As I turned 40 this year one of my aims was to race in all of the Welsh Triathlon Championship events this year and have a crack at some medals. I've failed, missing the duathlon champs with a small gastrocnemius tear, and I'll miss the sprint triathlon champs because I've elected to race in XTERRA England instead and give myself a new challenge. I did make it to the Welsh Standard Distance Triathlon Championships at Llandudno a week after the Euros and then to the Welsh Aquathlon Championships the following week in Poppit Sands. Those races were rather good.

It's been a busy few weeks, which, with some prolonged work stress in combination with the training and racing stress (physical stuff, don't be a salmon, etc) has left me a bit knackered. The Ffit Conwy Llandudno Sea Triathlon has a cracking course. I was much better off swimming in a sea with a bit of swell than in a calm alpine lake, and the 2 lap course helped with pacing and tactics. I was having a chat with the starter in a kayak when she sounded the horn and started the race, so it was a low stress start too. Parp and we got going, failing to even start my watch and getting into a pairing chasing the leader around the buoys.

I raced at the European Triathlon Championships a week or so ago in Kitzbuhel, Austria. It's getting easier to prepare for logistically each year, and this time I travelled with a group of team mates from Cardiff Triathletes. We drove, with trailer, bikes on the roof (careful now) and a ton of camping stuff and had a great week in the Tyrolean Alps.

Kitzbuhel is a great location for summer racing; triathlon, biking or running. Big hills, warm lakes, winding roads and paths. The swim route in the Schwarzsee was pretty (and flat), the bike course was narrow, hilly, winding (maybe optimistically so) and superbly steep in places, and the rolling run course used a mix of narrow trails and tarmac around the lake. With 4 laps of the bike course and 2 laps of the run course in the standard distance race we got to go up and down a lot.

I took some photos at Cosmeston early on Sunday morning. For the first time the swim leg of the triathlon was cancelled and we had to resort to a duathlon. Nonetheless, it was still a great morning for those involved.

See the set of photos on Flickr:

I haven't raced any of the Parc Bryn Bach aquathlons, but I know that they're a popular weekly summer series. It's almost impossible for me to get to after work. I asked the family as it was a half-term holiday this week and they fancied going up on Thursday evening, and as I need to get some open water racing practice I thought I'd pop up and have a crack. The sun was out and it wasn't raining. Apparently this was unusual.

I like aquathlons. I'm not very good at them because I'm not a quick swimmer, but I like not having to pack very much. My entire transition set up is a pair of shoes.

My 3rd race in a week was the TTG Gloucester Triathlon, which is almost a home race as it's based near where I grew up. It's a good race for a test at this time of year, and so far I've been getting faster every year here on the same course. I'd recovered OK from the Whitford Point race and spent a few hours on the new race bike in the rain the day before which loosened up my posterior chain and got me better used to the new bike.

I'm nervous about swimming again as I've put so much effort into swim training over the last 6 months or so and I'm keen to see some improvements. The pool swim started well and I was enjoying myself by the end so it was a shame I had to get out. I swam pretty much the same time as last year, so no improvement there. Hmmm.

The weather was beautiful for the evening Whitford Point multi-terrain race on Wednesday. Multi-terrain is right. We had soft sand, firm sand, hard sand, flat sand, wavy sand, muddy sand, rocky sand, mussel bed-y sand, dunes, soft mud, hard mud, stone, Tarmac, grass, and gravel. The wind was strong on the beach too so it was an interesting race, as always. Which route to take? Who to run with?

The soreness in my left tibialis posterior muscle was generally just more pain on top of lots of other pain, but it slowed me a bit on some of the downhill sections. I think I paced it quite well, and ran the windy section like a cyclist. The placings were decided by the end of the beach and I almost held the back of the vest ahead of me except for some poor line choices. The beach was fun but hard, and the wooded section was great. I'm still poor on soft sand. Mud I can move through.

The final climb to the finish was a crazy, full on effort and fight with runners at my back and legs weakening and fading by the top of the steep section. A massive effort. I'm sure that hill gets longer. Great fun.

Second V40 and 6th overall. Good running.

We had some fantastic weather for the start of the triathlon season here in Wales, so I was glad that I'd entered the Llanelli Sprint Triathlon. It's only 5 minutes down the road from my house, and on routes that I train on, so it makes a good end to my build phase of training. Hopefully it'll help get some race speed into my legs, along with the Whitford Point off road race on Wednesday evening and the Gloucester Triathlon on the following Sunday.

The family got up at 5:30 am with me and we were at the race by 6:15. A new family record? Although I'd been spectating at the paratriathlon the day before I'd missed the packet pick up, so registered quickly, put my bike together, tested the gearing and adjusted the brakes (damned fiddly aero tolerances) and got set up in transition. I started in the second wave, which I think was mostly veteran athletes of 40-years-old and older (that's me this year too). I had plenty of time for a warm up. Getting in the water before the start and moving and feeling the water is crucial for me.

I took a bunch of photos at our club's first race of the year, Try-a-Tri.Grab full resolution copies of yourselves from Flickr for free!

Flickr album - Try-a-Tri 2014

What am I doing? I'm tired, I've got too much to do, I can't afford it; so why am I doing this triathlon thing again?

It's another one of those times of the year when the fatigue is starting to set in and the bank balance is starting to look unfriendly. I've almost finished my first build training block (just a week of rest and test coming up now) and the shift to high intensity training has knackered me out. I've got a book deadline in a couple of weeks, exams are looming (I'm setting them, not sitting them) and I have to wonder why I'm not getting fat and middle aged sat in front of my gaming PC with a big packet of biscuits and bottles of beer. Wouldn't that be easier?

Finally Windows Phone has a proper podcasts app with the latest (developer) version of Windows Phone 8.1. All you Windows Phone users (anyone?) will be able to search for podcasts from within the app, and Bing does a pretty good job of finding the stuff you like to listen to. When I tried it the big podcasts I like were all available but mine didn't work, so I sat down and sorted out the RSS feeds so that they're a lot friendlier to different devices and podcast subscription services. I should have done this in the first place.

From within the Windows Phone podcast app go to the search for podcasts page and try searching for my stuff. Maybe try "swansea embryology" or "swansea neuroscience". It didn't work for me when I started writing this but Bing may catch up and it might be ok for you.

If that doesn't work you can put the link to the RSS feed for each podcast directly into that same search bar. The feeds are:

Anatomy & embryology: http://www.dontbeasalmon.net/embryology-rss.xml
Neuroscience: http://www.dontbeasalmon.net/neuroscience-rss.xml

If that works you should see the podcast, the icon, all the episodes and the description. Neat and tidy.