With a little more than usual spare time on my hands it’s surprising that I haven’t ranted on here more than usual. Looking back it’s been several weeks since my last blog and there’s so much that has happened (or not ironically) since my Lockdown Ramblings.
In reality all my races have been cancelled, except one in Majorca in October precariously hanging by a thread, so that might happen.
My opener – the Outlaw Nottingham Half was scrapped pretty early on. I’ve never taken part in a Half Iron Distance with this organisation and chances are I might not again. I have been deferred to 2021 which I will do but there seems to be a lot of bad press with these guys when the announcement came out they were taking at least 50% of the entrants fees if a refund was requested. Insurances rarely would cover “global pandemic” in their T’s & C’s so I guess the organisation were out of pocket before things even started. I think they took a step back and tried to appease the deferred athletes as they wanted to charge them an extra £20 for the deferral but after a rather large kickback from the athletes they withdrew that and not it’s just a simple deferral.
My Full Distance event – Roth was cancelled and deferral into 2021 is now complete. Again the organisation – Challenge Family took a small part of the 2020 fee as they had already spent that and I had a priority placement into 2021. Not much kickback from athletes with this one but the honesty and integrity in their communications (video, social media etc.) was comprehensive so well received I think. The hotel in Nurnberg has simply refused to refund us as they are open and don’t see what the problem is! The fact that we can travel but face a two week isolation period in the UK afterwards isn’t their problem – it’s ours.
Immediately after my last Blog the Challenge Championships in Samorin deferred from the 31st May to the 16th August was now cancelled and deferred to 2021. It looks again as if myself, Danny and Kate are keen to race next year at this event. The hotel bookings have also been transferred so that’s another weight off our minds.
My opening GB event in Almere, Amsterdam has also been cancelled and deferred to 2021. The 2021 World Championships was going to be in Australia so there was no way I could afford to go there and race so I was pretty disappointed, however, all events have been nudged over one more year so Almere is the venue for 2021 and Australia is in 2022 so I’m pretty happy to still have that chance to represent GB.
So…..it looks like Challenge Majorca (Paguera) is the one & only race for 2021! They’ve been updating us with emails to let us know what’s happening on the island so it’s good to see the lockdown has released somewhat. All we need is Boris Johnson to give Majorca that “Air Bridge” or “Holiday Bridge” to this island and I’m there in a flash!
With holidays being cancelled I’ve now got a few extra days spare annual leave so I might just increase my time there in October just as I did a few years ago and have some R&R time with the wife 🙂
As far as training is concerned I didn’t let off, I still pushed on with the cycling & running.
As my luck would have it I got a niggle in my left hip and then in my right knee (one having the effect on the other I guess) and I ignored it. A fortnight ago I had to concede I needed a few weeks off to give that hip some rest. So it’s been a lot of cycling recently. Turbo sets most nights with a few road sessions thrown in for good measure. I can feel my bike fitness is a lot more than usual but I guess that’ll be at the cost of the running and swimming fitness.
I’m going out for 4hr rides on Sundays with Suzy although it does put a bit of pressure on her to hang onto my wheel for 4hrs which I think pushes her a little too much. When the social distancing rules regarding group riding relaxes I think she’ll go out with the Beccles crew and I’ll revert back to the DAP guys on Sunday mornings and we’ll be happily married again on Sunday afternoons!!! #joke
Speaking of swimming I’m now Open Water Swimming. I’ve been in the river near the Beccles Lido a few times now and closer to home at Oulton Broad. I must say the weather has not been to kid recently so the temperature hasn’t been great – 15 degrees is definitely brainfreeze time! But it’s warming up now so hopefully that won’t happen again.
Suzy is going in three times a week but I can only manage twice at the moment due to not climbing off the bike by 7pm and she’s already in the water by then. I don’t feel 100% confident in going solo just in case I get cramp or some other kind of difficulty but I do need to step this up. We’ll see….
The running may start again this week, I’ll see, maybe a couple of 20-30min runs at a slow pace just to get the legs used to those mechanics again.
All in all a good few weeks training. Here’s hoping to a good ending of my non-existent 2020 season. Might even do a few Time Trials if they relax that early!
