I’m going to attempt to summarise my 2017.... warning this may not just be about Triathlon related events.
Like any good engineer I’m going to start with a list and some numbers;
FYI this is in no particular order;
- Graduated from my MSc
- Completed my first triathlon of any distance (AJ Bell London)
- Completed my first full distance IRONMAN
- Became an Uncle
- Started a new job at work
- Won some silverware with LCRFC
- Played my first game for LCRFC 1’s (scored and got MoM)
Numbers
So back to a more triathlon themed section, below is May - December in some crude graphs.
On reflection theses are fairly reasonable, I started off building into the sport, peaked in August at 39 hours worth of training and then managed to maintain that till the end of the year.
Achievements
Apart from the obvious completion of events I had some smaller goals which I achieved;
- 10km sub 40mins (Eton Dorney Tri)
- 5km sub 18mins (North London Poppy Race)
- Sub 20mins for a lap of Richmond Park (cycling)
I’m particularly proud of the sub 40 10km as this was in the Eton Dorney Olympic Tri. I'm hoping this this sets me up to be able to do this in just a 10km distance event if I was to enter one.
Lessons learnt
Some of these are a bit cliche. But there is a reason cliches exist.
- Strength and Conditoning (S&C) is very important
- Rest/sleep is just as important as hours of training
- Listening to your body both during a session and throughout the day
- Yoga is fun and not just for girls
- Meat doesn’t need to be an essential part of your diet
- 80/20 rule - will explain this if you don't know this rule in my January 2018 update
Aims for the last 3 months
So as I started to recover from my IRONMAN I started to set goals to take me up to the end of the year.
My main goal was to drop a little more weight. Loosing weight was never a goal throughout the process but I had gone from 77kgs to about 67kgs on race day in Wales. This wasn't intentional, in fact I was eating everything I could throughout August and the weight was still dropping off me. Might seem odd then that I picked this as a goal....
I picked this as a goal as I wanted to get a grip on my weight, I wanted to be a healthy sub 67kg person and not one who in my mothers words looks ill.
I wanted to maintain my fitness. I started to become more interested in the numbers and data from my last 3/4 months of training. I wanted to work out how fit I was in numbers and maintain that till the end of the year so I had a base to work from.
Lastly, I wanted to complete a 1/2 marathon and a few sportives.
October
Total time 31 hours
Total Distance 688km
In October I completed a 100mile (160km) sportive, this was about 3/4 weeks post IRONMAN so I was confident I had recovered. However, I had done very little in the form of regular exercise in that time frame. I managed to complete the ride in approx 5:53, which I was very happy with and it started the healing process mentally for my IRONMAN ride.
I was also battling with the same knee pain I had back in August and I started to complete lot's of strength work for my Glutes. This niggle had been diagnosed as runners knee, in simple terms the large tendon running down the outside of my leg was tight and therefore rubbing on my thigh bone, causing inflammation and discomfort.
A very annoying 'injury' I was getting very frustrated that now i'm an IRONMAN I was being forced to rest and not continue with some basic training.
At the end of October I started using my Fitness Pal to track my calorie in take and in particular I was interested in looking at my natural macros (ratio of protein, carbs and fat) i.e. without changing my diet was what I thought was good for me giving me what I need.
November
Total time 39 hours
Total Distance 770km
In November I finished looking at my diet using My Fitness Pal for the 4 week stint mentioned above. I didn't continue logging everything as it is a lot of effort.
However, the findings were reasonable. In general my diet was fairly good. I probably was eating a little too much fat, particularly when trying to eat high levels of protein. But my calorie intake was spot on. Eat about 3200 a day and burn 3200 a day, this was tracked with Garmin.
As a result of this little test decided I was going to experiment with being a vegetarian for the next 4 weeks. This was also to help with my knee injury..... I had come across some research which was well known in the endurance athlete community that animal protein isn't good when battling inflammation... at this point I would do anything to get rid of this knee injury. So I jumped on the Quorn band wagon with Mo.
At this point my knee was slightly better and so I attempted to get running again, to this day i'm not sure why but I entered a 5km on a Saturday and a 1/2 marathon on the Sunday in the same weekend....
I managed to win the 5km (although it wasn't a competitive race) with a new PB of 18:22, I then managed to hobble around the 1/2 marathon in a time of 1:34 also officially a new PB.
Although, this all came at a cost I had pushed my knee too far and done more damage then good. However, I had once again proved to myself that I can actually run at a reasonable pace.
Although, this all came at a cost I had pushed my knee too far and done more damage then good. However, I had once again proved to myself that I can actually run at a reasonable pace.
At the end of the month I stopped going to Six Physio and moved to Four Sides London. I had a close friend working from the clinic and from visiting the setup was perfect.
I had a lower body assessment from James Vickers and I signed up for weekly S&C classes. Honestly, it was at this point I acknowledged for the first I was injured. Big lesson learnt here, the sooner you acknowledge it mentally/physically the sooner you can start rehab.
I booked myself in for classes for the rest of the calendar year, stopped running and committed to S&C like a religion.
Lastly, (November was a busy one) I bought myself a TT bike.... I didn't set out to buy one buy the end of the year. However, from casually looking around I came across in my mind an absolute bargain.... 2014 Canyon Speedmax 9.0 CLF
This was one of the 2 makes/models that I wanted to aim to pick up 2nd hand before the next season. This one was the perfect size, came with upgrades that I liked (55T front ring). I just couldn't resist.
December
Total time 30 hours
Total Distance 502km
At the end of November/December I made a strange decision...I went and got a 2nd job.
I decided I wasn't going to and couldn't train much over the xmas period and my shopping list for equipment and bits I wanted was building up. To avoid raiding my house fund any further (Canyon being a big dent) I decided that instead of training I would work to earn some extra pennies.
Top of my list was an indoor turbo. I did already have one but it was a basic one and I had no way of knowing how far, how fast and how much power I was putting out in a session. I had used it mainly for either a fast a furious spin before going on a run, or to just sit on and spin for an hour while I watch some TV.
With that in mind and some extra pennies saved, just before Xmas I bought a Wahoo Kickr. Now those of you who know the Triathlon/Cycling scene this is one of the best turbos you can buy and may have seemed a little excessive for a newbie. However, I have a saying, "buy cheap, buy twice".
So with my new Kickr setup I was finally seeing some use out of the Canyon Speedmax I bought in November which had done all of 71km while in my possession.
All that was left to do was tinker with my training, test out new sessions and design my 20 week plan which will kick off on the 1st of January.
Goals for 2018
So below are some rough goals for 2018....
- Get rid of this terrible knee injury
- Sub 5hrs for Barcelona 70.3 (Punching)
- Complete another full distance IRONMAN and gain a PB (ideally sub 12hrs)
- Complete a level 1 British Triathlon Coaching course
- Swim in either a 5km or 10km (or both event)
- Bike 220km in one ride
- 300+ followers on Instagram
- Have a blog post read over 200 times
- Swim 400m in sub 6 mins and 100m in 1:30
- Increase FTP by 50watts
- Enter a sprint distance triathlon
- Informally coach 3-5 people for an endurance event
- Design a 6 & 12 week programme for Olympic IRONMAN
- Design a 6 month IRONMAN programme
Thanks for reading!! From now posts will be every 4 weeks and based on what training I have completed. Once the season kicks off I will also include any races/events completed.