Coach Trip

I had a very generous offer from TriSwimCoaching who offered to throw me together a quick swim plan. I’ll give a crack next week as at the moment I am just pounding the lengths & trying to build up the base fitness. I’ve seen the most improvement of all in my swimming. My next goal is to get 3k in sub 1hr. I’ll use some of the drills to refine a bit of technique and try and get the speed up. Thanks to Andrew for getting in touch.

When I first took on this IronMan UK idea I thought I might eventually need some help ,so I was quietly window shopping for a coach. Mainly as a point of contact and motivation, but also their past experience about what has worked for them.I’ve never been coached at anything! Not to the point of having a specific plan and goals, so I was a bit apprehensive at the thought of it.

My criteria was:

1 – Someone who had been through an IronMan.

2 – Someone who was miles better than I could ever be.

3 – And also someone who I get on with and has a genuine passion for what I’m wanting to achieve.

While I’ve had a bit of physio on the niggling ITB, I had acupuncture too. Periosteal Pecking to be exact. Then I got chatting to the physio who HAD completed his first IronMan this year. Was A top UK triathlete. And gets genuinely excited about my progress. His name is Paul Savage and has helped me out with my first training plan and my recent acupuncture. He has a great website here & works at Athlete Matters Sports Clinic in Worsley, Manchester. I have good self-motivation and managed to fly through this first plan without ever feeling too ‘oh god here we go again’, which I may have done before.

Having a coach has given me someone to report to. I have weekly contact and daren’t go back to him saying I had missed this or missed that – I don’t want to let him down either and I’m paying for this at the end of the day!

So getting a coach has helped me getting off the couch.

This Isn’t An X-Factor Montage

I did it. I entered. With over 2, 500 pre registered entrants for IronMan UK 2013 I couldn’t risk missing out so I just paid up the day the entries opened. Do it yourself if you haven’t already

So I’m £400 lighter and had to keep myself entertained in a cheap way for the rest of the month. I was out on the mountain bike in the hills with my iPod in my camelbak with the headphones coming up my back. I love having some tunes on when flying around the woods, it kinda makes you feel like you’re in a video! BUT my iPod on shuffle is a dangerous prospect. I was coming to the end of the ride, with the best downhill section around the corner. It would’ve been amazing to do this section to some pumping dance track or rock out to some loud guitars.

It shuffled to Westlife. I was devastated. iPod in my bag, I couldn’t change it. I was in an audio prison. It was the worst thing that could’ve happened to me. Ever. It ruined my ride. There’s a time and place for Irish boybands and this was neither a wedding or an X-Factor finale montage.

I vowed this would never happen again. So I got home, fired up the laptop and pulled together all my favorite tunes. Then I thought this is just a playlist – so I found some of my favorite sporting moments and layered them into the tunes also. I still get goosebumps when I think of Jonny Wilkinson drop goal in 2003. When Becks did that free kick. Why not have all the positives from my armchair specatating to help me through that run I don’t really want to be doing, or give me that Hollywood moment at the end of mtb ride.

Here’s a snippet of my running mix, including some Jay-Z / Kasabian / The Courteeners / Foo Fighters / White Lies / Audio Bullies all mixed with some inspirational moments

In a geeky way, I also tried to work around tracks with a beat that matches my running pace. It is possible to speed up / slow down the tracks so the beat is in time with my striking foot.

Swimming Lesson Cancelled ;-)

I began my training program on Monday 27th August with a 4 mile run which flared up my niggling ITB injury so I’ve taken a bit of time off running and concentrating on my swimming and turbo bike sessions. I’ve added what I’ve done so far in my training log.

I visited my physio to address the ongoing pain from my left ITB and have been hammering the foam roller and a routine of stretches daily to do everything I can to get back to running. There’s a nice piece here on injury prevention around the ITB and the importance of the glutes in running. The roller is beautifully brutal!
Looking at the positive it has meant I have been hitting the pool pretty hard. It’s hard to believe myself that I can now consistently swim 2k front crawl non-stop! I know thats nothing too amazing, but for me its massive. I did have a swimming lesson booked to kick start my training but when I got a text from the swimming instructor that was signed off with a ‘x’ and a winky smiley face I had to cancel. I’ve never met the guy, whats that all about?! 😉

So I watched and copied some local guys that were pretty sharp and sorted my technique out all by myself, well done me.

I also did a bit of shopping last week. I got my Saucony Guide 5’s – again. I’ve never done this before – bought the same thing twice – but I love these kicks. I have about 300 miles in my current Guide 5’s and if I’m working around this ITB injury I need to take every precaution. I got them from a place called Rat Race, based over in York, for £30 less than the high street shop I got them from last time. Again, well done me.

Putting the new ones against the old ones, its nerdily interesting to see what I do to pair of trainers.

Sunday is my first rest day since I began training so I’ll stop looking at trainers and take my old man to watch British Superbikes in the sunshine.