New Blog Site - Firsttimeironman.com

Due to the large number of people reading my weekly training blog, I am now posting all my blogs on my new website http://www.firsttimeironman.com/


To view my weekly blog http://firsttimeironman.com/features.aspx?cat=13

Thank you everyone for reading my blogs and making me get off my fat arse and train

I am running out of names for each blog... sorry

This week didn’t quiet go according to my training schedule but for one reason or another, I spent most of the week in pain. I did make each training session count.

I thought I would take on the Scottsdale ride again only hitting it four days prior but this time I took the time trial bike. If it was hard going on the road bike, this time it killed a small piece of me inside on the TT bike.  I enjoy talking to the old guy in a small shop at Scottsdale, we joke that anyone who doesn’t do the Scottsdale ride must be home knitting tea pot covers (looking at him, i think he would struggle walking to the front door). According to the heart rate monitor, I burned a little over 4000 calories on this ride

I have only recently started running on grass, people have been telling me to do it for a few years. I do admit that running on grass I can see a big improvement with me running (it is not hard to improve when you are already a crap runner)

Very disappointing in the pool this week having missed out on my Sunday swim. To make things worse I will be on holiday with the family next week in Melbourne and Sydney.  This means no bike. I may be able to get a swim in somewhere and a few runs but my training will be non existence. Not the best way to be with 12 weeks out of an Ironman.

This week training was 12.5 hours with

Swim: 2 sessions

Bike: 3 rides

Run: 3 runs

Gym: 1

Weight: 84kg (I bet I will weigh another 2kg more after a week on holidays)

Looking back, it was a bit of a non event week........ sorry about that as well.

Tim Weekly

I was thinking early in the week that I needed to do something fun and exciting so I have something to write on my blog.  As my Base training is coming to a near, I thought it would be fun to slaughter the body with a ride to Scottsdale and back.  I did this ride about two months ago and it took the wind out of my sails quick smart and in a hurry.

I did the ride about 40 minutes quicker than last time but it felt just as hard (funny that). I am now training with a heart rate monitor on and I was surprised to see how low my heart rate was on this ride. I thought something wasn’t quite right so I thought I should irritate Scotty Hunter about it (he must dread my name coming up on his phone with all my dumb-arse questions).

Luke talked me into riding with the Bike Central bunch Friday morning. It started well when I pulled into the church car park on Margret Street when I ran up the gutter in front of everyone.  To make matters worse, I couldn’t for the life of me get my shoe back into the paddle. All the other riders must have been thinking “who is this numb nut”

I went to this lady who did a stretch session with me. She had me in positions I thought would be impossible to get into. My hips and gluts and extremely tight so much of the session was focusing on these areas.  I walked out thinking it was worth every cent spent.

Weight management seems to be going along like a yoyo.  I weigh myself everyday and when I am really good the weight pours off me but when I get in the chocolate groove (most days), the weight jumps back on.  All in all, I lost another 1kg this week bringing my bright white chubby body to 83kg.

Week’s training totalled 12 hours.

Swim: 3

Bike: 3

Run: 3

Gym: 1

Yoga/stretch Session: 1

Lookihng over Scottsdale

Test Week

This week is a bit of a hard week to write about. Nothing exciting happened. I trained alone and it was test week.  I set up a time trial for 1km swim, 15km ride and a 5km run just to check where my fitness is at (it appears my fitness is still hiding).  My plan is to do the same time trials every month and with a little bit of luck I can see an improvement each month.

My swimming is going better than I thought it would be, I no longer swimming like a brick….. it is more like a paver now (still poor but progressing) Bike is awesome over shorter rides but I need a lot of work once clicking over 100km and running is still short distance as I am still getting my shins right.

I have had my head stuck in books of late with reading "Swim Workouts for Triathletes", Joe Friel’s “Your Best Triathlon” and now just started Joe’s other book “The Triathlete’s Training Bible”. Each book is great and I highly recommend them to anyone.  With the help from these books and Richard Whitefield, I have put together a training program for the 14 week build up to ironman Western Australia that is on Sunday 4^th December.

My weight loss is stagnate, nothing has changed unfortunately. It has been harder than I thought trying to get back onto counting calories again. Chocolate has it in for me. 

This week’s training was 10 hours

Swim: 3 sessions

Bike: 3 rides

Run: 3 with one being a hill intervals

RPM: 1

Yoga: 1

Gym: 1 (Poor efforts)

Weight: 85kg

Just got my new 2XU compressions in the mail and about to test them running up and down David Street. It really isn't that much fun David's street. - Killer

Pulling a stupid face after my Bike Time Trial,  I thought I would risk looking like a tool (well more than normal) and take my aerodynamic helmet out….. (the face doesn't help matters I know)

After the Time Trial. I thought I would take this photo not to show you my bike but to give my security company a plug…. In every photo this week you will see my Valiant Security logo in it somewhere…. Get onto it people. http://www.valianttasmania.com/



No Frills Training Week

Last week’s training was a little bit more respectable then the week prior. I trained a few times with Luke who always seems to bring out the best in my training. I hope one day to talk Luke into triathlons cause I recon he would kick arse at it.

My weight loss side of things was going along like a steam train having lost another 2kg by Thursday then it derailed quick smart and in a hurry. I have been watching the calories so closely that by Thursday night I just couldn’t take it any longer. I began to eat like a diamond and didn’t stop till Sunday I ate us out of house and home.  I put back on one of the kg I lost but boy it felt good to eat crap again for a few days.

The big ride for the week was suppose to be 160km but I thought I would be a  bit of a girl and cut it short (some of the unexpected hills took the wind out of my sail) so the ride was actually 130km with a brick session on at the end.  No matter what anyone tells me about brick sessions, I really don’t enjoy them that much.

I went and had a massage for the first time in about five months and man was it great.  The lady told me that my gluts are extremely tight (probably the reason I run like I have a stick up my rear end) I am going back next week for her to rip into them again.

Training for the week included 13 hours

Swim: 3 swim sets (should have been four but spend time with the kids)

Bike: 3 rides

Run: 4 with one a hill session and the other a brick session

Gym: 2 full body sessions

Yoga: None, I went for a quick swim instead

Renee took this photo of me stretching before killing White Hills…. Ok White Hills almost killed me

Saw this security sign in Birralee and thought that someone took the time to actually paint such a crap sign…. I bet they thought it would work as well (I couldn't see any CCTV, I thought if the cameras were as good as the sign then it most likely wouldn't be working anyway)

I like to spend my Saturday nights at the car wash cleaning my bike….. “this guy has an awesome life” you are telling yourself…. A little sad I know

First Time Ironman

I started up FirstTimeIronman.com about two weeks ago dedicated to telling the stories of triathlete’s first Ironman and 70.3 experiences.

Before I completed IMWA, I would search the internet to read people’s blogs who have completed an ironman so I could learn as much as I could from their races (things like don’t eat KFC the night before – poor bloke).  I thought it would be great to start up a website that focuses on this. 

After registering the domain name and got a cheap hosting package, I got cold feet with the whole idea. I thought I have only invested $150 into the site, I haven’t lost much, I have a lot on my plat currently. Until I was working one night and I was board shitless and thought I would chuck my story and pro triathlete Guy Crawford’s blog about his first Ironman (I asked him a couple of months ago) on the site, hit live and see how I would go. I sent the word out on Twitter and Facebook and within a week, I was getting a good volume of traffic on the site.

Due to the interest from the amount of age groupers and a number of pros, I am getting the site built by the good team at Itag Media (they do good work, they built two websites for me and both look awesome) I hope to be running a few different features off the site that should make it a little more unique.

So time to plug the site: you should all have a look at the site www.firsttimeironman.com and follow the updates on Twitter @firstironman and let me know what you think and if you can come up with any suggestions to help improve the site please send me an email timothy@valianttasmania.com

I come armed with excuses

Another big week killed my training. Worked over 70 hours again (the joys of owning your own business).

I have just switched to a 24 hour gym.  It was a hard as the owner of the gym I have been going to has been good to me but unfortunately I can’t go and workout at midnight. The reasons for joing a 24 hour gym is 1) It is open 24 hours, 2) It is located on the bottom of a killer hill so once a week after killing a small part of my legs in the gym, I can run up and down David Street. My mate does it and he told me that it is more a mental thing then physical pain but when I did it last Thursday my legs were killing me (the same pains as if I was running the last 5km for a marathon)

I have really been watching what I have been sticking into my mouth. Thanks to Scott’s blog on Calorie Counting. Calorie Kings tells me I should be eating1850 calories a day (I normally have this amount for lunch) I have been doing my best to keep it around this 2000 per day. You would think it would get easier as each day rolls on but it is bloody hard.  I have always eaten what I like and I am famous for the amount of food I eat.  I have this joke that I eat for ten men but it wouldn’t be that far off it. 

I have always trained to keep my weight off and the moment I slow down or stop, I start to look like the side of a bus. To give you an example, I stopped doing…. Well everything but work in 2001 and I went from 82kg to 100kg in no time at all. I lost that and just a few years back I stopped cycling for ITB pains and I went up to 95kg. I stayed at 95kg for a couple of years and two months before IMWA last year I lost a 10kg. after IMWA I jumped up to 90kg and just in the last two months I have gone back down to 85kg.  I would like to shed another 5 to 10kg before December (wishful thinking)

What little training I did do was defiantly enjoyable. I trained for 6.5 hours.

Swim: 3 sessions

Bike: 1 (yup I know, very poor)

Run: 4 runs

Yoga: 0

Gym: 1 lower body session

Body weight: 85kg (17% body fat…… I am a big fatso whale)

We had some rain early in the week. This is some farmer’s entry. I had to turn around shortly as the road was also under water.