Training plan

Now that RAB is a mere nine months away, and the kids have gone back to school, it's time to actually start doing some training. Thankfully, I have a live-in coach, who has given me some ideas about what I need to be doing.

The plan for the fall is to simply get into a routine. My "training" over the last, oh let's say 5.5 years has been a bit erratic. To say the least! So the goal for September-December is as follows: ride three times a week (two of those will be commuting to/from work), run four times a week, swim twice and get in some lifting around the edges. Thankfully, I get to work at least half an hour before anyone else, whether I ride or take the train, so I get a chance to stretch and shower before I have to share space with other people.

The running (in theory) will happen in the afternoons when Devil has after-school activities (three days a week) and on the weekends. I can also run to work one day. I can swim once at the pool at work, and I've signed up for a triathlon swim coaching program starting at the end of the month.

But the big thing will be riding. Lots and lots of riding. I think I've figured out a route that will get me 20 miles on the days I ride to work. There's a big push by the Mayor of London to promote bicycle commuting, and they've recently opened a cycling superhighway that runs through Clapham. I've figured out a relatively low traffic way to get over to it, and it goes more or less right up to my office. I've done it twice now, and the second run was much more successful then this first, since I managed to avoid getting a flat tire and getting to the school extremely late for Boo's pickup.

So we'll see how this goes. I'm excited to have a plan, even in vague form - it makes it so much easier for me to have a general outline of what training I need to do every week - and I'm looking forward to it, it some bizarre sicko way. And posting about it makes me a bit more accountable, if only to myself (you wrote it down and put it out in public - you have to do it now!).

I also got roped into this lovely event in a couple of weeks, with two friends. We've decided that a good way to prepare for it is an 8k run in the mud this Saturday. And reading back over this entry, I think I must be totally insane. But it's going to be fun, right?