Steve’s Ironman Update

Ironman remains in the sights but, first things first, it’s the Ashburton half on 28.11 so a lot of my effort in the past week has been directed at that. Training went well this week with 3 big sessions and 3 medium ones (i.e between the big ones). Managed a 15 km run up and down various hills followed by a small sea swim as it was oh so cold.

Also had a 3+ hour ride followed by a 45 min run up and down the Withers and then later in the week a 4+ hour ride and the same run again. Not quite at the Ironman level yet but sort of paying some attention to what will be needed in the months ahead. The runs off the bike are killers because assuming you leave around 7.30-8.00 then a 4 hour ride has you running in the heat. Last Thursday, for example, was a scorcher and its fair to say I trudged up the Withers and had there been a walking group from the old folks home out for a stroll I feel sure they would have left me for dead. But when you finally get home it just doesn’t seem that bad. As I said, this week has been a bit of a refresher course for what lies ahead and there was one day when that old feeling of insatiable hunger – post training – kicked in.

I know you have to be careful with the volume and the type of food consumed but I tried and didn’t do to well. Its fair to say I just about ate anything I could find and this seemed to go on for ages. For the week ahead the plan is to do 2 or 3 big sessions and look to start tapering off around the weekend. Hopefully there will be a sea swim in amongst it all and I can confirm that at the moment Waikawa is just as horrendously cold as Picton … but its do-able.