So... what now?

It's just over two weeks since race day and I haven't done a minutes training. It's been great! This is probably the longest I have gone without training for about 3 years I think. but its been nice to not have to worry about missing training... especially when leaving work. It's a nice thought to know I don't have 2-3 hours training still to do.

The aftermath

Sunday night was odd. After getting back to the hotel around 9:30, I grabbed some food and settled down on my bed eating and watching TV. The adrenaline was obviously still pumping because apart from sore legs, I was wide awake! I finally forced myself to go to sleep around midnight and so followed a rubbish nights sleep, waking up a few times soaked in sweat (?) possibly due to the adrenaline still?

Monday was a tough day. After eating as much as I could for breakfast in the hotel I packed up the car and checked out of the hotel for the drive home.
My mind obviously thought I felt fine when I crossed the road outside the hotel and nearly got run over, I tried to run out the way of an oncoming car as I crossed the road, my legs were having none of it and it was a painful hobble to safety! I sore reminder of what I had done the day before.
To try and describe it to you, my legs had basically seized up reducing my steps to very small "limps". probably quite funny to watch, especially on stairs, going up stairs was hard but not to painful. But descending was horrible, each step down sent shocks of pain up my thighs.
My legs began to ease over Monday and Tuesday and I think if I had wanted to, I could have trained on Wednesday. I didn't want to thought, I was still trying to eat my weight in as many junk food items as I could find.
Over the course of two weeks I have eaten virtually all items of Junk food you can imagine. The best being fish and chips on the Monday night after the race.
What next?
I have already been asked numerous times if I will do the race again. On the surface my answer is a resounding yes! I enjoyed every moment of the race, including the stomach ache and the cramp in my legs towards the end of the run.
I even thought to myself during the swim "I'm really enjoying this" which I never normally think during a race.
Plus I have set myself a marker... that time is the time I want to beat now. That's just in my nature. I have thought about how I can improve the run so I don't have stomach problems and I don't run out of energy. These are the things that drive me to do another one because I wonder... how fast can I go?
But then on the other side of the same coin I have to remember all the hours I spent training, all the missed nights out, due to either being so tired I couldn't get there, or having training commitments that was stopping me dead.
Mentally it was all very draining looking back, trying to schedule training around my life and also trying to fit in everything else. Towards the peak weeks eating was becoming rushed too which I don't think it should be.

Also I need to think of seeing friends, family and girlfriend! I will need to be a lot more organised to keep all these people happy and also keep the training up to a level I need it to be.
So these are the two sides I need to weigh up before I decide to do another Ironman. There are lessons that can be learnt from this first time which would improve things I think, and also make the time management a lot easier to do.

The alternatives are to drop back down to Olympic, Sprints and maybe a Half Ironman. Which wouldn't be such a bad thing, as the hours would be less, but I could race more often which I enjoy doing.

A lot of thinking before a decision is made I think.

More Thanks

I thanked a few people in my race report post but I need to thank the people that have put up with me being grumpy for the past 7 months. Every time I have been unhappy, missed a training session and kicked myself or just lacked motivation, a few people have always been there to get me going again and remind me that I can still do it all and its just a one off.

Although I heard the same things quite a few times, they were always needed, and always very helpful to keep me going, so thank you all too, I hope my moaning didn't annoy you too much!

Sponsorship

The sponsorship is still going great and I have beat my original target of £800! We are now up to £850 with more still to collect, I am now hoping to beat the £900 mark. Which would be amazing!

I am now beginning to collect the money from people who have sponsored me in person rather than on line, which is normally a bit of a pain. But it's not, please seem happy to pay up which is great! Thank you to all the people who have sponsored me, especially the people who work with my sister, they are the ones who put me over the £800 mark.

The sponsorship link is still available at the top of the screen. Even though I am over my target it would be great to get more and more sponsorship... maybe I'm just being greedy now?

Thanks for reading! Next time I hope to have the final total for my sponsorship, and I might have been for a run too?