January Stats:
- Cycling: 1,208km, 41h18m and 9,468m of climbing
- Running: 199km, 16h41m
- Swimming: 69.7km, 20h12m
Feeling good post training in France over Christmas, it was a good few weeks to kick off the year, despite work being hectic with a combination of end of year tidying up and new year strategy and admin to sort out. However with Barney ramping up training in preparation for his race season, it wasn’t too hard fitting training in around 11hr work days.
January has continued to have more of a swim focus, and try and get some more speed in the arms pre race season! As temperatures continued to be below and around freezing, and not hugely enjoying the muddy cross country races, both Barney and I were very excited when the weekend of the 21st rolled round and we were packing our things to head off to Lanzarote.
Training Camp Aim 1: All about the bike. .
Time to get some good bike miles in, and recce the IM course, in particular checking out the descents. Having clear blue skies and being able to wear shorts again was a dream, and I thoroughly enjoyed the smooth roads around Lanzarote (apart from the Nazaret bumpy road of death!).
Having done a good course recce, I am feeling much more confident about the bike section of the race (although still baffled how people run a whole marathon at the end. . . !). I broke into the top 10 ladies up Tabeyesco (still a long way to go to reach Lucy Gossage’s speedy legs!), and set a lot of pbs on the descents, which I am so pleased with given that has been one of my weakest parts of the bike.
Training Camp Aim 2: practice nutrition
The week was a great opportunity to practice carb loading throughout the long rides, and get a feel for what I was going to want to consume during the long race that is Ironman. Will G and I talked a lot about what to practice, and I was also super keen to try out the stash of nutrition Clif Bar kindly sent me just before heading out.
The range of bars, gels and shot blocks that Clif Bar has made it easy to get through 6+ hours of riding using race day nutrition without feeling either hungry for real food, or ill from the amount of sugar being taken on. Whilst it took me a few gels to get used to the more solid nature, , a couple of rides in I was really enjoying the chewy Double Espresso gels for that extra caffeine boost. Now I know how delicious their bars are the struggle is going to be not snacking on them the whole time!
Training Camp Aim 3: Have Fun!
Probably the most important of the lot – time and time again age groupers seem to lose sight of the reason for starting triathlon in the first place, which should be to have fun and enjoy it! For me being able to do some great rides with Barney and the rest of the group, enjoy some delicious food in the evenings, and having an outdoor 50m pool practically to myself it was the definition of a pretty perfect week.
What’s Next:
Time for a bit of a run focus, hopefully some time with Will C towards the end of Feb, and if I’m really lucky another week in the sun to get a good block of training in.
I also have some exciting news in terms of some companies who are helping support me this year, which should be coming out over the next month!
ruthpurbrook 