"It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop." - Confucius

It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop !
Confucius



Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Time Trials done and a bit more training

In my last post I mentioned that I had my Run Time Trial ahead of me and that i was quite nervous about it , the good news yes I have improved on my run those 5km running as hard as possible it really did hurt but I made it I improved and that made me very happy.

When I was on my Weight loss Journey I never would have thought that I would do afterwards something that is much harder than loosing weight , gaining fitness is seriously harder than loosing weight.I'm now on 10 hrs of Training a week and there are days when it feels very easy and on other days I just want to sleep but the important thing is every session I finish I feel afterwards a sense of achievement and that just feels great.
I have now received the pan for the upcoming weeks and it will just get tougher, especially the running but that is something I knew had to come because the running part is appallingly bad.

Cycling is another challenge , it is not helping that the weather has just been too dangerous to go out onto the roads, I went out when it was raining or really cold , that's  not something stopping me from going out but it has been really windy here and that was just so bad that it became dangerous.
 I have tried to do time on the Turbo and I'm doing my Turbo Sessions but the word boring is not even close to how this feels.

But at the end of the Day looking at the hours of training I'm clocking just makes me very proud of myself and that is a very nice feeling.

And with that 100 Days left until I hopefully can put all these Training's hours into the IM70.3 IM Majorca




Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Test Week has arrived

My Training's plan says for this week three Time Trials, one Swimming , one Cycling and the last one running. I did six weeks ago exactly the same but back than it was the first time I did them so I just did the best I could do . This Week it will be a bit different because I really hope that the lat six weeks of Training will show this Week that i have improved at least a tiny bit.
I'm most nervous about the running Time Trial because I have the feeling that I'm more or less going backwards with my running, since my Training is these days very much Heart Rate based I'm not allowed to go over 150 BPM for my Training runs which means my running is incredibly slow and it does not seem to improve whatsoever.
So I really hope that my Running Time Trial shows a bit of a improvement, but as Chrissie Wellington already said be prepared for everything , I really have to get my mindset right in case my running has not improved or it maybe even has deteriorated and that maybe harder than any of the Time Trials but that is something I have to learn if I want to do long distance Triathlon, I have to learn to accept setbacks, guess that is the fourth discipline to learn in Triathlons.

Now lets do this and get those Time Trials done and dusted








Thursday, January 9, 2014

Training sleep and more Training



I have been now for roughly 10 Weeks in the hands of a coach who has given me for every week a specific plan and told me what to train when and most importantly he told me how.
The how part was and still is the most difficult part to get used to, my Coach is very much into Heart  Rate Training so for every session I have to keep my heart Rate below a certain limit,which means from being beforehand already a slow runner and biker have had to get even slower.

This was a huge dent in my confidence , I was looking at so slow times that I wondered how the heck I ever will be able to finish my Half Ironman and the other problem was that I expected too fast results.
 My thinking was , OK I do this for 3-4 Weeks and than I'm flying, I can tell you I'm not. I'm still shuffling  slow around.
 I understand the concept of Low Heart rate Training, so i just have to go with it and swallow my pride.
On the other hand i really enjoy my Training and following the plan, it's great that i know exactly what I will do when and if running on a Wednesday is on the plan and it rains I'm still out and do the run, I don't have those excuses anymore, the plan states it and I do it.
Cycling is a tiny bit different, because it has to be safe to be out on the bike and we had a couple of bad storms around here we I just couldn't go out but for that I have a Turbo Trainer and can do shorter Turbo Sessions at home . Still if the weather somehow permits it,I'm out on the Bike.
Last or first part of the Training is my Swimming , my local pools had awkward opening times over the Christmas Period and I just couldn't really get into the Pool.
I'm paying heavily for that in the moment. I'm not a good swimmer anyway and the little technique I had seems to have disappeared completely , so back to the grind and going into the Pool 4 times a week is a must.

Triathlon in general has taken over my life completely these Days and I have t say I'm loving it.I'm meeting other Triathletes I'm talking to people who want to get into Triathlon , I'm learning from People who have been to Kona and the Buzz with all those People if just great, i have learned a very important Lesson over the last couple of Years, stay away from People who drag you down. It is hard but I have changed my environment quite a bit and i make very sure that I don't get involved with people who have in general a negative Attitude.
if you are looking for people with a positive Attitude , just find some Triathletes ;o))))


So have to remember my Mantra :