I’ve not actually started my training plan yet for IMUK, but have had some good sessions this week.

Did my hour on Monday morning with my PT. All the work for this is mainly aimed at core and endurance so that set me up fine. Got a call from him to say he wouldn’t be in Wednesday for my session so thought I’d do myself a mini tri in the gym. I was planning on spending all morning in there anyway, as my little girl was in nursery and my wife was in a gym class so it wasn’t worth going home.

As I was getting changed, I got chatting to one of the other PT’s in there who has done a few Iron Man distance tri’s and he suggested rather than do the interval session on the bike I was going to do, do a pyramid interval. Had to have it explained, but he thought it’d do me some good so who am I to argue. On the exercise bike, I started at level 7 for 4 minutes, then rest at 4 for 4 minutes, level 8 for 3 minutes, rest at 5 for 3 minutes, level 9 for 2 minutes, rest at 6 for 2 minutes then level 10 for 1 minute, coming back down the scale the other way, always trying to keep the cadence at around 85. Shit, that was hard!! Sweated buckets, fortunately the wife was there to go and fill my water bottle as I was running on empty when she turned up.

Did this and straight onto the treadmill for a brick. Actually felt pretty good and ended up doing just over 4 km. Might have been helped by some good gym tunes from While She Sleeps and Bring me the Horizon but felt good and could have gone on, but I knew I wanted to get a decent swim in.

Into the changing rooms and out with the Zone 3 Buoyancy shorts. These are a great aid for swimming training, but they’re not a great look, sort of cross between cycling shorts and incontinency pants, and the noises that they make when you’re putting them on aren’t great either!! Another point on these is I now have to remember to take the lube to ease into them, not great.

Anyway, waddled off into the pool for a quick warm up and ended up doing 11 100 metre sprints. Might not be sprints for some, but they were for me!! Kept all the times under 1 minute 30 seconds except one, when some big, bouncing old girl came wading across my path, hope she’s not like that on the road!! Was really happy with that session, and felt really good after them all.

Today, Friday, I’ve done my hour with the PT and again, had time to do some more. As the pool was being used for a class, I thought I’d do the pyramid interval session again with a small run tagged on the end. Same numbers as Wednesday except this time, I managed to keep the cadence up at 85 pretty much all the time, and it felt ok doing this. Was a little stiff getting on the run but only had time for about 10 minutes so only did a midge’s over a mile but the stiffness wore off quite quickly. Think the running after the cycle session is a good idea, no matter how small the run is so I’m always trying to fit it in.

Having left the gym to pick up my daughter, we were back there for her swimming lesson an hour later. Hadn’t been home to dump the stuff, so I let the wife sort her out and I did a swim. This time, I thought it would be better just to wear my normal swimming shorts. God knows what would have happened if I’d turned up poolside in what looks like from a distance very tight leather shorts while there is a kiddy swimming lesson going on. Guess I could have made the front page of the Daily Mail!! Ended up doing just over a mile, but at a nice easy pace, probably the swimming version of a gentle jog.

So a good week. Nothing was too hard, the swimming I’m happy with, just need to get some bike miles sorted properly now.