Sportive season

Just a quick update on the last couple of weeks - the key training was 3 days of sportives (2 days of the Tour of Wessex and the Chiltern 100). I also somehow beat my 4-year-old 10k PB in the first of the midweek league races at Welwyn with 32:35, which also took the club record by 3s (apologies to Tom, particularly as he led me round 8k of the race!).

Tour of Wessex
I went down to Dorset on the Saturday to visit the family while some of the "Superstars" were doing the first day. So when I got there early on Sunday I was expecting them to be a bit tired and we would start off steady. But no, Tom went off at about 22mph for the first couple of hours, and we were flying past all of the earlier starters in our nice matching new kit! (See pic below for the kit.) The route went down to the south coast, over the Purbecks with a few nice hills, but nothing too severe. I really enjoyed it and we averaged about 20mph for the 116M, including a couple of short food stops.

The next morning my legs didn't feel like they had too much in them, despite eating a huge roast dinner at the pub the night before. After agreeing to start nice and steady, again we did 43M in the first two hours along the flat, mainly caused by Tom. The climb up Porlock toll road wasn't as bad as I expected, just a long steady climb, except for a minor tumble at the top when someone came past me on the inside at the same time as I was pulling in to let a car through! But the following 3 hours was not pleasant - the combination of wind over Exmoor, relentless steep hills and mechancial issues (Andy's rear wheel - not an imaginary problem this time!) caused a bit of a sense of humour failure. The icing on the cake was taking a wrong turning, inevitably down a big hill which we then had to climb back up. Even when we got to the flat last 20M, I was hanging onto the group, and when I did eventually recover enough to lead for a bit, some hangers-on attacked up the final hill. But I hung on and we got round 114M in about 6:50 hours including stops.

My legs were pretty dead for the following few days, so had a bit of an easier week except for the Tri Force duathlon on the Saturday where I put in a bit of effort. Then on Sunday we had:

Chiltern 100
Knowing the route, and having done the Tour of Wessex, I was much more confident about getting round at a decent clip. It basically went to plan with the majority of the group staying together (Tom got a couple of minutes ahead in the last 20M and we dropped a couple of guys), and we reigistered 7 of the top 10 times. 5:35 for me for the 105M.

The "Uperstars" at the finish of the Chiltern 100

So, that was the last long ride, and I'm looking forward to a bit of a rest before 23 June!

Last night was the next midweek race - Tom got his revenge by kicking away from me in the last mile or so, but he'll have to wait to get his club record back as the route had to be changed to avoid some roadworks!

I'll try to do one more update before the IM with a bit of a summary of my training and the "plan" for the race. The main aim will be to not lose to Andy or Matt, who both seem to be going worryingly well.

Mallorca trip and Ironman approaching

So, I'm now back from our training trip to Mallorca and the Ironman is getting alarmingly close. We had a great time in Mallorca - 7 of us cycling plus a few partners (and Kirsten, our team masseuse!). The things I will remember most from the trip are:

- the amazing roads for cycling, including some fantastic climbs (see pics below)
- the epic Saturday ride of 106M including climbs of Orient, Soller, Puig Major and Sa Calobra (http://app.strava.com/activities/53927106)
- the "interesting" swim we did at St Vincenc (Matt remembers it like this although it probably wasn't quite that bad)
- the amount of food demolished at the evening buffets
- the lasagne fiasco on the night we decided to eat away from the hotel
- John insisting on mounting his camera on some descents so he has evidence of what a great descender he is (I note he didn't record any climbing...): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdevU7k3l4s
- Bongo Bongo
- Andy's insistance that there really must be something wrong with his rear wheel, when there clearly wasn't
- just having a laugh with good mates.

Training-wise I did 25 hours in the 5 days, roughly 21 hours of cycling and 2 each of running and swimming, so a pretty decent training block.

Various pics of the trip below:

At the top of the 14km climb of Puig Major

Top of Randa - nice view in the background!

Resting at Randa - note copious amounts of water/Coke!

Better view of the Bongo Bongo top



Looking down Sa Calobra - the most amazing road I've ever seen (10km of tarmac sprawled over a steep hillside to a small cove)

Another part of Sa Calobra - hard to do it justice in a photo

The group at dinner - less John, who was probably trying (unsuccessfully) to obtain an edible lasagne

All in all, a great trip - thanks to Tom for organising!

Since then, I had a few easier days and then back into normal training. I think my swimming is coming back to an acceptable level, and I had a good 3000m at the latest Southern Athletics League fixture (9:14), so my running seems OK (although 3k does not really bear any relation to an IM!). My cycling certainly should be stronger now, so hopefully it's all coming together.

Tour of Wessex this weekend (days 2 and 3), then Chiltern 100 the following weekend, then taper!

April update

The end of the month seems to have come around really quickly, so I thought it was time to write down what I've been doing in April. Essentially, nothing particularly epic, just some solid training and trying to build for Nice. A summary of the month's training:

Swimming - 5 hours, 15km (not enough!)
Cycling - 33 hours, 609M (decent, but still need more work before Nice)
Running - 20 hours, 165M (seem to be running quite well, just need to maintain)

So 58 hours in total, which is a solid month's work, but I think May will need to be better if I want to get a good result at Nice.

Highlights of the month were:

1. Starting to ride my new bike - a Felt AR4 which I will be using at Nice. Really like it!
2. A great ride 97M over the Chilterns, effectively picking up the Chiltern 100 route and following that for 60M, so it included Whiteleaf, Wardrobes, Kingston Hill etc. It also included a very pleasant pub lunch en route - this was necessary for Paddy to be able to make it home!
3. The first Southern Athletics League fixture of the year. Not really useful Ironman training, but good fun! I was pretty pleased with a 15:46 5000m given I had done a 90 minute turbo in the morning and then cycled to Uxbridge for the fixture. I then somehow won the 1500m (my first ever 1500m win!) in 4:25 - not a great time but it was a little bit tactical. The cycle home into a stiff headwind was not pleasant!

Plan for May is at least 70 hours, but we're off to Majorca next week so should be able to cram in a lot of cycling in those 5 days. Then there's the Tour of Wessex at the end of May (I'm just doing days 2 and 3). Then it won't be long until Nice - scary!

Easter and the Northampton Marathon

Apologies for no posts for a while but the terrible weather we've been having resulted in some races I planned to do being cancelled and generally not having much of interest to report!

Finally I managed to get some good stuff done over the Easter weekend as the temperature had increased to a balmy 4C. I'd entered the Northampton Marathon on Easter Sunday, but was just using it for Ironman training so did just over 4 hours on the bike on Good Friday and about 2.5 hours on the bike on Saturday. My legs were feeling pretty dead after that so I wasn't expecting much!

The race was 12 (yes, twelve!) laps of 3.5km each, all off-road in the grounds of Delapre Abbey in Northampton. I didn't know what to expect in terms of terrain, but given they had to change the course during the week because of flooding, I assumed it would be a bit muddy. So I went with trail shoes, which definitely turned out to be the best option (even though mine are starting to fall apart!).

I actually enjoyed the fact that it was lots of laps (I find it mentally easier) and the route was very nice - half through woods on trails and half on grass through fields. There were some muddy sections, but nothing too severe, and the large number of sharp corners was probably more of an issue.

It was a bit chilly but sunny at least!

A 10km race started 10 mins before the marathon and a half marathon 5 mins before the marathon, so there was quite a bit of traffic on the course for a while. But there were only a few hundred runners overall, so not too bad.

My plan was to try to run around 15 mins per lap (3 hour pace) - the winner last year did 3:01 so I thought that would be near the front, and hopefully not a full-on race effort. We set off and 3 of us pulled away from the rest of the field - I just tucked in and let them lead. However, I was quite alarmed when we finished the first lap in 14:10. But I'd rather run in a group than on my own so I decided to stick with it.

The lead group on the field section (1st lap I think)

One of the other two dropped away on the second lap I think, and I just followed the other guy for a while. Laps 2-4 were:
14:00
14:16
14:25
At this point it felt like I was working harder than I should be at that point in a marathon. The other slight issue was that I hadn't taken on any calories, as I thought they would be handing out gels, but you needed to stop to pick them up so I didn't bother!

Negotiating one of the bumpier sections

Following my 'pacemaker'!



And again!

I think it was on lap 5 when I accidentally passed the leader when we went a different way around a muddy bit. Suddenly he fell behind a bit, so I decided just to run my own pace and see what happened.


Accidentally taking the lead!

Next few laps were:
14:01
14:00 - halfway in 1:24:52 i.e. 5 mins too fast!
13:55

Weirdly it felt like I was working quite hard, but I wasn't feeling any more tired than after 3 laps. So I just kept ticking off the laps and saying hello to Alex and Jake every few minutes.
14:02
14:20 - included a 15s stop behind a bush!
14:09
14:01

With one lap to go I needed about 14:40 to get under 2:50 and still felt strong, so pushed on a bit and actually ended up coming in comfortably under with a 13:47 lap. So final result was 2:49:06.

I was at the finish for a bit afterwards, but we headed off pretty quickly so I didn't see anyone else finish, but I think I must have won by about 10 mins. The guy who led for a while was hoping for 3 hours as a London Marathon training run, so hopefully he made it.

I think Jake was more tired than me after his walk and 7k run (he is 70+ years old effectively!)

I've really no idea where that came from considering the previous two days' cycling and not a huge amount of running training, but I guess my endurance is good from the ultra in January, and the bike training is hopefully building some strength.

Overall a great morning out - Jake seemed to enjoy going somewhere new, although I think Alex got a bit bored given the number of times she asked me how many laps I had to go! And my legs felt much better at the finish than after any other marathon I've done - I guess the soft ground helps to reduce the damage.

Nothing major going on in April, just hoping to get some good long rides in before heading to Majorca for a short training trip in May!

Country to Capital ultra

It was a long race, so thought I'd better write something before I forget a lot of it! Loads of info here if you want to see the route etc.: http://gobeyondultra.co.uk/events/country_to_capital_2013

This was not an 'A' race, as I hadn't even planned to run it this year, but had a free place as the organisers let me carry over my unused entry from last year. But it had made me do some good long runs during November and December, which I figured will be good early prep for IM France anyway. I managed about 6 training runs over 20M, the longest being 28M and one weekend where I did 20M both days. But I had still only been running about 3 times a week, so probably not ideal prep.

Given the above, the goals for the race were:
1) Enjoy it and not get injured!
2) Get under 6 hours - I didn't really know how I was going to do given this was new territory for me, but this seemed a reasonably conservative target.

Alex and I drove over to Wendover and arrived at registration in some nice sleet/rain/wind, and I did wonder why I was doing this! But luckily the rain stopped and it was dry for the rest of the day, although there was still a cold wind, which happened to be an easterly - not ideal when the race is mostly run in an easterly direction! With a hat, gloves, longsleeve and rucksack on I didn't exactly feel fast, but I was mentally ready to run slowly for a long period of time.

Ready to go (cold!)

The route is basically 25M across the Chilterns, requiring navigation, with some hills and mud, and then 20M along the canal into London. So as I didn't have a clue where I was going, I planned to run with others at least until the canal, and that would make me pace myself sensibly as well. After about a mile I was in 3rd place following the two leaders, when they took a turning which didn't seem right. I waited for the next runners, who went the other way! So the two in front didn't know where they were going, but they soon caught up again. Eventually we settled into a group of about 8 of us, only one of whom seemed to actually know the way, and no one else even had the map out - I had left it in the rucksack at this point. We got to checkpoint 1, which was about 8M in, and I decided to get the map out, just in case I ended up running alone.

A few miles after the CP1 the group split up a bit and I ended up running with one other guy. He didn't have his map out, or know the route, so I was navigating. I was enjoying this bit as I felt fine, we were ticking off the miles through nice countryside, and we were in 2nd/3rd place. It all seemed to be going smoothly as we approached the canal at about 23M when we got quite lost. In a housing estate we asked a guy in his garden for the way to the canal, he pointed us in the right direction, and when we got there we met the 4th and 5th placed runners - doh! Oh well, I was still feeling OK and all the navigation was done.


Coming into CP3 (25M)

 As soon as we got on the canal, the guy had been running with took off and quite quickly pulled away. I was running about 7-7:10 min/mile, so he must have been closer to 6:30s. I kept thinking "it's a long way to go yet", so took it easy and was pulling away from 4th and 5th place anyway. I was really pleased to see Alex at CP3, 25M, as she wasn't sure whether she would be able to make it there in time to see me, but I didn't stop to chat!

There's not much to say about the next 20M - it was a canal towpath, into a headwind, for over 2.5 hours, with no other runners in sight! I kept ticking along at about 7:15 min/mile, looking forward to the checkpoints, which were about 6M apart. Alex met me at the remaining 2, and as a reward for making it to each CP I allowed myself to walk with her for a minute or so while I ate/drank a bit and she gave me some words of encouragement. That really helped to break it up and it was nice to talk to someone after so long on my own!


Coming into CP4 (32M), starting to hurt!

It got really hard around 32M, but I kept plodding along and was surprised to find I could maintain just under 7:30 mins/mile. I didn't have any injury-type pains, just general fatigue, so I counted down the miles and eventually I came around a corner to see the finishline, and Alex there of course! Apparently I was catching the two guys ahead - the guy I had been running with in the first half ended up catching the leader in the last couple of miles and beat him by 24s. No idea how I was catching them considering how I felt at the time! But I was still about 6 mins down at the finish, in 5h33.


Pleased to have finished!

 A few minutes after I finished I suddenly felt in a massive amount of pain - hard to describe as it wasn't any particular muscle, just a general all-over ache. By the time we got home I felt better though, and the legs actually recovered better than I expected - was walking without too many problems the following day. Much better than after a marathon - maybe the soft terrain and slower pace reduces the impact enough to counteract the extra miles.

Massive thanks to Alex for supporting me - I honestly don't think I would have made it if I hadn't known she was waiting for me at each checkpoint. And despite all her efforts I still got annoyed with her at the finish for leaving the car a bit away and making me walk there - it was in fact about 50m away! Can't believe she didn't give me a slap, I would have.


The podium

I'm now quite happy with my running endurance, so now "it's all about the bike"! And maybe I should do some swimming at some point....

Happy New Year!

Happ New Year everyone!

It's been a while since I've posted, partly because I haven't done anything major racing/training-wise, but mainly because I just haven't got around to writing anything.

As it's a new year, I thought it would be good to write down my goals for the year - good for motivation to make them public! The main races I'm doing are:

12 January - Country to Capital, 45M run. I don't really know what to expect from this, but I've managed to do some long training runs so hopefully I'll be OK. I'm not expecting to do particularly well, and it was never a major target (I had planned to do it last year, but had a niggle and the organisers let me carry my entry over).

23 June - IM France. This is the main target of the year, with the (ambitious) goal being to qualify for Kona. Obviously this depends a fair bit on who is racing on the day (as I found out at Austria), but if I can get close to (or preferably under) 9:30 I should have a good chance. This seems doable based on being 20 mins slower on the bike than Austria (due to the course), and the same in swim/run. Hopefully I am a bit stronger on the bike now too.

The other events I'm planning are really just building for IM France. They are:
- days 2 & 3 of the Tour of Wessex (26/27 May). Riding with loads of the guys from the weekend cycling group, so should be good fun.
- a half IM in May, probably the new one in Bedford on 19 May.

We're also planning a training trip to Majorca -  I just need to decide how many days I can take off.

So that's the first half of the year. For obvious reasons I can't really make any plans for the second half until after IM France! I'll probably do the Lakeland 50 again (but on solo this time rather than in a team), as I have a free place from last year and really enjoyed going up to the Lake District.

Thanks for reading, hope you all have a good 2013! Next post will be after the ultra in a couple of weeks (by which time I may also have my new bike!).

Cross country season and Stevenage HM

It's a quiet time of year for me in terms of target races, but I seem to be racing virtually every weekend due to the cross country fixtures!

The first was the Chiltern League race at Oxford on 20 October. I'd never done this one, and it was pretty hilly with a long section that was just a huge mudpit. For some reason I'm just rubbish at running in mud (probably too tall?) and people were just flying past me in that section, whereas I was catching/maintaining position on the rest of the course. I ended up in 15th (excluding guests), 3rd for the club behind James and Tom, and the club easily won the 2nd division in most categories. I managed to persuade Alex to run (her first XC since school), but felt a bit bad when I realised it was probably the hardest XC course I'd ever done - she made it round though and even agreed to do the next one, so she must have enjoyed it slightly!

The following weekend was the first Sunday League fixture - a much lower standard and easier course at Broxbourne. On the long drag on the 2nd lap of 3 Tom got a gap on the rest of the lead group, I managed to bridge the gap, and then we pulled away, with Tom finishing 1st and me 3s behind. I think I could have gone a bit quicker, but I knew Tom was pretty comfortable too! Striders won again as well.

The following weekend there was no XC, but loads of Striders were doing the Stevenage Half Marathon, so I thought I'd give that a go (it was also the County Champs). The weather was horrendous on the way there, but the rain eased off as the race started and had stopped by the finish, although it was still a bit windy. I planned to stay in a group for a while to shelter from the wind, but found myself in the lead in the first mile. A gap opened up, so I thought I'd go with it and managed to win by just over a minute from Simon (also a Strider!), with a bit left in the tank. Quite pleased with 72:48 as essentially a solo time trial in those conditions. Bernie was there and took some photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/berniebarnaby/sets/72157631925579901/

Then another Chiltern League XC last weekend at Shuttleworth - ran much better at this one (no mud!), coming in 10th. I managed to hold off a few guys in the last 400m, but was really on the limit and I reckon my heart rate must have been pretty much at max! Striders did even better this time, winning Div 2 easily again, but also beating all the Div 1 teams other than Bedford.

Other than that, been doing the usual weekend 3 hour rides with the gang and some running/cycling midweek. I can't motivate myself to swim at the moment - Nice seems too far away! Nothing else major planned for the rest of the year other than some more XC and needing to get more long runs in before the ultra in January. Plus a long weekend in Prague which should be good fun!

But probably the most exciting bit of news from the last month is that I've ordered a Felt AR4 from Mike at Triathlon Zone on Hatfield Road. Felt's 2013 bikes haven't arrived in the UK yet, so I might not get it for another month or two, but I probably wouldn't ride it in the winter anyway. I decided I wouldn't be riding a TT bike at Nice, and my road bike is old and not particularly good, so wanted an "aero road" bike - will add some clip on aerobars for the race. Can't wait to get it!