Firstly my apologies to those of you who have been anxiously checking my blog each day hoping for a long awaited update.

After the season I had a bit of time off, mostly just relaxing and seeing friends but also a short family holiday – something we haven’t managed for about 5 or 6 years!

I managed a decent month of training in May. I did The Goatfell hill race on Arran and a couple of local cycle races. My University flatmates and I also went for a cycling weekend on the West coast, the cycling was great but what possibly made the weekend was our rather eccentric host Gerry. We stayed in ‘Gerry’s hostel’. If you type that into google you will get some pretty mixed (and amusing) reviews!

I had a few funny spells at the very end of May/start of June but didn’t think too much of it until on the 7th I woke up to find my face had pretty much doubled in size. I would say mumps was reasonably grim. Although I managed to watch almost the entirety of breaking bad and greatly enjoyed it, other things weren’t quite as much fun. A particular low point was trying to eat a peanut butter covered ryvita whilst producing absolutely no saliva.

To cut a long story short… a premature MMR vaccine, some pretty horrible side effects and a week of reasonably intensive training has resulted in me feeling less than optimal. At the moment my training is limited to walking and very easy strength sessions. I feel my strength is returning and I no longer feel tired so hopefully things are on the way up.

In the meantime, I start back at University in three weeks’ time and I’m really looking forward to that, whilst also a little apprehensive that I may have forgotten everything in the last year!

Hopefully my next blog will be all about how well I’m feeling and how good my training has been. If nothing else, I’ve learnt some very handy relaxation techniques from this experience and feel more motivated than ever to train hard and enjoy it.