What do triathletes do in the winter?

Arriving back in the UK after a beautiful spring race and holiday in NZ was a bit of a shock. The clocks had gone back, darkness began at 4pm and someone had turned the temperature down: winter had arrived. The last month has been spent jet lagged, overcoming a nasty virus (my body shutting down at the end of a hard season?) and catching up with work, friends and sleep. Initially, I enjoyed being 'off-training'; I could sleep till 7am, wear clothes which weren't made of lycra, enjoy wine with dinner without feeling guilty, and stop cleaning out my protein shaker twice a day, but after a couple of weeks, the itchy feet begun and my new relaxed life felt a little dull.

Joe Friel advises that winter training is all about a variety of cross training sessions 'for fun' and nothing too structured, but after 32 weeks of living by a spreadsheet, I found this concept difficult to get my head around. What then ensued was a number of emails to my 'triathlon friend mailing list' asking for company on a variety of different activities for the winter season I had signed up to: British Military Fitness, Hot Bikram Yoga, cold water swimming and French lessons, that's right - I am also aiming to fill the training gap in my life with learning a new language. People keep asking me why I can't just relax and enjoy it but it what I enjoy is sport and it makes me relaxed, so that concept is lost on me.

The winter is also time for planning next year. By strictly following instructions in Friels' 'Triathlon Bible', I spent an entire day designing 'The annual plan' - a complicated spreadsheet with time period tabs, colour coded sections, dates, A, B and training races, allotted hours, aims and objectives. And it only took 6 hours! An activity reminiscent of the hours I used to spend designing my colour coded revision plans during my teenage years.

I am also going to usefully using this time to fix my 'Bumjury' (I'm currently waiting for an MRI scan on that ongoing pain in the ass - literally) and trying to master that dratted catch with my swim coach Ray. This morning I went for a run for the first time since NZ race a month ago and my lungs felt like the size of a 5-year old's. Everyone says you need to 'keep your base up' over winter but it is hard to motivate yourself when you can just hear the rain smashing against your bedroom window in the morning and your next 'A race' is still over 6 months away.

Luckily, my training plan 'base period' starts in mid January, so just another month or feeling a little lost and embracing these random activities, and I can get back into it. People say that triathletes often have addictive personalities , but I don't know what that mean. Right, back to my French homework, before setting my 6am alarm for Hot Bikram yoga...