Since my last post at the end of my season last year (September) I’ve been a pretty busy chappy – hence the lack of anything resembling an update to my website or blog. I went back to work for a few months in order to work on the finances a bit having earned very little money from the season and survived on some generous help and support of friends and family. But its important that if I’m going to do this (call myself a Profession triathlete) then I must in fact be successful enough to justify that title and so earn a living from the sport. I hope that with all of last years problems behind me and resolved, I can do just this.
My time back at work was an interesting one and for the later part, pretty brutal on me. The global downturn in pretty much anything, meant that working at the London Stock Exchange was at times, a pretty heavy place to be. I was blessed to have got the contract to work back there again and so I worked my butt off to make sure I kept my job and the additional pressures of the project meant that at times I was back to where I was 2 years ago when 30 hours in a day wouldn’t have been enough to get everything done. My focus was to get to the end of the project successfully and with something resembling a base fitness level. From this I hoped I could return to full time training and spring forward, rather than hit the end of February (when I left the contract) and pretty much have to start my training from scratch. This would have meant my season was about 2-3 months behind schedule and been hugely frustrating. Thankfully I just about managed it and by ensuring that what training I DID do, was maximum “bang for the buck” I found myself in far better shape than I’d hoped.
Introducing some of the key sessions from Brett Sutton last year, meant that my cycling was entirely done on the turbo with a lot of strength work (big gear) and never anything more than 2 hours at one time. A few 2 x 2 hours ride days meant that I was still actually getting some good volume in (especially if you agree with me that riding for 60 minutes on a stationary trainer is about as good as 90 minutes on the road).
So when the start of March rolled around and I left “work” in the city for “work” in lycra, I was able to begin with a real optimism about the season. I’ve begun to settle into my new schedule nicely and am really enjoying the sessions as they tick by. Its interesting for me though as I think back to this time last year when I was (un-be-known to me then) struggling with food allergies and couldn’t even manage 2 hours training a day without needing to sleep for the next 15 hours. Part of me still expects the fatigue to kick in 20minutes into a ride with me struggling to last much longer. I’m delighted to report though that it’s not that way at all now and I’m quite happily ticking off the sessions at the moment and this is the key I think. Being able to consistently complete the training day after day is really showing and I can see and feel the strength and fitness improving over time. I recently heard a great Winston Churchill quote that said “It’s not simply good enough to do ones best, we much succeed in doing what is required”. This is the target for me, to know what is required and to succeed, day after day, at doing it. With nearly 3 months to go before my A race of Iron Man Japan (June 20th) I’m really excited about where I’ll be come the start line of my first Iron Man.
