Part 1: Can I do it?
Can I do a half Ironman, can I even begin to dream of doing a full ironman? These were questions I asked myself in October 2012. I’m a 38 year old, 5 ft 6 engineer in the North Sea, and I had serious doubts about whether I could swim enough to do a sprint distance, let alone anything more. I hadn’t cycled in years, and my running was sedate and hardly Mo Farah, but one year on I’ve now done 3 half iron distance events and 2 full ironman events, all within a year, and without any endurance fitness background. So you definitely can! No matter what your background or where you are starting from, if you can give 7-10 hours a week to train you can easily do these races and finish with a smile, (I’m not saying you won’t be in a bit of discomfort, but that feeling of crossing the finish line eclipses everything else, and believe me it’s worth it).
After doing some triathlons in 2013 I thought I would just share my experiences and will then start posting my training and thoughts up to my Ironman Wales in 2014, just to maybe give some confidence to anyone new to Triathlons or daunted by what they have signed up to.
How it all began….…2013 was the year I decided I would actually overcome my fear of swimming and step up and give Triathlon a try. I’d run a marathon in 2012, in a desperate attempt to get back into shape after a few of the cold winter months in Aberdeen had seen me resort to ever more large bowls of comfort food. I had been pretty lazy over the winter of 2011/2012 and not trained in any endurance way for a long time. I signed up for the Loch Ness Marathon in 2012, and set about scaring myself by trying a half – which is a lot longer than I had thought, but eventually all went well and I finished my loch ness marathon in 3 hours 45. Hardly inspiringly fast but enough that I thought a) I don’t want to just run anymore, and b) maybe it would be worth seeing if I could do what I’d always dreamt of, and become an Ironman.
I then thought twice about this, especially after going to my local pool and struggling to manage two 25metres lengths in a row without stopping, gasping for breath, and pretending to adjust my goggles for about 5 minutes… so decided becoming a half ironman in 2013 may be a better bet. So I signed up for UK 70.3 Ironman in Exmoor in June. It was October 2012, so I had eight and half months to train, which seems like a long time until you jump into a pool for the first time and realise one 25 metre length is a long long way.
Doing a lot of reading online I found that many many triathletes have to overcome a fear or worry about the swim, and this was certainly my case. At this point, if you are one of those people who struggle with the swim let me say don’t worry! You can get past it. I still swim awfully, breathe every stroke to one side, and drag my legs through the water, and feel I swallow more than I swim through. But with perseverance and patience it’s possible to swim any distance. It just takes time, and some hard work, but the swim is always the shortest part of the race, and yet will take up the biggest focus in your mind. In a way it’s a bonus, because once you are through it, the sense of achievement is so great I think it gave me a huge boost that lasted most of the bike and run portion of even my Ironman events.
But I digress, back to my training for my half Ironman….
I live in Aberdeen, which is in the top North East of the UK, in a patch that always seems covered in cloud on the BBC weather forecast, usually accompanied by comments such as ‘the south and south west should remain bright and sunny, whilst the north and north east will remain wet and cold’. It was October and it was indeed wet and cold, and there are very few triathlon events in Scotland at this time, and the roads get wet and icy so even road cycling events dwindle. So how to train?
I was a member of a local gym which held spinning classes (exercise bikes to music I guess you could say) and I decided this would be my fundamental winter cycle training, so committed to 2-3 sessions a week, with one of them involving me jogging to the gym to do the session, an easy 16km jog (and getting a lift back with my wife). For swimming, the local council pool offered a 10 swim pass, so I resolved to swim once a week or twice if I could stomach it, and then once with a local Triathlon club, (Three Peaks Triathletes), which I decided to join to pinch some hints and tips on a Monday night. And that was it.
I quickly met a triathlete who swore I needed to be doing 10-15 or even 20 hours training a week, which momentarily scared the life out of me, but then searching on the internet I found lots of comments about people training only 7-8 hours a week, and that seemed much more manageable. For my own two cents here, that is more than enough for the casual triathlete. If you want to race the Brownlies, and you don’t work, and don’t have a family, then I can see how 20 hours may be possible, but for the rest of us, even 7-8 hours a week is a lot.
To help I started cycling to work when it wasn’t raining, this was probably twice a week, and I would go a slightly circuitous route which took about an hour in and an hour out. So there was 4 hours. Two spin classes were 45 minutes each, so another 1.5 hours, my swim sessions were each an hour long and I managed two a week, so that put me at 7.5 hours, and then I would try and fit in two runs (one to get to the spin class) and usually one more in the week whenever the sun poked it’s head out, and each run was 1 hour to 90 minutes (for me that’s 10-15 km).
As it was winter I never managed those long 6 hour bike rides you read about in triathlon magazines, instead I found inspiration in my spin classes and got a cheap turbo trainer for the house – this enables you to mount your road bike on a frame and get a great work out at home. I also found some useful hints that stated an hour on a turbo or in a spin was the same as almost twice that one the road as you never got to coast or freewheel, or stop at junctions, and I really feel this is the case. Looking back, and having done a lot of races now, the spin classes and turbo work really give you the ability to get your heart rate right up there and back quickly, and definitely gave me the core cycling strength I needed on top of my regular commuter rides.
I was also worried about a fancy carbon bike… I had an old aluminium racer, and despite watching bikes on ebay for months on end and looking at all the shops I really couldn’t justify the cost for a sport I was yet to really try. As it was I really don’t think you need to spend anything more than for a standard road bike for your first year or so. I raced my trusty bike, and all I did was maintain it well (amazing all the videos you can find on youtube), and I changed the tyres to the most puncture proof I could find (I would highly recommend continental gp4000s or Michelin pro4 endurance – I’m sure there are others but these have worked for me). The last thing you want on a long distance race is a puncture! All the people who pass you on a race are doing so not because of their carbon bikes, but because they are stronger and have been cycling longer. I was passed in a local sportive by an elderly gentleman on a bike that may well have been made in the war, why? Because he was a better cyclist not because of any 0.5kg lighter carbon bike. I do see them making a difference to elite athletes, and if you have the money it’s great, but if not don’t let it stop you, as my wife said, if you’re worried about 0.5kg don’t eat that bag of crisps and make sure you pee before you race :D!
Winter training was a bit hit and miss...
My trusty bike – nothing fancy, no carbon, just oiled frequently and kept clean. I did all my training and all my races on my trusty steed!
The race I’d committed to do for charity was the Ironman 70.3 UK in Exmoor in June, which after already signing up for, I found out was widely considered to be one of the toughest 70.3’s out there… so I decided never having done a triathlon before I would be best advised to try a shorter one.
There are loads of triathlons in the UK, far more than I ever knew existed. I didn’t even know the difference between a Sprint, a standard and a half IM. I did my first standard in March, and it went well – very slow in the swim but I lived! And very slow in transitions as I decided which socks to wear, whether to ride with my camelback backpack (I did), whether I needed sunglasses or gloves… but it went well. I finished and felt the best I ever had. I had to try again. I did a local sprint in the local pool, and the pouring Aberdeen rain, and then did another two weeks later. I came almost last in both, but was getting used to the idea of running after biking. This is definitely something to practice, as it’s much harder on the legs than doing either event individually. My learnings meant that after cycling to work once a week I would just jog around our office grounds (roughly 1km) which really helped.
It’s really key to see how you can fit the training in with your daily routine I think, anything that takes the minimum amount of time away from work and family but still enables you to get novel workouts in, that really help your triathlon.
At this time I found a circuits class in my gym, and as it was still wet and cold, used this to supplement my running and general fitness. I also think this was a great training tool as it was always different, so really got my muscles thinking and working like they hadn’t in a while.
I’ll talk about my first IM 70.3 in my next posting….
