Lung busting

Balancing training with work isn’t easy at the moment and two days in Birmingham this week didn’t help but once again we worked my training schedule around it.  The running sessions are all different.  A negative split session, a tempo run and a hill run.  Friday was 90 minutes, Saturday was 2 hours and Sunday 1 hour 35 minutes.  That’s a good block of training especially the hill climb on Saturday. Tinto hill is the biggest hills in easy reach of my house.  So being time short it’s ideal.  Up and down two times is 974 metres and I manage to run up the first kilometre both times but it’s a lung buster - my heart rate reached 173!  I was flying on the downhill sections - total run 14km.  I know I’m getting fitter because there are no signs of DOMS today and no signs of fatigue when completing another hard 16.5km at Chatelherault.  It was good to have company on both runs as it helps with a little competitive edge where we push ourselves.
Today a few pals are competing in Ironman Barcelona.  They have both trained really hard and were expecting good results.  Unfortunately one of them didn’t complete the swim and DNF’d.  It happens occasionally and reminds us of the importance of “enjoying the journey”.  When you train 6 days a week you’ve got to enjoy it as DNF’s happen.  The race should be the icing on the cake because so many things can go wrong.  A kick in the face in the swim, a mechanical on the bike or an ankle twist on the run.  But at least he wasn’t hurt and will live to fight another day.  In the meantime Wilson Kane is flying on the bike as I type this blog and I’m hoping he’s in for a PB - he’s sure worked for it.
As I was struggling with another lung busting run today I remembered a phrase I’d picked up along the way: “life begins outside the comfort zone”.  The only way for me to achieve the goals I’ve set is to train outside the comfort zone - this is where the improvement happens.  So another week over, another week closer to the race and the results are starting to show.  I’m loving the journey.