Fast forward to April!...

Some trusted guidance and determination with sound conditioning work, some regular solid winter rides pushing me out of my comfort zone (a lot!) with my teammates at Performance Cycles, some more recent challenging long miles in the saddle back in the Spanish mountains again often being pushed out of my comfort zone by team riders of the ‘Annapolis Bike Racing Team’ and some athletes from Halifax, Canada (two of the groups that have stayed and trained at Idlebreaks and I managed to kick off my season with a great start in a race I found out about just a week before!

That was this weekend just gone, 3rd April at the ICAN Marbella Half Ironman, a great race which was one of a series of three, the next two, a half and full distance race taking place in Mallorca in mid September. I had what felt to be a strong, solid race for me, holding together pacing really well and finishing off with the fastest female run split of the day (especially happy with that as I really haven’t had the opportunity to run off the bike in training since last year! Not the prep I would have planned for!) That was a great confidence boost though and a good test of my nutrition strategy in particular. I’d trained well with my Infinit customised formulas but in the end last year I didn’t really have a good opportunity to test them in races due to my physical state. So, with no stomach issues and with my ‘strong’ feeling and finish with a great run, I’m pretty happy with my nutrition plan! Also I finally feel confident with my kit, thanks to support from Blue Seventy for my new Helix wetsuit along with my own purchases including my Felt AR4.

Overall I finished a respectable 4th place, just 12mins behind the winner and 6mins behind 2nd and 3rd. A great race to show up and do as well as I did, especially so with the fact that I’d entered with the view to ‘turning up and seeing what I could do/where I’m at for this time of year’ added to the last five very busy weeks of work with little time to myself for recovery.

The next few weeks may well be much the same with training being dictated by the training camps out here, a little more than structured by my choice, but so far I have seemed to manage well and I couldn’t be happier for being paid to ride my bike in the beautiful southern Spanish countryside! So races wise for now I’ll likely do some local ones as and when before I hit the main season of races I’d like to focus on (which I’m planning right now and will update about as soon as they are confirmed!)

If I get any photos from the race and or the last few weeks in Spain, I’ll add them too...

So that’s where I’m up to for now!
Adios por ahora! :-)