Well what a week! It started on a couple of night shifts which I knew would make the week challenging as I tried to squeeze the sessions in around the sleep and post night shift haze which is like wandering around with jet lag for a day or so once the night shifts have ended as you try to get your body clock back on daytime hours!

This week was a big cycle week and I managed to clock up 12 hours of cycling and travel 390km! I had a 40km time trial at the weekend which was done as part of the Saturday Tri Squad training - it always feels better to be surrounded by other people doing the same thing - a bit of camaraderie to get you through 40km when you are trying to go as fast as you possibly can! The time trial was done on a stationary trainer so it is all about pushing out the fastest time you can over the 40km distance! At the moment I'm trying to improve my cadence (how fast my legs turn the pedals over) - I prefer to turn my legs over at a slow rate using a big gear however this takes a lot out of your legs which is not ideal in a race situation when I have to get off my bike and start running! Turning the legs over faster on the bike is therefore more efficient but is a hard skill to master - or so it seems! So my goal for the 40km time trial was to turn my legs over at a minimum rate of 90 revolutions per minute - typically I usually average 80-83! I started out averaging 95 per minute for the first 20km and then as time wore on I found it increasingly difficult to maintain the rate and by the end I had dropped to an average of 88-89! I managed to resist the temptation to revert to old habits but around the 30km mark it was very very appealing! The final result was 40km in 57 minutes 43 seconds so I was happy with the time and pleased that I had successfully managed to turn my legs over at a faster rate than normal!

On the swimming front I hit a target of 16km in the pool which I was particularly pleased about as I often have an aversion to going swimming when working nights! I'm not quite sure what the reason is behind that but I managed to bargain with myself and get through the swims this week! I'm still struggling with finding good form for the speed work - generally the sign that all is not well on the faster swim sets is almost losing my nose to a lane rope!! This seems to be happening a little more frequently at the moment so I sent an SOS email to Ally Boggs at The Swim Clinic to see if she can sort that out - I sort of like my nose too much to lose it to a lane rope :-)

The run volume has been a little lower this week - only 6 hours total - and that was to make way for the cycling and swimming! My foot feels really good again so I am itching for my next big run week so I can get out on some off road tracks! Looks like I have to wait another week for that as next week is an easy week! When my programme came through and I spotted another easy week just 3 weeks after the last I wondered if I would really need one again so soon.......the answer is a BIG YES! This week I've clocked up 25 hours which squeezed around a big week at work has left me feeling a bit toasted! Next week will be perfect to recover with some easy sessions and to also catch up on the household chores!!

Good news on the nutrition front - I went back to see Alison Rainbow for my first check up after starting back on the nutrition mission and I have managed to drop a few percent in the fat column! Hooray! So now it is project muscle mass which means more frequent trips to the gym - I'm told by Alison that lifting those round heavy things helps to grow muscles! I'm also starting on an 8 week course of Creatine next week which is a powder that increases the water in the muscle so they get bigger! As they get bigger you get stronger and can lift heavier weights so then when you come off it and the water goes away you should theoretically be stronger!! Watch this space!! It does mean that the extra water in the muscle will make me heavier - about 2-3 kilograms so once I've got my female brain around that concept it will be all systems go!!

So there is a snippet of my week in a nutshell! I'm looking forward to the easy week and reacquainting myself with the gym and the round heavy things!!