I am back home now after a tough past month of training and racing, but my season is now finished now and I’m really excited to relax and recover after my best ever year.

Since my last blog it all started to slip through my fingers a bit!  I picked up a bit of a niggles in my legs in Lanzarote that I just couldn’t shake off however with lots of physiotherapy and massage plus a heap of exercises in front of the TV I could keep it under control and I could run probably half of what I normally do which for me is no where near the amount I need to do to be at the front.  I could however work hard on my swimming and cycling so I thought it’s possible I can capitalise on this!  I think at one point I was swimming and cycling the best I ever have.

So I hit a German Bundesliga in Grimma, Germany.  I got there in a bit of a state though because I had a day of rest before my travel and my 12hr travel day full of delays. When I got there my leg has seized up and I couldn’t even train again before the race.  In the race I worked to my strengths though and got a 35 second lead to start the run with.  I managed to hold on for 5th which was a decent performance all things considered and my team manager was happy.

Post Bundesliga, I had a mammoth journey to get to Korea for my last phase of preparation ahead of the World Championships Final.  I had to fly from Leipzig-Frankfurt-London-Shanghai-Cheju (Korea) all in one day! pfff! Long day that was but I landed and surprisingly felt decent getting off the plane.  Cheju was beautiful and I had a great time training and hanging out with the Brownlee boys, David Macnamee and our support crew Ben Bright and Emma Deakin.  It was very hot out there and we trained pretty hard so I was able to go into Beijing with some gas!

After our hot weather training camp in Korea, who would have thought that in Beijing we could have 15′C and pouring rain!? It’s the 4th time this year in a World Series that we’ve had horrible weather! By Mid day we heard the worlds TAKE YOUR MARKS and the race got under way.  I felt fantastic in the water exiting right up there in the mix. Onto the bike I could tell that I’d have a good hard ride today, my legs felt great and I spent the whole 40k covering all attempts to break away and controlling the race.  On lap no.3 we got to the top of the climb and I looked over to find we had a break away with 6 of the strongest riders in the sport.  Perfect!  We rode mega hard for the next 5 kilometres but unfortunately someone bought the rest of the field back up to us again and it wasn’t to be! I’m not sure that my run was ever going to be good all things considered.  I was pretty tired running around but I was happy to limit my losses and I finished the World Championships Series in 9th place which I’m really happy with.

So now it’s holiday time!  I’ve been in a routine now without a break for 10 months pumping out somewhere between 32hrs – 26hrs every week so the body is suitably tired!  I’m going to take about 6 weeks off training but knowing me I’ll probably do the occasional session for fun.

I’d just like to thank EVERYONE who has supported me this year, whether you are Michelle Dillon who has turned my career around, my very patient wife Clare who has to deal with my roller coaster mood swings and Sundays where she barely sees me because I’m doing 6 hours of training. My support team, my family and friends, and anyone who follows my journey, especially you poor buggers that have cheered for us for 2hrs this year in a cyclone!

P.S. As I left it so long this is very brief!  If you want to read more please check out my latest Realbuzz blogs here which I write weekly!

Just got home from London.  What a fantastic weekend.

14th wasn’t the result I was hoping for but I’m happy with my effort.  I was 3rd best Brit which I’m happier with as it hopefully looks favourably towards me with the Olympic selectors.  To be honest the race didn’t suit me yesterday, It’s not how I’ve been training.  The run was too fast for me and the bike was WAY too easy! I’ve learnt a lot though and should I qualify I’ve got a really good understanding of how to be successful on this course.

We were staying in a nice hotel just on the fringe of Hyde Park.  It wasn’t an ideal build up for me though…the Air Con didn’t work so the room was very hot and 2 nights before the race (the most important nights sleep) I couldn’t sleep and finally dropped off at 5:30 am.  This worried me massively because I know how crucial sleep is to an athlete and 3hrs sleep makes me feel very lethargic.  The doctor gave me a sleeping pill so the next night I was fine but the damage is already done.

As no.2 World ranked I had the chance to start next to Javier Gomez so I had an awesome line to the first buoy.  I got a lot of beats at the turn but I ended up exiting right up there in the mix and once on the bike we had a gap to the chasing pack which was nice!

My plan was to conserve as much energy on the bike as possible.  Unfortunately a group of 4 slipped away from us containing Alistair Brownlee and some other big names but a good result was still on the cards.  The bike was mega easy which is bad for me because I rely on the bike damaging some peoples legs but not this weekend!

The run was incredible. It was so fast, 25 athletes ran under 31 minutes.  I wasn’t hanging around either but my 30:30 was only good enough for 14th. This was Olympic Selection for most of the athletes so everyone was in great form and gunning! I’m neutral about this result because to be honest I was always targeting Beijing in 1 months time more so then London. My preparation wasn’t ideal with quite a bit of races and a bout of insomnia but I really enjoyed the weekend and it was a pleasure racing against such an enthusiastic crowd! Thanks to everyone for coming out.

1st Alistair Brownlee GB 2nd Alexander Brukankov 3rd Johnny Brownlee

So, it’s been quite a week!

I’m starting to feel a bit rock and roll recently after my new found skills in Hamburg!  I’ve picked up my new BMW 5 Series GT from ELMS Cambridge.  The locals call us the mainies now because we’ve been spending our evenings driving up and down the main street in town beeping the horn!  It’s an awesome car and I feel very lucky to have it…thanks to my sponsor Elms for freshening me up.

I’ve recently been asked to write a blog for a blogging site called realbuzz.  I’ll be contributing weekly so make sure that you ‘favourite’ realbuzz.com and tune in for more stories of the crazy life of a professional Triathlete! First blog is here…

Lanzarote was a good trip in the end.  I came straight from Hamburg and got stuck straight into hard training.  As I said earlier, I was still buzzing from Hamburg so that carried me through the first week….then I cracked and had a day off. All in all though I couldn’t have asked for more and Conor Murphy was a brilliant training partner.  He’s an Irish athlete who trained with me while we were at Loughborough University.  He then left and became an accountant for 3 years, failed his exams! Then decided to have a crack at making the Irish Olympic team.  He’s doing bloody well and I think he can do it! Exciting athlete and just shows what you can do if you really want it.

So this week for me it’s all about resting up, doing the last minute training preparations, relaxing the body and getting ready for a big race in London.  I can’t wait, it’s going to be such and exciting event.  Get ready to see all of the Worlds best Triathletes, all in their best form fighting it out over the Olympic Course for Olympic Selection.  If you are gutted that you didn’t get any Olympic tickets come and see this show.  Women Saturday @ 08:36, Men Sunday @ 13:06. And if you can’t get to London then watch LIVE on the BBC

I also had the best bit of fish I’ve ever had in Lanzarote.  Check it out in El Gulfo…Out of this world.