The long road back...

28 July 2011

Well with just over a month gone from Wimbleball and five weeks to go to Galway I am starting the long road back to fitness and racing!

The past three weeks have taken a lot out of me (I had bacterial laryngitis followed by oral candidiasis and parainfluenza) so it is going to take a bit of time to get back. The plan is a recovery week this week (all going well so far) and then a two week build followed by a rest week and a final strong week before a short taper and race.

This week I have managed to get out on the TT twice, once in beautiful Cornish sunshine and the other in pouring rain (18.5km in 51 very slippery mins!Good practice for Ireland I am sure!!), managed one 30min run (no pain :-)) and a swim.

The swim was the most interesting as I used to train and race with/for a Truro team (in the old swimming pool) and I met up with some of my old friends from swimming when I went to the new pool for an early morning swim! The Truro pool runs coached sessions early in the morning four days a week and these have four lanes each with 5-8 people in. The sessions are hard, really hard as in full on Masters session hard....I started in my own lane warming up doing 4x300s (well I arrived a little late as I overslept) but got fed up with the slow people in my lane so I jumped over, straight into 12x100 descending pace and holding for the last 8....I started at the back of the lane and ended up one off the front...hard work but good fun...I might do another session tomorrow!

Today I am taking a rest as we are going to the seal sanctuary and out for lunch (to celebrate my new job!!). Tomorrow we are heading home but I will probably get in another swim and over the weekend a run and a bike (maybe a run off the turbo...)

Apart from that everything else seems to be going quite well.....touch wood!

Later
I.

No Henley :-(

8 July 2011

So I will not be racing at Henley this weekend for the Challenge swim. I have been desperately trying to get over this bug but unfortunately I still have a bit of a hacking cough :-( also I did a short swim set yesterday (5x200m) and whilst it felt okay, a bit slow but okay, I was shattered at the end of it. Mike and I discussed it and concurred that recovery was more important at the moment :-(

Maybe next year - now to focus on Ironman 70.3 Ireland :-)

Recovery and Illness.....

6 July 2011

So another blog post so quickly on the heels of my 70.3 race report - what has happended!

Well I am ill....first proper bug in ages and a nasty one too...bacterial laryngitis...fever, headaches, unbelievably sore throat,  no voice and gunky green stuff...euch! So it has been lots of paracetamol, ibuprofen, strepsils and klaricid.....fun...

I managed to do a couple of recovery sessions before I was wiped out by the lurgy last week and things felt surprisingly good post Wimbleball, in fact less painfull than post Marshman...really suprising.

I had a long discussion with Mike the coach last week and we decided that the order of the day (possibly month) was no running until the ankle heals assessed through no pain on pushing off the wall during swimming (which is essentially decelerated bouncing/jumping) but focus on swim/bike. We have also discussed the race season for next year and there will be no IM in 2012 - I will be a father again (no.3) and that combined with work/life doesn't leave time for the long sessions for full IM.

As for Henley Challenge swim ...that is up in the air...I really want to do it (I love open water swim races) but if this bug has not cleared it will be off :-( I might just have to find another single OW race to do later in Jul/Aug...

Anyway just a short post today...have to sort things out for a busy work day today and tomorrow before heading to Austria

Later
I.

Finally a Wimbleball 70.3 Race report!

5 July 2011

UK IRONMAN 70.3 – 19th June 2011

The days before….

So five weeks before my planned “A” race of the season (A race being the highest priority of the year) I overcooked the running…I put four sessions back to back whilst I was at EULAR in London, the weather was lovely, I had St James’ and Green Park to run through and running was going really well – however resilience was not on my side so I managed to tear both of my Achilles tendons on a hill set at the end of the week (not major tears but enough to impact my training). So, this meant lots of ice packs, massage, ultrasound and no running until the Wednesday before UK 70.3 and then the first run was a test to check whether I could even do the race! Everything worked fairly well – both ankles stiff but no needle sharp pains – a green light to start Wimbleball.

I wanted to practice my nutrition plan again so from Friday I started to cut out fibre – evening meal sausages with mash. Saturday was white bread and honey for breakfast, fish and chips (no peas) for lunch and pasta with green pesto for evening meal. All of this was okay, but, I think I had too much pasta – I was camping in the back of the XC90 and it was hard to measure properly! The plan on race morning was porridge made with water, Zipvit Recover (250ml) and the two gels 30 and 40mins out from race start. Once onto the bike I planned to use Nuun and ZipVit gels (with caffeine on lap 2 before the big hills) with a Biestmilch Booster (Colostrum and Gurana) for both the bike and run. On the run the plan was Nuun and a gel sipped slowly over 15mins every 45mins.

Time to race…..

So after quite a good night’s sleep in the back of the XC90 on an airbed – surprisingly comfy!! – I got up at 0350 to warm up and have breakfast – all done I went to transition to sort out the bike, that done I got into the wetsuit and warmed up. As usual at Wimbleball there was no warm up and the 10mins spent in the water before the race seemed to go on forever…..

The national anthem played and the horn went off – we were going. My plan on the 1.2mile swim was to keep wide on the left side and hammer the first 200m to keep with the lead pack. This worked really well and I kept on the heels of the second group of about 30 or so people behind the pros. The race to the first buoy was perfect, as was the turn but then I could not see the buoys and it was just “follow the feet in front”! At the second turn I was still with the group and that is where the swimming to plan finished…I headed for the next buoy, all good, but then I started to loose the swimmers to my right but I thought I was holding a better line as I could see what seemed to be three buoys which I assumed indicated the chute to come out of the water (no big IM arch which is normally there). Unfortunately I was wrong – after the second buoy on the return leg is was a straight line to shore and I had messed up and gone beck to where the start was – it really wasn’t clear if you were swimming!! After realising this and swearing a lot to myself I corrected and headed for the shore – I reckon it added 200 or so to the swim – I came out the water in 31:49 in 108th place…not the top 100 I was looking for…

Out of the swim and a quick run up the (amazingly steep) hill to T1 – grab my swim bag, change into bike kit and then I was out onto the bike. The bike was my biggest fear in 2009 and this year as it is a really, really challenging course climbing 5905ft over the 56miles with most of the climbing done on three hills in the second half of the course, these are done twice as it is a two lap course.

I had planned to use the first 10miles of so (with its two big(ish) hills) as a warm up before pushing and this worked well, I tapped up the first hill and overtook a fair few people on the next whilst keeping my HR below 165. The course then runs over and undulating section finishing in an insanely steep hill that descends to Machine Cross – the point at which I hit 58mph – great fun if a little scary!! Once the flatish undulating section was over the route hit the hills with short steep hill up to Morebath – I was amazed to see people off and walking their bike up on the first lap! I used a cadence of 10 pedal strokes seated, 8 standing which seemed to work to keep cramp and pain at bay – all looked good! The next big hill is the hardest on the course – with a max gradient of 17% and an average of 14% for 1.5km. All went well and kept to plan using standing/seated pedalling routine, right up to the point I changed down (I was about half way through the 11-28 block) and shifted my chain into my wheel disc (the spokes)...the pedals stopped turning and I only just managed to not go over the handlebars instead falling ungracefully to my right, bruising my hip and knee...after swearing at the bike a couple of times I got up checked over the bike (looked okay) and reseated the chain, spun the wheel and changed up and down a few times – no problems...preplexed I began the long walk up the hill...I had come off at the 17% section so there was no chance to get back on...

After an agonisingly long walk up the hill, watching all those I have previously passed zip past me , I got back on the bike and headed off for Haddon Hill the last big hill of the lap – again all went well, screaming down the downhill sections , tapping up the hills until the last section of Haddon Hill (it has two climbs with a short flat section in the middle) where I managed to repeat my chain debarkle this time not falling over but holding the bike upright until I had unclipped (to cries of “well held” from the surrounding competitors!)...again I reseated the chain and decided that changing from mid block to my lowest gear at the top was a bad idea for the rest of the bike – so I didn’t...I used the 11-25 gears...challenging up the hills but I didn’t come off again 

Once up Haddon Hill I zipped round the rest of the lap before starting on the second. The first short sharp hill of the lap is a killer but I went up it fairly smoothly (in 09 I cramped both quads on this hill!) and got into the lap – the second lap was fairly uneventful compared to the first - enjoying the downhills and pushing the hills. Overall I found the bike challenging but not half as hard as I found it in 09 – all the training with Mike from The TriLife has paid off!

As I got back into T2 I was pleased to see I had smashed my previous PB on the course finishing the bike in 4:06:02 in 09 I did it in 5hrs! T2 was fun – the standard process of look for red bag – run to chair and change into running kit...however once I had found my running kit I looked down at my wrist where I should have put my Garmin 310XT watch (after I had taken it off the bike) and it was not there...ARGH! I had left it on my bike, so I had to run back out into the racking area, find my bike, recover my Garmin and then get changed :-( very unhappy....

The run started like all 70.3 runs – painfully!! The first section of the run at Wimbleball is downhill to the shore of the lake before it loops up to the finish before going back to the shore before going back past the finish and up a 100m hill...you get the idea. Most people worry about the bike at Wimbleball, me included, but it is the run which is the hardest bit – there is over 1300ft of climbing over the course and most of the underfoot conditions are more reminiscent of a school cross country race than a half marathon. My half marathon run was really over before it started, as soon as I hit the first hill I knew I would be walking most of it – I tried running up the first hill and both my Achilles tendons developed the sharp needle like pain that I had in training, very unhappy, but I decided rather than DNFing (Did Not Finish) I would get round and get my medal. As it was I would have had issues regardless of the ankles, after the first hill I developed stomach cramps and these proceeded to vomiting after I tried running again. So I made my way painfully round the 13.1 miles of the run, walking the hills, running the flats and downhills until the GI cramps got to bad and occasionally being sick...it was very reminiscent of 2009...

Except this time I was not the last person, all on my own out on the course with no-one to talk to, instead I met a variety of people (some much fitter than me!) who had been humbled by the Wimbleball course and either had injuries or GI problems but were resolute in their determination to finish. In some ways this is the “real” bit of long distance triathlon racing. Whilst we would all like to be like Chrissie Wellington or Tom Lowe (the two current UK (and World for Chrissie) IM record holders) hammering round a 70.3 circuit in 4hours something or an IM course in just over 8hours the simple fact is we (the vast majority) probably won’t - I have a dream I could go sub 6hours on a 70.3 race and sub 13 or an IM one, both a achievable but equally a race where I come in 1.5hours after my PB is important, not for the time but for the fact that rather than giving up when my ankles hurt I decided (like those other racers) that come hell or high water I would get across the line and get my medal. In some part it is that place I push myself beyond in the really dark moments when I think “I could just stop now” that keeps me doing this, because very little – apart from my family – gives me as much sense of achievement and happiness. Ultimately I crossed the line in 8:04 – 53 minutes faster than 2009 – I would love to say I will be back to get that sub 7 at Wimbleball but I feel I have done it twice, the course really doesn’t suit me and there are lots of other IMs and 70.3s out there -this one has taken quite enough of my time and energy!
 

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