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May
30
2008
|
Personal Update: Ironman UK |
DUBLIN, IRELAND (Team Geared Up) Right. Hard to know where to start with this one so I’ll go back to the start of the year. I was heading over to France for our annual trip to the Trail Blanch Font Romeu (Snow Race) and had set myself a deadline which was this: that I would decide the day I landed home from that race whether I would enter for an ironman (ignoring the fact that I couldn’t swim and had never cycled). Of course during the trip I couldn’t find other reasons not to enter, (besides those!) so the day after I came home I put in an entry for Ironman UK in September, thinking well I’ll train for my Rotterdam marathon in April, just learn to swim between now and then and after Rotterdam I would decide for sure if I would go ahead with the ironman. I don’t procrastinate much do I?!!
So then that deadline came and went so a week after Rotterdam, through my friend Rob, I met with an Ironman coach Peter Kern of PB Coaching and let him decide how do-able it really was for someone like me. After watching me attempt to swim (I swam about 5 metres I think and then had to stop!) he gave me odds of 70 percent of being able to complete the swim (Ironman swim is 3800m). Those chances were good enough for me, well they were considerably better than zero anyway! He initially told me my next deadline should be to swim 400 metres in a month. That was the 23rd April. So I set about swimming every day with that goal in mind. In order to have time to train at running and cycling also, I usually swam at 6am, which also meant the pool was quiet. So last Friday on the 23rd May (one month later) I achieved my first goal of swimming 400 metres. The month in between has involved lots of advice and meetings with Peter, lots of drills and slowly increasing the distance. It’s considerably shorter than the ironman distance of 3800 metres but it’s a start. And Peter has increased my chances to 90 per cent. :-)
As for the other triathlon disciplines well I’ve been following a programme from Peter and so far all is good. I’ve still not gotten used to the pedal/clip things on the road bike so a few of my spins have involved keeling over when I couldn’t get my feet out of the pedals!
I’ll keep you posted about how it’s going……I think the reason I’m not saying too much is nerves (and fear of failure)!!
-Aisling-
Latest Comments (6):
Ais, For the real ironman are you going to be swimming across lake, in a river or the sea? There is a nice spot down in seapoint in Sandymount if you wanted to swim in the sea. High tide times are on http://www.ireland.com/weather/tides.html
Hey G, thanks for that. Really useful. I’m planning on getting to Seapoint soon with Peter.
The ironman event I’ve entered is a lake.
Its really nice down there, you’ll get to see all the hardcore oldies who swim 365 days of the year in their togs. There are no currents or rip tides so you’ll have nothing to be worried about just the difference in temperature from the pool :-(
Looking forward to following your progress Aisling. It’d be great to see more posts on your preparations.
You’ve just reminded me that I’ve committed to running a triathlon in August and at the moment I can just about manage two lengths before reverting to a spluttering doggy paddle.
Hey G, I was actually speaking to someone yesterday who said those sea swimming clubs don’t allow you to wear wet suits, that’s why they’re all in their togs. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Hi Ferg. I’ve been wanting to post for a while but I was really scared I wouldn’t make the 400 in a month!! I would have posted about that anyway but at least it would be after the fact.
If I was you I would get a coach or one-to-one swimming lesons. It’s incredible how different I feel about swimming in such a short space of time and that’s all down to Peter. Right now we meet for a pool session once a week and I swim 7 days a week.
Thanks Aisling, didn’t think of that.
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