Hurtling towards the the key races of the season…

• Posted onjofrancis
• in thetrilifereporters
• onMay 30, 2016
• No Comments.

Matthew Gwenter – #thetrilifereporter – month 3

So it seems another 4 week block has just about gone and it has absolutely flown by. I’ve generally had a pretty good block although real life has got in the way a little, particularly during week 3.. This included me being away from home on a work training course for 5 days (9-5 – my that makes it harder to train and fit things in!), an awards night back at home midweek (see photo!) and a stag weekend in London, taking in the rugby 7’s! I was pleased to get around two thirds of the weekly prescribed training in that week. That’s the first time I’ve really struggled to fit everything in so perhaps not a bad thing and a little reality check. I’ve tried not to worry about it too much as it’s just a few sessions missed and I’ve been pretty good up until now at hitting most of the sessions.

This block has again been around 10 hours per week and it’s starting to include some higher paced efforts as I’m hurtling towards A and B races in the next 6 weeks or so. The primary beast of a session is the long brick which involves more than 3 hours of riding and then an hour run off the bike. This is mentally hard, particularly at the point when I drop the bike off at the house and get the trainers on. Some motivational music often gets me out the door. Generally though I’ve been finding I’m getting more and more comfortable with running off the bike and have greatly improved over the last 8 weeks.

I’ve had just one race this month. This was a long sprint at Exe Valley. Lovely little race where I finished 41st (10 seconds less and I’d have got another 5 places). I was quite pleased with this as it came at the end of week 2 and as such I wasn’t rested, plus it’s bike heavy which is my weakest discipline. It also represented nearly 5 minutes of improvement on last years time so I can’t complain too much!

I’ve got another sprint race coming up in a couple of weeks. Which is the first ever Swansea City Centre Triathlon. I recently had my briefing details through and seems I’m in the “Elite” wave. The thought of this fills me with a little bit of fear, despite being higher up on the leaderboards these days there’s no way I can be considered elite! I’m hoping the waves include a whole load of people!! That being said as a traditional sprint with 750m swim, 20k bike and 5k run it suits me a little more.

Well, that’s me for another block.. I’m heading off to the pool. Happy training everyone! I hope you’re all enjoying the start of Summer just as much as I am.