9 months to go!!

It's 11:30pm here which means that in 9 months time the IM Florida race clock will be showing 11h30m. I want to be finished, massaged, fed, showered and celebrating finally nailing an Ironman by then. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm, nice thought, some hope, fat chance!!!!

If January is anything to go by then I'll be giving myself a fair chance, it's been my biggest month of training since August 2006 (although counting the gym sessions still feels odd).

Swimming - 3 sessions - 3hrs - 8.5km(ish).
My swimming will never change. I know that I can let it plod along and swim as little as once or twice a month if need be and I'll still be comfy come race day. I'm never going to be the fastest swimmer out there, but I'm safe in the knowledge that the 2.4mile 'warm up' can be knocked out in an hour without any great problems. It's a nice position to be in because it's one less thing to concern myself with.

Cycling - 7 sessions (4 turbo) - 10h50m - 170miles
This is always the big drawback, I'm no cyclist and it's something I don't really enjoy. As with a lot of people I spend to little time on my weakest discipline. It's to easy to wimp out when the weather is rubbish, it's to convenient to go for a run instead when the weather is ok. My job doesn't help, Tuesday - Friday are pretty much non-starters where the bike is concerned so I should really be putting in the big miles between Saturday and Monday, it's easier to rest up though. I'm sure that as the lighter nights and milder days draw in I'll get myself out more but I can't help thinking that I'm losing out on some valuable base training by not being out there now. Unfortunatly my lazy genes regularly over rule my guilt genes and I'm spending far to little time in the saddle.

Running - 14 sessions - 17h55m - 143miles
Well my running seems to be coming along ok. My training logs only go back to the 'Great Data Loss' in 2004 and it's my highest monthly total in my recent records. There's no great speed there but I feel as though I could rock up on the start line of a Marathon with a moments notice and cruise around it quite comfortably. Just a pity I can't ride 112 miles first. Next weekend there's a stupidly hilly local Half Marathon, it'll be an acid test to see how I'm getting along. I've never managed to break 90mins there so now the challenge has been laid down.

Gym - 8 sessions - 10h30m.
The big difference this year and hopefully the difference maker! I can't comment on previous years because I've never done Gym work before. It's the main reason my monthly training hours are so much higher than normal and I'm hoping that as it's not aerobic it won't affect me too much. I keep hearing talk of 'burn out' especially with Florida being so far in the future (It'll soon be here though) and it's quite concerning to see such an increase in hours but the aerobic section (Swim/Bike/Run) hasn't changed a great deal so I'm hoping I'll be fine.

Onto February then and it's fingers crossed for more of the same, with more cycling though of course. I'm off work this coming week so hopefully things will get a bit frantic as I battle to get extra training in and Shell tries to get me doing some jobs around the house, there simply aren't enough hours in the day. This time next week we'll know which one of us has got the best deal or if the weather has closed in and put its curse on everything.

Until then :)))))))))))))))))))))