Week 27. The big daddy, the horror week. The week that I looked ahead to in my plan and thought ‘Uh oh’. Week 27 was the biggest week of my training plan with around 17+ hours of training involved.

How was it? Well, it was ok.

And ok is exactly what I wanted! After the rest day on Monday I did a pretty heavy legged run into work, followed by a swim after work. I don’t know if it was because I was tired or because I much prefer the Wednesday swim session but I was pretty useless in the water. I very much slowly pootled around the dock, breaking out into breast stroke (which I never do) and generally having a slow time of it. Fast forward to Wednesday after work and it couldn’t have been more different, I set myself a target of a 3km continuous swim and was enjoying it so much I pushed on to 3.75km. This is pretty much the full Ironman distance swim and to get it done in one go makes me feel pretty confident. I actually really enjoyed it too, once you get into that long distance swim rhythm I actually find it quite relaxing!

I had a very tough turbo session on Thursday, which included a planned 30minutes at Z4 (z4 is the intensive ‘owwwwww make it stop’ zone). Because I had the half ironman 2 weeks ago, I cut the Z4 out last week, so I was really a week behind. Once I got to 20 minutes I was done. It hurt.

I have to say at this point it hasn’t all been fun. The work days have been pretty hard – I have been really sleepy and concentrating hard on afternoon conference calls has not been easy. I’ve not seen Philippa anywhere near enough (getting up at 6, getting home at 8). My hunger pangs have also gone through the roof this week too. It might be that I’ve lost the ability to tell if I’m hungry, thirsty or tired but it’s been a challenge to say the least. I also managed to fall asleep in record time on the sofa one evening after asking Pilla when dinner would be ready. The answer was 7 minutes, and I fell asleep approximately .28 seconds after hearing that.

So bring on the weekend. I rode the same route as last weekend, but with one addition – the wind. I’m not a fan of riding into the wind (who is?) but as I cannot choose the weather on the day I figured it counted as mental toughness training. The ride itself was fine although my legs were pretty done in from the start. The 30miles from Preston to Southport directly into the wind was pretty hard and right at the coast I was struggling to keep above 10mph. It took me about 6.5hrs which is not quick and I’ll definitely be hoping for faster on the day.

And that left just one session left to complete the week. The long run. A little 3hr jog to do so I could put my feet up and start my taper (I’m sure I’ll talk more about this as it actually isn’t that fun!)…

And I did it this morning.

Weirdly my legs didn’t feel too bad all things considered and I kept up a pretty decent pace. I did struggle a little in the last 15 minutes where I kept flipping between counting down the seconds and reminding myself how furious I’d be with myself if I didn’t get it done. I was expecting to get a little emotional at the end of this run but that didn’t happen, I just had a quiet sit on the wall outside my flat and thought ‘Wow, I can’t believe you’ve actually done that’.

I did 21.5 miles which is the furthest I’ve ever run in training on the back of the longest week. A total of 17.5hrs. Let the tapering begin.

My total minutes by week graph is:

The details of what I did are:

[table]Day,Type,Time,Details
Monday,Rest,,
Tuesday,Swim,1:00:00,#13
Tuesday,Running,1:00:00,”Z2 (at 0:10, insert 5 x 6 Z4 @ 2 min jog)”
Wednesday,Cycling,1:00:00,Z2 (QC)
Wednesday,Running,0:30:00,Z2
Wednesday,Swim,1:30:00,#14
Thursday,Cycling,1:30:00,”Z2 (at 0:50, insert 30 min Z4)”
Friday,Running,1:30:00,”Z2 (at 1:10, insert 12 min Z4)”
Saturday,Cycling,6:30:00,Z2 (at 5:40 insert 15 min Z4) (QC)
Sunday,Running,3:00:00,Z1 to Z2
,Total,17:30:00,[/table]

In my head I had built this week up to be huge. When I looked ahead at the plan this week and its sister in crime, week 27, looked bad. Right off the back of a half Ironman the two biggest weeks of training. The weekends in particular looked brutal, 6 hours or so on the bike and 3 hours of so running. This just couldn’t go well.

All week I’ve been playing a little mental game – if I could get through these two tough weeks I would be able to do an Ironman. I would have pretty much done the training – all the times reduce after these two weeks, the only question is, could I actually do them?

I’d adjusted my original plan to take out the intensive section from Tuesdays run and Thursdays ride to help recover from the half Ironman at the weekend. I got through Tuesdays run ok, I had some pretty tired little legs but I’m pretty used to that feeling now. I’d hoped to get in the Quays for a swim on Tuesday night but they had a wake boarding event on unfortunately. Don’t they know I’m on a schedule here?!

I made up for the missed swim by making a deal with myself to swim for a long way on the Wednesday at the uswim session (which, as I’ve mentioned before is great. They have a lovely atmosphere down there and everyone is really friendly). I decided to shoot for 3kms of continuous swimming which is more than I’ve ever done before. On the night I felt so comfortable that I actually swam an extra lap and got to 3.5km in about 1hr20. I’m very pleased with this, I didn’t feel too tired afterwards so it was a good mental session. I actually really enjoyed the swim last weekend and I know for most people the swim is the big hurdle to get over in a triathlon. I’m not a great swimmer or anything but I love being in the water especially the open water stuff.

I was plodding through my Friday morning run (which is the longest run I’ll do midweek, of about 11miles) when I saw someone walking down the street dressed in red and blue. As I got a bit closer I started to think it looked a little bit like Spider-Man walking down the street. It was only when I got really close that he turned around and I saw he was wearing the full outfit – mask included! This cheered me up no end!

I’d planned my first 100 mile bike ride on Saturday which was a little over what was in the plan, but I thought it would be a good mental hurdle to clear, the 100 mile barrier. My route started in Manchester and headed north to Penwortham (where I grew up), across to the seaside at Southport then back to Manchester via Wigan. I loved most of the route (including a sneaky ice cream by the seaside) but my gps watch gave up on me with about 40 miles to go. This was a little annoying as I had to keep stopping to check the map but it did give me a few cheeky rest stops.

I finished the week with a 2:45 run today. To be honest is was the session I’d been dreading. To run that long (about 19.2 miles) with tired legs in the sun sounded grim. I’m always a little bit pessimistic about how hard sessions are going to be and I’d built this up to be the worst. I’d also convinced myself if I could do this weekend then I’d surely be able to do next weekend too. So I was a little nervous when I left…. It was fine! It was hot but I got round relatively comfortably! Happy happy days!

I’ve done a bit of ‘cross training’ this afternoon at the allotment with some digging and weeding and I’m still feeling ok, just very very tired. So I sit here, having completed 26 weeks of official training, with 4 weeks of training before that just to get used to it and I now know I just have one tough week to go before my taper starts. I might just do this thing!

Nic sent across some pictures from last weeks half ironman, and I love them very much. I also went crazy and bought some of the official race ones too. This training is making me all sentimental, I might never walk this path again!

This is what training I did this week:

[table]Day,Type,Time,Details
Monday,Rest,,
Tuesday,Running,1:00:00,Z2
Wednesday,Cycling,1:00:00,Z2 (QC)
Wednesday,Running,0:30:00,Z2
Wednesday,Swim,1:30:00,#17
Thursday,Cycling,1:30:00,Z2
Friday,Running,1:30:00,”Z2 (at 1:10, insert 12 min Z4)”
Saturday,Cycling,6:30:00,”Z2 (at 5:10, insert 12 min Z4) (QC)”
Sunday,Running,2:45:00,Z1 to Z2[/table]

Yesterday feels like a dream. A weird, amazing dream where I completed a half ironman, 70.3 miles of swimming, cycling and running. And loved every second of it. The last time I did a triathlon was 4 years ago. I couldn’t swim well, I started in way too fast a group and got a puncture on the ride. The run was miserable and by the time I’d finished it felt like everyone had gone home. Yesterday could not have been more different…

Waiting by the start, I’m looking out at the turn buoys on the swim course. The swim is pretty straightforward, you swim up the rowing lake to about half way, you swim the 50m across then you turn round and come back. The only thing is, looking out at those turn points, well they look like flipping miles away.

I’m so amateur at triathlons I had to Google where to put the race sticker on my bike, I found out that everyone said it goes on the top tube. I then had to Google what the top tube was. I also had no idea where to put myself in the swim groupings, the faster swimmers went at one side (sub 40) the slower at the other. I put myself right at the front of the slower group. The water was a pretty nice temperature, or at least a good few degrees warmer than the quays. There was plenty of space around at the start. The starter is saying something but I cant really hear, because I have two swim caps on to keep warm. I guess we are pretty close to starting, so I say good luck the people around me.

We’re off, i’m expecting mayhem, the washing machine effect as everyone swims over you and jostles for position…. only it doesn’t really happen. No-one is swimming past me, or at least not many. I’m not good at swimming in a straight line so I’m a little all over the place, but I feel good and relaxed. This triathlon business is pretty straightforward. Although I wish that guy would bugger off a bit, he’s getting pretty close to me, although I bet he’s thinking the same thing about me. Ouch. So that’s what a punch in the face feels like. Eye’s watering a bit, ah well, if that’s the worst it’s no problem. I’m counting the yellow buoys as I go past, 3-2-1, then the orange one, where it’ll get a bit choppy as people turn. It’s fine, now I’m on the home straight, halfway there. Feeling pretty comfortable as I count the buoys back in 3 to go, 2 to go 1. I’m swimming right behind someone pretty sure I’m annoying them but it’s quicker swimming close to someone! Done! I get out and the timer lady says ‘something-five’. It sounds an awful lot like thirty five, but there is no way I’d be that quick. Must have been forty-five, damn I thought I’d be a little quicker than that. Went really quickly though!

Quick change onto my bike, my goggles catch on the pedal as I grab the bike, someone shouts after me, too late to take them back so they are coming on the bike ride with me. All through the route I look at them and they remind me to be more careful next time! The ride goes fast, it’s very flat. I’m guessing I’ll do about three and a half hours. No point in being overly worried about speed yet, just enjoy being in the race. First hour done and i’ve covered 19.5 miles. Interesting. If I keep this up I’ll get in under three hours, that would be pretty crazy. The only hill is a quick blast up Oxton bank, but it’s followed by a lovely flowing gentle downhill. Loving this! You get to trade in your battered old water bottles for shiny new Outlaw water bottles at each food station. Bonus! Start feeling a bit tired after 2 hours, but my speed is still good, not long to go now either. Up over a last incline, back through some rough roads and before I know it I’m back at transition. I wonder where Pilla is….. GO NEEEEEILLLLLLL GO GO GO GO. Yeeeaahh!!! There she is! So happy to hear that 🙂

Quick change to the run now, this is home territory, the easy bit! Just as I think that I hear a loud voice “GO NEIL, THIS IS THE EASY BIT” hahaha, yeah just a half marathon, easy! Set off, legs are a little weird, I know from the brick sessions this goes quickly. Round the first corner “GO NEIL!!! VIRTUAL HIGH FIVEEE” Thanks Pilla and Steve. Big smile, totally doing this!

Weird, I appear to be running at a decent pace, around about my half marathon PB. I should probably slow down, but well it feels ok. My HR is ok, might as well carry on and bank a bit of time for when it all falls apart! First food station, might as well walk though it, give myself a bit of a break. The route is basically two laps, each one you go out and back up the river so you pass lots of runners in the opposite direction, then a loop around the rowing lake (which still looks huge). Passing a few people now. Feeling good! There are lots of people cheering and lots of very tired looking triathletes. I feel fine, i’m actually doing this! Well enjoy it while you can Neil, because soon it’s going to get bad. I loop around the rowing lake (massive) then back next to the start finish line. The guy there directs you left or right; right if you have collected one wrist band from your first loop, left if you have two. I cannot wait to have two! Loop around the bottom of the lake past the cheering squad where Pilla is doing a one women mexican wave to me. Loop out around the river, still feeling good. Back to the rowing lake (looks huge) and collect my second wrist band. Woop!

Get to the top end of the lake not sure what is going on but I still feel good so might as well push a little bit now. I notice the little huts on the side of the lake have signs on saying the distance from the finish line. 1000m, 500m. Wow, I’m about to finish half an ironman. Up until now it’s just been another training day, but it’s actually a real thing! Wow! Wow! Wow! I have two bands and get directed into the finish chute, there’s a good crowd clapping and cheering but I only really hear Pilla and Steve “GO NEIL YOU’RE AMAZING GO GO GO GO!!!” I’m the only one on the red carpet, so I get the full announcer experience. They even put tape across the finish line, wasn’t expecting that! Awesome! I get a bit embarrassed and don’t really do the full arm in the air experience. DONE!

Today it all feels like a dream. I have the medal and the memories and I’m not sure how. These are my splits:

[table]Split, Time
Swim, 36.18
T1,4.00
Bike, 3:01:08
T2, 3:16
Run, 1:42:57
Total, 5:27:39[/table]

Many many thanks to Pilla and Steve for some epic cheering. The whole thing was so much fun! My outstanding memory of the day was whilst cheering on the rest of the triathletes finishing the organisers giving away prizes for being loud. We were pretty close to the front barrier by now and the announcers walks over and says ‘Who ever makes the most noise can have a free prize!!’, everyone around us makes loads of noise, but the announcer looks over to Pilla without speaking into the mic and says ‘You’re getting this for being here all day cheering the loudest!’

Did I tell you yet that I quite enjoyed it yesterday?

I’ve mentioned Pilla a couple of times during the the blog. Normally it’s along the lines of things I made her miss out on (valentines day/anniversary/7 months of holidays) because of my training and the guilt I often feel because of the selfishness of doing this training. Or ‘Project Neil’ as it’s become known in our house in the last few days. Whithout doubt I dont think I could have got this far without her support and positivity through the training. Or without the food. Or the towel wafting and water bottle fetching when i’m killing myself on the turbo. Or the chasing out of bed in the morning when the alarm goes off at 6am and I don’t want to get up.

It’s also a lot her fault i’m doing this. Last September when I got interested in this, the event started filling up pretty quickly. When I told Pilla that I really wanted to do this and the event was filling up, even though she knew the impact this would have on our lives for months, she asked me how I’d feel if I didnt get a place. When I answered ‘sad’ she said ‘that is your answer’. I signed up about 5 minutes later.

She offered to write this blog a while back, it’s her take on my training…

Neil has already done a couple of posts looking at the things ‘they’ (not sure who they are!) don’t tell you about training for an Ironman. Washing is an important one! Prepare for pretty constant washing machine loads, full laundry baskets and that unmistakable smell of stale training kit every time you take the lid off the basket to put things in!

Food is another major consideration. I confess I am a bit of a foodie, ok a lot of a foodie (although I wish there was better term for it than the cringeworthy ‘foodie’). My obsession means we eat a really varied and I like to think healthy diet as it is. It also means I am organised about food. There is a weekly meal plan and accompanying list. I have to say, without blowing my own trumpet (ok, totally blowing my own trumpet ‘toot toot’!) that I think this has really helped with Neil’s training. I’d hate to think what he would have done if he was training for this while living alone. It would be so tempting after a long day of work and training to resort to super fast and super bad for you food so I like to think that having his tea ready for him is a little way on which I can support him.

It also means that we worked out good training foods for him quite early on-bircher muesli for breakfast, chocolate milk post sessions, mini chipolatas and buttered malt loaf for long cycle rides. On a side note, Neil is never full. He is either eating or thinking about when he will next be eating! So it is pretty hard being a non training partner to make sure you don’t get into the habit of eating the same amount! I’m sure I’ve put weight on while Neil has been losing it!

Training takes it out of your Ironman to be. The first few weeks are hard because it’s the start of a whole new routine and if you start from not doing much fitness stuff at all that can be a big change to get used to. But this plateaus out after a few weeks. However, once the training plan kicks up a gear (from my perspective about three or four weeks ago) this changes again and changes for the worse. At the minute Neil is tired almost all the time. If he sits down for longer than ten minutes and isn’t doing anything in particular he will be asleep before you know it! The other evening he went into the bedroom to get out of his work clothes and after not returning after 45mins or so I went in to find him half undressed asleep on top of the bed! It’s hard to see him this tired for two reasons, firstly it’s a bit frustrating when you do get some time together for him to struggle to keep his eyes open but secondly it’s hard watching him push himself to such tiredness and not want to try and make things better for him.

Neil’s tiredness is one thing, mine is another! I’m a strict 8 hrs a night minimum person and it only takes a couple of days of poor sleep before I am pretty grumpy. So having the alarm go off before 6am or before 7am, especially if it is on my days off, is hard work. Earplugs are my best friend but its never quite the same going back to sleep once you’ve been interrupted. I’m looking forward to at least one lie in post Ironman!

Talk of grumpiness brings me on to the mood swings. It is hard watching your future Ironman get grumpy or anxious about things and know that you can’t really do much about it and worse still that they have chosen to put themselves through all of this! Training seems to be lots of highs and lows. The highs are great, that’s when everything goes right, Neil feels like training is clicking into place and confident he’s on the right track. But the lows are pretty low. It can be as simple as a run that doesn’t go as planned due to tiredness after a bad sleep, getting a puncture on a long ride or even just having to go out in the cold and wet. Mostly there is nothing you can do but try and be positive and encourage them to put negativity behind them and start the next day afresh. If that fails, putting the kettle on comes a close second.

It also means putting your own mood to the bottom of the pile. What I’ve found to be one of the most difficult things is trying not to worry! An Ironman is such an epic physical feat and one I couldn’t even contemplate doing myself. Imagining someone you love doing it is quite hard too! You come up with all sorts of what ifs and ridiculous scenarios of things that could go wrong, but you have to forget all of that in favour of supporting your loved one in doing something they desperately want to do.

The time that training takes is particularly hard towards the end of the plan. Social activities become harder as while you can try and cram things into any spare time, with someone tired and maybe grumpy this has bad idea written all over it! You have to get used to either not doing things or doing them on your own and apologising to friends for your Ironman’s absence! You also have to be good at planning. Having a visible training schedule is a good idea as you know what you have to work around and working a week or more in advance becomes the norm. This also helps with being able to remind Neil not to forget things needed for training on any given day and to plan meals around it too!

But I don’t want to sound like it is all bad. It is only for a limited time that this all takes over and knowing it’s not forever does help. Knowing that Neil is doing something amazing that is he is excited about is also good to remember. I think my most important job will be on the day itself. I’m a pretty good cheerleader, of Neil, of anyone with their name on their race number, of anyone in hearing distance! And so I will be taking my part in my own endurance event on 7/7/13-cheering Neil all the way round. I know he has done the hard work and that he truly deserves to get round and collect the medal at the end of it. And no one will be prouder than me! As long as he doesn’t want to do another next year!

Another week down, another week closer. This week I was able to start my proper open water swimming for the year as I managed to get to Salford Quays on both Tuesday and Wednesday (if you’re interested, Wednesday with the Uswim folks is way more fun!). The water was a balmy 11 C, which in case you were wondering is cold! My wetsuit only arrived on Tuesday lunchtime so I gave it a good test this week and I’m pretty happy with it. I’m usually ok with cold water but the first swim of the year was freezing so by the time I did 1km I couldn’t really feel my feet. Already by Wednesday I felt much better in the water and managed to complete about a mile before the cold got to me. I felt pretty strong afterwards which bodes well for the Half Ironman at the weekend.

The places I swim are right on either side of my office in Salford Quays and when colleagues ask what I’m doing in the evening and I mention going for a dip in the Quays, the reaction is almost always ‘are you are mad?’, closely followed by ‘is it clean enough?’ to which I always say I think it’s cleaner than a swimming pool just because it doesn’t have the same number of people swimming in it. Well this week my belief in that was tested – almost straight away after getting out on Wednesday I started to feel a bit dodgy  and by the time I’d got home I started getting a pretty dodgy (and very itchy) rash. This was followed on Thursday morning by feeling pretty ropey all over on the way to work, where I was then sent home by my boss for looking very pale and generally unwell. I’ve been very lucky on this training so far I’ve only had one cold and stayed pretty healthy. I’m fairly sure I picked something up from the water but I guess I’ll never know for sure. It caused me to take a day off work and miss Thursday’s training completely and only do half of Friday’s.

I really had to get out on Friday. I’d agreed to do some pace setting in the Great Manchester 10km on Sunday for @russww, @angiedorrington and @NicolaClareFox (two twitter friends, one real life friend – all lovely and fun to run with too) to get round just under 50 minutes. I didn’t really know if I could still run that fast as all my running for months had been so slow. I ran a 10km on Friday just to be sure in about 46:30. The fun thing is that I wasn’t really tired at the finish and that pace is only a little slower than my PB last year. Can wait to run one in anger again!

I did a 5hr ride on Saturday, the first 3.5 hours with Nic which made the training go much faster so much so it really wasn’t like training at all. It was basically a 3.5 hour ride around some lovely scenery chatting with a good friend. It almost felt like cheating! The plan for Sunday was to complete one loop of the Manc 10km with the others and then walk back to the start, jump a fence and join one of the later waves for a second loop around. In practice this really couldn’t have worked any better as we arrived back at the start just as a wave was about to start which we were then really near the front of. I ran the first 1km with Nic before deciding I really wanted to push for a quicker 2nd 10km and so set about making up the lost time and pushing on. It was pretty warm on Sunday here and that 10km was tough. It’s really the only time I’ve had to push my running for ages and I was clinging on towards the end. I got round in about 47:30 which I’m pretty pleased with. After pushing so hard I really didn’t feel the need to slowly jog the rest of Sundays running plan, so my weekend training came up about 40 minutes short. At this stage of my training, I’m really ok with that!

It’s now very apparent to me that I’m doing a half ironman at the weekend. This event has really crept up on me, as most of my thoughts have been on the big one in 6 weeks (5 weeks 6 days, argh!). I’ve only just realised I don’t think I have all the kit, or really know what to do in transitions (or triathlons in general). In the full one it’s easy because they have proper changing tents, I’m just going to have separate, comfy swim, ride and run kit. In the half it’s regular triathlon transition, which means keeping kit on from one event to the next – something I haven’t planned for at all!

Ah well, let’s see what the next week brings! This is what I did this week:

[table]Day,Type,Time,Details
Tuesday,Swim,0:40:00,#16
Tuesday,Running,1:15:00,”Z2 (at 0:10, insert 3 x 6 min Z4 @ 2 min Jog)”
Wednesday,Cycling,1:00:00,Z2 (QC)
Wednesday,Running,0:30:00,Z2
Wednesday,Swim,0:50:00,#16
Friday,Running,0:45:00,”Z2 (at 1:10, insert 10 min Z4)”
Saturday,Cycling,5:00:00,”Z2 (at 4:45, insert 7.5 min Z4) (QC)”
Sunday,Running,1:40:00,Z1 to Z22[/table]

Rambling and weird blog this morning. Welcome back to the strange world of my turbo thoughts.

5:23

I’m on the turbo, today’s session is a one hour ride followed immediately by a 30 minute run. If all goes to plan I’ll jump in the quays tonight for a 1.5km swim. Trying to be efficient and writing this whilst training…

8:07

Motivation is a strange, mysterious and beautiful thing. Yesterday morning I just couldn’t get going. I was beating on myself for not being more enthusiastic, the same thing happened at the weekend. I annoy myself when I’m like this, god knows what it’s like for philippa. This triathlon has taken up so much of our time and yet here I am moaning about it. Get a grip Neil, you WANT to do this.

15:01

So it’s a little surprising how quickly I got out of bed this morning, how much easier it is today? Why?

16:30

Maybe it’s the realisation that its so close, it’s just 3.5 weeks till I start tapering, I just need to hold on for 3.5 weeks, after doing so many that is nothing…

18:01

Maybe it’s calculating just how much I’ve done over the last 5 months last night: 52 miles swimming, 1700 miles cycling, 550 miles running. For someone not motivated, that’s quite a way.

19:40

Maybe it’s thinking how much I’ve put Pilla through. All those long weekends of training, hell if I’m going to do it, I better put a smile on my face and enjoy it.

21:09

Could be the fear of not getting round? My friend Nic said the other day she was treating each session as one step towards actually enjoying the day rather than suffering. I like this.

22:19

Maybe it’s the sudden thought I might never pass through Ironman town again? This might be the only time in my life I put us on hold for 7 months and do this. Better make the most of it.

24:03

Oh god, it’s not the graphs is it? I looked at those yesterday and they were dipping as I skipped a couple of runs and swims. Tell me I’m not getting up and 5:55 just so my graph looks nice?

25:15

Blogging is making this turbo go fast I’ve only got 35 minutes left.

26:00

Maybe writing the blog helps?

26:10

Cats are freaking out, they (like me) get annoyed at the indoor training.

31:23

No one said I had to enjoy ALL of it anyway, right? I mean going running when your legs are done in, it’s not fun is it? It’s fun when you finish..

34:12

It’s all about the finish then? Maybe. Legs are good and tired now.

35:36

Lots of people said they might come down to Nottingham on the day. Bloody hell, I’d better get round!

42:07

Less blogging. It’s hard now. On the positive side, if this turbo sauna carries on I’ll be able to do the swim in the flat too.

44:00

Almost half way through, just 16 minutes and a quick run left. Easy!

44:46

Stupid head, it’s not easy. Still going to do it. No motivation issues now, lets just get this done.

50:53

I’m not I’m the home straight just yet, getting there. Just under 85% of the bike done. Go go go!

55:21

For someone beating themselves up or no being motivated, it’s strange that once I start I never feel like giving up. I mean, that would kill the graph right?

57:01.

Start thinking run now. Lets do this.

59:09

Born to run just came on my playlist. Get in!!!!