Week 12/13

Training Summary

Swim: 3-4 miles a week

Bike:  50 miles

Run:   Not a lot recently...10 miles a week? Maybe?

Remember me?!

Yep. It’s almost been 3 weeks I think. Last time I spoke to you I was being bitten by gypsy dogs. Well since then I’m pleased to say I haven’t been bitten again and the wound has all but healed with minimal side effects (except on a full moon).

Big news in the ironButch camp is that I’ve bought myself a road bike. I started with a budget of about £300 in mind for a second hand road bike that would ‘do the job’. Looking on eBay, this swiftly became £400 and then finally swelled to about £650 for a new one! oops. Definitely the best option though, all things considered.

I’m still not sure on a name for her (the bike) yet. I’m hoping she’ll grow into one. I’ve had (still am having) exams over the past week, but I went out and did a 20 mile ride Wednesday and a 30 miler Thursday. Wednesday was fine, but it was done at a steady pace. I think the GPS said just over 10mph average. Thursday was feeling good for the first hour, I averaged 16mph from Cardiff to Barry Island via Penarth sea front (accidentally), then got lost on the way back; ended up going North rather than East after missing a turning. My legs pretty much died at about 23 miles which was a bit concerning and cunningly, I’d left my energy foods in the kitchen at home. Thankfully I managed to get back on some country roads via Dinas Powys (which seemed like a really nice village/town) after buying a big bar of Cadbury Dairy milk, 2 energy drinks and 4 pairs (2 pairs of pairs?!). Anyway, the point being, I’m going to need to put a lot of work into the cycle as I’ll need to be averaging over 15mph for the 112 miles and there’s a lot of climbing in the ironman too.

Cycling on the A roads is a bit disconcerting at the moment. The typical ‘ride through the Welsh countryside’ isn’t really that picturesque when 20 tonne trucks coming flying past you, spitting grit in your face as you try to avoid the next pot hole or drain!...Needs must though!

Another skill I’m going to have to master is the ‘clip in’ pedal. For those of you who aren’t familiar with these, it’s basically a different pedal that you clip into using a special attachment on the bottom of your cycling shoes. The result is that you’re attached to the bike; the theory being that you now pull the pedal up as well as pushing it down, generating a better cycling economy. So I’ve got these on the bike and to be honest I was a bit apprehensive about using them. Nonetheless I did and whilst in motion they’re fine. The difficulty comes when having to clip in and clip out when you’re pushing off to start cycling or stopping. There was a close encounter on Wednesday’s ride when I had to stop at a junction, couldn’t unclip and had to veer to the left in order to grab hold of a hand rail to stop myself from toppling over! But that was all for that ride and by the end of Thursday’s ride I was feeling pretty confident about the whole clip in scenario.

However....

As I was approaching a set of lights, as it turned out the last set of lights before the home, I decided I’d filter down the side of the cars waiting at the red light to get to the front without unclipping...it was bound to turn green any second from now- it’d been red for aaaages. No such luck. So rather than unclipping and putting my foot down to support myself, I ended up stopping, wobbling and tipping over, still attached to the bike.

All I could do was laugh, lying on the pavement, both feet attached to a bike with wheels in the air. When I got up I was getting some pretty weird looks from the people in the cars next to me...along the lines of  ‘what the hell just happened? / is he ok? / did I hit him? / what a fool’ sort of looks.

Luckily the pedals took the brunt of the contact and the bike was unscaved. Obviously my pride took a bit of a beating, but I don’t think that’ll be the last time that happens!

I’ve put some photos up of the bike trips. Hoping to get out the Taff trail with a mate sometime soon so should get some good pics then.

I think that’s enough for this week. I’m going to update it every two weeks now I think, unless anything particularly news-worthy happens i.e. I fall off my bike again in the middle of town at the traffic lights.

Much love

X

Week 10

Training Summary

Swim:    7-8 hours of surfing

Bike:      A what?

Run:       20 miles

Well. Christmas. What can I say?

It’s been said that the ‘art’ of ironman can be described as ‘perfecting the ability to conserve energy’. I’ve certainly done that...quite religiously in fact.

Week 9 was a no training week. Not planned for, it just happened. Ice, family gatherings and festive cheer. To be honest, coming home has thrown me out of my Cardiff routine. Things have got a bit better post Christmas though. I’ve managed to get in a fair few surfs (which I’m categorising as a swim) and a couple 10 mile runs just to get back into the swing of things.

Speaking of which...

On my last run, I was running past the local gypsy site (a must have for all self respecting cities) when two terriers ran out of it barking. Fine, I thought. Dogs bark. Then they start running in and around my feet as little dogs tend to do. Fine. Next thing I know, some grubby little mutt has sunk its teeth into the back of my leg! In retrospect I should have put my foot through its face as soon as it got close, but I had visions of some old lady appearing from behind her car only to see her dog soaring through the air! Anyway, I managed to shake it off but had to go to A&E to have the bite checked out because it drew blood. I hope the thing gets put down.

In other animal news, I was accompanied by a seal on whilst surf the other day. That was pretty cool. And it didn’t bite.

I’m going to try and come up with a training schedule for the New Year rather than just making it up on a week to week basis. Hopefully I should really start to make some progress toward the Ironman then.

Happy New Year!

Mark

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