Here it is – the final installment in this thrilling series! Ha. Week 1 and 2 can be found HERE and HERE.
3rd-9th June
I think it is fair to say that by this point in my training I was starting to tyre and counting down the days to taper.
MONDAY – Pyramid swim session. I forgot my watch and the feedback I gave to David on Xhale for this session reads as follows – “I’m glad I didn’t have my watch as I’m sure my stats would be shit.” Ha. Cheerful as always.
Followed up with some glute exercises. I had a big run week ahead and really didn’t want to have any last minute injuries.
TUESDAY – Wattbike. The title of the session David gave me was “Killer Session”. I’m not sure if he was just trying to finish me off at this point. Pleasantly surprised to hit all of the watts as prescribed.
More glute exercises and back stretches.
WEDNESDAY – Easy treadmill run before work then that evening was my 1st British open water swim of the year. I was nervous before hand. David had been in on Saturday and told me it was FREEZING. I walked in and walked straight back out, my feet on fire. I slowly made my way back in. I had already told David to start his swim without me, it always takes me a bit of time to acclimatise and get my heart rate back down before I can start swimming the first few times I go into the sea but to be honest it didn’t take me too long before I was swimming and it wasn’t as cold as I thought it was going to be. The temperature was roughly 12degrees, so a bit cooler than they are predicting for Youghal.
When we made our way out we saw one of our fellow triathletes in the carpark and he explained he’d been trying to get a photo of us swimming as there had been a dolphin swimming right beside us. Quite glad I didn’t spot the dolphin whilst in the water as I’m pretty sure I would have panicked.
THURSDAY – Started the day with a morning swim and my feedback afterwards was that I was swimming “like a brick.” I didn’t do half of the prescribed session!
After work I then ran half a marathon. I ended up choosing quite a hilly route simply because it’s prettier.
I listened to a few podcasts during my run including Fearne Cotton’s The Happy Place. During the podcast one of the guests quoted a phrase – “Pain is pain but suffering is optional” I stopped to make a note of this on my phone, I want to try and keep this in mind during the Ironman.
I also listened to Joanne Murphy’s new podcast, Tri Talking Sport. For those who don’t know Joanne is one of the Ironman announcers . If you’ve heard an Irish female over the mic at an Ironman – that’s probably her. Hearing the Irish accents on the show started to get me excited for our visit in 2 weeks time.
It was a 13.5 mile run in total which will be my longest run before the Ironman. I am very susceptible to injury so I don’t want to overdo it. I made sure to do my stretches after my run. If I don’t stretch I get lower back pain, which then turns into hip pain, which then turns to hamstring and knee pain so I’m really trying to concentrate on the back stretches as they really help. I honestly feel like a new woman after doing them! I usually do these, from Runner’s World.
FRIDAY – Just an easy endurance wattbike before work today.
I had no training planned for the evening as it was one of my longest friend’s hen party on Saturday so I spent the evening helping her sister decorate the venue.
SATURDAY – Bike to Run brick session. The run was another 12 miles and I hit all of my splits faster than prescribed whilst still remaining consistent. Absolutely delighted with how my running is going at this stage. During IMW training it would have been unheard of for me to have run so many miles in a week and they were definitely much slower then too!
In the afternoon I headed to the hen party. No-one in the hen party really knows anything about triathlon and it was really lovely to switch off – although a bit too much wine was consumed considering I still had training to do tomorrow!
SUNDAY – Due to last night’s activities I didn’t make it to the pool in time to swim so my swim-bike session turned into just a bike. A hilly, rainy, solo ride in the rain whilst hungover was not exactly pleasent but I feel like it will be good practice for Ironman. Especially considering the weather forcast.
So that’s it. My 3 biggest weeks of training done. All of them were almost the exact same amount of hours so very consistent and the 3 biggest weeks I’ve had this year whilst working. (I’ve had two bigger weeks but they were while we were away in Mallorca and France). The work is now done. TAPER TIME!
Nia's Tri Adventures 