The long Easter weekend is a chance for a good rest, unless you are a triathlete in which case it’s a chance to do some training and racing!

I usually go up to Derbyshire with Jill at this time of year. We stay for two week at our friends sheep farm near Buxton with Jill helping with lambing whilst I use it as a pre-season training camp. Unfortunately I couldn’t go this year as I wouldn’t have enough holiday with going to Eilat for the European championships soon and hopefully also to New Zealand later in the year for the world championships. It would also have probably been the wrong kind of training – slow and hard as there are no easy sessions up there in the Peak District – given I am about to race a sprint triathlon. Jill has still gone which is great as she really enjoys lambing and needed a break , but it’s a bit strange to be at home by myself. I have an old cat and two naughty kittens for company though…

This year I have settled for four days away from work over Easter. My mini break started with a bang on Thursday evening and carrided on from their: –

Thursday evening – I Met Greg Hackett from Spindle Productions to discuss him filming a short video about Tri Team Dawson. He wants to show how I train, both by myself and with the guides I race with whilst also showing the input I get from lots of other people too like Jill who help to make things happen. Greg is hoping to have the 4 minute video completed by the end of May so watch this space. I also met up with Becky and Claire, two other Physio’s who work in Norfolk, to do some Photo’s for a press release by our employer ahead of us all travelling to Israel. I even got in a quick run with some short intervals, but nothing major as Thursdays is usually my rest day.

Friday – Friday was quite busy as I had to fit in the Great Yarmouth 10 mile time trial on the tandem with Bobby De’Ath, watching Newcastle United beat Swansea at football on the TV, start my marathon viewing of the track cycling world championships and do a run session. We were the quickest tandem in the time trial run off in chilly and breezy conditions.  It give us a chance to further test out the new tandem, but more specifically the Matrix rear disk (see below photo) and T60 spoked front wheels. All stood up to the challenge excellently. Newcastle won the footie (hurrah!), Sky Plus is great for watching hours of track cycling with lots of action replays and I had a nice run later in the day. Can’t be bad.

Saturday – A fairly quiet day really as far as training was concerned with just a 1 hour turbo session to loosen off from Friday’s efforts and plenty of stretching/foam roller work too. I also made a few small changes to my bike position on the back of the tandem by raising the handlebars slightly and levelling out the saddle as it was tilting down a touch too much meaning I was sliding forward and taking lots of weight through my arms during Friday’s race. More World championship track racing watched too.Sunday – Sunday saw Bobby and myself up bright and early again as we were racing at the Rudy Project time trial in Haverhill Suffolk. We used this event to test out the Matrix T88 rear spoked wheel (see below picture) on the hilly and technical course. Again the wheel, paired with the T60, performed really well and was more suited to the rough roads and uphill sections than a disk would be. The altered position on the back of the tandem felt pretty good too, but it was a hideous course for  a tandem!. We were quickest over the 20 miles taking just over 49 minutes, but this series uses a loading/handicapping system meaning once the times were adjusted we were third over-all. We would have had to gone 5 minutes quicker to win, which was probably impossible for a tandem on that course, but it was still another good racing effort in the bank. I followed this up with a 5km steady road run in the evening with plenty  more  TV watching in the middle…the world track cycling championships continued with an amazing last ditch move by Chris Hoy to win the Keiran event and the Paris Roubaix classic cycle race won by a Super-human performance by Tom Boonen to keep me out of trouble!

Monday – Today was a day to catch up on some emails and other admin, including writing this blog post! I also cleaned the tandem thoroughly after Sunday’s ride on wet roads, glued a tyre onto a wheel, did a few jobs around the house and completed an easy hour of cycling on the turbo trainer to aid recovery. I watched Newcastle United win again, this time against Bolton and with Tottenham obliging by losing things are looking good with the Toon in 5th place in the Barclay’s Premier League, level on points with Spurs!

Today is also our wedding aniversay, and having spoken to Jill it sounds like she is having a nice time on the farm which is great.

So, there you have it, a mixture of high effort races, easy recovery sessions and lots of resting in front of the TV!

I hope your Easter was good too.

Iain