This is the first of several posts to update you on the events of the last month or so which has included: two swimming races, a triathlon and a training weekend in Tenby; and its the latter where I'll start.
A good while back now, I asked Rhys if he fancied a weekend in Tenby to train and get an idea of what lies ahead. So, we synchronised diaries and made it down on the weekend of June 11th.
The Drive down was an absolute mission. The traffic was worse than normal and the weather was horrendous. But, we made it down safely and Rhys arrived early the following morning.
Our plan for the weekend was as follows: Sea swim on Saturday morning, followed by a run around one lap of the Ironman course. Sunday, we planned to take on the first half of the Ironman cycle route.
High tide is the best time to swim in Tenby; this was timetabled for 11:30am Saturday Morning. Poor Rhys didn't have much time to get sorted when he arrived at my house mid morning. It was pretty much a case of, "good to see you mate, come on lets go before the tide turns."
We headed down to the harbour and changed into our wetsuits at the town's sailing club. It was a cracking morning for swimming. The sun was up, the sky was blue and the water was like a mill pond.
We walked across the beach to where the actual race would start (by the big rock in the pic above).
The water was refreshing and it didn't take long at all to acclimatise. I grew up in Tenby, so swimming in the sea is nothing new, however, I've not done any long distance swimming in the sea; it was wall jumping off the pier and splashing about in boats when I was a kid.
After a chat and a float around we decided on a route. Straight across the bay then back to the harbour. I'm not sure how far this was as my Garmin wasn't charged, but it was a decent distance for a first sea swim.
Once I got a rhythm going, I felt fairly comfortable swimming in the sea and made it across the bay with no drama. We stopped for a few minutes to discuss how we got on and then headed back across to Goscar Rock (the big rock in the picture). Here we stopped again and then headed out into deeper water to head back to the harbour. There were a few boats coming in and out of the harbour and keeping an eye on them was a good opportunity to practise sighting. Apart from this, there were no problems and we made it to the slip comfortably. The conditions were perfect and I really hope this is the case on September 18th.
While the weather was so nice, we decided to go for a run straight from the swim. After changing into our running kit (including me making a right meal of getting my compression socks on) we headed off. The run was a good opportunity for Rhys to see the route and we made a few stops on the way to talk about different parts such as: the transition zone and how you get there after the swim.
We didn't cover a whole lap, but the majority. It's a fairly challenging route, with some long gradual gradients which will seem 100 times worse after a 112 mile bike ride.
All in all, this was a decent morning's training. Our reward? Watching the Welsh beat Slovakia in their opening Euro 2016 game at the Wiseman's Bridge Inn. Tidy!
On to the big one. The cycle.
Sunday morning was a stark contrast to Saturday. Pulling back the curtains, I was greeted with dark grey skies, and a lot of rain. Rubbish.
Not feeling particularly motivated, I dragged myself out of bed, grabbed a bite to eat and got ready. At this time there was no sign of Rhys. If I'm honest, part of me was hoping he didn't fancy it so I could go back to bed. A few minutes later, Rhys immerged thinking the exact same thing!
"NO! This is the main reason we came down here, lets just give it a bash." After this highly motivational, Braveheart style speech, we headed out.
The conditions were poor to say the least. It was the type of rain that falls lightly but absolutely soaks you at the same time. The first half of the course is apparently the 'flatter' part of the route. This is not good people. The hills in this so called 'flatter' section were pretty damn big. I mean it's almost a case of what goes up, just keeps going up! We weren't going at a race pace, as this was just a reconnaissance mission. We ploughed on and with every big hill, there came an awesome downhill. Rhys is a lot more confident on the down hills than me. I'm a bit of a wuss who's a tad trigger happy on the brakes. I'll work on this. The up hills were tough, but we got through them.
Eventually, the route takes you through a live firing range, which was obviously not in use that morning, but we weren't 100% sure. Needless to say, our average speed increased quite a bit in this section. It was just after this that my legendary navigational skills came to the forefront. We got lost. Looking back I now know where we went wrong; we should have turned right instead of left at a village called Castlemartin. No matter, this new route threw up one beast of a hill. It was huge, and although I know there are massive hills later on the route, I'm glad this one won't be. After a couple of stops and a few snickers bars, we made our way back to Tenby (So glad my folks live on a near vertical hill! Loved cycling up that at the end of a long ride!) We didn't cover the full distance we had planned to, but still got a good a amount of miles under our belts.
Overall, this was a really good training weekend which has given us both a good insight as to what is coming our way.
A lot of work to do over the next few months, but at the same time the excitement is building.
