So, end of a season, a successful one at that, and boy was i ready for a holiday! i had committed to taking a complete rest, so i even went away, which for me is very rare on my time off from work! I'd always fancied cornwall, so i booked a stunning apartment with a surreal view of the bay in front of it.
I took my mother with me, as she had not that long ago had a knee replacement (her second one) and having been couped up for a few months within the same 4 walls i thought she might appreciate this view! I took 8 days off from exercise - 8 whole days!!!!! plus, with running i didn't run for 2 weeks to rest my calf injury. I hadn't not exercised for this long since i was a student probably, during term holidays. Not that i didn't do anything, i did go on a long walk around the coast, plus, how could i not when the next town along was my namesake!
I would definitely go back here, it was idyllic, and i ate whatever i wanted to, enjoying traditional cornish cream teas with clotted cream :) i had lie ins, watched dvds, had a few beers, and generally just thoroughly chilled out. If i did come back though i'd have no problem bringing me running shoes, or my bike, as there were some cracking places to go off exploring.
I started a part-time Msc in Sport Psychology in september, and the impact this had on my training was totally unexpected. I only do one module per term, so attend one 3 hour lecture a week but the assignments for this first module totally took over my life and i wasn't a happy bunny. I had to prioritise study over training regularly in November and i didn't appreciate this at all! Happy to say though i got a merit for that module, with my first assignment getting a merit, and my second getting a distinction, so at least the work paid off.
What i found over the winter though that my early morning swim sessions were not as often as i'd like, and now having to work 9 hour days to make up the time i spend at uni meant i was generally more tired. I kept things ticking over though, doing regular turbo sessions during the week and having quit Kevin Pullin's swim squad i started going to celtic tri swim sessions regularly which i really enjoy. Swimming with club mates makes it more sociable for me, not that i didn't like who i swam with before, just that i know my club mates better i guess so it's good to spend more time with them. I also find the club swim sessions suit me far better time wise, so glad things worked out the way they did. As for my running, well with my calf injury i had decided to pursue NHS physio treatment, as sports massage alone wasn't enough. However, i didn't have much faith in the physios as they seemed very unclear about the diagnosis and were very vague when i would regularly ask whether i should train or not. This resulted in a lot of bashing from Facebook 'friends' who criticised me for continuing to train, but, i knew in my mind that this wasn't a 'tear' or a 'pull', this was something that was unaffected by distance, speed, etc, and was like a switch, 'on' then 'off'. As it was i was doing short runs twice a week and decided to pull out of the merthyr mawr pudding run due to the cold weather, uneven ground, and having to run through water. didn't think that was the best treatment for my calf!
So, on to xmas and another year spent with the family at my brother's in America. We even headed up the mountains and there was me thinking - "i wonder what it would be like to cycle this", although when we were over 5000ft up and the road was completely iced over and the scenery was all white i didn't think i'd see many bikes.
This photo just brought us to a standstill, a sea of clouds beneath us with the sun starting to set, Simply breathtaking...
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