70.3 Training Update Week 1

I have finally signed up for a half-ironman in June of this year, combining it with a long weekend away (without kids) to Elsinore in Denmark. Week 1 of a 24 week training plan done and I decided to blog about it...purely for accountability reasons - statistics tell me that if I make this commitment public I am more likely to achieve my goal. 

Background
I have done a few sprint and olympic distance triathlons in the past and have also run a lot of 5 and 10k races and one half marathon a few years back, but more recently, while pregnant with my second child, I developed a Morton's Neuroma (nerve thickening) in my right foot which took two years and finally surgery to resolve. During that time, I could swim and cycle but couldn't run so have not done any running for two years prior to starting this plan. I work fulltime and regularly travel internationally with my job, I have two kids and a husband who travels weekly with his job.

So why add a half ironman into the mix? If I'm honest, with the lifestyle that I have, when the weekends come around I'm pretty exhausted (read lazy) so if I don't have a big scary goal looming in the distance, I simply will not get off my ass to exercise. I prefer to aim for endurance over speed and for this race, it's just about finishing it injury-free....let's see how it pans out.  

I defined my training plan based on a 'super-simple 70.3 training plan I found online by Matt Fitzgerald.
I adjusted it to make it work for my timeframe (24 weeks) and my lifestyle (work, family, travel etc). Also, because I have been completely out of action for 8 weeks, I had to add in two strength and conditioning sessions to each week initially to try to regain the strength I had pre-op.  You can track my training here


Week 1 training update
Week 1 was very slow but pretty steady...started with an 800m swim on Monday, did a strength and conditioning session in our garage gym (a work in progress, pics to follow) on Tuesday, managed a 4km run and a 20km bike ride during my lunchbreaks Wednesday and Thursday, and did a Tabata session on Friday morning before work. I had intended to do another bike ride on Saturday but due to muscle pain after the Tabata I decided to let my body rest (last thing I want is to get injured in week 1), and instead took my bike to the bike shop for a service (where they  nearly convinced me to buy two new wheels for a mere €1000...still thinking about it!) and today (sunday) I jogged the 6km to my local gym, did a 1km swim there and then my daughter joined me for a play around in the kids pool. 

Gratitude
I have decided to note at least one thing I'm grateful for each week, to remind me during the tough times that it's not all bad! This week I am grateful for the fact that I could run 6km to my gym (albeit slowly) without pain! I have friends who are injured or sick who would absolutely love to be able to feel healthy enough to go for a run. Having been unable to run for two years I certainly appreciate every run I do.. And I hope that when I'm 50, 60 and 70 I will still be able to run. 

All done for this week!
 

Book Club meets Cook Club!

It was at one of our book club meet ups, after a couple of glasses of wine that I first heard about Tamara Samson. The name alone intrigued me and the description that followed completely drew me in. Tamara is a South African goddess-in-the-kitchen, who lives off-grid (yes, off-grid!) in Co. Leitrim with her son Tao. She is wild at heart and loves eating and living organically, has travelled the world and eventually decided to settle somewhere near Manorhamilton. She cooks jaw-droppingly delicious food, like nothing we've ever tasted before...and it's all organic! Naturally, we just had to meet her so we decided to ask her if she would come and cook for us in one of our houses and she agreed! 

So, on a very very stormy day in early December, we all (partners and kids too) plodded into Laragh's house by the sea in Barna. Laragh and her husband Dave were already at work helping Tamara to set up and before we knew it, we were perched on one side of the island watching Tamara work her magic on the other. 

The idea was that we would learn about this amazing food while watching, tasting, and helping out as needed. We nominated a note-taker, watched in wonder, and listened intently to everything Tamara had to say. My interest in food has always been about more than just the taste. I love to know where the food on my plate has come from and what it can do for my body, and Tamara talked us through every ingredient she used and why (for at least ten dishes!). She had asked us in advance for guidance on what we were particularly interested in, be it sugar/dairy-free treats, quick and healthy food for kids, gluten-free options etc. She incorporated all of our requests into her demonstration so that everyone got what they needed from the session and more. We were greeted with a 'taster' smoothie on arrival, which in addition to the usual smoothie ingredients like banana, avocado and nutmilk, also included turmeric and lots of ginger which added anti-inflammatory and digestive health benefits as well as a very decent kick!  She also made a tasty raw salad, mini bean burgers, mushroom and cashew nut cream pasta, a cream cheese substitute (recipe below), monkfish laksa and a very tasty cacao pudding for dessert! She also included an activity whereby one member of each couple made our own preserved lemons (recipe and uses below) to take home with us. There was so much to take in during the few hours we had her that I was very glad someone was taking notes...with a small baby who doesn't sleep much my attention span was not up to scratch! 

One of the issues many of us have when it comes to eating organic food is the cost of it. We can argue that it is worth paying for, and I believe that it is, but it would also be good to find cheaper ways of obtaining it, acknowledging that we can't all grow everything that we eat. Tamara recommended Suma, which is the UK’s largest independent wholefood wholesaler/distributor, specialising in vegetarian, fairly traded, organic, ethical and natural products. If you buy in bulk they will deliver to Irish addresses, so perfect for groups like ours who all like to buy organic - now we just need to merge our shopping lists!

I can't express how much we enjoyed the cook club and there really was so much more to it - too much to fit into a blog post. But the good news is, Tamara enjoyed it too and would be willing to do it again for other groups. So, if you're a member of a book club with a food slant, or just a group of friends keen on having a demonstration of cooking delicious, nutritious food, you should get in touch with her - [tamtravelling@hotmail.com/083-1944342]. We had several vegetarians in our group, hence the lack of meat but Tamara will cook to your tastes. 

We also brought a babysitter along to ensure the kids didn't get bored and the adults could focus on the cooking - I would recommend doing this if you take kids with you.

Tamara’s Travelling Cook Club

Here's a taster of the tips we got from Tamara....get in touch with her directly to arrange your own cook club event!

Raw Cacao Pudding
Ingredients: coconut oil; raw cacao powder x4 tbsp; avocado x1; vanilla pod; maple syrup ¾ tbspoon; bananas; pinch salt; 
Method: Blend the lot!

‘Cream cheese’ substitute
Method: Put some natural yoghurt into a J-cloth in a sieve overnight over a pot. In the morning there will be ‘cream cheese’ in the sieve and a pot full of whey (can be used later in fermenting). Add (optional): preserved lemons; chilli; garlic; olive oil

Preserved Lemons

Ingredients: 10 Lemons; Himalayan sea salt (big cup); Jar
Method: slice the lemon in to quarters. Put 1tsp salt into the bottom of the jar, then put 1tsp into the quartered lemon, trying to cover the whole inside of the lemon with salt. Put the lemons with the open end facing down into the jar, pressing them with your fingers towards the bottom so they can release juice. Keep adding lemons all the way to the top of the jar, while squishing them so that every part of the lemon is covered with juice. Close the jar and check that it is completely sealed. Leave the jar on your kitchen bench for three days (a few times a day you can turn it upside down to mix the salt into every part of the jar. Put it in the fridge for at least three weeks.

Uses for Preserved Lemons: any tomato based stew; risotto with kalamata tomatoes and olives; green beans/kale; chickpea stew with tomatoes.
 

The Eternal House Project - Carraig Ard

Back in July 2014, we bought a run-down old bungalow in a really beautiful part of Barna called Forramoyle East, and embarked on a renovation project to turn it into a warm, modern, energy efficient home....we completed phase 1 of the project in March 2015, when I was 8 months pregnant, and haven't done an awful lot since...we'll get back to it in 2016! Check out our project blog for more info on the renovation project, and here are some photos of where we had got to by the end of Phase 1:

At 2300 ft sq, it's just the right size for our little family and has low running costs which will hopefully allow us to continue to invest in the evolution of the house as we grow and change as a family.

The style is contemporary and over time, we'll add scandinavian furnishings to it - for now, we've got all our old furniture so it's a bit of a mish mash.

As well as updating the interior, we also need to invest in the garden, driveway and the wall surrounding the property - all of which are surprisingly expensive! And a nice side project which David has taken on is to convert part of the garage into a home gym. I'll add blog posts on each of these as and when we make progress.

Morton

Way back in March this year, when I was 7 months pregnant, I bought a beautiful new pair of very expensive flat boots. I thought i was doing my body a favour buying flat shoes - while carrying the baby weight my feet were swollen and I just couldn't hack high heels. However, after a day or so of wearing them, I felt as if I had something stuck under my right foot, around the fourth toe. I found nothing in there and, as it really wasn't too painful in comparison with the rest of the pregnancy-related health issues I was dealing with, I did nothing about it. When I increased my activity levels after Joseph was born however, it got worse and I felt pain in the joint and numbness in the toe so I went to see a physio.

8 months on and many physio sessions later, my foot is much worse (pain and numbness pretty much constantly) and I still have no clear diagnosis. I went through several supports and eventually proper orthotics, none of which helped. I recently tried a new physio, Tricia Strelioff. Tricia checked me over and said that she thinks I have developed Morton's Neuroma. She thinks the best treatment is going to be a corticosteroid injection. I've now had an MRI and next step is to go and see a radiologist called Dr. Derek Lohan, who can perform the injection assuming the MRI confirms the MN.

Anyway, all of this means no running for me at the moment, which on the upside has allowed me to develop a real love of swimming and cycling - more on those in the next couple of posts! Still...I do miss taking off on a fresh early morning run....bloody Morton...

A bit about me

Name: Claire Farrell
Age: 38
Family: Daughter of Margaret and Gabriel McLoughlin; wife of David Farrell; mother to Heidi (4) and Joseph (8 months)
Height: 168cm
Weight: 58kg
Home: Barna, Co. Galway, Ireland
Occupation: IT Product Manager for IBM (mainly working from home)

Interests

Nutrition
I love food and learning about how we can use food to prevent/heal disease and fuel our bodies for exercise. My eating philosophy is simply to eat more veg and my current favourite book is The Happy Pear, a book with healthy, simple and delicious veggie recipes. 

Health and Fitness
Now that my family is complete, and I am nearing forty, I have decided to focus on being fitter and stronger than I have ever been in my life (yes, it is possible after having babies!) and my chosen sport is triathlon. My aim is to do sprint and olympic distances in 2016 and at least one half-ironman in 2017 (the year i turn 40).

Interior Design
Both David and I have always wanted to have something non-standard about our homes and we love clever design, efficient use of space, and colour. However, I am not naturally creative and not very good at interior design! So I spend a lot of time looking for inspiration from others, using tools such as Pinterest, Houzz, interior design blogs ( e.g. Apartment Therapy, Design Milk, My Scandinavian Home) and sometimes plain old 'word of mouth'.