IMFL - 4th time a charm?

I'VE MOVED

2009-08-17T19:56:00.003+01:00

With this blog being called 3rd time lucky it's already close to 12 months out of date so to fit in with all the other guff that's going on it's being moved to http://devoniain.blogspot.com/ .

Nothing will really change except that hopefully I'll post a bit more regularly and it'll take a bit of time getting set up properly.

The first post is up there now and the aim is to pop one up there every week at least until the 7th November when I 'yet again' try to nail an Ironman.

See you over there :-)

Hayle Standard Distance Triathlon

2009-07-28T10:10:00.003+01:00

It’s Sunday morning, 5:30am at the Hayle Travelodge and you can hear the familiar Summer sounds of wind and rain battering against the windows. “Oh crap, I’m going back to sleep. Goodnight” I said to Shelly who’d already been trying to wake me up for 30mins. Saturday had been such a nice day, but as 2009 is constantly proving, one day is never the same as the next. In fact quite often one hour is never like the previous one.

(Vo2 Max Lab Testing at Exeter Uni)

Finally we headed out to Copperhouse Pool for what will be the last time the event is held at this location. The mood wasn’t good, it’s supposed to be Summer sport after all, we want to race in the sunshine occasionally. Only 7 days ago I’d ridden the Two Moors 100m Sportive in torrential rain, I’d been hoping for better weather but it wasn’t to be.

I racked my bike and my bike/run gear in transition which was one of the most organised and spacious transitions I’ve seen, plenty of room for all of your gear and bike with none of the cramped up spaces that you find at most races. Brilliant job folks!

Soon I was putting my wetsuit on which was a longer job than normal as already everything was soaked. I left the bag with my clothes in a puddle by my bike, there was little point covering anything up in a feeble attempt to keep it dry and headed to the pool. Copperhouse Pool is an open water venue filled by the sea at high tide. Safe sea water swimming without any of the waves and currents you’d normally get. The water was nice and warm compared to my recent dips in the sea and we were soon all gathered on the far side of the lake for the start.

Soon we were under way and I immediately tucked in behind a clubmate who I expected would fly for the first 400m. I’d picked my spot carefully because of my notoriously bad navigation skills. After a while I looked up and we seemed to be way over to the left of the main pack and it didn’t look right to me so I jumped ship and headed back into the throng. The huge buoys marking the course were brilliant and visible even to a blind old bat like me and although I had to keep stopping to empty water from my goggles (I really must get a new pair) I don’t think I swam off course much at all which is a bonus. That said, I never really managed to break free from the hoards either and although I’m not the quickest swimmer in the world I’m normally quick enough to find myself in clear water fairly quickly.
The first lap finished and I still seemed to be struggling along and then suddenly my form just appeared from nowhere, I slowed down my stroke, focused on technique and I was flying past people. For the first half of lap 2 I just swam down the outside of a huge pack until I swam off the front and hit clear water. I couple of smaller groups were dispatched before the final turn where I saw a group of 2 just ahead and set about catching them. Just as I was sailing past I realised that one of them was my swim partner Phill, finally I’d got myself into a half decent position and knowing that his navigation is spot on I tucked in behind him for the last 100m or so before the exit ramp. (1500m swim time - 20:56)

(scenic setting for the start)

I exited the water in 6th place which I was quite happy with considering how badly my 1st lap had gone. Phill was up the ramp with his wetsuit down to his waist while I was still trying to unzip mine but I was soon at my bike putting on my sodden bike shoes and tipping the water out of my aero helmet before putting it on my head and grabbing my bike to exit transition. (T1 - 0:57)

Onto the bike and the rain continued to pour down on top of us. Phill was just ahead along with 2 other riders and I passed them heading out through the town before dropping into my Tri bars in preparation to smack the bike course, except that I couldn’t.......... My legs were just empty, there was nothing there, no power, no energy, no enthusiasm. It’s nothing that will worry me too much, I’ve put in a lot of miles over the last few weeks and I’m guessing that they’ve just caught up with me. The weather of course didn’t help and no doubt took the edge off what little bit of determination I have too. I still felt fine though so I just kept myself aero and turned the pedals round at whatever pace and with whatever power my legs would allow. I guess I’d had a bit of a preview the day before when I’d done a Vo2 Max test at Exeter University and my legs really hadn’t wanted to play there either. All I could do was hope I didn’t get passed by too many people, look forward to the ribbing of those clubmates who did catch me and hope that when I got off the bike I was able to run some respectability back into it all. (40k'ish Bike - 1:09:22)

(Did I mention the rain)

Back off the bike and into T2 it was still raining! I racked my bike, took off my helmet and bike shoes, then tipped the water out of my trainers before putting them on and heading out onto the run. (T2 - 0:45)

The good news for the run was that there was no sign of the cramp that quite often plagues me when I’ve been getting some bike miles in, the bad news was that my legs still had no energy and they seemed to tell me how fast I was allowed to push them rather than the other way round, luckily that was still a half decent speed and I almost immediately passed the last two people to take me on the bike, then about 1.5miles in I caught Phill who’d re-passed me at around 20miles and gone on to hit T2 a minute up. I continued to chase people down but not at anywhere near the pace that I’m used to, rather than making huge gains on them I was creeping up on them, but at least I was gaining. I saw my clubmate Alan near the turnaround, he’d flown past me like a man possessed half way through the bike course, he’d still got 2mins on me and if I was to stand a chance of catching him I was going to have to scorch through the 2nd 5k, so at the turnaround I put my legs in their place and made them work a bit harder. I caught and passed a couple more folks and then with about a mile to go we turned off the main road just as I ripped past someone. I heard shouting behind us and presumed it was spectators cheering encouragement to someone......... it wasn’t! While overtaking the pair of us had overshot a turning, the chap I’d passed turned around on hearing the shout to see a marshal waving him back, I didn’t realise until I got to the end of the path and saw my clubmate Alan who I was chasing run past from the other direction..... balls!!!
I turned around and ran back to where I should have turned off but I’d lost all of my momentum now and couldn’t really be bothered to push on, the chap I’d passed was now a good way ahead so I just focused on making sure I lost no more places and cruised into the finish in what turned out to be 9th place. (10k run - 39:12)

(cruising into the finish)

It also turned out to be 2nd place in my Age Group........... guess who got first place......... yep, it was the chap I’d passed and then lost time to when we took the wrong turn. Ah well, I could feel like I’d been robbed, but if I’d raced anything like the way I should have raced then it wouldn’t have even been close so it’s my own fault really.

All in all it's a fantastic event and would have been even better but for the weather. Copperhouse Pool will be missed because next year the swim will be in the sea, so there will be waves and tides for the newbies to contend with.

So now it seems that I’m race free for a few weeks although I have got a couple of testing lab session at Exeter Uni where I’ll be locked in a heat chamber and pedalling away on the bike for an hour. Hopefully with IM Florida getting closer then I’ll be trying to update this a bit more often than I have. Fingers crossed we’ll finally get some decent summer weather and I’ll be able to get some good training done.

Oooops, it's been nearly a month.

2009-07-11T07:56:00.002+01:00

I've been really slack on the blog this year, but hopefully I'll get to pick it up a bit with IM Florida now less than 4 months away. I'm on top of the 'supposed' vital last 16 weeks and still I haven't really got my backside into gear. Still, I've been ticking along and even though my idea of ticking along involves far too many days off it's still doesn't exactly mean I've turned into Mr Couch Potato although the internet does take up far too much time - damn you Twitter!!

So what have I been up to since the last post? Well I'm not shy and secretive about my training, I'm happy to admit that it's as random as it can be. It's also published in full on the internet, so if you'd like to peruse, laugh at (or even advise) about what I'm up to in the run up and what I have been up to previously then just take a look by clicking here.

The bad/lazy news is that in the 25 days since my last post I've done absolutely nothing on 10 of them and I'm sittng typing this on a miserable Saturday morning when I should really be out on the bike, but the weather is sooooo YUK!!

The good news is that I've finally got my backside onto my bike. It's been no great shakes and it was almost 2 weeks after Burnham Tri before I sat in the saddle again, but I've managed to sneak another 80miler, 4 x 50 milers and a couple of 20's in which is a massive improvement on the cycling I'd been doing before. I've also got the Two Moors 100mile Sportive coming up next weekend which will be my first ever Sportive. The event HQ is only 4miles from home and the course doesn't look too challenging so it should be a fun day out and a good time to crack my first century of the year. There will be no taper for it though, it's purely for training and if I end up bimbling around with some friends then so be it. Time in the saddle is what I'm after.

The swimming is the same as ever, it pretty much just bimbles along in it's own little world, although I did actually possibly swim a pb of 13:20 for 1000m last night (I'm not sure if it's a pb ot not) which meant I held 1:20/100m pace, I can't complain about that. There was also a nice change in the swim program when 5 of us from my Tri Club went down to Burgh Island to help film a new 'Wild Swimming' TV program with Robson_Green. Hardly the biggest training session and coming with it's own selection of problems (mainly getting home less than 4hrs before I had to get up for a 15hr shift at work) it was still a good fun day and 3 of us managed to get in a solid TT paced lap of the Island in (21:30) with the local head lifeguard leading us on a paddle board (thanks Liam).

Running like swimming has pretty much been ticking over. Most runs have been comfortably holding themselves below 7min/mile pace although there has been the odd disaster like attempting to do 14miles while fresh using the Galloway Run/Walk method. The plan worked like a dream at Marazion when my legs were trashed but running fresh meant that the first 5 miles were still all under 7mins and I walked the first minute of every one. It was more Interval session than steady paced effort and I suffered as a consequence.

The only race has been the North Devon Tri Beach Aquathlon which for me is more about having a bit of fun and doing my bit to help out than actually racing. The race was made interesting when some numbnuts turned half of the signs around. As I'd put the run course out I simply stopped to fix the problem signs as I ran the first lap, luckily there weren't many people ahead of me and those that were only ended up taking a slight diversion, so all was well.

So that's about it really. Update complete. There's nothing more to say really. Hope I haven't wasted too much of your life.

Oooooh, nearly forgot. It's IRONMAN season. I spent last weekend shouting at my computer as a bunch of folks I know raced IM Austria, at the same time I was also watching the drama unfold at IM Germany. Most of them did fantastically well (Rich you're a pussy). This weekend I'll be mostly shouting at my computer as Chrissie Wellington smacks Roth and the egotistical tosspot that is Kit Stokes (he's ok really) FINALLY BREAKS 9HRS at IM Switzerland. Come on man!!!! I'm sure I should be training instead but we'll call it inspiration ;-)

Laters all

(Racing in) The sun and the rain.

2009-06-15T15:30:00.003+01:00

Well you can't write a script for the weather lately. Just one week after getting burnt to a crisp at Marazion I'm lining up on a Saturday evening to race the Saunton Sands Aquathlon and it's been pouring with rain ALL DAY. It's not very often you expect to finish the run wetter than you finish the swim, but this was one of them. Still it's all good fun and with the race being a tiny casual affair it was all done in good spirits. No doubt the conditions scared a few people off but the sea was as calm as you could hope for so it was game on.

Saunton Aquathlon

We stood in the clubhouse looking out to sea as they put the swim bouys out. "Are you sure that's the right distance?" we asked. "It looks like a long way".

Race time came and we charged into the sea, well some charged while I strolled out. At least the water was warmer than at Marazion. I picked through the back and mid packers and set my sights on a group of 3 who were leading the field, just before the first bouy I caught them up. We headed back to the beach to complete the first half of the 'M' shaped swim and as we exited the sea to run around a flag someone shouted "14mins!". 14mins!!!!! I can swim 1k in 14mins, this is supposed to be 1k and we're only half way through. Ah well, no matter. One of the local SLSC boys dolphin dived into the lead which helped me because it meant I didn't have to sight near invisible bouys. At the final turn the 4 of us were still together but with the huge white clubhouse to aim for I pushed on and headed out to transition with a small lead.

The run was a real ramble at times and great fun except for the fact that my legs were trashed from my morning bike ride. There was a relay runner ahead who I just couldn't get anywhere near, he was only 13 but a national cross country racer. As he hadn't swum I'll hold my head up against the embarrassment of getting a kicking by one so young (I'll get him next time).

A tiny field, but a win is a win (so they say) and a rare race where the swim takes longer than the run. Happy Days in the rain.

Burnham-on-Sea Sprint Triathlon

Another week gone and the weather has turned again as Burnham took place on a blisteringly hot day, but the relatively early start saved us from the worst of it. In a bid to kick start my Ironman training I'd ridden the 80miles from Barnstaple to the parents holiday crash pad in Brean on Saturday and the 5mile spin from there to the Pool on Sunday morning told me that my legs were not the only sore bits that had forgotten what 4hrs+ in the saddle felt like.

After catching up with some old friends and cheering on some of my earlier starting clubmates it was time to head poolside.

The swim was straightforward enough. 500m in Burnham Pool so once that was dispatched in 6:50 I did the necessary and headed out on the bike. Early on there were a few annoying traffic hold ups. Maybe I'm too casual about this sport because rather than risk my neck overtaking cars I sat behind them while a couple of other lads charged down the outside. A couple of minutes later though the cars had gone and I set about catching and despatching those who'd taken advantage of my timid nature. In my swim wave was a lad I've never ever beaten, we're similarly paced on the swim and run but he always kills me on the bike. He'd been just ahead out of the water but the traffic had given him a lead of around 30secs, I focused on him ahead thinking that if I could minimise the damage on the bike I'd stand a slim chance of catching him on the run and better still I'd have a chance to break the hour marker here for the first time ever. Then around half way into the bike I realised that not only was I keeping him in sight but I was actually slowly gaining on him, that was all the incentive I needed to keep pushing when the going got tough and I wanted to ease off. With a mile to go I was within 5 secs and we returned to the main road and the main road traffic. For the next half mile there was some tentative overtaking going on before we returned to a closed section of road near the pool.

Entering T2 my legs were in bits but I knew that there was a chance of a very rare victory over someone who's been out of my reach for years. I entered T2 ahead but my transition was slow as I messed around racking my bike, I left with a small chase on my hands.

We ran out to the beach side by side and my legs were screaming, any minute now I could feel that my cramp problems would re-appear. My breathing was controlled though, pace wise I was well within my limits and I was holding my own, if I could just focus on keeping my form then I should be ok. Along the beach we were inseperable but then we hit the sand dunes for the first time and I got a small gap. Through the off road section of the run course the gap opened a bit more and then I started getting cocky and relaxed. Hitting the dunes to return to the beach I felt the inevitable twinge in my quads. Do I walk, do I hope to run through it? Looking over my shoulder I gambled on the gap and stopped to walk, I'd count for 1 minute and then get mobile again. When I started running again all of the gap had been wiped out and it was game on again, it was all down to the last mile of the run. We ran side by side for 2/3 of the beach before I felt confident enough to try increasing the pace and thankfully the increase was enough for me to cross the line ahead and sneak home in 2nd place overall, with a new pb and for the first time in 10 or so attempts a finishing time below the hour in 58:55.

Happy Days.

Marazion Middle Distance Tri

2009-06-04T03:16:00.005+01:00

It's been a tough few weeks since I last posted/raced. Work has involved some very long hours, I've been lazy (nothing new there) and I seemingly managed to pull a muscle in my back although I'm still not really sure how. Up until the very last minute my racing at Marazion was in doubt, but luckily for me Cris and Karen from http://www.hayletri.co.uk/ who organise the race are a top pairing and would let me enter at the very last minute if needs must. Even booking accomodation was a nightmare. Because Rosie is a nightmare and can't keep still in open spaces we decided it was easier to book a B&B. Wrong!! Finding somewhere that takes dogs is a challenge in itself but Google is a wonderful thing when that sort of problem strikes.
B&B attempt 1 soon email us saying that they've changed owners and the new folks are allergic to dogs. B&B attempt 2 seem great so Shelly calls them, the dog is fine and won't even cost any extra but what's that?...................... We're not married, so we're not welcome! Welcome to the 18th Century. Then by chance we find that the local Travelodge take dogs so the problem is solved, an expensive solution but it's solved all the same and it won't cost us if I end up staying at home resting my back and we have to cancel.
So on the Friday pre-race I take my Tri bike out for a quick 10mile spin, then take my road bike for the same 10 miles to see how my improving back reacts to them both. All seems well so I email off my last minute entry and it's game on. Saturday morning Rosie woke me up at stupid o'clock so I took her for a small run and then took the Tri bike out for another 10mile spin just to be sure it was ok to use. After that we casually packed the car up and headed down to Penzance, stopping off for Shelly to see our Tri Club's latest member who had been born just 5 days earlier.

After registering, meeting up with clubmates and plenty of friends (old and new) we headed off for some food and a half decent night's sleep.

Race morning dawned looking every bit as nice as the weather forecast had promised. I sorted my transition area out and joked with the lads around me that they wouldn't know I was there as my bike would probably be gone from it's place for both of their transitions (due to my nice and steady bike plan).

Wetsuit on and I half heartedly listened to the swim course description. Swim 650m out to a pencil thin bouy that I could hardly see, 600m across to an equally invisible bouy and then swim back in. Easy peasy. I'll just swim slightly off to the right of everybody and keep my eyes on those around me. Even with my pretty prescription goggles my sighting is useless and I've honed my skill after many 'blind as a bat' years.

The race started and everybody charged into the water which was f-f-f-freezing (ignore anyone who tells you otherwise). I'm always useless for the first 2-300m but once I'd get my ice-cream face under control I start chugging my way through the field. Just before the first bouy I caught one of my clubmates (Alan), this was a good think as he's been swimming well lately. I thought I'd swim with him for a while, but then he just seemed to go backwards so I carried on. Just before the 2nd bouy I caught my squad swim partner Phill and he disappeared behind me just as quickly, heck I must be flying. Then we turned back towards the beach and all I could see was the blazing sun, I couldn't see a thing and had no idea where the hell I was going, I couldn't see anybody ahead of me either surely I wasn't leading. To cut a long story short (and a few hundred meters of zigzagging) I finally stumbled onto the beach after lots of wasted time swimming breaststroke, backstroke and treading water just trying to get somewhere near the exit. Two local fish type swimmers had blasted to an early lead and I was in 3rd place with the rest of the field a lot closer to me then they should have been. Ah well. Onto the bike and I felt like a real fatty, I'd swallowed a load of water during the swim and just the thought of eating or drinking made me feel ill. The plan on the bike was to go steady, so that's what I did, except for that it didn't feel steady and I'm not sure I'd have been much quicker if that hadn't been the plan. Alan came flying past me on the way out to Lands End but he was only doing the swim/bike before handing the run reins over to his other half Lotty for the run, no problem I'll stick to the plan. Phill came past me with his Tribars hanging off before the hill at St Just, ahhh he's not supposed to catch me on the first lap, especially with his bike falling apart. Then I seemed to get to the point where people stopped blasting past me and disappearing and started working their way past me and pulling away real slow. I was happy now because it meant I'd found my rightful place and it wasn't as far back as I'd feared. I spent the rest of lap one and most of lap two getting overtaken on the hills and then easily running people down again on the descents, there are more uphills than down though so I appeared to still be losing ground but worryingly there was still no sign of 3rd clubmate Tim who I'd expected to come flying past by now. The rest of the bike was much the same as I struggled on the hills, cruised the descents, kept the pace steady, occasionally saw Phill not too far in the distance and still didn't get caught by Tim.

Into T2 for surely the longest transition as I lay down and fully stretched my back out before fannying about putting socks and stuff on, then I stopped just outside of T2 for Shelly to sunblock me. Did it work? Nah! Hurt like hell when it hit the wetsuit burn though.

There was a cunning plan for the run. I would run until I felt the first twinges of my ever annoying cramp and the moment I felt anything I'd walk for a minute, see how long I'd run for and aim to repeat for the length of the run. Easy eh . So off I went and almost spot on 5mins I felt a little twinge, I stopped and walked a minute and then ran for 5 more. Job done! Amazingly I caught and passed my clubmates plus several other folks and that little run/walk plan got me the 13th fastest run split of the day at an average 7:17 per mile without a single 'proper' bout of cramp. Bonus!
Could I have been quicker? Of course, but that wasn't the plan for the day, I could have swam, biked and ran quicker but then I might have blown up and learnt nothing, instead I may just have (hopefully) stumbled on a way to fix my damned Ironman run splits. Fingers crossed. Phill had an awesome race and were it not for his wonky Tri bars I might be telling you he beat me.......... or I might be telling you I ran faster just to make sure I beat him who knows. Alan ripped up the bike course. Could he have run off that bike though? Who knows. Guess we'll find out at Wimbleball (IMUK 70.3). Hopefully he'll nail it. Tim...... Hmmmm Tim....... Lets face it, Tim had a disaster. Heck I've had enough of them and I really felt for him. He rode past me as I was heading out on the run and told me there was no way he was running, I couldn't believe it when I saw him coming the other way and with it being 3 laps he had 3 chances to call it a day but he didn't and for all the cr@p we give him he gets full marks for getting there on such a ronking hot day. Well Done lads. Top Job. Right, sleep time now. I've had enough of this sucking up. I beat all my clubmates and that's what matters. Laters.

Exe Valley Tri

2009-05-14T14:57:00.002+01:00

A week after Neolithic Marathon, after training 18hrs in 10 days (my biggest consistant block this year) I found myself in Tiverton for the Exe Valley Sprint Triathlon. So do you rest up in advance of such a race??? Don't be stupid. You bike and run (2.5hrs) the day before and then you cycle 38.5miles just to get to the race. Well actually, you wouldn't do that if you had any sense, but nobody has ever accused me of that.

The bike ride down to the race with my clubmate Phill was easy enough. It's probably fair to say that he did more work than I did and we took the longer less hilly route rather than go direct and spend too much time climbing. We made it to the race hours before my 1:45pm start time which was all good as I'd got team mates to cheer on who were in action from 8am. With us making up over 15% of the field plus all the other folks I knew there was never a time where I'd got nothing going on. I even had time to dispute the benefits of Newton running shoes with a chap at their Trade Stand while abusing a clubmate who wears them, all in my normal tactful style of course.

So onto the race then..... The 400m pool swim was steady enough, I felt a bit tired but chugged along nicely, not on for an especially quick time but it wasn't too bad, maybe 10secs slower than I would normally expect. 8th fastest on the day @ 5:31. Out of the pool and Transition didn't go brilliantly which wasn't helped by my aero helmet not fitting on my fat head, I'd obviously closed up the lock at the back during the close season and it hadn't been touched since. Doh. Never mind, it was soon sorted as I ran out of T1 with my bike in 83secs.

Heading out on the bike I was soon aero and reeling in the competitor ahead of me. As soon as I caught and went past him we hit a small climb, I'd got nothing in my legs at all though and he came tearing back past me. Over the top I caught and went past him again, we hit another small climb and away he went - grrrrrrr!!! After that the course levelled out and I pulled away comfortably. The rest of the bike ride was quiet until right at the end when I caught our waves speedy swimmer who was obviously less comfortable on dry land than in the water. I had a small traffic hold up at a roundabout, but was soon running into T2 to ditch my bike. 9th fastest bike ride @ 38:15. T2 was a comfortable 32secs and I was soon out on the run.

Out on the run and I was hurting, I ran past hoards of yelling clubmates pulling all sorts of faces, but soon I was in my stride and hunting athletes. As we hit the long steady climb which was the courses only ascent and I was in full flow. I had a target ahead who I knew was a good runner and he was coming back to me, happy days. Then it all went a bit pear shaped!!!

We turned onto a small out and back section where we had to run through a gateway. After the big week that gateway was just too much for my quads and they started to cramp up. I eased off the pace a little in hope that it would subside, but I've been here too many times before and I knew there was no escape and soon I was forced to stop as my left quad locked up. A quick self massage and I was back on the move, but not for long though as I was forced to stop another 3 times the last of which had my quad and hamstring cramping up at the same time (trust me, that hurts!!). Finally I jogged into the finish with the 75th fastest run time of 22:44, around 5mins and 70+ places from where I should have been..

Ah well it was still good fun and served as a reminder of everything that goes wrong when I race Ironman. At least this time the run was only 5k because it's a real pain when that happens and there's still 25miles to go. Marazion Middle Distance next on 31st May which will (not) be followed by the Dartmoor Discovery 32miler the following Sunday.

6 months and counting.

2009-05-09T22:16:00.002+01:00

Well today is the 7th of May and that means that 6 months from now I’ll be plugging my way around the Ironman Florida bike course and hoping that just this once I can finally manage to run a Marathon after cycling 112 miles. This Sunday was an inadvertent practice session and also a big kick in the pants as once again I got taught a harsh lesson. The question is though, will I ever take these lessons in and become a better athlete for it, or will I do my normal trick of shrugging it off and forgetting all about it the next time round. So on to the weekends activities we go.
April had finished poorly, very poorly. Training hadn’t gone well and work had thrown some big hours at me. Towards the end of the month my Tri-Club mate Jimmy had brought up the subject of the Neolithic Marathon. Not being able to resist a challenge and the chance to redress the balance after last year’s pathetic performance there my cheque was soon in the post. Jimmy was going for Marathon number 4 in 6 weeks following on from Rome, Taunton and London only 7 days earlier. Amazingly the 3 previous Marathons all had finish times within a couple of minutes of each other, this one wouldn’t though as it was off road and hillier than the road versions. I on the other hand was totally unprepared and untrained, nothing new there then. Although I say ‘undertrained’ I’ve still knocked out some decent runs this year and days like the Bampton-Tiverton race (then back to Bampton) mean that I have got a few miles in, add that to my years (and years, and years) of general training and it wasn’t exactly like I was taking a step into the unknown.
I met Jimmy at 6am and we drove the 2hrs to Stonehenge where we loitered a while before catching the bus to the start at Avebury. Once at Avebury we just had to kill an hour and collect our timing chips before we were ready to roll. Soon the small field of marathon nutcases were lined up and ready for the off.............. and we were away.
I soon settled at my planned Heart Rate of 140-150bpm and found myself cruising along in 10th place, the aim of the day being to settle in at this pace for at least 24miles and then if by some chance I found myself feeling good then I could put the hammer down over the last couple if it meant gaining significant places or maybe dipping under 3hrs. The first mile is nice and flat but the next 3 are a constant climb, I was well aware of this and paid special attention to my Garmin so as not to get too excited early on. I paid the price for that last year and didn’t want a repeat. As the race developed it soon became clear that there were no superstars here, there was a group of 3 who took the lead early on but they were going nowhere fast once the pace settled. I had my Garmin set to show just Heart Rate, the time run and my average pace for the run. Nutrition wise I just took an SIS gel before the start and carried a couple of SIS caffeine gels to have at 9 and 18miles.
The plan went brilliantly for the first 9miles as I consistently averaged 150bpm. Then several things conspired against me. Firstly I took my caffeinated SIS gel which seemed to act as rocket fuel. I’m normally really sceptical about people who claim that a gel has made all the difference to their performance, sure they will fuel you to help you go further/faster but I’ve never before taken a gel and felt a noticeable difference in the way I’m performing ‘at that time’. Was it was the gel that suddenly made me feel so much stronger or was it the placebo effect from my noticing that I was now in 5th place and the 4 people ahead of me were all getting closer with every step? Who knows, but I decided that as I was feeling so easy I could afford to let my HR rise by 5bpm. Not a big factor because I’d come into the race playing the safety card and in theory I ‘should’ be able to run it at close to 160bpm if required. 10miles done at a jog in 1:09:20, things were looking good.
Miles 11 & 12 took in the days steepest climb so the pace dropped a bit as I shortened my stride and cruised up it easily enough to catch the lad in 4th place. I know he’s a useful runner and was surprised to catch him so easily, a quick chat discovered that not only had he done London the previous week but is about to do the 10 Marathons in 10 days challenge so there was no rushing him along. I eased past and focused on the group of 3 ahead, I could afford a couple of slightly elevated miles because once I’d caught them I could ease off the pace, settle in and it would be ‘Game On’ at 24miles. By 15miles we were running along comfortably in a group with me sat at the back concentrating on dropping my HR back down from 160 to the 150’s and then all of a sudden I lost all my senses and turned into a complete idiot!!!
I hadn’t been able to make my mind up whether I’d caught the 3 lads with me because they’d gone out to fast or because nobody had wanted to do the work and pull the others along. My plan for as long as I'd looked like catching them had been to hang in until 24miles and hold my HR as low as possible AND THEN IT HAPPENED!!! We ran past a drink station and everybody pulled over to the right so that they could grab a drink, everybody except me. In a moment of complete madness I decided to see what everybody had got in the tank and I turned the screw. I didn't see what happened behind but I heard several swear words, lots of sprinting feet and even more heavy breathing as I cruised along and knocked out a 6min mile, the fastest of the day by a long way. We came to a hill, I eased off and looked over my shoulder to inspect the damage. One of the lads was still on my shoulder but breathing real heavy, the other two weren't too far away but far enough to make me think it was in the bag so I eased off and allowed the group to reform.

I decided that now was the time to take my other gel, I knew the effort was going to take it out of me so the caffeine boost would be welcome. I took the gel and ------- nothing!

From there it all went a bit pear shaped, even as I was doing it I knew that putting a hard mile in was a stupid move, I just hadn't realised how bad. It wasn't long before the lead group started moving away from me and I could do nothing about it. I tried to kid myself that either they were just running scared and would soon ease off again or that my gel would soon kick in and I'd be motoring along again before I knew it. Neither of those was likely to happen though, the Garmin doesn't lie and my pace was dropping while my HR was still miles too high. I've been there too many times before to not know what that meant.

Mile 18 was the last time I saw a sub 7 and the drop off was rapid, there was only actually one mile below 7:40 after that point. A cramp stop during mile 22 saw my first 8+ mile that hadn't involved a big climb and from there on in I was just trying to get it all over with. A couple of 7:50's took me to 24miles, at the time they seemed disasterous but looking back they were an achievement because if I could have only held that pace to the finish I'd have been 4mins quicker and still finished 4th instead of 6th. The last mile was a pure 'death march', whether it was because I'd just lost the plot mentally or whether my body had really given up I'm not sure, but at the point where everybody normally pushes through to the finish I just bimbled along before managing to jog the final field. That last mile took 11mins and then you cross the line and you've finished 6th, everybody is happy for you, everybody cheers you to the finish line and you do your best to look happy when in fact you're (once again) like a bear with a sore head. At least I've only my own stupidity to blame, it's so much easier to deal with when it's not down to anybody else.

So that's the tale, 30mins quicker than last year and a far better first 15miles. I still need to control myself and work off the plan rather than instinct, that would be easier to do if I knew the plan worked though I suppose. Ah well ;-)

Since the race I've trained pretty well and as of today I've averaged 1h40m a day so far this month. The first bit of this blog was deliberately written on Thursday 7th May but I didn't realise it would take me until early morning on Sunday 10th May to finish it. Now, just to prove that I've learnt my lesson after last week I'm off to race the Exe Valley Sprint Triathlon which is run in Tiverton around 35miles away. How am I getting there????? I'm cycling there of course :-)

Laters all.

Nothing worth seeing here.

2009-04-25T19:54:00.003+01:00

Right, lets get back to training talk and what the hell I'm going to do about this damn Ironman I've entered. Work never gets any better and I can't believe that anybody gives a rats about anybodys job but their own. That was a one off whinge, never to be repeated - Sorted!

So, after the Easter Saturday Burrows Run of a thousand pictures I managed to drag myself out for a 25mile bike ride. On Easter Sunday I bettered that and rode 40miles, things were looking up. Then on Easter Monday I popped down the Road to race the.........

Bampton to Tiverton Road Race

I woke up on the morning feeling as though someone had battered my legs with a steak hammer. The previous 2 days bike rides had been my first of the year on my QR Tri bike and they'd killed me. Still I jumped in the car and drove the 35miles to Tiverton to register for the race. The organisers run buses to the race start as it's a point to point but I wanted a long run so I drove the 7miles to Bampton, that way I'd 'have' to run back again after.

The race started well, too well actually as I found myself up inside the top 10. Mile 1 went past in 5:31 (ooops), Mile 2 went past in 5:37 (heck). This was far too fast, especially since I'd got to run 7miles back after. At 2.5miles my tired legs started complaining and I had to let the 2 lads with me escape on an uphill section. Miles 3 & 4 went by and even though I was dying I was holding sub 6's so I pushed on. I had a couple of team mates behind me and decided that I'd keep pushing until they caught and past me. At 5miles I got overtaken but not by a clubmate so I tried not to lose too much ground. Mile 6 was the toughest as it had a bitchin little climb in it that really smacked your legs. I caught the lad who'd gone past me earlier, with a mile to go and him struggling I decided to put it all on the line (check the very rare pic of me working 'and blind' thanks to clubmate Damo). Finishing with another sub 6min/mile I managed to finish 10th overall in a time of 41:51 for the 7.1mile course.
After catching my breath, watching my clubmates finish and chatting to folks I could hold off the inevitable no longer and it was time to run back. I really didn't feel like it after racing much harder than I'd meant to, but it actually turned out to be ok. I held 7's all the way back although I have to admit I wouldn't have wanted to run any further, the last mile was real hard going.

After the race things went a bit slack. On the Tuesday I went to the running club with Shelly but I didn't run with them, instead I left Shelly there as she's trying to get back into running and I ran the 5miles home along the Tarka Trail with Rosie. Wedesday I was just a mess and didn't train, Thursday I was just as big a mess but I still took the pup out although I had to turn around and only managed 4.5miles. Friday I really couldn't face a run but wouldn't miss my squad swim session and then although I'd planned an 80mile bike ride on Saturday it all fell apart and I did nothing yet again, but then Sunday was the ............

Burnham Aquathlon

After making the 90min drive to see the folks at their caravan on Saturday we all got up ready and raring to go on Sunday morning. We drove down to the freshly renovated pool, registered and milled around waiting for the start and chatting to folks we hadn't seen since the last events of the 2008 Tri season. Soon it was time to get changed ready to race. I headed onto poolside for the race brief, set up my transition area (number belt, glasses and trainers) and headed to my lane. There were 4 of us all due to start the 1000m swim together so we had a chat amongst ourselves and worked out a start order. 3 of us were a very similar speed and the 4th was easily faster than any of us, so he went 1st (I went off 3rd). For 40lengths our little group of 3 stayed packed tightly together, I moved into 2nd place when I sensed that the lad ahead of me was tiring and the swim was over in 13:41. A slightly disappointing time, but still 2nd fastest overall a full minute behind the leader of our lane. With 3 of us out of the pool on each others feet even the transition was a race, I held my positon though and was soon heading for the beach run. On the very first turning as we left the pool I felt the insole of my left foot slide to the side, I knew this was going to be trouble as it meant running 10k with my feet rubbing on the trainers stitching, there wasn't time to stop though. I soon opened a gap on my fellow swimmers and headed off after the race leader. Along the beach, over the dunes and onto the golf course my target got ever closer, then I caught him on a long single track stretch of path. I hoped that as we'd all stopped politely when he'd lapped us in the pool he'd repay the favour on the run. A gap came and went, he didn't pull over. Another gap came and went, he still didn't pull over. I didn't wait for a 3rd, I just shoulder barged him out of the way and ran past.

I was now leading the race, but knew I was on borrowed time as chasing me down was World Age Group Duathlon Champion Gary Gerrard. Don't get me wrong, I'm no slouch on the run but there's a big difference between someone who runs 36mins+ and someone who runs 32mins for a straight 10k. I held my lead for the rest of the first lap and then I was caught just as we hit the sand dunes on the 2nd lap. After that Gary disappeared into the distance and I pretty much cruised around knowing that the win was gone but 2nd place was a safe bet. In the end I was 1:21 behind Gary but 1:19 ahead of 3rd place, so 2nd place (or 1st loser) it was.

After the race I ran 7.5miles back to the caravan with the pup. A full on headwind didn't make for a quick run and strangly Rosie really didn't seem to enjoy it. Once the weekend was over I returned to lazy Iain status and another ig week at work didn't help me. Monday was totally lacking. Tuesday I clambered onto the turbo trainer but couldn't get into it so after 35mins I clambered off , pulled on my trainers and took the pup out for a swift 3mile run. Wednesday was my Running Clubs Relay night, a competition we have against all the local running clubs at various venues. Wednesdays relays were just around the corner so I ran there (2miles) with Rosie, raced a lap (2.3miles), then cruised a warm down lap before running home with the pup, enough for 8.8miles in total. Wednesday I once again did nothing and Friday was no different except that as it was a Friday I had to swim. Today I managed to turbo for an hour before getting dragged out to Rock Park for a steady 2mile with Shelly and her group before running 5mile back home with Rosie.

Tomorrow is London Marathon so Good Luck to anybody who is racing that happens to stumble across this blog. I may or may not be running Neolithic Marathon next weekend, but as of yet I've no confirmation either way. My entry went off a little late, my cheque hasn't been cashed 'as yet' but that doesn't really mean anything. So long as I know for next weekend that's all that matters.

Until next post... Seeee ya.

Blimey. Two posts in a week.

2009-04-11T06:48:00.005+01:00

Well the fact that I'm posting so soon (for me) wither means there's loads to tell or Rosie pup has got me up far too early and I've not much else to do. As there is never really loads to tell in my life then once again it's down to Rosie. She wakes up between 5:30 & 6am, decides that if she's up then somebody else must get up, then once you're up she lies down in her basket and goes to sleep. Nice!!!!! The little ####!!!!!

So while I'm here I may aswell go through the week. Hmmmm, that won't take long from a training point of view because there hasn't been a lot.

I haven't totally fallen off the 'new' training monster idea yet, it's just that Easter and work combined have totally screwed up my training week. One of the biggest factors in the new training was that I'd hoped to sneak a few lunch break runs in but mostly this week I've just tried to grab a quicknap instead.

Monday was my normal day at work but for some reason I hadn't had the best nights sleep. I got up at 3am, bundled my way through 13hrs, then came home. After the tough 13miler on Sunday I didn't really fancy running so Shelly forced me to ride my turbo instead. One hour of beasting myself to Coach Troy later I returned from the shed with my legs hanging off. It'll be good for me I'm sure.

All the time you're finishing that long day, gone home, forced yourself to train, fed, watered and showered yourself the clock is ticking and it becomes a very short night before the alarm is going off at 2:30am ready for the next days start. Another 13+ hr day in the bag and I was simply too stuffed to train so I vegged out in front of the TV with the pup while Shelly went off to the running club instead. I'd done 6 consecutive days and 11hrs training so I could justify a rest day.

Wednesday became a disaster! I woke up at 2:30am to the sounds of my ####ing alarm clock. I felt real strange and even posted on Twitter at 3am that I felt it was going to be 'one of those days'. The plan was to go to work, do my normal run out, then when I return I'd simply pick up another load and leave again (for those that don't know I'm a dirty greasy truck driver, no IT/Teaching genius here). With this plan I'd have a night away which means there's nothing to do but run, shower, sleep before the next days work. But........ I arrived at my first drop to see this..........

In that picture there is 12 pallets of hardware gubbins (which is what I deliver) plus the obvious oversize loose bits and pieces 'strategically placed' over the top. My normal early morning sight! Today though there was a bit of a difference because it had been loaded back to front and the 3 pallets I needed for my first delivery were RIGHT AT THE FRONT!!!!!!! So from 4:30am the local High Street was being woken to the sounds of me crashing about as I totally unloaded and reloaded my lorry before I could properly get on with the days work. I won't say how long I was there but if I ran a Marathon in the same time I'd be sorely disappointed.

So Wednesday ended up being 15hrs at work (with no training) and also left me miles behind on Thursdays jobs. BUT......... I promised the pup that no matter what time I finished work on Thursday I'd take her for a run as the next day was Good Friday and I was off and could have a lie in. With the weeks work out of the way I returned home feeling wrecked. I really didn't want to run, but I'd promised the pup so off we went, a steady 4mile would do her. Once we were running though I felt a lot better and 4miles soon turned into 7.5miles. Happy Days at last.

On Good Friday Shelly's brother and his family called in on their way home from a holiday in Cornwall. The morning was spent 'attempting' to make the house look almost tidy, then we went out for lunch so any training had to wait until the evening.
In a similar vein to Thursdays run I really had no wish to go, but I grabbed the pup and off we went. A planned 4mile run soon turned into an old off road 8mile loop out to Crow Point and was highly enjoyable. Late evening sunshine, high tide and a still night. The Burrows was a beautiful place.

This morning (actually while writing this blog post) I looked out of the window and it was such a glorious day I had a cunning plan. The pup had woken me up at 6am (it's now 10pm) and looking out of the window I decided that a change of plan was called for. Rather than slog myself stupid on a long bike ride I grabbed my running gear and Shelly's camera (mine's rubbish), then with Rosie curled up on the bed next to Shell I escaped and drove to the Burrows (1.5miles). If I ran for 3-4 miles and took some piccies I'd be able to go out on the bike once I got back. But as had happened on Thursday and Friday a planned 4mile run grew a little and ended up being 10miles with around 200 pictures. The time was also increased slightly. Due to the wonders of Garmins 'autostop' function I actually ran for 1h15m, but I was actually out over the Burrows for well over 2hrs. The only thing missing was the pup, but she'd have been a nightmare with all of the walking, so although I missed her I was also glad she wasn't there.

The pics are here on this linky (beware, there's a lot of them) and the days route is behind this little clicky linky.

Enjoy :-)

Blog Post ............ Take 2!

2009-04-05T06:51:00.003+01:00

Lets try again.

I've just spent ages writing out my latest blog post which was bemoaning my lack of motivation, ambition, dedication etc but praising the somehow natural god given ability that still manages to keep me finishing far higher in race fields than I should. Then after reading through it I realised that to anybody without my very fortunate 'natural ability' then it just read like somebodies ego gone mad, which simply isn't the case. Where I was talking about how I struggle to get through the front door to train I could imagine others thinking "You're running/biking/swimming at that pace and moaining! Screw you.". So enough of that, it won't work, I'll save those chats for when I'm alone with the dog.

Now, back to normality.

March was slack - VERY SLACK!! The only saving grace is that I actually trained more than last year when I was having similar motivational problems, although I'm well down on any other year since 2004. 9 days off, almost 1 in 3 is far too many, even at this early stage it's a waste.

Swimming is the least of my worries. I've even snuck a few more sessions in than normal as for some reason I've suddenly gotten quicker. No explanation because I don't really know, but suddenly I'm very close to that 5min for 400m barrier. In real terms it's a worthless target but it's a target I've had for a long time so it's worth a little bit of effort just to be able to say I've swum 400m in 4:??.

Biking has been almost none existent (as normal). I anly managed to get in the saddle 3 times. Sure those 3 rides have totally 130miles but for the longest of those I spent the majority of time sat on someones wheel being dragged along. I'm sure that's the sort of workout I need to snap me out of it, but literally hanging on for 75miles doesn't give the encouragement to go out more often, especially when it's not what you're used to.

Running has been about normal and they actually seem to be a bit quicker than normal, I've no TT's/races to back that up though. Having the pup about to run with gives an extra reason (although she can be a pain in the ass) so that's ticking along reasonably well I guess.

So into April:-

I've made the decision to drag myself out more often and (so far) it's working. One of my other big decisions is to run shorter stuff. I think that part of my problem has been the fact that there seems little point getting changed to do less than an hour. I'm trying to drill that mentality out of my system. Although I'm Ironman training it must surely be better for me to knock out a quick 4 miles than sit on my backside bemoaning my lack of time to train. The idea is that all being well my diary will be full of 4-5mile runs and 20-25mile bike rides with longer stuff as and when I can, rather than 10-16mile runs and 60-70mile bike rides with 2-3 day gaps inbetween.

Will the little and often approach work come Ironman time? Who knows but lets face it, the all or nothing approach has never worked yet so what harm could a change do.

On the downside for April, my lazy approach also extends to my race entries. With my having been around Tri since before Moses I'm still used to the turn up and pay approach at races, hence I keep missing out because the races fill up. The latest of these is Burnham Tri. Watch this space to see if the "but I've been racing here for 10+ years......... I'm a previous winner............ etc etc etc" approach works when I (or Shelly) gets into 'creeping for an entry' mode.

On an off Tri note............... Ooooops, Rosie went chasing the mice that hide by the pond.

That'll do for now I think.

The next post will be more positive.

Does anybody actually read this crap?

Nutrition

2009-03-25T20:03:00.003Z

I don't go for all this nutrition gubbins which is bad news with the aim being a good Ironman. I really can't get my head around all the different types of pre/during/post race gels, drinks and bars. There's recovery stuff, isotonic stuff, stuff with carbs, stuff with protein, stuff for dehydration and all of it goes sailing right over the top of my head. I had a much improved nutrition strategy at IM Florida last year thanks to some words of wisdom from Rich Brady but it didn't lead to a much improved performance, so was I really any different to the Iain who raced on whatever was available. I still had a nightmare on the run so in reality nothing changed.

Thanks to another buddy of mine (also called Rich) I got hold of a free trial promotional link for a vitamin company that are doing sports nutrition. At the weekend I shelled out my £3.99 p&p and on Tuesday morning a box of shwag turned up on my doorstep. Is it any good? I've no idea. Will it propel me to greatness? I doubt it. There seems to be a bit of everything there though, including some vitamin and other daily tablets which I'm going to attempt to remember to take through April.

If my knee looks like it might hold up for Taunton Marathon I'll try a bottle of the drink out there along with the gel and maybe a bar or both. We'll see if they can perform miracles and make my legs think that they've trained for something. Maybe if I have a cracking race and finish well up the field I can start shouting from the rooftops about Zipvit and they'll send me lots of free stuff.............. ok, maybe not.

Anyway, just wanted to say I'd had some nutritional guff delivered, now I've posted twice in a week I'll go get back in my hole. Goodnight ;-)

Lazy lazy lazy days.

2009-03-23T21:26:00.002Z

Damn I've been so lazy lately. Lazy with the blog, lazy with the training, just downright lazy fullstop.

After the dire performance at Grizzly I came down with a bit of the lurgie which supplied me with a good enough excuse to lay off any training. I laid low until Wednesday when guilt got the better of me and I took the pup out for a swift 4.5mile blast out to Braunton and back. I had the early part of Thursday off work so hopped on the bike and knocked out my Puffin Billy (36mile) course. Hard to believe that only 6months ago I was doing 2 or 3 of these laps as Ironman training without any problem, now it wrecks me. A few hours after the bike ride I took the pup out for another run, it was planned at 6miles but I ended up doing the extended 8mile version which was something I regreted in the last 10mins when I was just hanging. Friday I was too lazy to train so I just went to my normal squad swim session which led me nicely into the weekend. Saturday!!!! The perfect time to get some big miles in and I did......... nothing! Ok, so I mauled a load of soil and gravel around the back garden but that's not a sport is it. Sunday has now become club day. So often in the past I haven't trained with the club on a Sunday because I've been in need of bigger mileage, now I'm still in need of the mileage but I'm so lazy that not going out with the club would probably mean no training. I did an hours swim session (inc a new 400m pb of 5:04) and then a 4.5mile track session knocking out loads of 400's.

Last week started badly when I woke up on Monday morning and my knee was a mess. No idea why, I hadn't pulled it, hit it, twisted it or done anything else that I could think of. All I knew was that I was struggling to even walk on it. Again though it was a good excuse to avoid training on Monday and Tuesday. By Wednesday it was getting annoying, I'd bought a knee support and thought I'd try a little run on it. A mile into the run and the support had to go but then strangly everything felt right and I knocked out one of the best runs I've done for a while without any pain. The knee pain/injury also nicely coincided with a killer week at work where training would have struggled anyway so Thursday got knocked on the head and it took until Fridays Squad swim session for me to post my 2nd training session, considering that this included a load of breaststroke it was odd that yet again my knee made it through with no problems. On Saturday I went out with my training pal Phill for 72miles on the bike, again there was no knee pain but my lack of bike training really showed and I got properly caned. Sunday I ran a steady 4mile with the pup, did the Tri Club swim session and then a 4mile track session running 400's with decreasing rest intervals.

That's about it really. There's nothing even vaguely interesting to report unless you consider my spotting a big bad ass Mercedes with an equally bad ass registration plate parked at The Commadore Hotel in Instow. A quick Google search turned the number plate up with the story of how the owner paid almost £250,000 for it. Maybe I should have chased him up and asked if he fancied sponsoring a low life triathlete :-D.

Upcoming!!! It's all a bit up in the air. I'm off to get my knee properly checked out tomorrow so that will tell me lots. I was half planning to do Taunton Marathon in 2 weeks time but I guess that will depend on what news the physio gives me. There are a couple of other little races I might be able to sneak into if the Marathon is a non-starter, we'll see.

Grizzly Report

2009-03-11T10:08:00.002Z

Well the Met Office website was promising awful weather for the race. Freezing temperatures, huge winds and rain/sleet/hail downpours. Luckily none of that happened, at least not until I'd finished anyway.

I set off at 8am to pick up my clubmate Sally and drive the 90mins to Seaton. We arrived almost dead on 9:30 and followed the queue of cars around the town to find a carpark. Once we were parked up I rummaged through my huge bag of running gear deciding what to wear and take with me. The forecast was BAD but pre race was actually quite mild and after a week of slacking (only 1 run) I felt quite fresh so I opted for a thin long sleeved technical tee and my Tri Club Gillet. I also decided to leave my camera etc in the car to give me a better chance of a decent race.

I headed to the Start line and once there decided that the traditional toilet break was in order, so with less than 5mins to the start I went sprinting off to find the loos which were of course devoid of people because everybody else was waiting to start. A quick pit stop and sprint back had me back 'near' the start line in plenty of time albeit with around 1800 people in front of me. Ah well, nothing new there then.

So as normal I started near the back of the field and took a couple of mins just to reach the start line. The first mile along the prom and beach was a slow walk/jog/walk effort and the second mile wasn't a lot faster but I was gradually getting into things. After the poor start miles I developed a cunning plan. Using the HRM on my Garmin I'd run comfortable mid 140's on the flatter sections of the course and let my HR climb into the 150's on the hills. If I hit 160bpm though I'd back off. That should get me round easily enough while picking people off and then I could hammer the last 2 miles as normal and make up those extra few places. The plan went well enough and I was told I'd got up to 50th place at 16miles when we hit Branscombe beach for the 2nd time, then for some unknown reason I just imploded. I was running along quite happily working my way slowly through the field and then as soon as I hit those damn pebbles it was as if someone shut my motor off. The last 4 miles were tough going, far from making ground I went backwards and lost a bucket load of time, the 'Stairway to Heaven' which is never more than a power walk was more of a casual stroll, my only saving grace was that nobody I knew came past me - phew!
The final beach and road stretch were torturous. My left quad was cramping up and I needed to stop and stretch it, you can't though when you're in the finishing straight. Then 20m from the Finish Line somebody came storming past me, his legs flying everywhere in a full on sprint - I let him go! As he crossed the line he pretty much collapsed as his legs totally locked up with cramp, quads, hamstrings, calfs all together. I crossed the line, leaned against the wall to stretch my quad and walked off, he was lying on the floor in agony surrounded by medics. Worth the sprint finish???? I don't think so!
That's about it really, unless you want to know about how my fingers went white and lost all feeling for the next two hours or how I queued almost 20mins for sausage and chips which were awful. After thawing out and changing I headed back to the finish just in time to catch Sally romping in, looking far better than I had.

Finished eventually in 79th place in 2:57@56.

Back in 2010???? Of course!

Since the race I've had 3 days full of the lurgie which could explain my sudden failings, it's either that or my lack of training and preperation. Either excuse is quite possible ;-)

(I'm writing this in a McD's so I'll edit and add some extra gubbins when I get home).

Impending Grizzly

2009-03-07T07:19:00.002Z

Well, tomorrow it's time for Grizzly. 20miles of coastal paths, cliffs, bogs and pebble beaches. This year, just to spice it up, it comes with a weather warning. Looks like fun!

Grizzly weather for the Grizzly!
Please be aware that the forecast for Sunday is not the nicest. Rain and perhaps snow, hail and/or sleet flurries, a strong WNW breeze and not that warm (6-8 degrees which with wind chill and rain is going to feel rather cold).
SO DRESS FOR THE CONDITIONS!

I've only missed this race once this century (2007) when the MSC Napoli was grounded and the race was postponed, the replacement date turned out to be just about the only weekend of the year I couldn't get down to Seaton.

Quite often this has been an 'A' race for me, although that doesn't mean I've trained specifically for it (people who know me would laugh at the thought), it just means that I've hoped to have a good race there and maybe justified having a Saturday rest day before it. I've done well here in the past and finished inside the top 10 and I've also had my fair share of shockers in the past.

Tomorrow though I'm going down for fun. If the weather looks as if it might hold I'll take a camera and other electronic goodies round with me , don't hold your breath for spectacular photos though, I took the camera last year and it all went a bit pear shaped.

To go fast at Grizzly you NEED good solid fell running shoes but I'm going round in a pair of off road trainers. They're going out in a blaze of glory because they'll be in a bin after the race. In 2006 I was having one of my best ever races but had to drop out when 'BOTH' of my Walsh PB's fell apart in a bog, since that time I just haven't run off road enough to justify 'proper' off road shoes. My footwear for the day will be perfectly competent on 80% of the course, but it's on those 50% descents/ascents on muddy fields and in the bogs where the real footwear comes into it's own. Just being able to let your legs go on a steep descent can make up masses of time compared to watching your footing and constantly slowing yourself.

The other slight concern for tomorrow is the toes that I ploughed into a wall racing at Taunton 2 weeks ago. They are still quite swollen and causing a bit of grief, but little more than mildly annoying when running normally. Tomorrow's not a 'normal' run though and it'll be interesting to see how they fare with the constant changes of terrain and gradient, any running uphill on my toes could prove to be a painful experience. Nurofen will be at the ready.

That's about it really for a preview. I'll take a bag full of clothes so hopefully I'll be set for any weather. Nutrition??? I'll decide in the morning. I think I've got a gel lying around and I might mix up a bit of Torq energy drink which I'll take with me if I use my camera and need the pockets on my bottle belt to carry it, other than that it'll be fine.

Other bits'n'bobs............... I've done stuff all training on foot or on the bike in the last 2 weeks. I've had a massive (for me) week of swimming though and managed 2 pb's during training. On Sunday I swam a bonus 400m TT after the Tri Club swim session and pb's with 5m13s then at last nights squad session we did an 800m TT and I pb'd with 10m36s which is only 5secs off Sundays 400m pb swum twice...... Nice!!!

Congrats to the Red Nose Day Climbers

who've just made it to the top of Mount Killimanjaro and raised over £1.3million. Yeeeaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!! Go find them and check them out.

Until next time.

Taunton Aquathlon

2009-02-27T07:05:00.002Z

Taunton was always going to be an odd race, mostly because I’d no idea what sort of shape I was in. The aim of the day was to put in a good solid performance after I totally imploded on the run here last year. The swim was as always a formality, 40 lengths of the 25m Wellington pool where I can normally predict my time within seconds. The run was a new (shorter) course this year with plenty of long dragging hills to work the legs, this was where I was unsure.

(clubmates Steph, Steve and Damian can smile when I'm not around) We drove the 50miles to Wellington and my legs felt like lumps of jelly, the weeks increase in cycling must have been taking its toll. Once at the Leisure Centre I registered, collected my goodies and chatted with a few friends and clubmates. With plenty of time on my hands and my legs still feeling shot I decided to break with 15 years of tradition by putting my trainers on and actually going for a warm up. 10mins later I was back feeling exactly the same, ah well.
So onto the race.
We started the 40 length pool swim with 4 to a lane and setting off at 10min intervals. The expected race winner was in the lane next to me and starting 10secs ahead. My lane was as varied a lane as I’ve ever swum in, there was a one legged man wearing board shorts and there was a super serious swimmer wearing full length speedo swim leggings. Neither of those compared though to the lad who for whatever reason ended up in our lane swimming breaststroke. The start times are decided by the predicted swim times you put on the entry forms, whether this lad had put the wrong time down or taken the place of a faster swimmer I’ve no idea, but I was passing him every three lengths. He blatently shouldn’t have been there but rather than feeling angry about him getting in my way all the time I really felt for him because Mr Serious Swimmer didn’t strike me as the most considerate lane mate, he certainly wasn’t too pleased when I lapped him. Being the fastest swimmer in our lane I lost a bundle of time stuck behind people waiting for an opportunity to pass them. Swim time – 14:14, around 40secs slower than last year.
Mr Race Favourite in the lane next door had the totally opposite experience. He’s faster than me in the pool anyway but we both got smoked by the fastest girl in the water, all he had to do though was let her pass and then sit on her feet taking in the draft. They were almost 4 lengths up on me out of the water, he too was slower than last year though.
Into Transition I threw on my trainers, glass, hat and my number belt before running out of the door fastening up my Garmin. In a serious race the Garmin would have stayed at home and I’d have been a lot quicker, but there was no rush.
Almost as soon as I left the pool I clattered my left foot into a wall, it hurt a lot. My toes took a beating and I dragged my elbow along the brickwork to keep me upright, soon though the pain was forgotten and I was back concentrating on the running. The aim of the Garmin was to slow my early pace down to stop me exploding, so I kept checking it and holding the pace around 6min/mile pace. Throughout the whole run I felt solid, obviously my pace increased and decreased depending on the road gradient, there were plenty of hills. Half way through the run we hit a descent and I heard feet pounding along behind me. Somebody was obviously shifting because I was still on 6min pace, I looked over my shoulder and clocked his blue number, blue numbers meant relay teams, phew all was still good.
That was it really, the run was fine and strong although a little short (5.8miles) but I was solid all the way through and finished having averaged 6:02’s which I’m happy with considering the amount of climbing in it. I posted the fastest individual run of the day (35:05) only beaten by 2 smoking fast relay runners.
So it was a 2nd place finish overall which was nice because I didn’t really want to be lumped in that dreaded 40+ category.
The toe!!!! Ahh the toe!!! It was fine for the entire run and then as soon as I’d finished it was agony and I could hardly walk on it. There was a short visit to the medics just to check it was only bruising (and plenty of it) rather than any breakages, I was given the all clear though. Now after 3 days of rest it’s still bruised and pretty coloured but it’s getting there slowly, I don’t expect it’s going to cause any long term suffering.

Grizzly next, 10 days to get myself sorted.

Season Opener

2009-02-21T19:52:00.002Z

Well the Tri season is on the horizon. How do I know? Because tomorrow I have my first multisport race of the year, the Taunton Aquathlon, a 1000m/10k swim/run event.
Tomorrows race is also a first for another reason.......... It's my first race in the 40+ category, my first race as a Vet. Only 2 months after my 39th birthday and I'm racing as a flaming 40 year old. Talk about feeling old before your time.
In 2007 I actually won the race, last year I dropped to 3rd, tomorrow.............. who knows?
Last year I blew a gasket on the run after charging out of the pool chasing the eventual winner who'd a one minute lead on me exiting the pool, my excuse being that the day before I'd run a maximal effort treadmill 10k at Exeter University. This year though my training hasn't really got going and although my swimming is always of a similar pace my running is well short of the norm. Hopefully though I'll still be aiming for a quicker time than last years 55:58 so long as I pace myself sensibly.
This week I finally seem to have found some reason to cycle with rides of 75miles, 50miles and todays 30miler doubling my total for the year so far. My swimming is the same as ever with my single weekly squad session, although I feel as though I'm swimming more powerfully of late, so long as I don't get carried away in the early stages I can come on really strong at the end of a long TT. Running is a bit hit and miss with Rosie accompanying me on most of my runs I'm far too prone to hitting 3-4 consecutive days and the having 3-4 consecutive days off. I'm sure that's not the way it works.
Work has been all over the place lately. One week I do almost 70hrs and the next week I struggle to hit 40. I'm sure the lack of a structured week is helping to mess with my training.

Oh well. There's not a great deal to say so I'll leave it there. I'll try to be back tomorrow with an old mans race report. Until then.....................

Snow? In Devon?

2009-02-08T19:57:00.005Z

Well it's been 2 weeks since I posted and to be honest there's not a lot going on unless you consider all the crap at home that's trying to take me to financial ruin :-(

The week after the Braunton 10 (x2) was pathetic really with just 2 runs and a swim to mark the beginning of the month with. With so much time on my hands due to the lack of training it was hear my financial head went out of the window and Februarys wages got spent before they hit the bank.

First up is the garden, or at least part of it. The grassy sections don't drain well because it's all clay underneath, so after 2 years of Rosie the pup putting muddy footprints over everything as soon as it rains I had 4 tonnes of gravel lifted over the fence to cover it all up with. Now I just need to find the time (and the weather) to get the job done.

Next up was my exploding of the vacuum cleaner, some supposed dog hair special which never did get Rosie's hair up like it was supposed to. This led to the purchase of a f###ing expensive Dyson in a moment of madness. For a house the size of ours, especially one with no carpets I'm sure it's complete overkill but based on the current 3 vacuums every 2 years at least the 5yr warranty should mean it earns it's money (I hope).

Then to top everything off the PC blew a gasket. Stupid me had let the security run out and it picked up what (after plenty of Googling) appeared to be the virus from hell with no real cure other than backing everything up externally and running the start up disc again, presuming of course that the virus wasn't in something I backed up.

After weeks of head scratching I decided that it wouldn't cost much more to simply buy a new base unit than it would to buy external drives and probably get things checked out proffesionally to be on the safe side. So now I'm sitting typing this while going through the tedious process of uploading all my music onto iTunes again while discovering that somewhere along the way I've lost most of my favourite CD's.

Money gone and (supposedly down to a economic 4 day week) I've got a bit more training in this last week.

I didn't start the month well as I spent Sunday on garden (gravel) duties and Monday was a bit of a late one at work. Tuesday was close to being a disaster as a couple of inches of snow fell and the UK ground to a halt. Tuesday is my new (supposed) day off so I'd booking Shell's car into the garage in the afternoon and a doctors appointment in the morning. The plan with the Doctors is that they test me for 'Exercise Induced Asthma' in a bid to cure the annoying constant cough I've had for 10years or more. Unfortunatly this got scrapped when I arrived and the nurse didn't think it was safe for me to go and run for an hour like a lunatic in a bit to wreck my lungs. Re-booked 'yet again' for 2 weeks time. The garage trip was also called off because it's up in the sticks where they'd had a foot or more of snow and I'd little chance of making the 30mile drive in Shell's little car without getting stuck in a drift somewhere. I managed a little jog down the Tarka Trail in the afternoon with Rosie so that I could take some pretty pics of the snow as it's a very rare sight down in Devon.

For the rest of the week training got a bit better. On Wednesday, with all the snow gone, I managed to sneak away from work early enough for an 8mile run with the pup. On Thursday I headed out towards London where many areas were still suffering from a snow slowdown. I managed to lose enough time on my day to justify spending the night in Marlow which meant I could pop out to see my old pals at Marlow Striders and join them for a run. I cracked out 5miles before reaching the club and then joined one of the lads for another 10 before catching up with the recent goings on over a few pints.

On Friday the mad weather returned. When I woke up everywhere was snow free, but an hour later I was driving in a white out. Seeing all the cars abandoned and/or losing it was quite funny as I seemed to have no trouble in my 'slightly' bigger vehicle. It's just a case of keeping it smooth and steady, yet some people seem to think that a heavy right foot will fix everything. They'll get there eventually.

Strangly, after hearing on the radio all day about how Devon and Cornwall had suffered the worst of the weather and how people were trapped in their cars over night I got home on Friday afternoon to find out we'd had nothing at all and it was a beautiful sunny day.
I was later home than normal on Friday so Rosie had to go without her run and I just managed my Squad swim session, but I took her out for 4miles on Saturday morning before setting off on a 33mile wind, rain and hail plagued bike ride and an afternoon spent dossing infront of the TV and computer. The week was finished with a beasty little run session at the track with the Tri Club. 20x400m was the bulk of it, but the run home plus warming up took the whole lot to 7.5miles.

Maybe, just maybe I've turned the training corner and I can start getting my head around it again. Maybe, just maybe we can have a month where nothing else blows up and I can save the credit card getting too much of a bashing. Who knows, but until next time.................................

Braunton 10! Or is it 20?

2009-01-25T07:03:00.004Z

Well it's been a while but that seems to be the case for most blogs, or at least the blogs of people on my list which seem to be either stagnant, missing or locked.

It's been an odd start to the year and my training seems to be reflecting that. Since New Year my work has been so hectic that weekday training has been almost impossible, this is despite the dreaded letter saying 'Times are hard, we need to tighten our belts and pay you less so overtime has to be cut.'. Since the letter I've been averaging 14hr days from Monday to Thursday so the weeks training hasn't started until a Friday when I get to do a paltry 10-12 hours. There has been another re-jig now though so while I'll still be hitting the clock hard on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday I'll be off work on Tuesdays which means training will be back on - if I can be bothered. Of course all this 'belt tightening' talk from work comes at the same time as our Vacuum and PC all but expire. Typical. It looks as though I might be thinking carefully about the purse strings when I decide where to race this year, a job that should already be done and dusted by now.

Today is the first race of the year and one that I can't really miss out on as the start line is less than 2 miles from my house. It's a 10 mile road race with 2 bad assed climbs in it, there will be no pb's run today that's for sure. I'll be aiming to get round without the excitement of last weekends run where I took a training pal round for a recce and got bit by a farm dog on the first climb. In truth it wasn't much of a bite and looked more like I'd caught the back of my leg on something, but it broke the skin and needed a trip to the quack for a jab just to be on the safe side. One bonus that came out of it was a chat about my everlasting cough and so I'm back in on Tuesday for a couple of tests. Basically I've got to have a spirometry ( if that's how you spell it) test to check how my lungs are working, then I'm off out for a 30-45min run and when I return I'm having another test to see if it's excercise induced asthma. I have my doubts about it, but it's got to be worth a look.

Back to todays race, the question as always is ' Do I run 10 or 20 miles?'

By the time anybody sees this then I'll have decided. It's a bit of a tradition that I run two laps here. As always I've the much bigger Grizzly coming up in March and this is traditionally a training run for it so I do a 10mile warm up lap aiming to get back as close to the race start time as possible, then I do a lap for the race. I'm not really in shape to do 20miles, but then I'm not really in shape to 'race' 10miles either, so do I risk suffering a torturous 2 laps or a disappointing 1 lap? Last year the warm up lap took 1:08:00 and the 'race' lap took 1:06:30, my pb on the course is 1:00:34 but that was from when I could run.

Right, time to get ready I suppose.

I'll edit the post and add my time(s) at the bottom once it's all over, unless of course something interesting happens and it deserves a write up all to itself.

PS - Oi Simeon!! Where's your blog gone?

After the race edit :-

Well it wasn't my finest day of running. I went for the 20, but it wasn't pretty. The first (warm up) lap was just awful. I ran exactly the same was as in 2008 and at exactly the same HR but I never seemed to get going. Finally I got back to the race HQ after 9.6miles (I cut a bit off) I was over 1:10:00 and the race was about to start. The race would have to start without me though (as normal) because I had a toilet appointment. Finally I was off on the race course 2-3mins after everybody else but my legs were actually feeling slightly better than the first lap. The hills killed me but I managed to drag myself round in an official 1:12:45 with a Garmin time of 1:09:40, just sneaking under the 7min/mile mark. It'll do I guess, a lot slower than last years double up and I finished in a lot worse shape. I wasn't expecting to go well but it's still a pig when you don't. Still there was pleasant relief at the finish with a bottle of Devons finest 10% Ale (which has now gone :) ).

I guess this means that race season has started.

Happy New Year

2009-01-01T19:56:00.003Z

So it's been a while since I posted anything training related, but that's mostly because it's all been a bit quiet. That was until Christmas Day at least when it all kicked off. Training has come back with a bang since then. 8 training days have passed and I've got in 6 runs (3 of them in double figures) and a couple of bike rides. If only it wasn't so damned cold here it would be like proper training. None of this 10% increase rubbish, I just go from lazy git to training machine in one swoop.

Father Christmas was (as always) good to me with plenty of Tri related goodies. Once again I need to thank Mom and Dad for their rediculous offer to pay our flights out to IM Florida. One day I'll get them out there with me, actually that's a lie, getting my Mother on a plane would make the A-Team getting Mr T on a plane seem a walk in the park. Shell also excelled herself by spending far too much on Tri related goodies, 2XU should give her an account.

So it's time now for a year review. I'm not going to talk races because there was only one real target and we all know I screwed that up. There were a few low key wins, some pb's and some decent podium places. I've got a little Excel file that compares my training over the last 4 years and so it's only fair I compare with my last IM season in 2005 at the 2 years inbetween were a lot more low key.

Swim - The swim is neither here nor there really. I'm fast enough to be good without ever tearing the pool up but the ammout of training I'd need to do to get significantly faster is far more than I can justify. On average I train once a week, occasionally I'll miss a week but these hours will be made up by race day swims. I did 55hrs overall which is about average and the fact that I know I can swim a comfortable sub 60min IM swim (55mins in Florida this year) while just ticking over is a great bonus that many people don't have.

Bike - Here I struggled. It's my weakest event and somewhat consequently my least favourite. Also this years Summer was damn awful which put me off a great many of my planned bike rides. That being said I was suprised to see that I was a massive 40hrs (20%) down on my 2005 total, only putting in 167hrs compared to 208hrs in 2005. This may go some way to explaining why my Florida bike ride was the slowest of my 3 attempts despite a pretty new Tri specific bike and aero helmet which in theory should have seem me closing in on the 5hr barrier rather than 5h20m (5h08m was my previous best there).

Run - Just as much a suprise as the bike time was the run training time which was the exact opposite at 173hrs compared to 138hrs in 2005. This means that I actually spent longer running than cycling which is an obvious screw up but easily done when it's so much easier to pull on a pair of trainers than to mess about getting bike ready (especially in the rain). Although this gave me a high when I effectively jogged around Wolves Marathon in 3h08m it all comes to nothing if I still end up putting in 4h33m at my main event. For 2009 the bike/run comparison needs to be much closer to the 2005 percentage split.

Gym - This was the difference maker in my yearly hours as I've never done gym work before. I crammed 33hrs into the first 3.5months of last year which was 33hrs more than 2005, or any other year come to think of it. The result?........ Hmmmmm. Well I was swimming my head off in March/April, no quicker, but with so much more power and stamina that I was bustig 800m+ pb's any time I wanted. Was I any quicker on the bike/run? I've no idea, although I've had far less back problems that previous years, that could be down to the gym core work or it could be down to my lack of cycling I'm not sure. I'm pondering the idea of making once a week appearances again this year, but the accusations that I've suddenly developed 'moobs' in the last 12 months could also be attributed to my slacking off gym work once the weather (sort of) improved, so maybe I'd be best to stay away.

Onto 2009 then.

Today I started the year in a similar way to the end of 2008, with a 12mile run! This morning I ran to Woolacombe Beach (8.5miles) where I met up with my Tri Club for our annual Dash and Splash. You can read about it here
so I won't bore you with the details.

I really need to sit down at some point and work out what events I'm doing this year. I'm a bit of an old skool Triathlete and still believe I can enter races on the day or the week before, this simply doesn't happen any more and if I don't pul my finger out then all the small local races that I like to do every year will be full. Damn!!

Anyway, that'll do for now. If you haven't fallen asleep yet then you can't be far off it.

Happy New Year everyone. Here's hoping you all have a great 2009 and if we ever meet at an event then I'll love to see you finish just one place behind me :-)

Until next time.

To anybody daft enough to read this muck....

2008-12-24T13:11:00.002Z

NDTC

2008-12-19T18:00:00.000Z

Party Time & Bfitday Tri.

2008-12-16T20:19:00.003Z

Saturday night was the NDTC Christmas Party and presentation night. In my role as club geek I've written a blog post for them here.

Monday 15th was my 39th birthday, hard to believe I know ;-) so on Sunday I made it my aim to complete a bfitbday triathlon. The tale of torture is below, sorry there are no pretty pics.

The day started at 6:30am with a restless dog throwing her toys around the house to wake me up after just 3.5hrs sleep. After a cuppa and some breakfast I made my way down to the pool for 9am when those club members who hadn’t consumed too much alcohol at the previous nights party (not many) were there for a squad swim session. My original plan was to park myself in a lane by the side of them and bang out 5k but I wasn’t really feeling ‘with it’ so thought I’d swim their session with them and tack whatever was needed onto the end. I’d already missed some of the warm up so I just slipped into the water and joined in. 1500m later the group started their warm down so I swopped lanes and continued the swim alone. I only managed another 1000m and I’d had enough, this was a real bad sign because I love my swimming and if I’m getting fed up in the water then the bike and run stand little hope. I decided that enough was enough, got out of the pool and headed to the changing rooms then just as I was about to hit the shower the club coach appeared in his swim gear. He said he was going to join me for a quick 40 lengths. My arm had been twisted and I decided to give it another go. I hit the pool again and literally swam drafting the coach while he swam 1000m in 16mins. With that out of the way the majority of the swim was covered and I decided to push on completing the next 1500m in 22:30. The 5k swim was finally over 1h45m after first getting in the water.

I drove home and thought about the rest of the day. Feeling a little better I dragged my bike out of the shed for the 2nd time in 2 days and the 2nd time since IM Florida on 1st November. I’d got a route lined up which I’ve done hundreds of times before without any problem. I knew I didn’t need fuel as I never do, but I mixed a bottle of Nuun because I was probably de-hydrated after partying and swimming. Out on the bike there was no rush, 5miles, 10miles, 20miles went by without any problem but then disaster struck. At 30miles my body felt as though it was draining of all energy, this couldn’t be right. I could stop off at a shop for supplies but being only 10miles from home it wasn’t really worth it. That 10miles was a long long way, damn I was struggling. Finally I made it home after 2h10m at 18mph. I walked through the door grabbed an energy bar made myself a jacket spud and crashed out on the bed for an hour totally spent.

The afternoon ticked on, darkness came and I started having real doubts about my ability to run 9miles on this day. Finally I got my act together and changed into my running gear. I’d got to pop something to a friends house in the village so I decided that I could run there and then zigzag around the local streets building my way towards my 9mile target, so off I went. It wasn’t pretty and there were plenty of times when I just wanted to stop and walk, but finally....... after 1h07m...... I staggered back into the house Florida it seemed impossible to think I’d struggle so much and mentally it was every bit as tough to complete as the Ironman.

Now I’m happy though. At least it means I haven’t got to go out and do it this coming weekend because I’d failed................ phew.

Relaxing

2008-12-16T08:05:00.002Z

So you've spent the best part of a week (or maybe more) running around organizing and helping out at Ironman Florida. All that's left to do is the presentation night and party. What could you possibly find to do that would kill 20mins.

Click here to see Triathlon legends and race crew pushing each other to the limit on the white beaches of PCB.

If only Moonpie and the Bigun new this was happening, they'd have been kicking some butt :-)

Kristmas Kaper

2008-12-08T17:43:00.003Z

Well I'm not training, but that doesn't stop me racing now does it.

Did I say racing? Well, you know what I mean.
This weekend was our Tri Clubs Christmas Swim/Run event organised by t'other half Shelly. After spending most of Saturday listening to her swearing as she cooked hundreds of mince pies for the competitors and wondered around making sure everything was ship shape it was a relief to actually reach Sunday.
The race had a rolling start (Time Trial syleee) and my roll was to stand poolside and make sure everybody set off when they were supposed to, then all I had to do was jump in the water, swim 600m, put on my race kit and go for a run around the local park. As it's a super serious race and there's a lot of pride at stake I had to remember to leave some for the sprint finish (below).
There's not a lot to say about the race really, the pic says it all....... Oh yeah, I came 4th and didn't even get the best fancy dress prize, but with Shell in charge that was never going to happen even if my costume had been the originally planned mankini which really would have seen me arrested.

Results are here.

Race day pictures are here.

and the days race report is here.

Browse and enjoy :-)

It's the end of 'Mo'vember

2008-11-30T21:13:00.001Z

There hasn't been a lot going on in the life of Iain this month. Training has been almost none existant and it's now hard to believe that tomorrow will be a full month since IM Florida.
This weekend we travelled up country to see the folks and meet up for our pre-christmas meal with aunts, uncles, cousins etc etc.
I took advantage of the time up there to take the pup out for an off road run at one of my favourite haunts. Jeez it hurt.
I used to rule this place, hitting all the hills real hard and smacking anybody who dared to come training there with me. Training in Devon has made me soft though. Although the general area is much hillier the local runs are pancake flat, especially the ones I can do and let the dog run free. Sure I can still run, but show me a hill and I'm in trouble. I used to run over there for 90mins and finish by sprinting up 'Jacobs Ladder', it was the sting in the tail that any training partners used to hate and I used to love. Yesterday I hit 'Jacobs Ladder' twice and on the first attempt I had to stop and walk halfway through - disgraceful!
Anyway, back to the meal. It's a fairly big old gathering and as it's been going on for a fair few years the relatives have witnessed many a Florida haircut, so me turning up with a multi coloured barnet isn't a strange sight, but how's about me turning up with a good old Mo?
I'm a lazy toerag and quite often find myself walking around with far too much facial hair which I then get the shears on and dispose of all in one hit, the thaught of leaving some has never appeared, but it is Movember after all, so here it is. For one time only. Iain with a Mo (and a stupid face of course).

Hmmmmm, turns out that for some odd reason Shell quite likes it and now wants me to keep it for next weeks big Aquathlon, where my out of shape backside is no doubt going to get well and truly kicked by some kids. We'll see ;)

Mega Iron Lunatics ;-)

2008-11-24T20:23:00.007Z

When you're 70 years old and you've just completed a Quintuple Ironman then you're allowed to wear socks with your sandals OK!!!!!

Congratulations to Arthur and the other Finishers.

Good Luck to all those Deca Ironman racers who are a mere 200hrs into their race.

You're all freaking MAD!!!!

Click here to see the official pics.

Go get em Suraya - I rarely finish 20miles looking this happy, never mind the extra 100.

The Pic Game

2008-11-22T17:38:00.005Z

Ok, so I popped over to see what was happening in the blog of Flatman and spotted the Photo Game. I appear to be a day behind but thought what the hell I'll have a look see. The idea is that you pick the 4th photo out of the 4th folder on your computer and then explain.

Interesting idea, so here's mine:

So to an explanation then.

It's from when we raced IM Florida in 2005. It's one of the twin sprogs belonging to my sprog sister - no I don't know which one. We thought he looked cute (or was it daft) in his new hat so we took a pic.

No prizes for guessing where in Panama City we were at the time ;-)

On another note, today was my first planned training session since IMFl. I've had 3 weeks off other than a couple of small runs. I kicked off by taking the pup out for a nice steady 10 miler, at least my legs felt it was steady, my heart rate was telling me I was running at 5k pace. I also picked up a niggle during IMFl and after 5miles of todays run I decided that it was still there. Now, 5hrs after the run has finished I KNOW it's still there - grrrrrrr!!!! I'll soon kick it into touch.

I've set up a training team for Ironman Florida 2009. If you're reading this and you're racing next November then pop over, have a look and join in. It's all free and will hopefully become a good place to compare your training with others.

Nutcases of Tri

2008-11-19T02:41:00.002Z

Ever thought that Ironman just wasn't quite long enough? Nope, me neither.

But just in case you have............

The DecaMan is currenly ongoing in Mexico - website linky

There's even a BLOG

1st swimmer out of the water in 13:17.

Lunatics :o:o:o

Thanks

2008-11-17T22:24:00.004Z

I know it's getting a bit late to STILL be going on about IM Florida, this is the last post I promise. I realised that after all my spouting on I hadn't thanked any of the people who helped me along the way and made the journey and training a bit easier. No doubt I'll still forget about (and upset) someone along the way, with the sieve like head I've got then it's bound to happen.

So in no particular order......

Thanks to Mom, Dad, Sis, David and the Sprogs for helping me along the way, nagging me to death (that's mostly Mom) and for babysitting/putting up with/spoiling rotten their Rosie while we were away.

Thanks to Rich Brady for gently pushing me in the right direction and attempting to sort my previously rediculous nutrition strategy. It needs more work, but it was a massive improvement.

Thanks to the good folks at NA Sports for making me significantly poorer when I left Florida than I was when I arrived.

Thanks to the boys and girls of North Devon Tri who came out training with me and suffered at the hands of my monsterous speed (not very often) and my forked tongue (more often).

Thanks to Maria for my weekly massges and to Sue for my haircut (yep, it's all her fault).

Thanks to the 6-7000 volunteers who were out there cheering us on all the way round the course.

Thanks to all the folks back here who sat up until far too late in the night hoping to see me complete a jubilant finish only to see some miserable bastard crossing the line and promptly disappearing. Next year I promise to carry the flag over AND smile (honest!).

Thanks to the blog folks and Buckeye folks who came over to say Hi to the idiot with green hair rather than giving him a wide berth. I'll even thank Moonpie for verbally abusing me at around 12miles into the race, how I could have done with that 4 miles later when I was walking. He'd have even been able to keep up with me then.

I suppose I should also thank Shelly for putting up with all my crap over the last 12months. Saying that though, as she's making me go back again next year she deserves all the crap that she gets. Thanks. I think.

If you've got the hump with me now because I've forgotten you then I'm sorry but as it probably means you're going to know me quite well then you should obviously expect no less than to be forgotten. Suck it up and get on with your life!!!

Now. Who's up for some training? I need to start again soon, I've an Ironman to train for.

More Florida reports.

2008-11-11T15:14:00.002Z

For those of you that like a read and would like a more humourous Florida Blog post I give you.....

TriFAThlete - thanks to RichieC for this little link :)

and

Michele's guest write up - thanks to Tim for this little link.

Here we go again!!!!

2008-11-10T22:52:00.001Z

This message is generated as confirmation of your recent registration on Active.com. You have been successfully registered for the following:

Registration:
2009 Ford Ironman Florida
Purchase Date:
11/10/08
Team:
Iain David Hindes
Category:
On-Site Registrants
Event Date:
11/07/09
Name:
Iain Hindes

Nearly over :(

2008-11-07T16:42:00.007Z

It's my last full day in the sun of PCB today before we head of back to the dark and cold of Deepest Devon.

There's always a good reason to hang around when this place gets quite though. Every year over the week following the Ironman a load of crazies roll into town with some sweeeeeet trick old motors.

I'm not big on what's what in the world of old American motors, but I love em. We went out for some food last night and the camera was in the car so I took some piccies of those that were around. Some of the pics are a bit duff because it was dark and Shelly thought I was a real saddo walking around carparks with my camera.

Oh yeah - 365 days from today, in EXACTLY 1 years time I'll be going through the whole Ironman Florida Experience again. Must be time to start training I guess!!

There was some big old bike rally out and about yesterday too.

Some lessons for me to learn in the next 12months

2008-11-06T15:32:00.002Z

1 – Swim – FFS learn to sight bouys!!!!!!

2 – T1 – Over an Ironman it’s worth spending a bit of time Transition sorting things that will cost lots of time later. How long would it have taken for me to make sure my feet were free of sand before I put socks on? Walking later because my feet were red raw cost me much longer. How long would it have taken to apply some sunblock on my shoulders and legs? I’ve no idea if this would have saved me time, but it might have saved me the 4 days of pain I’ve had since.

3 – Bike – You can spend what you like on fancy gear and it won’t make up for strength. A new bike/aero helmet combo still led to my slowest ever Florida bike split (I still wanted a P3C though). Also learn how to ride how to ride hard on the bike (become a good cyclist). If needs be get your ass in the gym and strengthen those quads. There is no reason at all why I can’t go under 5hrs on that bike course. If I race a Sprint Tri I’m comfortably inside the top 5% on the bike, I can’t be happy with only making the top 20% of an Ironman bike. PS – How the hell do the Pros get all their calories into one bottle? None of their bikes were loaded up with half the bottles that mine was.

4 – T2 – Again, unless you’re at the front of the pack then time really isn’t of the essence. On a long day comfort could actually save you more time than speed. Take the sunblock offers and vas up, it’s worth it.

5 – Run – Practice running off those long bike rides all the time. 5k won’t do it either, running 5k is far to easy. Make sure those practice runs off the bike are at Ironman pace, it’s ok popping out and cruising 6-8miles at 6:30 pace but that’s no good if you’re only aiming to run 8:00pace.

Extras

Tim - When we last saw you 2009 was the furthest from my mind. It's great to have a supportive girlfriend but sometimes Shell is a bit to supportive and she likes her holidays in Florida. It's all her fault!!!! As for 60 more IM with 1min improvements!!!!! I'd rather have 1 more with an improvement like yours.

Rich - You've got a coach (roflmao). I hope that's just Kit you're talking about. The aero helmet was actually the least of my worries. We were off the bike before the temperature got too hot. It's only really there because it was on offer and cheaper than a normal helmet (it should also now have club colours (or hair colours) - picking it up later).
Maybe we'll pop in and let Rosie tear your garden up when we've picked her up from Wolves on the way home :-)

I'll try again

2008-11-04T15:36:00.000Z

Ah heck, my will to write out a looooong race report has gone sine I managed to mess it all up yesterday, so here’s a brief summary instead. People who’ve known me for years will probably hear the drawn out version many many times and those that only known me from here will probably have read many far more interesting reports by now.

So. Onto the bike.
The plan was to ride at 125-130bpm.
For the first 50miles I felt lethargic and struggled to hit 120bpm.
At 30miles I decided I’d attempt to pee whilst on the bike.
At 70miles I gave up trying and stopped to pee off the bike.
Some bloke called Norbert was a dirty drafting cheat, there were many out there so it’s probably unfair to just name one but he was the one I kept passing when he was alone only to see him come back past again sucking a wheel.
At 80miles I suddenly started to feel strong so rode the last 30miles at 130bpm. This was the fastest part of the course anyway so that made it feel even better.
New Tri specific bike, new aero helmet = slowest Florida bike split ever. 2mins slower than in 2004, 12mins slower than in 2005. Both when I was riding my TREK 5200 road bike. Hmmmmmm!

The run
Mile 1 spent holding back while many people flew past. Even backing off it only took 7:02.
Miles 2,3, 4 and 5 much better paced. Walked through 2 feed stations and stopped for a pee. 5miles done in just under 40mins.
Mile 6 took over 10mins after stopping to get a stone from my shoe. Couldn’t get shoe back on due to cramps. Damn annoying.
Miles 7-12 was a struggle. Running at over 9:00 pace with HR in mid 130’s. Heat getting to me now and sand in shoes & socks off the beach means it feels as though I’m running on sandpaper. Walk most aid stations eating almost anything.
Mile 13 saw the mad Moonpie fella who ran alongside cheering me on. It was a most welcome distraction. Stopped to chat with Shell and get rid of my awful fuelbelt. Took shoe off again. Cramped again! Clock said 8:30:00 as I turned. Hoped that was the Elite time and it meant 8:20:00 for me.
Mile 14 was better.
Mile 15 the wheels fell off.
Mile 16-20 I just walked, walked and walked. I was burning up in the afternoon sun. My feet felt as though they were red raw and my stomach was in knots. Enough is enough. Received massive encouragement from many other athletes who should have been focusing on their own race.
Mile 20 – decision time!!!! I was on the last leg of the run and I was in danger of putting in my worst IM ever (except the DNF in 2005). I grabbed a couple of sponges from the aid station, sat down on a fence and removed my shoes and socks. I shook the sand from my shoes, shook out my socks and thoroughly washed my feet. At least if I had to walk I could feel a little more comfortable. Back on went the shoes and socks and I headed back towards home, running!
My feet felt better immediately, then after only half a mile I had to stop at the side of the road again. This time I had no control over anything as I proceeded to throw up most of the last hours food. Bad times? Nope, my stomach now felt fine again.
Miles 21 to the Finish Line – I ran and I ran well (9:26, 7:11, 7:03, 7:09, 7:09, 7:02). I skipped all the aid stations and simply put my head down. It was congested out there now with many people walking and jogging along the narrower sections and at time sit was quite tricky to make the small gaps as my pace was so different to everybody elses. Many people who’d given me encouragement when I was suffering gave me new shouts as I went past them in full flow. It had taken 134miles, but suddenly I felt real good.
The Finish Line came all to quickly in the end. I felt as though I’d another 4-5miles of good running in my legs, but after heading for my worst finish ever I ended up dipping under my pb in 10:55. I wasn’t happy and probably had the most miserable finish picture of the day though, but it was over. There would be NO MORE!!!!!

Five attempts at Ironman. 5 attempts at finishing between 9:30 & 10:00. 5 miserable failures to hit the targets. SURELY THERE WILL BE NO MORE!!!! SURELY I’VE LEARNT MY LESSON NOW!!!!

Ermmmmmm, I’ll guess I’ll be seeing you all at IMFl 2009 then. Oh Hell!!!

Jeez, if this is the short version. You’re all so lucky that I lost the long version.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh

2008-11-03T15:28:00.002Z

I've just spent 2 hours finishing off a race report that made the race seem short only to stupidly press the wrong button and lose the lot.

What an a-hole.

Now I'm really mad!!!!!!!!!!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Post Mortem

2008-11-02T15:16:00.001Z

Well, it all went wrong – again!!!
Once again I look as miserable as sin crossing the finish line.
Once again I have to suffer the barrage of sympathy, abuse and mickey taking that befits a 5 time Ironman screw up.
Damn I need to learn how to ride a bike!!!

So to the day itself.
By the time we woke up people would already have been milling about Transition, we’re lazy like that. I planned to get there around 6am which would give me 30mins to get my stuff sorted and get out of there. With special needs bags dropped off, run nutrition sorted, bike nutrition sorted I gave the bike a once over. The tyres were a bit soft so I joined the queue for the track pumps, Front tyre inflated fine to around 100psi, the back tyre though? Nothing was doing. We tried several times but nothing was putting air into the thing. I wandered off to find someone with a pokey stick type thing that I could shove down my valve extenders to free the valve up by kicking some air out. With transition about to close I found one and set about my valve only to discover that it seems the reason I could get no air in was because the valve has closed. Ah screw, I’d just have to ride with a back tyre that only has around 60psi in it. It’ll be fine, the roads are smooth, the pressure will rise as the temperature climbs, I could get a puncture but I could get one anyway. There was a last minute sprint across transition to my bike when I realised I’d still got my glasses on but other than that all was well.

The Swim.
My new wetsuit slipped effortlessly onto my body saving the 20mins of early morning struggle that I normally have and I made my way down the beach to join the hoards at the start line. There’s plenty of room at the front so I positioned myself slightly to the right and smack on the surf line. Soon the hooter went off we were away and I was getting the crap beaten out of me. Normally, being a half decent swimmer it doesn’t take me long to break free of the fists, fine some clear(ish) water and settle into my rhythm. Not today though! For most of the first lap I was constantly having my feet clawed at, crashing into people and getting kicked. People were of course getting the same treatment back, except for the kicking of course, my legs just drag behind me like some limp lettuce. We exited lap one in 27mins and then waded back out into the sea across a sandbank for what seemed like ages, it really worked the legs too. Lap2 I guess took around 28mins (I haven’t scruitinized the results yet), it would partly have been longer due to the dreadful wade out to sea and partly because on this lap I did find clear water which means of course that with my fantastic navigation skills I swam a little bit further than most people (even with my prescription goggles). I left the water, ran up the beach, through the shower, had my wetsuit stripped and on to T1 screaming my number in the hope that my bag would be ready for me to grab, it wasn’t, but it wasn’t long coming. There were still a lot of bags for the helpers to sort through after 55mins.

T1 was a little bit farcical, mostly because I was fannying around with my Garmin which I’d still got set on run mode (doh!). I tipped my bag out, switched my watch on, threw on my socks, shoes, helmet etc and ran out to where the helpers were having a little trouble getting my bike from the very tight racking. I was soon on my way though and I saw the race clock click to 1:00:00 just before I crossed the timing mat. Not quite as fast as I’d hoped, but that was mostly down to my messing about.

Bike next time!!!!!

;-p

Oh yeah, I got burnt too.

Race Report

2008-11-02T01:02:00.000Z

I screwed it up AGAIN!!!!!

Race Day Eve

2008-10-31T16:01:00.002Z

Well, as I type this there’s 24hrs until the big kick off and I’m feeling sh*te!!! Yesterday afternoon out of nowhere I developed a headache. I took a Nurofen and it disappeared, this morning, after my worst nights sleep of the holiday it’s back. I’ve taken another tablet so it’ll be gone soon but I’m not a headache sufferer so it’s damned annoying. I’m sure sitting in front of the computer isn’t helping but it’s killing a bit of time while it’s still dark out there. Yesterday morning I went out for my last pre-race run. It was 4 miles keeping my HR below 150bpm and I averaged 6:45’s. I finished the run at the group swim, pulled on MY wetsuit and went out for 15mins. After Wednesdays 2XU trial it felt awful! My shoulders felt restricted, my legs felt restricted (not that they do anything). I was still motoring along compared to others in there but it was so much more like hard work. I knew then that my big purchase for the year was on the way. After the swim we bummed around the Ironman Village, saw Bella and Torbjorn Sinballe (I nabbed the Thunderbears Gatorade after, now I’ll bike like him – NOT!) at the Elite interviews and pondered my wetsuit dilemma. I mooched around the 2XU and BlueSeventy trade stands comparing suits. The BlueSeventy for some reason ‘felt’ more supple and I couldn’t help wondering what it swam like compared to the 2XU. Both stands were busy but the woman I’d spoken to on the 2XU stand almost seemed to be avoiding me, there were so many athletes about that she probably wasn’t but in the time I was there I had 2 people from BlueSeventy speak to me and offer to either loan me a suit at todays swim or let me try one in the Endless Pool. You can’t really compare Pool to Sea but I didn’t want to leave a decision until the last second so I agreed to try the Endless Pool. 10mins of swimming later I was sold. I told the Endless Pool man (who actually remembered me from 2005) I swam around 1:20/100m pace so he set the pool at 1:12/100yard pace which is roughly the same. I jumped in and swam solid for around 10mins. There was no effort at all, it felt as though I was swimming a warm up at 6:00+ pace. I actually wanted the pace turning up as I kept crashing my fingers into the grill of the water jets but without stopping there was no way to ask and it wasn’t a training session, just a wetsuit test. Once I’d stopped I ditched the wettie and jumped back in with just my Trisuit on. The difference was apparent immediately, for the first time ever I was officially faster in a wetsuit that without one, there’s video too. A short section taken by Shelly which I’ll hopefully get on youtube later (I’ll link at the bottom of the page) and a proper underwater one off the Endless Pool boys ( I didn’t even notice the camera until near the end). We had some food and went back to our apartment to ponder the wetsuit dilemma. A bit of internet browsing showed that amazingly a wetsuit seems to be the one thing that costs less in the UK than in America (typical!!!) so now I was even going to have to pay over the odds if I wanted one. A couple of texts went off to club coach/equipment geek Toasty and he recommended the more expensive BlueSeventy over the 2XU. Could I justify the expense?????? After many hours (actually days) pondering I decided that ‘if’ I swim to my potential I’ll not only get out of the water up to 5mins quicker in either suit but I’ll also get out feeling much much fresher. That’s as much time if not more than I’d expect to gain if I spend 3 times the amount on a Disc wheel so therefore it’s worth it. Once I’ve finished writing this I’ll be off for my first ever swim in my brand new shiny BlueSeventy Helix Wetsuit. My bank balance has taken a kicking, but hopefully but 8am (7:55 hopefully) Saturday morning it’ll have been worth it. Last night was the Pasta Party with all the normal pomp and ceremony, oldest and youngest competitors, some loon who’s done over 100 Ironman races ( how the hell does he afford it) and somebody that’s lost over 9stone (127lbs) on the way here – Wow!! Today is my wetsuit debut, the Ironman breakfast, last bike tweaks and maybe a 30min spin, then chill chill chill chill chill followed hopefully by a better nights sleep. Next post will probably be post race. Good Luck to anybody who’s racing here tomorrow, I hope you all have a great race but finish behind me. Good Luck to the folks back home, especially those going out in the now Arctic Exmoor weather to race the Exmoor Beast on Sunday. Here’s hoping that the sun shines for you all.
See Ya.

It's a picture-fest.

2008-10-30T20:40:00.006Z

The view from where we are.

Having a (very) painful massage - a good one though.

Manchesters Hilton Hotel has the biggest beds in the world!!

Escaping the Regisration tent brawl.

Shelly made me a sign - everybody say Ahhhhh.

Bella at the Pro meeting - we like Bella ;-)

Yesterday we went out to see the dolphins

With this I can get in (almost) anywhere.

IM has opened.

2008-10-29T16:58:00.002Z

Well if the short training is anything to go by then things are looking good. Yesterday I went out for an 11mile cruise on the bike then jumped off, pulled on my trainers and went for a 3mile run in my cycle gear. I didn't really look at my Garmin until I finished but it turned out I ran the 3 miles averageing 6:22 min/mile pace. Now I know I'm going to be nowhere near that on Saturday but with how easy the pace felt it makes you feel good to realise that on race day I can run 90secs a mile slower and still be well on target.
Today I popped down to the beach to join the hoards for a swim. There was a 2XU stand there and after chatting with the staff there for a while about how I strangly swim slower in a wetsuit than without one I tried out their Elite suit. I've been swimming long enough to know that sometimes you just get in the water and feel great and other days you get in the water and feel rotten, today was either a great day or the wetsuit really seemed to work because I felt as if I was flying. There's no real way of knowing of course because nobody was there with a stopwatch but one thing is for certain, there was nobody in the gulf that was anywhere near my speed this morning and that felt goooooood!!!
Off to register now and spend my dollars in the Ironman Village. The race is easy, it's avoiding the spending that's hard.

Hello from Panama City Beach.

2008-10-28T15:36:00.001Z

Well we’re here :-) and after all the panic about transporting the bike things have all turned out pretty well.

After packing, repacking and repacking again we weighed my bike box and it was over weight so everything came out except for the bike, wheels and saddle. Tools, tyres, tubes, bottles, gels etc etc etc all got bagged up and put in with the other luggage – such a dreadful waste of space really.
The original plan was to only take the bike box and two other bags but we soon realised that the new weight regulations meant that suitcases became overweight a long time before they became full so an extra bag was called for.

On Saturday morning we headed up to Wolves to see the family and drop Rosie off at my parents for the week. No doubt she’ll be even more spoilt when she leaves there than she is already. After visiting a few folks and getting more than my fair share of quizzical glances and comments about the now fading haircut we headed out to Manchester Airport for our overnight stay at the Hilton Hotel. More strange looks followed as the Hilton is far to posh (and expensive) for us and a bloke with freaky hair is secretly probably less than welcome in their restaurant, about as welcome infact as their bill was in my bank account. Still it was very nice as a one off experience and their gym machines came in handy for me to knock out a swift 45min bike/15min run brick session.

Sunday morning came and we made sure we got to Check-In with plenty of time to spare for any of the expected problems…….. What can I say other than it was fine. After reading horror stories about flying Delta and reading totally separate horror stories about flying from Manchester Airport the whole experience was great. The woman at Check-In was very friendly which immediately made us feel a whole lot better about the situation. The bags were weighed and even with just bike and wheels my case was 22.8kg, just 0.2kg below the new limit. The girl on the oversize/squishy bag gate was also very friendly, we even started having a laugh and a joke when I appeared at her gate for the 3rd time. After getting the bags away there was a long old queue to get through passport control and into the Departure Areas which had plenty of people around us grumbling but we had plenty of time to kill so that wasn’t even a problem.

There’s no way really to describe the 9hr+ flight from Manchester to Atlanta other than it’s loooooong. 1st time we went it was a novelty and we were on a nice new 777 where you had your own personal TV’s and plenty of channels to choose from, 2nd time we had the terrible twins screaming and a wailing to keep us ‘amused’. This time though it was just long, the films weren’t much good and with it being a daytime flight there was no way I’d just be able to sleep through it.

Once at Atlanta we ONLY had to wait 4hrs for our connecting flight. By the time you’ve cleared customs and baggage that’s down to 3hrs though and the Airline changing your flight to a totally different Terminal also helps to kill a bit of time. There’s no escaping it though you can tell you’re in America almost instantly because there are some HUGE folks here. We’d hardly got off the plane before we saw the first man mountain walking towards us. I genuinely looked at some people strolling through the airport and wondered how they would fit in their planes seats. It’s really got to be seen to be believed.

Flying from Atlanta to PCB was short and sweet. 250miles, 45mins and one time zone which meant that we actually landed before we took off ;-) and finally 20hrs after checking in at Manchester Airport we were at Panama City Airport along with ALL of our luggage and our MEDIUM sized car which like everything else here is HUGE. Looking like a LandRover Freelander on steroids with a hulking great V6 engine, Leather, Climate Control etc etc etc the steering wheel on the wrong side and no clutch pedal (damn automatics). Americans must get a real shock when they come to the UK and a medium car is a Ford Focus diesel. A quick trip to the never shutting Walmart to get milk, bread and other necessary goodies before hitting the apartment to empty the bags, find out what was broken and ‘finally’ sleep.

Damage Report – On one of our suitcases a solid plastic sheet that form the sides of the case has been totally destroyed leaving small bits of plastic over the contents and the bigger broken pieces just lying about inside the fabric. My bike box has taken a beating (as always). One of the 4 clasps that fasten the sides has broken off, one of the wheels has been smacked so hard that it’s totally seized up and it’s generally scuffed to bits. It’s done its job though and the bike is still in one piece, so that makes all the hassle and worry about whether it would get on the plane worth it. Looking at the beating the box has taken I’m not sure a bike bag would have offered the same protection and as for packing it in cardboard as Delta recommend – nooooo thanks.

This morning I went for a walk on the beach with Shelly before taking the bike out for a spin. It’s damn windy here today, far windier than it was in 2004 when people were panicking about the swim, the sea has a good chop on it but it’s more like a flat day at Croyde than a tough day at Perranporth. I was getting blown all over the place on the bike ride though and even took a small off road excursion at one point which could have been very embarrassing but I held the bike upright and made it back onto the road without any problems. Tuesday and Wednesday are both forecast to be on the ‘blustery’ side of things. If it stays this way until the weekend it’ll make for an interesting race that will suit the strong riders – that’s me stuffed then.

At the daily trip to Walmart this afternoon we played ‘Spot the Triathlete’, it’s not really that hard a game to play, there were plenty of Oakleys, tanned and toned bodies and shaved legs wandering about, there’s none of that with me though of course :-).

Until next time. From a sunny but rather windy PCB.

Seeeeeee ya.

Ready to Fly

2008-10-25T06:44:00.003+01:00

Well the bags have been packed, unpacked, packed, unpacked, packed, unpacked etc etc etc. Jeez these 23kg weight limits are a pain, your bag's hardly full but it's overweight.

It's been a really slack week (again) with only 2 days of training, a 7.3mile run on Tuesday with increasing pace throughout and then yesterday which consisted of a poor 4mile run in the morning, a solid 7mile run early evening and then a 3.2k beast of an evening swim session which faded the hell out of my hair (there's more dye to be used though :-) ). The next two days will be full of nothing but travelling so my next session won't be until Monday when hopefully I'll get a few bike miles in.

I've woken up this morning with a sniffle which is a bit concerning as everybody in this end of the world has been full of the lurgie lately, but hopefully it's just a result of last nights swim session. I do tend to get a 'swimming cold' after a hard session.

Now I just want to get there. I'll be much happier (and more tired) at 10pm on Sunday night (PCB time). We've failed miserably to find a sensible solution to the bike transport problem so we're just going to have to wing it and hope that the airport folks are either having a smily day or can 'help' with a sensible solution. I can't believe that it won't be a problem that they've had many times before, fingers crossed.

That'll do for now I guess. Next update from PCB.

Discrete as ever!!!

2008-10-22T20:07:00.001+01:00

Ironman haircut is here....

Suddenly there's panic

2008-10-21T21:28:00.002+01:00

Gone it seems are the day when you rock up at the airport with your bike box and put it in the oversize baggage section without a problem. This was the situation when I flew over to PCB in '04 and '05. So long as it didn't weigh over 35kg all was fine.

Things have changed though!!!!!!!!!!

Knowing that we checked the Delta Airlines website for the new weight limits once my bike box was packed. No baggage over 23kg it said. That's fine, leave my wetsuit out and a few tee-shirts, I'm well under the weight limit.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

Add up the length, width and height of your bags. Anything below 62inches is fine, between 63 - 80inches is subject to a freaking $150 fee. ANYTHING OVER 80INCHES IS UNACCEPTABLE!!!!!! Holy Crap - My bike box measures 88inches (90 if you look at their website).

Plans B, C & D are all being kicked into action. Plans E, F & G are whizzing around my head and if I get to Plan H I'm in deep in the poo.

Fingers crossed that there is a sensible solution forthcoming SOON!!!

Bike's Packed

2008-10-19T22:17:00.003+01:00

Probably my last 2 bike rides this weekend before I fly next week 40miles yesterday, 33miles today. Todays ride followed a 4k swim TT in 57:47. IM swim distance came around in 54:54. Why do I seem to be the only person in the world who's slower with a wetsuit than without? Still, I should be ok for a comfy 60mins come race day.

A week from now we'll be here

Calling number 811

2008-10-18T16:01:00.002+01:00

That'll be me in 2 weeks time when at this exact time I'll hopefully be all done and dusted, finishers medal in hand and cheering on the other finishers at Ironman Florida.

The first week of tapering has been a nightmare really but hopefully as it's only 3 weeks out my body won't notice too much that I actually only did one training run (which was awful) in the 5 days from Sunday to Thursday. That was followed by a solid 7mile run, a 4k TT swim and a steady 6mile run on Friday and a very comfortable 40mile bike ride today.

With only one week of work left I'm feeling totally chilled about the race. The fact that I know I've done nowhere near enough training to really race to my potential has taken a lot of pressure off and life is just continuing like normal. Far from living the life that most people lead pre-Ironman I'm just as normal. If I want a drink I'll have a drink (there's a glass of wine in front of me as I type), if I want to eat junk I'll eat junk. There has been chocolate, take aways, biscuits, crisps etc etc etc and in truth it's not going to stop.

If you look at it logically then there's nothing to worry about when Ironman time comes around, it's just a long hard training day. In truth there are only a few hardened athletes at the front who are 'racing', if anybody else races it's just going to lead to a shortened race and a trip to the med tent.

Much scarier than any Ironman race is when you go rooting about and find pictures of yourself racing 6 years ago.

It makes you realise how much you've 'filled out' in your old age. Ok so I'm actually quicker now than I was then, but that was because I couldn't ride a bike to save my life, but jeez could I run. Gone are the days when that skinny little frame goes blasting around a triathlon run course at sub 6min/mile pace, luckily I get onto that run course a lot quicker than I used to. Now if I could combine the run of then with the bike of now I'd be a half decent triathlete (only half decent mind).

Two weeks to go. If I have time there will be a quick update on Wednesday evening when the Florida haircut will be revealed. Be afraid, be very afraid ;-)

Last long bike.

2008-10-12T16:46:00.004+01:00

In 2 weeks time I'll have jetted over the Atlantic to PCB. 3 weeks from now it'll all be over and I'll be wondering whether it's been worth all the hassle. One thing's for sure, I won't ache much more than I do now.

Saturday was my big Ironman training/viewing brick session and it's wiped me out!! (course below)

First up was the training. The weather forecast was good and there was no great rush to leave the house so I chilled and prepped my bike for most of the morning before heading out for what was only my 2nd century ride this year. I needed to make it a good one and wanted to make it a harder, longer ride than Florida will be. There was only one thing for it, Exmoor here I come!! I planned to hit the hills early and give myself the option of wimping out with some flat stuff towards the end and that was exactly what I did. 3hrs later and I'd only covered 49miles (16mph) but I had climbed most of the rides 7,300ft of ascent.

The following 53miles took 2h50m (18.7mph) which I was happy with, especially as my back was killing me after all the climbing and because I blew a gasket at 90miles and pretty much bimbled home. A fresh and tapered pair of legs on a nice flat course will hopefully see me faring a whole lot better.

There was the tinyest thought in my head that maybe, just maybe I'd pop out for a short run when I got home, but as the return home coincided almost exactly with the starting cannon at IM Hawaii the run was immediatly out of the question. Leg 2 of the brick was about to begin...... almost 10hrs of Ironman Hawaii coverage.

As always Hawaii was great, it's just such a pity that the time difference means that it starts at 5:45pm and every year and I don't get to see my bed until almost 4am. Still at least next year I know the race will be at a sensible time for me and I'll have all my family and friends staying up until the early hours watching out for me (ok, I know!!!!!! Don't ruin it, I've only another 3 weeks to dream). Chrissie was awesome yet again and I think her appearence on the scene will be great for both genders. The women now have to raise their game considerably to get anywhere near her and I can see the men lifting their performances equally in fear that she'll start beating them. Take off the 10mins she spent at roadside with her puncture and she'd have finished in the top 25 overall, that's just scary. Enough for now.

Train hard folks.

It's nearly taper time - should I train first?

2008-10-10T05:42:00.001+01:00

Race Day is getting ever closer and the nagging doubts are already there.

Why have I been so lazy at times?
Why haven’t I got more long stuff in?
Why is my nutrition not nailed down yet?
How the hell am I going to get through this race in a decent time?

So many more questions but it already feels as though it’s too little to late.

Since the last post I’ve got some decent running done (14.5, 13.5 & 10.5miles) and a solid swim (4k TT), my bike is still the weakness though and the thought of going out for 5-6hrs is still a thought that fills me with dread. The amount of times I’ve planned a century+ bike ride and wimped out far exceeds the amount I’ve done. This weekend is planned to be my final long bike ride and I really need to try for 100+ miles just to ease my mind. I feel that when it comes to the crunch I know the swim won’t be a problem, I know I can knock the run out fairly comfortably, but that damn bike…………… 112miles is so far and to get round the distance and still have my running legs attached is my biggest downfall and the cause of all my failures so far. Maybe if it’s playing on my mind come race day I’ll actually err on the side of caution where the bike is concerned and take it even easier than I need to.

I’ve been having a weekly massage, which may or may not be working but there are no injury worries at the moment so I’ll take that as a good thing. My lovely pain mistress Maria seems constantly amused at the state of my legs though. I think she secretly wonders how someone with so many knots and so much lactic build up can actually move their legs up and down. Thankfully though she doesn’t nag me to stretch, she doesn’t nag me to warm up and down and she doesn’t even nag me to shave my legs.

This weekend will hopefully be a century bike ride on Saturday followed by an evening (and early morning) watching Hawaii on the internet. If I get my backside out of bed early enough on Sunday morning then I’ll jump in the car and head off to Wadebridge for the last local Triathlon of the season. It’ll be good to give the muscles a good blast out after what seems like months and months of plodding along at Ironman pace. I might even sneak a bit of extra training in pre-race as there’s bound to be a big wait between registration and my swim start.

One little tiny month

2008-10-01T04:56:00.002+01:00

Today is the 1st of October and one month from now it will be race day!!! Holy Cow where has the time gone? It only seems like yesterday that I was frantically emailing NAS trying to get an International Entry because the race had filled quicker up than I could type. Now I'm getting to the point where I start thinking "Why haven't I trained harder?", "Why have I allowed myself to be so lazy and have so many days off?", "Is that just a tired muscle or an inury appearing?", "Can I finally justify myself by doing a decent Ironman?" along with all the other questions that pop into your head as the race draws closer.

I the coming month however there is still the possibility I might get a couple of races in. This Saturday is the Bude Quadrathlon (Swim/Bike/Kayak/Run) which I did last year. Nobody there is going to have to suffer the sight of me in a kayak again but depending on how things pan out I may well head down there to have a play as part of a relay either doing 2 or all of the other 3 disciplines.

The following Sunday is the Wadebridge Sprint Tri, the last local event of the year. It's one of those races that you always hate when you're there because there is so much hanging around, but it's the last chance saloon if you want to pit your wits against the locals and your clubmates. I've a plan this year 'if' I go, I'll take 2 bikes so that while one bike is stuck in T1 while I'm waiting 3hrs for my start time to come along I can go out on the other one and get some training in. We'll see!!! The biggest downer for this race is that it's the day after Hawaii and last year I only had around 3hrs sleep because I'd been watching the live feed all night/morning.

Well it looks as though Summer has finally left us. We've had out 2 weeks of decent weather and now we're back to howling gales and driving rain. Ah shucks :(
The Countdown in ON!!!

An odd week

2008-09-28T18:42:00.003+01:00

This week has been strange, very strange. After the weeks training holiday where I did 30hrs in 10 days I seemed to lose the plot. It started on Saturday night when on a whim I spent a bundle of money buying bike kit off the internet and then even more randomly put my car up for sale. Then I just lost the plot and really just couldn't be bothered to do anything. I was working some long hours but no longer than normal and training totally went out of the window. I've never had the typical personality of a (reasonably) quick Triathlete. The people I duke it out with when I race are focused and dedicated to their training where I'm the total opposite. I'm hugely lucky to be blessed with a certain amount of natural speed because it certainly hasn't come through any dedicated training regime. That probably explains my previous IM performances because I can blag a Sprint/Olympic race without putting massive amounts of time and energy into it. The long stuff takes a bit more though and I get found out. I'm far more likely to train if somebody is there to drag my ass out of the door, if they're faster than me then great, if they're slower than me so what.

Anyway, enough of that old tosh. Back to the training, or lack of it. Basically I did nothing, zip, stuff all from Monday to Thursday which no doubt wiped out all the good work I'd done the previous week. By Friday I was in desperate need of something. Don't get me wrong, I don't go stir crazy like some folks if I don't train but I want/need to finally nail this IM so something HAD to be done. My new purchases had appeared so I put some cleats on my new bike shoes, stuck on my cone-head helmet and headed out of the door for the local 20mile Muddiford loop. I worked fairly hard, got stuck at a few lights and behind a few cars but it was all good. The new shoes felt great, the helmet was ok and other than a few cramp twinges I was happy.

Saturday was another disaster for the new bike. I took the ZIPP's off on Friday and put the standard wheels on to see if I could get rid of the damn noise, it seemed to work so I kept them on for Saturdays ride - big mistake!

The plan was between 5-6hrs or around 100miles. I cycled out to meet a friend and when I got there I noticed my back crake was catching -odd! A bit of tweaking and all was well so we were on our way. My ride partner was with me for 20miles and then I was on my own, things seemed fine and away I went. About 10miles later I looked at my Garmin and it said 17mph. That seemed odd as I was on a flat section of road, down on my Tri Bars I should have been comfortably sitting at 20+mph, maybe my brakes were catching again. I stopped to check and they were, but this time no amount of adjustment seemed to help. I span my wheel and it looked as though I'd been bouncing it over kerbstones, then I noticed that I had several loose spokes - brilliant! For want of a better word the wheel was shafted. I called my bike shop "Pop it in" they said "it's a new wheel, sometimes the spokes will need tightening", "But I'm 20miles away", "That's ok, it'll be fine".

I turned around and headed back on what was now beginning to feel like a clowns bike, my back wheel wobbling all over the place. It literally hung on until the very last minute and then 20meters from the shop it popped a spoke. The wheel is now fixed which is testament to the strength of the rim as it didn't collapse totally, but the ride was over and I hadn't the mental strength to get out there again.

Sunday was another bike ride, this time 75miles without any major trauma except for a puncture at 25miles which took me 30mins to change. I'm not great at the tyre changing stuff and will be praying for a flat free day on 1st November.

Monday was a nice steady 16mile run at sub 140bpm. There's probably just time for one or two more long runs before race day which is a blessing as 2hrs is a long time to be pounding away on your legs, especially after 3 bike rides in 3 days.

So basically the deal is that in the last 2 weeks I've trained like an arse. 30hours in 10 days followed by 4 days of total inactivity which has now been followed by another burst where I've done 12h30m in 4 days. Whatever will happen next?

Back to work and losing my mind :(

2008-09-24T04:27:00.003+01:00

Ah Hell it's a strange old time in this little tiny backwater of the world. Nothing seems to be going as planned or expected, including some of the random decisions that I've been making.
THE BIKE - Is still creaking, groaning and driving me mad. I rode Thursday (55miles) and Friday (43miles) on my TREK in glorious silence, sort of. The TREK has got its own little noises but I discovered that because I know exactly what they are and where they're coming from they don't annoy me half as much. On Friday afternoon I collected the QR from the LBS who's made several tweaks and adjustments to the bike in a bit to quieten it down, but when I rode it on Sunday it was just as noisy as ever and then suddenly the noises stopped........... for 10mins. So now I've got this noise, rattle, creak or whatever it is. Not only does it have the secret ability to totally annoy me (many people would pay good money to have that secret) but it seems totally unrelated to anything else. It sounds for all the world as though it's coming from the drivetrain but if so, why would it suddenly go quiet? I think I may take it for a ride later and strap a voice recorder to the frame so that my LBS can hear it at its worst.
SATURDAY - was a real random day. I'd planned to get up early and train, but I couldn't be bothered so I took David (my nephew) swimming on his last day down here. Between us we both put in a good solid session mine being 200m w-up, 30x100m on 1:45, 100m w-dn. After that we had cheesy chips and headed home. The rest of the day just disappeared into a bundle of blurr until the evening when everything got a bit random. Maybe I drank too much wine?
I've been looking at new bike stuff for Florida. Loads of my gear is 4-5+ years old and getting a bit ragged around the edges. My cycle shoes are 5 yeears old and give me foot pain when I get around 80miles (they have in both previous IMFl's) which I've decided is because they're actually too small for me and when my feet get hot they swell and cause pressure points. My cycle helmets are also well past their prime and around 5 years old. I've been having the aero/non-aero debate for ages but the common concensus is that aero helmets make you look like a dick, they're less cooling and my massive head means that there are very few I can actually get to fit, so a standard race style helmet is the way to go.
Soooooo all that being said I went and ordered an aero helmet on Saturday night!!! This purchase was combined with a pair of cycle shoes which I've no experience of or even tried on, a bottle belt and a new pair of much needed tyres for my ZIPPs (they're 4years old too). So I've ordered a helmet which will make me look like a cone-head and ordered a pair of shoes that 'I hope' will fit and be comfortable. Crazy, Mad, Stupid, Foolish or all of them?
The purchases were followed by an even more stupid sale.
In a moment of complete madness I put my old TVR up for sale online after 12 years of ownership. My email has gone mad, it was obviously too cheap and it looks as though it'll be gone by the weekend. Damn I'm going to miss the old girl.

I'm obviously losing my marbles. Aero helmets, untried shoes, car sales!!! Maybe a week of that rattling QR has really scrambled my brain!

Big week update.

2008-09-17T21:09:00.007+01:00

Well this is how things have gone and the hours have notched up since I finished work on Friday afternoon.

Friday - 1h15m Burrows/Beach run (10miles), 1hr squad swim
Saturday - 3h30m bike (65miles), 20min run (5k)
Sunday - NDTC In-Club Triathlon (I kicked ass), 1hr bike (20miles). Party time.
Monday - 3hr bike (56miles)
Tuesday - 4hr bike (73miles), 1hr run (9miles)
Wednesday - 2h10m bike (38miles), 1hr massage.

Today has been the only real disappointment as there was a 6hr bike planned but my bike has developed some rediculous creaky groany type noises and riding it this morning was driving me mad so it went back into the bike shop in the hope that they can find the problem area and sort it. As you'd expect after over 12hrs cycling in the last 5 days my legs are feeling a little the worse for wear and there were no thoughts about just swopping bikes and hitting the road again, just the thought of an afternoons rest. It's back to it tomorrow though with a 3hr bike and a 45min run lined up.

The big dilemma now regarding the run up to IM Florida is my hair!

In 2004 I decided to have a silly haircut for the race, it looked like this....

In 2005 I returned with it looking like this....

So the dilemma is what to have this year.

I'd like to have a resemblance of the Devon Flag which is mostly Green and White, but as I'll have to get it done almost 10 days before the race it has to be done with permanent dye and Green is a colour we're struggling to find. I've only really got a month to sort something out and it's a source of real head scatching.

It's got to be done now, it's tradition. What will it be though? Any ideas?

Big week.

2008-09-13T22:02:00.003+01:00

It doesn't seem long ago that I was writing down "100 days to go!", it's less than half that now, we're down to 48 (gulp).
This week is going to be a bit manic. Mom, Dad and David are down for the week and I'm off work looking to smack some big training hours in a desperate attempt to get fit enough to do Florida justice.
I had a couple of days off on Wednesday and Thursday to recover from the Marathon and subsequent runs, I was back to it on Friday though.
Straight from work I popped home to collect Rosie then disappeared over the Burrows with her for a 10mile run. That was followed by a squad swim session where I tried to get back some form by concentrating on stretching myself out on the glide section of my stroke. In the session was a 800m TT which I did in 11mins flat, not my fastest time but I cruised the first 400m concentrating on technique and negative split the swim by around 5secs.
Today was the start proper of BIG training as I hit a good solid brick session. First up was a 65mile bike ride which was followed by a 5k run with the pup. It was my first time in the saddle for 2 weeks but it felt like I'd been away for 2 months and the average speed of only 18.6mph was no suprise but still disappointing.
Straight off the bike and still in my cycle gear I grabbed the pup and headed out for a short sharp 5k run which I kicked out in 19:30. Happy with the pace, but I couldn't have run a lot further like it.

That'll do for a start, I've a Triathlon tomorrow followed by a bike ride. Should be quite interesting :-)

Wolverhampton Marathon

2008-09-08T06:29:00.004+01:00

Well that's that done and dusted. After and odd awkward start it all seemed to work out quite well.

We were all up nice and early, we did all the normal stuff and then out 'posse' headed off to West Park for 8:30am (before the roads closed). The Park was already filling up with runners and under foot it was already suffering from consistant downpours during this wonderful British Summer.

I found the registration marquee, popped in, paid my money and collected my number. Then is was just a case of mulling around until the start while trying to avoid any showers that came our way.

The race start in truth seemed to be a bit of a farce (or that could have just been me). I joined the hoards a fair way back from the front because I'd no wish to get dragged along by any quick boys. We all started moving forwards, then we started walking and then we started jogging. I didn’t hear any signal for the start but maybe I was simply to far back to hear anything. Once I realised we were officially on the move I started my Garmin without actually knowing whether we’d crossed the start line or not.

The first mile was really slow as we wound our way around West Park and I wound my way around some of the folks I’d started with. Finally we worked our way out onto the road where there was a little more space to pass people. The next few miles were a touch quicker and after 4miles I was back on my planned 7:30min/mile pace while keeping my HR below 140bpm. I carried on and soon found myself at a point where the majority of people were running around the same pace. We’d still pass a few and get passed by a few but I was able to take pace off a couple of people running the half.

6miles came around in 44:39 and I decided I felt brave enough to up my pace a little. One of the aims of the day was to see how I felt at various efforts in a bit to judge my Ironman pace come November. 140bpm felt almost pedestrian so it was time to up it a notch. The jump to 145bpm felt negligible and if it hadn’t been showing on the Garmin I wouldn’t have noticed. What I did notice however was that I was now overtaking people again and my now familiar faces had disappeared. I even started catching a few people that had gone past me earlier. I decided that 6miles was a nice place to change pace and vowed to stay around 145bpm until 12miles.

12miles came at 1:28:04, which was 43:25 for the 6mile stretch. I was glad to see it was quicker than my first 6miles. By now I’d worked out that I’d started the Garmin around 0.15miles before the Start line as it was regularly hitting the mile figures before the race signs. I picked my HR up to 150bpm and headed around the park to start the 2nd lap. Suddenly the crowds of runners disappeared and I was on my own. I now felt as though I was running for the first time, 145bpm had felt like a jog, 150bpm didn’t. A quick stop to tell Shell I was comfortable, a high 5 for the nephews and I was away.

The pace had risen again, there were targets ahead that needed chasing down and I was away after them. One by one people would appear in front, I’d catch them up and then run away from them. Then suddenly from nowhere at around 17.5miles I developed a tightening in my stomach and I felt the need to throw up. I stopped quickly, keeled over retching only to find that it was nothing but gas. The sound must have resembled the biggest belch in history.

Panic over and I was soon back running and running with a new found gusto. With my pace still increasing and 18miles covered in 2:10:15 (42:11 for 6miles) I felt confident enough to raise my HR by 10beats to 160bpm. I knew this was much higher than planned, but the idea had been to run tired after a big bike ride and that hadn’t happened so what the hell.

A couple of miles into my latest stint I hit Codsall Village and knew I was on my way home. I know the road from there very well and with one of my targets proving very difficult to catch I decided that I’d ignore the HR for the last 6miles, I’d just dig in and put the hammer down hoping that I didn’t blow up.

It’s an amazing feeling getting 24miles into a Marathon (2:50:38 & 6miles in 40:23) and running past people as if they’re standing still, lets hope that I have the same experience on 1st November.

I spent the last mile chasing down the 2nd placed woman but just as I caught her I came across the family support crew. My nephew David himself fresh from a top 10 finish in the childrens 2k race wanted to run with me to the finish line. Unsure of his likely pace I eased off and told him we’d follow the above mentioned 2nd place woman in. There seemed little point us racing past her if he was going to tire and get in her way as she came in for the glory.

We jogged into the finish and crossed the line together for a finishing time of 3:08:21. Far from my best time, but easily my best paced Marathon ‘performance’. Objective achieved.

I even managed to follow it up with a 7mile run on Monday and an 8mile run on Tuesday – bonus.

Week off work next week – TO TRAIN!!! – I’ve just seen my schedule – HOLY COW!!!

Quick weekend update.

2008-09-06T09:36:00.003+01:00

Well, just for a change the weather here resembles that of a rain forest more than a UK summer and in all honesty the chances of me getting my head together and riding 80miles from Bristol to Wolves are slim. I saw a couple of folks out cycling while I was working yesterday and I couldn't help but wonder what the hell they were doing out there. It can't be safe when most of the time there is so much water in the gutters that the roads are all a couple off feet narrower than they should be. I think at best I might get an hour in once we're in Wolves or at the outside I might steal the Sis's turbo for an hours spin late this afternoon.
Now I just need to decide whether this is going to affect my Marathon pace tomorrow. Do I go ahead with plan A and jog round below 140bpm, do I go with plan B and start between 130 -140bpm and then allow my HR a bit of flexibility as the race progress's and the pace slows, or do I think 'screw it' and try for a sub 3 (probably blowing up again in the process).

Arrrrgh decisions, decisions. The scary thing is that once again I've decided to take a recorder with me and I've already offered the files out. Looks like another warts and all Marathon attempt.

In 24hrs time I'll know.

Laters all

So near, yet so far.

2008-08-31T19:15:00.002+01:00

Well I 'nearly' cracked the 50hr barrier this month and but for a bit of bad luck and my laziness the milestone would have been and gone. As it happens though I fell a bit short totalling 48h30m (5h swim, 26h bike, 17.5h run). I've also managed to hit double figues for 2 weeks on the bounce totals which could have been so much higher if I hadn't had a massive 9 lazy/rest days.
The bad luck/lazy bug hit today on the final doy of the month. Needing 2h05m to reach the magical 50 hr month I had a local 32mile TT lined up. That and a bit of a warm up/down would have given me 1h45m which was to be followed by a 20-25min run to make a solid brick session. Easy!!!!
At least it would have been easy if I hadn't got 12miles into the ride and felt an odd shudder. I looked down at my back wheel but it seemed fine so I carried on. A left turn followed and I took it real easy to be sure, all seemed fine until I stood up to work out of the corner and things went wobbly again. I stopped to check and could hear the air slowly escaping from my tyre. Race over!!! 95% of my rides I take spares, today I forgot and get my first ever puncture in my ZIPPs after 4 years. Ah well.
I managed to grab a lift back to my car with a marshall (thanks Phil) but by the time I was back there it was raining and I was cold. Once home I removed the thorn from my tyre and fixed the flat, I suspect new tyres will be another pre-Ironman purchase as they've seen their best days. Since then though the normal rainy weather (sun's shining as I write this) and my laziness took over and that was it for the day. A waste of a Sunday really.
This week I guess I'll stick to mostly short sharp stuff until the weekend where I've got an 80mile IM pace bike ride lined up for Saturday and Wolverhampton (IM paced) Marathon on Sunday.
The bike ride will hopefully be ridden at 120-125bpm, it's fairly flat until the last 10miles when there's more climbing than I'd like but it'll be a good chance to practice getting aero on the new bike for long periods, it'll be interesting to see how my back copes.
The aim for the Marathon is to hold 140-145bpm and take a gel every 20mins. I guess performance will greatly depend on how good/bad my legs feel after the bike ride and also how much hard stuff I do during the week. Hopefully though I'll be pushing for a sub 3:30 finish. All of my long training runs have been sub 8min/mile pace no matter how tired I've felt, my last Marathon was a total disaster though so I won't be underestimating the distance this time.

Well, that's if for August. September is upon us and it's the final 2 month run up. Now I guess is the time where I suck up and train if I've any chance at all of nailing this damn race once and for all. Will I manage to stave off my lazy genes for the next 6 weeks in order to put in a perfomance deserving of the race or will my lack of testosterone/ego/drive come back to haunt me? Soon it'll all be revealed.

PS - Chrissie kicked ass again today at Almere, that's 6 Long Distance wins out of 6. Has anybody else got a Hope in Hell on October 11th at Hawaii?

It's not fast - yet!!!

2008-08-25T21:01:00.003+01:00

Well the new bike has landed and unfortunately, as is normally the case, it hasn't quite been the revelation that you want/expect. It has however had me out of the door training far more than I expect that I would have been without it.
The week started awkwardly as things at work have had to change for a while. I had to work an odd split shift on Monday but managed to get a 7mile run in (@ 6:32 pace) during my 4hr 'rest'. I was happy with the start to the week, but it soon became obvious that Tuesday was going to be a write off where any training was concerned.
Wednesday on the other hand I had all the time in the world, but as seems to be the case here it was pouring down ALL DAY. It was also the day I'd arranged to pick the new bike up and drop my old bike off for a service. This was the first time that the extra training effect took hold, normally the constant downpour would have had me sat in front of the TV watching the Olympics but there was a tiny break in the weather and I was out of the door pedalling.
When I say 'tiny' break that's exactly what I mean, I was soon doing my best impression of a drowned rat as I pedalled my new pride and joy through a monsoon.
Thursday was another loooong day at work which killed any thoughts of training but by Friday lunchtime I was finished for the week and hitting the local 'Tark Trail' for a 16mile run. The plan was simple, keep the HR below 140bpm and the rest will take care of itself. It started well enough but I knew there was the chance of nutrition problems as I was running straight from work and had no food/drink/gels there. It's nothing new for me to run 2hrs or so without any nutrition so I wasn't worried but trying to run at a given HR made it interesting. At 11miles I diverted past home to pick Rosie (the dog) up for the last 5 miles. I took on a gel as there was one lying about and headed out again with my new partner. Here's (I guess) is where the lack of nutrition told its story. From 11miles on my Garmin was constantly bleeping at me as I simply couldn't keep it below 140bpm without dropping to little more than a jog. I got to 15miles and lost the plot so I ignored the watch and put the hammer down a little. 6:11 for my last full mile and 7:23 pace for a 'mostly' HR controlled 2hrs of running, I had no complaints. After that was a squad swim session where somehow I managed to avoid cramping up, even during the 400m breaststroke kick set.
The Bank Holiday Weekend has been a bit of a (new) bikefest really. Saturday morning I got all depressed when I did a local 20mile lumpy TT course and took over 1hr when I've done 53mins in the past on my TREK. There were slipping gear issues on the QR and I just didn't feel that I could hold the Tri position so I popped it back into the shop to have the gears sorted and the stem flipped upwards. In the afternoon one of my training pals dragged me out for another ride. Immediately the new position felt more comfortable and we did 1h50m including some good climbs that I hit in my biggest gears to give the quads a work out. I was a lot happier on my return than I had been in the morning.
On Sunday I met a clubmate at the local run track (1 mile from home) and we hit the dreaded 20mile TT course again. Once again I was poor and my clubmate took me for 2mins where normally I'd have taken time out of him. Still 57:20 was an improvement on Saturday and I had now clocked up 7hrs of training in the last 48hrs. I had planned another 40miles after the hard loop but in truth I was stuffed so there was some gentle bimbling before I returned home. Late on Sunday afternoon I decided that I needed a run so headed out onto one of my old favourites, a 7.6mile off road loop out to Crow Point and back. I managed to hold 7:02 pace at a 143bpm average but in truth that was all I'd got, it hurt every step of the way. I headed out feeling tired and expected the feeling to disappear as I worked my way into the run, it didn't and both the pace and the HR was all I had in me.
Today I went out with my training pal Phill on a local 40mile loop then added 20miles onto the end of it. The pace wasn't fast but at the moment it feels as though the aim is mostly to get used to the new bike before worrying about what speed I'm doing. Thursday is the last of the local 10mile TT's and there's a chance I may make it there for the first time this year. It's a tough course and on my one attempt there last year I rode 24:42, it'll be interesting to see what time I can post on the new toy, presuming I manage to get there of course.

Happy Training folks.

Iain :-)

In the past

2008-08-23T11:00:00.003+01:00

A few folks (for some strange reason) have asked me what happened at my past IM Florida disasters so I've dug deep into the archives and borrowed a smidge of my clubs website space to bring to you my diary/race & run up reports from '04 & '05.

They're a bit long and drawn out and both start in the week leading up to race day (but you can soon scroll past that).

So if you're bored and want to know how not to race an Ironman then click here for the awful 2004 report and click here for the 2005 tale of woe.

Enjoy (if you must).

New stuff always makes you smile :-)

2008-08-23T00:24:00.003+01:00

Now I just need some decent weather to go out training on it.

New Toys

2008-08-16T18:22:00.002+01:00

I'm beginning to feel like a scratched record, but yep........ it's still raining and yep....... my training is still all over the place!!!
After my last post the training picked up a little on the running front at least. I took the pup out for 15miles on Wednesday night, ran a slippery and slidy 6.3miles (53mins) up and down Brent Knoll (pic below) and Thursday, then last night I took the pup out for 7.1miles (50mins) of Beach and Burrows before my squad swim session. At the swim session I was next to useless but hopefully I'd just run myself out of energy.

Today I was back to my lazy arsed best though as I sat down and watched the Olympics this morning while the weather was fine, rather than go out training. Then this afternoon once the heavens had opened I popped out to my LBS and ended up buying myself a new bike, that's ended any plans that Shelly had for a new bathroom!!
So now it seems that I'm the owner of a Quintana Roo Seduza (pic below). In truth it's overdue as my old TREK's had a tough life and the frame bares some scary scars which I'm sure my bike shop would give me hell about if I hadn't covered them up with stickers. It's going in for a service on Wednesday (when I pic the Seduza up) and it's having new chainrings, chain, cassettes, brakes etc and the ZIPPs need new bearings and 10speed cassette (for the new bike), that'll hopefully be the end of my spending for a while .............. forgot I need new helmet, shoes, trainers, wetsuit - the list seems endless at the moment.

So for the rest of the weekend I need to knuckle down and train hard. Up early and out on the bike for 4hrs followed by a 1hr run is the plan. How that'll work when I'm planning on watching Paula Radcliffe in the Womens Marathon at the Olympics I've no idea, it doesn't start until 00:30am.

Holy Cow!!!

Ahhh crap.

2008-08-13T05:08:00.002+01:00

I think I'm losing it.

I still can't get my head around training, the weather here just sucks. How can it be that after only 12 days of what's possibly the most important training month I've already had 5 days off.
Sure it's not all bad and when I do train it's not going to bad, it's just the ease at which a planned training session disappears into nothing. Yesterday was a perfect example......
I had a poor weekend of training and then wimped out of doing anything on Monday so the pressure was on for me to do somethnig productive. I had the plan in my head to finish work, leave my car there and go out for a run. After 90mins of running I'd call in at home to collect the pup and then I'd run with her back to work where I'd collect the car. 1:45-2hr run sorted!
So what happened?
I was about to leave work and I changed my mind..... I'll go home, pick up the dog and go run over the Burrows. Then I got home and changed my mind again...... I'll do some quick bits, eat some food and then go on my Turbo trainer for an hour. Then I had some food and changed my mind...... It's to late to train, I'll just sit in front of the TV instead.
On the upside I'm taking my bike in for a service today and I'm in discussions with my LBS about a new steed. If the deal is half as good as initial chat then I'll be a very happy bunny.
I've also booked a week off work in September to train, train and train some more. The current thinking (subject to my ever changing plans of course) is to go visit the folks and run Wolverhampton Marathon on the 7th, then spend a week running after work EVERY DAY. The following week I'll have off work and it'll be bike, bike, bike all the way. I'm just panicking now that I'll have time off, the weather will be as bad as it is now and I'll end up wasting the week. I'm so desperate that I'm even looking into the possibilities of sodding off abroad to train where there is some sunshine - that's very unlikely to happen though, especially if I spend all my money on a new bike.

Right, time for work.
Emma Pooley is currently leading the Womens Olympic Time Trial and I've got to miss the end of it :-( Good Luck Girl!!!

Until next time.

Laters :-)

Relay's video - for your amusement :-)

2008-08-02T19:19:00.000+01:00

Last weekend of racing?

2008-07-27T14:20:00.007+01:00

Well there's a chance that there will be no more racing until 1st November, there's nothing on the wall planner and it could well be train, train, train for the next 3 months. Then again, I'm always prone to a bit of last minute racing so who knows what's on the horizon.

This weekend has been a little slack after last weekends excesses but I've still managed to get in a club mile run TT, a Triathlon Relay and a 50mile TT.

I followed up Sundays monster session with a nice steady 50min ride on Monday, then on Tuesday it was down to my Running Club for the 'Tarka Mile'. First we run a steady 2.5miles out to the start of the race which wasn't the greatest feeling as I struggled to hold 8:15 pace, then it's an 'eyeballs out' 1mile effort before jogging the 1.5mile back to base (unless you fancy more). The mile was HARD being only 48hrs after the 6.5hr session and half way through my legs just felt like jelly but I managed to sneak a 5:17 which was good enough for 3rd place on the night. Wednesday was another steady bike ride (1h05m), Thursday was a rest day and Friday was my normal squad swim session which had me nicely chilled for Saturdays racing.

Saturdays race was a club relay. We'd got 5 teams of 3 from our club completing all 3 disciplines so that the race went swim, swim, swim, bike, bike, bike, run, run, run, you get the picture. There was chip timing, so although there were no traditional transitions there were interesting situations where people were trying to remove and put on timing chip bands in the heat of battle. We didn't have an ultimate FAST team and we weren't gunning for a big win (although we wouldn't have minded it), we did have 2 teams who were quick and very closely matched though and of course club pride is far more important than outright success. We'd even had race day tee-shirts made up for our team to wear for that extra little bit of needle.
My team (James, Phill, Me) were the slight favourites and we'd raced last year finishing 3rd overall, our other 'quick team' (Alan, Mark, Tim) were going to push us hard though. Our other 3 teams were there to enjoy themselves (as were we) and to no doubt enjoy the banter and abuse as our race developed.

The Swim - Our first swimmers were expected to hammer it out at the front of the race for the whole of the 400m swim, neither of them got it all their own way though as a couple of proper fish showed them a clean pair of heels. Importantly for ego preservation James came out of the water 3rd with a healthy 15second lead over Alan and it was time for our team to lay some smack down. We're all pretty good swimmers (400m @ 5-5:30mins) where as the swim would be the other teams weakness so we needed to open up as big a lead as possible. Phill headed out meaning business and was back in no time at all having taken the lead overall by a good distance. My job was to have a solid swim without my useless eyesight getting me lost (again). With Phill having already caught up with some back markers I found myself constantly passing people and used their hats in the distance as small bouys in the hope that their navigation was better than mine, luckily it was and when I hit dry land we were a full minute ahead of the 2nd placed team and more importantly 2:33 ahead of our club competition who were in 4th place.

The Bike - This was going to be a lot closer than the swim. Alan (boo-hiss) has been flying on the bike of late, had borrowed a pair of ZIPP's (404 & Disc) for the race and was no doubt going to give it everything to make some time up, there was no knowing how I'd perfom after last weekends activities and the other 4 lads are to close to call and can all beat each other on any given day. Things went pretty much as expected with Alan posting the 2nd fastest bike split of the day (22:25) for the 3 lap (9mile) course and taking 90secs out of James. This was also the turning point of the main race with the eventual winners coming into their own on the bike and run sections eventually finishing with a 5min lead.
With the lead down to a minute Phill and Mark had the pressure on them and they went on to post identical bike splits leaving me to duke it out with Tim around the course. There was never a point where I felt as if I was in the groove and each of the 3 laps got progressively slower, but importantly I managed to claw an extra 50secs advantage going into the final discipline. We were now in 2nd and 4th places overall.

The Run - Here was the point where the race was going to turn interesting, it was our weakest discipline and their strongest. James has of late been in pretty good running form and recently turned Alan over on the run at a local Tri, this was to be different though. Alan had been resting up, getting massaged etc (serious athlete that he is) and on a very hot day his slender frame whipped around the run course 66secs quicker than James. It was now game on as Phill (known to be a weak runner) took on Mark (who's taken my scalp several times on straight run races) with only 47secs between them, the question now was how much of a lead would Mark have when he came back. How wrong could we be!!!!
Phill ran his socks off and although Mark took time out of him he couldn't catch him. As I stood by the side of Tim in the Transition pen we both knew it could go either way, I'm a good runner but so is Tim, if I ran well I'd have the advantage but any weak moments or fatigue from last weekend then Tim would strike. It was going to be close, very close. We were chatting and both shouting each others team-mates on but once we hit the course there would be no conversation and no prisoners.
For the last 100m Phill hardly seemed to be moving, he'd given everything. I grabbed the timing chip off him and charged out onto the run course, Tim was just 2 seconds behind me and within 50meters he was right on my shoulder. It was Game on. I glanced at my Garmin and it told me I was running 5:20min/mile pace, that was plenty fast enough and there was no way I was pushing to run faster, if I could hold that pace and Tim could stay with me then it would be great for him and tough luck for me, I'm useless when it comes to a sprint finish so there's only one way I could run it. HARD!!! I pushed on and kept my pace and form then gradually I noticed Tim start dropping off a little, there's no way he'd quit on me he'd chase every step of the way but at least I now knew that he was struggling and if I could keep the pace on we'd be safe. Finally the finish line appeared and I crossed it for a team 2nd place finish with Tim just 18seconds behind in 3rd, I'd averaged 5:32min/miles.

After the race we chilled and ate before heading off to the local pub for refreshments, then all that was left was the 3hr drive home.

This morning I woke and crawled out of bed feeling very tired but I'd got a local 'sporting' 50mile TT to do so I mixed some drinks, grabbed some gels and headed out of the door. There's not a great deal to say about the race really, some of the road surfaces are awful, there's 1900ft of climbing on it and the weather was glorious. After just 5miles I was wishing I'd stayed in bed and after 10miles I was blowing out of my backside, after 50miles I was still blowing out of my backside but had just ridden a solid 50miles in 2:12:48 (22.7mph), now I just have to work out how to ride that speed in Florida and still be able to run after it.

That's about it for now. WAKE UP!!!!!!!!! it's over.

O-M-G!!!!!!!!!

2008-07-23T20:11:00.001+01:00

100 DAYS TO GO

Self supported IM(ish) training

2008-07-20T19:42:00.004+01:00

Loaded up and ready to roll

Ok so it wasn't exactly an Ironman but in the big scheme of things it may be just the shining light that I'm after.

After a lacklustre week where I actually had Wednesday and Thursday off training I really smacked it in (for me) at the end of the week.

65miles and feeling fine

On Friday I took Rosie out for a solid 7mile run at Braunton Burrows/Saunton Beach. It's tough going over there at times and it's rare that I crack 7min/mile pace but I just managed to sneak in below the target at the end. The run was followed by a Squad swim session. No blistering times here, the pool just felt slow for some reason and everybody was off their normal pace.

On Saturday I headed out with training pal Phill for a steady 20mile ride (with today in mind) and then as part of the IM training weekend I hit the pool for a 4000m TT which took just shy of 1hr which equates to a steady 57min IM swim, that'll do.

approaching the turnaround on lap 3

Today was the big session though. At 7am a couple of my clubmates (Scott and Tim) appeared at my door and we rode into town to meet Phill, then the three of us set out on the first of my four IM training loops. As Florida is like a pancake I've picked the flatest route we have around here but it's still got well over 2000ft of climbing in it. For me the good news was that these lads are no slackers and my HR was hardly troubled, many times it was below 100bpm. One by one my companions peeled off and headed home to fulfil their family duties. Tim went after 35miles, Scott went 10miles later. The joy of multi loop training is that you don't scare off potential training partners who just don't want or need massive mileage. Phill was hanging about for a full 2 laps (58miles) and just before he left we were joined by Richard who was on limited time and he rode with me until 65miles. From then I was due to be on my own but then suddenly from nowhere and with perfect timing Shell appeared in the car and proceeded to do a lap driving between laybys and stopping to take pics as I rode past.
'only' 20miles to go

The strict planning of my nutrition was actually a bit hit and miss because when you're riding along chatting with friends you forget about the clock, I think that most of the planned intake happened though.

The 4th and final lap was shorter than the others and was a welcome respite as I was soon turning for home. Unfortunatly the last 4 miles were the worst when it came to the rather blustery day and there were times when the full on headwind made it real hard work.

support crew/photographer/WAG - Shelly

Finally home with my bike computer saying 112.3miles in 6hrs 04mins I was happy. I'd planned for a 6hr bike and I'd managed it without any stress's, I'd done it wihtout tapering, I'd done it on a tougher course than Florida, I'd done it without even looking at my Tri-bars (except for one photo shot) and my HR had only averaged 107bpm. There are plenty of positives to take and plenty of improvements to implement in the next 3 months.

4 miles into the run with Rosie for company

After a longer than normal transition where I raided the toilet, got changed, ate one of Shells wraps and checked on IM Lake Placid I headed out onto the 3 lap run course. The early pace seemed far to fast but I remembered that I'd got a real tailwind and it would all change on the return trip. The plan was to run for 20mins then have a walk break while I ate a gel and drank some water, it all worked perfectly and lap 1 (8.7miles) was completed in 1h08m. Lap 2 went just as well and when I finished it in 1h09m I decided that I'd had enough for one day. I didn't need to prove myself by running 26miles and I didn't want to ruin such a good day by hitting the wall and having to walk the last 2-3 miles. Good times.

all over and time for a chat

So that's the tale of my (almost) IM training day.

so hungry I could eat a dogs toy

On Saturday there is the biggest race of the year (The Dorney Lake Relays) where I'm teaming up with a coule of clubmates to take on the world (and some others from our club).

Until next time.

A Target is always good.

2008-07-15T22:10:00.004+01:00

After my pal Kit's awesome race at Roth on Sunday (9:01:22) in which he finished 48th overall in some dreadful weather conditions I thought it would be good to set myself a tough target, so here it is.

KAVERMANN PETER 1:05:04 (6:35) 5:00:10 (2:08) 3:20:27 = 9:34:22

I know it doesn't mean anything as no two years are the same but this is the time of the last qualifying slot in my age group at IM Florida last year. Congratulations Peter Kavermann.

It doesn't hurt to have a high target though.

That's a solid race he's done there. I'd have the advantage on the swim but be a few mins behind by the time we hit T2. Running a 3:20 marathon is very good, but if I'm to get to target number one I'm going to have to be quicker.
Possible? Yes
Probable? You'd get good odds at a Bookies.

On the 1st November we'll find out.

Just found this.

2008-07-15T06:31:00.003+01:00

I found this pic out for someone the other day and thought I'd share my worst ever Triathlon moment with you all.

Perranporth Triathlon 2004, otherwise known as "The last time I thought I was going to die". The picture looks scary, the reality was even worse. Getting out of the water and seeing a group of your clubmates standing on the beach cheering because they'd quit the swim/had more sense was a sobering sight, especially when some of them are far better sea swimmers than you.

Nasty nasty day!! Funny to look back though. It'll never be forgotten.

This is SUPPOSED to be summer!!

2008-07-09T18:08:00.003+01:00

What the hell's going on with the weather? When the hell did the UK turn into the Amazon Rain Forest. It's just rain, rain, rain and more rain. Damn it's annoying. I want to go out and train - honest, but it's just so easy to give it up when all you can see when you open the door is a flaming monsoon coming down. I'm supposed to cycle tonight, I won't (!!!) and I won't replace it with a turbo because I'm just to lazy (and tired). I really do need to sort that attitude out but it's hard when you're never manage a regular sleep pattern and feel constantly drained.

There's talk ongoing that I may well be getting a coach to kick my backside over the next 4 months in the lead up to Florida. More will follow when I know exactly what's happening but it will be a less structured approach than most folks have with their coaches. My situation is more in need of someone who can help me put together what I've got without me blowing my bolt rather than someone who'll guide me every step of the way. I can swim, bike and run well enough but my pb is a good 90mins slower than it should be, that's where and why I need sorting out.

The last week of training has been very patchy. I gave my miracle leg a good testing run over Braunton Burrows with Rosie on Friday and followed it up with a good multi-stroke Squad swim session. The plan for the weekend was to get in (at some point) a 4hr bike and a 2hr run but Saturday was just a total washout and I hardly moved from the house all day. I managed to find a 4h30m gap in the weekends downpours to get my bike ride in which was a bonus, especially as it threw it down about 10mins after I returned home.

On Monday I finished work feeling trashed and just wanting to sleep, I'd recieved an email off my possible/future coach/glutton for punishment and it gave me a bit of a boost. I headed out of the house with Rosie for a small 3 mile run and came back 7 miles later. Last night was very similar to Monday but I finally dragged myself out of the house and down to my running club where I proceeded to run a real solid 8 miles with plenty of working on the hills. Probably the most complete run I've done for a long time.

Tonight nothing will drag me out though which isn't good because I'm working away tomorrow (starting at 3am) and although I'll have some training gear with me I know that on those 15hr working days I really struggle to get anything done.

This weekend though, business picks up - I promise!!!

Challenge Roth is on this weekend and my old buddy Kit (Firestarter) is gunning for a sub 9hr finish. He's flying this year, he's even beaten me (amazing :-) ) and recently set a new Age Group course record for the IMUK 70.3 race at Wimbleball which is a real tough course. Go get em Fat Boy. Make sure you set a time that I'm going to have to work hard to beat in Florida.

One of my clubmates has made a youtube video of the recent race we did at Bude, Cornwall. Don't ask who the fool is who loses his place in T2. After 15 years in Tri you'd think I'd have learnt by now.

I love my body!!!!!!!!!

2008-07-05T00:45:00.003+01:00

Well the title's a bit brave and needs an explanation but it's very true.

I'm afraid that I'll never have the sort of body that sends the girlies a quiver, you'll never see the likes of me gracing any macho health magazine and when the sun comes out I turn into a radish. So why is my body so great? Well here's a bit of history.

I've been doing this sport for longer than I care to remember, somewhere around 15years I think. I can't remember what year I started, I can't remember my first race, I can't remember my first prize. I'm a bit slack like that. Before I found Tri I'd had a few years of casual running, nothing special, I wasn't quick.

So what's this got to do with my body being so great? Well, in my 15 or so years of Triathlon I've consistantly done everything wrong. I don't warm up, I don't warm down, I NEVER stretch and yet I've never had an injury!!!!!

Sure I've had niggles and I had to have 3months out once when I wrecked my back digging a pond in my back garden but I've never had a 'proper' sporting injury........ ever!!!

Then came Sunday!!!!!!!!!!!

A 40mile bike ride to a race followed by a 500m sea swim/10mile bike/5k run triathlon. I cramped terribly in my quads on the run yet they've given me no problems since. I had a tiny twinge in my hamstring at T1 and it causes trauma! Ok for the rest of Sunday I woke up on Monday unable to straighten my leg and in agony. Tuesday was the same and I was hobbling all over the place at work. Wednesday was hardly any better either. Long spells sitting on my backside driving means a torture session when I try to prise myself out of my seat.

Then............

I wake up Thursday morning and it's gone!!!! Simple as that! No pain, no stiffness, nothing. Amazing.

Sure there's something there. I can feel something that seems to be just hanging around watching to make sure that I don't try any stupid track sprint sesions for a while, but basically the problem has simply disappeared. It felt serious too, I was very close to calling a physio, it felt as though it was set in for the long term and I'd finally picked up the big injury that was going to scupper my Ironman plans.

Tonight though I ran 7miles off road at 7min/mile pace quite comfortably. I followed that up with a squad swim which included efforts in all 4 stroke. If anything is likely to play up my hamstring it'll be breaststroke kick, but no. So far so good.

Well, that's about it realy for now.

Enjoy the training .

I LOVE MY BODY - IT'S AMAZING!!!!!!!

PS - I've found my dream bike (P3C) at a rediculous price............ To good to be true?? Am I brave enough to go take a look.

Ahhhh Balls!!

2008-07-02T04:48:00.004+01:00

Just as things finally seem to be happening there's a problem - grrrrr!!!!!

Training actually went pretty well last week. It wasn't the longest week in the world but I managed 2 x 20mile bike rides (Monday & Wednesday) and 2 x 40mile bike rides (Saturday and Sunday) with Sundays hilly and windy ride to Bude followed by a Sprint Triathon. The Triathlon is where the problems started though.
It's a long time since I've done a bike heavy week and although the distances weren't great it was a good solid start to biking fitness and I was happy with it. The Monday ride was a Time Trial with tired legs in which I wasn't too far off last years pace and Sundays ride was a Point to Point with a constant headwind and close to 2,300ft of climbing.
So onto the race .......

Bude Sprint Triathlon 2008 - 500m sea swim/10.5mile bike/5k run.

The swim was a real bun fight. The biggest swim scrap I'd been in for a long time. There were tales after the race about how we were funnelled through a small gap inbetween some boats and how a wave caught a bouy and moved it about 10ft just as we all got to it, I never pay to much attention to my surroundings though and can't really comment on any of it. All I know is that I got puched a lot. It seemed to take a long while to escape the pounding but soon we were turning the bouy and heading in which (as always) meant I was catching and passing people with the added benefit of a bit of bodysurfing as the breakers came in. The swim out was hard work, the swim back was great fun

Out of the water and onto the beach I could see a couple of my clubmates around me (we made up 10% of the field so it wasn't hard) who are about my swim standard so I was relatively happy, as we ran up the beach towards T1 I ran past them while trying, trying and trying again to unzip my wetsuit. Both clubmates had put their bikes in prime slots and were soon out on the road, I'd been a bit more casual with my racking choice as I'd ridden down and wasn't expecting great things, then as I removed my wetsuit fully there was a near disaster. While trying to get my wetsuit over my sizeable feet I felt a small cramp like twinge in my right Hamstring. Immediately I stopped what I was doing and thankfully the cramping subsided just as quickly.

Finally out onto the bike and my clubmates were out of sight and well on their way, I didn't feel that I could go chasing them because a) I'd already done 40 hard miles and b) I was mindful that the cramp I'd just had could return at any time. I decided that the steady option was the way to go, having said that though I'd left T1 in a small group of 3 and the others were soon dropped as I 'steadily' headed off in search on my clubmate prey. Around halfway up the bike courses main climb I caught and passed the first of my clubmates. The rest of the ride was a lonely affair as the other one who exited the water with us was taking time out of me but one of the lads who'd swam faster than us slowly came into sight.

After a couple of traffic problems near the end of the bike section I made it to T2 only to spend what seemed like an age looking around for my transition spot (idiot). Finally I found my trainers and got myself sorted for the run, now it was time to make up some places. The closest person to me was my clubs speedy swimmer who was leaving T2 as I entered which meant that he was a good way ahead and I'd only got 5k to run him down.

I ran out of T2 like a man on a mission, it starts with a good small but sharp climb and I flew up it, that's followed by a small run through the town where we'd pass loads of supporters as we head out to the canal. I hit the canal hard and I couldn't have been happier, I was flying. Not only had I already almost run down my clubs swimmer but there were two other people in sight and moving a lot slower than I was - happy days. Next target was my Tri clubs lead man, he was quickly dispensed with and I could now relax safe in the knowledge that all I had to do was run people down and that nobody from my club was likely to catch me.

By the time we exited the canal I'd cut the next runners lead in half and we'd got a real biatch of a hill to climb, he was mine for the taking............. or so I thought!!! As soon as I hit the hill BANG!! My quads just exploded with cramps, both together. I stopped so suddenly that I nearly fell over, I gave them a quick rub and the cramping seemed to subside a bit so I started running again, not catching the lad in front wasn't a problem I just needed to cruise in and finish first in my club. BANG!! There they went again and my language turned blue, I looked down the hill just as the first of my clubmates came around the corner - balls!

That was it really. I ran a bit, cramped a bit, jogged some more, cramped some more and slowly drifted further and further back through the field (no idea how far, there's no results yet). Ah well, these things happen I suppose. I put it all down to experience and hobbled back to the finish line where I rejoined my clubmates and we all went out for a feed (which was great).

Now is where I have my problem though........ My quads which spent the last 2k of the run constantly cramping are fine. My hamstring though which had a tiny little spasm as I removed my wetsuit feels totally wrecked and is causing PAIN! I managed a steady 40min run with the dog last night without anything snapping but it's struggle to straighten my leg at the moment. I'm hoping that a few days of kneeding it and Nurofen will sort it out, but if it's still niggling me next week I'll be looking up one of those dreaded Physio type folks - grrrr!

Weekend Warrior

2008-06-24T21:42:00.002+01:00

After last weeks post where things were finally picking themselves up I had a bit of a slack one.
On Tuesday I did nothing and on Wednesday I did the most pathetic 30min turbo session ever, a real waste of time if ever there was one. Thursday was more interesting as I went out for a messy old run from Gordano Services in Bristol where I got totally lost, ran along a public footpath through 4ft grass only for it to suddenly stop in the middle of nowhere and where I ran across the M5 Avon Bridge.

On Friday the weather was awful and I was asked to do some extra stuff at work so I only managed my normal Squad swim session, although it did include 13 continuous 4x25m IM's and a 50m Butterfly Time Trial in 39secs at the end.

Saturday was the day of the Goldcoast Beach Aquathlon. Pre-race I had to do a couple of laps of the run course putting signs and tape out, then when I got back with 15mins to spare I thought I might as well have a go so I slipped on my wetsuit, talced up my trainers and headed down to the start.

There was no pressure for the race and the run from the start line to the sea was done near the back of the field while chatting to one of my clubmates. My first dive into open water for the 'M' shaped swim reminded me of something ---- the sea is bladdy cold, brrrrrr!!!! As my head froze I swam to bouy 1 with my head up in the air and with occasional breaststroke (girlie). The swim back to the beach for the small run section was steady but once back in the water sections 3&4 seemed to be real easy and I was flying past people as if they weren't there.

The field was stacked with some seriously quick swimmers but even so 23rd out of the water in a field of 65 was pathetically slow for me, I'd normally have been aiming for top 10, still there was no rush as it was just a bit of fun.

There were 3 of my clubmates ahead of me and it doesn't matter how lightly you're taking the race Club Pride matters so I set off in hot persuit. Very quickly I started moving up the field and soon there was only 1 clubmate ahead, gradually I reeled him in and listened to his potty mouth as I ran past him to take the lead in the only race that really mattered, the race for club honours. As the race went on I slowly worked my way through the field until I eventually finished happily in 4th position not far behind 3 very classy athletes and ahead of some equally classy athletes.

Job Done for the day ---- or was it???? Not quite...

After the race there was the small matter of clearing up all of the race gubbins before heading out on my planned run home, all 11 miles of it. The run was an absolute pig and included a 4 mile stretch of beach which was like running into a sandstorm. At one point my HR was close to 160bpm and I was running 9:30 min/miles, crazy slow. I fought my way back though averaging 8min/miles.

The plan for Sunday was a 90+ mile ride to Perranporth, Cornwall. I didn't fancy 6+hrs of riding into a headwind though so after riding the first 23miles in 90mins I turned around and headed back before tacking on a little loop to take the total to 60miles. The 2nd wind assisted 23miles took 60mins.

That'll do for now, some of us have work to do and there's already far too much rubbish on here.

Iain

Finally training?

2008-06-16T10:58:00.002+01:00

It almost seems as though I've started to get my head around IM training, even if it is 6 weeks later than planned. That's not to say that I've suddenly smashed out a couple of century bike rides, but I have managed a few decent sessions.
After last weekends long bike I had a rest day on Monday to recover, then with my work hours having changed lately I managed to have a rare session at my home town running club. I got there to be told that this was the night for the 'Tarka Mile' - balls!!! The Tarka Mile is a monthly challenge and my Running Club, basically you run 2.5miles out along an old railway track (the Tarka Trail) where I do lots of my training at a nice steady pace. The whole club groups up at a line and then we all race for a measured mile before heading off in various directions to finish our session in whatever way we want.
On the way out my legs were feeling really tired and I wasn't looking forward to the mile at all. I'm no sprinter and to run eyeballs out for that distance would hurt a lot.
I knew the boys that I 'should' go off with, but decided that I'd be better setting off behind them and running with the next group, so that's what I did. It wasn't long before I decided that I'd probably made the wrong decision, I was feeling far to comfortable sitting in my pack and decided to push on ahead. I chased down two of the four members in the lead group and finished in 5:10 which I was really happy with after expecting a 5:30 at best.
Wednesday I was off work so put in a 1h40m bike ride and an hours run over the Burrows with the pup (Rosie).
Thursday was a long day at work and I ended up in the middle of nowhere so had another day off.
On Friday myself and my training pal Phill had our normal Squad swim session, but for the first time this year we rode the 28mile round trip there and back. We're a good 5-6 weeks behind the time of year where we normally start this activity, but now we've started we'll hopefully continue for the rest of the summer. That's a good 90mins a week training rather than sitting in the car and driving there. The swim session was very congested as the local beach lifeguards seem to have decided that they need to get back in shape for all of the holiday making girls that will be hitting the beach in the near future.
Saturday was my first proper solid long run for a good while. I drove to Fremington Quay which is an 8 mile run away, then I ran home and collected the dog (and Shelly on her bike) for the return trip. We then had something to eat and drink at the hideously expensive Fremington Quay cafe while we cooled down.
Oh yeah, nearly forgot.............. I got sunburnt!!!! Summer is here!
Yesterday was supposed to be a 4hr+ bike ride, but my legs were in pieces after Saturdays run and I only managed a 2hr 36mile out and back ride before returning home to sit like a vegetable infront of the TV for the rest of the day.

Well, that's it. Update complete for now.

Oooops, nearly forgot. Congratulations to Kit 'the git' Stokes who was obviously so buoyed by his victory over me at Burnham on Sea Sprint Triathlon 2 weeks ago that it spurred him on to 9th overall and 1st Age Grouper in the IMUK 70.3 race at Wimbleball yesterday. Once again his swimming was disgraceful, but once out of the water the boy's an absolute monster. I hate him so much :-)

Hit and Miss

2008-06-07T23:07:00.002+01:00

Well May finished with a fluster and a 10hr week, June on the other hand has started with a bit of a splutter. The month started well enough last Sunday with the Burnham on Sea Sprint Triathlon.
Barring a total disaster for my old sparring partner Kit Stokes I was only going to be racing for 2nd place. The days of challenging him have long gone, he may swim like a brick, but once he's out of the water he's awesome. Look out for him going sub 9hrs at Chellenge Roth this year.
The Swim - 4 of us started in a lane together (including Kit), we seeded ourselves and being the quickest I headed off first with the others following at 10 second intervals. Kit was last to leave 30secs behind. I caught him after 3 lengths and then caught him again near the end so followed his feet to the wall. 500m and out of the pool in 6:49, a pb for the race.
The Bike - A small shower just before we started made the early corners a bit tricky but that feeling soon disappeared as the road dried. I got stopped for a few seconds at a set of traffic lights but they're accounted for in the results. Other than that the ride was pretty uneventful, except for Kit (grrr!!). I'd got 90seconds on him, could I hold on ahead of him uptil T2? Could I heck!!!! Just 7miles had passed when I heard what sounded like a low flying fighter plane by my side, it was Kit on his new Cervelo P3C with his disc wheel humming away. A few seconds later he was away ahead of me - git!!! That was the last I saw of him until I rolled into towards T2 and he was running out.
The Run - It was solid enough without actually being anything special. I was quicker than last year and this was really the big difference between the 2 years times, I was still a minute slower than Kit who went on to set a new course record of 57:52. I worked solidly but just failed to push it hard enough to crack the hour mark for the first time.
The Result - I managed to hold 2nd place with a time of 1:00:12 which shows that although training has been lacking there's obviously something hiding away in there. Now I just need to work out how to make the pace last for 4 or 5 times the distance.

After the race the week fell apart somewhat. For my work I had to spend a week in (not so) sunny Bedford. This involved lots of hours, working through from Monday to Saturday and also lots of company paid food & drink. To say that I expect to have put on a couple of pounds is an underestimation. I only managed one run on Tuesday night where I found a nice Country Park to run in, at least it would have been nice if Bedford hadn't just recieved a months rain in 48hrs. There were times where Wellington boots would have been more use than my trainers. It was right up my street though, I loved it. After my run I made my way to the Hotel room where I preceeded to stand fully clothed under the shower and turn 'everything' a lovely shade of dirt brown.
The weekend has seen things pick up slightly although I can't pretend to have enjoyed either yesterdays 1hr run, or todays 3h45m bike ride. At least the fact that they're done has helped my training volume look lightly more respectable.
Hopefully, now that I'm back at work and (for the moment) working more sensible hourse then there's the chance of a slight improvement in training - we'll see I guess.

Nothing exciting to report

2008-05-26T18:01:00.004+01:00

It's amazing how little there can be to write when there are no races going on. The new Iain has stuck partly to his plan and there have been no more last minute race entries to mess up my weekends. The only problem is that the training has hardly kicked off in the way I'd planned, so I may as well have been racing somewhere.

It all started well enough with my announcement that I was now 'Base' training and the weekend after my disasterous Marathon I managed two consecutive 50mile bike rides - nice and steady. It's real hard for me to try starting from scratch when everybody I know and could train with is ramping up the intensity in preperation for the upcoming season. I'm someone who needs training partners to drag my carcase out of the house, without them the days just tend to pass by without me doing anything.

The original plan was to hit the bike every Saturday AND Sunday while I build my cycling fitness back up, I can get enough running in during the week to cover any sessions that I need and swimming just isn't an issue. The original plan only lasted 1 week though as last weekend I only managed to scrape together a 2h30m session on the Sunday and this week I've only managed 2x1hr turbo session, although the weather has been horrendous so going out on the road would have been a daft option really.

I've managed a couple of good comfortable LSD runs (1h30m & 2hrs) in the last fortnight which has done wonders for the confidence after Neolithic but it's the bike I need to be working on. In my head my bike:run ratio should be at least 60:40 but it's closer to 40:60 at the moment, now if I can only get that ratio where it should be without my run volume dropping off then I'll be where I think I should be. My gym membership has now run out so that'll come to an abrupt stop unless the weather is ever really really really bad and there's just no other option.

At work things are going through a few changes which could well screw up the training a little. After 3+ years of going to the same places week in and week out my job's going through a bit of an upheaval and from next week I've no idea where I'm going to end up. It may sound a bit dull having that repetitive sort of job but knowing where I'll be on any given night has been more than useful because it's meant that I've been able to hook up with some local running clubs.

At the beginning of this month the first changes happened and my Tuesday night run sessions with Tiptree Road Runners came to an end. I haven't managed to train on a Tuesday night since. This Thursday will be my last night running with Marlow Striders. I've been running with them for the last 3+ years and have almost become part of the Thursday night fixtures and fittings. It'll leave a big space in the training calender when these have both gone, if I don't find myself somewhere easy to train I could be in trouble. Both Tiptree and Marlow have been great to me in allowing some bloody foreigner to infiltrate their clubs, I'll miss both their training and the people there greatly. Thanks for looking after me folks.

That's about it really, other than that life's pretty dull. I've bought a new car, but it's so sensible it's hardly worth a mention. My old bucket has gone to the car park in the sky - RIP - and has been replaced by a new van type thing with extra windows and seats which I should be able to get the bike inside comfortably alongside the dog and all the luggage without having to rip the bike apart. Dull as dishwater really, but hopefully it'll do the job a lot better than anything I'd rather have bought.

That's about it really, it'll be back to normal next weekend as I've got one of my few remaining races. There will be no pressure on it though as the day before I'll be riding the 80miles to get there so no doubt my legs will be shot to bits as it'll be far longer than anything else so far this year. It's a race I won last year though, so watch this space, stranger things have happened.

Until next time (I'll try not to leave it so long)

Neolithic Marathon

2008-05-07T21:41:00.004+01:00

From here

to here

Oh dear! What a disaster! Rather now than November though I suppose.

What went wrong? I really can’t be sure.

There are many possible reasons for Sunday’s performance, but nothing stands out alone as a big enough excuse. Maybe it was a combination of many things, a solid week of enforced inactivity (which I’d hoped would leave me buzzing), a lack of sleep in the previous nights, possibly some dehydration, my hectic race schedule, there’s no way to be sure. One thing I couldn’t blame it on was my niggling hamstring injury as that was possibly the only thing to go well on race day.

After finishing last weekend with my niggle (I refuse to call it an injury) I had a solid weeks rest where my only training was a Friday night swim. Saturday night was a bit of a late one as we went out partying to celebrate one of Shells work colleagues birthday. I’m a bit of a dull boy at parties these days though and spent the evening chatting to other bores and staying sober while Shell danced the night away with her friends, no hangover excuses then.

My alarm went off at 5am after less than 4hrs sleep and after some breakfast I was on the road at 6am for the 2hr drive to Stonehenge. Once there I met up with a couple of lads from my Marlow Striders running club and we discussed race tactics and predicted performances. Both of the Marlow lads had raced London Marathon the day after I got lost at my last off-road Marathon 3 weeks ago so none of us were expecting to set the world alight.

We caught the 8:30am bus from Stonehenge (the race finish) to Avebury (the race start), then registered and picked up our timing chips before finding a café for a cuppa. As race time approached we dropped our bags off and headed for the start line.

The Neolithic Marathon isn’t a big event, only a few hundred people. It’s spawned from a walk between the two sets of stone circles at Avebury and Stonehenge called the Sarsen Trail. This attracts many many more hikers/ramblers/walkers than the Marathon as it crosses Salisbury Plain via some Ministry of Defence land that’s closed to the public for the rest of the year. The walkers (and their dogs) start throughout the day from 7am and would be a constant source of company throughout the event, quite often making for a bit of extra off-roading as you found a way around them.

My plan for the day was to run by my Heart Rate and aim to keep at around 150bpm, I’d allow up to 160bpm, but once there I’d back off, I knew that 160+ would probably be pushing it a bit to hard. I’d also totally ignore my Garmin for the first 3miles because I always take some time to settle down into a rhythm. I’d got 6 SIS gels and would take one before the start then at 45m, 1h15m, 1h45m, 2h15m and my special SIS Smart caffeine gel at 2h45m. I’d finish comfortably inside 3h15m so that would cover me. I’d also got a 500ml drink bottle with the last of my Hornet Juice in it; I’m still not convinced by people’s claims of the wonder drink, sorry HJ.

At 10:30am the race started and I settled into a nice gentle pace a few rows back from the front. After the initial few twists and turns I found myself just behind a small group of 4 runners at the head of the race (including one I knew I was faster than), I soon joined them to make 5. We seemed to be cruising along as we pulled away from the rest of the field. I heard my Garmin beep at 1 mile, 2 miles and 3 miles. 167bpm!!!! WTF!!! That couldn’t be right I was hardly breaking a sweat.

I’ve lost count of the amount of people I’ve spoken to in the past who’ve been racing Marathons aiming for a certain pace and a certain HR, when they’ve been faced with the option of slowing down or lifting their HR limit I’ve always told them that their HR rules and if it’s high there’s a reason for it, a sensible person would slow down. Since when have I been sensible though, “do as I say not as I do” is the phrase that springs to mind. I thought that after 15+ years of running I knew my body better. My HR was 167 when it felt as though it should have been nearer 145; this was silly so I ignored it.

I completed the first 10k in 41mins still comfortably running as part of the lead group. It was a bit lumpy and there were some good climbs in it, but also some nice stretches of road so there was nothing surprising about the time, then I looked at my HR again. 172!!!! It struggles to get that high on a 5k so I ignored it again and carried on, then at 7 miles it all went very wrong. There was no warning, no gradual tiring, just a sudden feeling that my legs had turned to mush. No problem though, I eased off the pace straight away and let the other 4 runners go, I was still cruising along at a decent pace I’d just drop my HR and go back to plan A. Or so I thought!

I eased my pace and then eased it some more. My legs had no response and nor did my HR, it seemed that no matter how much I slowed up my HR refused to drop below my 160bpm limit. I had a horrible feeling that it might be a long day but there was still time to recover things. I stopped and walked for 30secs just to drop my HR and then set off again at a fast jog, then I came to a good climb and had no option but to walk it. Things went from bad to worse from there and soon I was getting cramp in my quads, a familiar scenario when I race Long Distance Triathlons, not on a straight run though. Then came the run/cramp/walk strategy as I slowly dropped further and further back through the field. Each mile took longer than the last and my (close to) 3hr target soon became 3h15m, 3h30m, 3h45m, surely surely not 4hrs.

The last 2 miles I simply walked and even walking I had to stop and stretch my quads after they cramped up. Both of my Marlow club mates ran past me, I cheered them both on and they both thought I’d already finished and headed back along the course to find them. How little they new.

Finally with a mile to go I crested the last hill and saw Stonehenge in the distance, I was ‘almost’ emotional with the knowledge that what was probably my worst performance in a running race ever was almost over. I finished in 3h53m37s (not that it matters) ate some food and then had the 2hr drive home to sit and ponder what had happened, what and why it had gone wrong and what I was going to do with the rest of my season. I know I hadn’t prepared, trained or any of the other things that you’re supposed to do before a Marathon but that’s no consolation. I’ve a reputation as someone who can seemingly turn up at almost any race anywhere with next to no preparation and get round in a decent time. I’ve run just under 3hrs with no training, I’ve done an 11hr Ironman when I’d only entered it the day before. This sort of performance just isn’t in my repertoire. Looks as though it is now!!!!

I’m supposed to be racing a Middle Distance Tri in 2 weeks time but I’ve offered my place to some of my clubmates. If somebody wants it and the organisers are happy to let us change names I’ll be spending the weekend ‘trying’ to train rather than risking another race disaster.

I don’t take this sport seriously, which annoys a lot of people because (normally) I’m quite quick; Florida is a big aim though. I want to finally nail a really good performance at an Ironman and at the moment I’d gladly pay a coach and scrap every other race this season to get it right. Give me a week to get this out of my system though and I’ll be back to my normal self, back to my normal unstructured training and wishing I hadn’t given up my Middle Distance race entry.
We live and learn I suppose. I’m just leaving the learning a bit late in life.

Now for the geeky bit!!!!

I thought it would be a good idea to take a voice recorder around the race with me. It would be good fun to make comments every 10k and say how I was feeling and how the race was going. Little did I know it would go quite so badly.
Anyway....... For my sins I don't read many blogs, but my life on the road means that I listen to LOADS of podcasts. Thinking it'd be quite interesting I emailed Tyler Darby (otherwise known as Jetpack) asking him if he'd be interested in some race day audio, "Hell yeah" came back the reply. Luckily Tyler proclaims to only have 3 listeners so my dull monosylabic drone will be spared the masses (unless he's lying of course). Isn't it funny how these start as good ideas until you have a shocker of a race and hear your own voice back, I was very tempted to 'accidentally' erase the whole lot. I'm a man of my word though and I'd promised a warts and all report so that's what he got.
If any of you are really sad losers and you want to hear me droning on then click here or go on iTunes and search out the Jetpack Show. For those of you with more sense then you can still click on the link and listen to the show, just turn it off after 53mins and you'll be safe.

Ciao for now

Iain

Morning. Zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!!!!!!

2008-05-04T05:20:00.003+01:00

Just a quick post to say Hi before I hit the road ready for race number 5 in the last 22 days. It's 5:30am on the morning after the night before and I'm tired. I'm sure I need more than 4 hrs in bed on a Saturday night. Ever wake up on a race morning yust thiking "Why???", that's me today.

Quick training update. This will be nice and easy because I've done nothing all week except for one swim session on Friday night. Why?!!! Well at some time last weekend I gave my hamstring a bit of a tug and it's been playing up a bit all week. I don't think that it's anything to major but with todays race looming on the horizon and the weeks awful weather it's seemed an appropriate reason to have a bit of time off. The timing hasn't been great though because I was planning on May 1st being the big kick off to my IM Florida training, looks as though that will have to wait until tomorrow I guess.

Anyway, I'm finishing off this mad few weeks of racing in the same way that I started, with an off road Marathon. Hopefully this one will be better marked and I won't get lost causing a DNF, actually as this one's a point to point race getting lost could cause a whole heap of problems.

More on my next post when my race report will be telling of a joyous (fingers crossed) end to my racing fit, talking about how my quad gave me no problems at all (hmmmmm) and how I'm now looking forward to the Ironman build................. that's until 2 weeks time of course when I've a half IM to do with no bike training at all. Ah joy.

Right, I'm off now. I need to be at Stonehenge by 8am.

Goodnight Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!

Race Race Race

2008-04-28T09:16:00.008+01:00

The races seem to be coming fast and furious at the moment. Luckily the races I like tend to be lower key races without all the hype and razamataz of the huge branded events. This means that I can afford to be casual/slack with my race entries and quite often leave entering them until very late or on the day.

In the last 3 weeks I've raced the Endurancelife Coastal Marathon, Burnham on Sea Aquathlon, NDTC In-Club Triathlon and yesterdays Arlington Court 10. Next weekend it's the Neolithic Marathon and then there's finally a weekend free (at the moment) where I'll be doubling up the long bike days in a last minute preperation bid for the Marazion 1/2 IM distance Triathlon the following week.

(Talking tactics)

Yesterdays race was the Arlington Court Canter, a tough 10k off road race in the grounds of (funnily enough) Arlington Court in North Devon, just 20mins drive away from home. After a tough old Saturday (2h20m bike, 1hr gym, 50min run) I sought out the race organiser Tom who's a clubmate of mine and asked if I could run around the course with the dog. This meant starting at the back and taking the early section nice and steady(ish) while keeping Rosie (the pup) in check as she tried to charge her way through the field at breakneck pace.

A couple of early doggy poo stops actually helped as it gave the field time to spread out a little before we started picking our way through the back markers and after a good solid effort we worked our way up to 56th place in just under 47mins.

After crossing the line some old fat boy in a blazer came up to us preaching about how Rosie shouldn't have been on the course, how she was dangerous and a hazard. There were lots of things I wanted to say to him, I was going to suggest he asked every runner crossing the line behind me if there was a problem with the dog. Instead I just explained to him that I'd asked the permission of the organiser before running and he'd given his consent so long as the dog was well behaved and kept on her lead when inside the main grounds. Then old blazer boy introduced himself as the race referee and started muttering on about how he could DQ me and how the organiser should have known better. Realising that this had the potential to get Race Organiser Tom into trouble with the running bigwigs I turned into Mr Pleasant and apologised for taking the pup round, promised not to do it again. I then hurried off to find Tom and warn him of the impending problem (he sorted it all out, he's good like that).

So that's it really. Another weekend, another race! Time to train for next weekends off road Marathon I guess.

PS - 2h20m on the bike Saturday - being back in the saddle hurt - Marazion Middle Distance Tri in 3 weeks time is going to be a world of pain!!!!!

In-Club Triathlon & Heat Chamber testing.

2008-04-21T17:02:00.003+01:00

It's been a slack old week as I've rested from last weekends activities. Basically I ran on Tuesday and Thursday, then swam on Friday, that was it for the weekday training.

On Saturday I was back at Exeter University, sitting in their heat chamber and pedalling away while having all sorts of samples taken. I was assured that the power and temperature were the same as last time but it felt a lot more comfortable. I think they quite like the fact that I'm an oddball. They like the fact that their blood pressure tester beeps at them because my HR is only 36bpm and they seem amused by the fact that on this test my HR constantly sits around 120-130bpm when most people are over that in the first 10mins. Saturday night we had some friends over to celebrate Shells birthday with a big fatty chinese meal, some beers and a bit of Singstar/Buzz action, finally we crawled into bed at 2am for 4hrs sleep.

Sunday was my Tri Clubs annual season opener, the In-Club Triathlon which I won last year. It's very unofficial and really just for fun but it's a great way to get the Tri thoughts back in your mind. There are no numbers/course arrows/prizes and we use anybody who turns up to watch to take times, photos and marshall. A great time was had by all and we all went for a meal in the local pub which was paid for by the entry fee.

It was a hard day out there and I started off in a wave with a few of my clubs pre-race challengers to my title. The pool is notoriously slow, but still the swim went well enough and I kept a distant eye on our clubs speedy swimmer to make sure he didn't get to far ahead. Towards the end I even managed to pull him back a bit and we exited the pool within a second of each other with my other swim challenger less than 20seconds back. 600m swim = 8:22

(leaving the pool with James ahead and Phill giving chase)

Out onto the bike and I set about chasing down my wave leader (James) only to see my chaser (Phill) come flying past me on the first climb. For the first few miles the three of us swopped places, but when we got to Combe Martin there seemed to be a lull in the pace and I pushed on past into the lead fully expecting the other pair to hop on my tail, but they didn't. When we hit the rides big long drag of a climb (around 20mins of cycling) I had established a small lead and the pressure was on, I needed to make sure I stayed away from them so I pushed on. Occasionally I'd glance over my shoulder and see that the gap had widened slightly which helped me push on even more. The rest of the ride was fairly problem free, it's just a case of selecting a little gear and keeping the legs turning on the hill and then knuckling down and watching out for errant cars full of holiday makers on the descents.

Into T2 I'd opened up a minutes gap on James and Phill, trainers on and I was away. Wow! The first race of the season always brings out the jelly legs doesn't it. No time to worry about those though I'd got a race to win. Bike Time (inc Transitions) = 45:56.

(back from the bike feeling wrecked)

Out onto the run and barring a big problem I knew James & Phill wouldn't be running me down so I thought about those who'd started in previous waves. There were a few out there who I'd have taken time out of on the swim that had the ability to bike and run me down if I gave them half a chance, there were also a few unknowns that could be capable of anything. The run is tough (very tough) and off road, there's a killer climb in it that you've just no choice but to walk at times. I kept my focus though and the walk breaks were kept at a minimum while I pushed on hard at other times. I was catching a few of my clubmates from previous waves by now. It's always nice to give them encouragement and try to push them on as you go past (I'm not sure if they enjoy it so much though - none of them have ever sworn at me yet though). The final push to the finish is on another big climb and my legs were in bits by now, I couldn't wait to see the finish line. Run Time = 17:29.

(finishing the run and glad it's all over)

All over for another year it was time for a shower, a chat and a club curry in the local pub while I sat down with Shell and sorted the results (I promise I didn't fiddle them - honest.). Now I could sit down and feed myself knowing that for another 12 months I'd won the race that matters. No prizes on offer, just an ego massage and the knowledge that you're one up on your clubmates. Now I've just got a season ahead of them trying to knock me off my perch. I ended up with the 2nd fastest swim, 3rd fastest bike and the fastest run finishing in 1:11:47.

Overall I'm happiest with my bike ride, I've done so little over the winter I was expecting it to have taken a bit downturn. Sure it's lost a bit on last year, but not a huge amount and I'm now quietly confident that if I can get myself out training then it shouldn't take me to long to get motoring again. Fingers crossed.

(James and Phill discussing how the hell I've beaten them again)

Weekend Race 2 - Burnham Aquathlon 1k/10k

2008-04-13T20:57:00.002+01:00

Looks like yesterdays warm up worked out ok.

The 1000m swim wasn't to bad. I never felt great, but my legs only ever drag behind me so they weren't much of a problem. There's no splits up yet, but I guess I swam around 14mins and I was 3rd out of the water.

I was fully prepared for the run to be a cramp-fest so I decided that there was nothing to lose by leaving my Garmin outside and using up a few seconds putting it on so that I could measure the run course, it proved to be quite useful.

Trainers, number belt, glasses and trainers on. My transition was more slack than speed but I was soon on my way. This year there would be no hammering the early k's to catch any swim leaders, it was all about preserving my legs. I soon hit a nice pace though and once onto the beach I started reeling the speedy swimmers in. My legs felt very delicate but my Garmin was telling me I was running between 6:10 - 6:30 pace, I was happy with that. Once in the lead I started thinking the race though and thinking about how my legs were going to cope with the next 40mins, then I hit the first sand dune and felt a spasm through my quads.

The run followed a simple format. My legs would let me run around 6:20 pace quite comfortably, any faster or in fact any slower would see me risking a bout of cramp. Every time the terrain changed there would be a nervous 10 seconds or so where my quads decided whether they were going to behave or not, thankfully they did.
At the turnaround I noticed that I'd got a lead of around 45 seconds, but the chasing group seemed to be huge and I'd no idea how many of them were actually taking time out of me. The pace of others didn't really matter though, I'd enough on my hands focusing on keeping my pace and form consistant. Any wavering in either could leave me in trouble. At the end of the golf course dog-leg section on the 2nd lap I looked across at the course and there was nobody in sight. That meant I'd got at least a minute on anybody chasing and so long as there had been no ringers in the earlier wave it should just be a case of keeping on moving.

The finish line was a welcome sight although once I'd stopped my legs hurt more than when I was running (so I took the pup out for a bimble along the beach).

That's about it really. There's a short report on the local website here.
All that's left to say is congratulations to Mark Conklin & Sara-Jane Cox on their purchase of Burnham Pool. It's crap that they've had to do it to save the council shutting it down. I wish them all the success in the world with it. Here's to the new future of Burnham pool and its races.

Exmoor Coastal Marathon

2008-04-12T19:23:00.002+01:00

Whoops, that didn't exactly go to plan.

The morning started well enough as I had a lift to the start with ultra running lunatic Vicky Skelton which stopped me being late (although the news that the run was actually close to 29miles wasn't very welcome).

I started faster than I wanted to, standing at the front is never a good thing for me. Almost immediately there were 3 of us leading the way following the races miniscule signs. We soon settled into a rhythm as I dropped off the pace going uphill and then up the ground on the flat and descending. We were very rarely close together, but always in sight of each other.
The first lap which was the course for the 10k race was actually 11.8k and took 58mins. Then after 8.5miles we had our first course marking error and got sent down a road which cost us over 7mins. Even at this early stage though we were so far ahead of the rest that nobody passed us while we were off course.

All went well from here until just past 14miles. There were now only 2 of us and I was actually thinking that 'presuming' I didn't blow up there was a chance of the win. The lad leading the race was still running away from me as I power walked uphill, but I would then chip away at the lead on the flatter and downhill sections. As we ran through Lynton I could see him about 100m ahead and I was still feeling fine. Then I missed an arrow and ran straight past a side road on the right. I found myself on the main road down to Lynmouth and I could no longer see my target - balls!!!! I pushed on wondering if he'd just stretched out his lead, but surely this main road running wasn't right. I reached the first of the switchbacks on the descent and looked across Lynmouth just in time to see somebody running through the town. My language wasn't pretty. I'd just have to run down into the town and pick up the course again, hopefully I'd be able to claw back some time.

Into Lynmouth I ran across the bridge where I'd spotted the runner then headed out to the road out of town where there was a 'Caution Runners' sign and some red/white tape. Bonus, I must be back on course, time to start power walking up that 25% gradient. After almost 7mins of climbing I looked across to my left and finally saw an arrow. The Bloody Thing Was Pointing DOWN The Hill!!!!!!!!!!! I was now going around the course backwards.
I stopped, stood, pondered and swore to myself. Then I turned around and decided to follow the arrows. I'd now got two choices, I could re-trace my steps and try to find where I'd gone wrong or give the race up as a bad job and just follow the signs back to Hunters Inn. Did I really want to be running over 30miles? especially when it would be over as a 'race'. Nope!!!
So that was it really. I strolled up the hills, including the Killer Mile and jogged the rest of the run course. Finally I got back to the pub after 3h30m of running and sat down to my free Chilli & Rice before waiting for the 'proper' runners to appear. Vicky finished 1st woman and 4th overall just 18mins behind the winner, he was the chap that had been leading for almost the whole of the race.

Onto tomorrow then I guess, that'll be interesting. I can't lie, my legs are feeling a wee bit the worse for wear at the moment. I could do with a last minute massage.

Here's the route I ended up taking. 23.7 miles and over 11000ft of climbing. Ouch!!!!!

Am I losing my mind????

2008-04-11T22:49:00.003+01:00

I have to wonder sometimes. This week's been 'slightly' lacking in intensity, but there's a pretty good reason for that (more of that later).

Monday - 1hr in the gym
Tuesday - Buy new off road trainers (that'll fit in further down the page), run in new trainers at a steady pace for 1h05m.
Wednesday - Rest up
Thursday - Another relatively east 1h05m run in my new off roaders.
Friday - 3k squad swim session taken fairly easy.

So, what's the big deal? Why has the training been intentionally steady? You may well ask!!!!

It started several weeks ago when I bumped into a clubmate and local Ultra Distance lunatic in the gym. She told me she was doing some mad Marathons and knowing I'm a glutton for punishment she started the hard sell. Luckily I pointed out that the race clashed with an Aquathlon I was doing. "The Marathon's on a Saturday 12th, not Sunday 13th." was the reply. Ah heck.

The weeks passed and I kept on pondering this Marathon until the dates came up for my cycling lab tests. Saturday 5th & 12th April! Ah well, I was going to be sweating it out in a heat chamber the day before my Aquathlon, but at least I'd got a good excuse to wimp out of the Marathon. Then last week at my first heat chamber session came the immortal words "Can we postpone next weeks session?" which was follwed by an email off my ultra running clubmate on Sunday.

"You've got no excuse not to race now"
"I've got a race the day after"
"It can't be that serious, you were willing to sit in a heat chamber before it"
"The website says entries are closed"
"The entry form's still active though, fill it in"
"Ok, ok, ok. The entry form's gone off, but the website still says they've closed"
"You'll be fine, call them in the morning"
"I'll call them and see if I've got in"

So that was it, one phonecall later, my entry's all sorted and I'm doubling up with races this weekend. Then I realise exactly what I've done, this is no normal Marathon, firstly it's off road (hence the new trainers) and word is that it's got over 10,000ft of climbing. That's going to hurt, a lot. It's supposedly the toughest race in a series of 5 and the last race was WON in 4h53m so this could well be 5hrs+ of pain which will be longer than the great IM Florida walk of 2004.

So there it is, tomorrow I'll be racing the Endurancelife Coastal Marathon (Exmoor) with a course profile that looks like this....... it's going to be pain, pain, pain.

Nice don't you think????? NOT!!!!

To add to all my woes and worries it's London Marathon weekend and that's a big thing on this side of the pond. Every time you switch on the TV or the radio there's comments about some celebrity or some worker on the show that's racing London on Sunday. There's all this talk about how tough it is, how people will struggle to get round, how much of a success it is for people just to complete the course. I ran last night and nobody who's doing London was running any more than 3 miles, I ran 8.75miles off road. Then suddenly it hit me! I've just entered a damn Marathon! FIVE DAYS before it takes place! I haven't trained for it! I haven't tapered for it! I jus entered it as if it was a local 10k! But it's not! It's a bloody Marathon! What have I done?! Oh Hell! I think I need my head looking at!

That'll do for now, I need my beauty sleep.

Hopefully, 'if' I survive, I'll be writing a report on the 'adventure' tomorrow and making a prediction about how badly I'm going to do at my Aquathlon on Sunday.

You've got to love all this daft sport stuff - Goodnight.

Who's the April Fool? That'll be me then.

2008-04-06T23:00:00.003+01:00

So I've supposedly got 1 month to make a fool of myself before knuckling down to some proper Ironman style training. How can I manage that? My next few weekends have a good chance of doing that for me.

This weekend I did the first of my heat chamber cycle tests at Exeter University. To keep it short I sat on a bike at 187 watts for 45min, then 197 watts for 45mins all in a big oven at 90F while giving numerous samples of various bodily fluids.
Next weekend I've entered this little baby on Saturday which is followed on Sunday by a 100m/10k Aquathlon at Burnham on Sea. That should tire me out a little.
The following weekend my planned bfitday Tri has been postponed because I've got to return to the heat chamber at Exeter on Saturday for another 90mins of face melting cycling and dehydration. Sunday however is still my clubs evil In-Club Triathlon.
I'm now planning my double bfitday Tri's over the weekend of 26th & 27th. One of them will be 8 days late and the other will be 5 days late (unless I double up on the Saturday), but they'll be a good end to the month and good prep for the start of my IM training proper. I've then got just 3 weeks to make sure I'm in shape for my 1/2 IM in Cornwall, although this will mostly be a 'training' race, unless one of my clubmates passes me of course :).
That's about it really, I'm to tired tonight to troll through my training diary and write down what I've done, but that only bores folks to tears anyway.
Roll on next weekend, looks like business is about to pick up.

7 months and counting

2008-03-31T12:35:00.004+01:00

Well we're at the end of March and I've only got one more month of misbehaving (yeah right) before I have to shape up and get myself into gear.

March has been an odd old month. It started with lots of short sessions and took me until yesterday (30th) to finally crack the 1hr/day average that is my minimum target for any month this year. It also took until last Monday (24th) for me to do any cycling, my first time in the saddle since dragging my pal out for his Birthday Tri on 17th Feb.

So, onto this last week and what has happened to rescue the month from its impending disaster.

After only managing 2hrs of running between the 17th and 22nd my recovery started last Sunday when I joined my Tri Club for an easy hour of swimming and then took one of my clubmates for an (equally easy) hour of running.
On Monday I got dragged out on my bike (it wasn't my idea) for 2h30m/42miles. A rare break in the weather meant that I could take my road bike to make things a bit easier, rather than smashing myself silly on my old hybrid bike.
Tuesday I managed 10.25miles of running at various paces in 1h12m. The first 4.25 miles I ran alone working my way to the Running Club and the last 6 miles was a group run with a hard effort of almost 2miles thrown in for good measure.
Wednesday I slipped back into lazy mode and scrapped all thoughts of training.
On Thursday I made good of the extra light we're now getting of an evening (even more now that the clocks have changed) and ran for 7miles along the River Thames before running another 7.5miles with some of the running club.
Friday was lazy, but I can always cover that with my weekly squad swim session which this week included a 400m/200m/100m/50m Timetrial set while wearing a tee shirt.
On Saturday we had a group gathering to recce the course for our very unofficial In Club Triathlon. It's a tough old beast and involves hills, hills, hills and more hills, so we thought it only fair to introduce some of the newer members to its pleasures before race day. I tacked on a bit extra and actually ended up putting in a 2h30m Duathlon.
Yesterday I dragged myself out for my 3rd bike ride of the week and followed it up with an hour in the gym after which I felt thoroughly trashed, then today I started with a 90min gym session, a 30min run, then later this afternoon I'm off to Exeter University to test my legs and lungs out on the bike for a VO2 max test (that should be fun - not!!!)

So that's it really. March is done and dusted, IMFl is 7 months away which sounds like ages until you realise that it's 5 months since I entered. Doesn't time fly - gulp!!!!

Until next time.

For your amusement

2008-03-30T20:28:00.001+01:00

This re-surfaced today. It's a member of my club it T1. Shows how (not) to do it.

What did I say?

2008-03-22T19:58:00.002Z

Ok, ignore the last post, I lied. I'm going to start biking am I???? Yeah right.

It's Easter weekend which means school holidays and chocolate. Shell (Sister) has come down to see us with her trio of little ones and that seems to have given me a big enough excuse to totally stop training. It's ground to a complete halt. All I've managed this week is 2 runs which is shockingly bad by any standards.

March is already looking to be a write off, so here's an advance wish that if nothing else my enthusiasm comes back in April. Grrrrrrrrr.

Must bike. Must bike. Must bike!!!!!

2008-03-17T02:44:00.003Z

Well I promised myself that once Grizzly was over I'd start smashing some miles out on the bike. Have I? Ermmm, nope, I've done nothing! In fact I barely seem to be ticking over with anything at the moment. The swimming is going well which I actually think is down to the discovery of gym work rather than any increase in training. It's lucky that the gym is there infact or my monthly training totals would look a whole lot worse than they do. While it's good to see that after 15 or so years in Tri I'm finally managing to cope with the gym there's no getting away from the fact that it's swimming, cycling and running I need to train at and there is not enough of it going on.

March in truth has been a bit of a pain in the arse so far and I'm not expecting the rest of it to be much better. Amongst other things work is in the process of some major upheaval which will drag along until May and most likely screw up what bit of a training pattern I've got. This weeks normal training is already screwed because Good Friday throws a spanner in the works of my working week.

That's about it really. There's not much else to report. I've worked lots, run a few times, swam a few times and taken a few trips to the gym, welcome to my life. Dull isn't it? Sometimes that's just how I like it though.

GRIZZLY 2008 and some wonky photography

2008-03-10T08:54:00.005Z

Wow that was tough! Not my best run at Seaton, not my most serious, definately my slowest, possibly my worst position, probably my toughest.

It started early as my alarm clock woke me up in order for me to get myself together and out to meet my chauffeur for the day (thanks Basher!).
We were soon in Seaton and mulling about, I'm not used to getting there early. With recent weather being damp to say the least I was wondering about my decision to wear road trainers for the race. It was to late now though so I got changed, put my bag in to be looked after and headed to the start.

Soon the gun went off and with a handful of gels and a handful of camera for some (hopefully) pretty pics we headed out onto the pebble beach. I was (as normal) perched neatly in the middle of the field to keep myself away from the lunatics at the front.
After a nice steady start and a cruise along the beach we started hitting the hills and my legs didn't feel good. Then we hit the off road hills (uphill and downhill) and immediately I knew the shoe decision was going to cost me a load of time. I'm known to launch myself down hills like a lunatic but today I was descending like a fairy, one false step would have me sliding around like Bambi on his frozen lake, it wasn't good and trying to climb muddy slippery hills was even worse. Still, that wasn't the idea for the day, I knew I wasn't in great shape hence the camera experiment, can I take pictures on the move (no is the answer).

Outside of slipping all over the place whenever I tried to climb/descend I didn't actually feel to bad. A few stops for photo's (mostly rubbish) will have lost me a couple of minutes and I think the trainers could have cost me up to 10mins, but outside of that I was actually quite enjoying a reasonably steady run in the country. Then I started pasing people that I knew and who should have been well ahead of me. Surely they couldn't ALL be having a bad day could they, maybe they could, or maybe I was running better than I thought. Only time will tell.
So I carried on bimbling along taking the odd place here and there. I had a few problems between 10 - 15 miles when I landed funny and wrecked my leg for a while. It appeared to work its way out (mostly) though and hopefully it'll cause no more problems.

There was nothing really exciting to tell you in the end. I hadn't secretly been flying, others had obviously just been suffering a lot more than I was. My finish result was just enough to enforce my theory that I can only run the Grizzly properly in an odd year, so roll on 2009, when there will be proper shoes and no camera.

Even years - bad
2008 - 68th - 2:50:24
2006 - DNF
2004 - 53rd - 2:13:13
2002 - 57th - 2:22:43
2000 - 60th - 2:49:36

Odd years - good
2007 - didn't race
2005 - 33rd - 2:32:46
2003 - 9th - 2:22:59
2001 - 15th - 2:31:26

2008-03-02T18:40:00.000Z

Slack end to February.

2008-03-01T19:27:00.002Z

Well February finished at a bit of a canter, or a limp to be more precise. With several smaller sessions that were a lot more intense than normal my legs complained, a lot!
On Tuesday I managed 55mins with my bunch of Essex runners. Part of the session involved sprinting hard uphill (10 times) for 10secs and then running backwards down to the start line again. I'm not sure if this was the session that smashed my legs up or if it was a combination of the previous 3-4 days but boy have my legs suffered for the rest of the week. I managed to turn the tops of my calf muscles (on both legs) into mush. I was struggling to even walk around on Wednesday so I gave training a very wide berth, on Thursday I thought I'd give it a go though and went running around Marlow for an hour with two of the lads from the club there. The pace was nice and steady for me but I had to let them get away on the descents as my legs just couldn't run downhill at all.
On Friday I was contemplating postponing my planned return to Exeter Uni for their treadmill test session but things were easing slightly and my Squad swim session on Friday night seemed to ease things further so I thought I may as well give it a go.
Todays treadmill session was every bit as painful as last weekends, not knowing anything about pace/distance/time is torture in itself. Luckily my calves behaved and I got through the 10k in 37:20. Shelly was there with me this time so there's proper video footage. Once I've trolled through it to see how bad it is I'll stick a clip up on youtube and link it to here.
This time next week I'll be resting up ready for The Grizzly, then after that it's bike, bike and more bike. Honest!!!!!!! ;-)

Right, I've got to scour the internet looking for a new car. Until next time Ceeeee Ya

Iain

Who stole my legs?

2008-02-25T12:02:00.002Z

First things first. I promised pics from yesterdays race. I promised I wouldn't forget my camera again.............. Guess what???? Ooooops, Iain's hopeless.

Today I'm mostly feeling trashed. At the end of my smallest weeks training this year I'm hurting more than I have done for a long time.

On Thursday I had a nice steady 1hr run and on Friday I had my normal swim session. So why am I so tired after a week of only 4.5hrs???? It could have something to do with the last 2 days.

On Saturday it was payback (part 1) for my free VO2 test, a 10k maximal effort run on a treadmill. No time, distance, speed or HR showing, just me and a bit of Guns'n'Roses smashing ourselves into oblivion until I was told to stop. You don't realise how little pace judgement you've got until you remove all of your training aids and stick yourself in a totally alien environment. I've no idea how fast I was running early on but it was waaaay to fast. I felt good to start with and pushed on, but it wasn't to long before I found myself having to drop the pace a little. Soon I was dropping the pace again and again and again........ it was readlly disheartening. Finally I had a card held up which said 9k on it, that was the only indication I'd get all run. It was well needed because I felt on the verge of slowing down to a walk but now knew that I'd only got to tough it out for around 4 more mins. Finally the test was called to a halt and I'd run 10k in 37mins flat which I was quite happy with considering how badly it had gone. Damn I must have been running at a stupid pace early on.

Yesterday was Taunton Aquathlon. From the start we were batttling for 2nd place. The winner swam 70secs quicker than anybody else and never looked back.
First off was the 1k swim. I've been swimming quite well lately so was hoping to get a time quicker than my normal 14mins. I had a good swim, there were 3 in my lane and the other two went off like lunatics while I plodded along at my own pace. After around 8 lengths my lane buddies were a length up on me, they stayed there until half way when I'd settled into my stroke and started to pull them back to me. At the end of the swim I was back on their toes, then I hit transition hard and left it ahead of them. Swim time - 13:38.
I started the 10k (actually 10.8k) run fairly hard to make sure nobody got any ideas above their station and pulled one of the lads along with me until he decided better of it and dropped off. The gap slowly started to increase as I got into my stride and I was feeling good, there appeared to be no hangovers from Saturdays treadmill test. Then all of a sudden, from nowhere, my quads just seemed to seize up. Damn they hurt. Not injury pain, just a big wash of tiredness, it almost felt as though someone had turned a tap on and washed them out with Lactic Acid and there was still 3k to go. Suddenly it was a struggle just to keep moving, within 400m all of the time I'd taken out of my nearest rival in the first 7k was gone and he was past me. Now I just had to get round as best I could and hope nobody else caught up. Thankfully nobody did.
Limping around to the finish I'd managed to hold onto 3rd place and even with the explosion I'd averaged 6:15 pace so I can't complain. First podium of the year, lets hope there are more to follow :-)

Today I just feel beat up. I've just got back from a steady hour in the gym, but it wasn't the best session I've ever done. By a long way!

Bday, VO2 & races

2008-02-20T20:23:00.002Z

Well Phills Bfitday Tri is all done and dusted, you can see the write up here. Pop over to the site, read the report and have a browse. Maybe then you can sign up and do your own Bfitday Tri.

After the excess's of the 5k/34mile/4mile Tri on Sunday I had about 24hrs to recover enough for Mondays VO2 Max test at Exeter University. I've no idea if Sundays session affected my performance but the huge great pipe thing I had to breath through made it very hard work even at a low speed. I was quite disappointed with the speed I ended up stopping at as I should have been able to run faster, but my HR was pretty high and I managed a VO2 max of 69 which I think is reasonably good.

A bad nights sleep on Monday night followed by a 15hr day at work meant that I was far to stuffed to train on Tuesday night and the same was very nearly true for tonight until I got home and the dog twisted my arm into taking her out for a 4mile blast along the Tarka Trail.

The rest of the week will probably be pretty standard until Saturday when I pop back to Exeter Uni for a 10k treadmill blast (part of my VO2 pay off), that's followed on Sunday by my first multisport race of the year (Taunton Aquathlon) a 1k swim/10k run where I've a title to defend. Should be fun and hopefully this time I'll remember the camera and come back with some pics. Fingers crossed.

Pre Bfitday Tri

2008-02-16T20:50:00.002Z

It's been and odd week, I've been mostly feeling trashed after last weekends race, I've had 2 days off from training, but I'm still likely to break through the 10hr barrier for the week.
On Monday I was totally smashed and my legs felt like concrete blocks so I just sat around like a vegetable all day. Tuesday was a little better and I managed 1h20m of running with one of my running clubs doing some Yasso 800's along the way.
Wednesday was another lazy one where I couldn't be bothered/thought better of training, but on Thursdat I was back with a 1h20m run. Then along came Friday...........
Fridays squad swim session was a beast! We quite often do Timetrial swims of reducing distances but on Friday we had our normal 800m warm up follwed by a pyramid of TT's. 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 400m, 200m, 100m. Never the sprinter but with plenty of endurance I got beaten on the 100m & 200m but by the 400m I was cruising along and after the 800 I was 50m clear of anybody else in the pool. Then the 400m was polished off before I gave a couple of the lads a taste of glory when they found their speed again for the last 2 efforts. A nice solid 3k swim and a very happy Iain.
Today for only the 4th time this year I headed out for a bike ride. 4 miles to the Gym where I did a 1h20m session and then I took the scenic 24mile route home. It wasn't nice, it wasn't flashy and it certainly wasn't fast, but it was a bike ride and damn I need some of them.
Sooooo, 6h50m for a week with 2 rest days and my Tri buddy Phills 34th Birthday Triathlon tomorrow likely to take up to 4hrs I'm on for another decent week where it's actually seemed a bit slack. Here's hoping that when I need to start cranking up the hours they come along as easy.
Birthday Tri report next, watch this space.

Torrington Torment = ouch!!!

2008-02-10T18:32:00.000Z

Geez that was hard work. Today was a local Half Marathon called the Torment and yup, the name suits it. With legs that were already smashed from a few daft sessions during the week I lined up in Torrington alongside a small field of like minded lunatics. The ideal target was to break 1h30m for the first time on this course, if I could do that I'd be well up the field because with over 3,000ft of climbing this is one slow race.
The first 3 miles went well enough as I ran along in and around a group of 6 runners, quite quickly but easily under control. Then my legs started tying up and with nearly 10miles to go I was already in trouble, not good. There was only one option, ease off, so I did. Luckily I can cruise along at a fair old lick so although the group ran away from me I managed to keep some of them within sight for a good while as they fragmented. The next 7miles were tough going and I seemed to be just plodding along, then at 10miles I noticed someone ahead of me, obviously other people were hurting too. I picked the pace up to see if I could catch them and I felt suprisingly good. At 10.5miles I caught and passed them only to see 2 more runners ahead, now I was back in my stride and feeling strong so I pressed on.
A mile later they to were behind me and another runner had appeared on the horizon, could I catch him???? Yeah, why not. The hammer was dropped as I realised that not only could I pull a decent finish position out of the bag but that 1h30m finish was also on the cards. Onto the last big climb and my target was in sight, I almost sprinted the hill to make sure that I got past and put some distance into him before the last half mile which was one of the only flat bits on the course. Over the top of the hill and it was job done, I could see 2nd and 3rd place ahead, but they were too far ahead for me to catch. My legs were screaming now, that last hill had been a killer, but the time target was on and I had to carry on pushing it. Finally I crossed the line in 1:29:25 and 4th place. Demons exorcised and even though I'd been in a world of pain for over half the race I'd still achieved the target, that can only bode well for when the suffering starts in Florida (I hope so at least).
Next up it's the 3mile/34mile/4mile Birthday Training Tri for my clubmate Phill (http://www.bfitday.com/) on Saturday. There could be up to 10 of us doing this so it may well be a fun day out. We'll see :)

End of the week.

2008-02-08T08:45:00.000Z

It's been a poor week off work really. Far to much sitting around infront of the TV and computer thinking about jobs and training I could be doing rather than actually doing stuff. It almost feels as though I train better when the pressure is on to squeeze some training in between work, food and sleep. I'd imagined 20-25hrs for this week with most of that being much needed bike miles. I'll be lucky to hit 15hrs now and as yet I've had a paltry 30mins spinning on the turbo to my name. I've done a couple of tough run sesions in the last 3 days which will no doubt help me in the long term but my legs are feeling shot at the moment and I've got a killer Half Marathon (1800ft of climbing) to do on Sunday. Presuming my legs are in one piece I'll be aiming to break the 1h30m barrier which I've failed to do on my last two attempts. Anywhere else 1h30m would be a disaster, here it'll be cause for celebration.
I've actually got round to properly entering some multi discipline races this week, so many are marked off on my calander without me having actually entered them. Now I've officially got a couple of 1k/10k Aquathlons in Feb and Apr, a Middle Distance Tri in May and a Sprint Tri in June. That'll do for starters although there will no doubt be plenty more as the season progresses.
Today there will be a gym and swim session which will help my paltry training totals, there may even be a short run or a turbo session thrown in alongside them (don't hold your breath though).
Soon I'll be back at work and cursing my slack holiday training habits. Plenty of time to go though.

No work - hooray!!!

2008-02-05T16:22:00.000Z

I'm off work this week so should be able to update this guff a little more often. Pity I'm not doing the training to justify any updates so February isn't having the flying start I expected.
On Friday I did my normal squad swim session but my regular swim partner wasn't there so as I was the quickest in the pool I grabbed a tee shirt from my bag and did most of the session with some extra drag.
Saturday morning I hit the gym for 90mins but then failed to do anything else for the rest of the day (bad lad!).
Monday I pottered around the house moving stuff from one place to the next in an 'attempt' to clean up a bit, then feeling guilty because my clean up had lasted most of the day I had a rare venture out to a Monday night squad swim session. Always the easy option because it's less like hard work.
Today I've sent my entries off for a bunch of races, 2 x 1k/10k Aquathlons, 1 x Sprint Tri and 1 x Middle (Half IM) distance race. The Middle Distance will be an experiment in pacing and nutrition. Hopefully I'll manage to run the run without any cramps or walking breaks. The aim will be to get out of the sea without freezing my bits off, then bike round below 135bpm 'trying' to feed myself properly(ish) and then to take some scalps by knocking out a good solid half marathon. The other 3 races will be trained around/through and will be purely for fun, although I'll still be smashing myself once they're under way.
Tonight I'm off for an all to rare session with my running club. Normally I work away on Tuesday nights and only see them at running races. It'll be good to catch up and have some banter.
I've finally had the results of my VO2 test I had back in December (figures here). I can't admit to knowing what they mean other than telling me I've no cycling strength. I'm lined up to do some more testing in the near future followed by some sessions where I'll be a guinea pig cycling in a heat chamber. It'll be just like riding the course at IM Florida, hot, humid and quite monotanous. It should suit me down to the ground.
I think that's it for now, sorry there's not more to report.

Iain

9 months to go!!

2008-02-01T23:14:00.000Z

It's 11:30pm here which means that in 9 months time the IM Florida race clock will be showing 11h30m. I want to be finished, massaged, fed, showered and celebrating finally nailing an Ironman by then. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm, nice thought, some hope, fat chance!!!!

If January is anything to go by then I'll be giving myself a fair chance, it's been my biggest month of training since August 2006 (although counting the gym sessions still feels odd).

Swimming - 3 sessions - 3hrs - 8.5km(ish).
My swimming will never change. I know that I can let it plod along and swim as little as once or twice a month if need be and I'll still be comfy come race day. I'm never going to be the fastest swimmer out there, but I'm safe in the knowledge that the 2.4mile 'warm up' can be knocked out in an hour without any great problems. It's a nice position to be in because it's one less thing to concern myself with.

Cycling - 7 sessions (4 turbo) - 10h50m - 170miles
This is always the big drawback, I'm no cyclist and it's something I don't really enjoy. As with a lot of people I spend to little time on my weakest discipline. It's to easy to wimp out when the weather is rubbish, it's to convenient to go for a run instead when the weather is ok. My job doesn't help, Tuesday - Friday are pretty much non-starters where the bike is concerned so I should really be putting in the big miles between Saturday and Monday, it's easier to rest up though. I'm sure that as the lighter nights and milder days draw in I'll get myself out more but I can't help thinking that I'm losing out on some valuable base training by not being out there now. Unfortunatly my lazy genes regularly over rule my guilt genes and I'm spending far to little time in the saddle.

Running - 14 sessions - 17h55m - 143miles
Well my running seems to be coming along ok. My training logs only go back to the 'Great Data Loss' in 2004 and it's my highest monthly total in my recent records. There's no great speed there but I feel as though I could rock up on the start line of a Marathon with a moments notice and cruise around it quite comfortably. Just a pity I can't ride 112 miles first. Next weekend there's a stupidly hilly local Half Marathon, it'll be an acid test to see how I'm getting along. I've never managed to break 90mins there so now the challenge has been laid down.

Gym - 8 sessions - 10h30m.
The big difference this year and hopefully the difference maker! I can't comment on previous years because I've never done Gym work before. It's the main reason my monthly training hours are so much higher than normal and I'm hoping that as it's not aerobic it won't affect me too much. I keep hearing talk of 'burn out' especially with Florida being so far in the future (It'll soon be here though) and it's quite concerning to see such an increase in hours but the aerobic section (Swim/Bike/Run) hasn't changed a great deal so I'm hoping I'll be fine.

Onto February then and it's fingers crossed for more of the same, with more cycling though of course. I'm off work this coming week so hopefully things will get a bit frantic as I battle to get extra training in and Shell tries to get me doing some jobs around the house, there simply aren't enough hours in the day. This time next week we'll know which one of us has got the best deal or if the weather has closed in and put its curse on everything.

Until then :)))))))))))))))))))))

Braunton 10, or was it 20???

2008-01-27T17:37:00.000Z

I'm going mad, my training totals are going through the roof and I don't actually seem to be doing that much. Admittedly much of this (over 10hrs) is gym work which is maybe why it seems so odd. The gym work's not aerobic exercise so I don't find myself tired out after it as I would when biking or running, this is why I feel a bit of a fraud claiming it as training hours. I can't see how it's going to make me faster, but if it's going to stop me getting injured and help my back out when I'm putting the long bike hours in then it will be improving my performance in its own way.
This week's been another biggie with 12 hours done, most of it this weekend which has been a bit of an epic.

Down to the list then...........
Monday - 1h30m gym session followed by an evil 40min run.
Tuesday - A nice steady 1h35m run with 8x60sec efforts up a small climb to bang up the HR.
Wednesday - Rest
Thursday - 50mins of running, just squeaking under 7min/mile pace.
Friday - Awesome swim session
800m Warm up.
800m T/T @ 10:45
100m steady
400m T/T @ 5:19
100m steady
200m T/T @ 2:34
50m steady
100m T/T @ 1:34
50m T/T @ 32s
2 x 4 x 100m IM
200m warm down
Total - 3000m.
Saturday - 1h10m gym session followed by a 3hr bike ride with a couple of the lads
Sunday - 20mile run in 2:14:24 (6:48min/mile pace)

The weekend has been quite interesting. On yesterdays bike ride I tried as hard as I could to do as little as humanly possible because I'd got a race today. This worked well for the first 2 hours while my training partners were fresh, but in the last hour I found myself on the front more and more. We hit the descent back into town and it was time for me to tuck in and rest my legs a bit. My winter hybrid bike just hasn't got the gears to go downhill like the other two with their road bikes so I just grab a wheel and hold on. There was an 'interesting' altercation when a woman pulled out from a side road right in front of us while we were bombing towards her at close to 30mph. Luckily there was nothing coming the other way and we shot up the outside of her suggesting she buy some glasses to which she and her passenger suggested we stick our bikes somewhere very uncomfortable. After a couple of minutes of 'banter' she finally drove off with us all 'waving' at each other. It brightened the day up no end, and probably raised my HR a beat or two aswell. First 50mile bike ride of the year all done and dusted.

Today was race day and a phone call yesterday from my planned 2nd loop running partner (an International Ultra Runner) had changed my plans. The idea was that we'd race and then do another 10mile after for training. Unfortunatly work/kids/family had scuppered her plans and she couldn't do the second lap so I was on my own. The training lap now got moved forwards as I haven't got the mentality to get out there alone after a race, I'd need to do it first which is actually my prefered option as it meant I'd have company during the miles that would hurt the most.

I rocked up at race HQ at 9:30am and quickly registered before dumping my gear and heading out on the 'warm up' lap at 9:45, this gave me 1:15:00 to get round before the race started. The aim was to get round both laps inside 2:20:00 which would be 7min/mile pace, that would give me a Marathon time of just over 3hrs at the end of a tough fortnight of training. Anything under 2:20:00 would be a bonus, over the time didn't bear thinking about, but it would all depend on the circumstances as to how I'd feel. Early on I was struggling as yesterdays bike ride plagued my legs but I kept chugging along and the Garmin was great as it inspired confidence when it kept telling me I was ahead of schedule. Warm up lap out of the way in 1:08:00 and I was happy, that gave me 1:12:00 to get around the 2nd lap. I was certain to be slower, but how much slower, that was the question!!

I missed the race start by a few seconds as I was sorting a change of clothes but that didn't matter, I dragged the start out a bit longer by chatting to the start official who I know through my running club. Once started I soon caught up with the back markers and started picking my way through them, this was quite nice as it kept a check on my early pace and stopped me pushing to hard to make up for lost time. 3 miles in 20mins and I was on target, there's a killer hill up to the 4 mile marker and I knew it was going to cost me a minute which had me hitting 4miles at exactly 7min/mile pace. As the race went on I started to feel a bit more confident, the steady pace gradually rose and I started creaping ahead of my warm up lap time, then there was 'almost' disaster. After the 2nd good climb and descent I noticed a pal of mine about 30secs ahead. 3.5 miles to go............. he was mine, I was taking him down! I raised the pace and set off after my quarry. This lasted until the 8 mile point where I very nearly blew a gasket. Suddenly I developed 'pins and needles', I went very cold and started to shake, I've been here before and it's not good. I was very close to catching my prey but I knew that I needed to ease off or I'd end up walking to the finish line. I backed off the pace and grunted to myself as he eased away from me, next time he's mine!!!

The last 2 miles were steady but also on very easy terrain with a good descent as part of the last mile and nobody close enough to worry me it was a relative cruise to the finish. Amazingly I finished 90secs quicker than the first lap in 1:06:24 which gave me a combined time of 1:14:24 for the 20mile run, over 5mins quicker than planned and better still comfortably on target for a sub 3hr Marathon. Happy Days! All that at the end of two consecutive 12hr training weeks.

For now I'm happy, it'll go all pear shaped soon though. I promise.

Until next time :)

Iain

Brought to you by Coach Troys Spinervals....

2008-01-21T00:10:00.000Z

...... more precisely by this little session as this has been this weeks session of choice (3.5 times).

Warm up 10 minutes easy
4 x 30sec 53x15 @ 30 sr (Seconds Rest = easy spin)
1 minute easy spin 42x15
Repeat both below sets 2 times
10 x 30sec 42x15 superspin (10sec 100rpm, 10sec 110rpm, 10sec 120rpm) @ 30sr
1min rest
6 x 60sec 42x21 superspin (20sec 100rpm, 20sec 110rpm, 20sec 120rpm) @ 30sr
1min rest
cooldown to the hour

It's been a big week, perhaps the doom and gloom of last weeks post was a bit presumptious of me. Here's how the week's gone (training wise of course).

Monday - 1h30m gym, 1hr run, 1hr turbo.
Tuesday - Rained off
Wednesday - 1hr turbo
Thursday - 1h30m run
Friday - 1hr swim
Saturday - 45min run, 1h30m gym
Sunday - 30min turbo, 1h40m run, 1hr turbo.
Over 12hrs total, during January. WOW!!!!!!

The question is, when I do all my geeky number crunching and comparing this years training with previous years should I actually include the gym session? They're not something I've ever done before and although they're obviously there to perfom a role (general strength and core stability stuff) the fact that I don't finish my session gasping for breath makes it seem a bit of a cop out. There's nothing even slightly working my aerobic capacity once the warm up is over. I'm also slightly concerned that maybe I'm doing to much to early and am risking injury or burn out, but my work is going to be changing around April time and that could well throw a spanner in the works of a good section of my weekly training so I guess I may as well get some time in the bag while I can.

I need to get my turbo bike into my LBS for a once over, the gears have started playing up today, hence the 30min session this morning when I lost the plot because I couldn't get my shifters to move. Popped in there yesterday to sort some bikes out that my Tri Club own and one of the shop staff had just had his new bike in............ a FELT DA (google it Sis). Damn it was nice, I'm stuffed if it's going to be coming past me at any time this year though, my old beat up TREK is still going to smash him (I hope).

That's it for now. Nothing exciting to report I'm afraid, it's a dull old life down here in Devon. I've got a 10mile road race next weekend though so that'll give me something to spout on about.

TTFN ;)

Slacking already.

2008-01-14T09:37:00.000Z

It's been over a week (damn I'm slacking already). I've added a little bit at the side to keep a track of my training totals after I discovered that last year I was 60hrs down on both 2005 and 2006's bike totals and I've already started skipping the bike sessions a week after starting them.
The big news of the week is that we've booked our flights for IMFl. For some reason Shell checked on the internet last weekend and the flights had dropped in price by almost £200 each, so we booked them. Things got better when we checked the credit card a couple of days later and found that the booking company had only taken £7!!!! Unfortunatly they've since realised that they'd dropped a ricket and taken the full amount. So flights are booked, accomodation is pretty much sorted as we'll be staying at the same complex we've stayed at before which is great, just the car to sort then and a little matter of training of course.
So last Sundays swim/bike combo got scrapped in favour of a 3hr bike which was good but left me feeling the after effects on Monday when I ended up scrapping my 2hr gym session after an hour because I simply had no strength at all. Wednesdays session also got scrapped but I managed to fit in two decent runs on Tuesday and Thursday (1h35m & 1h40m). Friday I'd turbo sessions and runs lined up in my head but just swam instead (slacker!!!) and the weekend was even worse. I headed to the gym on Saturday morning for 1h45m, but that was it for the day and Sunday was just a vegative day. Today I really REALLY must train!!!!!! I need to get some sessions in the bag.
291 days to go, the clock's ticking!!!!!

First Garmin glitch...........

2008-01-06T00:12:00.000Z

.........(other than when it locked up after its first download).

Tonight I went for a night time run on the beach with the pup. We ran the full length of Saunton Sands, nipped over the dunes to do a loop around Crow Point and ran back. Total distance 8.8miles, total time 1h03m...... fine so far? TOTAL ELEVATION GAIN 1244ft............ on a beach?????? I guess maybe the signals get a bit screwed when you hit the beach and it things you're at the bottom of the sea ;). My Polar always used to lose altitude as I warmed up because it picked up the heat and stuff (however they work) off my wrist, but what the Garmin's playing at I've no idea. I've measured beach routes manually before using Sanoodi and they've always come out pan flat. Do I take this as a glitch or do I now have to take the altitude reading on every run I do with a pich of salt?

Enought whining anyways........ the run was a killer, it all seemed so easy on the way out and after 4 miles I'd averaged 6m30 pace. I realised why though when I turned round and I had a full on headwind most of the way back. At times I was struggling to keep 8min/mile pace, it was a real struggle to get back.
Yesterday and today have marked my return to work after the Christmas holidays :( so after a solid 15hr day I decided to have a rest day (from training) yesterday. I cracked yet another 2hr gym session on Thursday though (wearing my Christmas "In training for IM Florida Tee shirt), heck I hope they're worth it beacuse I'd rather be out 'proper' training.

For some reason the flight prices to PCB have dropped considerably in the last week which means we could well be booking up this weekend. It feels like you're gambling with the prices, why can't they just be simple and fixed rather than bouncing up and down. I'm sure it'll be a no win situation, book them and they'll fall further, don't book them and they'll rise again (grrrrrrrrrrrr!!!).

Swim and bike tomorrow morning (weather permitting) I may even be tempted to sneak a run in during the afternoon or evening, can I call that a self supported Triathlon???