An Xmas Pudding

Pre-Christmas Christmas Dinner with Elisa

With the students away the pool was so much quieter, bliss! This meant less interruptions and chance to do some slower drills, kicking (which I hate) and some paddle practice. I don’t like swimming with paddles when the pool is busy as lane etiquette is pretty terrible and I’m afraid I’ll smash someone in the face. Just ask my friend Sean Baxendale, I took him out doing fly in the team medley at a school gala and I’m sure he hasn’t forgotten.  Despite the emptiness of the pool there was the muppet who got into the lane with myself and another triathlete (I should probably find out who he is) to swim breaststroke in the wrong direction. Why you would choose to do this in a practically empty pool is a mystery to me. Being British I just passively grumbled to myself, but fortunately the other tri-guy kicked them out and we got on with our respective sets.

Anyway, I’ve noticed my pull set times are pretty consistent with my swim which should be a bit of a warning. I think my body position is probably a bit crap at the moment, I typically swim with a minimal effort six beat kick, but I may need to look into something different. I’d rather not just assume a wetsuit will solve all my problems. From Jan onwards I’ll attend some of the BADTri swim sessions on a Wednesday evening, that way I can get a coach to have a look at me and point me in the right direction. Either way, I need to work on my speed a bit, as I’d like to go sub 1 hour in the Ironman swim. This means I need to be hitting 3:00-3:10 for my 200s, I’ve definitely got the pace to do this, but at the moment my endurance simply isn’t up to it. 

Our last Thursday run session left me feeling pretty broken. With a week of work parties and “networking” which involves unavoidable amounts of alcohol I was definitely sweating ethanol. I’m not sure if it was my debauchered state, or that Robbie was trying to make up for a couple of weeks off, but the next day my legs were ruined. As I keep saying here, intervals at the track are really good sessions, and I really appreciate the work Robbie puts into organising them, as I think they’ve definitely helped my form and pacing. I’d like to think I can hit a sub 20 5K and 45 10K, and at a push maybe a sub 40 10K, at some point in the next year. Speed is great, but, I also need to start building up my long runs again to get my body used to being out there for 3+ hours (This may be wishful thinking and more like 4/5). I’m not running Manchester this year, as it cost me a month of training to properly recover, however I’m probably going to build the miles in a similar manner from now until April. 

So Christmas arrived with the opportunity to eat way more cake and chocolate than normal. I know a lot of serious triathletes are super strict with their nutrition and there are plenty of blogs talking about the dangers of overeating at Xmas but where is the fun in that. While I’m well aware of the logic behind this, I’m not competing at a level that necessitates such attention to detail all the time. I eat relatively healthily year round and I’m not going to make any drastic changes to my diet for Ironman, however I might need to keep a watchful eye on the amount I’m eating going into 2016. When I ran the Manchester marathon in 2014 my weight just before it was 88 kg, this is the least I’ve weighed in a very long time. I’m not built like an endurance athlete so getting a BMI close to 20 is never going to happen, I’ve been clinically obese in the past (based on my BMI), but I suspect I may have been a lot fitter than many skinnier people.  Before 2015’s marathon I was 92 kg but I’d been doing much more varied training, more biking, more swimming over the winter and I wasn’t logging the same volume of miles. I ran an overall faster time, although terrible second half, so I can’t see that the extra weight was a sign of lack of fitness.  I seemed to stay about 92 kg until the Cardiff half. However between October and now I’ve put on 5 kg, so I’m currently a touch over 97 kg which is a bit of a worry. I’ve upped my swim sessions and turbo training plus I’ve been doing weights much more regularly, this, together with the possibility of some Christmas podge, could explain the gain. The trouble is, if I am going to stand a chance of getting over the hills in Wimbleball and Tenby I need to get my weight down significantly and at the moment I’m going in the wrong direction. So, my plan, I’m going to start tracking my weight more regularly and see if I can find out what’s actually going on. If I do this with a log of my morning heart rate I’ll have a good idea of what my body is up to over the next year.