Forgive me father for I have sinned... It has been 3 weeks since my last blog

I thought you might be getting sick of a weekly list of I swam, ran, cycled, swam, cycled a lot and topped it off with a couple of runs, so here's what's been happening over the last 3 weeks.

First of all I had a recovery week which was timed nicely with my hospital visit to investigate my coughing, and I couldn't train for 24 hours before, so running the night before was off the cards.

The hospital wasn't exactly my idea of a good day out (made worse by having to get off the tube at South Kensington with a million families on half term days out to the museums). However my lung function test was remarkably good (apparently I should be about 80% - I was 112-120%) at one point I had to sit in a sealed glass box and blow down a tube. The worse was the camera down the back of my nose (yes gross) giving a room full of doctors and nurses (am I a lab rat?!) a delightful view of my larynx whilst I span at 100rpm with increasing resistance on an exercise bike as old as me. The verdict was reflux, and the treatment is prescription strength Gaviscon (yes really) which tastes just lovely, but that's better than most other options.

At 2am the next morning I woke with a raging sore throat, my first thought was that the anesthetic had worn off. Nope. A nice dose of man flu. Saturday morning saw snow and ice so cycling was out of the question, but foolishly I decided I was well enough to go for a blast on Sunday morning with Paula. Initially I felt great, but paid for it later, and ended up in bed all day Monday. Somewhere outside Yalding we passed a puddle which had sprayed all over a bus on the roadside. As the water dripped off it had formed hundreds of little icicles and was pretty amazing.

After a few days of taking it easy I was back in the pool pushing PB's although I to remind myself on the Saturday ride when I felt tired at about 40 miles that I been ill most of the week.

Last week saw everything back on track, and for the first time I hit 3km in the pool (but it 61 minutes, gotta shave that minute off) and the first of my Sunday runs saw me hit the 8 mile marker for the first time ever. It never gets easier going out for a second time on a Sunday but it brings the week to a perfect close.