The one with the Canals booking

So as I write this I am excited to the core; something really big (to me) has happened. I have entered my first 70.3 Ironman event. Me and Zoe started talking about doing a 70.3 event (half Ironman) as part of my conditioning towards the full Ironman and to give me some experience. We had our eye on booking the Staffordshire event as it was local, but they were nearly full from Covid rollover bookings from this year and it’d be a gamble if I got into the event when it went live. In the meantime I got an email for a completely new event ‘Ironman Venice 70.3’. My recent mood fluctuations resulted in me saying ‘fuck it!’ And with a quick message to Zoe and Linda we decided to book it. However getting into these events can be tricky and they sell out in hours. But I booked some time in my diary for the launch time and sat prepared to keep hitting refresh. Within 8 hits of refresh I was in! Excited doesn’t cover it!

I also used some of the time the past few weeks with my eldest. He is growing up so fast.

I’ve also had my toughest 3 weeks of training. Reaching a crescendo of weekend 1:52hr run and a 108km bike ride. The 3 weeks building up my training has given me a real focus and my weight has dropped even further with a 5 1/2 stone weight loss now. Mentally I was starting to feel a lot better.

This week is rest week and it appears that my focus has dipped again if I’m honest. On Sunday when I got back from my big bike ride I ate lots and had a couple of beers. Then during the week while I felt guilty for that I in turn ate ‘an extra bit of cheese here and an extra egg there’. Friday was a tough one, I went to the pub and had 4 craft cask ales of around 8% each and a couple bag of crisps. Woke up feeling pants. I hope this isn’t another mood wave!

This morning was Brick session. Which is basically a bike ride followed by a run with a sub 90 second changeover. I never have suffered with hangovers but I really didn’t feel good this morning. It wasn’t the beer – I just really did not want to train!! I lay in bed for about 2 hours before I dragged my ass out of bed. Then it took another hour before I left the house – I really wasn’t feeling the love for Brick. Linda persuaded me to go out and I rode really hard for 45 min. However I forgot to start my Garmin (grrrrr) and was paranoid about my phone falling out. I really need to come up with a solution to my phone storage. I lost a pump a few weeks ago that fell out my pocket. Ride completed; I quickly got my shoes swapped and did the regular short tour of our estate. Usually I feel a lot better having exercised but not today. But hey-ho! We don’t quit!! We dust ourselves off and race another day. Tuesday is back to high intensity training (I’m learning I thrive on the structure and focus). Here’s a picture of my fav sub 300kcal meal. Need this sort of focus right now 🙂