Project Iron Man: EP12 | New Bike Day!

On July the 7th, I will be taking on my first full Iron Man triathlon in Switzerland, consisting of;

2.4 mile Swim
112 mile Bike
26.2 mile Run

With the aim of completing the course in 12 hours.

Join me on my journey as I build towards the hardest physical challenge I have ever faced.

In this episode, I go shopping for a new bike and show my weekend training 6-7 weeks out from the Ironman.

Follow me on instagram for more daily content:

@drewshawcoach

let’s get this up way okay we have a very exciting day ahead of us now as you seen in my last video I’ve been riding a road bike which I’ve actually had for about the last four or five years now um the story of getting that bike actually I got hit off my old old bike which was my first ever road bike I think I paid about £300 for it it was an aluminum frame like super super basic bike um I got hit by a car I’m obviously okay cuz here I am um and they gave me about I think it’s £1,200 through the insurance for the value of that bike which I then used to buy the bike I have now a few years back and I’ve been doing a lot of research recently now obviously taking on an Iron Man 112 mil I need every Advantage I can get on a bike so that took me to the laptop where I was researching obviously the difference between having a road bike and a triathlon bike and it turns out the difference is pretty big so most people suggest that you can save about 20 to 30 minutes over the course of 112 Mi on a triathlon bike obviously because of the aerodynamics the positioning and everything that goes with it not only that though they also suggest that you come off the bike with slightly fresher legs ready for the marathon so my first point of call was to go to my followers on Instagram and ask if anyone had a triathlon bike for me to borrow because they are very expensive brand new for a half decent one what I’ve kind of found is that you’re looking at around £3,000 upwards so that was not within my budget right now being a father and already committing to all the other finances that an Iron Man brings so I asked if anyone had one for me to potentially rent for a few weeks and I wasn’t very successful with that so I started looking online through Triathlon groups and eBay and Facebook Marketplace Etc and I found this it’s a canyon Speed Max I really like the look of it it’s the size I need it’s within budget I had a call with a guy yesterday it all looks good so I’m about to leave have a look at it in person so hopefully we’re coming back with a new bike today engine’s on SC so I actually love road trips so the journey I’m about to go on is about 2 and 1/ half hours away I actually have family nearby to where I’m picking this bike up from think crossed um so I’m going to stop in to see them for a cup of tea and I’m just going to Chuck a podcast on I found a really good one recently um talks about going over Iron Man preparation for that and um has a few tips and tricks in there so I’ll be listening to that on way and then I’ll probably just put on some Joe Rogan as that’s usually uh pretty good for a road trip for me the other example is do 25 30 minute warm up start the race you are ready there’s a world outside you’ve ever watched the office the US version of course you are my kind of people for one but two this reminds me of that scene where he takes Holly to her new home they’re in the van with Daryl darl Daryl is it Daryl and they’re singing this song on repeat it’s so funny all boom so take a look at my brand new well brand new to me it’s not actually brand new Canyon Speed Max CF whatever those words mean here it is so as you can see it’s an absolute beauty of a bike I’m yet to tweak it so it fits me properly but I’m going to be doing that tomorrow before getting out for a big ride on Sunday to get used to the new TT position CU as you can see here the seat post is a lot more vertical and higher compared to the handlebars which then brings you into a more horizontal position for more aerodynamics um so looking looking forward to getting on and testing this out okay here we are Saturday yesterday was Friday when we picked up the bike the bike is still in my office now before I get to do some work to it and today we’ve actually switched around the training this weekend so I’d normally do a long bike and short run on a Saturday and a swim and a run on a Sunday whereas this weekend because of weather and because I need to do some work to that bike to fit it to my spec uh we are switching around so today I’m at the lake and we’re about to do a 3K swim followed by a 14 mile run and I’m we’re leaving the big bike for tomorrow once we’ve done the work later on this evening we’re nearly there with the wet suit doesn’t get any easier [Music] the bloody zip is jammed there we go there we go I think hope that’s done 3K swim about to commence I’ll check in with you to see how we go I’ve actually got some earphones so I’m going to listen to some tunes whilst we go all right swim complete just under 3K um because I got in and my head just wasn’t in that today um last weekend I actually hit a PB distance of 3.2k which leaves me just about 600 M to hit for the Iron Man distance swim so I’m confident in the next few weeks that I’m going to be doing that excuse me so I have a 4K training swim in a couple of weeks time but that was supposed to be 3K I did just below wasn’t really feeling it and I with the weather being like overcast and got woke up quite a lot last night from Theo still got a 2.5k done um so still happy with that and of course now we’ve got to do the 14 mile run which I’m going to do kind of um around here around the lake I think that’s like a 4M Loop uh so be doing that a few times to get the miles in and uh we’ll update you as soon as we’re ready to go just need to get changed then good right changed ready to go physically at least not mentally this is going to be a grind I can tell you that 14 mil let’s go let’s do this all right one lap done which was just over 4 mil and to be honest I think I’m only going to do two of them today because I’m really not feeling it the sun has come out which is a positive but RP wise and fatigue wise they’re just so high and I’m even running at an easy Pace but even 8 mil it’s something in the bag it’s not what we wanted but I’ll do it and we move onwards and upwards right that’s a r RP with just over 8 m in the bag at a 904 Pace I think per mile now like I said before not the session I really wanted today and annoyingly I was in my head I was done before I got back from the second Loop then when I got back I actually seen a friend getting into the lake and had chat with him I kind of got like a revamp of life again which made me feel like I could have then continued to keep running um and maybe done a bit more but I was kind of like switched off at the point of doing it um and got me think as well like triathlon’s a lonely spot it’s not very often you’ll get friends to offer to do the kind of distances with you that you need to train for um it’s very rare that you actually get someone join you for a session and I was just thinking then like if I had a friend join me I definitely would have done the entire distance but with that being said speaking to my partner now I think it’s logical that I do stop today just so I don’t overdo it um and then make up some miles on my feet tomorrow after the and I’ve got some reasons why I think today didn’t go well as well so let’s dive into that now now the first most obvious reason that I mentioned just now is that uh I didn’t get a great sleep last night was up at 4:00 a.m. um cuz the was awake um so he was just kind of helping him out and actually I’ve been looking at my rest in heart rate on my watch and over the last couple of days it has spiked a little bit I actually woke up not last night but the night before with cold sweat so I don’t know if my body is um you know quietly fighting something off uh hence the extra fatigue and the the lack of will to do stuff um but I think that’s definitely got something to do with the fatigue today thirdly my gut was really not in a good place today let’s just say I was very lucky there’s toilets dotted around this Lake because they were needed so I’ve obviously ate a combination of foods that my body hasn’t agreed with and upset my stomach uh in a way that’s not beneficial for swimming and running then I think lastly spending just over 7 hours in the car yesterday to collect the B and seeing family and sitting on the M25 in a Friday afternoon um probably somewhat contributed to the mindset side of things who knows but overall I’m fairly happy I’ve got the distance I did do today I mean you know you’re in a good place when a 2.5k swim and 8 Mile Run are a bad session um and I know physically I could have done more just mentally just wasn’t feeling it um so onwards and upwards we go again with a big bike ride tomorrow to make up for it hopefully get a good night sleep tonight some good food fuel up and we go and smash it cuz we’ve only got 7 weeks left 7 weeks okay here we go out with the old and in with the new and we have a visitor hello hello so anyway we’ve just done a bit of work currently um making this road ready essentially so added some uh water bottle holders and the bike pump just in case we get a puncher although one thing I am concerned about is that these rims are a lot deeper than those rims so if I do get a punch I’m not sure the inner tube I have um has a long enough valve to go through but let’s just keep our fingers crossed because the bike shop is closed as it’s early Sunday morning before I go out another thing I’m going to be doing is just adjusting the seat height slightly and then I’ve noticed that there’s a little little bit of give in this front wheel um as it’s a deep carbon wheel H there’s just a little bit of give if I really push the bitee to the side so I’m concerned that if I’m climbing a hill and bringing the frame kind of side to side rocking it side to side with this um wheel is going to rub these brake pads cuz there’s not really much space between the wheel and and the uh pad at the moment so what I’m going to do is just I’m going to widen this front brake a little bit just to give it bit more separation just to prevent any rubbing uh through the through the front pad and the wheel there and last but not least you can see here with the TT bars that there’s a spacer just here now the guy who sold me this bike was friendly enough to provide me with um some additional bits there um he was a little bit shorter than me and a little bit of like a Slimmer frame so what I’ve done is I’ve widened these as there’s little holes here you can make them wider or narrower I’m a bit broader so I’ve made the elbow pads wider and then I’m going to add as you can see it’s quite low down at the moment I’m going to add the spacer just to make this a little bit higher up um so I’m going to add or whatever that is down there that that spacer um just here I’m going to add I think it’s about SE that’s a 70 M spacer and that one is only I I can see 20 mil just if you can if that focuses this one’s 20 mil uh so I’m going to have a bit more ride height there hopefully be a little bit more comfortable in that TT position and uh be ready to rock and roll okay just under 2 hours later and we are finally ready to go so we’ve got the spaces on here the watch is connected so I can see where I’m going without looking at my Wrist all the time gels are in here water is in here and I’ve realized actually these kind of defeat the object of the whole bike being aerodynamic because they’re sticking out a lot so I do need to make another purchase of the aerodynamic hydration packs that go with the canyon bikes front brake pads have been adjusted um I’ve also popped the puncher repair kit here as well I realized I don’t just have spare inner tubes I’ve actually got the puncher repairs themselves so if the inner tube well actually touchwood if I get a puncher and the inner tube I have doesn’t fit these with the length the valve then I can always just change or repair that puncher on the current inner tubes but hopefully that doesn’t happen now we are ready to go and I also have a new addition as well of a arrow helmet that A friend gave to me earlier this week so we’re going to wear that today to get used to this and it’s just also a bit lighter which will be a little bit friendlier on the neck because after my long ride couple weeks ago my neck was a little bit sore my head’s heavy enough as it is so don’t need any extra weight for that over 70 M to buag today let do it okay so we are 1 hour 15 20 m in with a lot of climbing in that first hour and just look at the day we have for this ride I wanted to stop quickly as I’m absolutely loving this to share my thoughts on the bike wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow what an absolute machine it is so quick and smooth to ride uh a lot of the flats I’ve had one of them just being like a sixmile flat on a road very similar to this really nice smooth concrete I was averaging like 26 mph with ease it just felt like I wasn’t even put any effort in I’m sure that’ll change um with 50 mil to go or 55 miles to go I believe but we are having fun um it’s a good day for it and it’s going a lot better than what I did yesterday for sure so we’re going to take on first bit of nutrition now and continue on the ride hopefully the weather stays like this I can’t see a cloud in sight so that is good how stunning is this I have no idea where I am but I like it one of my favorite sounds on this bike