21 days until Ironman UK

With only one week left of heavy training, I still had one long swim, one long bike ride to do, plus I had to tell my wife about the surprise.

(What surprise?)

Remember how I started the retelling of this saga by saying that this trip began a year earlier, before I had even completed Ironman UK 2022?

It was then that I decided that I would fulfill my wife’s dream of seeing Rome. Since there wasn’t an “Ironman Rome,” I planned to use Ironman UK as a springboard to travel through Europe.

I sat my wife down and reminded her of the conversation. Then I informed her that we were spending a day in Rome, a day in Venice and a day in Edinburgh.

(How did she respond?)

She cried.

Then she realized that I had been keeping the secret from her … and simultaneously telling everyone we know.

(Was she mad at you?)

No, she was too busy taking in the idea that I had planned all this for her … and that now she had to rethink which clothes to bring. The daytime temperatures in Rome were in the 90s during the day while Edinburgh was 60 degrees … and we like to walk around town when we travel.

20 days until Ironman UK

The last week of super long swim, bike, run workouts.

• Monday: 1,200 yard beach swim before work.
• Tuesday: 51 minute interval run.
• Wednesday: 60 minute interval bike ride in the house.
• Thursday: 90 minute interval run.
• Friday: 5k swim.

(Ok, 5k swim is long and 90 minutes of running intervals is long. What happened to your bike training?)

• Sunday: six hours, 85 mile indoor bike ride.

(…and there it is, the “big” workout you were describing.)

Yup.

(How many breaks did you take during those six hours?)

Zero.

(You rode your bike, for six straight hours, indoors???)

I was about to attempt a race of 112 miles of bike up 8,500 feet of climbing. I wanted to be sure that I could sit on my bike long enough.

(You were only going to need six hours?)

No, I was going to need between eight and 8.5 hours with all that hill climbing.

(But you only rode for six hours.)

1 hour on the bike trainer is like 1.5 hours on the open road.

(Why is that?)

If you don’t pedal on the trainer you don’t move.

(I don’t understand.)

A bike trainer keeps the back wheel off the ground, touching only a resistance wheel. If you stop pedaling the back wheel stops too. On an open road there are hills to climb and hills to coast down. Here, there was just pedaling.

18 days until Ironman UK

Wildfires in Canada produced beautiful sunrises, but dangerous conditions for running. Thankfully I was in “taper mode” at this point. Taper workouts are short, high intensity workouts to help me keep my endurance while beginning to let the muscles recover from those long workouts. I ran 5ks to minimize my outdoors exposure and focused on indoor biking and swimming.

14 days until Ironman UK

Normally, the last 14 days before an Ironman are during the summer. During the summer I worked half days teaching summer school and had the rest of the day to pack and procure last-minute supplies.

Not this year.

In that week I had to pack my clothes and bike for the trip. I had to make sure that I had all my supplies and I still had the last week of teaching to complete. We were attending my 18-year-old son Eric’s graduation three days before our flight and to make things more complicated, I decided that we should host my parents for the same weekend that we were leaving for our trip. Murphy’s Law guaranteed that something was destined to go wrong.

David Roher is a USAT certified triathlon and marathon coach. He is a multi-Ironman finisher and veteran special education teacher. He is on Instagram @David Roher140.6.   He can be reached at [email protected].