White out

Last night a collection of finely tuned athlete's met to compare notes, eat fine food and overload in carbs - the alcoholic type!  This was my last night out, until the next one in a couple of weeks, but I took it easy as I had a one hour run planned for this morning.  The run started out ok but I had to be careful on the icy pavements and roads.  Then the snow started and the wind whipped up - it was like getting a face lift!  I looked like Frosty the Snowman when I got back home.  But a new week of training awaits and it's important to keep the momentum going in the run up to the festive period.

Friends

Last night I celebrated my 50th birthday with a bunch of "old" friends.  It was great to catch up and reminded me that I have a wonderful group of friends and that I need to work harder at keeping in touch with them.
Someone made up a dvd of old photo's of me and it was so nice to take that trip down memory lane.  My kids found the young pictures of me amusing whereas others saw how alike we looked.  What a fun night and I have to do it all over again tonight.  Then I'll be on the "wagon" for 12 days before the staff night out - difficult time of year mixing training with ultra-socialising!

Sharp reminder

It's easy to get caught up in your own life especially when you have a training schedule to keep to.  But this morning after my pool session I found out a friend of mine who is fighting cancer is in the ICU.  I think we all take our health for granted until something happens and its these sharp reminders that should make us realise what's important in life.  So take time out to give your loved ones a hug or make up with someone you've had a stupid argument with but have been too proud to make the first move. Life is for living and it's no dress rehearsal so get out there and live it.  Not everyone has that opportunity so let's keep them in our thoughts as they battle on. 

50 not out!

It's a bit of a mile stone reaching 50 but more psychological than anything else. Having made the big 50 I did a turbo training session followed by a run. I was just about to step onto the road to avoid a puddle when a White van overtook a truck behind me and I wouldn't have seen 50 + 1 day!
So I'm relaxed about the age thing, especially when I ran the course this morning faster than ever. But I have made one conscious decision and that is not to let small things bother me any more. So what will be my attitude - there are worse things in life. But if I catch that White van man........

Low motivation - man up!

With the big birthday tomorrow this week isn't a normal one and I decided to have an extra hour in bed as it had been a hard swim session the night before. But I have to be careful that "listening to my body" which is so important doesn't become an excuse for being lazy. Once home from work I got back into the swing a walked across the yard in my cycling gear as the rain was pouring down - I could quite easily have lay down in front of the fire and had a sleep.
But the only way you can complete an Ironman is by finishing these sessions having given everything. So that's what I did followed by a weights session. Then some lasagne accompanied by bubbly - just warming up for tomorrow!

Catch up

As you may have guessed, I've been away for a few days so here's what's been happening. On Saturday I did a tough turbo session, followed by a run and the a weights session. Dosed off while watching the Grand Prix qualifying which is a great way to recover.
On Sunday I went off for a couple of days of pampering with my wife and some friends as an early birthday treat. So Sunday was a day off and I had plenty of fine wine and even better food. On Monday I did a cross country run and a core session but again I had some wine and fantastic food. This isn't a pattern that will help my training but with my birthday on Thursday is going to make this a difficult week to balance training, work and family.
I returned from the break today and went to the group swimming session. It was a tough one especially with the socialising I'd been doing but I got through it feeling ok. Normal training will resume on Sunday but I'll be fitting in a few quality sessions in the next few days.

Raising the bar

When I entered my 1st Ironman I set a target time of 17 hours.  After all I was only interested in completing it.  The Copenhagen Ironman was fast due to it being flat so this time limit was reduced to 16 hours by the organisers - I can do that I thought.  Once I got into my training I started increasing my expectation and finally set a target of 13.5 hours and eventually did it in 12 hours 45 mins finishing with a 4 hr marathon.
I share this with you because it's amazing how you expectations can change.  Well today I was with my coach Gen and she informed me that she expects me to complete my bike section in Lanzarote 1 hour quicker than in Copenhagen.  Slight difference in temperature, profile (Lanza had 9,400 ft of climb and assent) and wind - but she is deadly serious.  She also explained that she is training me for a 3 hr 40 min marathon but allowing a 20 minute buffer to beat my last one.
This "raises the bar" considerably especially with Lanza being so tough.  But it does focus me on every training session so when I was struggling tonight on the turbo session I just thought about Gen's bike target for me and applied rule 5 - Man Up (the polite version!).