The Iron Woman

A year ago I signed up for a challenge that I was unsure I would complete. A year ago I could not swim front crawl. A year ago I was terrified of cycling. A year on I am an Ironwoman and to be honest, if I can do it anyone can. Here are a few […]

Having never been a fan of running, people find it odd when I tell them I occasionally dabble in ultra-marathons or adventure ultras. The look of confusion is something I have come to enjoy. So for a person who hates running why on earth do I do them? Firstly, I run a minimal amount during […]

The swimming pool, the perfect place to people watch. Over the months I have been both intrigued and irritated with the variety of people at my local pool. However, there appears to be a pattern in the types of behaviour displayed, and almost all people can be filtered into one of the below types of […]

The longest bike ride to date. I was nervous, no I was beyond nervous. If I could not get through this, then there was no point in trying Iron Man in July. So hesitantly I packed some of my bags the night before, ate all the food and got a good nights sleep to stand […]

So, after realising you bit off more than you could chew with your first triathlon being a half Iron Man distance what do you decide to approach for your second? Yes, another half Iron Man. However, I had not thought about how long it would take for my body to recover from the first half, […]

So how do you break yourself into triathlons gently? How do you build up stamina to a full ironman? You jump in at the deep end with a half Iron Man, of course, then everything else will feel easy! After all, if you can do a half, you are almost there? That was my mentality […]

The consensus is that to run a triathlon you need to adopt running, cycling and swimming into your routine and focus on these to improve and be ready for race day. While I agree with this, do we need to scrap our hobbies? Will they have any transferable skills? I was told at the beginning […]

After a few months of paddling around in vain at my local leisure centre, and not getting anywhere regarding efficiency, I decided to admit defeat on the swimming front and have lessons. How useful was this? Did it cost a fortune? Did I improve? Initially, I figured that a couple of swims a week would […]

Last weekend saw the introduction of pure road running races. No adventure marathons, no mud, no trial runs, no mountains, just loop upon loop of tarmac...I could barely contain my excitement.  13 miles up Benidorm strips and on the seafront. I had not given the run much thought as I had signed up as an […]

Last weekend I part took in my first bit of brick training for Iron Man in the form of an Olympic Duathlon...well that is what it was supposed to be. Why did I do this? What benefits did it add to my training? What lessons did it teach me? Why? I have been told by […]

The Role Of Excuses In Our Fitness Demise... Acknowledge And Conquer. We all need a rest or a break that is no secret. However, when does a few days R and R digress into the realms of laziness and bad habits? When do we start to make excuses and invent reasons as to why we […]