That Was The Year That Was!

What a fantastic year 2008 has been. Only a few of you may know that I came very close to giving up triathlon in 2007 because I just wasn't enjoying it, and so for 2008 I decided to do something different. I didn't want to do another Ironman race; the training commitment was just too great. I had enjoyed the middle distance races I had completed because they offered a challenge of pace and endurance and still had the "wow" factor when you told people what you did at the weekend. So middle distance it would be; but which race, or races? I had completed the Aberfeldy and Vitruvian races before so I would need to look elsewhere. But let's be honest, one middle distance race is not all that special, so there would have to be more than one. But how many more? And which races would they be? And then it happened - enlightenment. What better way to combine triathlon with the opportunity to visit new places in the UK at the same time? The HIM UK tour was thereby born (in hindsight it should have been called the UK Middle Distance Tour but there you go). Some serious internet research followed and the following races were selected:

Bala, Wales
Cowman, England
Aberfeldy, Scotland
Half Ireman, Northern Ireland

Training and completing one middle distance race is not too difficult; the distances involved do not require a massive step up in training volume from standard distance races. But 4 races would require careful management of both training and recovery to ensure I remained focussed over 3 months from the first to last race.

Having decided on the tour I floated the idea around a few RAF Tri members and Reg Swallow agreed to join me. He was unable to do Cowman so changed his English race to the Big Half at Trentham. Reg was a great companion to have on such an undertaking; along the way we have had great ups, massive downs, learned a lot and laughed even more. It has been tough, and there has been some pain, but ticking off the races one by one has been awesome. Hopefully my race reports have given some idea of the enjoyment we have got out of this.

Whilst the Middle Distance Tour was certainly my focus for the year, I managed to fit in a few other events along the way. My events for this year were:

1 duathlon
1 standard distance tri
1 10 mile TT
1 Cycle Sportive (82 miles)
2 sprint distance tri
5 Middle distance tri

5 Middle Distance tri I hear you say? Yes, I decided 4 wasn't enough so threw in a 5th and did the Vitruvian as well. This was a really good decision as I managed my first ever sub 5 hour middle distance race - just awesome! Other highlights were: having the fastest bike split at the Brize Norton sprint triathlon, ahead of the Mighty Sags; a new PB in the 10 mile TT; and being on the winning team again at both Brize and Cranwell sprint tris (again!).

No analysis of the year is complete without a look at the training diary. I started my training record for this year on 1 Oct 07, meaning there was 50 weeks until my last race of 2008. Over those 50 weeks I averaged 7 hours and 19 minutes of training per week, with a peak of 16 hours and 15 minutes in early January. That was a special week though; the next biggest week was 11 hours and 15 minutes. My average week would consist of 1 hour 13 minutes of swimming, 3 hours 39 minutes of cycling, 1 hour 51 minutes of running, and 37 minutes of core, stretch and flex. Not a great deal of training to go sub 5 hours at the Vitruvian; if I could regularly add a couple of hours a week to that who knows what I could achieve in 2009?

Ah yes, 2009. On the list so far are the bike leg at Quelle Challenge Roth and Quelle Challenge Barcelona. These will be my A races for 2009 so I plan to be doing a lot of cycling this winter. I am due to be posted when I get back from Qatar in February so, subject to being posted somewhere that is tri friendly, I hope to be able to add to that the RAF sprint series, the Dambuster and the Vitruvian. There is also the Dubai Half Ironman at the end of Jan 09 that might, just might, be an outside possibility of doing.

Well that's all for 2008 folks. I have had a brilliant year and doing something other than racing around Rutland Water was what really put the spark into it for me. So go on, dare to do something different and challenge yourself at the same time. As the motto of the Half Ireman race said: Why? Because I can.