Ironman Switzerland 2011 - Training Update

2009 Barcelona,
2010 Copenhagen,
2011 Switzerland.

Our Ironman journey continues as we now think about our next event in Zurich in July 2011. As we roll along each year the size of our party seems to increase in size too. In Barcelona there was just myself & Genevieve, Jack & Johnny. In Copenhagen we had Graeme, Derek & Mark Daly alongside us and for next year in Switzerland we now have Graeme & Johnny again plus Dawn & Gareth in their 1st IM plus Genevieves sister Pammy is coming over from Canada too. As well as the ATHelite crowd there are also 8 guys from our local Lanark Tri Club too. Go Team Lanarkshire! Should be fun.

Whilst the event is not till the middle of next year we are already into our training plan and are currently in our second 4 week block. We move through different training periods as we progress, the current period being the preparation phase. This is initially a 'train to train phase' & involves getting your body strong to be able to withstand the heavier loads that will be put upon it later in the training. This features lots of back to basics swim sessions focussing on drills & technique & gym sessions to strengthen the body & it's core. We are also on a 28 day run program to increase running frequency without creating too much fatigue. Cycling is always the hardest bit this time of year, especially in the snow, so these are mostly indoor sessions but this is fine - there is plenty of time to be knocking out the mileage after New Year. I find that if I push the biking too hard now I risk burning out later in the season. Our bike training next year will feature more individual rides and less group riding. There is no bunch riding on race day - it is individual time trial & we will train more specifically for this.

As we move through December our training moves into the Base phase for the next few months - building the base & building the endurance. Ironman training can be thought of as a triangle - the bigger the base, the higher the peak.

Going forwards our training plan will look a little different to previous years where we have stayed in Base phase almost up to the event. This time round we will replace Base with a Build phase as we focus much more on solo race specific workouts. More of this later! 

For now we have to deal with training in these somewhat extreme weather conditions but hopefully it won't last the whole winter like it seemed to last year!!