After Reading a post from Crushingiron it made me think about my feelings and developing my own affair with ironman – the brand, the races I’ve entered, the training & the hours it will demand & consume in my life.

I replied to Crushingirons blog post with my initial thoughts, he’s going into his second ironman affair with eyes wide open and first hand knowledge & experience of what’s coming around the corner having ridden the roller coaster of the highs & lows. I’m tethering on the edge of the ironman black hole ready to leap into the unknown depths of training & races.

I wrote and received the following reply:

My reply:
Good luck with your new affair. I’m just starting my first ironman affair – seductive, scary, tantalising & terrifying 🙂

Crushing Irons reply:
It is a wild ride, but well worth losing your mind. ha!

Having just got back into building up to complete each session of my training plan after 3 weeks which kept me off my the bike, out the water & limited runs due to an infected sore on my coccyx. I’m seeing the days to ironmanUK countdown on my iPhone and my weekly training hours rising again. I’m back training consistently across all three triathlon disciplines as well as a weekly Pilates class and my weight is also starting to drop, so my winter excess has limited time to hang around lol !

When I’m not training, I’m surfing the web for all things ironman related, references and information on ironman, courses, branded kit, first timers forums, books, blogs, nutrition advice, I’ve bought official sponsors Powerbar stuff to try before I’m on course to make sure I get on with it and don’t need to take my own picnic. For a marketing professional who should know better I’ve been sucked into the ironman brand hook line & sinker.

When I was out of action I  spent my time researching cycle sportives for each month from December to May, building from 45 miles to 100 miles. This is so I have some interesting long group rides with company, which are also supported & assisted. I have managed to get a few friends to come sign up to the early season rides and I’ll work on them for the longer rides too. The building blocks are in place – coach for training plan, sportives entered, ironman70.3 entered to get used to the ironman way of event organisation, consistent steady truing building, fun factored in with Santa runs, snowboarding holiday ( excellent cross training at altitude), healthy eating less junk temptations and I seem to have  got my balance of- WORK & POLICE / FAMILY & FRIENDS / IRONMAN TRAINING / ENJOYING LIFE under control. Yes the occasional day when I feel I am juggling burning candles that are light at both ends

It’s getting addictive ! Not quite obsessive yet, but lets say dedicated to the cause and I’m told that addiction will come after Christmas early in the New Year. I’m ready to swim, ride ad run into the black hole of long distance triathlon.

Cant wait 🙂