Kevin's Training Diary 2025

So I have finished my season. I still have a couple of races on my plan for the year, but they are low-key, just for fun, or for testing how my training is going rather than serious competitions.  I have done a very low-key review of my season and I am slightly confused about why I am biking relatively well, but swimming and running relatively badly.  The swimming I can sort of write off as my shoulder injury that isn't going away, and the lack of any external swim analysis probably means I am developing lots of bad habits that I can't see.  The running, I have done as many miles, and at basically the same average pace as I did in 2022. Except then I ran 23 times under 19:30, including my 18:17 PB, and this year I haven't managed that once. My fastest 5k so far this year is a 20:16. The only reason I can come up with for this huge differential is the volume I had done in the previous 2 years was almost 50% higher. So on that minimal level of analysis I am just going to sp...

So I said last blog that I needed to make a decision about the end of my season. That is because I need a break, and having missed the entry deadline for Knockburn and decided not to race Aviemore, my plan was to have a lighter period of training, just ticking off my Grand Tour challenge and some easy sessions for 7-10 days then start ramping up in to winter training.  And the numbers look like I did that. But what actually happened was that I got Covid and missed a week. I shouldn't really be taking credit for this as a rest week.  I did race Loch Ore, but probably had the very start of Covid that day. My swim was 2 minutes down on last year, but so was everyone else's so I think some of that was course-setting rather than my swim. I did have a shoulder problem, and some of the people I have been swimming with this year were out a minute or so ahead of me.  I then rode quite well. Clocking in 2 minutes faster than last year, despite a minor crash on the second of three l...