Shiplake Triathlon Henley 2010

Results link here. New link here

My triathlon Club send an email during the week that I could get a reduced price entry to this local triathlon if I turned up on the day. Couldn't resist a bargain, and wanted to try out F3 events, and my new Evolution tri-suit, so got up stupidly early on Sunday morning and drove over to Henley to register.

Compared to Human Race or Ironman events this was very low key and informal. Nice if a little disconcerting. For example, bike racks were set up, but it was just a case of first come first served on where you put yours, unlike the strict numbering I'm used to. Not a problem though.

The swim was in an open air 25M heated pool. My first triathlon in a swimming pool. I can't say I like it :-@ People were setting off at seemingly random intervals and I was waiting around when a gap appeared - Martin the organiser asked me if I was ready - I was - so I took the place.

16 laps in a lane with four other people was a bit weird - I got overtaken a couple of times, and swam into the lane dividing rope which was pretty difficult to see, and emerged in average time. I think the 11:23 time includes the up hill run to transition to get my bike.

I really liked the bike course. An undulating road with very few cars. We headed left out of the college and down to a roundabout about 4km away. Then we rode back past the start and another 3km further on to a different roundabout where we did another u-turn and returned to the start. Two laps of that. Being able to see other riders so often is great and lets you judge your progress. I wasn't overtaken once and enjoyed sprinting up a few small hills past other people. My hill work recently has been my best riding. I've lost quite a lot of weight which helps with that.

I did make a schoolboy error though - I imagined that it was a 20km bike section. I got a bit confused when I realised the first lap was about 14k and had to shout to an official. Completely my fault and luckily I wasn't too tired to push on for slightly more than I had expected. Cycling is Ok for that find of mistake - running would be a disaster. Time of 50:35 is good I think.

The run was very pleasant - through some fields, and country lanes - almost flat. The weather was also fine, sunny but not yet hot. I calculate my time at 19:30 by subtracting the splits from the total. It must have been a bit less than 5km, and others commented that the route was slightly shorter than the one advertised. Very happy with that time and felt strong. Caught a few people in this stage too.

Overall time was 1:21:28 - can't compare this with any other races as the bike distance is unusual, but I came 11th out of 61 which is great. Some extra analysis shows I came 2nd in my age group - only 4 seconds behind the leader. This is by far my best result in any race since I was about 15 and came 1st in a local Boy's Brigade cross country championship (a feat never to be repeated!)

It was a really fun event - well done to Zoe Spain and Mark Hyde as well from Evolution Triathlon club - Mark came 2nd overall even though he ran a bit farther than he should have. And thanks to Martin the organiser - it would be great if I could always get a discount - I just can't bring myself to pay £45 for a sprint triathlon that often.



[bib no 179. 11th place out of 61 competitors]

Eton Supersprint 2010

16th May 2010 - link to results here

My A race this year is Windsor, but I like to do this sprint about a month before to see if everything is working OK.

I've had my best winter ever training, and have avoided injury. I've done more running than ever in my life - at one stage I ran on 8 consecutive days. My biking to work all winter has also given me strong legs. I'm still a slow swimmer unfortunately.

The lake water has been very cold, but I've braved it and survived in training at Liquid Leisure, so when I got in today the shock wasn't too great. Felt very calm and set off at my moderate pace. Came out of the water in a reasonable 9:41 (2008 9:49)

No idea what went wrong in T1 - struggled to get my wetsuit off. 2:28 is a poor transition time but maybe not too bad considering 2008's 2:52.

Out on the bike for 4 laps of the rowing lake. Pushed the pace and passed a lot of other riders. Lots of other waves of competitors on the course so it was difficult to judge position. A few people went past me, but not many. Happy with 36:48 (2008 37:44).

When I took my bike shoes off in T2 I discovered my socks were still sodding wet - so I dumped them and ran in sockless trainers. Decided there and then to not wear socks at all in Windsor. Time a passable 1:18 (2008 1:14).

Felt great going out to run - no wobbly legs. This is a soul destroying course however. 1.25km flat straight out, then back again - two laps for the full 5k. Obviously I was tired, but I knew from training that I could go hard for the distance. I trained a lot over the winter with no socks, and my feet can handle it, so I didn't even think about that. Again - I was seldom passed, and overtook a lot of people. Time 20:30 is I think my PB for the 5K - even non triathlon ones. (2008 22:14)

Total time 1:10:47 (2008 1:13:56)

In my age group I came 18th out of 108 people who started. This is a great result for me so I'm very pleased with my race - a good tryout for Windsor.

[bib No 879. 192nd overall out of ~1100 competitors]

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.