The First 15

So below is a summary of the first 15 weeks of my training plan which will give you and me an insight into what need to be done over the next 15 weeks.

Swimming: I started the year struggling to swim any distance, my first swim was really painful and after much gasping for air and really sore arms I managed 2.5kms in an hour and a half. I felt slow and felt like I was sinking in the water, I couldn't breath properly and felt nauseous and after a while I felt like I was making no progress what-so-ever. I was worried about swimming the 3.8kms in 2 hrs 20 in IMUK, however through coaching by the Tri club coaches I have now smoothed out my style so that I am more of a swimmer and less of a splasher. I am now confident that I will be able to do the swim in under an hour and a half and am aiming for the hour mark. I think this is a doable goal if I look back on what I have done over the last 15 weeks. A good indication is my 30 min TT which is now 1725, which even if I dont improve too much on that I will still manage 3500 in an hour and with another 300 taking about 5 minutes or so I will be on track for a sub 1:15 swim. Open water swimming is starting soon and with that I will be able to concentrate on distance as well as see how a wetsuit and the added buoyancy will benfit me. I will still be going to one or two pool sessions to concentrate on speed development.


Cycling: My cycling started off as average but not a good enough average to give me a good time in IMUK and as it's the longest leg of IMUK and the one just before a marathon I was aware that that needed a lot of improving. I started off with averages on the flat of around 24km/h after just an hour and have ended up with 28km/h over 4 hours and a 30km/h over 2 hours. I am a lot more comfortable on the bike now and that took a really long time to happen. The biggest thing to help my cycling is summer and the sun and longer days. I feel that with a bit of work I can get to the 30km/h avg goal and if I put in a little more I should get past that. I will just need to be careful and see how much energy I have after a good solid 6 hour ride prior to IMUK.

Running: I struggled with running to begin with but as it was the only discipline I felt comfortable doing at night, I soon got better at it and ended up running a Half Marathon in 1:55. Since the Half Marathon I haven't been running nearly enough and as such my pace has dropped down by a good 30 seconds/km however I am still able to run for long periods of time. I need to start running 3 times a week again and this will help get my pace back up to the Half pace and combine that with the long runs I've been doing, should see a vast improvement. I feel my running will com back quickly as long as I put the hours in and hopefully it will see me run a 5 hour or faster marathon at the end of IMUK.


So at the halfway point these are my new goals (which I feel are achievable over the next 15 weeks)
Swim 3.8km - 1 hour
Ride 180km - 6 hours
Run 42km - 5 hours
These combined with good nutrition, on and before the big day, a clear focused mind and everything else going my way should see me do IronManUK in 12 hours.


Things that I have to change
1. Eating properly on a daily basis
2. Getting up earlier to make sure I fit in all my training sessions
3. Fitting in all my training sessions no matter what or how I am feeling
4. Training a little more cleverly to make sure that every second counts
5. Balancing out all the disciplines so that one does't become stronger at the expense of another


Watch this space and feel free to comment or advise, after all I am an IronMan novice ;-)


W