77 Days – 12 week training programme

77 days to go, under 12 weeks now. I’m so busy with other work fitting around training I mostly don’t have the time to think about doing the Outlaw in July. Lots to do in the meantime so it seems a long way away. But I know I’ll soon be looking at the other end of June and beginning to feel butterflies every other thought. Probably at least once every couple of days I get them at the moment.

I was talking to my coach on the phone, a bit worried about being away for 5 of the next 8 week, and fitting in training, and how hard it was in the tough 20 hour training week I did 2 weeks ago to ride 2 hours and run 1, when the Outlaw is going to be at least 4x that. And he explained that I’ll be rested and psychologically prepared, and that we’d sit down and work out all my availability from now until July, and fit the training and taper around it, that “there are going to be a lot of people less prepared than you”. A ‘taper’ is where you bring training down, after building fitness and endurance, so that you’re really really well rested before the event. That’ll mean no training and generally staying off my feet and eating well for at least 2-3 days before the event. I’m travelling up to Nottingham 2 days early too so I can get used to the bed I’ll be sleeping in, and getting up as early as I’ll need to be up.

Prepared. I like being prepared. It’s the Crystal Palace Triathlon tomorrow – it’s less than 10 minutes from my house, and only a sprint distance, so it shouldn’t take much more than an hour and a half. Last night I wrote out my kit because I was worried I might forget my race belt – a small cheap but vital bit of kit so you can wear your race number easily/properly between disciplines. It’s not a usual bit of kit, so easy to forget. I wrote down what I thought was everything, and then proceeded to have anxiety dreams all night about not being on time or having the right gear to do the event, particularly in the dream I realised I left off ‘sports bra’ on the list. I woke up thinking that.

As if I’d go out having forgotten to put one on.

I like being prepared. Except proper prepared is really ‘having done this before’. Which I won’t have. I can’t really do anything but deal with that.

Anyway, I thought I’d share the general shape of my next few weeks with you.

W/C	Type of training week	Goal
11/5	Moderate week	Maintain fitness levels
18/5	Recovery week	Recovery from previous weeks and prepare for next big weeks
25/5	Big week	Lots of endurance work Key sessions are long ride (5-6hrs), long run 2 1/2 hrs, long swim >4k
1/6	Moderate week	Less training focussing on higher intensity to help you through a busy week
8/6	Recovery week	Recovery from previous weeks and prepare for next big weeks. Also helps you with a busy period of work
15/6	Big week	Lots of endurance work Key sessions are long ride (5-6hrs), long run 2 1/2 hrs, long swim >4k
22/6	Big week	Lots of endurance work Key sessions are long ride (5-6hrs), long run 2 1/2 hrs, long swim >4k
29/6	Recovery week	Start of Taper. Unload fatigue from previous weeks
6/7	Moderate week	Aim to maintain fitness without adding fatigue. No more really long workouts Max Ride = 4hrs Max Run = 2hrs Max swim = 4k
13/7	Moderate week	Aim to maintain fitness without adding fatigue. No more really long workouts Max Ride = 3hrs Max Run = 90 mins Max swim = 3k
20/7	Race week	Minimal training. Some higher intensity but only to maintain top end. Key goal is to remove remaining fatigue and mentally prepare for the event

134 days – Faith

“Training is about faith”

Simon said to me, sitting across a falafel salad in Horsforth.

He had just described to me the ultra run across the Sahara Desert that him and his partner Fiona were doing in 3 week’s time, laden with all of their food, water, and camping gear. It’s a race of between 150 and 156 miles, over 6 days.

I had just asked “do you think I’ll be ready in time?” And that’s when he told me that he had 3 weeks to go until the Marathon de Sables. “If you put a gun to my head tomorrow, I could do it” he said “but there are still bits, still bits of training to do, it’s not complete”.

Simon is a fan of metaphors, he’ll use one and then he’ll explain it. I think it’s a useful way to talk as a coach, because if he talks about the thing visually, and then about why the visual works, mostly what he’s doing is taking time to find the way the idea fits into your head. This time it’s cake.

“It’s like a cake, it’s not ready yet, it’s not done, it doesn’t have the candles, I haven’t iced it, sure it looks like a cake, it’s baked, it’s got the two bits and the filling, but there’s none of the bits that makes it complete.”

Training is like a cake, he tells me – later on when he’s telling me to have a rest day because of my cold, it’s a brick wall (one missed session, one missed brick, it’s ok, it’ll hold) – “if I put a gun to your head tomorrow, you could do it, you could do the Outlaw”.

I tell him it just had never entered my head that I wouldn’t be able to before now

“What changed?”

“Honestly”, I tell him, “I think it was deciding to make a piece of theatre about it. Before now I didn’t have to think about how to tell the story if I – if I failed”.

He echoes a sentiment I tell myself – that it’s about the journey, that’s the story I’m telling, “and that’s what training is, it’s the journey”

Some days I feel like I could do the race tomorrow. Some days I feel like I could at least get to the end of the ride. Some days I feel like the prospect of it is sat on my chest like my little brother did when we fought when we were little except that it’s now and it’s my 28 year old little brother who is 6’7” and can benchpress a whole lotta kg.

Simon tells me it’s about faith. Training is about faith – I might do all of the distance for the Outlaw separately, before attempting it – maybe not the marathon, but certainly the bike and the run, but I won’t put them together before. I won’t know that I can do it, not for certain. It would be foolish to try – training is not about doing the thing but preparing the thing – if I were to try before I could injure myself, exhaust myself leaving myself without enough time to recover and train, I would be trying to do the thing before I was ready; light the candles with only batter to stick them in.

Simon explains how there’s not really any way to train for the Sahara run, not really. That it’s about training and strength and conditioning. It’s about faith. And it’s about being strong, in your mind.

“I think I’m very strong”. I say this, and it feels… I’m used to apologising for that kind of sentiment. It’s a bald thing to say, like an invitation for the world to try and knock me down.

He says that like in real life there are bad days and good days, when I do the Outlaw, there will be moments when it feels like the best thing, and moments when it feels like the worst.

You know I still don’t believe that I might not do it. Some days I don’t know what to do with being that kind of person.

I scrat around for a piece of paper and a pen. I want to write down ‘training is about faith’. “It’s OK,” Simon says, “you’ll remember it”.

172 Days – Yesterday I Crashed My Bike

172 days until the event. My coach Simon is travelling to run a training camp in Lanzarote right now, and he’s writing me a training plan on the flight over. And I’m in day two of the 10 days at Northern Stage (for Title Pending 2014) for the first bit of research, making the show. Over these days I’ll be spending 5 days with Alex Kelly as dramaturg/designer generating stuff to go in the show, I’ll have 3 days with sport scientists at the University of Northumbria, spend a day with filmmaker Niall Coffey working out how we’re going to work together, and do two work in progress showings at the end of next week. Phew! (Plus also I’ll be swimming, running or cycling every day).

Here’s a bit of writing I did today.

Yesterday I crashed my bike.

I crashed my bike into a shrub.

Yesterday I got up at 7am and went out for what should have been a short 50km ride – 2 hours. I was late heading out because I was tired and because I was scared. Like it’s genuinely quite scary cycling on roads you have no clue about around rush hour – all of these roads seem to be huge 3 lane carriageways or bridges or roundabouts. London has its share of those too, but I learned London in bits, Newcastle/Gateshead was a bigger challenge, attempted in one go. The night before, I decided to take a cycle path out along the Tyne – it’s on all the maps – planned a route with my Garmin. Yesterday I attempted it. It takes me a while to get to that point – actually riding out – because I am tired and scared quite often on my bike.

I crashed my bike on the way back.

I managed all of the difficult bits, had gone up a slightly challenging climb near a place called Wylam

I’m calming down, back on the cycle path, know where I am, no cars around, nearly back.

The thing about these cycle paths is that (like all British cycle paths) they put in some really stupid bits; a lamppost directly in the middle of it, that kind of thing. This is why usually I don’t use cycle paths, just deal with roads, but I’m too scared of around here, so I’m on Hadrian’s Cycle Route 72. The stupid thing Hadrian’s Cycle Route 72 likes to do is right angles. Right angles next to a big old river. The Tyne, in fact.

It was a cold day yesterday – I think the coldest weather I’ve ridden in, colder than the snow in Lincolnshire over Christmas, I think maybe I didn’t quite notice how cold because scared was all I had room for. Cold enough that the gutters were frozen solid even a few hours after sunrise. Cold enough that some kind of coffee or tea dropped on the cycle path in-between me passing by on my way out, and coming back, had frozen solid. At the bottom of a small hill, just before a right angle turn, right in front of the river.

In that moment I’m not scared. I’m just dealing with it.

I know I can’t brake, I know that if I hold my front brake I won’t stop in time and I’ll go head first into the Tyne. I know that if I hold my front and back brake my rear wheel will likely slip from under me and I’ll shoot right, under the – it now occurs to me – frankly insubstantial railings and into the river. So I steer into a plant border and pitch, left side of my body first, into some squat hibernating shrubs.

The shrubs are short and sharp and 10 minutes later I’ll think of the Casualty episode where the tree goes through his neck and I’ll rub where a branch dug into mine. The shrubs did fine. I guess I’m thankful for them, they helped me out, but also they were sharp and stabby and as I unclip my still clipped in left foot in order to get up and pick my bike up I feel their imprint on my left hand and throat.

30 minutes later I’m home and I think I’m fine.

I text my boyfriend, apologise that I forgot about his job interview (forgot to say ‘good luck’ before he left, I’m terrible). Mention the crash hoping a little bit it will demonstrate my state of mind.

Shower, get ready to leave, and my left upper arm is beginning to feel sore.

It’s 2 hours later, I’m getting off the Metro, and the soreness is sort of concentrating. I hadn’t even noticed impact on my arm there, but it feels like I’ve been stabbed, bluntly, deeply, in my bicep.

It’s 3 hours after impact and I have been buying materials for making the show. Post its, big pieces of paper, scissors, tape, blu tac, and a track pump with a gauge because I forgot to pack one. If you look at me in Argos you will see me anxiously kneading my arm, it is uncomfortable to hold a carrier bag for very long.

It’s 5 hours after impact and I’m in Stage 2 at Northern Stage with Alex, who has hurt his back, and I joke that between us we make one person useful enough to get his suitcase and my bags home, because I can’t hold anything in my left hand without it giving out.

There’s a timeline when you get injured. Slightly different between a crash type injury and a strain, but in both cases, in the same way, the injury grows inside you.

Injuries blossom, they bloom inside you.

Last year I tore my right hamstring (it was a minor, level 3 tear) trying to beat my ex boyfriend’s time over a hill in South London. He’d unfollowed me on Strava by that point – I wasn’t doing it so he would see, it was more a thing for me, a way to climb out of the stuff that I was feeling. I equalled his time. I hurt my leg.

After that ride around Richmond Park I travelled to Sheffield and back for a meeting. It was only really by the time I was on the train to Sheffield that my muscles started to feel tight. It was only really on the bus back from St. Pancras 12 hours later that it began to hurt.

Injuries grow, they bloom in your body, and it’s after the first sleep that you know the measure of them.

Today, I woke up and moved my arm, and it was sore all over, but not to a point. It’s that point, that acuteness, the sharpness is how you know. Instead it was duller, I was all over sleepy relief and the second part of the crash-type injury – the ripple of the impact as it moves through your body. It takes a couple of days; fans out. As I type this my whole upper body aches, like it might before you get a cold, radiating from my left side through to my right. But it’s not that sharp hurt, it’s a shadow.

At the time I am writing this I have 3 recovering major injuries, 2 historical critical injuries, and one set of very recent ones.

Yesterday I crashed my bike.

184 days – Coach

Yesterday (technically 185 days before I attempt the Ironman) I had my first conversation with my Coach – Simon Ward. A 45 minute chat over Skype for him to get a sense of how my training will fit in my life, and to begin to answers some of the questions I have about training.

I took him through what I’ve done so far, current injuries, and what my life is like in terms of fitting in training.

This is what I told him:

I’ve been doing triathlon for 3 years now, last summer I did the Cotswold 113 middle distance event, and finished in a time of 05:36:45 (Swim 30:55.5 Transition 1 04:52 Ride 02:58:08 Transition 2 03:57 Run 01:58:51)

I’m a swimmer from a county level from ages 8-13 and am pretty competent still. I picked up riding proper distances on a road bike much more recently – I’ve been riding above a commute distance for the past year and half now. I’m no great shakes at running but I can keep going at a steady pace for a really long time. I’ve done a trail marathon in the Lake District, and regularly train a 5000m swim distance. The furthest I’ve cycled was 134km from London to Whitstable as part of the Rapha Womens 100. I train between 10-15km runs, 50-100km rides and 3.5-5km swims and do one of those every day. I don’t take rest days. I work from home a lot although work erratic hours and am sometimes away from home for work so some days it’s really hard for me to fit in anything but a run.

I’ll be doing the Nottingham Outlaw ironman in July 2015.

Injuries:

Left Plantar Fascia strain – from stress/overwork, currently only minor but it’s been both feet before, and it takes about a month to be ok again. I’m not running where possible right now to try and let it recover.

Right shoulder ligament strain – aggravated by front crawl. This was sustained coming off my bike on a 14% descent at a surprise hairpin bend. My shoulder took the brunt of the impact. I was unscathed otherwise.

Simon laughed at the idea of a ‘surprise’ hairpin bend “was it not signposted?”

I suggested that I might have learnt the hard way about useful ways of braking on a descent that day.

A hamstring injury – right leg. Mostly healed. Injured almost 9 months ago now, sustained trying to beat my ex’s time on Strava over a hill in South London between Richmond Park and Lewisham. I equalled the time. I injured my leg. I’ve seen a physio about the shoulder and hamstring, and I have a general assessment with the physio booked in

Simon said that was a good idea. And then he replied to some of my concerns. I said I don’t like rest days, he asked why, “because they make me feel rubbish, like the feeling of your tongue when you’ve just woken up, they make my mind feel like that.” He replied “believe me, when I’ve structured your training, you’ll be thanking me for the rest days”

He said that the thing was not to aim for a time for the Outlaw event, but just to finish, he said it won’t just feel like two middle distances, I can’t take my time from the Cotswold 113, double it, and add 10%, “it’s a different beast” he said. He said ‘just finishing, that’s the success”

And then he tackled my final concern – how to structure training around a freelance workload that is a constant moveable feast – sees me working from home, but also (this month, for example) Hull, Edinburgh, Newcastle and Lincoln, plus my personal life taking me to Nottingham and the North York Moors. For a lifestyle that sometimes includes no days off, and rarely weekends.

He said “Did you know that this week, statistically speaking, is the week that New Year’s Resolutions fail? You know why that is? Life. It gets in the way. It’s human, we’re human. You can play make believe, but it’s messy, complicated and unpredictable, you have to train in that context. Fine, you’ve planned a 5 hour ride but if it’s snowing, too dangerous, then you’ll just have to get on your turbo and put in 3 hours. What if you’re stuck in an airport with a delayed flight? Run up and down the corridors. You’re not a professional athlete, you’re not the Brownlees, you’ve got a handicap, everyone has them, it might be your family, your work life, your erratic hours, a physical handicap. We all have obstacles and challenges, and that’s what makes crossing the finish line that bit more impressive. My job as a coach is to be your GPS, while you have your head down, my job is to help you negotiate a smooth path.”

And then we laughed about how it will be weird for me to be accountable to someone, I’ve been self-employed/working from home for nearly 6 years now. “It’ll be weird for you to have to answer to someone.”

Normally that would make me feel uncomfortable – having a boss, but it doesn’t feel like that. So far, it feels like having Alex in the room with me, as a director. The big picture, working together.

I’m looking forward to it.