Having a word with myself......

I highly recommend having a word with yourself now and then, it's a strategy I use when I'm anxious about something, preparing for something new, cross about something or most often when I'm going " on one" I think the youth call it and need to draw a line under something.The ironman training journey is a big project that I figured from time to time requires me to have a big word with myself....in fact, eight weeks into the training I arranged a whole meeting with myself....

8 Week Review Meeting

Present: Me

Minutes: Me

Agenda:

1. Progress report
2. Achievements and successes 
3. Challenges
4. What I've learnt so far 
5. Future Actions
6. Date and Time of next meeting

Progress Report 

If this was a school report it would probably read " Sarah try's hard but lacks natural athletic ability and she should consider taking needlework as an option subject rather than PE!" I have been largely sticking to the plan and have felt appropriate levels of guilt when Ive missed the odd session but I have found coming into the plan following an injury and then having to stick to the low heart rate training zones has resulted in me feeling slow, sluggish and lacking sharpness....however in two weeks time in will be entering the build phase of my training and I'm allowed to add in several one minute burst of fast running and cycling whoop whoop! My legs have been feeling heavy and tired at the start of my runs( usually the runs come after a cycle session) and this results in me worrying that I'm never going to be strong enough the get through the event....and then I remember I've still got 5 months of training to get me ready. 

Achievements and successes 

Running: at Christmas I wasn't running at all really and now this week I've completed my first 30+ week, very slowly. Today I ran to work and recalled when training for my first marathon I felt such a sense of achievement when I ran to Hyde ( only because of how far it was not that I wanted to go to Hyde...there's not much there...) and I also, whilst running into work in Stockport wondered at what point did it become "normal" to be running such distances without even thinking about it.

Cycling:my confidence has improved massively, one week I cycled to Stockport and was a nervous wreck when I got there because of a couple of near misses with motorists, I was very grateful to Paul and Dee ( who do amazing work for Stockport CP society) for the cup of tea and the chat that day.....my heart rate wasn't sticking in the zone then! Now I'm much faster as descending and if a **** of a motorist cuts me up they know about it! I've weirdly enjoyed the turbos in the garage in the dark and the wet, and the chats with the neighbours I have whilst the garage door is open and I'm pedalling away

Swimming: I've swum longer than I've ever swum before just in my routine training sessions....the swim sets in this plan are demons! The swim sets seem to go quicker at glossop tri club than when I'm on my own. 

What I've learnt so far

•  That I need to be organised
• That I need an infinite amount of sports gear or a housekeeper
• Friends and training groups are fundamental to my enjoyment of training 
• I don't like base training and doing no speed work 
• I need to get stronger physically
• That it doesn't help to compare myself to people who are training for different things 
• It doesn't help to compare myself to people that are training for iron distance events.. I'm unique.. 
• I'm very good at putting positive spin on things( see above point)
• If it all goes pear shaped I will be able to have a go at shot put with my emerging cyclist quads 

Future Actions

Ive read Steve Peter's book ( sports psychologist to many of team GB cyclists). It's called The Chimp Paradox and whilst some of it is a bit too  cosmic for me there is some really useful stuff in there about getting goals. He talks about how for every key goal you have to build towards it  with smaller fundamental goals, I visualise these as stones building a wall up to where you'd like to get. In particular  he talks about having only 2/3 areas that you are trying to make breakthroughs or progress in at any one time. The rest of your goals should just to be maintain your current level. 

So..I'm going to start and do some real strength work, this hasn't been formally written on my plan..... So if it's not on the plan I don't  do it. I will probably leave the shot put alone for now and settle for some basic gym work!

My second focus will be nutrition, I am going to stop eating out on all the training I'm doing! It's often called the forth discipline of triathlon. 

My third area where I'm looking for a breakthrough is in my endurance, I will be building the miles in the bike and run......looking forward to the light mornings and evenings to help with this.

Date and time of next meeting:

TBC

Anything you can do I can shoe better :-)

Those of you who have been following my posts from the beginning will recall that training for the ironman is an experiment for me....to see what happens, to see what I learn about myself, my capabilities and where it leads me. Since I last posted Ive done some serious learning! 

I wonder at what point my life changed from living from day to day, to planning two, maybe three years in advance. I've never been somebody who planned far ahead but since fitness came into my life I've started to realise that the are so many events that I want to have a crack at, so many things I'd like to try, so many things I need to experience, that I need to pace myself and not try to do them all in one year. I've found myself starting to plan for my 2016 goals already. 

In the last couple of weeks I've learnt about the importance of short term planning too, I've missed a couple of sessions and suffered the guilt that most of us feel when we've not stuck to "our plan" for our training sessions, I've done a bit of thinking about why this has been. Routine and organisation seem to be the key, just knowing which session I'm doing on what day and not getting into any debate about if or when I'm doing it means that it will happen. Now, organisation is key to make the session happen, at the minute I feel like my car is a walking fitness wardrobe, with various different PE kits, in different bags, swimming, running and cycling stuff, for before work ,for after work etc. I arrived late to a track session at harriers last week, dashed in to the changing rooms with my running PE kit, got changed to discover I only had one trainer! I ran half a mile to my car in one work shoe and one trainer.....the other trainer was in the boot of my car...phew....I only got a few funny looks!the run session was on.

This next snippet of my training life links to the challenge of organisation and last times post about my increasing laundry..... I went for an easy run one evening last week, I started by running down the hill from my house, nice and easy, heart rate in the low zone was the plan. A couple of minutes in I checked and my heart rate was almost 200, way too high, I felt ok, but this wasn't right, I wasn't working hard, I was going down hill, but this wasn't right....panic set in.....should I stop? Should I call an ambulance? Do I need to check my life insurance? How will my family cope without me? Is this it? I reached my hand to my chest as thats what they do in the movies when their number is up.....I  was going, leaving this mortal coil, on a damp Wednesday February evening on Tinsle bridge.....I touched my heart rate monitor and realised that I was not wearing my usual underwear.....I was wearing....an underwired bra! The wires were obviously sending my heart rate monitor wild. That night I learnt about the importance of being organised with my laundry....or to invest in more sports bras!

So I'm alive and kicking.....mainly kicking in my swim sessions that is :-)

Www. Not the World Wide Web.....

I've now competed four weeks of my ironman training plan....wow only 6 months to go...I've not posted for the last couple of weeks as partly because I didn't want to get into a regular expectation of posting weekly and mainly because I've not had much free time!

It's been a really interesting couple of weeks, I've been spending more time with Tony Blackburn in the garage but not with many other people! Sports people have often talked about how lonely the life of an endurance athlete can be and I've started to notice  this last couple of weeks. Coming into the plan I had been injured and not fit enough to run with my usual run group and I've been working hard to stick to the triathlon training plan and nobody in my usual local running or tri circles are following a similar plan....so it's been just me and the plan. I've enjoyed some time with myself but keeping banging out the base miles with a low heart rate has felt hard whilst reading everybody's else's posts about personal bests and what great fun they've been having on this run or that run.

I've had my Ted with me on the easy runs and one particular memory and the first W is wobbly legs, just me and Ted doing a run off the bike at 6 am round the resers where I live with the wobbly bike legs in the dark....there was one other person out with a dog...who I think may have thought I was on my home from a very good Tuesday night out on the ale!! For those that don't know Ted...he's every bodies favourite border terrier.

The next W is for washing....I seem to be a one woman laundry. With 9 sessions a week I'm going through some kit...keeping on top of keeping it all clean is a challenge, never mind trying to locate which bag it's in,have I got the swim bag in the boot or my cycling shoes in the office....whilst we're on about work that's been tough, busy and I've noticed how important it is to get my sessions done in the morning where possible as Ive been leaving late and not having much energy for the evening sessions after a full day at the coal face.

The final W is to my new nick name that I've allocated myself "Wincey" I've become more obsessed and better at forecasting than Wincey Willis the old TVAM weather girl....I watch that weather looking for the slightest bit of a gap in the rain and wind to get out on my bike.....I think I need some "coaching" from Micheal Fish as yesterday I ended up out in that horrendous storm..

Until next time

WWW.WobblyWashingWincey.com

Me and Tony Blackburn........

Well, I've done my first week of training, which included the longest swim set I've ever done....I needed to go home for a sleep after it..it included 2x8x50 m drills and 12x100m with 20 second recoveries. I mainly learnt that I can't count this week....I definitely need to find a system for keeping track of how many reps I've done.....suggestions will be very welcome. I once listened to an episode of the running podcast "Marathon Talk" where Emmerdale actor Tony Audenshaw came up with a novel system of counting hill reps by dividing the two sticks of a twix bar into 3 pieces and first moving them all to the top of the hill then eating them on each following rep...allowing him to count 12 hill reps.....it's  a bit warm in the pool for twix bars...but I like the idea of a treat after each rep...maybe mints...but they don't have the same appeal as chocolate!

New Years Eve brought Bramstones fell race and whilst setting out the route and moving to and from my marshalling spot and taking selfies in my wolf costume, confirmation that my foot injury was more than on the way to being recovered...yey! I've had some great treatments from friends at Global Therapies and #intelligentrecovery is something that I will be ensuring I devote sufficient time to over the next few months.... I'm writing this blog in bed at 19:33....starting as I mean to go on....

The stormy weather has meant that a few of my bike sessions have been on the turbo this week....I have managed to clear a large enough space in the garage for the turbo, which is next to the full size wicker replica of a Harley Davidson, we all have those  in our garages right?! New Year's Day was probably the toughest day in the garage......I was a little worse for wear...having spent the previous evening at Harvey Leonard's which is the local wine and beer tasting establishment.....I was and will stick to the plan...it was a fast spin session followed by a quick but short run. I am still in the process of arranging the downloads of my sufferfest videos so had to make do with radio two for company.....Tony Blackburn was on.....Tony Blackburn and hits that were never hits in England! The music wasn't too bad but the chatter was not to my liking....me,Tony Blackburn in a packed garage with a hangover.......but no pain no gain eh?

Lets get started.......

Most of you who know me will already be aware and maybe bored already of my plans to complete The Outlaw Triathlon in 2014.

The 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike followed finally by a full 26.2 mile marathon run will be a major physical and mental challenge for me. As I embark on my 7 month training plan I thought I would start blogging to capture what I'm treating as a big experiment. An experiment to see just what happens....to me....to my swimming, biking and running....to my family and close friends whom I've assigned to my project team....and to my social life!

Why The Outlaw?

This year I completed the half distance triathlon and joined a couple of friends from High Peak Tri club in a relay team for the full distance. Standing at the side of the lake in Nottingham at 5:30 am with the sun rising and lighting the mist on the water....I just knew I had to do it......I knew that next year I would be doing everything in my power to be stood there in my wetsuit ready to start the long 140.6 mile journey to being called over the finish line by the shouts of "you are an Outlaw".

I've been into fitness, running etc for a few years now and one thing I'm sure of is I'm never going to be fast at anything but my strengths are in endurance, keeping going for as long as it takes and using hard work and dedication to get where I'd like to go. Runners and other sorts of athletes are often described as obsessive or addicted...... I liken racing to gambling in some ways...we are always searching for that next win, the pb or the next event off the bucket list...for me it's about trying to go longer, further and trying to do things that my logical mind says aren't possible...at first glance that is.....

So today is the start of my training plan and of my blogging career too.........