I spent Christmas with my mum, dad and brother, it was okay although my mum was il all over Christmas so felt a little guilty shovelling food and drink down my throat. I trained as normall even on Christmas day but just drank and ate what I wanted. I normally take two weeks of but what with trials coming up on the 2/3 February new I would lose to much fitness if I did that!
Even though I trained over Christmas I still put on 3 Kg which I still haven't shifted but all my times are still coming down. I do need to lose it though and probably by the British Champs an extra Kg less than the 3 wouldn't do any harm.
Iv been concentrating on my swimming all over the winter and after some more swim analysis with Liz at Thetrilife I can see it has really paid off. I am looking a lot more efficient, there are still things to improve on like the body balance in the water so lots of drills. Saying that I have made massive improvements in the catch and pull.
The work on the turbo has been going well as I cant get out on the bike and the running is improving naturally. Allan from the technology department for Blatchfords did some analysis on the new running blade to see if we could improve alignment to get more out of it. We took video of me running across a pressure pad to take measurements of velocity pressure and alignment. We didn't need to change anything because all the readings that came back looked very good. I also had a new socket put on the running leg the same day so Christina did a great job, such a shame she is leaving and I will miss her! There will be things as always that will need to be altered to improve alignment that you only notice over time as I use it. It still feels like it wants to go out to one side or the other rather than straight forwards at times so need to work that out.
I have had a bit of bad timing with skin break down on the front of my stump where the scare is this week but don't think it is because of the new socket. I think it is probably because I did my longest bike then run session this week since the amputation, probably double the length of anything I did last year. Just a little to far at a hard pace that although felt quit easy took its toll on my skin, just stripped it right off. I have just covered it with the elastoplast clear plasters I normally use then put Tegaderm (clear dressing used after operations that is water proof) over it just for good measure. Its looking better today but just need to lay off doing any running or cycling till atleast Tuesday/Wednesday and then look at it again. The main thing for next week is that it gets better, I know I am fit enough for the trials up at loughborough so a light week now will not do any harm to that!
