We’re on the eve of going away with Ellen to what should be an awesome week of riding, running and swimming in the sunshine of Lanzarote. However, there’s been a few little hicups in the way.

A month ago, I managed to get tonsillitis, which lingered on and on and on until I finally managed to get some antibiotics from my GP… Last Wednesday. Training has therefore been ridiculously minimal for the last 3 weeks…

Last week, Ellen found out that she’s got a stress fracture in her right foot, and is now walking around in an air cast. Not that this will discourage her from riding the hills on the volcano island!

And this morning I managed to crash heavily, all on my own, going to work, and my right ribs are now painful… Nothing is broken, I can still move, lift and do most things, but we’ll see tomorrow.

So instead of two healthy and strong athletes going for a week of proper training camp, we’re now two cripples going for rehab!

Hopefully we’ll manage to do a few of the activities planned. It seems that there’s some sunshine at least!

The triathlon race season will start again soon here in the UK, and with the plethora of winter running races and other duathlons available — not to mention overseas racing — I can see a lot of my friends and twitter buddies getting in some fast action over the week-ends.

However, I noticed a trend lately: this also comes with plenty of them doubting themselves for the goals they have set a long way back. For most, they’ve been reasonable in setting those up, so it’s all about confidence and re-adjustment.

Last week I stupidly fell with my in the corridor at home. The new floor is some kind of plastic tilling that makes walking with cleats extremely slipper. Long story short: I fell ON my bike, with a backpack, and in the process bent and cracked the mech hanger on my Old Focus Variado 2007.

This is an old bike, and like with many old things, finding parts is close to impossible. The hanger reference I needed is SO46, but I couldn’t find it anywhere on-line, and even the manufacturer in US sent me back to Wheels Manufacturing Inc. to check if they could help me. Unfortunately, I had no luck anywhere.

Looking at several models on-line, I found a few close matches and ordered three, including one supposedly for Bianchi bikes that looked very close. Funny enough, it’s a Evans that I found what I needed, and the only one who had them in stock!

Replacement choice

None of the three were a perfect fit straight away. Both the Bianchi or the WMFG 41 needed their top to be milled to properly align the bolt hole with the frame, while the WMFG 42 “only” needed the ridge to be removed. While the Bianchi seemed overall a closer fit, it also seemed weaker than the other two, so I elected to take the ridge out of the WMFG42. I took about 10 minutes with a mini drill, a cutting disc and some milling heads, but it went on without much of a problem.

So if you have a bike that needs a hanger reference SO46, you can use a Wheels MFG #42 and remove the ridge. I’m posting this here because I know that if I break it again, I’ll have a place to look back for clues as to which one to get!

A bit of disc and milling action

As new! Well, almost.

Race 3 of the Human race off road series was the Iceman. Held on January 25th 2014, I was expecting a lot colder conditions than at the previous races, but it was in fact quite mild, and instead of ice… we had mud.

Iceman: Done!
(photo Marsha El-Hage)

November 7th 2013: Human race off road duathlon series, race #2. 4 weeks ago was the Wildman and I thought it was hard. Pah! The Mudman was on another level. I’ve since been told that this one would be the hardest of the series, so it reassures me that the increasing difficulty isn’t a trend as the season progresses, otherwise we’d have to prepare harnesses and ropes for the last one!

Bike: end of lap 1
(photo Simon Kibble)

After last winter mostly spent indoors, stuck on a turbo or a treadmill, I thought it would be fun to mix things up and go play in the mud. Alongside registering to a silly event like the Grim challenge, I’ve also hit the button to enter the whole of the Human race winter off-road series. Moment of madness? Given how hard the first race was yesterday, probably!

Leaving T1 at the wildman 2013
Photo Marsha El-Hage

About 11 months ago I started my first personal coached plan with Jo Carritt through the training business she runs with her partner Steven Lord: Every Day Training. 10 months of discovery of what such a plan entails, of performance improvements, and ultimately discovery of myself.

Some of 2013's medals haul