As may be seen my goals for the next few months have changed a while back to refelct my off season goals and to try and start a new phase in my ironman racing career. A period away from ironman training has helped to renew my passions for cycling and running (the less said about swimming the better at the moment). The questions I ask are what should I do differently in my training,if anything, where should I cut my training schedule what should I spend more time in and most importantly how can I get quicker.
After 6 ironman races I know where my key limiter is, which remains my running, and although I am sure my tendency to go hard on the bike may be a limiter, I am equally sure that the gains are to be made in better run training and the challenge is how to make sure I reflect this in my training plan. The problem is that with limited resource (time) and the fact that it always running I find the hardest to recover from plus a tendency for injury it always seems to be running that I fail to achieve my training goals on.
To try and keep the balance I am hoping to get into the gym to do a bit of conditioning every week, I am toying with the idea of barefoot running but think this may be a step too far, although I am currently moving towards neutral flat running shoes. I am also embarking on a course of management training over the next 6 months (only the odd day) but I am hoping to take some of the lessons into my training and racing.
My first lesson is from Aristotle
We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.
So I plan to develop the habit of being an excellent runner!
