Training for the Midlands Ultra Triathlon: Where to begin?

With the Lourensford half marathon and the Jailbreak triathlon still ahead of me, I may be jumping the gun (quite literally) by announcing that I am planning to do the Midlands Ultra Triathlon in March next year. However, to stand any chance of completing this event, I have no choice but to start training now already. I have thought long and hard about taking on this challenge. Preparing for 1.9km swimming, 88km cycling and 21km running is going to require a lot of time, dedication and perseverance. Completing the event is going to be the single biggest physical achievement I could ever dream of. It's quite simple: I found the challenge worth the sacrifice, and decided the go for it.

For unexperienced triathletes - like me - who are considering to prepare for a half Ironman (the distances mentioned above), a good reality check is to consult an online training schedule to see how many hours of swimming, cycling and running per week will be required in the 4 to 5 months prior to race day. There are many such schedules available for free, but I found the one provided by Trifuel particularly useful because it is extremely simple to follow and nicely colour-coded.

As I said in my previous post, getting enough sleep is probably the single most important "training rule" throughout the entire preparation period, and with that, I am going to sleep now : )

Till next post, I wish you all great motivation to set new goals, find the mental energy to practice improved time management and shop for healthy, wholesome food.

Lourensford half marathon coming up in two weeks

In two weeks from now, I'm scheduled to do my very first half marathon: the Vital Run half marathon in and around the beautiful Lourensford wine estate in Somerset West. So far the training has been good and I am nicely "on schedule".

The past two weeks have been good and bad. Good because I spent a great week diving, kite surfing, swimming and running in Egypt with my brother. Bad because the week thereafter, I ate way too many biscuits and desserts during a 4-day workshop in London. Why was I able to stay away from all the amazing cakes at the dessert buffet in Egypt and did I stuff myself with rather tasteless biscuits in London? The answer, in my case, is stress and sleep. In Egypt, all we had to worry about is to get to the kite shop around 9am, and get the boat back at 3pm. In London, I had back-to-back meetings, dozens of e-mails to read and write, and a ton of small and big deadlines to stay on top off.

Now that I'm back in Cape Town with 2 weeks to go for the half marathon, my goal is to refind myself a bit, set daily realistic goals for work and training, and force myself to go to bed no later than 10.30pm so that I can break the cycle of fatigue, unproductive working hours, and overcompensation with carbs and late-night work.