24th January

The two hour 50km bike on Saturday happened, it was a bit painfull due to wind and a little rain - I probably ended up working too hard!
A few beers in the hotel with family on Saturday night (not too many) then up early for a run before breakfast on Sunday morning.  On the whole this was really enjoyable, ran down and round Hayling Island which was beautiful at 7am on a Sunday morning with a sea mist clearing.  I was out for about 1 hour and 5 minutes, for about 1 hour of this my heart rate didnt pass 140.  

Then suddenly it was 215, why? a sodding dog was in pursuit (and it wasn't playing) 20 yds behind the dog there's the owner shouting for me to stand still - I promptly did this and guarded my nuts in one swift movement.  Now, I am not quite sure whether it was a lack of education, no common sense or just sheer panic but once the owner caught up to us (the dog and I) he decided in his infinite wisdom the first thing he should do is apologise to me.  While he is doing this the dog is still gamely sniffing around parts I would rather it stayed well away from.  Finally he got the point when my sensitive, subtle side came across and I screamed out "get your F~**~##* dog on the lead!

Monday morning and it was time to get back on the turbo, 6am spin for an hour, replicating hills, steady state with maximum resistance but low RPM to try and build leg muscle.  Pickups every 5 minutes or so.  Need to do this as bike is probably my weakest disciplines, bummer its about half the race!!!  My Ironman success will depend heavily on building my bike, I need to get a good speed at moderate effort, hence maintaining energy for the marathon.  So I followed the bike up with some weights to build leg strength further.  And these weren't normal weights, NO, I couldn't do things by half, so I decided I needed to look up some of Lance Armstrongs old workouts on-line.  I did a half an hour session of walking up and down the garage like a monkey on steroids with weights on my shoulders - then couldnt make it up the stairs for a shower!

Half an hour swim at lunchtime focusing on drills.

Rest day tomorrow I think, probably just a lunchtime swim to flush muscles................