This blog has been going for a while now and I’ve never really explained why I’m doing all this training. Partly I’ve not explained because I don’t really know why – the long bike rides are just the way I am – I love it and would do them even if I didn’t do triathlons. The real focus came about in 2005. I’d qualified for the GB team for the World Champs in Honolulu. It was the weekend before Kona so I booked a trip to the Big Island to at least watch the Ironman World Champs. Since I was going out there anyway I decided that I may as well try and qualify at my first Ironman – UK. Long story, short and all that – I raced well, qualified and was hooked. Kona was the best sporting experience I’ve ever had, managed sub 10 hours and was buzzing. That night watching the last finishers I decided I had to compete again and train properly for it. I hatched a 2 year plan – enter Florida IM in Nov 2006 to get an early qualification for 2007. This I did last year and I must admit I’m already hatching the next 2 year plan.

Anyway… so I’m training for the Ironman World Championships. I’ve gone part time at work (only work wed to fri) in order to focus fully on finding out just how good I can be. This gives me a key focus and something to visualise during sessions but I also feel a pretty fundamental urge to find out just what my body can take endurance wise. I realise this is perhaps a tricky feeling to have since it ultimately means u will push out the boundaries and it seems sometimes that it is inevitable that overtraining will happen. I am aware of this and feel pretty good at cutting sessions or training if I feel that I am getting drained.

Talking of getting drained – I felt I was this morning but decided that I should test out a lunch time run – good training ? (I thought so) but also see how I’m adapting to running off tired legs. Also, Stephen was heading out so that provided an extra motivation and company. The first 10 minutes were like torture – my legs were so heavy and making insistent signals they didn’t want to walk let alone jog or even run. Once we hit the towpath though it was a transformation – I felt awesome. We flew along – did 10k in about 44 minutes before jogging to finish. Pretty decent pace and more importantly I felt totally comfortable. it felt like Ironman pace and that is awesome.

Why so tired ? This morning headed out to Regents Park on my new TT bike (a Cervelo P3C). I was so keen to get on it that I was on the road by 4.05am. I managed 12 hard laps before Jo arrived. After a couple of laps warm up and collecting a good bunch of Tri Londoners we headed off on the session – a 40k time trial (we did 9 laps). I let Jo go and decided to try and reel her in. I made no impression at all !! In fact reviewing it after she was pulling away from me. I did the 9 laps (~40k) in 70 minutes. Very pleased – it meant I’d done 3h15 of cycling (including the ride there) at 19.8mph average. I also hit a new milestone – by the time I got home I’d done 70 miles at an average of 19mph ! Achieved a milestone and discovered another – must get average above 20 mph one morning. I was hoping to follow this with a swim this evening but there is no way. I am certain extra sleep is much more important.

Wednesday had been a good training day as well. In the morning I did a steady 9 mile run, lunch time a steady 11.5 mile run and then ran to and from swimming. Was swimming well and feeling the increased swim volume is paying off. The focus over the next weeks is to get consistent high swim volume (20+k at a minimum per week). Over the next 5 days the aim is to get to over 100 mile week to date run mileage before easing off running ahead of London marathon. Throughout, bike mileage must remain consistent: ideally 500+ per week but ultimately would be happy with 450.