One thing that Ironman training definitely does to you, and that’s fatigue the hell out of you. The constant Training Stress and the early mornings and late evenings and consequent late meals. The early race starts take it out of you too, when you’ve got up early during the week for work and then you’d love to have a weekend off when it’s an early run on Saturday and a long ride on Sunday or an event it does creep up on you and hit you for six every now & then.
I try not to look at the bigger picture, the goal ahead, I look at it session by session, piece by piece. The bigger picture scares me and even writing this now I get butterflies in my gut thinking of that big day in October. Like my Blog is entitled – “The Journey” – it’s about enjoying the pieces being put together over time and watching the body adapt to the new stresses without breaking – well, that’s the plan anyway!
I was talking to my mate Titch yesterday on the ride home from a Mid-Week race at Lotus Test Track near Norwich. We discussed how he used to get a TSS of over 400 for the week (cycling only) and he could almost bet on a cold for a few days. Now he’s adapted to almost double that and his body is crying out for more! Weird how the body adapts.
So there it is, as my nanny used to say “how do you eat an elephant? – chunk by chunk”.
Along the way I’ve kinda taken the time to enjoy the sessions and the racing element as opposed to getting serious about it all. Bike racing was my everything and a few events over the years have tainted my view of those who regularly turn up each week. There’s some genuine guys (and girls) out there but conversely there are some complete idiots who pretend to know what they are doing yet have no credentials to back it up. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve only won a few races in my younger years but there some idiots who have never taken the top step of a podium who seem to think they know everything there is to know. It baffles me. So now I turn up, keep it “social” and just enjoy the racing. The aim is to get a team-win naturally so I’ll still tactically play the game during the race but once off the bike it’s all social again – the way it should be for us amateurs.
As I just mentioned Lotus Mid-Week bike league has justed started up for the summer – 7 (I think) weeks of racing round the Formula-1 quality test track at Hethel. It’s fast – super fast in fact and I have no illusion of my expectations in these events considerng the steady-state training i’ve been doing recently. Week 1 was 27.6mph and yesterday it was 28mph for the hour’s racing. There was a time I trained specifically for this type of racing and had the kick in the sprint to feature but nowadays I just ride and play a part in the tactics that’s needed to get our team in the break and to stay away – I think I’ve done that the past two weeks. Racing at this level & speed is better than any turbo/wattbike session and so I’ve swapped those sessions for this race each Tuesday.
Running has…..slowed down a bit. I know it should as my aim this summer is to just plod away at 8 1/2 minute miles or slower to pump out a 4 – 4 1/2hr marathon after my 112 mile bike leg. It still is hard to get my head round why I can’t turn on the “7-min mile pace” as I used to do but again – it’s not what I’m training for. The runs are now consistently 10-13km at this pace with the 4km Brick Runs throw in for good measure. I try & integrate Park Runs in my Saturday morning run as it breaks it up a bit if I run as part of a group. I have booked several 5k and 10k races over the summer in the evenings to help with this so that’ll be fun mixing it up a bit.
The swimming is a steady progress – a mile doesn’t seem that far anymore and I just get it done….with my usual 2:00 min splits! I never go any faster but I can just do an “all-day pace” on all three disciplines now. I guess that’s the whole point as I will be out there ALL BLOODY DAY!
Event-wise I didn’t do anything this weekend as after last week’s Bury St.Edmunds Tri I thought I needed a top-up with some mileage, so I took part in a local Sportive – The Tour De Broads. A 100-mile event, so I decided to ride out to it and ride back – this totalled just under 140 miles so I think I got my mileage in! The Sportive was split into two 50-mile sections. The first half the DAP CC gang just smashed it out, moving time was 2:15 which was well ahead of our anticipated 20mph target for the event. We stopped half-way for lunch and carried on for the 2nd half, we were acccompnaied by an ex-pro who was promoting the TDB event Danny Ratto (ex Cannondale) so we welcomed this – the wheels fell off a bit with a few and whilst some abandoned early some tried to carry on in the 25 degree heatwave we were rarely experiencing on a May Bank Holiday and cramped up as a result! I rode in with Danny into the Sportive Village and it was a pretty good experience to be riding with a pro. I still had to get home though – I could feel the energy escape me the closer I got to home but I did it and it was another box ticked. I tried to imagine climbing off, putting on my running shoes and going for a marathon at that point – I think I could give it a go but I don’t think I would’ve made the 42kms! That’s what the next 5 months are for 🙂
This weekend sees me going for another sprint tri – Tri Anglia’s Waveney Spring Triathlon. A 400m pool swim, a 20km bike leg and a 3km run. My best is 6th place so i’m hoping for something a bit better than that. But…..as Suzy is always saying “this is not what I am training for” so I’ve got a 2-hour bike session in the afternoon for good measure!
Geeks time: 15hrs training. 3200m swimming. 26km running. 400km biking. Fitness is 100. Fatigue is 119. and form is -19!