Wildman Duathlon

I decided to do the off-road series as a way of avoiding boredom over the winter, I'd won vouchers (at Windsor, Bananaman and the Diamond Tri - thanks Human Race!) that would pay for free entry to the first 2 races in the series, and I'd been encouraged by my coach Dr. J about doing some races tired, the thinking is that it is good for mental strength particularly for the later stages of Ironman when everything screams at you that slowing down would be the smart option. I was a bit nervous in the lead up to the race both because I’m not a very experienced mountain biker and because Paul Fitz was racing, he’s a strong athlete who works very hard, and while he’s been close in all the races we’ve done together this year I’ve managed to have an unbeaten record this year, which I’m keen to maintain!

At the start I’d got a bit distracted chatting to Paul and we found ourselves squarely mid pack when the gun went, so the first KM was spent squeezing through gaps trying not to get too delayed,  after this my focus was pushing hard and keeping my hr around the 170 mark and keeping any eye out for any tricky bits that might catch me out on the bike. I stopped for a brief drink at the aid station and began to start thinking about the end of the run, it certainly didn’t come quite as quickly as I hoped as according to my Garmin the course was more like 10.5k!  I Finished the first run in 44:53 about 2 minutes behind the overall winner in 18^th place.

T1 was a bit of a faff, mountain bike shoes are never going to be as quick to change as tri shoes, as well as not wanting to stand directly on the grass, and trying to get my helmet on over the buff I had on made for quite a lot of faffing, as well as grabbing a gel as I wasn’t sure I'd be able to do it on the go, I lost about 30 second to the leaders here so need to sort this out for next time.

Bike -  I was in a fairly clear space of the first few hundred meters of the bike so settled into a bit of a rhythm, I’m not that confident of the grip levels going round corners but it probably wasn’t until 2km in that I got overtaken by anyone, and there weren’t exactly hundreds going past, in general the bike was a hoot, with some fast straight descents, and climbs that tested both my resolve to stay seated and leg strength to the limit, I stopped on both laps to grab a quick drink as I hadn’t put a water bottle on the bike, but I got through without too much challenge and lost about 4 places overall here, much better than planned, I'd managed to eat a gel while on the bike as well to keep energy levels topped up, which avoided eating while running which usually leads to stomach cramps for me. I’d lost about 10 minutes to the eventual winner here which is a pretty good result given my lack of MTB experience.

T2 was much better as there was less faffing: shoe change, gloves and helmet off and visor on. Only about 9 seconds lost to the winner here.

Run 2 was on a completely different course and after 300m of flat running on tarmac with wooden legs and numb feet there was a sign pointing at a couple of rickety old steps and a huge sand bank beyond, which there were a few people scrambling up ahead of me! This was a bit of a shock but quite fun, the character of r2 was set then, much more technical, challenging and genuinely off road, as the race avoided all paths and even went through a freezing cold water ditch that was about a foot deep (well maybe not a foot from this pic, but still...)!
By this stage my focus was on going as fast as possible on tired legs and felt I put in a good effort, but as is often the way at the end of triathlon I felt ok and able to push but this just wasn’t represented in actual speed, something to think about for the future.

In summary then, 17^th overall (including one relay team that I don’t usually count in results) and 3^rd in age group, I was very pleased with my effort and performance throughout, there are a few areas that I can make quick wins in time for round two on the 5^th and I want to look into why I didn’t have the speed I wanted in r2 as a longer term  improvement.

Overall a great race, and I’m looking forward to the next one in the series, I’d rather have distances that were closer to advertised, but only for pacing purposes, as I’m sure the extra distance was all good training!

5 Things to focus on for next time

1. Race head wear – probably a thinner buff that will not make me too hot on r1 and will fit under the helmet neatly will save time.
2. Don’t faff in t1 - be organised, and practise putting on MTB shoes
3. Get to the front at the start to save having to do a load of work in the first km just to get ahead of the crowd.
4. Be a bit braver on the mountain bike, they have huge amounts of grip!
5. Take lots of confidence from this, top20 is a great result for a first outing at a distance, top 10 is definitely achievable with a these small tweaks

 

(thanks to Human Race for the pictures!)

Ballbuster 2015

I did this race last year, after 4 weeks of very little training, having taken up beer post ironman and not having actually looked at the course or ever having been up box hil before, it was a nightmare, it was cold wet, the trail shoes I bought were not right for 16 miles of road running and I was too heavy.

I had been a bit tardy about entering the race and when I saw a competition to win free entry and a free pair of CEP Compression socks I jumped at the chance and couldn’t believe my luck when I won – I’ve been a fan of CEP compression wear for a couple of years and never race without their quad and calf sleeves on so a pair of socks to race in was a real bonus!

This year would be different, I’d be as prepared as I possibly could be, I don’t mean treating it like an a race, but in terms of fitness, tactics and kit I’d have everything nailed down a week to go and even have a bit of a practice in terms of kit to make sure it was just right!

Training wise things have been going well, I’m about 5 weeks into the training season, and one of those weeks was spend in Lanzarote climbing, then riding into strong cross/Tail/head winds then descending and then repeating, it even pissed it down with rain one day to partially simulate race conditions, my weight has dropped from the 74kg I hit post season down to below 72kg, which for the last few years has been race weight, the Tuesday night run sessions I coach have been focussed on building power and endurance by repeatedly running up and down steep hills, and on Tuesday I gave my planned kit a run out and was comfortable, able to regulate temperature nicely and felt fairly aero. I’d even looked through last years files to try to plan a tactic that would extract maximum performance out of myself, id worked out a power plan to mean I didn’t go too much into the red on the climb and didn’t take it too easy on the descents, and had planned to not let my heart rate go over 165 on the first climb.

The only thing separating this from an “a race” treatment is that I did a hard weeks training the week before, in an attempt to start to get myself to treat race as races and supported training as exactly that rather than skipping training sessions to help me be as fresh as possible for ridiculous things like a mid week club TT!

I had decided I would ride the TT bike as the winner and separately fastest split last year were done on one, and despite worsening weather conditions I stuck with this plan.

My final bit of prep had been to have a bit of a guesstimate of my club mates times as well as mine, and had figured id probably have a comfortable buffer over both them and the club record of 3:16:32 set last year by Gope Walker.

Anyway I was feeling confident of a decent PB and thought 3:10 was a good goal to aim for, I picked up Andrea’s bike on Friday, packed the car and was in bed by 10pm ahead of the 4:30 alarm clock!

We got to the start a little early, but in reality this meant we had plenty of faff time, and a good parking spot, after a couple of hours kicking about it was finally time to start, we gathered as a BTS group and then went our separate ways to adhere to the organisers request to self seed ahead of a “pulsed*” start system. Andrea and I had agreed to run together, targeting a 56 minute first lap, we set of a little slow due to the mud and the climb in the first KM that we’d forgotten about but were soon ticking along well ahead of target pace, trying to keep calm and slow a little but both feeling strong, we got to the first hill and I switched screens on my Garmin to be able to see heart rate, and alarmingly Andrea was pulling away from me despite going over my target HR, I realised id basically have to walk to maintain below 165 so upped it to 170 (I think this was a function of fatigue as usually 170 is going pretty hard – and this felt easy) I decided to let Andrea go, it’s testament to the progress he’s made this year in running, but my ego got slightly the better of me and I forgot about HR for a minute when he got a little too far in front.

Andrea entered transition 10 seconds ahead of me and jokingly told me he’d “smashed me on the run”, I quickly got bike shoes and helmet on and off I went, Andrea sneaked out slightly in front of me (again awesome progress from Mr tea set himself) but gave me space to get past, a true gent, I then got hit by the wind in transition and nearly landed on my arse, but  had to pick my bike up and hold it at angle not to get blown over – uh oh….

Onto the bike the first couple of KMs I was nicely tucked into aero and flying past people, at which point I started the first descent, and my visor fogged up, so had to ride quite cautiously as I couldn’t really see anything, so between putting the hammer down on the flatter bits and riding cautiously I got to the bottom of box hill for the first time, I was ahead of my power target at this point but stuck to the plan and held 300 watts up the ascent, thankful that I could see again, I got a couple of sarky comments about bike choice from people as I went past and one from someone who was overtaking me, but I knew I was riding well and just had to stick to the plan as best I could. Half way round the second lap with a growing confidence I realised I was fast approaching Martyn (going pretty much dead on the plan id imagined for him) and knew I had about 1.5 laps to put enough time on him just in case he was going well, then the heavier traffic began and annoyingly at the bottom of box hill Martyn was still quite close, but I stuck to plan, hoping that things would clear up, the final lap was all good, there’re were a couple of hold ups with traffic, as cars get stuck behind some of the slower riders, but for the most part nothing eventful, the final climb I really started catching people, particularly some of the kits that I’d noticed overtaking me the first time round – reminding me of the importance of pacing in events of this length.

T2 was uneventful apart from a marshal coming over to me asking me about how it was on my bike, I thought he might be asking on safety grounds so didn’t get annoyed, I grabbed a gel, thinking id now have two with me and off I went, I was really struggling for grip for the until I hit the road and wasted a fair amount of time here, I’m not sure there is much that can be done here, but something to note for next years thinking.

Immediately out onto run two I was still passing more than I was being passed, id noticed early on that people in the relay were wearing Velcro chips while everyone else had plastic ones, so when a girl came steaming past me I clocked the chip and made my excuses! I took my first gel fairly early knowing I had another one in my pocket for later on as I was feeling tired and realised my form was slipping but I was determined that my form would improve if I focused on it, and so made sure I had relaxed shoulders, was nice and upright and was swinging my arms from my shoulders hoping my legs would listen and the speed and fluidity would follow. It largely did, and there was a group of about 5 people who I kept roughly 20 meters in front of me, coming out of Headley village I became aware of someone catching me, and thoughts that it might be Martyn entered my head, I expressed my relief when it wasn’t, it was at this point I thought it would be a good idea to have another gel, with about 25 minutes more running, it wouldn’t make much physiological difference but a bit of a boost when I first had it, combined with the caffeine and hopefully a little extra in the last 5 minutes once the sugar hit the system might just make the difference, unfortunately the cupboard was bare, so I soldiered on, with about 4k to go I heard another set of footsteps and looked round to my horror to discover the ever smiling Martyn Parrish sneaking up on me, I had to let him go but once he was about 50m ahead I steeled myself for another effort, I knew he’d gone in a wave before me, so all id have to do was finish somewhere less than about 20 seconds behind him on the road to beat him on the clock. I cruised past the group that had been sitting about 20 meters in front of me, and by 2.5km to go and the start of the climbing I was less that 5m behind Martyn, it had taken a big effort to real him back in, but I figured if I could stay in touch up the hill it would be enough, onto the proper climb and my legs felt like lead, I focused on taking the shortest line but my heart rate was about 175 and there wasn’t any more in the tank, I was pulling away from the people behind me and tried a couple of 20 step power walks to see if that might give me a little speed, all the while watching Martyn edging away, he was probably close to 75m by this stage and although the power walks helped they weren’t enough, it was only once the course flattened out that I was able to pick up the pace, but Martyn was out of site by now, so it was just for me to know I’d put everything out.

I got over the line to find Martyn sitting pretty in a convenient chair, and heartily congratulated him, I quickly felt quite cold so headed to transition pretty quickly to get some layers on, and get my car keys, chucked the bike in the car and went to find Andrea.

It was only when we got to the post race restaurant that I discovered quite how close it had been between Martyn and I (5 seconds) which makes me wonder whether some of the small little errors could be to blame, but in reality the better man won on the day, and that’s good fire in the belly for training over the next few months.

So, the good

I ran well, and kept a lid on it to the final lap.

I got an 11 minute PB

I enjoyed the course

I got beaten by a clubmate, so there's that to help me get out of bed on the cold winter mornings!

The bad

Wrong bike

Wrong helmet

A small nutrition error

Never underestimate Martyn Parrish – he’s a competitive monster!

*setting people off in groups of 6 every 5 seconds to try to avoid congestion on the roads