Bala and Ironman UK Reconnaissance

Since I arrived back in England following Ironman Lanzarote my training has been going very well, I’ve got back into the routine of doing my long run every week, an interval session and a tempo session each week. The improvements in fitness over the last 3 weeks feel pretty big with me being able to hit some good times in my longer sessions. I was able to finish my long run strong on Saturday with the last 6 miles at 5m 40 pace, and last Thursday I did a 10 mile run home from my mid week time trial in 57 minutes.

My cycling has seen the addition of two hard sessions each week, the first session is a motor paced session where I ride behind a moped for around 50 miles. This is usually over undulating terrain and averages around 27-28mph. It’s very tough and forces you to push the hills hard and then recover while still working at quite a high power output. You also get used to the different Torq required to push race gears in training. It’s definitely working and is a very tough session. This Thursday I had a normalized power of 339w for 1 hour 50.

The second session is a local 10 mile time trial or a turbo session. It’s hard to really know how well you are going until you race so this weekend I will be racing Bala Middle distance triathlon. It seems like a good race to do as it’s fairly low key so there’s not a lot of pressure so I can carry on training through the race but also most importantly they have changed the bike course for Ironman UK this year so by doing the race I will also be able to do a recon of the bike course and get familiar with it.

I really want to be on top of my game for Ironmna UK and I’m sure that as well as being in the best shape I can be actually knowing what the course is like, where to push on and what’s coming up etc will make a big difference.
I will do a race report after the weekend also an update on what I think of the Ironman UK course for anyone that is interested. Hope you all have a good weekend and be sure to check back after the weekend to see how I get on.