As most of you know my training over the last 20 months has been sporadic. Swimming being the only anchor keeping my training a float.

Jan and Feb I managed to find a better routine and found myself on a road back to hard training with 9-10 hours/week. But then work and illness got in the way so I only managed 1-5 hours training  March and April.  In May things slowly turned for the better and I was able to get over 6 hours/week for 6 weeks.

This past week I manged to push myself back into training and had
550 min biking
60 min running
210 min swimming

First time with over 13 hours of training in a very long time. It was also the first time in a long time I had two workouts over 3 hours since my 24 hour swim in Oct/Nov last year. I noticed a big difference in how my body reacted to Fridays long ride compared to the day after.  I was much more comfortable and stable on Saturday, so I am hoping that my body works better when I am not resting as much, but keeping my heart working regularly.

Now I have three long weeks ahead of me!  First up this Saturday is Kustjagaren, a swimrun race in Karlskrona. The race was nearly 30 km last year and it took Fredrik and I just over 4 hours and 41 minutes to finish. This year I am over weight and Fredrik has been rehabing his left calf muscle, so it would be great if we could finish under 5 hours. But our main goal is to finish and finish healthy so we can compete later on in July, in a even longer race that could take us up to 9 hours and 15 minutes… but more on that later.

My second long race in the coming three weeks is the Jönköping 70.3. My first half Ironman since Aug 2014.  When I registered i was hoping to finish around 5 hours, but after this weekends rides, and the 15 kg I have put on since last summer, I will be happy if I finish under 6:30.  Splits might look something like this:

30 min swim
3:30 bike
2:30 run

Had I not registered last aug for it, I would not be doing this race. But it is the first time the half in Jönköping falls under the Ironman name, so I will do my best to first finish, and second not come last.

The third long race, for the 3rd weekend in a row, will be the Kalmar Swimrun. A 39 km long swimrun with roughly 33 km running and 6 km swimming. If we stay healthy and manage to finish before the cut off times, this will be the toughest day in my life.  Harder than my previous two Ironman races. This will also be the longest race Fredrik has participated in. There are cut off times along the course, but assuming that we make them, the final finish time allowed is 9 hours and 15 minutes. Seems easy on paper.  If we take the swimming easy and allow for roughly 2 minutes per up and down, we should manage the swimming in 2 hours. That leaves 7 hours and 15 minutes to run/walk the 33 km.  Which in a sense means we only have to maintain a 13 min/km pace. Mentally I think that Fredrik and I can push each other over the finish line.  So we just need to say healthy and hydrated for the next 19 days.