Last week/this week

I'm glad that I acknowledged that last week was full of pressures that were likely to affect my training, because I've ended up feeling pleased with the reasonable amount that I have got done.  Mood-wise things have really dropped this week and exercise seems to have had little or no effect in improving it, so I'll be off to the GP for some medication tomorrow which will hopefully help longterm, although may have side effects short term.  Consequently, I'm not setting goals for next week at all (see my 5th tip here [be nice to yourself]), and shall treat whatever I manage to get done as a big achievement.

In the end, I managed to get in 7 workouts, with one day off, which comprised 5 swims, totally 14.5k, one run (7k!), and the Tri club Festive Bike and Run Time Trial.

Yes, it's time for a couple of festive cheesy pictures on the blog.  I signed up for the time trial because a) it's somewhat shorter than the summer 1 b) it involved fancy dress and c) a couple of my beginner ride friends had signed up (nothing like a bit of peer pressure).  I didn't feel great on the morning, and would rather have stayed in bed, but we had 3 pre-teen nieces to occupy for the morning so it seemed like the best option.

Great costumes, but everyone apart from me and my friend dressed as a Christmas Tree and my friend decked out in tinsel looked as if they were going to take it semi/seriously.  We'd only come along because it was fancy dress!  As we didn't even have a clue what the route was, we decided to stick together, which was very kind of the other two as I was having a very nervy day on the bike (and even managed to get my shoelace caught up in my toe clips).  I genuinely didn't think I could get round and kept saying "I think I can only do one [rather than two] laps of the bike/run".  However, with the peer pressure and encouragement of the other two, we did eventually make it (although we may have cheated slightly on the run..). Last place, but never mind, probably the best costumes.

Here's me dressed as an Olympic angel (I just knew that torchbearer uniform would come in handy one day, and look how well I coordinate with my bike?), and our starting group (with a santa and a someone who was basically just in their tri club kit!)