Tough Guy to Ironman

I was thinking about what to write this week, and you are probably all very bored of me saying I’ve gone swimming, and cycling and running…..again. I thought maybe I could tell you some of the darker aspects of being a triathlete, the stuff that no-one else knows. Then I realised that it is mostly swimming and cycling and running. But, dear reader, I have one advantage over the majority of these race hardened individuals, and that is I haven’t a clue what I am doing, and therefore I have stories galore. Here is a summary of my complete muppetry – I encourage you to stay the course as the best one is last. Some of these may have appeared in other weekly blogs but hey ho. Swimming To demonstrate how fare I have come I will take you back to January. I signed up to the triathlon club Black Country Triathletes predominately to get some coaching at swimming.   There I was a fresh faced newby turning up on a Wednesday night watching all these people arrive with floats and fl...

It's a question I ask myself quite a lot these days. What am I doing! and more importantly why! But, dear reader, it twas a question I was asked last week. 'What exactly are you doing?' Even my parents had a disagreement over this, Mum said i was doing a triathlon and Dad said I was doing an Ironman. So I shall explain all...hopefully. In a nut shell I am doing a really long triathlon. A triathlon is a swim, followed by a cycle followed by a run. The change overs are transitions. An Ironman is a long distance triathlon, but more than that it is a brand name. There are other iron distance triathlons, but Ironman have introduced prize money so they get all the best athletes and therefore the best coverage. They are sometimes known as 140.6 due to the total distance in miles. An iron distance triathlon is; 3.8km swim  (2.4m) 180km bike   (112m) 42km run       (26.2m - marathon) And where will all this take place. Well 15th July at 6am ...

I had programmed my training carefully so that I had a local half Ironman distance 5 weeks before the full event, in Stratford Upon Avon. Then the buggers went and postponed it until September…of no use to me as a warm up event. I could have signed up for the official 70.3 in Stafford, but that is very expensive. Instead I found myself travelling up the M6 to the lake district for A Day in the Lakes triathlon. Luckily my brother was up for a road trip so he was designated driver for the weekend. Ullswater was the exact location, well for the swim, then a bike through the country side and a run through the fells. Racking was a bit more organised than I have been used to, having a numbered station and everything. But more surprising was the announcement in the briefing that due to Ullswater lake being 18 degrees wet suits were optional. 18 degrees! That is hotter that the Worcester lake that had a heating system! Naturally I stuck with the wetsuit for buoyancy but still. ...

In so many ways.  This was the hardest week in my training programme, and with the weather messing up my long ride last weekend it meant that I have done two hundred mile bike rides in 7 days. The second one was a full on 110 mile ride, which is only 2 mile less than the actual race distance so was happy with that. Thankfully with the end getting closer and closer my training after this week begins to taper. Its all relative, so I still have two hour rides and one hour runs during the week but my 7 hour bike rides are 4 hours – I may be getting part of my life back. The end of this week is the last warm up event as well – a half Ironman. Due to cancellation of my original event I am going to the lake district for this one, and therein lies my big concern.   The swim is in a lake, fine, the cycle doesn’t go over any hill passes, so again that should be fine. But the run is on fell trails and roads. It has quite a gradient and that could possible aggravat...