Post 107 - 2015 review, 2016 preview

2015 was ultimately not a great year. Same as the past few years. I wanted to qualify for Kona and I didn’t manage to do it. That’s the long and short of it.

High points from this season included:

• A sub-18 minute beach run back at home in January following a couple of disappointing Christmas races (meaningless to most people but the second-fastest time I've ever ran the beach, and I've ran it hundreds of times)
• A good run at the Northern Ireland and Ulster cross-country championships, I placed twelfth overall and my club won the team prize.
• A good run at the Garioch 10K in Aberdeenshire.
• Convincing myself I was in 32-minute 10K shape in late April, and realising that I can get my running back to the level it was at in 2006 (but to do this will require a lot less Ironman training and a lot more specific running training).
• A decent showing at the Bristol triathlon (Olympic distance).

Low points were obvious:

• Ironman UK
• Ironman Wales

Both were terrible. I’m not a cold/wet weather athlete as I am naturally very lean, and I was extremely lean going into Ironman UK. I froze in the monsoon conditions at Ironman UK and couldn’t perform. Hands frozen, core frozen, feet frozen, head frozen. I found it almost impossible to control my bike, and to feed myself on the bike. Then the run was a complete nightmare. The only reason I bothered to finish it at all was because I had 9 people who came to support me, and as bad a day as it was for me, it was probably just as bad for them. 

Then, I wasn’t well in the run-up to Ironman Wales (I think because my body was just completely ruined after 9 months of really intense effort) and I ended up puking horribly in the swim (literally full body convulsive vomiting, literally almost puking my entire digestive system up), getting really cold, and got brought ashore in a lifeguard boat. Not fun.

I’ve had a bad winter in terms of training. I have been lacking motivation, there is a huge amount of uncertainty about my job, and honestly I am not sure how long I can continue to live the lifestyle that trying to qualify for Kona demands. I’d like to succeed at life in general. For me, a big goal was to try and qualify, and doing so would have been succeeding at life. But as the years have passed, I’ve had to sacrifice a lot for Ironman and the “succeeding at life” idea has become a bit overshadowed by the “succeeding at qualifying” idea. I’m not sure how much longer I want to put the other aspects of “succeeding at life” on hold.

I’ve argued it through with myself and I will be giving it another crack at Ironman UK in 2016. I thought about going out to do the Ironman in South Africa in March 2016, where there are more qualifying slots available (75 slots at South Africa versus 40 at UK, which means top 7 or 8 versus top 3), but decided against this due to the expense. I would be going to South Africa assuming I would then also have to pay for a big trip to Hawaii. I haven’t got a limitless budget. 

Email received after entering Ironman UK.
It may as well say "Congratulations, you have paid to sign another year of your life away..."
Hopefully I'll get the end result and it will all be worth it.

I thought about taking a year off Ironman racing, getting some stability in my personal and professional life and then coming back to it in 2017, but I ruled this out because I want to do it while I’m still in the groove and while I’m still living in such a great house for training. I think it would be a difficult thing to leave and come back to. I thought about packing it in completely, but then I thought to myself, “Is that how I want to leave it, puking my guts up over a lifeguard canoe with a big dirty DNF at Ironman Wales 2015?” I have the ability to execute a good Ironman race. I want to do it and fulfil whatever Ironman potential I tell myself that I have.

I recently read Chris Hadfield's book. He's an astronaut and has been very focused and dedicated to achieving his astronaut goals. He wrote the following in his book:

He could have been a triathlete

So, Ironman UK 2016. I know I can continue to learn and improve and implement new strategies for 2016.

Some lessons I would learn from 2015 (and 2014 and 2013 etc), and some changes I would make to my training and racing strategy for a future Ironman race are as follows:

• Do not overtrain.
• Have one extra rest day per week, because recovery is so important. 
• Stay fresh.
• Do not build up for 7-8 months at high intensity level and expect to be fresh going into a race. 4-5 months is plenty.
• Try to be a couple of kilos heavier going into a race. Be strong and fuelled, not bare bones. 67kg is bad. 70kg is good.
• Widen the aero bar arm pads on my bike to open up the chest when in the aero position on the bike, to help with better breathing and to help to keep the heart rate low.
• Keep warm on the bike, wear two tops and gloves if necessary.
• If it’s raining, make sure I start the bike dry, and make sure I keep my core and hands warm and dry during the bike. This also applies to the start of the run.
• Make sure I am not cold before the start and when getting into the water to start the swim.
• Get a horizontally mounted front aero bottle instead of a vertically mounted one, to improve aerodynamics.
• Prepare properly for bad weather.
• Train outdoors on the bike at least some of the time, don’t do most/all of my bike training indoors on the turbo trainer.

During a good training week in the past, I’d have done the following:

• 2 hard swims, 3 hard bikes, 1 easier bike, 2 hard runs, 2 easier runs. Plus weights and core work and stretching several times per week, with one day of complete rest per week. 

I would now change this to:

• 1 hard swim, 1 easy swim, 2 hard bikes, 1 easier bike, 1 hard run, 1-2 easier runs. Plus weights and core work and stretching.

This would give me two full rest days per week, and would remove 3 hard sessions per week, giving me far more opportunity to recover and stay fresh.

So a week in previous years, and a week next year, looks like this, with the weekly session number in brackets:

Day	Session in previous years	Session next year
Monday	Rest (0)	Rest (0)
Tuesday	60-80 minute hard turbo bike (1) AND Short easy run (2)	60-80 minute hard bike (1) OR 60-80 minute bike intervals (1) (both with some single leg drills)
Wednesday	30-50 minute fartlek run (3)	30-40 minute fartlek run (2) OR 1 hour tempo run (2)
Thursday	70-90 minute turbo bike intervals (4)	Rest (2)
Friday	Swim 3000-4000m (sprints) (5) AND 60 minute turbo bike (single leg drills) (6)	Swim 3000-4000m (sprints) (3)
Saturday	3-6 hour turbo bike (7) AND Short easy run (8)	3-4 hour turbo bike (4) OR 3-5 hour outdoor bike (4) AND Short easy run (5)
Sunday	Swim 3000-4000m (continuous/drills) (9) AND Long run (2+ hours) (10)	Swim 2000m easy (6) AND Long run (2+ hours) (7) OR Run interval session (7)

Ignoring the weights and core work sessions, in previous years I did 10 swim/bike/run sessions per week, with one day of rest. Next year I’d plan to do 7 swim/bike/run sessions per week, with two days of rest per week. This will hopefully help to keep me fresh, strong, non-depleted and should still be enough to get me to the level I need to get to.

In the past couple of years, the start of January saw the start of intense focused training for summer Ironman races. This has been a 7 month build up to Ironman UK and a 9 month build up to Ironman Wales. Far too much. I’ve felt that I’ve peaked in May or June, and after that I have just fought my way through to the big important races in a state of chronic fatigue. It has been said that you are better to be 10% undercooked than 1% overcooked going into an Ironman. I can see the truth in this, and I’d say I was a lot more than 1% overcooked on previous occasions.

Athletic targets for 2016 are:

• Do a good Ironman 
• Qualify for Kona.
• Compete well at Kona.
• Try to go sub-2 hours at an Olympic distance triathlon.
• Try to run a sub-33 minute 10K.
• Run well at the Northern Ireland and Ulster Cross Country championships (although this will require some thought as to how to fit it into my training plan).

Hopefully circumstances (mainly employment circumstances), and a sensible training plan, will allow these goals to become reality.