Project Good For Age – The Final post
Goal : Automatic entry into the London Marathon
How? Run a 3:15 Mara at Manchester Mara in April (current PB 4:45)
1st stop : run a 45 minute 10k from current PB of 1 hour – (achieved at windmill 10k)
2nd stop : run a 1:37 half from current PB of 2 hours (achieved 1:43 at Blackpool)
Well Rookie?
First off, apologies for the delay in bringing you this post.
Loads of you have been messaging me to ask what is going on.
My silence is unacceptable.
So I apologise.
Love you….
The truth is, it all went a bit Pete Tong.
I ended up ‘doing a Brownlee’ and recorded a ‘DNS’ at Manchester.
My training hasn’t just ‘come off the rails’ since the Blackpool half mara on the 18th Feb….
It’s fallen off a fukin cliff mate.
Was I pissed off come race day for allowing this to happen?
You bet I was.
By the way, total respect to the thousand or so people that managed to go sub 3:15 at manchester. (about 10% of the field).
Total respect.
But the fact is, Iron Rookie is fitted with a big fuk off self destruct button….
And he kept on pressing it…
I have been thinking long and hard as to what caused this, which is why I haven’t posted for a while, but I have come to the conclusion that there are three reasons why this happened.
Reason Number 1) The Plan
My strategy was simple…
Train on the treadmill at target race pace then stick to the pacers like glue come race day.
I thought I was on to something with this and strutted round the place like I had just discovered fire.
There is no question that this strategy helped get my times down in a very short period of time.
My 10k time went from 1 hour to 45 minutes.
And my Half mara went from a previous PB of 1:58 down to 1:43.
However I knew in my heart of hearts that this strategy wasn’t going to get me the result I wanted in Manchester.
The half mara needed to be 1:37 and a comfortable 1:37 at that.
But it was anything but a comfortable 1:37.
It was a tough 1:43 and I was goosed after the race.
On the back of that event It was clear to me that I needed to learn how to pace myself in ‘real life.’
Now learing how to pace yourself when your goal is to ‘complete’ the race is a piece of piss.
But Learning how to pace yourself when your goal is to ‘compete’ is a whole different ball game.
Whole different.
It takes time to master.
A lot of time.
Time I didnt really have.
It also takes bucket loads of dedication, sacrifice and self discipline.
Now I was prepared to make those sacrifices for Ironman because I wanted that medal more than anything in the world.
Make no mistake, those sacrifices were worth it tenfold, the experiences I had in training, the people I met on my journey, what happened on race day at IMUK – it was magical, the lot of it.
On my way up, the mara was one thing and one thing only…..
A stepping stone to Ironman,
But this time round it was different.
It had to be 3:15, simple as that.
Getting another mara medal was of no interest to me, I already had it in the collection.
So it became a case of, “if i’m not going to achieve my goal of 3:15, then whats the point?”
Also, I found this.
Training at 10k is good fun.
Training for 20k is OK.
But once you start taking it past 20k, the training becomes a pain in the arse in my opinion.
Running any further than 20k of a Sunday bores the shit out of me to be perfectly honest especially when you know deep down in your heart that you are not going to achieve your goal.
Second Reason – Diet
There is no doubt in my mind that losing weight (fat) is key to success when looking to increase your running speed.
Most of us could do with losing more than a few ponunds for peak performace and in order to do that you need to watch your diet like a hawk and eat like a rabbit day in, day out.
But I am not a fukin rabbit.
I am a lion.
And like everybody else, I love my food.
All food.
But I got sick of having to eat the same things over and over and being ‘mr sensible’ all the time.
it just got so boring.
Case in point…
You know when you go out for a sunday lunch with the family or some other social occassion that you actually accept for once?
Well I guarantee you will often find yourself sipping tonic water and munching lettuce leaves like a lemon because you have got ‘that big training run’ later.
Meanwhile everyone else belly laughs as they take full advantage of all the delights that are on offer.
Am I right?.
So have you any idea how liberating it feels to be able to sink 3 pints of guinness by the roaring log fire, order a full Sunday roast with all the trimmings then polish it off with sticky toffee pudding and red hot custard with a couple of smokes thrown in to boot?
You feel like a prisoner on day release mate.
Full English?
Fuk Yeah…
Jaffa cakes of an evening? (full sleeve)
Yum…
Chippy on a Friday?
Let’s have it.
Love it all.
Dont get me wrong, i’m no ‘wide load’.
I’ve got about a stone to do to get to ‘peak’.
But this controlling of the diet, it’s one of the things that I struggled with the most.
Yet in my opinion, it is one of the areas that will give you the greatest gains.
I would go as far as to say that having the discipline to master the diet is as critical to your speed success as mastering the actual training itself
Third Reason – The Neon lights shine bright.
This is probably the biggest one of the lot.
A wise old man once said this to me….
“At the end of the day, when it’s all said and done and you are lying on your deathbed looking back over your life, I doubt very much you will say to yourself…..”
“I wish I would have had more early nights’
Those words strike such a chord with me I feel they define who I really am.
Life is about having fun, right?
Here’s the thing.
For me, if you want to achieve ‘peak performance’ then you have got to be prepared to dedicate your life to it and that means behaving like ‘a good little boy’ all the time.
But I felt this was not congruent with the person that I really am and I constantly felt like life was passing me by and I was somehow ‘missing out.’
In order for me to demonstrte what I am talking about here let me retell a tale from my first mara at Chester.
I stayed in a hotel the night before the race.
As I’m making my way to my room, I walks past a charity ball, the music was pumping out, everyone was having a really good time getting pissed and the party was going off big time.
Now the real Iron Rookie wants to dump his bags, order a pint, join in with the fun and ‘have it large’….
Not skulk up to his room for an early night like some sort of gimp.
There is a song, and it goes like this…
“and we danced”
“and we drank”
“and we laughed”
“and had a really, really, really good time”
“Take my hand”
“Lets have a blast”
“and remember this moment for the rest of our lives”
So that is exactly what I did these last few weeks.
I went and out and I drank and I laughed and I danced and had a really, really, really good time.
And you know what?
Loved it mate.
Fuk the training.
That can wait.
There will always be another mara and besides, i’m an Ironman now, i’ve already conquered the world and everything in it ?.
It’s way more important to have ‘fun’ right?
But, having said all of that, get this…
As I make my way to the boozer for another sesh, pounds piling on, puffing away on a Richmond superking menthol, like you do……
I’m starting to notice all the cyclists, the weekend warriors on a mission with big smiles on their faces and the runners bouncing away by the side of the road.
I find myself pondering their journey, wondering what their goals are, what they are trying to achieve like…
And you know something?
That is starting to look like ‘fun’ once again.
Fucked ain’t it?
The ferris wheel just keeps on spinning…..
To your amazing journey!
Like this article? then you will love this book!, it’s all about how I went from zero fitness to completing an Ironman triathlon, it’s only just come out but it has got some fantastic reviews already!- you can check them out here: (also available on Amazon in the US but please read the UK reviews first!)
