Time to get back to work

As you will know if you have been following this blog, I have been on a little "sabbatical" since the end of April, in order to recharge my batteries, reduce stress and - hopefully - regain some motivation to compete or at least take part in races again. My idea was to focus on three main objectives:

1) Improve swimming

I think I can definitely tick that box, although there is still loads of room for improvement.

2) Enjoy training

I think this is also a "tick" although running in Vietnam was not much fun, if I am honest. I went for an hour long run in Madrid at lunch time yesterday - a time when no one else was foolish enough to be out in the street - and it felt like a luxury compared to the humidity in Vietnam.

3) Maintain form as much as is possible

I think I have done a reasonable job here. Obviously I'm not going to be able to run another Half Marathon in 1:19 without getting some serious grind in beforehand but it shouldn't be too traumatic either to start ramping up the quality and quantity of my training. Also, I am a bit on the heavy side (the scales told me 90.3 kg on my return from Vietnam) but it shouldn't be too much of a challenge to whittle off 4 or 5 kilos between now and the Marathon in New York in November. Even though I don't (currently) plan to "race" it, I'd still like to feel fit and not have to lug around any excess weight.

To give you some idea of what kind of training load I have been voluntarily subjecting myself to, this is how things compare to the run up to Seville Marathon at the end of February and the preparations for the ICAN Half Ironman (which, in the end, I didn't enter):

ECOs are like TRIMPS - a way of measuring training volume and intensity

The Seville Marathon was in Week 10

I still have a few more weeks of "sabbatical" to go - in any case, my trainer is probably on holidays - but it's probably time to start ramping up a little so that the start is not too much of a shock to the system.