My body hurts. A lot. It speaks volumes that I am thrilled about this.

Having not trained for the best part of ten days I had my first swim training session (1500m or 60 lengths of the pool) on Monday morning followed by a strength and conditioning session with my IM coach, Fran, yesterday. Fran seemed to think it would be a good idea to test me. Well he didn’t break me. Look at this for a training session:

• 5 minute high resistance bike warm up
• Warm up continued with 3 sets of
  • 10 x burpees shoulder pressing 8kg medicine ball
  • 10 x 20kg Kettlebell swings
  • 10 push ups
  • 10 TRX rows
• Main workout was 2 sets of
  • 10 x pull ups (with resistance band assistance)
  • 10 x 15kg Dumbell Bench Press (10 on each arm)
  • 10 x 30kg Sumo squats
  • 10 x 20kg weighted squats (10 on each leg)
  • 30 x swiss ball rolling planks (forearms on ball, toes on floor, plank, roll ball away from body with forearms and bring back – ouch)

At the end of that I was ready to throw up or faint or both. It was great. I hadn’t worked hard in nearly two weeks but I still got it – *brushing dirt off shoulder*

I also had a long chat with Fran yesterday about the next 4 weeks. In a nutshell I have this week to readjust to training after being on rest. This week will still be training every day with one day rest. As of Monday I have three weeks of “Intensive Volume” basically this means I will be pushed beyond my limits with brick sessions (this is the term for back to back biking and running etc) 30km runs, 120km bikes and 3km swims… I have been told that I need to complete 80% of these sessions to stand a chance of completing the Ironman in 4.5 weeks time. So here goes…

I was musing to myself on the tube yesterday after my training with Fran. As an emotional and often highly strung person I have a tendency to let my thoughts run a mock in my little head. What this means is I often have racing thoughts, stressy moments and I generally struggle to relax or feel calm. I overthink things and make huge deals out of minor situations. I hold my hands up to this. It is who I am. Deal with it. I have.

There comes a time I think when you realise what matters and what doesn’t. For example, prior to Ironman training I would sweat the small stuff in a big way. I would constantly worry about why {insert name here of random boy} wasn’t texting me. I would stress about the future and where my career was going. I would compare myself to others. I have touched briefly on my past with eating disorders and I will just throw this out there because I think it is important that people understand they are not alone… I have also suffered from depression. I won’t go into details as you don’t need my life story but this year has, and will hopefully continue to be, a huge year for me.

A glass half full doesn’t need to be looking on the bright side of every situation. For me it was realising that I like my life and I like myself. I was sitting on the tube for crying out loud – not sitting in a field meditating. I was calm and happy and proud. Some of you may be reading this and thinking “oh my god Cat shut the hell up and tell us how to make protein brownies with sweet potato” and that is totally fine but I am having a moment so humour me…

It is funny how my head works some times. It’s like a little maze and it runs off onto random thoughts. My mum is the same. We will be having a conversation about a holiday next year and all of a sudden it’s “we should take the spare bed linen” – she has done a quantum leap onto another conversation about the holiday rental in Edinburgh?!

My thoughts about glass half full did a minor quantum leap to thinking about my funny little head and some of the random thoughts. It went like this. When your head is full of positive thoughts or consumed with a focus and a goal – there is little space for any of the silly trivial stuff we worry about on a day to day basis. If we apply this to fitness it can manifest itself as ANYTHING. Your goal could be to try a new piece of equipment in the gym. It could be training to do your first 10km. It could be training for an Ironman. It is all relative.

If we apply it to food – which I obviously did because I am obsessed – then it is genius. If you fill your plate with the good stuff e.g. veg, salad, protein, fruit then there is no space for fried rubbish or greedy guts portions of carbohydrate. Ta daaaaaaa.

It works with drinks too. Going on a night out? Ask the barman to fill your wine glass with ice and then pour a small wine. Sacrilege for fine wines of course but it will last longer than a quarter bottle goblet of Pinot and it will work to hydrate you as the ice melts.

I have just received an email from CF (Coach Fran) about my food next week.. ha. Wait for this…

In the mean time be very disciplined with the diet and on big training days (3+ hours) you should try to to take on board from 3000 to 5000 calories.

Noooooooooooooo problem coach.

Let’s get back to food and recipes and normal training talk tomorrow. You will all be getting bored of my Ironman chat by now.

I bought a spiralizer! Let’s talk about replacing rice and pasta with spiralized veg…. Oooooh doesn’t that sound fun! It does when you make courgette carbonara……… Got your attention now haven’t I….

C xxx