Training Trials

I've come to the conclusion that training for an Ironman is HARD! It may not sound like a new discovery to a lot of people but I feel like my body is screaming at me. I love the process of feeling fitter as the summer progresses but dealing with the aches and pains and overwhelming desire to stay in bed after the alarm goes off is really tough. I always seem to slow down at work during this time of year and it's great to have something to focus on like training but I think I forgot how hard it is to get out of bed after a tough day either in the pool on the bike or running.

Yesterday Robert had a 40k TT planned and a bunch of us decided to join in the fun; Paul, Bart, Steve, Bruce, Amber and myself all showed up to suffer with him. It was great to have so many people out there to hurt with but I forgot how bad the aftermath of such a tough bike could be. We warmed up for 5k and started straight into a fairly brisk headwind. I knew the first 20k was going to be brutal (and it was) I was hitting heartrates on the bike that I very rarely see, 150-155bpm and after 10kms of that my legs started to die a little. Robert had opened up a gap on me at the first climb and I had to let him go, I focused on staying in my own effort and shut out those thoughts of 'your not going fast enough' or 'it's just not your day' and kept the effort as high as possible.

I was looking at the time trying my best to get to the 10k mark at 15 minutes and the 20k mark at 30 minutes but it was so tough with the undulating hills and headwind. I hit the 20k turnaround at 31:15, okay I can live with that. The way back was so freeking fast I was having a blast as I crused along at 43-45km/hr and kept my heart rate in the 140s. My legs were really starting to feel the effort and I could tell they wanted to quit but I just kept my eyes on the time and continued to count down the minutes. I was expecting to finish in the 1:02- 1:03 range so you could imagine my surprise when I finished in 59:20!!! Wow, a new PR for that distance, awesome! Robert also set a new PR finishing in the 57 minute range, incredible. Amber set a PR too finishing in 1:10, amazing babe!


All in all it was a fantastic day even though none of us went into it with fresh legs, Amber did a brutal leg workout, Robert and Bart did a VO2 max test, I did a tough 10 mile run the day before and all of us had done our third swim of the week by then. So you could imagine how most of us felt waking up this morning, Amber was a trooper and got up at 5am to teach her class for 6am. I dragged myself out of bed and to the pool to meet Robert and we managed to slug out 5x 500m and I saw Bart on the way out and he looked pretty tired. It's been a tough week so far but that's Ironman training for you, suffer a little now or suffer a lot later.