Of Ironman and T-Minus 5 days to go..

Okay so we're at T-Minus 5 today before the Ironman on Sunday and I have to confess to a few butterflies already. However, I'm trying to work in some positives wherever I can.
I read a book on public speaking once and it gave me some very good advice I'm trying to apply here. It recommended that before a speech you should visualise any butterflies inside you lining up side by side. It said you should see this flotilla of beautiful creatures as your friends and on your side. Visualise them moving forward with you in harmony.The author pointed out that butterflies are also a sign that you are paying sufficient respect to the event you are about to face.
Butterflies it is then. All side-by-side, lining up nicely each and every single one of them!

To donate to my chosen charity please no butterflies just click here  Thank you!

Of Preparation, Preparation, Preparation

I learnt one really important thing when in Majorca earlier this year doing the Half Ironman and it was this. Many people don't finish events such as this because they didn't have a Plan B or, if they did, it just wasn't good enough to get them over the finish line.

If your goggles break in the swim, if you get a puncture on the bike or your muscles cramp in the run you have to have a well practiced Plan B ready to deploy right away. If you do have a Plan B and it is well practiced the transition from what was going well over the humped back bridge to your new path should be smooth enough.

Last night whilst preparing all the gear I worked out I have 8 Plan Bs in place only four of which have been practiced thus far so the remainder must be covered off before the big day on Sunday. I've realised too that I have a few Plan Cs just in case disaster strikes on Sunday and I end up really having to fight off a whole load of bad luck.

Happily donations are beginning to come in to the sponsorship fund so thank you to all who have generously contributed so far :

Just Giving

Of No Chance Second Chance

It was all going so well and then... disaster struck. I strained my knee whilst on the gym bike doing a 2 hour sprint. I hopped off and across the gym and gingerly got myself home wondering what to do now.

The dilemma is this.

I need to do more training on the bike. Without it I could struggle to cycle the full 112 miles on the big day.The farthest I've ever cycled to date is 60 miles in one go and this is just not enough to allow my mind or legs to feel that they've conquered that sort of distance in the past.
If I get back training too quickly I could aggravate the injury and make even starting the race impossible. And yes that is a disaster for I know Vichy, France on 30th August is my one and only chance of bagging an Ironman. Yes there will be other events in the future but I'll have neither the will nor the time to train for them. It's bon voyage boom or bust.There is no second chance.

Oh and to donate please click  here 

Of Ironman Training - Now for the Mental Stuff

You might say I started training for my first and last Ironman, some eighteen months ago.

This week, for the first time I believed I'm actually capable of doing the Ironman next month in France after something quite extraordinary happened.

For almost six months I have tried to run 6.5  miles in under 60 minutes. For a good part of this I was clocking 70+ minutes and until yesterday my personal best (PB) was 63 minutes and so many seconds. Yesterday, I developed a new mindfulness technique and came in in 57 minutes 30 seconds on the nose. That's a 10% improvement in just 1 attempt. I did so by employing what may be considered to be a rather curious cocktail of mental activities combining goal setting with yoga earth and mindfulness together with some Pac-Man nostalgia and mantras, laced in with a dose of fun from my favourite war film, 633 Squadron. Here's what it looked like.

En route I chose landmarks ahead of me on which to focus with me looking directly ahead to help maintain good running posture and breathing. The landmarks included such things as big oak trees, railway bridges and farmers’ gates. It didn’t really matter. When I got to each landmark I thanked it for its help and, commensurate with the respect I showed it for it's role in the countryside, its longevity or both, I imagined it recharging me with whatever spare energy it had to share.

I wasn’t running alone but as part of a team. Also in the team were Legs, Arms, Head and Mouth.

For the first landmark it was the duty of Legs to give a little bit extra to get me there. For the second it was Arms and the third Head and Mouth. For the fourth it was a whole team effort which always felt great. This cycle was simply repeated as I went round the course from landmark to landmark.

Good communication between each team member was treated as vital just as it was in any wartime flying squadron.  Head and Mouth as Leader would call on each when its special contribution was required reminding the next team member to stand by and be ready to take over. Communication back and forth was not only permitted but encouraged. Legs would report in to "Blue Leader" that all was well and remind Arms (Yellow Section) that they should be grateful that they didn’t have the hilly bit to do which was now over at least until another lap. Occasionally, Head and Mouth would repeat for all team members “Keep Going Lads” if it suspected a team player was slacking or even contemplating stopping.

If at any point I lapsed into thinking about challenges at work or any other unhelpful distractions Blue Leader in the lead Spitfire would be called in to blast them from the sky (da da da da da da da da da da da). My God they were good.

As I neared the end of the run, Legs were reporting that the props were now full out but they could cope. Arms were announcing they now had kettle bells out for forward drive and feathers for backward motion whilst Head and Mouth promised to remain up straight and blow out only air, not spittle and certainly no false teeth.

Altogether, a very strange but strangely effective piece of training....

Of Why You Should Never Strike Up a Conversation with an Ironman

My training for next month's Ironman race was going okay until I met some Ironman last week. They assured me my training wasn't anywhere like good enough and I had to up the anti big time. Between them they're veterans of at least 10 races so I guess they should know. So for this next week, (which is just four weeks to go btw until the big day) my training regime is as follows :

Monday : 150 length swim + Fast run of 7 miles
Tuesday : Spin class & 3 mile + 68 miles bike
Wednesday : Gym work legs + Fast run 7 miles
Thursday : 150 lengths swim + 17 mile bike & 3 mile run
Friday : Gym legs & 3 mile run + 16 mile run
Saturday : Rest Day

Rest day, incidentally, is the day I'll have to do all the things I didn't do in the week because I was training like mow the lawn, wash the car, tend to the garden and shop.Shop til you drop. Isn't that what they say?

Of Stretching it All Just a Bit Too Far

There's a lot of people worried at the moment. My wife is worried. My Mum is worried. Friends are worried. Now it's the turn of my physio.
I went to see him last week about my aching carves. He said unless I stretch them at least 5 times a day he doesn't see me completing the Ironman in August. He could be wrong but my experience in Mallorca suggests he's not. In Mallorca half way round the run I could feel the back of my legs beginning to seize up. By the time I got to the line I wasn't far off being in complete agony.
So now into the training schedule which includes already an awful lot of swimming, cycling, running, shopping for good food and preparing it well I must add 5 daily stretch exercises.

Just when you think you can't pack anything more into your day you have to try to stretch it just one bit farther.

Now I'm beginning to worry.

Of Ironman 70.3 in Mallorca

And so it came to be that on 2nd May after 7 hours+ in the searing heat of Mallorca I crossed the finish line of the Ironman 70.3!
The race had started well enough with my completing the 1.9km swim in just over 40 minutes. Don't make the mistake of thinking this is fast however for the Pros did it in just 20 minutes!
Yes there was 3,500 in the water but the start time was staggered so the elbowing, kicking and re-directing of fellow competitors was kept to a minimum.
The bike race was hard. Very hard. It included a 15 mile ascent up a mountain side but I knew if I could crack this I could crack the distance too - not only of the cycle component but the whole race.
One consequence of ascending a mountain in 30 degree heat is that you have to drink a huge amount of fluids and this means a lot of toilet stops. Many of these stops were in portaloos along the route but by no means all. Secluded large walls fronting farmers fields did their bit to help out as did a family in a tiny village 3km from the cycle finish line who kindly granted access to their facilities to some strange guy who appeared on their doorstep in his cycling lycra looking very uncomfortable and speaking wobbly Spanish!

The run was all about getting to the finish without collapsing in the heat. There was loads of roadside assistance from officials handing out energy bars and drinks to kids handing you sponges to soak yourself with as much water as you could.

I loved this day. It was truly great.

Before the race I came across a quote in the official race programme by the co-founder of the Ironman competition and it's stayed with me since :

"You may quit an Ironman race and no one will care at all. But you will know for the rest of your life!"