Monday 8 December 2014

"Off season"

Retuning home from the massive high of Hawaii to normal life in England, was always going to be a struggle. Having never travelled long haul before, the jet lag was the thing that surprised me the most. On the way out I felt fine and quickly settled into the routine without much fuss, however on the return it was a completely different story. From trying your hardest to stay awake until 8pm and not fall asleep in front of the TV, to being wide awake at 3pm without a hope of drifting off again. I was quite lucky I suppose, one bad night followed by one good night for a few days, until I succumbed to the dreaded man-flu which knocked me out for a few days.

I've never really had an off season before, mainly because I played a variety of sport which always kept me busy. However this year I decided that I'd take approx. a month off structured training and only do anything active if it was seen as fun. Of course I couldn't stop altogether as the lure for the Gorrick MTB races is always too strong. First of all was the Gorrick autumn classic 2 at Crowthorne woods, a venue which I love racing at and is always a good loop. I stepped up to the sport category for the first time and am so glad I did. My fitness has obviously improved a lot since my last race with Gorrick back in the spring, as the extra lap didn't feel like a slog and the whole race felt pretty good and I managed to bring it home in 15th, my best result to date, happy days!


A couple of weeks later was the first round of the gorrick Merida brass monkeys, an event which I've really enjoyed in the past and it's great training. The 2 hour event is usually rammed full and this race was no different even though the weather was atrocious. The course held up well considering the conditions, but then the rain and number of riders carving it up finally got too much and it started to turn into a bit of a swamp. I finished 2 laps inside the 2 hour time limit but couldn't convince myself that I wanted to go round again and pulled the pin, like many others, feeling like anymore might be a risk of injury/illness. I finished in the top 30 feeling fairly happy with the training miles in the legs but absolutely freezing, plus it took ages after the race to get warm and dry again :)
 
 
Now I'm back in the training groove and looking forward to what 2015 holds, the first few sessions have been a challenge and feel fairly heavy legged but its starting to get "easier" again. 

Take it easy guys
Tom