PJH road to Ironman UK: Wet swim..wet run

Friday, 26 March 2010

Wet swim..wet run

Lazy swim today, 2.5 k but steady enough. I am not too concerned about the swim. Last year I took part in a 3k and hit 55 mins and I have been hitting similar times ever since in the pool (taking into account the turnarounds, wetsuit advantage etc). From my reading of my latest book, which tells all sorts of ironman stories, the swim seems to be of the least concern. This evening I ran late for me, 8pm for an hour in the rain. Sometimes heavy, sometimes light and sometimes nothing at all. It is strange that looking outside from indoors the prospect of running in the rain is a bit depressing, but when I am out there it doesn’t seem to make any difference, I don’t even notice when it has stopped.

I think I have also solved two mysteries: Firstly my body weight: weighed myself late and it was down to 89.6 kg. Now my hypothesis is that it is down to hydration. Yesterday I didn’t particularly hydrate well. So tomorrow I will drink gallons and see what happens to my weight. Secondly is to do with my heart rate. In the final few minutes of my run this evening I picked up the pace going uphill and maintained it for about 4 minutes. At the top my heart rate hit 164, which I am guessing is my maximum. I will monitor this over the next few runs but use this rate as my benchmark from now on.

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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

Friday, 26 March 2010

Wet swim..wet run

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About Me

Books that have helped