The best inspiration is not to outdo others, but to outdo ourselves

This is another race that I've done before, but not for a little while (not since 2008). It makes sense to do this one if at all possible, it's pretty much local, and it's a good and well organised race. I also knew that there would be a lot of Wakefield Tri members competing and that it would be nice to be there wearing the kit and being part of it all. Which is pretty much how it turned out to be.

This race is a multi terrain half marathon, a race that I've done a couple of times before, but not for quite some time. In fact, I was surprised by how it was since I'd raced there. The 2nd and last, until now, had been in 2006! It's a hard race for me as running off road is not generally something that I do. So, it was with some trepidation that I approached this event. However, partly that was due to the overarching marathon training, as once again I was planning to run home to make up enough miles overall.

I know this is very early in the season for a triathlon, but after the run of warm weather we've been having, it looked like being a pleasant experience in many ways. I'd done this race before and so felt more comfortable going into it that I would a new race. It's also a very handy race, being very near to where Daniel's Mum lives. This enabled us to tie going down for the race in with visiting both friends an family, a lovely way to spend the weekend.

Having tackled this race a few times before, I found myself really looking forward to my first racing outing of the year. Especially once it became apparent that the weather was going to be reasonably kind to us. I was quite nervous, but that was partly due to the fact that I intended to add running home afterwards to the mix - in order to make it long enough to fit in with my marathon training schedule. I needed to do 18 miles and reckoned that running home at the end would get me there.

I have been training, it's just been very busy and there hasn't been time left to talk about it as well as doing it. Today, however, not so much. I'm off work feeling sorry for myself and have spent the day glued to the sofa. Hopefully it'll sort me out and I'll be raring to go again tomorrow. Sounds like a good plan.

Today I managed to get my training done despite minor levels of chaos. I have been up since half three this morning as Ryan was prodigiously sick all over his bedroom - lovely. I spent two hours sorting that out and figured I may as well just get on with my day, and the several extra loads of washing engendered by the aforementioned event - yuk! So it was with some pleasure that I climbed onto my training bike, a welcome respite from the beginning of the day.

It's a funny thing, but when I make out a training schedule, I regularly think that I've put the sessions in the only places they will really fit in the week. Then, when it comes to it and things don't quite go to plan, I find I can shuffle things around all over the place. This week has been a lot like that, with a fair amount of shuffling and re-jigging to get things to fit. However, somehow or another I have succeeded in doing so. Family stuff, work stuff, general home stuff and the training have somehow all been shoehorned into the available waking hours!

It has been really, really cold the last few mornings. You will probably think I'm nuts, but I think it makes it lovely to be out there running, especially early when it's still quiet. It's been beautiful, both yesterday and today. Very cold, very crisp and decidedly sparkly! Either a full on white frost that sparkles wherever the light catches it, or a dusting over the darker patches that has it's own sparkles that seem to dance and change as you move by and change the shadows.

I'm glad that I managed to get a bit of a rest before the weekend began. It has been rather manic, I had a vast amount of work to do, mountains of washing and quite a bit of training to fit in too. Mind you, I've about done now and the curry's on order, so it ends well!

Anyway, going back a bit. I didn't do a great deal on Thursday, mainly due to an afternoon meeting. However, I did manage to get four miles of running in before work. So, at least I'd done something.

The last couple of days have been very heavy on the biking, well, on the indoor trainer. Today, should have been a longish session, but yesterday was too. Ryan's not been very well and has been off school yesterday and sent home from school today. So this necessitated a shuffle of the schedule so that I could still train. Yesterday morning I did 50 minutes on the bike before work. I had been planning to run in the afternoon, but took Ryan to the nurse instead, and so returned to the bike later in the day once all of that was sorted out.