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!