Jog On...

Ive been a while writing this one.. Nearly 2 years but its still fresh in memory, like it was yesterday, so grab a cuppa as your in for a long one. It's Thursday night and I have finished work I'm making my way back to beautiful Pembrokeshire after spending the week in Birmingham with work. I was getting over the cold I had caught from the kids over the weekend, but I didn't care... It's time to get the game face on get ready it's going to be the biggest race of your life to date. Friday Amazingly I slept like a log I woke up relatively fresh I've made a list of all the things I have to do Friday Saturday and Sunday so I didn't have to engage the brain I heap on more worrying about what race day might bring.I drop my daughter off in Lamphey I made my way to the Friday first race briefing I managed to park the car in the train station which was rammed. I typically forgot to bring change and I car park so I took a picture of the pay and display and pa...

Week 5 - 9 - Toughen Up Week 9 has arrived and gone when I write this review of my training, time is flying and I'm starting to get nervous about race day. The past 4 weeks have been all about building that lactate threshold and I must say there has been some killer sessions in the plan already. I'm still enjoying it so something must be going right... well when I say enjoying it, one thing I haven't enjoyed was the sea swimming. My wife raced ISOMAN so she has been in the sea plenty of times and seems to smash it every time she goes in, I find myself retching with the taste of the water which is really hard to get a good rhythm on my stroke. I really need to work on this as its given my confidence a real bashing! In this chunk of training we went on holiday to Centerparks for a week, which mean no pool swims, I did ask if I could swim in the lake and I was told no, so I packed extra run kit and bike kit do sneak an extra session in. On an early morning bike ride I...

Week 1 - 4 - Building A Routine  So the countdown to race day has started and day one has been and gone and I'm now at the end of my first block of 20 weeks training for Ironman Wales 2016. If I'm honest I've really enjoyed getting back into multi-sport, after concentrating on marathons last year its been great to get back in the pool and on the bike, and I'm full of enthusiasm currently so actually doing the sessions hasn't been a chore (I know I'm only 4 weeks in) but when marathon running some/most of the runs were done with the mentality of "Have I really got to do this, for this far". Back to the training, week 1 was a nice gentle reminder to triathlon training. I missed no sessions and clocked in a 7/7 that week, same for week 2, zero sessions missed, week 3 I missed my 1st session and it was a bike effort and I felt so guilty, but people tell me don't force the training to catch up on what you missed, just put it to bed and move on...

2 weeks back in training and I feel great... even more importantly my knee feel great! I the last 14 days I've turbo trained 9 sessions and all have been more intense than the last. I've gone from 20 minutes to 45 minutes and gone from a minor/none resistance to the top ring with a cheeky mid resistance. I'm happy to start recording my training sessions from now on so I've dug out my brand new Garmin 910 XT that I had for my 30th birthday in April and get testing it out. I'm also going to invest in trainer road software to see what kind of wattage / power I'm pushing on the bike. It looks like something good to invest my money in as I love stats. Other Good / Bad news is that Ironman Wales has now been fully booked up so there are no spaces left for me to enter. Its good news that I wont over train and feel that "inch" to enter and cut corners with my training, but bad news as I have to wait till 2015 definitely now! Looks like another event wit...

10/09/12 - Rest Day 11/09/12 - Spin Session Simple easy spin session which was 10 minutes in the saddle and 10 minutes out and repeat twice (40 minutes session). I was feeling a little low on the energy front as I was down on my calories, but I still went to train and as I'm on daddy day care I forgot to pack my lunch before I dropped my son into crèche. I think the Spin bike is due a service, as the brakes were rubbing quite badly when I upped the resistance, not that I minded as it just made the session harder but I was banging out a quite high pitched squeak for the full 10 minutes so I was lucky it was only me and the gym instructor working out. I could hear it just over the music pumping in my ears. Not sure how much training I'll get in the rest of the week as its Ironman week and I'm working at the expo for Compress Sport, a little thank you for all the support they have given me this year. Today's session was a easy session but it was good to give ...

23/04/12 - Free Run (Treadmill) When I first saw the training plan back 6 weeks ago, I was dreading this week, I knew it was going to be a hard one, and the first session of the week was a long run. I do miss running, as I used to do a lot in last years training schedule but I need to work on other areas in my triathlon training so the running had to be cut. As this was going to be a hard week I didn't want to kill myself on the first session of the week even though I managed 9.5 miles in 90 minutes on the treadmill. I wish I could go outside and run but I've only got the time to get into the gym and then back to work. Free run was on the cards today, I started the session at 9.5 min mile pace and when I loosed off about 3 miles I upped the speed to 8 minute mile pace. I managed to keep the heart rate relatively low, again the HR monitor has had a spike which I think is down to the machinery, as my heart rate hasn't seen 223 for years so I doubt this is right very m...