Category Archives: Good day

One of the season’s last evening swims

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Well last night’s lake swim will be one of the last of the season I guess. Too dark too soon.  The swim itself went ok, only 1000m before I decided to call it a night. I did notice my wetsuit rubbing on my neck though, which it has not done before. Maybe it was trying to make me faster by dragging me by the scruff of my neck?

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I’ve got three weekends of racing ahead before my tri season ends. Once the races are over I’ll ease off a bit while trying to keep things ticking over. Maybe a late in the year 10km before a short break. After the break the training will resume in preparation for next year’s big races….

Yikes, I amaze myself sometimes

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So, I was looking over my past events last night and noticed something that I had forgotten. I noticed that I had less than one month between my first ever triathlon and my first half-Ironman race. WOW. That was pretty gutsy for me. I look back now and am not sure I would recommend such behaviour. It does however, make me think about just what is possible when one puts their mind to something.Maybe that Ironman race next year isn’t so bad afterall.

I did a “sortof” triathlon in training yesterday. Did a 1600m swim set, a 15mile bike ride and a 2mile run. Transistions were pretty slow (ok, a trip to buy groceries between the swim and bike) however. The 15 mile loop may become a time-trial course of sorts for me over the coming months. It’s got some decent stretches for TT aero-bar position and has a short-sharp hill at about 10miles. I look forward to reducing the time to complete the loop 🙂

Windsor Half Marathon – smashed out a new PB

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Well yesterday was the 2010 Windsor Half Marathon. I went in aiming for around 1h40 – turned out I managed to do 1h26:47! Yes 1h26:47. Am over the moon with that result.

It was cool and a little chilly but no rain. The wind was gusty and at times annoying. The course is “undulating” but not ridiculously so – apart from the hill just after the 10mile mark.

I headed out during the first mile or so trying to get back on my target time after getting caught up in some runners at the start. In doing so I was running faster than my target pace. I decided to keep at the faster pace and managed to hold on much longer than I expected. After a while I realised that a 1h30 was possible and I fought through the aches and pains and started watching the mile splits anxiously. At 11 miles I realised I was on for the 1h30 and breathed a sigh of relief – all that was left for me to do was not fall over or slow down too much.

I had two gels (4miles and 9miles) washed down with a couple of sips of water – much less hydration than I’d normally do – seemed to work as it was a cool day. Now just to figure out the nutrition and hydration for the marathon in just over 5 weeks time….

I hope my right foot holds up over the next couple of weeks though – the dull ache still persists unfortunately…

So 1h26:47 and 58th overall based on my chip time and 63rd place based on race clock time.

Silence is golden

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Well it has been a while since my last blog post. Figured I had better write a quick few lines to let you know I’m still alive!

Firstly, here is a link to a great article by Joe Friel about recovery. Definitely worth a read: http://www.joefrielsblog.com/2010/09/how-to-recover.html

Since my last serious post I have completed a few races – Ironman Swiss 70.3, London Triathlon, and the National Club Relays. All good fun. Managed to PB in Swiss 70.3 and London Triathlon so am pleased with my recent performances.

My training leading up to the Windsor Half-Marathon and the New York Marathon is progressing well. Touch wood my legs are holding out with the increased running volume. This weekend I have the HSBC Standard Distance Triathlon at Dorney Lake. My main goal is sub-2h30 – with the secondary goal of beating my work colleagues who are doing a relay team race.

My swimming is holding steady and doesn’t appear to be improving significantly. I have increased my swim session duration, but have unfortunately reduced my swim frequency. Over the winter I hope to maintain my swimming and hopefully get a bit faster.

My cycling is going well – my last few weekly 10mile time-trials have definitely improved my 30minute (CP30) power output.  Over the winter I am looking at trying to not loose too much power while I rest up.

I will hopefully write up some brief race reports over the coming days.

Lingering leg fatigue from Sunday

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Well today is a glorious sunny day. Great weather this morning after last night’s freaky thunderstorm and torrential rain. Great weather for an outdoor swim… but that’s not on the plan for today. Today calls for a hour cycle followed by a short transition run. Looking forward to that after work. The only minor concern is the residual fatigue from Sunday’s cycle. I’m surprised that the legs are still a little tired – I guess the ride was tougher than I thought. My guess is that due to the number of stops and mini-rest breaks my aerobic system had time to recover from the efforts but the leg muscles didn’t recover. So by the end of the ride my CV system was not fatigued but my legs were. Interesting to consider the difference.

Yesterday’s swim went well even though the arms were still a bit achy from Saturday’s long swim. With the taper beginning these muscle aches will pass fairly quickly now which is great! During the taper I intend to keep an eye on my CTL to ensure that it does not fall too much. My CTL has not been rising for a while, but rather keeping steady, so hopefully the taper won’t let it drop too much. Joe Friel, the guru, has a great blog entry Strong and Weak Form which discusses the art of taping to come into form while keeping an eye on CTL. I hope that my coach’s plan does not taper to fast causing my CTL to drop dramatically… if I start getting concerned I will discuss this with my coach and perhaps increase intensity/volume slightly to keep the CTL decreasing “optimally”. Yes, another plug for the great WKO+ software – it really is this great!

Nineteen days till race day… EEEEK!

Three weeks to go….

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Well three weeks till the big one! I am starting to get things ready and ensuring that I have enough of  everything that will be going with me.

Yesterday I did a 150km cycle – the Ride to the Horns cyclosportive around Aylesbury. Quite a tough course with multiple short sharp climbs. I’m sure I saw the gradient show 18% on my cycle computer a couple of times. The ride was enjoyable but seemed to drag on somewhat. I suspect that this was due to riding in a group, taking too long at the feed stations and most noticeably due to one of my fellow riders getting a puncture that took around 45 minutes to fix. Long story short, we got through three tubes, two CO2 canisters and a new tyre! I would recommend this ride to someone looking to get some hill climbing in. Apparently the route takes in most of the decent climbs in the area. My legs are feeling it today!

The bike went well. New wheels are a treat. The gearing seems to be good, apart from dropping the chain twice while shifting back onto the small chain-ring, so I might have to tweak that. The rear brake still rubs a touch so I may try and tweak that too.

My on going seat post creak seems to be resolved – for the moment at least as I suspect it will return. My Felt B2’s seat post has been creaking for a while. The bike shop thought it was the saddle clamps which got some oil and attention but this failed to remedy the squeak. I then used carbon paste on the post and a drop of oil on the seat post clamp screws which helped for a bit – but the creak returned. I have now put some electrical tape around the lip of the seat post opening on the frame which means that the seat post clamp doesn’t rub on the frame. This seems to have resolved the creak for the moment. I may undo the clamp and see the state of the tape – it’s possible that it will need attention regularly which will be fine if it keeps the squeak at bay!

I managed to get a 3900m swim in on Saturday in the 50m outdoor pool. Lovely and clear water at a decent temperature too. Not a bad swiming venue, if a little bit far to goto regularly.

Anyway a slightly easier week for me this week – Hurray!

Challenge Barcelona race report

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Well Challenge Barcelona half-iron distance race has come and gone. I can’t believe it is over a week ago already. Life has just been so hectic… Anyway here is a brief race report. I will try and gather some stats and put them in another post.

In short – I a had a great day.

Swim went well in the choppy sea. Battled to navigate as I could not see the buoys for the turns so I suspect I zig-zagged quite a bit. I was sighting against a building in the distance. On the return journey I must have picked a bad building since I ended up some 50/75m off course once I could actually see the last turn buoy so had to swim further out to make the turn. Oh well.. such is life. Apart from that I felt OK in the swim even though the wetsuit didn’t feel 100% on the shoulders when we set off. I just couldn’t get it comfortable before the swim. Was in the last swim wave with the slow swimmers (I think there was a mistake with many of the swimmers and their waves) which meant I was soon overtaking people from the previous waves.

T1 wasn’t too bad – apart from some idiot “borrowing” my T bag so I spent 30-60 panicky seconds looking for my bag. Eventually he returned with it and I set off.

Bike went well. So much drafting on the go. I suspect I ended up doing a bit of drafting at times in the narrow bits of course while trying to find a gap to overtake. (starting in the last “slow” wave meant I was picking off people along the way). Made an effort to try keep a constant power on the bike but ended up doing a few big spurt efforts to overtake or get away from drafting groups. Not a totally consistent power but not bad. The hill up to Dosrius was less steep than I was expecting. The last 15-30km of the return leg of the bike was a bit tough going as I had a head wind. Spent most of the day on the aero bars so ended up with a bit of a stiff neck.  Was glad to be at the end of the bike leg though as I think I paced the bike almost spot on for the 91km.

T2 – not to bad. Met up with one of the girls in the group and said I’d run with her as she was also going for a sub-2h run. Set off not to bad at around 5:30/km which slowed to 5:45 and then stayed around 6min/km. She was having a shocker of a day with a sore tummy so couldn’t keep up a quicker pace. Since I was feeling OK and we were on for around 2hrs I stayed with her to keep her going.  I felt good and think I could have done just under 2hours had I maintained a 5:40 pace. My stomach was as good as can be expected so was happy with the run. Slightly disappointed I didn’t actually do under 2hr but had a super run with her so it’s swings and round abouts – it’s not always all about the time after all – gotta have fun days too.  The run was stinking hot and I probably didn’t take in enough fluids.

Bike nutrition may have been slightly low. I probably only had 3 bottles (2.5 energy drink and .5 water) (around 1.8l) rather than closer to 3l (3 energy drink and 1.5 water). I had 2.75 (yeah I didn’t finish one) gels too. So call it 3 bottles of nutrition and some additional water. So roughly 2.5*250Cal + 2.75*110Cal = 995Cal on the bike rather than a planned 1100Cal. On the run I had water, poweraide (or whatever it was) and then coke at the last two aid stations. I didn’t pee once during the race so should probably up the fluid a bit on the bike to my planned levels.

My plan for IM will be to have more fluids on the bike (600ml bottle energy drink and 150-300ml water an hour ) and 2gel/hr for the first 3hr and then 1gel/hr for the 2nd 3hr.

All in all I felt good about the race!

It all starts once more…

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Well the training has started again. I have to confess I did enjoy the two months of no training. I also have to confess that I am battling to get motivated again.

My sessions so far:

  • Tue 04/11 (56RHR) AM: 20 minute treadmill and 30 mins weights
  • Wed 05/11 PM: 40 minute swim session (1200m but more like 960m, due to kids lessons)
  • Fri 07/11 (58RHR) AM: 45 minute indoor bike (Thur’s session)
  • Sat 08/11: SKIPPED – 1hr swim
  • Sun 09/11: 1 hour indoor bike with 25 minute run
  • Mon 10/11: SKIPPED – 1 hour swim
  • Tue 11/11 (53RHR) AM: 10 minute treadmill and 30 mins weights

So I have skipped two swim sessions. The swim session I completed on Wed was tough. I can tell my technique has deteriorated and I don’t have correct timing of glide-pull/breath-recover.

My first weights session was, well, tough. I ended up cutting it a bit short as I was knackered. I think I hit back too hard! I ached for a good few days following the session.