The last 6 weeks have been the biggest learning curve for me, I have achieved things that I did not think were possible and I felt pain and elation in the extreme sense of the words. I am now just over 30 days out from my Busselton Ironman and words cannot describe how I am feeling. Half of the time (generally after a really good training session) I think, wow, I think I can actually do the Ironman and finish it with a smile, the other half of the time I think I will be crawling over the line at the end.
‘Sacrifice’ is a word that I have heard too many times throughout the past 8 months, and at the start I believed that yes, I was sacrificing so much of my life to train a silly amount of hours each week, not going out at night because waking up at 5.30am is a normal Saturday and Sunday morning and when everyone else is going on mid-day adventures I am only mid-way through the training for the day. I don’t believe this anymore, I am not sacrificing anything, I am loving what I am doing and I know that at the end of this Ironman there will be another and another. In-between training for each one this is when I can live a ‘normal’ life, sleep in once in a while and go on a leisurely 150k ride with photo stops along the way. I am looking forward to this but the feeling I have got from pushing my body to achieve its best is unbeatable.
In so many ways getting to the start line of an Ironman is the biggest achievement. As this will be my first one I have been hitting so many milestones along the way. I remember sitting down with my coach from 226 Multisport before all this began and he said that in a few months’ time I will see a 100k ride as a ‘short’ ride and running 25k off it in training will be no issue at all. I thought he was crazy… now, not so much. For me it is all about confidence and consistency and I am very lucky that my body can handle large training loads. We started off with 2k swims during the week, 100k rides as my long ride and 12k as my long runs. Over time I have built this up, not quickly but bit by bit, putting in efforts and hills and interval training with regular time trials. Everyone is different and what works for me is not what works for someone else as we all have different strengths. I needed to take time to build up to 180k+ cycles and 4k+ swims and doing the actual ironman distance in training is mentally very fundamental for me – I am a stress head.
Finding a coach and training group that fits in with my mentality and goals has led me to achieve what I have in training so far. The past week I had a session that was a 20k run with 8 x 1km efforts within it, I invited another athlete from a different training group along with me… I am a very relaxed type of athlete and my coach fits in with this, we train hard but don’t over analyse things hence I thought the session sounded simple… Apparently not. The list of questions from him didn’t stop:
- How fast are the efforts?
- What part of the run are you going to do them in?
- What is your HR supposed to be in the recovery?
- Can you do the efforts in a row ie. 4k hard?
- What is the aim of the session? / What is the theory behind it?
- Do you need to make the efforts as consistent as possible?
- Are you putting any hills in it?
I think there is a time and place to be a data nerd but there is no way I could train with the above list of questions needing answered in every session!
The past weekend I did my second ride over 180k, this time on hills (I have very much of a love hate relationship with any hills) from Sydney to Wollongong then Back to Sydney. The ride itself was great for training but it is the feeling of being out on my bike for so many hours and the people I share it with that make me not want to quit. Rides like this one I find that not focusing on times/pace makes the ride so much more enjoyable, breaking records in long hills rides will most likely break you for the next two weeks!
I firmly believe that what you put into training is what you get out and who you surround yourself with makes all the difference. I could not do what I am doing without the support network around me, those that don’t think you are crazy or don’t turn up their nose when you tell them what your weekend consisted of. Bumping into negativity will be natural and at stages has caused me to second guess myself however I am focused and determined and have learnt to turn any negative energy into motivation.
I can’t believe I how close the Ironman is, how much by body has changed in response to the training and how incredibly fit I feel. I CANNOT WIAT TO TAKE TO THE START LINE #GIRLSGOBUSSO
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