Canadian Winter - 1; Triathlete - 0

Wendy and I are back from our Christmas holiday in Toronto where we stayed with my Aunt and Uncle and we had a wonderful Christmas dinner with my cousins.

The photo was taken on Christmas day at an Ice Rink on the edge of Lake Ontario and by the way my wife is not that short I just happen to be wearing ice skates.

Not long after the photo was taken I started to get a headache and by the time I went to bed I was sweating and shivering and had a dreadful nights sleep. Luckily this week was a recovery week but after the run on Christmas Eve I have not felt upto exercising until today when I picked up my program with a 2hr cycle, yoga and a recovery run.

There is an advert on Canadian TV at the moment where there is a rather serious looking woman who has a stinking cold but she declares that if you think that will stop her training you don't know her. You then see the lady powering out some lengths in the pool having taken whatever cold remedy is being advertised. This to me seems rediculous. Apart from the risk of her spreading her cold to others in her leisure centre everything I have heard, or read, tells me that when you are sick you should not train. It is important to get well before you start adding the extra strain on your body of training. This philosophy seems to have worked as I have only missed a run, cycle and some weights training but I think my cold, or bug, has been seen off and I do not expect any lingering symptoms.

I also have to take my hat off to Scott, my fellow Cadence Kona Challenger, who is faced with many more months of that Canadian winter. Not to mention Kate who has to tend with a Nebraskan winter. Although temperatures in Toronto were not that bad this week when we arrived on Sunday there were 50mph winds and the windchill factor was pretty bad. Whereas I was able to go for a run in shorts this evening, here in Virginia, Scott and Kate must really struggle to get outside at all.

I hope you all had a great Christmas and I will try and post a precis of my 2007 triathlon season over the next few days to mark the end of the year.

The latest must have Triathlon training aid?

Please do not bombard me with emails this is not meant to be a sick joke, I fully appreciate how fortunate I am to be healthy and able to participate in Triathlon.

This Blog is about how the more seriously you take Triathlon the lazier you seem to get. Let me explain

Before I started putting my mind to training earlier this year I used to cycle to work. It was a thirteen mile each way trip and it used to be a very relaxing and refreshing way to start the day. I then met up with my Triathlon Team and started following a weekly training plan. This would have me running on Monday, swimming and cycling on a Tuesday etc. and is very similar in format to what I do now. The problem was that I couldn't cycle to work without it affecting my program and on a Tuesday and Thursday I needed a car to get the swimming pool.

The end result is that I now drive to work everyday. Most training plans I have seen have a rest day once a week. I have been advised that it is very important to observe your rest day and you should plan to do as little as possible. The whole principle behind training is that you over-exert your muscles so that they grow back stronger and in order for them to grow back you have to rest.

This brings me onto the scooter. As I mentioned in my last Blog my calf is a little tender from the ride on Sunday and the run yesterday and the advice from my coach is to take it easy and try not walk. This led me to my vision of all serious athletes getting to and from the gym on a mobility scooter.

It is also important to get enough sleep as it is when you are asleep that your body really heals itself. I have read that many pro athletes will try and get in a sleep in the middle of the day. So now you have "athletes" driving everywhere, using mobility scooters and sleeping during the day - sounds like a lazy bunch to me.

I'm off to the kitchen for an hour and half on the bike but if my leg hurts I will cut it short. The beauty of Triathlon training, compared to training for just one sport, (apart from bragging rights) is that you get time to recover e.g. following yesterdays run I will not do another endurance run until Saturday which gives my body plenty of time to recover. Now all I have to do is get my Stannah Stair Lift installed and I am sorted.