Yesterday I completed the Mont Ventoux climb on Zwift. At over 1,500 metres, it is the biggest climb in the game and significantly higher than the Alpe du Zwift.
But more importantly, it means I’ve completed all of the routes in France. My goal was to complete everything in Innsbrook, France and New York by spring. Yesterday was the first day of spring, so technically I missed it by 18 hours. But I’m pretty happy nonetheless as I’ve also completed all but three of the Makuri Islands routes (at least two of which were only added since I started the challenge). Plus I’ve done everything in London except PRL full, which is not on my to-do list because 8 hours turbo trainer sounds utterly miserable.
This month, I’ve been running a weekly front crawl fundamentals workshop to help some of our less confident swimmers really get their heads around front crawl. It’s been a very rewarding experience because getting to see the same athletes on a weekly basis, especially with the homework they put in, really demonstrated some great progress. Well done to everyone who took part!
I’m honoured to have a bestseller tag for my Mindfulness Teacher Training course (one of five of my courses that currently holds one) and excited to be launching a new course alongside it: Meditation Teacher Training.
The new course takes a wider view of the subject. We’ll look at meditation in a variety of cultural contexts, as well as scientific applications, before diving into a range of meditation techniques.
Having made the first, very dry, PECO at Middleton Woods, my ankle was finally fixed in time to make it to the final PECO of the year. It was a lot muddier! Luckily I had my Saucony Exodus but ultimately I don’t think there are any shoes that can deal with the volume of British mud.
I organised a track day for the club. Unfortunately, even for what as been a pretty miserable winter, the weather was miserable. My Stolen Goat jacket promised it was “practically waterproof” and really needed to be heavy rain to get through the untaped seems. But I had massage wet patches on my shoulders by the time I got home. Thanks Ally for for turning up!
The Grim Leodis is a It’s Grim Up North event with both a marathon and half marathon distance. As I am now allowed to run on my ankle yet I set out to walk the half.
It turns out walking is hard. I managed to maintain a pace of close to 8:00 per kilometre and, despite starting at the back, overtook six people. But because the muscles used for walking are different to that of running I was pretty sore on the Sunday! I managed to complete the course in:
2:53:24
It’s a nice route. The first six kilometres are towpath but it then switches onto trail all the way up to Apperley Bridge and then comes back along the Leeds Country Way before rejoining the canal.
Congratulations to Indi who took the prize for Hyde Park Harriers as first lady.
I haven’t blogged all month which leads to the idea that nothing has happened in my life. This is partially true. I’ve been working and parenting and those things between them take a lot of time. But lots of exciting things are in progress, too:
I’ve taken my Bookkeeping Controls and Elements of Costings exams. A mere 95% on the BKCL but costing may be more in my future as I finally achieved a perfect score.
I’ve completed the first draft of my new book Triathlon For Beginners which will be out later this year.
I have been rehabbing my broken ankle. The boot came off in the middle of January and I can start running again in February.
I am doing some training with British Triathlon to progress to level 2 certification. That will be completed around March all things being well.
So, it’s been a fairly busy month, even if there has been very little to report.
