What you need to know about an ironman #4 – Organisation
When I used to go running pre-ironman training, it went something along the lines of:
1. *thinks* I need to go on a run
2. Get kit on
3. Go for run
Ahhh, those were the days. The runs were fast, the kit was simple and I wasn’t obsessed with putting figures on graphs and putting them on the Internet. Good times.
So what happens now? Well, last night was pretty typical. Before work on Wednesday I wanted to do a bike then run, and before work on Thursday I want to run to work. Fairly standard. So getting ready now goes something along the lines of: swap indoor training tyre onto the bike, set the bike up on the trainer, get the cycling clothes out and ready, get the running clothes out and ready, get the garmins charged and ready. Make breakfast and get work clothes ready. Pack bag with clothes I can change into on Wednesday evening at work so I can leave my work clothes at work. Pack work clothes for Thursday (minus the stuff I’m leaving at work) get wash stuff together. You following me? That’s before bed. Two days before I’m going on a run.
So, lesson number four I’m finding out is: write lists
If you don’t want to find yourself at work, post run, with no towel. Or pre-run with one shoe, you are going to need to get organised and write some lists. They definitely help!
Week 6
Another good week of training is done. It’s been cold and pretty fun, definitely still enjoying it. I made the decision to move down to one session of swimming a week, i’m struggling to fit in two. I like to get my running and cycling done early in the day and now my runs are too long to fit in my lunch hour something had to give. I’m pretty happy with the decision, the session I am doing is the masters swim one on a Sunday evening and it is tough! I get pushed way more than I can push myself (if you want to know, i find the breaks you can take every 50m in a pool just give me too many chances to think ‘i’m tired, I’ve done enough’. Not the attitude I need). I love it. I’m sat here typing this and struggling to lift my arms. Epic.
This week I had my first ‘I don’t want to run’ moment. Predictably it came after a very enjoyable evening down the pub – walking home I was tired, it was cold and I just couldn’t see myself getting up at 6:30 to get a 10km done. I promised i’d do it in the evening and then it played on my mind all day at work. The weather was freezing, it was windy and snowy – I was treating that like one big punishment, you miss your run and this is what happens. I emailed the ‘Iron Colleague’ who gave me some excellent advice “Don’t treat it like a punishment, treat it like mental toughness training”. Love it, and that’s exactly what I did. After running into the snow and wind for 20 minutes I had a big grin on my face, I honestly think it’s runs like that that you remember when things get hard later on, if I can go out at 7pm on a Friday night in a blizzard, you can run anytime.
The cold did affect my long cycle on Saturday, I just wasnt confident about going out in the snow and ice. I substituted it for a 1 hour turbo session but promised myself to push it. I used an interval sufferfest video and wow did it punish me. I might have only done it for half the amount of time, but I cant believe the outside ride would taken so much out of me!
As reward for a tough week of training i’m now scoffing a massive slab of chocolate bananna cake from Pilla, it’s delicious. This is an obvious advantage of ironman training – guilt free, almost unlimited cake. Nom.
See ya week 6. And that is 20% of the weeks required to turn me into an Ironman done. The actual details of what i’ve done are here.
Week 5
Week 5, complete! It’s been another fun week, times are only slightly up from last week and still feeling pretty good. I’m up to 3hrs a week of running, which isnt a million miles away from what I was doing at my peak training for marathons. I’m still searching for the most efficient training so this week I tried doing my morning run after dropping my stuff off at work in the morning. It worked ok, i’m not convinced it’s much more efficient but i’ll carry on to see if it works out.
My proper swim session was cancelled for today so my swimming is slightly down on what it should be. The pool was absolutely packed this evening so I didn’t hang around too much, I did do quite a bit of swimming breathing every four strokes. My aim is still three, but after breathing for four, three feels really comfortable, so i’ll keep doing that.
My run today was good, but really cold. I have a ridiculous and frustrating condition in my hands called Reynauld’s which is an over reaction to temperatures. It means in cold weather my hands get cold, then white, then painfully cold and then they never recover. Once cold, they stay cold for the whole run. Its very annoying. I love running in the winter, but I hate cold hands. Today I ran with some really thick ski gloves and still got the same issues towards the end (although the temperature was probably only just above freezing so to get an hour was pretty good for me).
My time splits out today looked pretty fast, I saw my first mile in under 9 min/mile, then I hit one at 8:45. This is pretty close to what I was doing for marathon training, but now i’m doing it whilst keeping my heart rate low. Its definitely progress! It got me thinking, I wonder if I could create a graph to show my progress…….
I’m going to say i’m getting faster even as my weekly distances increase. This is the combined mileage for the week, and the average speed for each run. I then wondered if the same was true with my cycling….
…. and it is! Go me! I got so excited with my new found graphs I put a page together here. Try to keep it calm when you look at those all on one page.
The actual details on what i’ve done this week are here. As usual, let me know what you think 🙂
What you need to know about an ironman #3 – Kit
I always used to tell Philippa is that one of the reasons I loved running was because you hardly needed any kit. An old pair of trainers, some old tshirts and shorts and you were done. You could go on a few runs, see if you like it and then go mental and buy a pair of trainers. Tie in a running top and you were pretty much done. That would pretty much be all of your kit for all seasons. That’s how I started and it was ace.
Triathlons. Are. Not. Like. That.
So what do you need to train for a triathlon? Well the swim stuff is easy you need; goggles, a wetsuit, couple of sports towels, some regular swimming shorts. Maybe some of the weird long swimming shorts (jammers). For the run bit you need your regular run stuff, trainers, tops, base layers, gloves, shorts. Easy again. The bike? Oh my god the bike.
Cycling is not like the other sports. Cycling is basically a massive hole that you can throw all of your money and time into. It doesn’t matter how much money you spend you can always spend more. And wow can you spend a lot of time looking at the many new and wonderful things that you now find you need(want) to buy. And researching them. And looking at the reviews. And finding the best deal. After the important stuff – the bike, the helmet this is so far what I have got:
Pedals, cleats, shoes, front light, back light, GPS watch holder, cadence sensor for GPS watch, water bottles, water bottle holders, track pump, grease, dry chain lube, spare inner tubes, turbo trainer, wheel riser for turbo trainer, videos to train with for turbo trainer, gloves, chain cleaner, name stickers, padded shorts, padded tights, more padded shorts, inner gloves, wind proof top, over shoes. And there is still more to get. Like a lock. Or clip on tri bars. And maybe special brushes and cleaning fluid for the bike. And well I could do with a proper waterproof cycling top. And I really need more padded shorts. And a CO2 pump. Maybe a saddle bag for race day. It’s happening again!
Last week at work I looked under my desk at work and there were four empty Wiggle boxes. Four. I’m getting fat on all the little bags of Haribo they send.
So lesson number three; training for an ironman is like a journey – and much like going on a journey with Philippa – you’re going to need a lot of stuff.
Week 4
Week 4 is officially over! Done! I have survived the Christmas and new year period. High 5! This week was a little shorter than last week, as every 4th week is from now on. I’m still feeling pretty good – it probably isn’t pushing it to say this feels like the fittest i’ve ever been, which after four weeks of training is not bad.
Two swim sessions done this week, mostly did drills, definitely improving. I’ve been trying pretty hard to work on rotation, breathing and being level. All of these are pretty closely tied together, and all pretty important (although the more I learn about swimming, the more *everything* seems important). I think I hurt my shoulder two weeks ago from only breathing on one side, I think this puts extra pressure on the joint and aggravates it (as I was thinking about this during swimming, I think the arm ahead whilst I turn to breath pushes down to lift my head. This hurts my shoulder, plus lifting my head like this causes my legs to sink. Very bad for streamlining. The more I rotate, the less I have to lift my head, which helps solve both issues). I’ve been deliberately breathing every 3 strokes which flips my breathing from right to left. I can do it pretty consistently as long as I stay relaxed when swimming and so far my shoulder has been fine whilst doing it.
My swim sessions are still shorter than the training plan, but the masters swim sessions start again next Sunday and they push me very hard so I’m not unduly alarmed about swimming short at this point.
In cycling news, Tom told me about some indoor training videos called ‘The Sufferfest’ (here) last weekend so I thought I give it a try for my brick session (a cycle and run together). Verdict: Brutal. I loved it. It’s got great music, it pushes you pretty hard and makes you smile and shake your head at the same time (actually now i’m typing it, it a bit reminds me of the Hellrunner event, which I love). It also makes indoor training, which I find a little dull, go by very very quickly. It had other advantages (giving a new life to Pilla’s music stand – as an iPad holder) and disadvantages (my flat is overlook by some offices, and god knows what they thought watching some idiot, indoors on a bike, watching videos with an ipad on a music stand).
I felt pretty good on my long ride this weekend, straight from the flat I got out to Dunham Massey which is pretty rural and felt like i’d travelled miles. I did about 27.5 miles in 1hr40, so quite pleased with a 16mph average speed. I feel tons better on the bike already.
So bring on Week 5. And 6 months tomorrow? That’ll be the Outlaw triathlon.
The actual details of what I did, and what I have done in total are here.
What you need to know about an ironman #2 – Why
The ‘why’ question (closely related to the ‘are you mad?’ question) occurs almost always in the following conversation:
Friend: “So how far is it?”
Me: “It’s a 2.4 mile swim”
Friend: nodding (because 2.4 mile swimming doesn’t seem that bad)
Me: “then 112 miles on the bike”
Friend: grimacing
Me: “then you run a marathon”
Friend: “26 miles?”
Me: “yeah”
Friend: pause. “Why are you doing it?!”
Sometimes it gets rephrased as “what is wrong with you?”, “are you crazy?” It seems to have many variations. You get asked this a lot – from friends to family to colleagues to anyone who has heard about it. You dedicate a good portion of your time to training for it, thinking about it and reading about it, so lesson number 2 is:
Have a good answer to why
I’m sure I’ll revisit this post in future because I think the why can change as you go on, but right now the reason is pretty simple.
Because I quite like running and cycling and that.
Which as you can see is a rubbish answer. It’s not satisfactory at all. So why am I doing it? Well, that’s a good question, thanks for asking. Let me expand on that…
Well, first up I like the challenge. I’ve loved training for marathons over the past few years. Actually, let me correct that, I’ve loved the feeling of finishing runs over the past few years, I haven’t always been running with a smile (mostly I have) but I have always loved the feeling you get of completing the hard runs, the hungover runs and the runs when it’s pouring down with rain. The runs that make you remember the old Neil who wasn’t a runner and would still be sat inside with a beer (damn him, that sounds good).
I love the idea of taking something seemingly impossible and then setting a plan for how to get there, then doing it. Once you have your target and the steps to get there then it’s just following them one by one. Each day, each session is just one small step of a bigger plan – to finish a race that 6 months ago I wouldn’t have dreamed of entering. If I can complete an impossible triathlon in just seven months of training, well, what else is possible?
It’s not been some life long goal to do this race, I’ve only really got interested in the past 12 months, from talking with a colleague in the US who is about to do her third this year, to reading Chrissie Wellington’s book and finally being convinced I can fit in the training by the Be Iron Fit book. I was prodded into signing up by a friend and then finally pushed over the line to apply by Philippa (who doesn’t love or get the appeal of these events to me, but encourages and supports me like crazy anyway. Seriously, if you are doing Outlaw in 2013 I can tell you right now the crazy loud one, shouting and screaming support for everyone doing the event, will be Pilla).
So, it’s not inspirational or some huge plan, it’s just because I want to. I think.