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.

Last weekend I was fortunate to be invited by the nice chaps at TFN (Total Fitness Nottingham) to visit their store and also meet with Tim from Retul bike fitting specialist, Speedhub.

The shop is something of a mecca for local cyclists, runners and triathletes, with a great selection of bikes, wetsuits, run shoes (although not my favourite Skechers!) and more.  The TFN guys Mark and Martin made me feel very welcome and it was clear to see by their interaction with other customers that TFN is a friendly place to visit, equally attractive to the seasoned pro as much as the first-time triathlete.

Part of the attraction of the invite was the offer of a free bike fit with experienced Retul fitter, Tim Lewington.  Although I’m very happy with my TT bike by Chris Newman at The Triathlon Shop in Bristol, I’d been getting some lower back pain on my road bike recently, so it seemed a great opportunity to have it checked out.

So, unless I’m very much mistaken, another one bites the dust.  Another coach, that is.  Being dumped by your coach in the run-up to the main racing season isn’t nice. And perhaps it was avoidable. Or perhaps it just goes to show that I am uncoachable.

But am I really that difficult?  Well, looking at things as dispassionately as possible, yes and no.

When it comes to weighing-up my triathlon strengths and weaknesses, invariably swimming tends to get dismissed as “ah, I’m OK, I really need to focus on the run and the bike”.  And it’s a logic that I stand by to a certain degree.  After all, whichever distance of triathlon you’re competing in, the swim is not only the shortest of the respective distances, it’s also usually done and dusted the quickest.  I think it’s true to say that, most of the time, a triathlon is not won (okay, it could be lost) in the water.

I’ve been a bit crap at keeping my blog up to date lately. I guess during the winter many of us go into a kind of hibernation regime. Not hibernation from training, or indeed planning, but hibernation in terms of just getting on with base training – building volume, improving aerobic efficiency and (hopefully) staying injury free!

And I guess that kinda sums up my late December and January so far.  With the exception of getting to run 16x 400m reps shoulder to shoulder with a multiple Ironman world champion, there haven’t been any stand out sessions of late.  No ‘epic’ rides, no ‘smash fests’ or deeply dark experiences in the ‘pain cave’ – just lots of (again, hopefully!) sensible base training.  Sorry if that sounds boring, but that's kinda been my world for the last 4-5 weeks.