Week 61, into week 62. Race week!!!

Week 61. It’s Monday lunch time as I sit here writing this weeks blog. In six days time I will be competing in my first ever Ironman event. A 2.4 mile sea swim, 112 miles bike leg and a 26.2 mile marathon. Am I nervous? Not yet. Will I be? Defiantly, probably around Friday, when I attend the race registration in Tenby. Week 61 training didn’t see a lot of action, just a final sea swim of 45 minutes and a 3.45 bike ride which was more a test of pacing. So still getting plenty of rest. I have three massages lined up with the lovely lady at R&R treatment rooms in Haverfordwest. I had one Saturday, I will have another this coming Saturday, the day before the race and a final one on the Tuesday after the race. This Saturdays was lovely. The idea being, the motion and the oils relive the stress and lactic acid build up in the muscles leaving you and your legs felling fresh and ready to go. The ankle that was troubling me seems to be ok now. I went for a short half hour run this morning with no problems. A run at race pace with some 1 minute bursts of double race pace. No great volume this week just short sharp workouts or active recovery. I have a box that I am putting everything to do with race in, like cycling clothes running clothes spare tubes, that sort of thing. It will all be sorted into the relevant bags, when I get them on Friday morning from Registration.

The last Supper........................I’ve just been shopping for my race week nutrition, or food as I used to call it. What a fantastically healthy looking trolley I had. I will probably never have a trolley like that again in my life. I remember just over a year ago around this time of year a trolley of mine could have contained 2x24 packs of Carlsberg, 4 tubes of Pringles 2 packs of white roles, 24 burgers and a pack of sausages. My how things have changed. All in all my eating habits throughout this process have been good. I may have stayed slightly every now and then but on the whole I’ve done well, by that I mean healthy eating. I have not had more than one glass of red wine in any sitting and probably less frequently than once a month. This week is another notch up. Super healthy virtually zero fat. No large portions, just little and often. Fruit and veg a plenty.