Welcome to season 4 of my Ironman journey. I would love to be able to say that I have successfully completed Ironman or other branded triathlons in each of the previous three seasons but let’s say it has been a very up and down journey. Probably more down than up.

I will start off with an apology. If you followed along with the season 2 (2019) and season 3 (2020) journey’s, they just suddenly ended with no explanation why or what happened. This was bad form on my part so I will try not to make that mistake again.

So, season 1 (2018) was my first year of training for an Ironman race. In that year I progressed from my first sprint triathlon at the LAST OF THE SUMMER TRI 2017 to complete IRONMAN 70.3 STAFFORDSHIRE 2018 and onto IRONMAN UK 2018 (Each event is linked if you fancy a read of my race recaps).

Season 2 (2019) was the year I wanted to build on the previous year of learning triathlon and the mistakes made during Staffs and Ironman UK. I hired a triathlon coach and we made early progress. I went into my first triathlon of 2019 at Ironman 70.3 Mallorca with high hopes, aiming for a PB and a GB Age Group slot. IRONMAN 70.3 MALLORCA 2019 definitely did not go to plan. I sustained a grade 2 calf strain on the entry to the swim. This resulted in 2 months out injured and I had to defer my entry for Ironman UK 2019 and Ironman Wales 2019. I managed to get a place in the ABERSOCH SPRINT TRIATHLON 2019 coming home with a PB and also OUTLAW X 2019 right at the end of the 2019 season, again coming home with a PB and a place in the GB Middle Distance Age Group team.

Season 3 (2020), one word sums up this one. 2020! need I say more? I was due to race Ironman 70.3 Mallorca, Ironman 70.3 Staffordshire, Ironman UK, Ironman Ireland and Ironman Wales. All of 2019’s races which were deferred to 2020. As we all know, racing in 2020 was cancelled so all of the above have been deferred to 2021. In general, training went ok. Run and bike training moved on a bit from 2019. Swimming held steady after a 9 month break from swimming due to pool closures. 2020 finished up with me missing 18 weeks of running due to three illnesses and a knee injury.

That brings us to Season 4 (2021)….

The aim once again is to PB at the half and full distances. This is going to be a tougher task this year. I missed a lot of swimming in 2020 and we start 2021 back in lockdown with pools closed once again. I also start 2021 with knee tendonitis which put me out of running for the last 11 weeks of 2020 and probably looking at a further 4 – 12 weeks off running. The bike has been ok in 2020.

The race plan for 2021 is as follows:

• 8th May – Ironman 70.3 Mallorca
• 13th June – Ironman 70.3 Staffordshire
• 4th July – Challenge Roth (A Race)
• 15th August – Ironman Ireland
• 12th September – Ironman Wales
• 19th September – Ironman 70.3 Weymouth

As you can see, its a BIG year. Too many races too close together, three full distance races over a 10 week span. A full distance and half distance 7 days apart. Clearly, there is not enough recovery time to perform at my best after Challenge Roth. The hope is to race Mallorca, Staffs and Roth hard and just get around the remaining three races. I just want to get these races done with now having deferred most from 2019 to 2020 then to 2021. It is like Groundhog day building up for the same races.

Week One – 14 – 20 December

I am beginning this season in mid-December, with 6 and a half months to the big A race at Challenge Roth.

I went down with COVID-19 at the start of December and only felt fit enough to start back training on the 9th December.

This week I have been using the Peloton Bike and classes to bring in short low impact rides to protect my left knee and my heart rate has been high since recovering from COVID and my breathing has quickly gotten difficult during any effort, even walking upstairs results in me getting out of breath.

I started back swimming after a 9 month break. Back in February and March, I was making really good progress with my swim. This is by far my weakest discipline and one I need to really work on. I did two swims, starting off with a 2 x 1km session. I did this to see where my 1km speed is at after so long out of the pool. The second swim is the key session. A technique focused swim. Technique is something I don’t have. I spend my swims fighting with the water trying to power my way through.

Strength and stretching is an area I have really been focusing on over the past 3 months. The general consensus is my insufficient strength training and non-existent flexibility are the root cause of my knee tendonitis. This area is a big focus in my 2021 GOALS.

• Swim – 4210 yrds, 1hr 16min
• Bike – 81.3 Miles, 4hr 0min
• Run – 0 Miles, 0hr 0min
• Strength & Stretching – 5hr 30min

Week Two – 21 – 27 December

No running again this week.

Fours swims. A distance swim, technique session, speed session and finished up with a post-Christmas 70.3 (1900m) time trial. Really pleased to have swum my 3rd fastest time over 1900m, the only faster times were back in February and at the Ironman 70.3 Mallorca 2019 swim which was in the sea wearing a wetsuit. Good to be back to that kind of pace so soon after returning to the pool.

I began the week with more low impact spin classes on the Peloton Bike. I have been using these to increase my aerobic base. When I started back 2 weeks ago, I was struggling to push any kind of effort, I was getting out of breath quickly and my heart rate was high. This has slowly been improving as the days pass.

On the 24th Dec, I decided I would do the Rapha Festive 500 challenge on Strava. This is an annual challenge to ride 500km (310 miles) over the 8 days between Christmas and New Year. Given the knee injury and the need to ride easy I did this on Zwift in the garage using ERG mode to hold my power at 170w (2.2w/kg). This will prevent the ego from kicking in and trying to ride harder or push up the hills. My plan was to do one or two 75 or 90 minute easy ride each day in addition to some Peloton Rides.

To be honest, the most difficult part of this was the temperature in the garage. 5 of the 7 days I did were under 0’c in there. Most days I lost feeling in my feet despite wearing two pairs of socks and overshoes. Riding indoors certainly is not warmer in my garage.

• Swim – 8503 yrds, 2hr 24min
• Bike – 257.22 Miles, 12hr 5min
• Run – 0 Miles, 0hr 0min
• Strength & Stretching – 4hr 15min

Week Three – 28 December – 3 January

No running this week. The knee is still not pain-free despite 11 weeks off running. It is ok to swim and ride the bike as long as I don’t push off the wall hard or ride at high watts so it’s just swim and bike training for the time being.

This week I completed the Rapha Festive 500 by riding 548km but continued with the easy rides on Zwift. I am starting to see the heart rate get lower on each of these easy rides. Hopefully, it is just the lack of training since 18th October that brought the heart rate up and no knock on from long COVID.

I did one technique swim this week before the pool closed for New Year and then came the news that Cheshire was moving into tier 4 and the pool would be closed once again.

So for the next month or two, it is just going to be bike and strength & stretching training. I am not that concerned about missing swim training at this point. I gained a lot of confidence that I can quickly get back up to my (slow) speed after 3 or 4 swims, so I think if the worst comes to the worse and we don’t get back in the pool before Open Water season starts in April/May, I can get back to where I was quickly and at least know I can swim the distance.

• Swim – 2324 yrds, 44min
• Bike – 258.94 Miles, 12hr 40min
• Run – 0 Miles, 0hr 0min
• Strength & Stretching – 1hr 5min

Week Four – 4 – 10 January

No running or swimming this week… this is going to be a common update.

Third week of 250+ miles. The garage is slightly warmer now the snow is starting to melt. My plan for the bike is to do a daily 30 min low impact spin on Peloton each morning before working from home & homeschooling, then a daily 60 minute easy ride on Zwift with a longer Saturday ride, starting at 2 hours for now before building this up to 4 or 5 hours as we get closer to Challenge Roth

The 2021 Tour De Zwift started this week so I jumped on stage 1 and decided to just give the knee a little test. Surprisingly it felt ok, no pain at all even when averaging 284w for the 55 minute ride. More importantly, it didn’t feel any worse in the days afterwards. Stage 2 was on Sunday morning, another where I was going to take it easier after Saturday’s longer ride but ended up going a little harder but felt good and the knee was fine.

It was pretty much easy riding all the way. I won’t lie, it is boring and not the most motivating chugging along at 180w for 60 minutes but I am seeing my average heart rate decrease when comparing Sunday’s ride to 4 weeks ago, the average is down by 25bpm and more or less back to where I would expect it to be.

The 2 hour longer ride on Saturday got done but it was tougher than earlier in the year. Which let’s face it, is to be expected at this stage of the season. This was the first ride over 90 minutes since September and I underestimated it by not fueling during the ride. Just one bottle of water. The session was 10 min warm up, 50 min @ 230w, 5 min recovery @ 180w, 50 min @ 230w, 5 min cool down. Not the biggest of sessions but the heart rate was up in the 150’s towards the end. Try again over the next few weeks and see if we can track some progress.

The reason for doing 250 mile weeks of low impact / low intensity riding is to start to build the aerobic base. The engine that will power the longer sessions and long steady zone 2 rides of the future. Eventually, I hope this base will also mean I am not as far behind on the run fitness when I am able to return to running.

• Swim – 0 yrds, 0hr 0min
• Bike – 252.72 Miles, 11hr 19min
• Run – 0 Miles, 0hr 0min
• Strength & Stretching – 4hr 24min

OnThe journey continues on my IRONMAN – SEASON 4 PART 2 post.