Catriona Morrison

Training camp photos from last month are now in the gallery – enjoy!

New spikes I think must be the reason (Saucony Kilkenny’s incase you are wondering!). The first time I’ve worn spikes in at least 10 years. What a great day – a really blustery, windy Callendar Park. Soggy underfoot and fast from the start with Susan Partridge (Olympic marathon aspirant and Commonwealth Games team member) setting the pace. A small group of us marched to the front: Susan, me, Freya Murray, Gillian Palmer and Lynn Wilson. As Susan powered on the group was whittled down to just the two of us. Going into the second lap Susan’ s long legs just seemed to carry her a little faster through onto the loop around the lake. I managed to pull back some of the gap a couple of times through the rougher sections of mud and up the hills. However, Susan’s legs and lungs were going strong and I was not able to close the gap. With Freya sitting in third position but never threatening I tried to keep my form to the finish. A fun tough race with the added bonus of knowing that the last 4 weeks of training in Spain has really paid off!

Click here for race report in The Herald, Monday 25th Feb.

This is the best road sign that I’ve come across in a while. It’s on my 5hr loop, about half way through just as you hit the wind on your way back to Aguilas. I’ve been meaning to get a piccy taken there for a while and today on the last day of training here in Spain, I finally managed. It kind of sums up the last 4 weeks: miles and miles before you sleep.

Happy to be going home, sad to be leaving the warmth and sunshine of my second home. I raced the Torre Pacheco duathlon yesterday. Murua Ainoha, Spain’s top ranked triathlete was there. This meant company for 3/4 of the first run. I waited up and we were able to work together on the bike but I have to be honest and say that I did less than my fair share of the work as the final week of training was really catching up! Onto the second run and I blasted out of T2 as fast as I possibly could, hoping that she could not top my pace. Everything went according to plan and I finished in first place – I’m becoming a local celebrity! This time I got to race for Aguilas triathlon club so that was pretty cool.

Home tomorrow – some rest and recuperation for a week, then back to it again. The treadmill that is training….

I never particularly look forward to long runs and bike rides by myself – and there have been a few of those recently let me tell you! BUT, Gav has introduced me to Competitor Radio - a US web-based radio station dedicated to endurance sport. Interviews and comments galore that make interesting listening during long sessions. Not only that, whilst here in Spain where the language barrier makes radio listening and TV watching a little hard, the interviews are cosy evening listening-fests!!

Into the final stretch – the one that gets longer as you turn the bend and your body starts to tie up. It’s been a fantastic three weeks so far. I’ve achieved all that I wanted to and now I need to hang in there until the bitter- sweet end.

As I write, it is Monday late afternoon. I managed to kick out a 400m rep track session this morning followed by a much reduced swim session (both in volume and intensity). My body was screaming for mercy and I obliged. Some stretching and massage and “off to bed young lady” is the prescription of the day. Need to be up for my strength bike tomorrow and pull out some decent reps in the swim. Richard was here (the stay at home husband) for a long weekend and has gone home happy to have biked 14hrs in 4 days. He will now need a month of recovery! The British girls are also in town and riding with a bunch of girls has been a breath of fresh air – not just for the change of chat but for the fact that I got to go biking without having to suck a wheel for hours on end hoping not to get dropped! We went into town (not out on the town) on Saturday night to experience the annual Carnival parade. Quite the scene with the street party raging until 6am the following morning. Not that any of us saw that! Bring on the weekend and the final duathlon. Then home to where the new Stealth lies awaiting it’s proud owner. Countdown to California 70.3 will begin……