Last blog entry was over a month ago.

In the time since my training has been up and down.
4 weeks ago my wife and I welcomed our latest (and third) little girl, Abigail Charlie.
I mention this as if it has been my achievement, however whilst it makes me incredibly proud to have yet another healthy child, I cannot claim ANY of the credit for the work that was involved in bringing her into this world. Nor can I use this event as an excuse for why training has been up and down. That is mostly a result of the ebb and flow that is my motivational level for anything associated with training.

The fact is that I don't really have a goal, well not an immediate goal. One of the problems of completing Ironman early in the year is that in my mind nothing is as tough as I had thought Ironman would be. Therefore my inherent laziness tends to win when a decision needs to be made to get out of bed when the alarm goes off at 5:30am rather than turn it off and roll over (after the obligatory 30 minutes of snooze-ing that must infuriate my wife).

Despite this I have had some spurts of inspiration where I have managed to cram in some decent training sessions. What tends to happen though, is that I know in the back of my mind that this inspiration will not last and that I need to make the most of it while I can, which invariably causes me to overtrain which tends to leave me exhausted and unable to do anything for the next 3 or 4 days until I repeat this process again. I know this is how injuries happen, so hopefully some more reasonable thinking can prevail in the new year.

I am looking forward to Christmas and the relative holidays that come with it. They generally mean a good balance of over indulgence and guilt-driven runs or rides squeezed in between.

I have made an impulsive purchase since my last blog, picking myself up a new road bike. A specialised tarmac expert to be precise. I'm not one for detail, so you would be lucky if I could tell you what group set it has. Key points to know are that it is a good bike at a good price. It allows me to race at the criteriums and other road races, which in themselves are really just a motivation to get out and train. I have been enjoying the criteriums, despite not placing. I tend to approach these wanting to get a more complete training session out of the ride, as opposed to 56 minutes of sitting on someone elses wheel and 4 minutes of hard riding. If I wanted that I would go for a ride with The Animal. That isn't true, or if it is, it is more the fact that when I am on the front I don't keep a steady pace, which The Animal generally ignores and drops back to his inexorable pace.

Yesterday was a lesson in how not to increase training levels slowly, following the principles of periodisation. After 3 consecutive weekends of a long run of no more than 20 km (and very little running in between each weekend), I decided to throw in two ~20km runs with a 1.5 hour road ride up to Katoomba in between. The result was a rather embarrasing first run in the Running Wild series. I use the word run very loosely in this case. In fact, about as loose as my bowel motions were following the run. Enough detail for you? Needless to say, I enjoyed revisiting the emotional torment that is the return leg along Narrow Neck Plateau. Where you feel physically exhausted, just want to get to where you are going, question why you even do this stuff anyway (it's not like you're good at it) and vow to never put yourself in a similar situation again in your life. I don't feel so bad today. I have a few days to rest until I do the same thing again next weekend.

More has happened in the preceding weeks, but it isn't very exciting.

At this stage I am on the waiting list for both the 6 Foot Track and North Face 100 running races. I think I am in position 98 out of 103 on the 6ft Novice Waiting List, which means there is a good chance I won't race. To be honest, that doesn't bother me. I will probably participate in as much of the training as I can anyway, and being on the list serves much the same purpose as actually being entered, in that it is a source of motivation to go and train. I have entered into Huskisson Long Course, and am quite excited about the prospect of racing back at Husky. I had a good time last year as a result of being the fittest I have ever been and at my peak in the lead up to Ironman. I won't be at the same level next year but I will enjoy the experience nonetheless. There is the possibility that if I get in to 6FT, I will be participating in the inaugural 6ft-Husky double endurance spectacular extravaganza never-to-be-repeated everything-must-go weekend of fun and frivolity. In which case I will have a suitable excuse of why I don't perform as well as last year for Husky.

Hopefully these blogs will become more regular and can reflect the same in my training exploits.

Till next time,

Dr Phil