Things are definitely getting back on track for me this week. I've had a really decent week of training and I've honed in on my nutrition to see if I can get things moving.. everything seems to be going really well and I'm feeling great this week!

MONDAY - OPEN WATER SWIM - 1.19 Miles
I headed straight to open water swimming from work on Monday evening, it was pretty darn hot! It was 33 degrees and the place we go on a Monday is wetsuit compulsory, so we had to struggle into a wetsuit which is a total workout in itself.
It was lovely once we got into the water though, it was like bath water around the edges and some cold pockets which were refreshing! I was supposed to go to my swimming lesson later on in the eve but didn't have the time to go as we hadn't even had dinner!

WEDNESDAY - POOL SWIM - 1850 Meters
Went to the pool late in the evening for a swim, it was really busy and full of ladies that appear to have no idea about pool etiquette which really grinds my gears. Had really slow backstrokers in the fast lane.. WHAT!
The swim itself wasn't too bad, started with 800m front crawl and then swapped over to using some swimming paddles I got for my birthday. They're hard work! I took them off for a couple of 100m after and felt totally weird. I definitely notice the difference in the pull.

THURSDAY - 4 MILE RUN
I put off the run as long as possible as it was really warm out. It didn't make the slightest bit of difference. You'll know from my previous training diaries that I don't do well with the heat so running is a bit of a struggle at the moment.
I ended up doing 4 miles - I realised it's been a long while since I did anything over 3 miles and I have a Great Newham Run 10K next weekend! I'm sure all my swimming and running has maintained some running fitness, so I'm sure it will be fine but just wanted to do some extra.

I went up through the fields and along the river, without knowing how over grown it had gotten, I was in a bit of a panic about snakes and ticks!

FRIDAY - 16.75 MILE CYCLE
I headed out on my own on Friday evening! Typically, when I go out by myself, I stay fairly close to home and have only ventured out further when I'm cycling with Phillip but decided to do one of routes we would usually do by myself and it was actually OK. I'm definitely getting braver on my own!
Let me tell you though, this cycle was windy AF! I did 16.75 miles and maintained 16 mph so I'm pretty happy with that!

SATURDAY - 3 MILE RUN - 1.16 MILE OPEN WATER SWIM
It's swim and parkrun day. The swim was actually really great, I felt strong the whole time, have I mentioned that I really bloody love open water swimming?
Parkrun afterwards was OK. It's a very busy parkrun and the temp had warmed up quite a bit since before the swim. Time was 32 minutes, so a little slower than I would like but I'm sure it's just the temps!

I did a YT vlog video of Cambridge parkrun, if you're interested, I've embedded it below!

SUNDAY - 3.1 MILE RUN - 11.3 MILE CYCLE
I headed out for a brick session with Phillip. Managed to maintain an average speed of 17.7 mph over 11.3 miles. It was a flat route(lets face it.. all routes are flat in the fens) and really windy! I used the drops a lot more on this route and definitely felt the difference.
My run afterwards was also really great. I did 3 miles with negative splits. Thankfully, it was a bit cooler so I didn't struggle quite as much as yesterday. I started off with 10:04, 9:46 and finished with 9:37, so I'm very happy with that! I was knackered after though! xD

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All in all a great week of training. There's some improvements I'd like to make though. Woburn Abbey Triathlon(which is my first tri, how exciting!) has quite an undulating bike course and I'm worried that the lack of hills in the area are gonna affect my performance on race day.. so I need to dust off the turbo trainer and get in some hill training.

I also want to work on my running speed, since I appear to have gotten slower, the only way to really do that is with intervals.. so I'm gonna start implementing some of them into my training.

Lastly, I need to get into open water without my wetsuit.. I haven't yet done it and there may come a time when we aren't allowed to wear them due to the temperature, so I really want to at least do it once to see how it is rather than be taken by surprise and panic.

I think overall though that my training has been going OK. If the triathlon was next week, I'm pretty sure I'm in good shape to finish it without any issues.

Question: Have you ever used hand paddles in the pool? Anyone live in an area with no hills? How do you deal with it?