As I've said before I would have liked to have got two or three more hours in every week this year, but that's just not been possible, but I am happy with the quality of my training, I've not over worked my body, I've finished most sessions strong in body and mind, could easily have carried on.
I've completed a number of long sessions, not race distance, which is 7.6 mile swim, 336 mile bike & 79 mile run, but good long sessions, plenty of century rides, double digit runs and 2 mile plus swims, with some key "tester" sessions in there, a 30 mile run & a 5 mile swim.
I felt strong after each long session, confident I could carry on, but I have tried not to over train and avoid tiredness, also trying to avoid risking injury in this 45 year old body of mine, so far so good!
This is a similar plan I followed for the Double Iron two years ago, I guess you could say that worked finishing 8th in the European Double Iron Championships!, the main difference this year was that I had a full time job, so balancing work, home & training has been a challenge to say the least, I guess only time will tell whether I have been wise or not.
In my mind for the last few week's has been one more "must do", an all day ride, in reality I'm going to be cycling for around 24 hours, so I'd decided that 200 mile was a good mark to aim for, it would require a focused effort, I could practice my nutrition strategy but more importantly I wanted to enjoy the 200 and finish feeling good, strong & motivated.
I had planned to ride from dusk to dawn through the night, but on reflection decided that practising my bike nutrition strategy would be the best course of action, the all night ride I can save for another day.
So a 7:20am start, the plan was to ride a local 44 mile route, we call the Two Bridges, Keadby Bridge in the North & Trent Bridge, Gainsborough in the South, the route was equivalent to 4 laps of the Enduroman bike route, so worked well as my plan was to eat well every 4 laps, only to stop for 20 minutes for food, refill water bottles (1 water/ 1 Gatorade) and set off for another lap.
I'd need to do 4 laps plus a little bit extra, Sarah (wife) was ready with meals for each stop (Chicken & Bacon pasta, omelette, rice pudding, more pasta & plenty of coffee), so that I could pull up, eat & get straight back out there, just like it will be on race day.
I varied the route a little on the east side of the Trent just to mix it up a little, west side I stuck to the Trent bank on each lap except the final lap, when I stayed further west trying to get those extra few miles in before looping back.
The first lap was a little too fast at 18.5mph, so I slowed down after that, but maintained the average speed between 18mph & 18.2 mph all day, even though there was a fairly strong wind from the South.
A few miles into my last lap, I met a friend out for a quick 25 miles, so joined him on his loop, I was really grateful for some company it had been a long lonely day so far, anyway after 15 miles together we arrived back at our village, so I lopped away for one last lap of the two bridges route which would take me to the magic number.
I still felt strong, comfortable except for a little bit of bum ache, but that was fine, in total I clocked 201 miles at 18.1 mph, riding time was 11 hours 7 minutes, with a total time start to finish of 13 hours 29 minutes.
I'm pretty sure I'll slow the speed down a little for race day to around 17.5mph hopefully (although the double was at 16.9 mph), we'll just have to see how it goes on the day, but I feel stronger than ever, so let's just see.
No aches or pains the next morning which was great, I'd planned a nice recovery swim, first open water of the year, water temp was 12.5 degree's, quite cold at first but after a few minutes it felt great, just did a steady mile. Spent some time with the family and an hours ride later that evening just to spin the legs again.
So I guess that's the last biggy now till race day, I'll will get another century ride in next weekend and probably a 10 mile run with a couple of longer open water swims, weekdays will be fairly steady, couple of rest days still and swim/ bikes on Wednesday & Friday when I work closer to home.
I need to start getting things together soon, list making, putting things to one side, I plan to hire a van to take 2 bikes (need a spare just in case!), my daughters bike so that she can join me on some familiarisation rides before the race, clothing and some food essentials, however normally day to day food we will sort down there.
Looking forward to getting down there early and reacquainting myself with the routes, a few days with family first, then the rest of the support crew join us and 2pm Friday 30th June it starts !
