“getting back to my best”

I hear this form a lot of people right from people in their first season of tri, through to elite racers and even coaches, reminiscing about former glories, the truth of the matter is that you never know you’re in great form until it has gone, for me it was a random Thursday in April, I managed 321w for 23 minutes on a slow 10 mile TT course and then 290w on a very slow day on H25/2 for my seasons worst 25 performance on the Saturday, the times weren’t great, but the power numbers were huge, if I’d recreated them on “better” days on the season I’d have truly had performances that would prove very hard to replicate.

 

I’m fairly objective about this as it was recent, as I have the data and I’ve nearly recovered that form (on the bike at least).

 

But people will look at the data from a PB race, and think “why can’t I do that now?”, if I go out and run as fast as I can for 1hr 25 I’ll be  quite literally a country mile away from finishing a half marathon, remembering the glory of the day, forgetting the depths they had to dig on that day and the months of work that went into it with more dark days than easy ones, with the terrible nerves suffered during the taper of trying to fathom if the task at hand was possible.

 

So, if you are feeling unfit, searching your soul as to where it’s all gone wrong remember that even at your best you had bad days, hard days and doubtful days.

 

What you’ve got to remember is that its not possible for humans to be at their best every day of the year, there has to be a cycle, all we can hope for is for there to be incremental performance gains year on year.

 

So how to “get back to your best”

 

·         Get yourself a plan that requires consistency, that challenges you and that builds you steadily.

·         Stick to that plan.

·         Target events and give them the respect they deserve, focus, be specific and make sure you go into the race as prepared as you can.

·         Remember that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to be world class at an activity, if you haven’t done those numbers yet, you can still get better without getting close to hitting your own personal physical limitations.

·         If you do this you will be astonished how quickly “your best” will return.

 

Ed

Ballbuster 2016

In my spirit of being more and more prepared for this race each year, this year I coached 13 clubmates for the 8 weeks leading up to the ballbuster, with the aim of helping them, and preparing me specifically for this tough race!

a slightly later departure this year saw me pick Tabs up at 5:20 and arrive at the top of box hill at 6am, bag a great parking spot after a bit of negotiation, register, put bike in a blustery transition with all my bike and run 2 kit in a plastic bag (my transition bag still has muddy bits from last year), then back to the car, and into the 30 minute queue for the loos, got that done just in time for the race briefing at 7:50.

The goal for this race was first and foremost finish first BTS, and ideally improve my pb of 3:10:38, but this would be a challenge due to terrible weather conditions, and the changes to the course making the first run and bike about 500m longer!

We'd agreed to start together, and apart from Andrea getting pushed into the wave in front we managed it, avoiding the mystery of who was in front of last year, unfortunately this meant we set off mid pack, so I knew that I would be more likely to run into congestion later on, so I set off a bit faster than planned, Tabs help back but I did the whole first run with Andy Y, who was doing the race as a relay, and watched Paul F disappear into the distance.

The first run was generally uneventful, a quick mouthful of water at the aid station and gel halfway round, we made pretty good progress, but always keeping the brakes on, you don't know if you've overdone this race until some point on the final run, and I didn't want to fall apart! Onto the climb and I didn't want to go over 170bpm, despite this we continued to pass those who set off in front of us, and into t1.

I had decided the jacket probably wasn't necessary for the bike, with toasty gloves and arm warmers on I was already baking, so thought id be fine, and decided with heavy rain glasses would probably be more trouble than they were worth, so quickly put bike shoes on and splodged my way back to the road.

Onto the bike and I exited transition with someone on a full TT rig, disc and all, who sat on my wheel for a bit, then went past me when it flattened out, and I then passed on the first hairpin corner never to see him again, a reminder that this race would have to be perfectly dry to make a TT bike worthwhile! meanwhile I was loving the bike course, the back section that is technical and then a series of blind but sweeping corners so my average speed fly up as high as 35kph before a reserved approach to box hill saw it tick down, and then climb back each lap. i passed the fast running Paul Fitzpatrick just over half way up the climb, I was pleased that he was finally pacing his bike a bit more sensibly but worried as this would leave him in a position to run well off the bike, something he usually fails to do when racing me, so a frightening prospect!  I ran into the tail markers earlier than usual this year which made the middle of the second lap considerably slower, as slower cyclist held up cars but I kept calm and put in a bit more effort up the hill the second time, making my lap time almost identical to the first, the third lap was surprisingly quiet, when its usually a nightmare so I was able to maintain my average speed. trying to keep the pace high, to continue to put distance between Paul and myself I rode hard into t2, but managed to take a third gel on the final climb, hopefully leaving me with enough in the tank for the run! I was still feeling pretty good at this stage, testament to a good training block and nailing the taper!

T2 I briefly flirted with the idea of wearing the same shoes as run one rather than the nice dry ones in my bag, but quickly reverted to the dry paid when I discovered how wet they were, i grabbed one gel having noticed there were SIS gels out on the course. I left my arm warmers and gloves on for the run as i was pretty chilly after a wet, windy and cold bike that saw an unusually high number of racers fail to finish

onto the run, I couldn't feel my feet at all, and jokingly asked the marshal if there were actually any feet there! starting pretty steadily I slowly upped the pace, catching a couple of people and having a couple of fast relays pass me as well, I worked on getting my average pace down to 4:30kms on the logic that Paul could probably run 4:10 if going well, and I guessed I had about 3 minutes advantage, this would mean id could pace myself to 9km when he'd catch me and would be in shape to battle him for the final 3km up box hill, I took my first gel early and the volunteer at the aid station kindly handed me a gel meaning I didn't have to slow down to pick on up, the SIS gels have the advantage that they don't need to be taken with water so ideal for running when carrying litres of water isn't ideal! at about half way Andy Y caught me, had a brief chat and carried on his way, from this point onwards I was running scared, and tried to up my pace a little, every time I could hear feet approaching I began to steel myself to race but for the most part I was relay people who I left to go on their way, so made it all the way to the bottom of the hill with no sign of Paul, but  I was constantly looking over my shoulder, I focused on a rider in front and tried to catch her, by the second switch back I could see someone in a black top was a little closer, but spectators on the corner helpfully told me they were miles away, I caught the lady cyclist after the final switch back, with about 1500m to go I threw caution to the wind and tried to push as hard as possible, trying to take the shortest line, I began to overhead so took off my gloves, and watched my hr. rise incredibly slowly and saw no real increase in speed. starting the final part of the climb, the figure in black was close enough that I could tell it wasn't Paul, but wasn't prepared to give up a place so started my finishing sprint about 400m uphill, I knew from the amount of time that few people can stay with me when emptying the tanks and pulled away from random stranger in black, and as I rounded the final corner saw Paul wrapped up in all his clothes, clearly having decided to call it quits early, I crossed the line, pleased with a well controlled race but nearly ready to be sick!

I quickly went to the car and changed and grabbed my phone to get some snaps of the others, i managed to get to the final corner in time to get a quick picture of the back of Tabs, and then not being able to see Paul, went back to the finish line and found Andy and Martyn, and got a picture of Chris, missed Lynda, got one of JC and then missed Andy, Kate and Gemma!

Of home for a bit of R&R ahead of the Club awards do!

Ironman UK

I went into Bolton with good but not perfect preparation, early on in training I went a bit too deep and ended up getting shingles, with only really one week lost it wasn't the end of the world, then in June I came off my bike on a training ride resulting in 3 weeks of severely disrupted training as injuries and a broken bike got in the way, added to this I had been heading nicely down to my target race weight of about 71kg, but 3 weeks of inactivity and I’ll be honest not being strict enough with my diet meant I was going to race day 3kg heavier than id have liked. Other than that I really cant complain, I've been working hard for 2 years in the run up to this event with my coach, and since last August when I decided to do this race specifically I've always known what was needed for a good age group ranking, and I thought it was achievable so have been working towards that goal. Below is my table, before the event the best case scenario was auto kona qualification, better was probably enough to get a roll down slot and the good was my back up worst case scenario.

 

	Good	Better	Best
Swim	01:10:00	01:05:00	01:00:00
t1	00:05:00	00:05:00	00:04:00
Bike
Power	215	220	225
Time	05:45:00	05:30:00	05:20:00
t2	00:05:00	00:05:00	00:04:00
run
Pace	00:05:00	00:04:52	00:04:36
time	03:31:00	03:25:22	03:14:07
Total	10:36:00	10:10:22	09:42:07

 

Come race day, we’d stayed in a nice house the night before, eaten and gone to bed at 8pm, unfortunately I was uncomfortable during the night, was attacked by the kitten living there and Katie was pretty restless as well, I guess asking her to get up before 5am was causing stress for her too, but its always the way with a big race and Id had a great night’s sleep the night before so I wasn’t overly worried, I had everything I needed, a plan for the day and a range of outcomes that I believed would result in possibly sub 10 hours, but 10:36 was my worst case scenario, i finished in 10:58, and 13th in my age, but a way off my target time and aim of top 6 in age group, so what went wrong?

 

Pre race, I was up at 4am, ate the protein bar and beetroot id placed on my bedside, got up and went downstairs to make some porridge and coffee, which I wolfed down, went to the loo and we set off for Pennington flash, I went and pumped up my tyres, and taped some salt tablets to my top tube and put my bottles on, went to drop off my bag, kiss Katie and then off for a final toilet trip before getting into the 1hour swim pen, I stood nervously for about 15 minutes waiting for the gun to go off, I couldn’t quite decide where to stand as there were a lot of people around me in the gold all world athlete swim hats, but I knew that people had overestimate their times massively in Mallorca so reassured myself that 10 rows back I’d be fine…

 

Swim (1:02:48)

The swim went as well as I could have expected, diving into the muddy waters of Pennington flash a couple of minutes after the gun went off I found myself in a good group on the swim, my goal here was to learn from Wales where I sprinted the whole swim and killed myself in the first hour, so the focus was on smooth technique, getting the most out of each stroke, good arm turnover and coming out as fresh as one can after 3.8km of swimming.

The first loop was great, with plenty of respect and no aggression from other competitors and I came out of the first lap in just over 30 minutes, upon re-entry I spotted a lady who had caught me at the end of lap one, and due to her gold hat, green arms and kicky technique decided that she was probably a good set of feet to follow to both keep effort low and pace up for lap 2, all was going well until the turn when we ran into heavy crowd of the slower swimmers who’d been set off in a rolling start, and this made the return leg really hard work as I constantly had to swerve off course or dive through gaps, I ended up coming out of the water in just under 1:03 so i was really pleased, and focussed for the next stage.

 

T1 (7:28)

A combination of a longer run than I expected and pressing the lap button for t1 late giving me a false sense of how long I’d spent in transition meant I was a bit slower than expected as I probably faffed a bit but I managed to get a bonus gel in here which I took as a positive, it was extremely muddy, but on exit of t1 there were some ladies with a pressure washer to help people clean their shoes, thankfully I’d carried my bike so it was still clean!

 

Bike (5:48:41)

I’ve got to be honest looking at my goals above I’m really kicking myself, I’d looked at power on strava from previous years and estimated power levels required from other people, but given that I was at 182w by the end of the bike I felt I’d completely blown the bike if I’d known I was only 4 minutes off my “good” scenario I would have started the run with a different mind set. Something that I’ve learnt is that I need to know what speeds are necessary for times, and write down the goals on my bike so I don’t get pissed off and confused over the course of a long bike!

Back to the bike and straight off the bat things were going well, after a careful exit of the parkland around Pennington Flash I was out onto fairly flat roads which I knew would last for the first 20k so I was keen to get ahead on speed and make the most of my choice of a tt bike and as much aero kit as I could get on! By the top of the first ascent of sheep house lane I was bang on power and down the first descent onto the faster section of the course, I was motoring past people (really only catching up on my slow t1 time) but with the loss in elevation I was building average speed but dropping on average power. I also became aware that my stomach was rumbling and that I’d have to stop at the next aid station to sort the problem out, still my average speed continued to rise, as I took the climbs steadily and kept the power up on the rolling bits, I got to the aid station, jumped off my bike and went to the loo only to realise afterwards that there was no toilet paper left, so I got dressed and change cubicles, jumping back on the bike having dropped down below 200w on power but feeling much better and off I went.

Shortly after this my bike computer jumped off (I stopped and shoved it down my top) making it really hard to know how I was going, I managed to swivel my watch a round on my wrist without having to stop but it did not make it easy to keep track on speed power or any other data.

The bike course is really mostly rolling punctuated with 2 significant climbs on each loop, bot had pretty fantastic supporter group on I can confirm the 42x28 is not a low enough gear to spin up the second climb really but I made it  up the climb and started the second lap with an average power just over 200 and an average speed of about 31.5kph, at this stage I was feeling optimistic that my speed would build over the second lap without having to stop and id be well over 20 mph and closer to 5:30 and 6.

Up sheep house lane for the second time and it felt a lot tougher than the first time, when I got to the top and speed increased again I could hear a squealing, and at first I thought it was a puncture, but tyre pressures looked good, then I checked the front brake wasn’t rubbing and eventually had to stop and discovered my back wheel had slipped forward in the dropout and was rubbing on the frame, I pulled it back and did the qr up, hoping it would hold, which thankfully it did, carrying on the second lap I re-caught all the people who had overtaken one the hill and while I stopped, but I had in my mind I was going to be a long way off my target time, I focussed on trying to keep my average speed as high as possible, but was freewheeling down hills, and really not pushing on at all on the bike.

Going up the climb in Rivington for the final time felt great and a really stomped on the pedals, which proved to be a great tactic as I never lost momentum and flew up, much to the cheering of COLT who were fantastic in their support all day!

Back on to the flat roads I focused on keeping my average speed above the target but not really looking at power, as I rolled into t2 I did my best to remove my gloves and overshoes, which I’d worn for aero purposes having tested my pure tri kit and working out that I was 15 seconds slower over a 10 mile tt without them!

 

T2 (6:18)

I managed to grab a mouthful of a protein flapjack here which was a nice change from the gels id survived on so far in the day, my socks took an eternity to get on as although I’d put talc in the socks I hadn’t left a bottle in my bag to make it easy to get them up my legs. I felt good at this stage and grabbed my bundle of gels and salt tabs and off I trotted.

 

Run (3:53:15)

Coming out of T2 there was a ridiculous section which you had to snake through a load of barriers, I can only guess this was to create a spectator section, but it felt unnecessary and wasn’t included in the run distance, but I got out and felt great, my pace after a couple of minutes was around 4:46 per km so very respectable, I knew there was a bit of a hill and I decided to walk up it as I was fine for pace and there was no need to use a load of energy pushing myself up a steep hill when the rest of the course was flat (or so I thought) it was at this stage I could feel my tummy rumbling, annoyed that it hadn’t done this in the convenient t2 I figure I could hang on for the first aid station but tried to pick up the pace to cancel out as much wasted time as possible, I got to the aid station and all of the cubicles had run out of toilet paper, one of the security guards helpfully suggested the pub next to the aid station which I went into, used their services and left thanking the barman on my way!

I’d wasted about 5 minutes here, obviously some was down to my stomach, but at least 2 of those were that the toilets had run out of paper, which seems impossible so early on in the race…

At this point the reality of the situation (or perceived) began to hit home on the long hot section of lonely road on the point to point section of the run, I felt I’d blown my chances of any of my times, and I was seriously thinking of packing the whole thing in, not because I felt bad but just I was struggling for motivation to plug away for a result that I wasn’t hoping for. I convinced myself that id run into town, not thinking further than that, I got to the third aid station had a mouthful of coke, a gel and some water and my spirits picked up. I quite enjoyed running along the towpath and before long I was nearing 10k, so I told myself to enjoy getting to 10k and focus on 15k, I didn’t enjoy 10k very much as it coincided with another hill on the supposedly flat run course, which I walked up, more because I figured I could run a  sub 4 marathon without too much bother but once at the top, I was onto the main lap, and it seemed to be flatter, and relatively shaded, I ticked along with a few pro men passing me, a lap or two ahead, the gentle descent into town didn’t lift my spirits much and I was pretty grumpy by the time I reached Katie but tried to put on a smiley face.

My mood worsened once I’d left the excitement of town and I told Katie I was bored which I felt terrible about for the whole of the next lap especially as she had sacrificed her weekend to come and help and support me.

I resolved to be more cheerful, my first lap band lifted my spirits but I had run out of non caffeinated gels, I wasn’t keen to take the caffeinated ones after my second loo trip so decided to stick to coke until I could get some more from Katie, by the time I got back to her I was over half way and with 2 laps to go the finish was in sight, I was on track for sub 11 hours and had begun to make peace with that, enjoying the crowds and trying to keep a gel going in at each end of the course, the third alp there was an amazing samba drumming band booming out on the course, and the lap went by pretty quickly, onto the 4^th lap it was only after walking a bit further than before on the steeper bit of the hill out of town on the final lap that I really began to try to work out what was needed to make sure of a sub 11 time. At this point a chap (who through a bit of chatting told me his name was foxy) I’d shared a few words with pulled alongside and asked what time I was on for, I said 11 hours just about but we’d need to run sub 5:30 to get there, a bit of a mutual pep talk followed and off we went, spurring each other on, both discussing how we were a bit disappointed with our times so far but that sub 11 would be a nice achievement, I began to worry that I might have started my watch a bit late after crossing the mat or that it had auto paused in t1 so we picked up the pace a little more to make sure, we still took our time in the penultimate aid station having a cup or water and coke and I had half of my last gel before throwing the rest away and on we ticked, we spurred each other on and the sound of him complaining about the heat and breathing heavily reminded me to run tall, keep calm and smooth, we ticked through the last 3km in less than 14 minutes, flew through the last aid station and into special needs where I grabbed a BTS top from Katie and went thought the fun bit of town with music and bigger crowds rounding onto the finish chute I pulled ahead (partly as he was in my age group so wanted to maximise my finish position – not that I’m competitive or anything!)

 

Finish (10:58:36)

The feeling of crossing the finish line of an ironman is so so so special, it’s the end of a year’s work and a day’s suffering, assurance that with hard work anything is achievable, and any disappointment is quickly forgotten, I sat down and drank the water chatting with the people doing similar and gave Katie a chance to catch up, sharing a manly hug with Jamie to before a marshal pointed out Katie standing at the fence waiting for me so I stumbled over gave her a big kiss and we she gave me my phone, I took a quick look and some messages from people who’d been tracking me from home pinged through, including one from my coach saying I was 14^th in age group, not the required top 5 or 6 for a Kona spot but far better than I thought that time would get me. Katie and I arranged to meet on the other side of the finish tent, once in there I discovered a world of fresh pizza, a shiny new t-shirt and free massages, so popped out to say I’d be a while and went for a massage.

 

We then headed home on the basis that 14^th in my age group was unlikely to be anywhere close to qualification and that sleeping in my own bed was much more favourable to being attacked by the kitten in the place we’d stayed the night before the race!

 

So as I mentioned above coming across the finish line I discovered I was 14^th in age group (later upgraded to 13^th as a couple of people had been disqualified including my running buddy Foxy) a much better result than id prepared myself for on the run, but I was pretty desperately disappointed in my time against what I hoped for in the day. Having had a few days to think about it, I lost time in both transitions, the bike and the run. The issue with transition is a minor one but an easy one to fix, firstly don’t be so optimistic in my predictions, but I need to practice these if I’m going to go long again I’m sure there are a couple of minutes that could have been shaved here easily, on the bike id massively overestimated the power needed for certain times, and I had only focussed on one metric and lost sight of what my expectations were combined with my Garmin flying off there are two things I need to take on board, I need plenty of mental reminders about what my targets are and different metrics to help achieve those, secondly I need to be more confident in my abilities, I’ve practices riding for 4 hours at 240w, I’ve done a 100 mile tt at 225w so I need to keep pushing hard to do really well. Finally on the run id completely lost sight of my targets, and I could feel my spirits lift with every gel, so I need to be a bit more regimented/metronomic about eating over the course of the whole event. Finally I should have asked Katie for an update about how I was doing, if I’d known I was in 14^th on the run it might have helped motivate me to push the final 25km of the run, as 10:36 was probably still achievable by then. Nutritionally I was pretty good but not quite as metronomic as I could have been and the toilet trips were probably a combination of drinking 2 beet it shots rather than my usual one and eating a bit later than perhaps I should have done.

Onto the positives for the day. Firstly, despite a good few weeks without swimming I absolutely smashed the swim, I stayed calm and steady and flew through, so testament to my three swims a week for the last two years giving me a 8 minute improvement in speed for a huge amount less effort, there’s very little id do differently next time. Bike wise I’m clearly a lot more aero than the average ironman competitor, shown both in my speed vs my predictions, but also the relative speed I was gaining on the flat vs my competitors, I think if id been at target race weight I’d not have suffered on the climbs as much! Physically I was absolutely fine all day with no soreness anywhere, obviously a lot of this is preparation, but salt tabs and pretty good nutrition throughout the day were clearly a significant contributing factor. Kit wise I was very happy, with everything from my wetsuit (only minor rash) tri suit (a lovely prototype suti from Verge) helmet,

 

Kit list

Swim

Zone 3 Aspire Wetsuit

Zoggs predator Polarized

Bodyglide

Bike

Verge Protoype Sleeved Skin Suit

Bont Vaypor Shoes

Velotoze Overshoes

3T Aero Gloves

Lazer Wasp Helmet

Felt IA with ultegra di2 with 55/42 chainrings and 11-28 cassette, flo disc and flo 60 front, latex tubes, specialized turbo cotton tyres, ism adamo prologue saddle

Run

CEP Ultralight Compression Socks

Verge Suit

Asics Hyper Tri Shoes

Nutrition

Wiggle Energy Gels mix of mocha, orange and lemon/lime

Wiggle Tropical Fruits Energy Drinks

Trek Protein Flapjack

 

 

The Road to Ironman is Long and sometimes Hard

It’s been a couple of months since my last update, which followed a slightly disappointing race in Mallorca and a big week of training!

 

Since then I’ve had an eventful couple of months.

 

One week after returning I thought I’d be in great form so entered a 10 and 25 mile tt on consecutive days over a weekend, unfortunately a late puncture before the start put paid to a fast time on Saturday and then despite perfect conditions on Sunday my legs just weren’t there and I narrowly missed a PB there as well.

 

I then headed into a training block that focussed on the build towards Bolton but with some speed work targeting a good race at the Windsor tri, I’d also had a session with Orca trying out some of their amazing wetsuits on the way to becoming a brand ambassador for them, the flexibility around the shoulders has to be felt to be believed, and id recommend anyone try them out (more on this later). Heading into a recovery week which would end with Windsor tri I headed out for a 2 hour ride on Saturday at about 80% FTP so hard but steady, which should have been followed by a run. I’d decided to do a couple of loops of the Windsor bike course, familiar roads that I’ve ridden down 10s if not 100s of times, unfortunately I hit a pot hole, which stopped the bike dead, throwing me over the handlebars, landing on my head and shoulder on some very rough tarmac, I immediately sat up trying to avoid being hit by a following car, thankfully they’d stopped, and called an ambulance as my race kit had afforded little protection from the grating of the tarmac and I’d lost a lot of skin and a decent chunk of flesh from my shoulder, as well as cracking my helmet in two. Suffice to say the ambulance and police who attended the scene were fantastic as were the staff at Wexham park, but particular thanks to the former police lady who stopped, and managed to contact Katie to let her know. Unfortunately the injuries put me off training for the week, and despite hoping id be able to race Windsor by Saturday I still couldn’t move my shoulder and the wounds on my back had not healed to an extent I felt comfortable getting in the Thames with anyway.

 

Over the course of the week id worked out which bits of my bike were recoverable an which needed replacement and scoured the internet trying to do this as quickly and cheaply as possible, unfortunately this meant the cash I had put aside for my new Orca wetsuit disappeared into bike shops and replacement kit.

 

Nevertheless I pootled down to the race on my mountain bike to cheer on the 20+ BTSers who were due to be racing and witnessed a really fantastic effort by long-time rival Paul Fitzpatrick storming around the run course to see off the rest of the BTs challengers as well as multiple great performances from others getting age group podiums and beating PBs along the way.

 

The following week I had hoped to be back to full training but was still hampered by pain, and the inconvenience of not being able to train as it would have necessitated the changing of multiple dressings.

 

 

Nevertheless one of my key targets for the season is improving my 100 mile TT time, and id been accepted into the Western Hard riders TT on the following Sunday so it became a race against time to see if my body would heal and if I could rebuild my bike, fortunately I managed it and arrived in Minety for 5.5 laps of undulating single carriageway, not an ideal course for going fast on but I knew with a decent ride I should be able to go under 4:20 which should be fast enough to get entry to a faster course later in the year! The target was to average 220w or just under 80% of FTP, the first couple of laps felt easy and I forced myself to keep a lid on things although I was slightly ahead of target, by lap three I was feeling more confident so pushed on and averaged 230w, the fourth lap things started to go downhill as 2 weeks of not cycling began to tell particularly on my undercarriage! Coming into the final lap I realised I’d be close to my target, so closed the vents in my helmet to try to maximise my aero, and really focus on position, annoyingly shortly after passing the finish line I hit a rut and my Garmin ejected from the bars so I slammed on the brakes jumped off and ran back down the road to recover it, shoved it in my skinsuit and realised I’d have to ride the final lap on feel not easy when your legs are beginning to cramp a bit, coming into the final mile it felt that it was going to be really close, thankfully the finish was at the bottom of a hill so despite having to really push as hard as I could I was well under my target in the end with 4:19:22, I then turned round, rode the 5 miles back to HQ and dutifully went out on my run, it was only 20 minutes at IM marathon pace but felt good and despite the pain from the bike I ran well and found the pace fairly easy so continued on until 5km had ticked over!

 

This was the start of the final block of training, I still felt a bit fresh but 2 more weeks of long sessions soon saw that off for my final training day which was a bit of treat to myself in that id booked in for a pretty fast 50 mile TT, I did this as although the ride might not be as long as some would do I’d run 60 miles in the week and so knew I’d be racing on extremely tired legs, plus having a number on my back would help me push all the way. Another early morning and I found myself in Hampshire at the top of a hill in slightly tweaked kit to hopefully improve comfort  and headed down the hill leading down onto the A3, I didn’t quite hit my power target for the day (in fact I put out less that the 100!) but the speed of the course and some good aerodynamics meant I was able to get around in 1:55:29 for a 6 minute PB and  to break the landmark 2 hours for a 50, I’m confident on a good day 9for me!) id be able to significantly improve on that, but pleased with the result I waited for Andrea at the finishing line and we headed out on a run before loping back to pick a slightly dejected (following a puncture enforced DNF) for a second loop.

 

On to taper and final race preparation, I thought I’d have a clear week at work without thinking about triathlon, popping in a few easy sessions and having time to catch up on life, received a rather stressful email on Monday morning that the replacement kit id ordered for my shredded tri suit had not made the order and not turned up as expected and now wouldn’t arrive until the end of July, I immediately pointed out this wasn’t quite ideal but the supplier Verge and club kit secretary April moved heaven and earth and did a fantastic job to get a special run to me by the Wednesday before the race, its not really ideal as it’s a pretty fundamental bit of kit for a race to not get to test out. Thankfully they also have an unbranded bit of kit that they are sending me in the meantime which hopefully mean I can test it out this weekend at Bananaman and the only thing that will change for race day will be the design of the kit!

 

So onwards and upwards, I’m hoping that 2 crashes and shingles is my bad luck out of the way for the year and Bolton will be a case of executing my plan and only having to deal with small hiccups along the way.

 

Feeling ready and prepared but still a little fatigued, but hopefully in the next 10 days my legs will be fizzing and allow me to hit my targets on the day… watch this space!

MAllorca 70.3

So Mallorca 70.3 didn’t quite go to plan – with an early crash on the bike and resulting knocked confidence meaning my bike was about 15minutes slower than I hoped, the swim and run times were marginally slow but by fractions which had the bike gone to plan would have been fine. Overall not a bad result ahead of Bolton, as there are some good lessons learnt and some good indications that I’m not far from where I want to be!

 

Rather than an in depth write up I’m going to focus on what I’ve learnt from the race – hopefully some of the thoughts might make you reflect on areas to be pleased with and others to work on and learn from!

 

Positives

My swim and run times have massively improved in a year, the swimming is really fundamentally about volume, the run has seen consistent training over the last year, but is more a result of getting closer to what I’m able to do, rather than an underlying improvement but I’m happy with that!

Nutrition – I’ve been working on pushing my intake up, and I managed to drink and eat exactly to plan, aiming for 1.5g of carbs per kg per hour on the bike and 1g per kg per hour on the run

 

Negatives

I hadn’t spent enough time pre-race swimming in a wetsuit and was a little slower than I’d have been in a pool as a result –easy one to fix but more on that later!

While the crash wasn’t my fault it was probably avoidable if I’d been able to brake rather than being in the aero bars – the lesson is to spend longer at the start in the star bars until I’m happy no one is going to be faffing with shoes.

I wasn’t confident descending wet roads on unfamiliar tyres on wet roads, I’ll probably take a slight time penalty at IMUK by using GP4000s which I’m more confident riding.

 

What Next

I’ve got a session with Orca this week testing some wetsuits to find the right wetsuit to meet my needs, I’ve always liked my orca trn wetsuit but it’s getting pretty old and tired, and I suspect there are some decent improvements to be made, they’re a local company and have very generously agreed to come and meet with me so I can try the suits out in the real world rather than just buying one based on what I think I need

I’ve got some more TTs in the plan – they’re great training and I’ve got some c targets to achieve – and a relatively inexpensive way of getting some training in, then I have Windsor Olympic tri again, a 100 mile TT the week after and then it’s pretty much taper time for Bolton!