The Schedule

Money link
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/christopher-dawson5

Right I have been particularly slack with my blog updates, being that I have written one and then nothing. Its not fair on you the reader, and for that I apologise!

Also it show on how much money I haven’t raised yet, you don’t get anything for free these days – not even sponsorship.

My intention between now and then is to post every Monday. That way it will give everyone to look forward to after that first day back at work, and as all my events are on Sundays I can report back on them.

And that then leads me onto todays topic -the schedule.

The actual event that I am leading up to is the UK Ironman, which is on 15^th July. Now I was particularly aware that not haven’t done any real triathlons going into this green was a bit ambitious. I mean it’s a bit ambitious as it is but I wanted to have some experience, particularly open water swimming and the transitions. So I have signed my self up for various races of various distances.

If you have read the first post (which I know all of you will have!) then I have already completed the first event. A sprint triathlon. 

The whole schedule breaks down like this;

1: Sprint triathlon – 22^nd April – Completed.

2: Olympic Distance (ish) – 13^th May – 1500m Open Water Swim, 60k Bike, 10k Run

3: Half Iron – 10^th June – 1900m Open Water Swim, 90k Bike, 21k run

4: Ironman – 15^th July – 3800m Open Water Swim, 180k Bike, 42k run

It has actually fallen quite nicely in that as the distances increase the time between them does as well, 3 weeks between sprint and Olympic, 4 between Olympic and Half, and five between Half and full. Is as almost as if I planned it that way. I didn’t, it was what was near me and what was cheaper that the others.

So that’s the events schedule what about the training, well being that I have no idea what I am doing, (all the real triathletes are all like ‘yep and it shows!’) I thought it a good idea to download a training programme from the Ironman website. I have been following that since the beginning of December, although I did start cycling to work a couple of months before that. It has changed slighty over the course of the programme. First 2 month block was;

2 x 1 hour run

2 x 1 hour swim

1 x 1 hour cycle

1x  2-3 hour cycle

1 Rest day

It has slowly morphed into something I would expect a professional athlete to try and undertake. 5 months on it now looks like;

2 x 2hours cycle+1hour run

1 x 1 hour swim

1 x 4k swim

1 x 40min open water+2hour cycle + 1 hour run

1x 6-7  hour cycle

1 x Rest day

This is on top of my working week. As you can imagine this ridiculous has taken over my life. There is more lycra and energy bars in my house that your average gym. To put it quite mildly I do very little else apart from work, train and apologise and argue with Pam (my long suffering wife).

For those wondering – I get the cycling and I get the running, how do you train open water swimming. Quite simple, you find an open water swimming venue and freeze yourself to death every Saturday morning with all the other nutters – I go to Chasewater at 7.30.

That being said the end is in sight, which is a blessing and a curse. I am constantly in this balance of ‘the hell is nearly over and you can stop driving myself to extremes’ quickly followed by ‘holly crap it’s really frickin’ close and I am not nearly fit enough!

It is also quite off different depending if you put distances in months or weeks. So Ironman is in two and a bit months – ah that’s quite a way away. Or Ironman is in 10 weeks. That’s only 10 more long rides (minus two for the events) only 8 more long rides…Arghhh.

The only other thing to mention of course is that it all tapers down for the final 5 weeks (I know perfect, straight after the half Ironman. Great scheduling!) which means I have a sweet spot of now for the next five weeks to hit the training hard.

All I can say is that I am glad the sun has final arrived and I don’t have to deal with snow anymore!

Right that is enough for this week. Next week will be the race report from the Olympic Distance – my only aim is to not drown on the swim – open water and wave start ie everyone together.

For those that what to see my triathlon face here it is!

Grrrr!

 

Statman

Total distances raced by the end

Swim – 7600m

Cycled – 350km

Run – 78km

Training disasters – too many to number but the include;

Not being able to take the cold lake water and chickening out after 13 minutes (it was 7°C)

Inhaling lake water

Getting lost on bike routes

Getting really lost on bike routes

Falling off bike – 4 (2 ice, 1 clipped feet, 1 idiocy on my part)

Buying the wrong running shoes, having to be reassessed and having to fork out another fortune (more about that when I tell you about my long running (Pun intended) injury saga)