With sandstorms hitting the UAE this weekend it gave me the perfect excuse to lock myself in my new gym and put some mileage in the legs after loosing the first 3 days of the week with a sinus infection.

Friday turned into a rather unexpected drill session with a PT in my new gym. She saw me on the running machine working on my foot striking Thursday evening and came up to me to help me film it. From there she gave me some advice on training and offered to help me (for free) with a number of things including my core strength and technique. If there is one thing I’ve learnt from talking to people and reading the countless blogs and websites about training for an event like the Ironman is that these two areas cannot be ignored. There is no question that you have to put the miles and hours in to build the endurance but if you can work on strength, technique and endurance at the same time, then you’re on to a winner. So after very little thinking I gladly accepted her offer. I had no idea what I had let myself in for…..

After cycling 30k Friday morning she  showed me the set up she’d put together outside. It all looked pretty standard for a core session with relatively low weights and steps etc similar to what id been doing in the summer with cross fit. I won’t bore you with the exact exercises but I did 3 rounds of running drills, low weight squat movements and a few other core drills and it had me on the verge of puking my guts up which is something you don’t really do when working on endurance. It was really tough but one of the most valuable hours of training I’ve done so far. Ive been working on trying to switch between forefoot and heel striking when running so I can learn how to use different muscles and conserve energy over longer distances and these drills are going to be a massive help in that transition.

What I didn’t consider however was the effect it would have on my legs which hadn’t been exposed to this level of abuse for a while. Suffice to say that today’s endurance session was a lot harder than originally thought but I got through it in the end even if I looked like was trying to balance an orange between my legs when I walk! A gruesome ice bath was next followed by an evening on the sofa watching Arsenal stumble over the line to beat West Brom and leapfrog Chelsea (even if its for only for 24 hours) capping off an enjoyable yet painful weekend.

I just want to quickly echo the praise already shown to everyone that’s helped us reach the 10k milestone. It really is inspiring to see so many people make such an effort and certainly gives me that extra 10% I sometimes need when I’m thinking about missing a session. As always Colin you continue to be a legend with your weekly blog posts which not only have my laughing out load regularly but have taught me what can be achieved when you have a positive attitude no matter what you’re faced with.