I was 3300 meters into the planned 4k swim when I saw Patrick gliding effortlessly through the water towards me. “Shite” I thought, and not for the usual reasons. I wasn’t worried that he’d be kicking lumps out of me. Patrick was on an easy week after swimming the channel last week. I was also almost out of time and needed to go to work so there would at least be a limit to my Patrick imposed suffering.

Rather I was thinking “shite” because Patrick is very old school and looks at us triathletes with all of our swim toys with derision. I knew if he saw me all banded, pull-buoyed and paddled up then I was in for some stick. So I was hoping to finish the last 400m of the 5 x 400 set with my paddles, pull buoy and band before he arrived. Unfortunately I’d timed it rather badly because there he was.

And now I was caught playing with my toys.

And with less than 50m to go too. Shite.

If he had arrived 2 minutes later I’d have had my guilty pleasure and he would have been none the wiser.

Damn, here he comes.

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The risk with pushing our limits is that we may push too far and instead of making breakthrough gains we just break down. After my first thirty hour training week in a long time. Actually it was 27 hours training in only four days, I came home ready for a day off and hoping for a few easier days after that.
I had the hoped for day off and then Ais had me do a 16k run on Tuesday which went reasonably well given how tired and sore my legs were. The problem started on Tuesday night when I woke around 3am with the beginnings of a cold/flu. I believe it was the combination of returning home in a very depleted state after the weekends training and as a result being particularly susceptible to infection.
An infection which was already running rampant through the house, Cillian and Ais were both already sick.
Ok so running rampant is probably a bit strong and sick is also probably a slight exaggeration. They had a cold which I then caught.
But it was a nasty cold.
Ok not so nasty, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant. And it did screw with my training plans during the middle of the week.
Anyway let’s move on and see just how it all went. Read More

When we (I rarely think of this as my Ironman. I think of myself and Ais very much as a team) first set out to qualify for Kona back in 2011 we took on the guidance of a coach.
The first eight days under his guidance I did 28 hours of training which culminated in a sprint triathlon. I placed third overall and won my age group (it was a small race) I’d never done either of those things before and I felt like I’d just been let in on “the big secret”
If you want to get fast you just have to do a shit-ton of training. In the beginning it’s not as important what type of training you do so much as just doing a lot. When you go from an average of 6 hours a week to a 28 hour week just the massive overload will cause all of the adaptations you could hope for.

Either that or it’ll break you. Read More

Getting ready for bed on Thursday Ais asked me “What’s on your plan for tomorrow?”
“I’m down to swim” I answered “but I’m really tired, maybe I’ll sleep on instead and skip it” I added hopefully.
What I was thinking was ” I don’t want to” the voice in my head sounded like a petulant child.
I waited for Ais to tell me to take it easy, rest, sleep in, you need it, it’s been a good week so far, you’ve worked hard and deserve a lie on.
What she actually said was…
“Tell it to the guy who gets your Kona slot that you were tired and skipped your swim”
I knew she was right and I sheepishly resolved to get up and go to the pool.
But then eight hours later when the alarm went off I failed. I knocked it off telling myself I’d swim in the evening after work.

But I never swim after work so I knew it was bullshit.
It turns out I was right about it being bullshit. And I didn’t swim in the evening. In fact I compounded the failure by ordering pizza on the way home from work for dinner.
So that was how Friday went. Read on for the rest of the week…

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