Best Training Week So Far!

As the title says, I think this has possibly been my best training week so far! Building confidence and distances from previous weeks.

Firstly the weather has been amazing, after a few weeks of unseasonable cold... we now have unseasonable warmth... summer is here early and it's a lot easier to train in!

three sessions made it the best week of the training schedule so far, a brilliant long run, a brilliant outdoor swim and finally the bike course recce on Saturday.

In recent weeks my long runs have either been cut short by small injuries or fatigue, which is why I moved the run to the middle of the week, to take it away from my busiest training times. Wednesday night, although very very warm, I ran 30km again, for the first time in a few weeks, again in a pretty decent time considering the heat. Hopefully I can keep this up and in the next two weeks run a couple of 32km runs (about 20 miles) and that should put me in a good position for the race.

Then on Thursday night after another boiling hot day I went open water swimming again. I was really looking forward to it this week as I knew the water would be a lot warmer than the week before, and it was, I completed 5 laps, totalling 3750 metres (just 50 metres short of race distance, in 65 minutes, which I am very happy with. I didn't push too hard either so this was a great time and the first time I have completed race distance in a continuous swim. Again another great confidence builder!

Finally, on Saturday, we went to Nottingham to recce the course. The ride was planned to be a steady slow pace and just get a feel of the course so we got no surprises on the race day. The weather again was brilliant apart from some wind, but by the end of the day we were thankful of this as it took the edge of the burning heat!

And the heat was burning, I have the tan lines to prove it! If only my navigational skills were as good as the weather! we added about an extra 10km to the race course over the day due to missed turns. They really should put more road names out on the country roads, to make it a lot easier for us lost cyclists! thankfully due to the GPS on my phone we managed to muddle around the whole route.

The bike course was great, very good roads through most of it, that were fast and easy to ride on, only one noticeable hill which was no more than 3 minutes long and quite early in the bike. So this all put me in a good mood for the race on the day, we also ran for 30 minutes by the river Trent, as the run course goes.

The ride on the course has made me feel more confident about completing the bike leg in 6 hours as I have hoped from the start of this journey.

So after a confidence building week, I have 5 weeks training left, with 2 of those weeks being 20 hours each, and then the taper begins.

Sponsorship is back on track and going great too! we have passed the £400 mark now which is amazing. But you can still donate (link in the top right) The money I'm raising will be helping a lot of sick people in their final days, the donations made by you on my behalf will certainly help me on those last few miles of the Ironman when all I want to do is give up... so, thank you all who have donated so far, and are planning to soon.