Road to IRONMAN Blog #10 — Back at it

Short and simple, for me this week was all about getting back into the routine of training, seeing where I was at and just getting back after it. I’m still determined to complete my Ironman this year and in the background I’ve been checking out the events for August of which there is a pretty great selection including Estonia, Poland, Finland, Denmark, France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain & Austria.

I went back to my old running route and did the usual ~5 mile run around my town, a ~14.5 mile ride going a little further afield and then a short brick session on the weekend. My routine looked like:

Monday: ~45 min run. Result: 5.18 miles.

Tuesday: ~1hr ride. Result 14.46 miles.

Wednesday: ~49 min run. Result: 5.55 miles.

Thursday: ~57min ride. Result: 14.55 miles.

Friday: Bodyweight strength and conditioning workout.

Saturday: Brick workout 1.5hr ride &~ 35 min run. Result: 23.19 mile ride, 3.69 mile run.

Sunday: Rest day.

Getting back into things on Monday went well, my nice 5 mile run route, although it ended up raining a fair bit, felt good and I had a pretty comparable time to before being ill, so a big win!

First proper run back into training, in the rain

Following this I had a bike ride on Tues and Thursday, both of which were great and I managed to trim off almost 5 mins on the 2nd ride over the 14.5 mile distance which was a nice improvement, backdropped by a pretty gorgeous view on the coast road on the way back.

Back into bike training and coast road view

Following the midweek training it was into a fairly ‘light’ weekend brick session, the ride was good, the run was a little harder than expected, which I think was due to the bodyweight workout I did prior to this on Friday and just going straight back into 6 days of continuous training, but it went well overall and into a needed rest day on Sunday.

Ending out the week’s training with the brick session run

So this was my week getting back into things, nothing crazy, but steady, making progress and getting into both the physical and mental routine. Solid week.

Moving forwards I’m just evaluating my options for travel and which event to choose and getting back into fundraising, if you’d also like to also contribute to my fundraising goal to support MIND, I’d love your help too! MIND are on a mission to ensure that everyone who needs support with the mental health, gets it. Every donation is massively appreciated :) & for some context:

• £21 could run MIND’s online peer support community Elefriends for an hour, helping people connect with others and feel less alone.
• £40 — could help MIND’s Infoline answer calls, providing someone with vital support and information about help available for them.
• £50 could help MIND campaign for better mental health services from the Government, so more people get the support they need, as soon as they need it.

Thanks all for reading and looking forward to the coming week and continuing to get back after it!

Cal