PJH road to Ironman UK: So Naive

Saturday, 20 March 2010

So Naive

Long bike today, it was intended to be 2hrs and 30 minutes So I decided to get out early to avoid the traffic which coincided with some really duff weather. On the bike by 5:15am, still dark but the roads were quiet which made a massive difference. I hadn’t had very good nights sleep and so I was not on best form. The rain was persistent but not so heavy to create problems. The time really flew by, the first hour is on a gradual downward slope and so fast enough. The second hour is tougher as I climb out of the Thames Valley. My calculations were way out and the ride and it actually took nearly 3 hours. When I made it home there was still a 15 minute run to do. I hadn’t taken this seriously, how hard could it be to run for 15 minutes? How wrong could I be? After 3 hours on the bike my legs were in pretty bad shape for running and I really struggled. I have been used to doing 45 minutes to an hour or so followed by a half hour run which wasn’t too bad, so I was really surprised that the extra time on the bike made so much difference. How naïve could I be?

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A maintenance challenge

After completing the Ironman the question of what next. I have a few half marathons for the Autumn and will probably enter a couple of duathlons. However, my main aim will be to keep building on the fitness that I have acheived. I appreciate that this next month will be about recovering. Although my legs are feeling pretty good, I have a pain in my right knee that will need some careful management. Tempting though it is I am not going to imediately enter another Ironman. I will give it a few weeks and give it some serious thought.

Why Ironman?

This is a big question and one that I am unlikely to be able to answer fully until maybe after the event. Maybe somehow it goes back to being useless at sports at school, picked last etc, being called “Porky” by my mates etc, but that can’t be all of it. Perhaps it is being surrounded by high achieving athletes at work who have and are still achieving amazing things, or a better understanding of the psychology of performance and setting and achieving goals. Perhaps it is a place to go to when life becomes difficult and the pain of training numbs that. The lyrics that come back to me time and time again are:
“This is my church, this is where I heal my hurts”
Or maybe it is all of these combined with entering the London Marathon in 1983.
When I was 22 I heard about the event and decide to enter, I had never been a runner, detesting cross country runs at school. However something appealed to me about the run.
Once I had completed it and done a couple of half marathons, I heard about the Ironman in Hawaii. In some ways I felt that my achievement had been eclipsed by the triathlon and somewhere deep inside me I knew that I had to do it. This was buried somewhere in my memory and only came out later in 2009 over 25 years later. In the spring a few friends from work convinced me to compete in the Henley sprint distance triathlon which I did. I then started open water swimming really enjoying the distances. My belief in my ability to swim began to grow and two friends from work who had completed the Ironman quite separately said that they believed that I could do it. It was then that my memory of hearing about Kona was awoken and the question “Can I do it?” came into my head. Since then other distances have emerged but for some reason they seem to be only preparation for the full distance. I if wonder once I have completed the event I August will that feel complete until I have made my way to Kona to do the original. Who knows?

PJH road to Ironman UK

Saturday, 20 March 2010

So Naive

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