Kevin's Training Diary 2025

I had a hugely productive weekend as I started in to the La Vuelta section of my 10% of Grand Tours challenge as well as doing a Parkrun and a solid swim session, alongside a huge amount of gardening work and multiple skip trips. I logged over 55,000 steps over the two days even though I had started the garden clearing work on Thursday and Friday evenings. The flip side of that is that I forgot about posting this, and I have still not got anywhere near writing my reviews for my 6 International races this year. This weekend I am going to Loch Ore to try and secure a qualification spot for the European Cross Triathlon Championships in Banyoles in 2026. I have already secured a Duathlon spot as a pre-qualifier for finishing in the top-10 and top-3 Brits at the 2025 Xterra race in Czechia.   Between now and then I have a slightly unusual week as Lorna is away for a work thing for the rest of the week so me and Slioch will be trying to fit in boys adventures, and I have a trip to the de...

I have been out in Czechia for 9 days at the European Cross Champs.  Sunday and Monday I recced the bike courses. They are both unnecessarily steep. The Triathlon bike is stupidly hard in places, and basically means it is not a triathlon at all, just a mountain bike race. If I did it in a relay with Phelps and Farah and it would make no difference to the finishing positions. There is a climbing section in that I think Dougie Lampkin might have issues with.  Tuesday I did a recce of the run course. It was a jog and a walk, but turned out to be about the pace that I would eventually race the triathlon at. I will write up both races separately (after I do Pamplona and Pontevedra?!). But the essence is that I came 5th and 11th at European Champs.  Actuals, (T arget) -  Swim 3.4  miles / 5,500  m. (4.9 miles). Bike 81.1 miles. (84.0 miles).   MTB 66.2 miles. (25.2 miles). Run 30.2  miles. (37.8  miles).   0 short core,   20   short ...

A week late with this one as I have just been completely swamped.  I am writing this from our apartment in Volary, Czechia. We flew out yesterday via Heathrow (Friday night) and Munich (Saturday morning) and then after much hassle collecting my bike and getting the hire car we had a 3 hour long drive. But this should all really be in the next review. The two weeks I am meant to be covering were patchy at best. My GP, who I have never met, despite not seeing me, or listening to my chest, managed over the course of a 6-minute phone call to decide that the gunk I have been coughing up for nearly a month is just my allergies, and has given me a nose spray to deal with them. Unsurprisingly, this has had almost no effect and I continue to cough stuff up, and because of that, to skip run and swim sessions pretty much everywhere.  I did finish my 10% of every Tour de France stage, but the last few of those were done slowly on the turbo.  I did race the Scottish Aquathlon Champion...