Monday 21 May 2012

The Journey So Far...

Time to recap and find some perspective. The Outlaw is just under 6 weeks away, when people ask how much training I'm doing and what I'm doing they all seem confident I'll do it and be fine. My personal opinion varies, not even day to day, but minute to minute at times. After work last Saturday I did and hour on the bike followed by a 16 mile run, 2 hours 15 mins. It was a real mental battle. Why am I even doing this? My friends all think I'm pretty much mental, and I can't disagree, all I know is, that when I start something, I see it through. Life feels like it's on hold at the minute, everything I'm planning etc is "after July 1st", it's kind of a catchphrase now. The last few weeks have really hit home, 16 hours a week training was just about manageable, but there isn't enough time in the week to do 19/20. I survive, go to work, eat, shower and sleep, otherwise I train. 3 more weeks before the taper, and honestly, it can't come soon enough.

I read a great article about why people do Ironman, it asked people anonymously to comment and say why they did it. There was all the usual stuff like to be fit and healthy, and to be able to eat what you want. But why go to extremes? For me it's simple, everyone wants to be noticed. I generally don't talk about myself, but it's really great for people to ask you about what you're doing and why, people seem generally interest, they may be just assessing the crazy guy, but hey I'll take it. It all means nothing though, unless you see it through.

So I've come along way... I can ride my bike without falling over, this definitely took longer than expected. I can swim 400 metres without stopping, which I couldn't when I joined absolute. I've been over 80 miles on the bike, swam a couple of km and can run 5km (ish) in 17:15. I done a couple of Triathlons, all be it sprints, I've been half iron distance 70.3. And I put a tick in the box for open water swimming last Friday. There's still so much to do, but I'm going to do it, 3 more heavy weeks, then bring on the taper. I keep reminding myself this journey is Rookie to Iron-distance. I met up with some of the guys on Sunday to do the cycle leg, well I did and hour and they did the route, which was just as well 'cause at that pace my legs may well have fallen off.

In all seriousness, I've got an opportunity to raise money for a great charity, where some great people are involved. I've already been blown away by peoples generosity, so please keep giving if you can. My target was £1000, but I'm hoping to raise more so every little helps. You can get more details about the Karen Green Foundation by clicking on the logo to the right, you can also go straight to my Just Giving Page by hitting their logo too.

It's now about 8.30pm, the training starts again tomorrow so I'm settling down for the night. Early nights are a regular occurrence, including weekends, one of the many sacrifices along the way. I just want to say thanks to my Mum and Dad, they have come to both my races so far and despite the fact I'm age group 30-34, it's really good to have them there. They will be there on July 1st hopefully with a lot of other people willing me to the finish. 6 weeks to go, put it in your diary and I'll hopefully see you there.

Matto_out xx

PS Another old Biffy song today, tbh I always thought the lyrics were "the message is... to see this through", they're not but they should be :-)

1 comment:

  1. Good blog - well done Matt. Looking forward to hearing how you get on? Cheers Nick @uknick

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