisions!

River crossing at around the 7 mile point of the Templer Ten.

Templer Ten - 1st lady for the fourth time in a row of running it. My lucky race!

In the meantime, enjoy a few piccies of my recent trip to stunning Snowdonia, where a few fell runs and bike rides were enjoyed, in amongst some prosecco swilling with Moira!

50 miler on the lovely flat, open, empty roads of Angelsey.

35 miler along the Straights estuary trail to Caernarfon.

This road (and accompanying view) featured on the Brutal bike course. Nice to be able to go back and ride along it at a sedate pace and take in the stunning view!