RunKingston 2009

After my half marathon, and quite a lot of lunchtime runs and cycles to work, I thought I was ready for this 16 mile race. I wasn't. But anyway, RunKingston had been paid for, so there I was. (Kingston Running Festival)

The weather was fairly perfect, and I got a good position near the front of the starting line for the 8.30am start. I knew I needed to beat 8 minute miles, and felt this would be doable. The first 8 mile loop (of two) began with a nice run along the Thames on the gravel path. I felt fine, and took it fairly easy - there was a long way to go after all. I was under 7 1/2 minutes for the first mile, and easily under 15 for the second.

At around mile three, the route goes over the Bridge at Hampton Court. Then it's a 5 mile return trip to Kingston along uneven footpaths and crossing side roads. This part I didn't enjoy. However I managed to keep up a good pace and hit the half way point at just over 1 hour.

Back along the nice Thames path, and even though I was feeling a bit of a stitch in my shoulder, some steady, focused breathing helped. However, by the time I reached the bridge at mile 13, I was really struggling. My ankle hurt, my left knee hurt, and worst of all my thighs really started to get painful. I still thought I was on for 2 hours, but I had to stop for a short walk at the final water station, and even though I pushed on I realised with 1 mile to go that I'd missed it.



I still finished with an official time of 2:00:27 - which I'm really pleased with. What I'm not pleased with is how sore I felt at the end. I've never experienced this kind of aching during a race - after a race, always, but never during. Maybe it was the distance, and I'm just not trained for 16 miles. This hasn't given me a huge amount of confidence to do a marathon (btw, I lost the ballot for a London Marathon place, so am on the hunt for something else).

But taking something positive from it - I have gotten much stronger aerobically and mentally. It really hurt, and I pushed myself on to do a negative split on the laps (2nd lap faster than 1st). And I wasn't actually that tired - the only thing slowing me down in the final 3-5 miles was my legs, the rest of me was OK.

[Update from 2019. Results online here say 2:01:12 - this is most probably the gun time. 144th place out of 627 finishers).

It's interesting that I forgot about this pain, and that in my London Marathon a few years later it was the same thing that prevented me from going under 3 hours]

Helly Hansen Adventure Challenge - Cannock Chase Calling 2009

I have decided to mix it up a lot more with different kinds of races - different distances, and a lot more competitions. So after my very first Half Marathon last weekend, this weekend something completely different. Adventure challenges are something I knew little about, but I got a leaflet in my triathlon magazine for the Helly Hansen Adventure Challenge series. (it would be nice if that link works in a years time, but I suspect not).

It is a team event, and I persuaded a couple of people from work to do it with me, Roy, again, and David. The first in the series was in Cannock Chase, Staffordshire. This is near my brother Alan, so as I do not have a mountain bike, I decided to ask him if I could borrow his. This worked out well.

The exact race details weren't available beforehand, except that there would be up to 10km off road running, 25km mountain biking, and some kayaking and other challenges. This didn't sound too onerous to me - it's not that long since I did an Ironman race remember.

The day dawned, bright and sunny and warm. We headed off at 10am for the first stage - what I think was a 5km run. This was a lot of fun, with some challenging climbs, and quite tricky terrain to get over. This took us 30 minutes.

Next came mountain biking. Again, lots of tricky hills, covered in gravel, and still a very congested course. We had to wait at some parts for several minutes. I am not an experienced mountain biker, so went very carefully. I'm not sure how dangerous this would be in the wet. We biked for 1.5 hours and then there was a very welcome drinks stop. I wasn't carrying any drinks - this was a mistake.

We knew kayaking was next, but didn't anticipate the long run to the river. This is where things started to go wrong. David is very fit, but it's more upper body fitness for karate rather than aerobic endurance fitness. His legs started to cramp up and that was the end of our running. We had to stay together so we had a long walk.

Kayaking wasn't as difficult or as long as it might have been - except Roy decided to take the plunge and had a bit of a swim in the river trying to get out of the boat.

Then we walked back to the bikes. Another section of mountain biking, maybe 45 minutes, took us back to camp where we did some short activities to finish.



These were a lot simpler than they could have been.

We finished in almost exactly 5 hours. It was a great day. Because of all the walking, I didn't find it too difficult, though the mountain biking did use some muscles I wasn't used to.



I would definitely love to do this again, but need some new teammates as these ones don't want a repeat performance !

Stockholm Half Marathon 2009

Went over to Stockholm on the Friday night for the 2009 Half Marathon

Met my fellow competitors Amar, Roy and Barbara for dinner in Gamla Stan on Friday night, then got talked into a pub crawl. Oh well, the race wasn't till 4:50pm Saturday afternoon - I had plenty of time for a lie in and a rest and some rehydration the next day.

Spent Saturday as planned, and went over to register at 2pm. It was a lovely sunny day - bright and crisp, but not too hot.

Met my friends, and by 4:30 we were lined up in our separate waves. I was starting last, 20 minutes behind Roy, and my aim was to try and catch him :-)

My calculations gave me a target - less than 5 minute kilometres - for maximum 1:45 finish. I hoped I could shave a few seconds off this to take it down to 1:40. I was aiming for a controlled start, and a negative split.

Being in the final wave of runners made it very difficult to make headway through the pack to try and make up time. I spent a lot of effort moving sideways to try and get past people with their elbows pumping. Nevertheless I don't think that affected my time. I struggled to go faster than my target, I was just about doing it and felt OK, but felt any faster wasn't an option if I wanted to actually finish fast. The course was nice but I didn't get much chance to take it all in. There were a few inclines, but nothing much to affect my speed. I was amazed at how fast everyone was running, it was a struggle to overtake anyone.

It's a 20km race and I passed Barbara at about 15km. Still feeling OK at 1.5km out I was raising my pace when I got to Amar and just after that caught Roy. I still had quite a bit of energy so was sprinting quite fast by this stage and crossed the line strongly.

My result -
Race Number 10766 Position 2229 Time 1.43.39

It was a really fast race - everyone looked very fit; I think about 8000 people finished. I would have expected to be a bit further up the placings, but the competition here is just too good :-) 37000 people finished the Great North Run last weekend, and my time there would have placed me 3294 - so in the top 10%. The Scandinavians take their running a bit more seriously.

I'm really pleased with the time though, and I think I can do 1:40. More rest in the days beforehand, and more courage to push the pace after I've warmed, say at the 5km mark. And as usual - better nutrition in the days beforehand.

Stockholm Half Marathon 2009 Preview

I've never run more than about eight miles - except the two marathons at the end of my Ironman races. And those don't really count as I walked quite a lot of them.

I would like to test myself and, also see what these longer races are really like.

so the opportunity to run the Stockholm Half Marathon with some friends, followed up by some good food and drink with them, seemed ideal.

My 10K personal best is about 44 minutes, but I'm probably a bit off that right now. I think I should be able to manage a time of 1:40 - and so that is what I'm aiming for.

Ironman Austria 2009 - Race Report

[the very long and boring version - details to help me if I ever try something like this again. You have been warned]



When I signed up for Austria, over a year ago now, I suspected that the course wouldn't suit me as well as the Ironman France one did. I was right. The long lake swim was very unforgiving, unlike the Mediterranean sea off the coast of Nice. The rolling roads, and steep climb near the end of the bike course made it both a less interesting route, and a more stressful one. The run, though predominantly flat, had enough little inclines to be annoying, and the horizon was never very far away so there was little feeling of making any progress.

I did beat my France Ironman time, but not by nearly enough.

Pre-Race
Preparation on the weekend went OK. I don't get as much sleep as I need due to some kind of sinus problem that wakes me up in the night so I'm always pretty tired. Getting used to that. On Saturday night I also woke up approximately every hour from 11pm - 4am when I had to get up for breakfast and the coach trip to the start. Had some water and a banana; the only other food I planned was a caffeine gel about 30 minutes from the start. I stayed in a camp with the travel company Nirvana, and it was really nice to head off together on the coach. The pre-dawn weather was perfect.

Borrowed a pump from my friend from work Nigel(1412), and said hello to my brother-in-law Jonathan (1411). Taped a blister pack of pro-plus tablets to my frame, and an energy bar, got changed and was ready to go. Decided to check my gears as I'd not actually done it properly, and panicked a bit when the rear derailleur locked up as I spun the chain backwards. I finally got it to spin freely, but knew it just wasn't right...



Swim - 1:40:48
Stood at the back and calmly walked into the water when the fireworks started the race. Kept very calm and sighted the first blue buoy. Had no problems swimming the 1500M straight out into the lake to the turnaround buoy. Once there the water got a bit more choppy and there was a smell of diesel from the nearby ferrys which wasn't pleasant. After the next and final turnaround buoy we were swimming back into the rising sunshine, and trying to find a narrow canal entrance. I think I went off course, too far right, and lost a few minutes getting back on track. My arms were tiring now and when I entered the canal, it was a very long, slow final 800M to the exit.

Time was 15 minutes off my target and 10 minutes slower than France. I had some catching up to do.


T1 - 6:32
In France, I had a relaxing transition, but today I had decided to storm through as fast as I could. A helper pulled my wetsuit off for me and applied some suncream while I got my socks/shoes/helmet/sunglasses/gloves/race belt on, and after a short toilet break (I must have drunk a lot of lake water) I was off. Pleased with my time.



Bike - 5:54:12
The race plan was clear - 30km/h average. The race plan was wrong. Looking at everyone elses results, I see I should really have been about 30 minutes faster for this course. I'm not saying that I found my bike section easy - far from it - but there were times when I settled for 30km/h when I should have been pushing more. And people were passing me on the downhill sections. It's a race, not a training ride. Having said that, I was tired from the swim, and my arms hurt when I stood up to climb the hills. but I don't think a faster bike would have made my run any slower.

I had 8 gels in a 750ml bottle topped up with water. I sipped this all through the ride. I took on about 4*500ml of water, some banana sections, ate my energy bar, and had a couple of portions of powerbar. I'd planned on eating more bananas, but couldn't face them. My stomach never felt very good, and all the eating I did was force feeding stuff I didn't really want.

Did I enjoy the bike ride? - sorry to say I didn't. The first section along the lake should have been easy, but I was pushing hard as if there was a headwind to try and get my speed up to target. It was quite fun going up the first steep hill at Egg - with a real Tour de France atmosphere from the supporters at the top. But the big climb at Rupertiberg was very unsatisfying - no spectacular view as a reward at the top - unlike the hill climbs in Nice. Passing the halfway mark, and knowing I had to do it all again on the second lap was also dispiriting. I did enjoy some of the descents - reaching 63km/h at one point - and the final push for the finish was OK. Pleased that I slightly beat my target time.


T2 - 6:59
How I managed a longer T2 than T1 i'm not sure. Perhaps my toilet break (the first for 6 hours) was longer :-) Still, it was much better than France, and faster than I expected.




Run - 4:53:50
This is where the race completely fell apart for me. I started running and immediately wanted to stop. In France I ran to heartrate of 150bpm, and I was instantly 156bpm here. So I slowed down and walked a bit. Then my left hamstring started to hurt, so I stopped to apply pressure to that, to avoid it cramping. Finally, an aid station. Another walk and some water and banana. I repeated this performance for the whole race. My hamstring gradually stopped hurting and was OK by about 15km. I took coke/infinit/water and either gel/orange segment at each stop. I just couldn't manage to run for more than about 500m without stoppping. The track consisted of short stretches then a turn then another straight bit, then a turn, so you could never see very far into the distance. In France the aid stations were every 1 mile and you could see the whole course at all times - this worked for me well in terms of planning and expectations. The meandering nature of the Austrian course in Klagenfurt, and the irregular stops for nutrition, meant I was unable to plan as well, and gave myself more excuses to stop than I should have. My stomach was feeling uncomfortable all through the run, and I made a toilet stop at about 16km. However, I was complately dehydrated, so that wasn't it. I just kept eating and drinking to try and keep energy levels up - perhaps there is some other strategy I should have followed - just regular sips of water from a bottle or something.

Checking my watch, I noticed I was going to struggle to beat my IM France time (12:55). I would rather have not finished than be slower. So I kept trying to run more than walk. A heavy thunderstorm broke the 32 degree heat for a while which helped. Finally with 2km to go I said no more walking, and ran to the finish. It's interesting I was able to do it. Could I have done 3km, or 4km? Do I need to be mentally tougher?



Finish - 12:42:21
Beat my France time by 13 minutes, on a faster course when I should have beaten it by 40 minutes. I was very disappointed and have been analysing what went wrong constantly since.

Update: Feeling a little better. I did what I could on the day, and i did finish it, which would have been a top result for me just two years ago. Think my whole nutrition strategy was rubbish. Didn't eat enough pre-race, particularly breakfast. Didn't drink enough on the bike. Ate too much on the run. Didn't get nearly enough rest in the weeks preceeding the race. Also, before attempting anything like this again, I have to make sure I can run a long way. My training for this was as good as injury allowed, so i shouldn't kick myself over that, but next time I need to either run more in training, or lower my expectations.

PS - I wrote another race report on TriTalk - it is slightly less pessimistic :)

IM Austria Preliminary

This weekend I will be attempting my second Ironman race. Last time in 2007 I did IM France. This time I'm going to Klagenfurt for IM Austria.

My previous time was 12:55, and inevitably I'm hoping to try to beat this. But am I as fit? And if so, where can I shave the minutes off?

I read an interesting document recently that took some averages of all the Ironman age-group times from events around the world, and estimated what course was the hardest. It even put times in. All things being equal, it says that I will be about 40 minutes faster on the Austria course than in France. However, I'm not so sure.

Swim

France was a sea swim, which is my favourite. Extra buoyancy from the salt water, which I also find tastes better. It was two laps, so maybe I'll save a minute there, but I'm fairly sure I'll be around the 1:30 mark again. I'm more confident in the water, and not so scared of the distance, and haven't had any cramp problems with my calfs so far - maybe I can push it a little and save 5 minues.

Bike

Austria doesn't have the long slow climbs that France had. However, I'm a fairly good climber and passed a load of people on that section. I may be atypical and so the time advantage wouldn't apply so much for me because of this. I'm not fast on the flat, and I'm not even very fast descending. My bike time for Windsor triathlon this year was only marginally faster (about 1 minute) than three years ago so time will tell if I can do any better. But I guess 1 minute over 40k equates to nearly 5 minutes over 180k.

Another thing to consider is that in France, I was aiming for 25km/h pace. and so I actively slowed myself down at times. The reason was to avoid overdoing it and not finishing. I did beat that average, but I think I'll be a little more ambitious this time. An average of 30km/h would give me a 6 hour bike time - I'd like that, and depending on the conditions, it is achievable.

Run

Both runs are flat. France was very open and simple to plan - 5K up to the airport, 5k back, and repeat 4 times. I liked this, as it made it very easy to maintain a steady pace. Austria has two laps, but I believe they meander through the town. It will be harder to keep track of my progress maybe. I'm not that confdent in beating my 4:26 time - though I have slightly better run training behind me this season. Time will tell.


Barring accidents or injuries, what it really comes down to I think is how hard I want to push it. I think I am more than capable of 13 hours again. I might be capable of 12 physically, but can I mentally make myself do it. I think this is unlikely. I'll try and do a better estimate soon, but right now, I'm hoping for 12:30.

Found an Ironman France 2007 video on YouTube.



Here is the link.

...that's me in the background, at 50 seconds, smiling :-)

Nokia Windsor Triathlon 2009

While it's all fresh in my mind, a race report.

Summary: I had a great day and finished with a time of 2:41:32, beating my PB from three years ago (which was 2:47:55) by over six minutes.

Detail:
My training regime this past year has involved a cycle commute to work. I normally set off at 6:55am, so my 6:50am start was no problem. I woke up before the alarm clock, and easily navigated the 5 minute drive down to the car park. Having said that, I didn't appreciate the time I needed to get ready; getting the wetsuit on, taping gels to the bike, cracking open a new pair of Zogs Predator goggles, pumping the tyres. I ended up slightly rushed and almost forgot to take my swimming hat to the start. I had to run to get there in time as my bike was positioned as far from the swim start as it's possible to get almost.



Swim:
The water wasn't cold, and the current in the Thames was hardly noticable, unlike last years torrent. I started off slow as usual at the back of the pack, breaststroking until I got some space. I really enjoyed the swim up the river, in the bright sunshine. The people in the waves behind didn't seem to be catching me as fast as last year, though I had no real idea of my time. At one point early on, I thought I was doing really well, and had a quick glance behind to see that there were only two green hats behind me. This was a bit of a disappointment, so I tried to swim a bit faster. Turned around at the buoy, and swam back, and oddly this shorter section seemed to take ages. I never felt particularly tired - always my aim in the swim section. This is good as in three weeks I have to do a 3.8Km swim. Worried that I'd miss the hidden exit, I kept looking up, which was a bit silly. Nevertheless I was really pleased when I got out and looked at my watch:

Swim 37:12

Long run down to my bike, managed to get the wetsuit half off as I went, and did a fairly standard time for T1. Could do better with the wetsuit

T1 2:17



Bike:
Hoping for big things from new Planet-X Stealth carbon bike, but interestingly the technology doesn't seem to have made any significant difference to my time from three years ago. However, it was a lot of fun out there, and I passed a lot of people. Too many people passed my though - I can do better with some specific speed training. I'm training for an Ironman race, so have been more interested in endurance. Slightly annoying was a car that got in the way and appeared to be tracking cyclists rather than trying to overtake. I actually had to pass it myself. As usual, one cyclist seemed to be doing my exact pace, so we leapfrogged each other the whole course. Non-drafting makes this complicated and annoying. I was happy to keep the pace brisk, but not kill myself anywhere - ~34km/h on the flat, and ended with an average 33.4km/h

Bike 1:11:55

I don't think there is really anything I need to work on for T2. Perhaps taking my feet out of my shoes before dismounting would shave a few seconds, but I don't like the extra risk of this, and the loss of speed whilst I'm freewheeling.

T2 1:33


Run:
The run is always harder then I expect it will be. I've done quite a few brick sessions so I didn't suffer from wobbly leg syndrome and felt happy running right from the start. I did feel tired, though not too bad, but didn't feel fresh obviously. I had to put a new elasticated lace on my left shoe and it wasn't correctly tightened. During the second lap, my foot didn't feel right, so I had to stop and tighted the lace. I was fine after that but that lap time is a bit slower and I blame worrying about the foot and stopping to fix it for that. But I was consistent at approximately 16 minutes a lap, with a slight negative split, which is nice. I had enough left for a strong finish - maybe I should have pushed sooner (really got going at the second water stop by Eton College)

Run 48:35

Total Time 2:41:32

Conclusion:
All my times were faster than three years ago (I'm going to try and forget last year's race ever happened :-) ) My overall position was 725th - but considering my swim position was 1444th, I know where I have to improve. I've always known this though. For the record, bike position was 336th which is very pleasing, but run was 601st. I need to keep cycling as I am, and get swim coaching, and do some speedwork for running, before i do this triathlon again.

Nutrition:

For the record.

Pasta dinner the night before, obviously :)
Small banana for breakfast, a few sips of PSP22
SIS caffeine gel as I made my way to the swim start.

2 SIS gels on the bike, and ~400ml of Go electrolyte drink. This was too much - I felt a bit bloated. I usually cycle for an hour before even touching any liquids.

Grabbed a banana in T2, forced down two big bites as I ran. This made me feel worse in fact, but maybe the energy kicked in later. Should have had a gel instead perhaps. Had one sip of water on lap 2.

Only five days to go to the Nokia Windsor Triathlon 2009.

This will be my first triathlon of the year, a small barometer of my fitness. I expect to have a really hard swim (it's been raining heavily so the river will probably have a strong current). I have a new bike and would like to shave a few minutes off previous cycle times. I haven't managed to injure myself yet this year, and if that continues, I am planning on putting in more of an effort on the run.

I'd love to beat my PB, but weather permitting, will settle for beating three hours. I am pretty fit, but I've neglected my swimming, so that's probably going to be the deciding factor.

This is only my 'B' race - Ironman Austria 2009 in under four weeks is my 'A' race, so I need to do what I can to prepare for that.

Equipment - Helmet - Giro Atmos

I decided to do triathlon properly after my first sprint attempt. I used a pretty crappy mountain bike helmet in that event, and it only just passed inspection (didn't even realise at the time that they did helmet inspections).

So I went down to my local triathlon shop, SBR in Windsor, and had a long look at the helmets. I wanted something light, strong, sleek and black (in my black phase, other colours are available). I wasn't quite prepared for the price I would have to pay to get all these features in one package, but it quickly became obvious that the Giro Atmos was the helmet for me.

Here is a very positive review of the Atmos.

I've been very happy with the Atmos. I hardly know I'm wearing it except for the chin strap which I might have done a bit on the tight side. As the review says, it is very light, it has a lot of ventilation (has been used in 35-40C in the south of France), and I'm assured it is strong though, hope never to put that to the test. I've also worn it all winter in rain/sleet and snow - it's probably pshchological, but it also seems to keep my head warm.

Me and my Atmos at the Windsor Triathlon.



Do yourself a favour, and get a helmet like this one, not some cheap alternative from Halfords.