Been a busy few weeks with one thing and another.

I’ve got my first Triathlon of the season on Sunday, The Wilmslow Tri. Its a sprint so 400 metre swim, 24 km bike and a 6 km run. I did it last year in May and managed a DNF with 2 flats in the same one in October so want to do better. I’ve got my own target I want to get to and where I can loose some time, so quite hopeful I can put up a time that starts 1 hour 30 something.

The biggest problem with it is that its on the last day of the football season. I’d already noticed this, so I asked the organisers if they could put me at the start of the waves for my timed swim. I told them the truth as to why and I guess they appreciated that as I have a 9 o’clock start in a wave that to be perfectly honest, is a lot slower than I would do but from my point of view, its very much appreciated.

Training wise, everything seems to be coming together. I had a bit of a panic a couple of weeks ago as I started to get a pain on my left foot. It felt like the start of plantar fasciitis which I had a few years ago, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. As soon as it came on, I stopped my running training, started icing the foot and wore a compression sock. I also went for a running gait analysis as I bought some new trainers the other week and thought that could be the problem. Sure enough, these new ones were not giving me the support I needed so that would have been the cause. One new pair of supported trainers later, and hopefully all should be ok. I’ve only been for a few shortish runs in the new trainers, but they feel fine. I’ll have a gentle run tomorrow as prep for Wilmslow but once that is out of the way, I need to start building up the distance again.

Swimming is coming along. Distance isn’t a problem, I just need to improve on my speed. Having said that, its my first Iron Man and my main aim is just to finish. Times are really not a huge worry at the minute as I wont be troubling the pointy end of the field.

The main thing I need to get sorted for my swimming is to get some open water practice. I’ve not had chance yet, and to be perfectly honest, looking at the temperatures its not something I really fancy but I know I have to so I’ll be getting that sorted soon.

Cycling is actually showing a good improvement. I’ve been putting in a fair bit of time on the Wattbike and have been improving my times and distances on that. Having said that, there isn’t any substitute for proper road riding, so what I’ve decided to do is drop my Wednesday morning gym session and use that as my long ride. The last 2 weeks, its worked really well. Last week I did an 80 km ride, and yesterday I managed 100km, which in terms of distance, were both the longest I’ve ever done. The 100 km was done in 3 hours 50 minutes so whilst it isn’t particularly quick, its north of my targeted average of 15 mph or 24 kmh which means I should finish the Iron Man bike south of 8 hours which for me would be a result.

My legs were a little bit wobbly coming off the bike but they soon freed themselves up and I’ve had no soreness or stiffness which I’m well happy about. It also gave me the confidence to just get out on the bike as I’d never done that kind of distance before. I also tried out different gels/nutrition and I’m favouring the Torq products. I did get a little bit of cramp towards the end of the ride, so maybe I need to look at that and either use a salt stick or use a different drink that replaces the electrolytes that I’m sweating out.

So all in all, I’m reasonably happy with my training, although like everyone, I think I probably could do more. Once Wilmslow is out of the way, I’ll step things up again.