116 days and counting .....

I have eventually started my swimming training, Wednesday night I signed up for Nottingham gym membership to use all there facilities across the city, namely the use of the Clifton leisure centre that's 5 minute’s walk away. It has a nice 4 lane 25 metre pool, not very deep but more than enough to swim along. A quick bit of number crunching tells me I think that just over 77 lengths equates to the 1.2 mile swim for the race.

So first things first let's address the elephant in the room in terms of swimming. I can barely swim 2 lengths front crawl! Having now swam for years any water fitness I had has long gone, and my general fitness isn't up to a point where it can carry me through the swim yet. First session was 55 minutes of stop start lengths for about 57 lengths and by the end of it I was aching in muscles I never knew I had.

Pulled from the information on the Garmin website (Red Breaststroke, Pink Freestyle)

Second session was much the same but after reading a bit about my watch tried starting and stopping it to get more accurate distances in the pool. I also tried to swim on breaststroke and one freestyle length to try get into swimming more freestyle. Again swimming about 0.9 of a mile in the hour in the pool, though in my defence /I had come straight from the gym room next door where I had done an hour and a bit on the bike.  I NEED to get a set of goggles, I capitalise the 'need' here because my eyes had a certain bright red glow to them after the session on Saturday and it was particularly pleasant during the hour in the chloriney pool (god I miss the clean water of the lake at activities away, have a whole new appreciation for swimming in it now!).

The last week was the first time I tried to stick to a training plan! The plan is one I pulled from the new book I bought last week, it is the sets for January. Easiest place to have it was on my white board in my room as a constant daily reminder of what I should be doing. This table does not include the training zones for each of the activities mainly due to that fact that I have to do so much on Saturday I couldn't add another column without having to rehang my white board and there's only so much effort I'm willing to put into creating a table that's only designed to inflict ever increasing physical pain on me.

The white board of pain, the first thing I roll over and see in the morning!

I've not stuck to it completely, I will confess that straight off. But I never expected to first week it shows that what I should be training at is a much higher level than the distances and times I currently am. I started on Wednesday and other than Sundays 20km run (which would probably do me more damage than good at this point, not least because it was like an ice skating rink outside) I have done fairly well. The plan will be changing as of next Monday to February suggested weekly training plan but there will be more on that when I read it!

Unfortunately as well the Parkrun that I go to was cancelled this week so I did not get my early morning Saturday timed run in, but I did manage 2 longer runs during the week which should have more than made up for it!

Hopefully it will stay warm enough for there not to be any more ice or snow over the next week and I will be able to get out on the bike and get used to the cleats a bit more as well as work on my biking in general. At a guess from the ride last week I need to make some changes to the height of the seat and angle of the handlebars but it’s going to be guess work and a bit of trial and error until I get it to somewhere that feels comfortable for me on a long ride. 

So the plan is to try and keep up slotting in as much training as I can, when I can to up the miles under my belt before the big day. Tonight won’t be a 50 minuet run as the training plan calls for but an hour or so in the pool instead as I feel this is currently by far the weakest element! 

Until next week,

Alex

Its Been a While!

So, its been a while, far to long you could argue but at least I'm writing another post again. I've been busy, life has got in the way work, university and everything else has taken time away from me being able to do any considerable training let alone sit down and write and proof read (an ungodly number of times, and I'm sure its still full of mistakes) any blog posts. All this being said I've still managed to lay down over 50 miles running including 3 distances at 10k-12k, my Saturday morning timed 5k race (ParkRun) time is starting to drop off to now under 27 minuets. So at least for the running things are improving at a rate I'm happy with and I feel a lot more confident about the 13.1 miles in 3 hours that caps of the end of the event in May. 

Looking very happy (this was pre swim) 4th from the left, back row

Managed to get in the water on boxing day for the Activities away annual boxing day dip which this year helped to support the charity Age UK, it was cold to say the least and it was only a short lap round the nearest set of marker buoys but anything that's for a good cause gets a try I'm my book, also there was a hot tub to get in after and pigs in blankets to eat!

More generally fitness wise I am feeling a better, there's still a way to go definitely before I stand a chance of crossing that line at the end of May. To that end I have been in contact with a swim coach at the adventure centre Activities Away in Lincoln, to organise starting some open water swimming work in March. The realisation of the physical toll swimming all the way up and down the rowing lake below is going to have on my body at the very start at the start of the race is starting to dawn on me! I'm also planning to go to the leisure centre later tonight for the open swim session and figure out how much they are going to rip me off to have access to everything they have in the building just so I can use the pool.

The unending lake at HPP

With my next to none existent knowledge about how to go about training for such an event, let alone doing a half Ironman as an overweight, unfit and completely inexperienced athlete (yes, that's right even with that damning list of attributes I still referred to myself as an 'athlete') I decided to purchase myself the 'Ironman 70.3 Training for the Middle Distance' book to look at what their guides are for training plans, times and more detailed things such as heart rate zones for each activity. With a stroke of what I could only call blind luck the training plan in the book aims for a first week in June race plan starting in January,  which is only a week off my race so is should be easy to adapt to the plan to suit me. 

My reading for the next week or so!

That being said the distances and times for daily runs/swims/bike sessions in the book are far above what I already do, which whilst not completely unexpected does show me just how much further I have to go before I even stand a chance of crossing that finish line at the end of May. 

It also shows how little I know about the rules and procedures for things like transition and the rules for overtaking bike segment. Hopefully reading through the book, the next week or so's reading before bed, I will be able to pick up most of the basic procedures and rules. I feel that the only really way to figure all this out though is to take part in at least one, preferably a few of increasing distance, triathlons before May so that I can experience first hand the transitions and the flow from one activity to the next. 

Not quite as shiny and new as when I left the house!

Before today I hadn't been outside on my bike since I've got my clip in peddles but I've been trying to get on the turbo trainer when I can. As the photo above shows, my shiny new peddles took a few hits first time out, as did my poor body! 3 times over a 21 mile period I went over still partially or fully attached to the bike, every time when moving slowly failing to get my feet out of the cleats before tipping over. 

Other than the bone jarring contact with the pavement on the above stated occasions it wasn't a bad ride, the route needs some work mind you, suddenly realising that what I thought was a small single lane road curved round into 3 lanes onto a dual carriageway roundabout was interesting to get across to say the least! My speed needs to come up a significantly about though averaging only just over 13 mi/h on that ride wont cut it. To come under the 4 hour cut off time I need to average at least 15.5 mi/h. This is something that will hopefully come with a combination of increasing fitness and more miles out on the bike getting used to the new clip ins and doing progressively longer distance rides. 

All in all its not been to bad, I'm not really where I wanted to be but I could be in a lot worse position in terms of general fitness. There's a good 2 more stone I would like to lose before I would feel that I was at a fit weight but that should come with an increased amount of training and some better diet planning.  I am hoping to put into place a more structured training schedule to work from aimed at training for the event more specifically as well as general fitness, to that end any advice those of you have done triathlons before or even any longer distances individual events could give will be greatly appreciated! 

Until next time (hopefully next week or at least a lot sooner than the last gap in posts!),

Alex

Best week so far

So this post is a day late, mainly due to the fact that the format of the lecture/lab I usually write this in had changed! As the title eludes to this has in fact been a great week in terms of both distance covered and getting other things done.

I have managed to clock up just under 17 miles pounding the pavement this week. The most by far that I have ever run in that short a time frame. This included a solo 10k that disappointingly came in at less than a second over the hour mark as well as my first park run early on Saturday morning at Rushcliffe (see the photo below for my unique blind running style!) The event was as the website promised, well enough organised, efficient and everyone there was friendly and supportive, which is made even more impressive by the fact that it costs nothing but your time to register and the cost of printing out your personal bar code to enter.

 Also managed to get out on the bike this week scouting out the route from home to Holme Pierrepont where I like to run. The route is 90% tarmac with a small well packed off road section near the run. Looking at the bike distance (56 miles) and allotted time (4 hours) means that I need to ride at at least 14 mph all the way round to come in under the cut off.  Which at the moment is faster than I think I can do, so I need to do some work in improving my form and endurance on the bike which can only be done with seeing a trainer and getting some time on the bike done as well.

So to that end I've ordered more stuff (because pouring money at this is the way to get better right?) Which include a set of road shoes and peddles as well as a few other bits from chain reaction.  Also went out and got a new inner tube for my bike (evident from the fact I've been out on it) but have still to sign up to the pool to start any kind of swimming training!

On kit that has already arrived my new watch and heart rate monitor (above) works really well although seeing what heart rate that I can get myself up to doing relatively little is sometimes worrying. Also my Tri suit arrived which fits really well luckily for an internet clothes order and looks interesting to say the least on!

So looking forward hopefully more shiny things will turn up over the next few weeks and be fitted to bikes etc. There is still a need to go get in the pool or some open water (going to be cold this time of year!) and start that part of my training. All in all its going better and if can repeat this weeks performance again i will be more than happy with the ways things are progressing.