Ironman UK

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Day 121 of 210

6.7 miles - 1 hour

These runs of an hour are just becoming the 'norm' now it seems. The great thing, is that they appear to be getting easier. I remember that only just a few years ago, my heart rate would be through the roof doing the same time and pace. This is good.

Day 118 of 210

Long Run - 1hr15 - 7.95 miles - 147HR

An early start, which was hard to do, but I'm so glad I did get up as the run was great.

I spent the majority of the run in low Z2 but the pace was pretty good at around 9:40/mile. I even managed to up the speed for the last 0.95miles of this 7.95mile run in order to gain my fastest mile pace of 7:20/mile. Okay... so I nearly slowed down to a normal pace after about 0.25miles but then I saw my neighbour walking his dog so I just had to keep going.

I may just be able to fit in a swim later.

Day 117 of 210

This was the first time I've actually cycled in and back from work and it panned out quite well. The cycle in was easy going (you don't want to get too sweaty before work) and allowed time to concentrate/experiment on technique whilst the journey back was for proper training. This means that it's now not even 6:30pm and my training for the day is done. Awesome! The extra cycle in will be good extra training as well, I'm sure.

D116 of 210

What else can I say other than that it was a great run. 40 minutes in zone 2 followed by 12 in Z4 and a jog to bring me home & take the time to a round hour. After leaving the heavy rain/hail thunder storm at work I was glad to see that it was dry at home with clear skys. This just made the run all the more worthwhile and seeing some fairly late 'Mad March Hares" box & fight each other it was soon time for the 12 minute sprint. This went extremely well and produced my fastest mile time to date of 7:22. Unfortunately though, it also meant a bit of a sore right nip. All is good though. I'm still smiling.

Day 115 of 210

Today's session was a brick session. I was meant to be swimming in the morning as well but I just couldn't get out of bed.

The ride felt really good to start with, I was all refreshed, the speed was good and it looked like there was going to be a good sunset... Then the puncture arrived.

For some reason I seem to get these a lot although this is my second on this new bike which,  when I think about it, maybe isn't that bad. The change took just over 10 minutes to complete and then I continued on. Because of the puncture, I made the ride time longer as the plan did say for a 45 minute ride and I think I completed this. As for the average moving speed, this turned out to be about 16mpg but I'm hoping this doesn't happen on race day.

An awesome run off the bike made up for it all though. Yes, the back of my knees felt tight but the HR stayed down and the pace kept increasing. Overall, I covered 2 miles and managed a pace of under 9min/mile. Awesome. I'm happy.

Day 114 of 210

The intervals in today's run were meant to be three lots of 6 minute sprints with a 2 minute jog inbetween but I didn't program the watch properly so it just gave me last week's efforts instead.

Five lots of 3 minute sprints was still good though, and even gave me a 10k pb, according to the watch anyway (I'm sure I've gone faster than 56 minutes before). I still feel quite springy, which is a great feeling to have, after this effort so now just need to ensure I do my school work and keep this confident feeling into the rest of the week. 6.7miles in an hour does make me happy.

Day 72

It's been a while since I've posted but I may just have my mojo back for this.

We're now in week 11 of the training, which means it is officially "build phase" time. Tuesday's session was an hour run to include pick ups. My session also included some hills which I think is always good practice.

Day 45

Started with an hours swim session and finished with a little brick session. All in all, it's good to be back running again.

Day 44

Today was the first run in quite a while and it actually felt quite good to be back. Only being for 30 minutes, it wasn't that testing but it was after a 30 minute bike.

Day 39

Another turbo session completed, and hour this time though.

Day 38

50 minute turbo completed, the legs are feeling surprisingly good.

Day 37 - Turbo Time

Another session done (45mins) but I'm beginning to get a little bit worried about my running legs and doing enough training.

I know that it's still early days but it's going to be another week with no runs and plenty of bike rides n order to try any get the legs on the mend.

Day 36 - a new week

A new week and a new session... the tri club's swim session. More focus on technique with new drills to try out in the week.

With the legs still slightly dodgy, I think I'll stick to the bike and swims this week.

Should be fun.

Day 35 - long run

Another run with Siân but this time I stayed with her all the way.

I could begin to feel my quads (possibly it band) part way through and I don't think I could've gone much further than the hour/5 and a bit miles we did as I'm really feeling it now.

Next week I think I'll have to stick to the bike and really get on that foam roller.

Day 34 - long bike

Thankfully, Siân is all onboard with #OperationIronman2016 and took Rosy swimming this morning in order to allow me to head out on the bike while it was still light.

The session was only an hour and three quarters, and therefore only a fraction of the total time I'll be spending on the bike, but I almost cut it short. Not because I was tired or finding it hard but because I knew I had plenty of other things to do. I didn't cut it short though and it was only because I know that I have to do this training otherwise I will not finish the race in time.

"Respect the training!" is a phrase that keeps going through my mind as the training will be far harder than the race itself.

Long Bike Ride has been completed. An hour and three quarters at an average of 14mph, the minimum speed I need to do.

Day 33 - swim only

Another day with only a swim session being completed. I really didn't want to run, incase it made the quads worse, but now at the end of the day I think they feel my children better.

The swim session with Born2Tri was another good session. A good focus on not kicking too hard and focussing on twisting at the hips.

Day 32 - great swim

No bike for me today, due to sore quads after a run on Tuesday in the freezing cold, but I did have an awesome swim.

2500m in just over an hour is the main information but this was also as a stand alone swim with no toys whatsoever.

Love it.

Day 28 - End of another great week

Week 4 ended with an hours run, a 2 hour bike and an hours masters swim session at Halstead Swim Club (HSC).

Overall it was another great week with 4 swims. The only issue with these swims is that one of them was a technical session with the tri club (B2T), while another was with a coach from the HSC and another was a masters session, also with HSC. This basically means that I only had one other swim session where I was able to work on my stroke and really focus on it. This is something that I really must sort out next week as I would love to have 2 sessions to myself, then have a training session with B2T and a session with HSC.

More on this to come I feel.

Day 24 - Full House

Have just about covered everything during this Wednesday. Started of with a 2k swim first thing in the morning which was followed up this evening with a tidy little brick session. The bike was obviously on the turbo again but it all felt surprisingly good.

Bring on tomorrow.