Progress and parties

As I mentioned earlier, this week was the first of a hard five-week block which forms the juicy 16oz fillet in the steak sandwich that is my Ironman training schedule. It’s the block that matters most – both physically and mentally – and I feel like I came through the first part relatively unscathed.

An overextended metaphor.

The most notable accomplishment this week was my long Friday bike ride – I managed a 160k ride in just under five hours all told, which is something of a landmark as it’s the longest ride in my programme. Unlike in a lot of other sports, in endurance sports you rarely if ever train the full distances you do in races – marathon runners, for example, only do the full marathon in races. Ironman is the same (unlike shorter triathlons where you do train to those distances and even longer for endurance purposes).

So, the plan is that I’ll ride the 160k another two or three times, but I won’t go longer. Knowing that I’ve completed the maximum training distance necessary on the bike (will peak at 32k in a day on the run in a few weeks’ time) has given me a real confidence boost. Just as significantly after feeling utterly rubbish on last weekend’s ride was the manner of finishing it. Although there were a few times when I found it hard going, I didn’t get dropped and was actually riding with the quickest pack in the final push at the end. And did all this in temperatures that had reached 42C by the end of the ride. Happy days!

My sprint finish was positively Cav-ish...maybe!

There are a couple of things that people ask when they find out I’m doing Ironman: the first is where do I find all the time (which I think I’ve covered before) and the second is don’t I find it a huge sacrifice. I know triathletes who definitely do sacrifice almost everything and even before starting IM training, I was determined never to do that. After all, it’s not as if I’ll ever be a world champ or make a living from triathlon, so I need to enjoy other things too. So I’ve tried to make sure I have enjoyed a cinema trip or a few beers on the nights I do get off. This week, I pushed things around a little to go out on Tuesday to an awesome pub quiz (Arabian Ranches if anyone’s interested) where we came a most unfortunate second place (team name: Quiz Akabussi). Then, at the weekend, it was one of my best friend here in Dubai’s stag afternoon and leaving do. He’s having a proper stag back in the UK but as a lot of us won’t be able to make it, we did an afternoon of poker and scotch, before giving both Jamie and his lovely fiancée Catherine a good send off at an evening brunch.

I was obviously up early on Friday morning (4am) to get my ride in, I went straight to the gym for a 5k brick run, then spent most the rest of the day in a foggy scotch mist. It was lovely. But, by 11pm, the whole group was ready to push on to a pub or a club for some more drinking. I had the will but my body said no way – my eyes were beginning to close so I headed for home.

Tired.

In fact, I was home so early that I probably could have made it to my normal Saturday morning ride but I chose the rare lie-in instead! You definitely can keep some remnants of a social life while training for an Ironman or ultramarathon or whatever…but there’s one inescapable rule: whatever you skip now, must be made up for later. Therefore, after my lie-in and a bit of lunch, it was time to turn up the aircon and hit the turbo trainer for a two-hour easy spin. Two hours (or three episodes of The West Wing) later, I headed out for an easy 10k recovery run – the last action for my week. Loving it.

Some fun numbers…

Last week, I:

Swam/biked/ran a total of 341 kilometres, in a total training time of 17hrs, burning around 13,000 calories (or just over 50 Mars Bars).

I have 2 blisters on my hands from riding, 1 nail has fallen off with 1 more nail having died but staying attached to my foot.

I swam 25m underwater straight into a 25m sprint in 30 seconds flat.

On my bike, I reached a top speed of 54kph (downhill with a tailwind!).

I got an average of 5hrs sleep a night and spent approximately 85% of my waking hours daydreaming about eating, sleeping or drinking more coffee.

I spend approximately 85% of my sleeping hours thinking I was training or dreaming I’d missed Ironman.