Naomi Springer – #thetrilifereporter – month 1

• Posted onjofrancis
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• onMarch 8, 2016
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Every month I seemed to say to myself “I’ll start back triathlon training next month” – roll on a year later and well, let’s just say I am super happy that I was chosen to be part of thetrilife Masters programme.  I am very good at writing my own programmes but useless at following them, but now I have someone else monitoring me – ACCOUNTABILITY is where it’s at!

The month certainly has been a rollercoaster both personally and training wise, and fitting it in as a single mum is, well, a challenge unto itself.  As a previous Ironman triathlete I signed up for the Year 3 plan, so 9 sessions a week, very ambitious but go big or go home, right?  Actually my thought was if I missed a session or two I would still be getting a solid 6-7 sessions a week (if I was on 6-7 I’d probably still miss a session or two so would be down to 4)…

First week of training hit all 9 sessions.  Okay so the long ride on the weekend was scaled down to an indoor turbo ride but it was still better than nothing and I was trying to get back into the habit of training.  The number of sessions fluctuated over the following weeks but is starting to become part of my life again.

Swimming is great, I can do swimming drills happily, love them! And from previous experience I know that when my swimming is at its strongest so too is my run, which benefits from the increased lung capacity.  My Tuesday swim is my favourite as my son also has his swimming lesson on the same day.  I start before his lesson and he sits on the side of the pool as my “coach” counting laps, I continue during his lesson and we sometimes goof around smiling and waving at each other under water across the lanes.  His reward for being so patient with mum whilst she swims is that after his lesson we stay and play in the pool for about half an hour afterwards, the fine balance between athlete in training and mummy time.  End result – I’ve cut 3 seconds off my 100m split time – don’t be too impressed, the beginning time was not very pretty and still a way off from where I want it to be, but progress is progress!

Riding has always been my strong point but I must admit I have a very, very (VERY) strong dislike for ILT!!  It was to the point of making me not want to do my bike sessions which is just ridiculous really.  Whilst I understand and appreciate their purpose, I can safely say – not for me.  I don’t want to miss bike sessions so as a qualified spinning instructor I tailored some of the bike drills (wouldn’t recommend anyone else to do that unless they are also trained and know how to appropriately substitute, anyway, most people seem to enjoy ILT).

Must admit that I’m a bit of a fair weather cyclist so looking forward to the weather warming up to head out on the road, until then, happy on the turbo and very happy to see some non-ILT sessions this month, yippeeeee!

Running has always been my most challenging of the three disciplines. Having had ankle surgery a couple of years ago I have to be very sensible about the amount of work I do on it so the drills I approach with caution but I’m very happy with the progress I’m already seeing in my running.

The new month ahead has been welcomed with the same enthusiasm and the great intention of hitting all my workouts, but I am also learning to accept that life happens and that if I don’t get all the sessions in then beating myself up about it won’t help, tomorrow is another day and all that jazz!

Until the next blurb – happy training!!