HINDES IAIN 38 M BARNSTAPLE DEVON GBR

I guess that seeing the title of this post on the IM Florida start list means that I'm in. Hell that means I have to do some training.


The aim now is to finish well, finish strong and enjoy it every bit as much as this pic of Jane Tomlinson finishing in 204. When the training's bad and when the hurt hits in on race day I'm going to think of Jane (God bless her soul) and I'm going to start laying some serious smack down.

As for the training ........... It's been an odd week, well it's actually been an odd few months. Since I found out the new system NAS were using to get entries in their events (IM Florida being one of them) I've just totally lost the plot where training has been concerned. September was my slackest months training for over 4 years at 20hrs, that was followed by October where I did even less time managing just 17h30m and only 90mins on the bike. This week started the same way as many other with me promising to train on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and not actually achieving any of it. On Thursday Shell called me to say my name had appeared on the start list and suddenly I had the urge to run, so I did. Spending the night almost 200miles away from home on a Thursday night can make training awkward, but it's a regular thing so I've become a member of a (not so) local running club. On Thursday I ran a steady 5.8mile loop alone in 40:33 (7min/mile), then picked up my bag for the 1.25mile jog to the running club in 9:17 (7:27min/mile). After a short break at the clubhouse to drop my bag off I ran a 7mile loop with one of my clubmates in 51:38 (7:22min/mile). 14miles, AVHR 139bpm, 7:15min/mile pace. That'll do for starters!

Friday was a bit slack, I'll admit to not doing the turbo session I'd planned but I was feeling a bit under the weather and I'd got a squad swim session to look forward to so I knew I was going to get a reasonable work out. 800m w/up, 10x50m @ 60secs, 2xMedley Pyramid (25m fly/50m back/75m breast/150m fc/75m breast/50m back/25m fly), 4x4x25m IM, 100m fc, 50m fc, 2 x 25m fc = 2800m total. I then spent the rest of the night sneezing my head off.

Today I woke up with a head full of snot. Sneezing, coughing, sniffing there was only one thing for it. I went out for a 7mile run with the pup, 3miles off road and 4 miles of beach. It was hard going and the sand in places was very soft, Rosie loved it though. The rest of the day has been cough cough, sniff sniff, sneeze sneeze but as I'm typing this I'm feeling much better so hopefully it's just been a 24hr bug.

Highlight of the day was when Rosie spotted a balloon on the beach, off she charged after it before sinking her teeth in and bursting it. It was when she started charging around the beach with her new prize that I noticed something hanging off the (ex) floaty rubber bubble. I called her to me and removed the balloon from her grasp (much to her disgust), attached was a small card. A primary school over 220mile North East of here had let off some balloons for 'Children in Need' (a national day of charity fund raising) on Friday and I'd found the balloon of a 7 year old lad called Daniel.

Now I just need to work out how to send it back. It seems a shame to just post the card, I'm sure other balloons will be found further afield but it would be nice to make a kid feel his balloon was special. We've got Joss Stone in town tomorrow night switching on the Christmas lights, maybe I'll pop down and try to get her to sign something and send it to the youngster, we'll see.

On a little side note, what an honour to have an Internet Tri legend as my first reply on this blog (nothing wrong with a bit of ego massage occasionally), to follow that with IronTriTim though is just amazing. The last thing you expect to find is someone living thousands of miles away who used to live about 15miles from your front door. I'll look forward to seeing you in PCB Tim :)

That'll do for now, it's midnight here and I'm one person who really REALLY needs his beauty sleep.


G'night all.