28 June 2010 (Fitness)

Words: Mike Sheridan

It's fair to say, with just over six weeks to go to the Ironman 70.3 in Germany, that I'm well pissed off training. With the fulltime job I have (as well as the gig with RTE), it makes it extremely difficult to join a club as I could be over in London at a junket for a couple of days at short notice. So instead I've pounded away at the wonderful One Escape, and continually enlisted the help of Wicklow Triathlon Club's John Doyle for my swim training - and as a general fountain of information for all things triathlon.  I'm not that clued in to that particular world, whereas being a member of a club would give you that and a lot more. Running has always come easy, but the mental barrier of going out for a three or four hour cycle alone can be tough to break; with a friend, or training partner from a club, you don't want to let them down so there's a built-in motivation. But hey, at least I can swim now.

It's really a testament to John as a coach, and the difference that ploughing away in the pool, day in, day out will give you results wise. Also, picking up a top of the range Zoot Zenith 2.0 2010 wetsuit at The Cycle Superstore certainly helped - or will do come the race. John always pushed for me to wear the suit in the pool, to get used to its few confines, which is what I have been doing, and getting predictably strange looks for doing so. The difference it has made is incredible; instantly you're fighting to stay on your feet, as the specific padding, through the legs and chest, pushes you above the water, allowing you move faster above the surface. It's a top of the range suit, and whereas others would have a lot of constriction, especially in the arms and shoulders, this one is water-tight, but sufficiently light on the shoulders to allow your stroke room to stretch out during the front crawl. It's a 20 metre pool at One Escape, and I'm up to over 100 lengths; Warm up with 10, continue with 20, then hit 30 without stopping etc. When I went for my first open water swim in Dun Laoghaire, the suit really came into its own; making the choppy water feel some how comfortable and helping rid the fear factor that creeps in when you look out to the vast sea. Also, the guys at The Cycle Superstore are incredibly helpful, and thankfully devoid of the inexplicably snobbish attitude you can encounter in a lot of these places. It was easy, and I wasn't barraged with a tonne of information about a million other things I didn't need to know about; it was the best one for me, and I bought it. It also makes me look very muscular, thanks to the slick, but not overt padding (that's not me in the picture). 

Training is now five days a week minimum, with most of those sessions doubled up into 'bricks' (swim-run, run-bike etc). A problem before was the amount of running i had been doing, and the distances; it just kept me in shape, so I stuck with it. But an hour in the pool, straight out to a slightly shorter run is much more beneficial that a run with a backpack that lasts slightly longer. The doubles have made me focus on my diet a bit more, making sure I'm well fed before a session, so I can be a bit more comfortable on the treadmill, or the road having swam/cycled.

So the plan is now to do The Beast of the East as my first triathlon; an Olympic distance event (1500 metre swim, 40k cycle, 10k run), it's described as the toughest of its kind in Ireland; while John describes it to me as "a good training session" before the Ironman in Germany. The 1.9k swim was always the main challenge; but the proceeding 90k cycle up some fairly steep hills, followed by a 21k run won't be a picnic either. Finishing is still the goal - it's just not as farfetched now.

 

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