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.

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 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 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 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 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.

Day 23 - Back to running

Fantastic stuff, back to running today and the 30 minutes turned out 3.5 miles. My average heart rate was 156 which means the training effort was pretty good.

The route was a pretty good one as well that included 78m climbing. A good little session.

Day 20 - Just a whole lot of pain

Being a Saturday , today was meant to be a long bike day (1hr45 to be precise) but I had also organised for CJ from Total Sports Therapy to take a look at my achilles. The appointment was at 11:30am and originally I had thought that I'd be able to go for the bike before we went there. I hadn't really thought about it properly though, as after getting up nice and early, I realised that I wouldn't make it back to the house till about 10am and that would just not leave enough time to have a shower, get ready and pop into the local bike shop (Lobbs) to talk new steeds. Needless to say then, that there was no bike ride for me today. Instead I figured that I would be able to do a nice slow hour run with Sian and then head out for a gentle two hour ride on my own. On top of this, I also want to go swimming with Halstead SC tomorrow as well.

Back to the physio though, after having a brief chat with CJ she took a look at my legs and other than being a bit tight they are okay. I was starting to get a bit on the worried side about them, worried that I would not be able to run 26.2 miles on its own let alone after a 2.4 mile swim and a 112 mile bike. Thankfully though, CJ explained that as long as I stretch after running and general training, as well as completing some exercises in between I should be fine. That is as long as I do the training properly and don't go too hard or too fast too early. Just to be on the safe side, I'll also be making other appointments to see her once a month, especially as my quads and IT bands are tight, along with achilles.

Big day tomorrow and it's almost 10pm, time for me to hit the hay.

Day 19 - Turbo and Swim

Today all started at at 5am, the alarm went off in order for me to complete a 60 minute turbo, instead of a 60 minute run (I still don't want to run too far with my Achilles feeling a little bit dodgy) but like the lazy arsed triathlete I am, I snoozed it until it was too late. Therefore I had to try and fit it in after school and before the swim session. I pretty much managed to do this (45 minutes at about 12mph on the turbo) and then I went straight onto the swim session.

The swim was a coached session by Born2Tri and was really just focussing on the arms and legs. Once my legs were sorted it was straight onto the arms. They were teaching about having your hand enter the water a lot sooner. In fact, pretty much just after your head. It feels kinda unnatural but I'm guessing it makes it more efficient. The other part is about entering the water slightly wider. I really must ensure that I keep going to the pool and practise this in the pool and hopefully the first chance for this is going to be at another coached swim set at Halstead Swim Club on Sunday.

Enjoy everyone. Train hard and race easy.

Day 18 - Love Thy Turbo

Today was another turbo bike session due to the time I got back from work and how dark it was.

I feel that I've been spending a lot of time in there recently due to the achilles issue but I'm sure it'll all stand me in good stead for IMUK.

Anyway, the bike session was good, 45 minutes and just over 9 miles.

Day 17 - lessons learnt

Today was an early start with a great swim session. The pool wasn't too busy, in the hour and a quarter I almost made it through the entire swim set (I completed 2.2km) and I managed to get some good footage on the GoPro.

After work it was straight to cooking and then onto the turbo for the beginning of another brick session. This was not so good though, training so soon after dinner just did jot agree with me and to make matters worse, the HR monitor wasn't working for some reason.

I struggled through the 30 minute bike session, averaging just over 12mph, but whilst on the 1.8 mile run I blew chunks.

I think this session was more about mental training in order to keep going rather than anything else.

Day 15 - Rest Day

Even though today was a rest day, it was a little bit of work because it was back to school for everyone after the Christmas break. This'll be the first week of my training with work involved as well and therefore it is essential that everything goes well. As long as everything works well this week, I know it'll work for future weeks as well.

My left achilles is beginning to ache a little more at the moment so depending on how it feels tomorrow, I may well just do a little bike session instead, we'll have to see.