Tri4Joe

Now that we’re into the final three weeks before the “big day out” it’s time to do some last minute training!  As my friend Gary reminded me today, it’s too late now to be training hard and instead I should be backing off a bit, or “tapering” as the pros like to call it.

Yes, but pros are more worried about winning, I’m more worried about finishing in one piece.

My running training hasn’t gone according to plan recently due to one thing and another, so I’m a little nervous that my legs won’t be able to handle the full marathon distance at the end of the Ironman.  So over the next two weeks I have planned to do the following confidence boosting training sessions:

• Wednesday 25th June (yesterday): 105km bike at race pace followed by 21km run
• Saturday 28th June: 105km bike at race pace followed by 28km run
• Wednesday 2nd July: 105km bike at race pace followed by 35km run
• Saturday 5th July: 40km bike at above race pace followed by 10km run at above race pace

I’m building up to the big 105/35 session on Wednesday 2nd July.  After that I will have 1.5 weeks of taper where I’ll reduce the amount (volume) of training considerable, but what little I do will be at higher speed (intensity), hence the shorter more intense session on Saturday 5th July.  In between these bike and run sessions, commonly referred to as “brick” sessions, I plan to do very little other than light recovery rides (30 minutes spinning) or my once per week swim.  These long sessions will build my confidence and give me a good idea about how to pace myself and feed myself.  It’s very easy to go too fast or not eat enough on the bike and only discover the damage you’ve done to yourself when you start running.

So how did the first session go?  To be honest: mixed.  I rode the 105km at a good tempo of 37kph with a very steady heart rate.  The run started well but after several kilometers my stomach started rumbling in a bad way.  The sudden repetitive impact of running after a few hours cramped up on a bike meant that I had to do an emergency detour into the trees.  Despite looking high and low I couldn’t find any double quilted soft leaves in the undergrowth and had to make do with some leaves that would take paint off a wall.  Thank god they weren’t nettles.  After the detour I was able to run much better – and a good thing too – since I was hotly pursued for the final 7km by a cloud of flies.  What fun!  The good news is that I felt very comfortable on the bike and I also felt good at the end of the run.  This was only a half-marathon distance though, and it’s only at about 25km or above when the distance starts to really bite, so the next two sessions will be more interesting.

Thanks… again…

We’ve said thanks before, but I’ll say it again: thanks to everyone who has donated and / or written lovely comments either here or on their own blog.  We’ve been truly humbled and inspired by people’s good nature.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 11:59 pm and is filed under Ironman Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.