Well here it is. The first Blog I've ever done. To anyone reading this I will do my best to keep it entertaining but I wanted to do this to keep a record of how I'm doing with my training. I've been running distance since I was about 16 and have trashed a pair of trainer every year since.
Now at 28 and fast approaching 29 I thought I should start taking it all a bit more seriously. What made me take it seriously you ask. It was a T-shirt. The slogan said something like
"You ran 26.2miles? Ah thats cute. Tri athelete 140.2".
and I thought. That is a T-shirt that has to be earned. Now I'm fairly fit already I can run a 5k without really thinking about it and I cycle to work which is about 16 miles from my house on the back of my mountain bike. I've had a gym membership for about 3 years now and have a little 3 hour routine that I hit up 3 times a week. But 140.2 is a unimaginable challenge especially as I've not done a lot of swimming training since I was in school. The gym does have a pool which I use as a cool down doing a little medley of strokes but never for more than about 30 minutes or so and a recent experiment shows how much I'm lacking in that department. I managed about 6 lengths front crawl before I had to stop. Thats what? 150m. If I want to wear that T-shirt I'll have to put in 155 lengths to cover the same as a 3.86km swim!
So thats going to be a challenge. The cycling could also be fun. At the moment and for the foreseeable future I'm going to have to train on my mountain bike. Its a good one. A giant Xtc 2.5 hard back with some road tyres on when not on the mud. Like I say its a good bike but I'm always being overtaken by the lycra clad road bikers thanks to higher gear ratios and a bit more training probably. Taking it into a proper race would be interesting.
But hey. Thats a problem for the future. And I can always save for that super road bike as I go. So what I need to do is train in my three disciplines.
Running I think is my best event afterall. Its what I do. I don't think a marathon is on the cards just yet. Most of my running is in the 6-10mile range at the moment. I have therefore in line with a new program of achievable goals I've entered into Peterborough's half marathon in a months time. This might not seem like a lot given the total goal but its a start. looking at my training requirements this means I'm going to have to do a bit more road running than I've done in recent months. Most of my runs take place on the tread mill at the gym and I know its no where near as tough to do that sort of thing than out in the real world. I'm therefore instigating the MorningRunningProgram. This is exactly as it sounds. I will try to go running each and every morning. I know doing too much will actually weaken me. Having read an article in FHM when Daniel Craig was interviewed. He said that his trainner killed him during the week and he was allowed the weekend off to recover. This sounds nice. I'll put a proviso in this. I'll have the weekend off...if I don't stop during the week. If I have a day off due to weakness (Its too cold/wet/early) I'll do a long run at the weekend to make up for it.
What is the morning course going to be? I've always done about a 45min course and need to get back into that habit. That should give me enough time in the morning to go out and run around before work. Easy.
Ok that a start on the running. What about the cycling and swimming. Cycling is pretty simple. I just keep cycling to work twice a week when I don't go to the gym for my routine (Tuesday/Thursdays). I might also do the gyms spinning class. Not the same thing as on the road cycling but might push me a bit more than the usual beat the clock cycling I've been doing. I'll need to look into that. I still want to keep up my upper body workouts which should help in the swimming department too so I don't want too much overlap or I'll never get anything done.
Swimming is more tricky. With cycling and running I've not got a lot of time. Obviously the gym is the place to do it. If I remove the treadmill running from my gym sessions I could do a thirty minute swim at the end of the session aiming to do between 20 and 30 lengths. I'd like to do a little everyday though. So maybe I could do the 30 min swim everyday during the week. Cycling straight to the gym from work would be interesting. Usually the pool is rammed until about 8ish. Hmm lets give it a go if it doesn't work out we'll have to look at something else.
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