Scary times ahead....

I'VE JOINED A GYM!!!!!!!!! What on earth is going on? I don't do gym's infact I positively hate loath and detest gyms, so why on gods earth have I joined one?

Well firstly it's (hopefully) the right gym at the right price. The owner is the physio that I see whenever I wreck my back, he knows what I do and what I'm aiming for, he knows that me core/back are my weak areas and that I need to strengthen them. With that in mind he's fixed me up with a one off program for 6 months. As he knows me he will be the first person to shout at me if I start slacking or if he thinks I'm taking it to easy.
It started on Monday with a full fitness test (apparently my blood pressure is a bit high, that will be checked again soon) and the compulsary idiots guide to the machines. The plan is to try and get in there most Saturdays and Mondays with the occasional Sunday or Wednesday thrown in. This won't start well though as I'm away this weekend and Shells Mom is down here next week so Monday may have to fall by the wayside, plenty of time though I suppose.

Training has been a bit hit and miss this week, I'm still feeling lazy and it is far too easy to miss planned sessions.
Monday was mostly taken up with my gym induction followed by a play around on the machines, I managed to take Rosie out for a 5k run in the evening though which was nice.
Tuesday I was Mr Slacko. I didn't end up where I hoped to when I was at work and that was all the reason I needed not to do anything.
Wednesday I took Rosie and a training pal of mine for a 30min moonlight run along the beach. I could really have done with it being longer but chances are that I'd have opted out of it had I been alone so I can't complain.
Thursday I ran with one of my Running Clubs. Over time Thursday will become my long run night, but this week I just felt rotten so opted out of the early session (which adds 5-6 mile to the club run) and just did a steady 7miles with some of my clubmates instead.
Tonight I've been for my weekly squad swim session. An odd night where my arms seemed to have several periods where they felt totally drained, only for them to come back feeling as strong as ever after 150-200m. Very strange!!!
Tomorrow morning (actually in 5h30m time) I'll be heading up to the Midlands to visit the folks. The plan is to get a decent run in while I'm up there before Sunday where I'll be having some fun at the Burntwood Aquathlon. 400m of pool swimming followed by a 5k off road run. Great fun for the end of the year ;)

That'll do for now, my bed is calling me.

Until next week when I'll hit you with my first race report. Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Iain.

HINDES IAIN 38 M BARNSTAPLE DEVON GBR

I guess that seeing the title of this post on the IM Florida start list means that I'm in. Hell that means I have to do some training.


The aim now is to finish well, finish strong and enjoy it every bit as much as this pic of Jane Tomlinson finishing in 204. When the training's bad and when the hurt hits in on race day I'm going to think of Jane (God bless her soul) and I'm going to start laying some serious smack down.

As for the training ........... It's been an odd week, well it's actually been an odd few months. Since I found out the new system NAS were using to get entries in their events (IM Florida being one of them) I've just totally lost the plot where training has been concerned. September was my slackest months training for over 4 years at 20hrs, that was followed by October where I did even less time managing just 17h30m and only 90mins on the bike. This week started the same way as many other with me promising to train on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and not actually achieving any of it. On Thursday Shell called me to say my name had appeared on the start list and suddenly I had the urge to run, so I did. Spending the night almost 200miles away from home on a Thursday night can make training awkward, but it's a regular thing so I've become a member of a (not so) local running club. On Thursday I ran a steady 5.8mile loop alone in 40:33 (7min/mile), then picked up my bag for the 1.25mile jog to the running club in 9:17 (7:27min/mile). After a short break at the clubhouse to drop my bag off I ran a 7mile loop with one of my clubmates in 51:38 (7:22min/mile). 14miles, AVHR 139bpm, 7:15min/mile pace. That'll do for starters!

Friday was a bit slack, I'll admit to not doing the turbo session I'd planned but I was feeling a bit under the weather and I'd got a squad swim session to look forward to so I knew I was going to get a reasonable work out. 800m w/up, 10x50m @ 60secs, 2xMedley Pyramid (25m fly/50m back/75m breast/150m fc/75m breast/50m back/25m fly), 4x4x25m IM, 100m fc, 50m fc, 2 x 25m fc = 2800m total. I then spent the rest of the night sneezing my head off.

Today I woke up with a head full of snot. Sneezing, coughing, sniffing there was only one thing for it. I went out for a 7mile run with the pup, 3miles off road and 4 miles of beach. It was hard going and the sand in places was very soft, Rosie loved it though. The rest of the day has been cough cough, sniff sniff, sneeze sneeze but as I'm typing this I'm feeling much better so hopefully it's just been a 24hr bug.

Highlight of the day was when Rosie spotted a balloon on the beach, off she charged after it before sinking her teeth in and bursting it. It was when she started charging around the beach with her new prize that I noticed something hanging off the (ex) floaty rubber bubble. I called her to me and removed the balloon from her grasp (much to her disgust), attached was a small card. A primary school over 220mile North East of here had let off some balloons for 'Children in Need' (a national day of charity fund raising) on Friday and I'd found the balloon of a 7 year old lad called Daniel.

Now I just need to work out how to send it back. It seems a shame to just post the card, I'm sure other balloons will be found further afield but it would be nice to make a kid feel his balloon was special. We've got Joss Stone in town tomorrow night switching on the Christmas lights, maybe I'll pop down and try to get her to sign something and send it to the youngster, we'll see.

On a little side note, what an honour to have an Internet Tri legend as my first reply on this blog (nothing wrong with a bit of ego massage occasionally), to follow that with IronTriTim though is just amazing. The last thing you expect to find is someone living thousands of miles away who used to live about 15miles from your front door. I'll look forward to seeing you in PCB Tim :)

That'll do for now, it's midnight here and I'm one person who really REALLY needs his beauty sleep.


G'night all.

Hello

Well this could be the shortest blog in history. It's been set up in preperation for my assault on Ironman Florida in November 2008, problem is that as it stands I'm not in (ooops!!) which could make the title a bit of an embarrassment. Currently the race is full, people over in Florida for the race weekend could register initially and then entries went online at midday (6pm our time), 2mins later the entries closed as the race was full, I guess my computer wasn't quick enough. The hope now is for one of the 25 'first come first served' International slots which my fingers and toes are crossed for while my cheque races its way across the Atlantic to NAS (North American Sports) HQ.

So while I'm here and there's still hope I may as well write down a small bit about myself.

My name is Iain, I'm 37 (soon to be 38) and I live in North Devon, England with my long suffering girlfriend Michelle and my 13month old Springer Spaniel training partner Rosie (you'll read lots about her if this continues). We live in a tiny tiny house in a beautiful part of the country with off road trails, hills, beaches and all sorts of joyous terrain which is great for training. The IMUK 70.3 course is around 35miles from my front door.

I've been racing Triathlons for longer than I care to remember and have done many many Sprints, sometimes successfully, several Olympic Distance races, a few Half IM's and 4(ish) IM's. I'm pretty good at the short stuff, I've won a few local Sprint Tri's, but the further the distance goes up the worse I get and I'm yet to do a decent Ironman.

As this is all intended to (hopefully) spur me on to finally nail a race I'll ignore all the shorter races from the past and just tell my IM story of woe.

2003 - Ironman Austria - 59:24/5:49:17/4:08:51 = 10:57:32

2004 - The Longest Day (UK) - 1:03:40/5:50:46/4:16:50 = 11:11:16

2004 - Ironman Florida - 1:02:31/5:22:50/4:59:30 = 11:24:51

2005 - Ironman Florida - 1:01:50/5:12:43/ DNF!!!!!!

So what's the problem here I hear you ask. The problem is the run, the problem is the pacing and most importantly the problem is that I've never crossed the finish line with a smile on my face. The problem is that I should ideally be finishing between 9:30 and 10hrs yet I can't get close. My head tells me to accept the fact that I'm no Ironmna racer and enjoy the shorter stuff that I'm good at, but my heart tells me that I won't be happy until I can say I've crossed the line and given a race everything. I could cope with a finishing time slower than any I've done if I could turn around and say I've swam, biked and ran to the best of my ability so that's the target for 2008. Race Ironman Florida, swim properly, bike properly and finally, finally be able to run the run. That'll make me happy.

So there we go, that's a small bit about me, much more will (hopefully) follow as I find out my fate for IM Florida 2008 and see where my Triathlon life is going to take me. Hopefully it will give my training a bit of a kick start to as it's been a bit slack lately. Here's hoping.

Until next time.

Ciao ;)