Fast Forward to Now

Ok guys, Fast Forward 4 weeks.

I bought a bike! It's a He. :-)

 

mmmm bike

I bought some running shoes, after great deliberation! They're both She's, although only one is pictured.

 

I also bought a Tri Suit. This is neither a he or she as that would be strange...

On to the training though. 4 hard wet weeks have passed, and I've been concentrating on the swimming. Alot. I literally haven't washed my hair all month as I'm swimming atleast once a day. Please don't judge me, I'm not a dirty person.

But, from my slow start of not being able to manage 2 lengths without being completely puffed out, I've now built this upto 40 lengths, with a massive thanks to a couple of people who have been helping me correct my technique. Apparently, the main problem is that i swim like this:

Please note that the similarities between us aren't that i wear a suit, and i lie on my back, but the fact his legs are apart. Apparently, I'm more of a starfish than a Pisces, which, understandably, causes a great deal of drag, and makes me look like i have some sort of spasm when i kick. But, as messed up as I may look, the fact is that i can now swim a kilometre. :)

I've also been cycling as much as possible and did a great ride in Richmond Park with my training partner Allison, and also cycled to and from work when i can, reaching a top speed (as my cycle computer tells me) of 59.9km/h, which I'm going to assume is 60km/h. And that was uphill!

No, not really.

So, my training the last week has been.....

Monday -------> 550m worth of Swim drills + 400m race pace + 400m race pace.

Tuesday -------> 800m swim

Wednesday ---> Progressive Interval Run Training (Not nice!) + 500m swim drills

Thursday -------> Boot Camp Training

Friday ---------> Rest

Saturday -------> 8k cycle,   400m, 200m, 100m, 50m swim, timed, with 2 min rest between sets,   8k cycle

Sunday --------> Rest

4 weeks left till my debut Tri - I'm doing the Hever Castle Sprint (400m swim, 20k bike, 4k run) on the 27th September, and the Warwickshire SuperSprint (200m, 23k, 2.5k) the week after.

My only HUGE worry (because there are loads of little ones), is the open water swim. I have done one session in open water, and I almost had a panic attack because i couldn't touch the bottom. This needs to be corrected quickly because i assume the lake in Hever is more than 1m deep? And also the transitions, as i haven't looked at these at all yet.

But apart from that, I think I'm on track, and I've had a little think about an estimated time, although i have no benchmarks whatsoever to work off.  I've come up with...

400m Open water swim - 10 minutes, or Drown

T1                                  - 3 minutes

20k bike                        - 45 minutes (Does anyone know how hilly it is?)

T2                                 - 1 minute

4k run                            - 19 minutes

Not sure how accurate these are but we'll see. This puts me at 1hr 18min, so I'm going to set my target at sub 1hr 20min, and I'll probably be happy with sub 1hr 25min. Is this a decent estimation or am I massively off?

Time will tell...

Informal Introductions

This is me smiling.



My name is Paul. Im 23 years of age and living between Barnet and Enfield, North London. I'm a Personal Trainer and Dance Teacher and in general, i'm pretty sporty. To cut a huge story short(er), I've tried a number of sporting activities, and been quite full-on with alot of the training, and recently had to take 9 months out due to injury. Since recovering from the injury, I've been lacking a goal to work towards, and found it hard to motivate myself, so although wanting to train, I didn't actually have anything to train for. I was still active, for my job is active, and the dance teaching kept me fit (www.rtdance.co.uk).

For a number of reasons, I found motivation to train for something tangible, a goal to work towards achieving. For two reasons I chose triathlons:

1. My knees cause me a great deal of problem. Running, Taekwondo, and Dance have really put alot of strain on them, along with a bone deformity called Tibial Varum (see diagram). The idea is that swimming will be a good form of exercise without injuring the knees
further, and cycling will be a great non-impact exercise to strengthen and
support the knees.

2. I recieved a little push from a lovely (she will read this) friend, who i now train with.

The only problem is with the idea of triathlons is that i can't swim, and i haven't riden a bike since i was very small.

As of August 3rd 2009, when my training began:

Swim: Bad. Can manage 2 lengths front crawl. Reasonable speed i think, but no technique, or stamina. This is me in the pool.


Bike: Should be ok, but haven't riden a bike for a long time, although teach spinning.

Run: Should be my strength. 10k = 38 minutes PB (4 years ago) and 1st and only half marathon = 1:36:35 in Barcelona 2009 (February)

This blog will track my progress, feel free to give advice or comments, and thanks for reading!