Blog 10 – 19th June 2013
I can’t believe another month has nearly gone since my last
post! Don’t worry, a month has gone by but training certainly has stopped,
slowed down or been ignored. As I mentioned in my last post, I have now
completed my first triathlon, two weeks ago. I entered and survived the
Blenheim triathlon. The scenery may have been spectacular but my efforts may
have been far from that. To be honest, I really enjoyed the event and my goal
was merely one of experience. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it...
My first triathlon didn’t go completely to plan but let’s
face it, we are always told that it’s our mistakes that we learn from and I
made lots of those. Funny really, well I thought so. Comedy moment number one
was my first glance up at the marker buoy in the swim. It was all going well,
all, meaning the first 250 metres, I then looked up to see how I was getting on
and all I could think of was “bloody hell, its miles away”. I then tried to
drink my way through the rest of the swim. Not only did that obviously not work
but my front crawl/breast stroke approach was far from ideal. Anyway I made it,
then as anyone who has done Blenheim and any triathlon will know, getting out
of the water is like having 6 beers, I was all over the palace, I mean place.
That was then followed by an uphill run towards my bike, cheers Blenheim. The
next bit I hope is a rookie mistake but one I had to make, I ran straight past
my bike. Awesome, I thought, things are going completely to plan. Not to bore
you with the whole race and leap forward but the bike went ok and the run, I
thought was most enjoyable, that is of course until I met up with Lynn. Lynn
not only being my boss but also an Ironman inspiration (I had to say that, don’t
upset the boss) was far from happy me because I told her that I was chatting to
some guy on the run rather than eyes bulging, gut wrenching, blood boiling
sprint to the finish line. Haha sorry boss!
Anyway let’s talk training. So things have picked up as you
can imagine. The long bike rides have now been spiced up with a 30-40 minute
run off. Let me tell you, for those that have never tried to run after 4-5
hours on a bike, it’s like a being part of sgt peppers lonely heart club band
whilst pretending to be Mr soft in the old spearmint soft mint ads. You legs
feel like their attached to someone else, it seems to get better though after
about 10 minutes. Oh slight side track but I’ve just heard that marine animals
have a special protein that helps them store large amounts of oxygen, hmm how
can I get some of this special protein? Sorry about that, right back to the
training. The lab rats and I are up to block 7 and it’s the last block of
fundamental building until our focus switches to performance.
As an example this is this week’s training schedule
Monday – Functional training – legs session followed by a swim
1km
Tuesday – Brick session – 60 min threshold pyramid followed by
a 30 min run
Wednesday – Technical swim 1hr
Thursday – Steady interval run working on Ironman pace 1hr
Friday – Long Run 2hrs, evening functional training session
Saturday – Rest Day
Sunday – Long Bike 5hrs
Sounds pretty full on right? Yeah right, that is until I met
up with Richard Parks. If you haven’t come across Richards life after rugby
check this out http://www.richardparks.co.uk/home/
he makes me look like I’m planning on doing a charity walk in comparison to his
feats of endurance. Well, I was started to think about what I should do after
this, I now have a few ideas. Haha as if.... I’d also like to mention Gareth
Evans, my old mates brother who recently completed his first Ironman in 12
hours, unbelievable. Gaz, thanks for the email and sorry I haven’t replied
sooner but mate that is awesome, well done and thank you for the helpful words.
I’ll definitely be bugging you when I get closer to Barcelona.
