Tonight I am doing something I have never done before. I am representing my company at the Chichester Corporate Challenge. Tonight is the final race of 3 and despite my failure to turn up at the first two due to family commitments, my place is still secure for race 3.
The route is 4.5km round Chichester, consisting of a 4 lap loop. There are two waves of runners. Race A is for those amongst us who are capable of running 4.5km in 18 minutes or less. Race B is for everybody else. I am in Race B.
Competing when I am representing somebody other than just myself is an interesting experience. I am very used to playing team sports (well football at least) and so you would think that this would translate into a team running event, but it appears not to. As such, I am way more nervous about running 4.5km than I should be. For a man who ran 30km on Sunday, it would seem logical that 4.5km would be a walk in the park. The problem with this is as distances get shorter race expectations seem to get bigger.
For the longer race events, simply finishing is usually my aim. I didn’t give two hoots how long it took me to run 30km, I was just pleased to manage the distance. For the shorter races I now have pre-conceived ideas of how long they should take me. For 4.5km, I should be able to maintain a fairly quick pace. I don’t have to worry at all about endurance and really I should be able to attack the race at full pelt.
Bearing in mind that I ran a 25 minute 5km at the Portsmouth Duathlon (where I had to follow this with a 15km bike ride and then another 5km run and was subsequently pacing myself), there should be no reason I cannot run a solo 4.5km faster than 5min/km pace. I have never really attempted to run this fast before. This presents me with two options.
1) I run at 5min/km pace which I know I am more than capable of and finish in around 22-23 minutes. A perfectly respectable time.
2) I go for it. Head out at 4:30/km pace and see if I can hold it. This would give me a finishing time of around 20 minutes if I can hold on. A much better result that 22-23 minutes, giving me a better showing for my team and company.
It seems a no-brainer that I would go for option 2. The problem with this is the risk of getting injured. As you run quicker, the chance of picking up a injury increases. It is obvious that I need to do everything that I can to avoid injury; therefore option 1 becomes the clear favourite.
In truth, I don’t know which I am going to go for. My competitive streak is very strong and the desire to do well for my company will push me even further. Can I ignore this and run sensibly to make sure I don’t get injured?
We will have to wait and see.
Update: I managed the 4.5km in 21 minutes according to my watch. Not bad at all. Very pleased.
TTFN.
Snooky
Category: ironman
Ironman Training and young families…….can the two coexist harmoniously?
My newborn is 3 weeks old. To say I am a bit tired is fair comment. Newborn babies are nocturnal, or at least our one appears to be.
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| The Kraken / a 2 year old |
We also have a two year old. Two year old kids can be difficult customers at the best of times. Throw having to compete for Mummies attention with a newborn baby into the mix and you unleash the Kraken slumbering inside any two year old.
I am also trying to fit my Ironman training around helping my wife with the kids as much as I can. How she is coping with the demands of feeding the nocturnal newborn all night long and looking after both her and the two year old terrorist all day is beyond me. I am constantly in awe of how she manages to hold it all together.
So far I have managed to stick fairly closely to my training plan. I missed out on a bike ride over the weekend cause of family commitments but otherwise I have made all my other training sessions. I can only put this down to the fact that my wife understands my motivation for wanting to go out training and is willing to stand by me whilst I do so.
Either it’s that, or she is so knackered that she doesn’t have the energy to object. The more I think about it the more I think it is probably this; however I will make hay whilst the sun is shining and continue to train as often as possible.
So I guess the answer to the question “can Ironman training and raising a young family coexist harmoniously?” is yes, provided you have a supportive partner, or one that is so tired she will go along with anything.
Sunday 15th March is my first Multi-Sport event of the year, the Portsmouth Duathlon. Curry and I competed in this last year and I am keen to see if I am faster one year on. Fingers crossed for a good finishing time; however I do want to hold something in reserve as I am desperate not to do anything that may harm my Ironman training.
Competing at close to 100% capacity can result in injury as you push yourself. A safer option would be to coast round at 85-90%. I am hopeful that my 85% effort will be faster than my 100% effort from last year.
Looking back on my write up of last years event (click here to read it) I was suffering with shin splints at the time. These devils are thankfully well in my past, so my running should be quicker purely because it is pain free. I also have a nice shiny new bike to debut in it’s first ever race, which should be substantially quicker than the previous one. I weigh less, should be more fit and am generally in better condition than I was a year ago.
“Surely he can’t go wrong” I hear you all thinking to yourselves. Perhaps you are right. Competing is a funny thing and as long as I prepare properly and keep my head there is no reason I won’t be able to improve on last years finishing time.
All I have to do before Sunday is a brick session tonight (bike then run), a swim and bike ride on Thursday, a long run on Friday (which will be at least 2.5 hours) and a long bike ride on Saturday. Total amount of training ahead of me before Sunday’s race day is around 7.5 hours.
Nothing to it, or as Aleksandr would say…………………….Simples. 
TTFN
Snooky
Today has been a good day – It all starts here
Today I ran for 90 minutes non stop. For some this is not a major achievement, but for me this is really something to be celebrated.
I have run this far before; however this time I ran for 90 minutes without stopping or slowing down and most importantly of all, with almost zero pain. I am sitting on my sofa writing this having finished running less than 9 hours ago and am still pain free. My legs aren’t stiff, my shins, ankles and knees are pain free and I am one happy chappy.
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| My run route today. |
This run is part of my plan to try and get up to decent running distance ahead of the Brighton Marathon. The marathon training has not been going to plan, so today was a real test of whether I might be able to actually run for any length of time. Looks like I might just make it. I’ll add 15 minutes to my Sunday long run every week up until the marathon. This will mean I’ll be able to add 2 hours onto the 90 minutes I ran today, so 3 hours 30 minutes is a realistic time to be running in training. This is more than enough and should mean I can finish the Brighton Marathon in around 4 hours 30 minutes.
You may have noticed that I am referring to my training as amount of time rather than distance. This is because today is the first day of my Ironman training. Having read an excellent book by Don Fink called Be Iron Fit , I am starting his 30 week plan this week. Those of you who are good at maths will already have realised that there are more than 30 weeks until Challenge Weymouth (13th September); however my wife and I have a baby due very shortly so training will take a back seat for a few weeks when the bambino is brand new. Because of this, I thought I would get started sooner rather than later.
My training plan (or should I say Don’s training plan) encourages you to think of training segments in time rather than distance. This allows you to plan time for training into your schedule and is particularly useful when you have to balance work, home life, family life and training. For me, this is absolutely vital as I am determined to not miss out on too much quality time with my wife and kids as my training load increases.
I am intending on training early in the morning as much as possible. This is going to be a massive struggle for me as I simply hate getting out of bed in the morning. I am not and never will be a morning person. Apparently once you have gotten up early for 21 consecutive days then you get used to it and it doesn’t become a problem any more. Luckily for me I have a newborn baby arriving very soon so there will be no need for an alarm!
Will keep you all posted on how I get on. With only 216 days to go till Weymouth it’s time to get training.
Snooky
The fear of getting hurt
So the 2015 training is well under way. With almost 4 hours of training already logged this week and a further swim and bike and long run to go onto the list I am going to be somewhere near my target of 10 hours of training. The big question is, can I sustain this level?
The simple answer is, I have no idea. It would appear logical that the more you train the more likely you are to get injured; however this is not necessarily the case. Injuries are most likely to occur when you either increase your intensity too fast, or increase your distances too quickly.
Also it is logical that if I am going to get injured it will be whilst running. When you consider run training, swim training and bike training the running definitely places the largest strain on my body. Because of this it is clear that the run training is the one thing that I have to be the most careful with when it comes to doing more of it.
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| QE Parkrun on New Years Day |
As part of my marathon training (Brighton Marathon is on April 12th) I am slowly increasing the distance of my”long runs”. My last one was 10 miles, so this Sunday I have to do 11 miles etc etc. As long as I keep the pace slow I should be able to complete the mileage without picking up any major injuries. That’s the plan anyway 🙂
It is unlikely I will pick up any serious injuries cycling. Cycling is low impact and as long as I listen to my body and keep a very close eye on any potential niggles I should be OK with increasing the weekly bike mileage.
Swimming is a bit of an unknown quantity to me. It tires me out like nothing else and I do tend to feel it in my upper back and triceps when I have done a hard training session. Whether I am likely to pick up an injury I just don’t know. Guess I will just have to be careful.
The long and short of this post is that I live in almost permanent fear that I will get injured and be unable to train enough. I spent most of last year with one sort of injury or another (especially the ongoing shin splints issues which have finally gone away) and am desperate for 2015 to not be plagued by injury so I can get in some quality training and a few good competitions, culminating in the Ironman in September.
That’s really it for this post, other than this very cool video from Strava showing my stats for 2014. Is very quick and worth a look.
TTFN.
James
New Year – here we go!
So it’s the 1st January 2015, the first day of the year that I will become an Ironman. In fact, it is a mere 254 days until the race, so it is time to get organised.
It is fairly self evident that to swim 2.4 miles, cycle 112 miles and then run a marathon you need to do a fair bit of training. Pretty much everything I have read recommends trying to do about 10 hours training per week as a minimum. This may sound fairly easy; however when you think about it 10 hours is more than an entire working day for most people. It is a fair chunk of time to find and with a new baby Snook due in February it may prove tricky to fit the training in.
To combat against this as soon as I find a new job (I was made redundant on the 31st December 2014) I am going to hire myself a proper coach to help me along the way. The man for the job is already lined up, all I need now is somebody to employ me. I am open to any reasonable offers 🙂
So that takes care of the training part. Next onto nutrition.
There is no doubt in my mind that all the training in the world cannot fight against a poor diet. I have never been one for dieting, in fact you could say that I have always been rather against the idea. Food is delicious. I eat almost everything (not keen on rice pudding or things like spotted dick, though I imagine I could eat them if forced). Other than that I love it all.
My wife and I are also partial to a take-a-way or 12 and I have always prided my self on being a good cook. Nice tasting food is often not the most healthy (even when you cook it yourself) and for those reasons I have always pretty much eaten whatever I liked.
This has seen my weight rise from a svelt 13 stone (182 lbs – 83kg) when I was a teenager, to a much more portly 16 stone (224 lbs – 102kg) at the start of 2014. Currently I weigh somewhere just over 14 stone (196lbs – 90kg), although I haven’t weighed myself post Christmas.
There is a lot of debate about what “race weight” people should compete at; however I have decided that whilst putting on my wetsuit in 254 days time I would like to weigh around 75kg (165lbs or just under 12 stone). If I am being brutally honest I haven’t weighed this much since I was about 12. That being said weight plays such a huge role in long distance triathlon that it is well worth my while to get the weight down and keep it down.
To do this, I am intending to follow a fairly simple mantra.
Eat clean and make the right decisions 90% of the time.
“Eating clean” is a phrase that has been around in training for some time and simply refers to making sure that your diet does not have processed foods or an abundance of unhealthy fats or sugars in it.
I am also cutting out some things from my diet entirely. This is going to be very tough for me, as the things I am cutting out are many of the things I simply love to eat/drink. The list of these is below.
- Alcohol
- Take-a-way food
- Crisps
- Desserts
Some people might say that life without the above wouldn’t be worth living and in all honesty they may well be right. As such I am not going to entirely deny myself the good things in life. I still intend to eat an occasional bit of chocolate (especially when I have trained hard that day) and cake is a staple diet of most triathletes so will still have an odd bit of that when offered. As my mantra says, I need to eat clean and make the right decisions on food 90% of the time. If I have an occasional sausage roll or roast potato this is not going to kill me as long as I eat clean for the majority.
Other than that I will be cooking my own meals a lot more, utilising my slow cooker to make some delicious healthy stews and currys and eating a lot of porridge for breakfast.
The porridge worked well for me todayas I recorded a PB at the Queen Elizabeth Parkrun this morning. Proof I actually attended is below (in the form of some muddy trainers)
So I think that is about it for my first blog update of the year. I will be better at keeping this blog up to date during 2015 and will try to post on a weekly basis.
Fingers crossed I will find something interesting to talk about. I am feeling very confident about 2015 and cannot wait to get stuck into plenty of training and a few events.
Happy New Year to you and your family. James
Everything is in place………I might just pull this off
For the first time since I undertook the challenge to complete an Ironman I am starting to feel that it might just be possible.
When I first told my loved ones of my intention to compete in an Ironman Triathlon I received the following comments:
My Mum – “Are you sure James. It sounds like a lot to take on”
My Friends – A mixture of utter astonishment and general sniggering
My Nan – “Well my dentist does Triathlons dear and he is much fitter than you”
Cat (my wife) – “You’re going to die”
Now of course all of these comments were completely fair. I was out of shape. Very out of shape. I weighed over 16 stone, couldn’t run to the end of the road without stopping, hadn’t ridden a bike since I was about 10 and the last time I swam anywhere was when I swam from the side of the pool to the pool bar on honeymoon.
Over a year later and things are rather different. For the first time in forever (to quote from Frozen) I am starting to feel fit. Weight is slowly dropping off, despite my tendencies to eat entire bags of Doritos and quite a bit of chocolate. Also I have recently had a great success………..
I CAN RUN !!!!!!!!
All be it not very far (haven’t done more than 6k for a while) but I have no shin pain, the post run calf pain is starting to disappear and I am really starting to feel very positive about this whole endeavour.
Good thing too, as I have a charity place for the Brighton Marathon. Bushy and I are running for Chestnut Tree House, which is the hospice that cared for Amber and her family, towards the end of her fight with Neuroblastoma. The marathon is in April and is a great target to aim for. I can’t wait to strap on my Luna Sandals on the start line, raising some money for this incredible charity and ticking off an important milestone on my way to the Ironman in September.
Some of my regular readers may wonder how I have suddenly managed to start running injury free and why I am starting to feel a lot more fit all of a sudden. I can put this down to a few factors. The first one is my discovery of barefoot/minimalist running. To do this topic justice would require an entirely separate blog post and it is my intention to post this soon. The second reason is down to one man, Mr Trevor “Tufty” Payne.
Trevor runs two Triathlon training sessions at a gym here in Portsmouth. The first one is a mobility class, perfect for improving my flexibility and mobility (which is something I sorely need). The second session is a Bike/Mobility/Swim or a Bike/Run/Swim session. Lasting 2.5 hours, this is an intense workout and is absolutely superb.
Bushy and I have been attending these sessions for over a month, with Curry joining us recently. Trevor is an ex professional Triathlete, specialising in Iron distance races during his career. He is a superb coach (even if he does take the piss out of Bushy and I rather a lot) and I find his sessions hugely inspirational. He has given me exercises to do at home which I do every day, agreed to write me a training plan specific to Challenge Weymouth and is generally a huge asset to my training.
So to wrap up this post I would like to say a thank you to Trevor for his help so far and for his excellent training sessions that I love attending. I was never really a believer in having a “coach”; however I am very glad I met Trevor and can’t wait to see just how fit he can get me ahead of Challenge Weymouth. I must also mention a special thanks to Josh Smith, who is one of the readers of my blog and was the person who put me onto Trevor in the first place. Look forward to doing some training with you when you are back in the UK Josh.
Finally to all of the readers of this blog and to those of you who have sent me nice comments about it, a huge thank you to you all. I’m really starting to love all this training and am pleased that as the winter progresses I will be able to share with you my increasing fitness and join as many of you as I can for a run/swim/bike, or perhaps just a pint!
TTFN
James
PS – If any of you are looking for a Triathlon or Fitness coach please check out Trevor’s website. You won’t regret getting in touch with him. http://www.zone6coaching.com/
1 year to go till I become an Ironman
As I sit and type this there are 100’s of athletes riding round the Dorset countryside on the bike leg of Challenge Weymouth 2014 Iron Distance Race. They will have all already completed the 2.4 mile swim and the pros will soon be finished on the 112 mile bike leg. Then it is just a marathon to go and the race is finished.
The decent amateurs will finish in under 10 hours. Others will be very close to the 16.5 hour cut off time; however every single one of them will be an Ironman and next year so will I.
In all honesty it is exciting and terrifying in equal measure to think that at this time in 365 days time I will be in the middle of my first Ironman race. Exciting because I am hoping to raise a decent chunk of money for a very good cause and terrifying because an Ironman is not to be taken lightly.
If I can get my nutrition and hydration spot on, suffer no major mechanical failures on the bike, manage to run uninjured and everything goes perfectly I still have to be fit enough to cover the full distance. This means training, a lot.
It is my intention to target around 10 hours training per week for the next 52 weeks. Of course there will be some weeks when I manage more than this and others where I fall below the target. This is especially likely around February time when my second baby will be born. I also have to continue to work full-time, commute for 3-4 hours per day, spend time with my family and have a bit of leisure time every once in a while. To be honest, fitting it all in could be a challenge. Then again it’s nothing compared with the challenge of actually completing the race and pales into insignificance when I think of the challenges that my friends Steve and Louise (and 1000’s of other parents) face having a daughter with Neuroblastoma.
So the training starts in earnest tomorrow, with a 6am swim session. Can’t wait 🙂
TTFN
James
Snooky's Adventures 