Glass man to Ironman

Well I have finally moved into my new house and i have to say its has been the most stressful 2 months ever! I couldn't think about training or keeping my diet on track, it was just a nightmare! so it just came to a griding halt and now its Xmas I cant see me training until new years day (new start, diet ect...) So whats the plans for 2012? Hopefully money available the races this year are:- Lincoln 10k - Aim for a sub 40, or a sub 45 at least! Dambuster Triathlon - Oly distance, open water, eeekk! David Lloyd Triathlon - Wouldn't mind another crack at it, beat last years time. Notts Marathon - Prep to see if I can go the running distance for the Ironman in 2013 - also one of my friends has bet me that I can't run the marathon! Not as many races as I would have liked, but money is going to be tight with now having a mortgage and having to pay out more getting to training with the tri club (petrol bills ect due to moving) but on a plus note I now have a good long

I cant remember the last time I went for a run, swim or cycle (only to and from work) its got to be over a month now? Reason being....Well, after searching for the past few months we have finally found a house and looking to get on to the property ladder, so training has gone right out the window and been replaced with stress, lack of sleep, dizzy spells, crap diet you name it. Currently we are stuck in the middle waiting for everything to be finalised so we can move in, just hoping it all goes to plan. I feel once we have moved in and settled I will be able to get back into the swing of things as I feel my life is on hold at the moment and cant fully focus. The best thing about where I am moving to is that its near a local swimming pool, its a nice distance to cycle/run to work, the water sports center down the road is available for open water swimming May-October next year so ideal for practice for next years Olympic distance race which currently is looking like the Dambuster Triat

After doing a few runs it looks like all the regular injuries are out the woodwork again, the most annoying thing is that they all happen on my right leg... sore Achilles, hamstring feeling tight, cramp in calf an interior shin splints. I looked up on the net to see if there is a muscle imbalance somewhere in the chain, so I started from the top of my leg an worked down, straight away it was obvious my hip muscles are in terrible shape! So this is could be the weakest link an the cause of my over pronation. So now I'm following some basic exercises to strengthen my glutes from this article:- http://www.runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=18359&PageNum=1 Did one set yesterday and that wasn't so bad.... today I did two sets an I think I'm gonna have doms tomorrow! Going to do them everyday and see if the injuries subside :-).

Well I managed to stay up till 2:30am to watch the finish to what was an amazing race! I did contemplate going to bed around the 10/11pm mark due to nodding off a few times on the sofa while watching the live feed on the laptop, but I persevered and kept going. I would give a race report but I'm sure its on the net somewhere anyhow. Getting to Hawaii and doing the Ironman is most probably the pinnacle race of any triathlete, but the road to get there is not an easy one having to be in the top 3-5 in your age group at any Ironman race to qualify (Kona slots vary on the age groups and the location of the race). After looking at some of the results about 1,100 managed to go around the 9hr mark! I would love to do but a reality check is needed, it takes alot of commitment (and money!) to do it, maybe ill get lucky and do the Kona Lottery to get a place?  haha. On the other note of training I have started running 3x a week, but already my legs have started twinging in places to remi

In a bid to try and get faster I bought a heart rate monitor to work out which zone I am in for each type of run ie long slow, interval or tempo. So this morning I decided to do a 8km run (was tempted by 10km but dont want to risk injury since its been a while since last did a 10k)....now, going by the test I did a few weeks back I estimated my max heart rate to be about 202 going by some advice on the triathlon forums, this puts my long slow run heart rate to be about 131-151bpm. After about 5-8mins into the run I was struggling to keep my heart rate down, it was more 160-166. So I slowed down even more to the point I felt like I was going to just do speed walking!! didnt feel all that good, so I stuck at 166bpm with what I would class as a steady jog, not pushing it at all and just taking in the sights from up the top of the hill, (beats running along a busy road on my other 10k route with all the traffic fumes!) Any niggles? Well so far the bottom of my calfs feel abit tight, so wil

Swim = 11:45 - Errrghhh! :-( T1 = 1:45 Bike = 34:19 - Wooo go Tri Bike! T2 = 0.36 Run = 21.50 - Not bad, cramps ruined the start. Well thats it until next year, I have really enjoyed my start into the world of Triathlon! Met some great people at the races, always friendly people to chat to while waiting to get in the pool or setting up your kit in transition. Thanks to my friends and family turning up to support and cheer me on, its been great and cant wait to do it again. So what now untill next year? Well for one thing swimming is going to be my main focus to get it around 8mins at least! almost 12mins is a joke and no BS, all front crawl, no breaks ect....going to try an go at least 2x a week, focus on the breathing and trying not to hyperventilate which is making me tense and loose my rhythm. Bike, well fingers crossed we dont have a sh*tty winter like last time so I can get out every now and again, just on the safe side im going to take the slicks off my MTB and put

So how did it go? Considering how busy I have been,lack of constant training, illness an a few niggles I am impressed with a time of 1h 10mins. My initial print out slip its put me down as 58m 44sec in T2! But got a text later this evening confirming my official time :-). Well the swim was crap for me, bolted off from the word go and was pooped by 6-8laps and had to resort to abit of BS between laps, plus the 3 other people in my lanes was doing it and trying to overtake them doing FC just knackered me out. 11mins 45sec. I need to seriously put some pool time 2-3 a week if I have any hope of doing an Olympic distance tri next year. Bike section had lots of ups and downs and a few good downhill sections to get some speed up. Hardly any traffic on the roads so that was good, over took a fair few people which made me happy, love my new bike, just still having probs with rear gears popping out of sync, still 34mins 19sec overall, chuffed. Run section, major cramps in both calf muscles!

Last day before the Southwell triathlon and things are not looking there best...weather forcast is rain for early morning and slight thunder storms!! gutted, to top that off when I got out of bed this morning, I felt the dull pain in my achilies tendon again and the niggling ache in my hamstring. A few minutes stretching looks to have ease the muscles abit, so I will have to wait and see how it goes tomorrow. Just checked my bike over to make sure it all set and the rear deraileur is not changing the gears correctly...ffs, so got to get that tuned up later. So my plan for tommorow is just to enjoy myself and use it as good practice if it does piss it down, crack open a can of MTFU and get the race done :-)...plus I cant be an Ironman if I wuss out to rain and a few small niggles ;-)....roll on tommorow!

With less than a week before Southwell Triathlon my achilles tendon has started to play up again, all because of landing funny on the stairs at work! (See what I mean about being a glassman?) While trying to run up the 5 flights of stairs I slipped on the edge of the step and felt a pull in my calf/achilles, didnt think much of it due to that fact I had DOM's in my legs from the Saturday run. Come the next morning, even breaking into a slight jog I felt it twinge and pain...Not good! So decided to rest it for the week to let the DOMs subside and see how bad it was. This morning it feels ok, so just going to leave the running until next sunday on race day, I got a PB of 21.16 for my 5km which im really happy about but maybe pushing it after not running for 3-4 weeks may not of helped I guess I was just thinking about going fast and working out my max heart rate, ready to start training with a HRM watch on interval and tempo training. Link to Run:- http://www.endomondo.com/work

Been really busy past few weeks so not had a chance to update my blog, so quickly doing it now on my lunch break. So far I have managed to get some SPD's and shoes for my bike (the missus kindly let me have my birthday presents early to get used to them :-) ), took a little while to get used to them but I can see how they can benefit me on the hills and getting the power down, so far ive not fallen off or got stuck on them at the lights....but I guess there is still time!. Training has been slow, did a 5k run on saturday evening with a PB of 21.16 trying to work out my max heart rate (time to start doing tempo runs and interval training in hope of getting some sub 20 5k's and sub 40 10k's next year, ive been on a plateu for too long on these runs so need to up the game and break them barriers. Swimming is coming along nicely, still getting abit tired but that my fault not going more than once a week. Soon as winter hits Ill be heading for the pool more and working up to

After my terrible experience from monday morning swimming session I hoped wednesday night would go better, and it did! Managed to get back into the swing of things, focus on my body position in the water and get my breathing pattern sorted. My upper back muscles have a few DOMS which means it was a good session last night. Tried some nose clips to stop water going up my nose but they was useless so sacked them off and just got on with it. I asked my trainer how my swimming was coming on and if there was anything that stood out that was slowing me down or making me fight the water so much, but he said I was doing great and that it all comes in time, just need to relax and slow my pace down abit....I hope one day I can look back on these bad swimming experiences and wonder why I had all these issues in the first place...cant wait for that day :-).

As I am off work for the week I decided to have an early morning swim. Not been doing much swimming since the David lloyd triathlon due to going on holiday and coming back with a throat infection which stopped me eating, sleeping, drinking for 5 days and made me loose half a stone. Today after a few laps I just felt so out of it and couldn't be bothered, then water up my nose, goggles fogging up constantly... I gave up, just gonna rest till Wednesday session with the tri club. Also I got to start eating clean if I can and avoid any junk :-).

Nice morning for a cycle, no traffic on the roads, great :-) Managed 20km in 37m 43sec which is just over 3min 40sec faster than the MTB with slicks on, well impressed! Have to admit I started to feel the pinch on the journey back having not cycled this far in the last month so I need to get on the bike as much as I can before Southwell Triathlon in Sept to improve my times. Here is my route using Endomondo.. http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/19114143 Wanna go back to bed now....hate 6am wake ups :-)

After looking at my times for my first triathlon I really needed to get a road bike, or something alot lighter to get me some better times, so I looked at my work places Cycle2Work scheme....this turned out to be an exercise in itself with the amount of hoops you have to jump through to get it and messing up my tax codes so I scrapped the idea. My dad on the other hand decided to help me out a little in the end and he really enjoyed watching the triathlon and seeing all the nice bikes in the transition area. So after alot of looking in bike shops, looking online, getting reviews I couldnt decide which of the two bikes I really liked, one was a road bike, the other an entry level triathlon bike..The road bike would be more responsive on the road, easy to climb hills with, and a good all rounder. The tri bike however would be faster, more aero and save my legs for the run part of the triathlon. Seen as though I already had a bike I used to commute to work on and do long bike rides I de

Well here it is… my first step into the world of triathlon! Completed in 1hr 25mins 16 secs, the distances were 400m Swim, 24k Bike, 5km Run. Apon turning up to the venue I was abit nervous wondering what to expect but was soon put at ease when I saw that there was alot on newbie's doing the race too, a few mountain bikes spotted and even a shopper bike with basket! As it was my first Triathlon I had just the basics to get me through...had and all in one tri suit, slick tyres on my mountain bike, and a worn in pair of running shoes, running belt, bike helmet and some shades. Here is me just after registration and about to get my bike racked up. After getting registered I had to get my bike racked up and all my gear set up in the transition area and then head off to the race briefing as it was my first triathlon. I tried to hear what the guy was telling me but I just made out the basics, plus I could hear my little boy moaning on the other side of the car park while the miss