April 2007 -

Well, another month and another 5 weeks closer to D-Day!

This phase of the training saw me upping the mileage again and introducing a brick type session 2 times per week (oh boy......what a good idea that was!!!!). The first brick i did was a 20mile bike followed by a 4 mile stumble! I felt as though my legs just didn't belong and it kind of got me thinking just what exactly i had let myself in for. Anyway, i persevered and can report that it does infact get much easier over time and infact, towards the end of my 6 week phase, i was feeling pretty comfortable running straight off the bike (exaclty how long i can last, still feeling comfortable is a bit of a mistery right now.) I would recommend these bricks to anyone doing 1/2 or full ironman, as i have found they have helped me get some real strength to both my biking and running. Do be careful to space them out though and dont mix them with VO2 intervals sessions. I felt very tired towards the end of the 3rd week and was suffering from mild overtraining syndrome. That said, this could also have something to do with the fact that to mark the beginning of my 'no-drinking until after ironman' phase, the boys took me on a massive weekend session to bournemouth!!! It took me nearly a week off to recover and taught me a very valuable lesson in training for ironman................ Ironman is all about consistant miles and quality recovery, after all it is a marathon, not a sprint....................well actually its a marathon after a bloody long ride and swim!!!