After a super busy period at work it was time for a change, so Jill and headed off to Derbyshire for a week or so as is usual for April time.

We were certainly lucky with the weather as it was in the mid-high teens all week with sunshine every day. I even got my legs out a few times which is almost unheard of until May!

I use our trip to Derbyshire to put in a decent block of training before getting into the racing season properly. This year was no exception. It was slightly different this time round though. For over a decade of trips to the Peak District i’ve generally gone out on day one and smashed out the hardest, hilliest bike ride I could manage and then repeated this on a daily basis with some run and swim sessions thrown in for good measure until I am knackered. This year however I was pretty tired already and quite honestly needed rest more than training.

Day one was an ‘easy’ 45 minute run which was repeated on day two with some intervals. That’s all, so about 6 hours down on what i’d normally have done by this point. After catching up on my sleep I felt much better by day three and cracked on with things. By the end of the week I’d done approximately: –

Swimming – 10 km / 6 miles

Cycling – 200km / 140 miles

Running – 50km / 30 miles

I didn’t put in massive mileage or hours and hours of training volume (about 17 + a few hours walking). However this is higher than an average work-week and there was a lot of high quality training done, especially on the bike up the classic climbs of the Cat and Fiddle, Long Hill and Winnats Pass (Max gradient of 25%).

Here’s a few photo’s to show you what you missed: –

Looking forward to some more serious racing now.

Iain