Having set both run and swim PBs in the last month or so, it was inevitably time to get back on the bike and see how my winter base training had fared.  And so last weekend I bit the bullet and signed-on for a local TT run by my now first-claim cycling club, Newbury Road Club.

The course in question was an unfamiliar 10-mile TT circuit, code name HCC204 (is it me or does anything else think it’s kind of funny how the old ‘secret’ names for TT courses persist?).  As 10-mile routes go, it’s a fairly challenging one, with 750ft (220m) of climbing, together with a few sharp turns and road junctions to navigate.  That said, of course it’s the same for everyone.

A couple of weeks ago I took a day off work to visit the Triathlon Show at Sandown park, meet with sponsors and also visit a couple of specialists in hydration and physical testing.

It’s funny; you spend the whole of winter kinda wishing that the triathlon season didn’t feel so far away, and then all of a sudden it’s early March and you realize that you have just eight-and-a-bit weeks till your first ‘A’ race of the year. Gulp!

And so skip forward a week and I find myself on the start line for the Bath Half Marathon. I was freezing and hadn’t had any kind of warm up. My own stupid fault. I hadn’t anticipated just how busy it would be at the start of the race and that there would be no space to warm up!

It’s been an eventful few weeks. Having parted company with my coach on less than amicable terms, I had a week to pick myself up and get ready for the Bourton 10km road race on Sunday 23^rd February. But not before ‘controversy’ enveloped me and led to some further decision-making about my 2014 season.