Last Sunday saw the last race of the Wessex Cyclocross league and, despite a near-fatal bout of man-flu (is there any other kind?!), I wasn’t going to miss the season finale; partly because it was the last race, partly because it was on my doorstep and partly because I needed the points in order to be ‘gridded’ for the start of next season.

Wow, another two months since my last blog post. I think my silence probably sums up things pretty well. I haven’t been a happy bunny. There’s no escaping just how crap I feel after messing up not just one, but both of my ‘A’ races for 2015. I really wanted to do well in Alcatraz and at the 70.3 World Champs. And I ballsed them both up.

The story begins in Kornberg, Denmark, last September.  A crisis of confidence, and a reluctance to spend a small fortune travelling to race I didn’t feel ready for, led me to defaulting on my place at the 2014 Ironman 70.3 World Championship in Mont Tremblant, Canada.  Instead, I accepted a free place to race the 70.3 in Kronborg, home of Hamlet’s Castle, the following weekend.

If you’ve been training for any period of time, it’s likely you’ve at least heard of – if not had done – a Lactate Threshold test.   In very simple terms (a more verbose and helpful description of Lactate Threshold can be found here:  http://trainright.com/the-performance-benefits-of-lactate-threshold-testing-and-training/) your Lactate Threshold (or LT) is the point at which there is a significant build-up of lactate in the muscles because the body can no longer flush it out.

My first encounter with the London Triathlon (the one held in Docklands, not the Hyde Park one) was in my first season of triathlon back in 2010.  If memory serves me right, I did the sprint distance and I think I came about 33rd in my Age Group, which at the time I considered a good result.