Week Twenty One

Swam 252

Biked 180 km

Ran 21 km

As the big day gets closer I thought that I would try the distance of two of the events on consecutive days to see how my body would cope with the punishment. So on Friday evening I went to the Lido and completed the 3.8km swim.  I am now consistently finishing the distance around the 70 minute mark but feel I could go faster.

Went down to the New Forest the next day for a 180km bike ride with my friend Marc, who is also training to be an Iron Man and will be competing in the UK Iron Man in July.  With both of us not yet completing the 180km distance, we set off at a steady pace and kept that going. 7 hrs later we had made it home, minus the time it takes to change three punctures, one for me and two for Marc.  We made the terrible mistake of earlier in the day saying "I've been so lucky Marc, not had a puncture whilst training yet." "Me neither." Oops! Without meaning to sound obvious, 7 hrs on a bike is an extremely long time, and I certainly wouldn't do it as a regular training exercise, but Marc and I kept the banter going and the miles flew by.  After the ride I thought that it was about time I treated my muscles to a massage to cure any unwanted muscle aches, but it wasn't the relaxing massage you would imagine. I was slightly worried that Becky the masseuse seemed to be enjoying the cries and yelps far too much as she pushed her thumb hard into my calf muscles. So a big thank you to Becks for giving me a good beating! A hard day but not the end, come race day ONLY a marathon to run and the medal to collect, till next week roll on pain!