Ups and downs

Mmm... a bit of a strange month so far and not in a way that I would have wanted.  A week's holiday in the Alps was a welcome change from the normal training routine, where I spent most of my training time running in stunning scenery or cross-country skiing on our local tracks.  (Highlight of the week was the high level route between two small mountain villages).  Also, I had put my heart monitor in for repair I could train without any added pressure and for the sheer enjoyment of it.  (I did need to train though, as French alpine diet consists of cheese, ham and pastries, so plenty of excess calories to be burned off!).  On the downside, the week before and the week after the holiday were more or less a wash-out as far as structured training was concerned.  This was mainly due to work commitments but I don't want to use that as an excuse.  Consequently, I am well down on my planned swim and bike targets for the month.   I'm supposed to have a rest week this week with only easy training sessions, but instead I've decided to repeat the sessions that I missed this week (of which there were many).  My coach, Ian, always says, 'Don't go chasing training sessions!' but in this case I think it's the right thing to do, as I didn't train on 3 days last week, so feel quite rested.  I did manage two test sessions this week, one of which went well (a 100mile easy bike over rolling terrain - felt I could have done more) and one that didn't.  This was a 10Km swim set (my first).  I got to 7Km and had to stop.  The reason I had to stop was not one that I would have predicted.  I broke my ankle in 1996 in a skiing accident and since then I have to be careful with how much impact work I do as it can sometimes cause me pain.  For the first time I experienced this during a swim.  I think it was the constant extension of the ankle during the leg kick, so by 5 Km every time I kicked I got a shooting pain down my right leg.  I think it may have been weakened by the previous week's running and skiing (a bit too much jumping while snowboarding didn't help either!).  I've not felt the injury this week and it was OK on yesterday's 2 hour trail run, so I'm going to have another go at the 10Km swim tomorrow and see how it goes.  I'll finish this time, even if it means doing breast stroke to get the distance in!  Grrr....