Monday – Day Off

Tuesday – 5K Run, 1K Open Water swim

Morning started with the Westin Run club (you can sign up for the July run club here) then an awesome evening at the lake with Steph. It was my first open water swim since the Geneva Triathlon. I was really nervous but felt ok once I was actually in the lake. Originally I was planning on just doing the 300m loop but once we were in, I felt good enough to do the big loop – 1000m. And then while Steph swam another 250m, I struggled to get out of my wetsuit (forgot my towel, borrowed Steph’s, bought a DryRobe, had a delicious hot chocolate).

Swimming goggles – I find my Aquasphere goggles to be the best at keeping water out. I went to a specialist swim shop for these when I swam the Henley Classic a few years ago, they helped find a pair that properly fit my face and it’s life changing! I highly recommend getting tinted/reflected lenses for open water swimming to avoid being blinded by the sun.

My hat had a lot of compliments (and I had a lot of recommendations to ensure I swam in a hat all the time to protect my hair!) This one is from the same shop I bought my goggles at – my aunt and I decided that we look like hippos in our wetsuits so bought these fun hats, plus it literally couldn’t be more appropriate for me post-swim! You can find more on amazon but I love this Pug Princess cap or this blue pink flamingos cap.

Wednesday – 4 easy miles along the towpath with Emma for Global Running Day.

Thursday – swim and bike at a gym in London using a Hussle Pass (although I’ve worked with them, I pay for my own passes and this is not sponsored! This link will give you 50% off a day pass)

1 hour easy bike

2200 yard swim (in what I thought was a 25m pool…it wasn’t so no idea of actual length that I completed)

Warm up: 300 free, 200 pull, 100 kick

4 x 50 Fist Drill (25 fist, 25 swim)

200 build – start easy, build to fast

10 x 100m with 20 seconds rest

200 cool down.

I had a lot of questions about what pull, kick, fist drill etc is.

Pull – focusing on your arms, using a pull buoy in your legs to keep them afloat, no kicking.

Kick – using a float for your arms, only kicking, no arm stroke.

Fist -basically swimming freestyle with a closed fist. This is designed to show you weaknesses within your stroke and how much you rely on your palms during freestyle/frontcrawl. Check out this video to find out more.

Friday – 90 minutes Yin/Yang yoga, 5 mile easy run.

Saturday – 45 mins on the bike at the gym watching Love Island (used a Hussle Pass again to find a gym nearby after my gym was closed) followed by a 1900m swim at a new pool I’ve joined near home. It was here in the 25m pool that I realised that the other pool was actually 20m, and therefore I am no-where near as fast (or strong!) as I thought!

Warm up: 300 free, 200 pull, 100 kick

3 x 200m with 30 seconds rest

2 x 100m with 15 seconds rest

4 x 50 fast & slow (25 fast, 25 slow, 15 seconds rest)

4 x 25 fast with 45 seconds rest

100 easy

100m time trail -> this felt so hard after that full set and bike first thing. 1.52 is all I could manage and I felt zonked afterwards.

100m cool down.

One of the fun things about starting some new sports is the progression, I know that swimming and biking aren’t easy for me but with work I’ll see improvements!

Celebrated National Donut Day (a day late) post swim with this beauty. I didn’t even make it out of the Tesco car park before I’d devoured it!

Sunday – Erm… I know I share my real life on here, and the reality was that I was hungover on Sunday morning and my 2 hour bike ride with Tom did not happen. All we did manage to do was pop to the pub at the end of our road to watch the England vs Scotland Women’s World Cup game. So the long ride will happen today (Monday!)

Overall, this week I’ve realised firstly how exhausting training for this ironman is going to be, and how much I need to prioritise sleep and nutrition. That I need to be somewhat flexible with training, however scheduling in my workouts ahead of time can help with organisation, especially when I have multiple double day workouts. Oh and that I cannot waste days with hangovers! Thinking about swapping a day off for a weekend day in light of plenty of weddings this summer!