Fitting training for an endurance event in around your life can be pretty tough, but Hannah has some tips. Oh and she aced a half marathon this weekend too!
Name: Hannah
Age: 23
The race: Ironman UK, Bolton, 20 July
Ironman history: The first of hopefully many (and, so far, my first ever triathlon!)
Goal: Finish in 12-13 hours
Hannah and training buddy Gregg on the start line of Inverness half marathon
This week has been a fairly long and tiring week, work and personal issues meant I was drained and time poor – and that was before trying to add training into the equation! Which is why mine has been fairly haphazard this week and not at all in accordance with what I am meant to be doing, but I suppose that’s all part of the challenge, fitting training around life. Without getting too technical, my written down training plan involves three runs, three swims, three cycles, one strength and conditioning session and one yoga session per week. This week it didn’t quite pan out that way. However through training so far, I have learned a few ways to get the sessions in without causing too much disruption.
My top tips for fitting training around life
Get up early and get it out of the way. There’s nothing worse than knowing you still have to do a long run or go to the pool when you’ve just finished a long day of work or university and all you want to do is go home and eat. Find a good training partner. You are accountable to someone and if you are lucky enough to have one that you are competitive enough with, you are never going to be the one who pulls out of a training session or suggests shortening your run because you’re tired or your legs hurt, you simply suck it up and rebrand your grimace as a smile. Utilise your commute if you have one, look for the odd hour in your schedule and fit in what you can when you can. Ultimately training just comes down to consistency, hard work, perseverance and listening to your body.
I also had Inverness half marathon this week. I’m not going to lie, I was dreading it a little bit especially after reading Lorna’s blog on The Silverstone Half Marathon. I was certain I was going to be plagiarising her words as my own. I woke up on Sunday morning at 2am for no apparent reason and couldn’t get back to sleep. This was the fourth night in a row where I had only managed to sleep for three or four hours and it was taking its toll – not what you need the night before a race. The weather report had looked dodgy all week (although if you pick a race in the north of Scotland at this time of year you can’t expect great things). And to top things off, I got a dreaded monthly call from Mother Nature an hour before the start of the race.
However, as I stood amongst the 3,500 people at the start line, I decided that none of that mattered. It was going to be a couple hours of my life, just putting one foot in front of the other and I was going to have to suck it up. It seems my little ‘talking to’ worked as I managed to complete the race in 1hour 35minutes and 32 seconds – a five minute PB! I finished as 24th women and I enjoyed pretty much every minute of it. It seems all this training is paying off, all the cycling and training has helped my running, a lot, now to try and fit it all in.
Weekly training stats
Monday
- 1hr Circuit training
- 5 Mile run
- 1hr Vinyasa flow yoga @ Sweaty Betty (get fit 4 free classes) – www.sweatybetty.com
Tuesday
- 1hr Circuit training
- 30 Mile cycle
Wednesday
- 25 Mile cycle
- 5 Mile run straight from the bike
Thursday
- 45 Mile Cycle
- 1hr Circuit training
Friday
- 3 Mile sprint (was meant to be a gentle jog but things got imaginarily competitive between myself and the boys running round Edinburgh)
- 2500m Swim
Saturday
- 30 minutes yoga
Sunday
- Inverness Half Marathon
Follow Hannah’s progress on Twitter here @hannahmelv20
