Day 1 of 210

... aaaaand the training begins with a 6:30am alarm call for a 30 minute run.

It felt good to be out there training again but I wonder if I should have done more than I have over these last couple of months. Have I lost lots of fitness (or any that I did have) as a result, will it make it harder on my achilles, has it made it impossible to complete the ironman next year? The simple answers to these questions are yes, yes and a resounding no. Of course it's going to be harder to do this without that little extra training but it most definitely is not impossible, as long as I keep to the program I will be absolutely fine and will survive the course.

The run today was a little hard on the knees but I'm hoping that will soon pass as my body gradually gets used to training again. It was only 30 minutes but I decided to head up the hills of Halstead to begin to try and get used to them as I'm sure Bolton will be far worse than I could imagine.

Anyway, Christmas is coming and I've just got back in from the gym so I should grab a shower and think about the rest of the week.

22 days to go

Only 22 days to go now until I formally start my Ironman training. 21st December is the big day for starting my training but I'm thinking that I really need to get some form of pre-base training completed. I just need to get into the habit of training again so that it isn't so much of a shock.

Today was my first run outside since my half -ironman in August and I certainly felt it. It was a 5 mile run and was my slowest on that route since May of 2014 (almost 19 months ago).

This training should be fun.

A Christmas Run and not much else

So my training hasn't quite been going according to plan then. Mind you, when has it ever? But i'm still feeling confident about the whole London Marathon thing. I've had quite a few coughs and colds recently and used them as a bit of an excuse not to run to be honest, although i'm paranoid that if I do train while ill that i'll just have the cold for longer.

I still managed to go out for a run though, in aid of the Farleigh Hospice and dressed as Santa. It was quite a surreal morning really. All around there were people dressed up as Father Christmas and wherever you looked you could see still more arriving from all corners of Central Park in Chelmsford.

Having not run in a couple of weeks I was slightly nervous but the fact that it was freezing just made me more determined to finish in a quick time. Having arrived early I also managed to get to the front of the running line and as soon as the race started I kept up with the front runners for all of about twenty seconds. After that I just couldn't keep up with the 10mph pace that they had all set off at. Seeing that the course was only 2.3 miles I did manage to keep going all the way through the course, ended with a time of 23 minutes and then headed straight out to meet Siân and Rosy in order to watch Arthur Christmas.

All in all a good day, tomorrow morning I should really weigh myself and then get back into some sort of training regime again.