Do you carry ID when out training?

A serious post for a change. For many years I have used products from Road ID (see here: http://www.roadid.com/Common/default.aspx ). Somehow I have managed to lose my last one so recently ordered a new one, the Wrist ID Elite in a nice shade of blue. The service, as always was excellent, and took just a few days to arrive from the USA.

Why do I wear one? The following is taken directly from the Road ID website:

The inspiration for Road ID was born in the fall of 1999. For my father, the inspiration was his concern for me as I trained for my first marathon. For me, the inspiration was a black, King Kong size pick-up truck that I nearly came face to face with on a long Saturday run. Earlier that fall, I began training for my first marathon. My father worried about me logging all those miles and would often tell me to “be safe.” One day, he suggested that I carry an ID so that he could be notified if I had an accident while training. Of course, I dismissed that suggestion. I thought: “What could possibly happen to me while running?” So, there I was, in a ditch, on the side of the road, having nearly been hit by the aforementioned pick-up truck. From that ditch, my father’s suggestion to carry ID started to make a tremendous amount of sense. Luckily I was OK. But, what if the truck had hit me? I would have been rushed to the local hospital as “John Doe.” Without proper ID, family members and friends could NOT be contacted. Likewise, my Medical records could NOT be accessed at the hospital. How long would I lay there unidentified? This freaked me out. A few months later, from my father’s damp basement, he and I launched Road ID. To us, Road ID has always been far more than a business. We are on a mission to save lives.Since 1999, we have received countless thank you letters and emails from customers that have used their Road ID in accident situations. Many of these customers say they might not be alive today if it weren’t for their Road ID. You can view some of these stories on our testimonial page.We thank you for visiting our site. While here, take the time to read a few testimonials. If you do, I trust that you will make Road ID your new training partner and enjoy the peace of mind that comes with wearing it. Remember, if you ever find yourself in a situation where you can’t speak for yourself, your Road ID will speak for you.

And there are many cases of people being injured or suffering sudden illness whilst out training, such as this well known one:

The unknown jogger lay in a Cardiff hospital mortuary for 36 hours. No one knew his name, his address or what had happened to him. There were no signs of violence yet the 39-year-old man had been found, lying in a gutter, at the side of a quiet residential road by a passing motorist. It seems he cracked his skull on the pavement as he fell, but the moments that led to his death remain a mystery. For international athlete Steve Cram to learn in a phone call that the victim was in fact his younger brother Kevin was devastating.

I'm aware that there are plenty of similar products to Road ID available but the important message is that whenever you are out training, always carry something that will identify you and/or enable your NOK/family to be informed.

Normal joviality will resume shortly. I hope.

Stay safe folks.

Winterising the Bike - in August!

Is 'Winterising' a word? Probably not but I know what I mean. My package from Wiggle arrived this morning (excellent service as usual) so this morning I set about fitting the bottle cages (easy peasy) and the Crud RoadRacer Mk 2 mudguards (somewhat harder, but certainly not difficult). The rear guard is indeed much longer than the original version (something I'm sure my ride buddies this winter will appreciate) and the extended guard around the front mech (see picture) is a very simple but no doubt effective piece of design.

The bike is ready to ride so I will take it out for an hour or 2 in the morning. After 4 quite intensive weeks of cycling this week has been all about unwinding and recovery, and there is very little in the training diary. The next 2 weeks will be fairly intensive leading up to my final long and hard ride (a 155km hilly sportive) and then it's a 3 week wind down to Challenge Barcelona.

Train smart folks.

More Rattler Pics

Early days, relatively clean:

The joys of Blissford Hill - all 25% of it.

Winter is Coming

What has happened to the Summer? The weather here (and I guess across most of the UK of late) is horrible: cold, wet and windy. And definitely not fun cycling weather. Which is probably why I visited the Wiggle website last night and ordered a set of the new Crud RoadRacer Mk 2 mudguards. I used the Mk 1s last winter but the redesign for this winter looks good, with extra material around the front part of the rear mudguard to provide additional spray protection for the front mech and your ankles. I believe the rear mudguard goes further round the wheel at the back as well to provide better protection for your ride buddies. I also ordered some now bottle cages so I don't have to keep swapping them from bike to bike, and being a bike tart I have ordered ones to colour co-ordinate with my Litespeed. I will provide pictures once the latest goodies have been delivered and fitted and the Litespeed is in winter spec.

This morning I dropped my 'retro' wheel off at the LBS to get the freehub sorted; hopefully that will be back early next week and I can maybe take the Litespeed out for a run the following weekend.

Take care folks.

Retro Wheels

Daz put me up to this! He mentioned when I posted some pics of my Planet X about getting some retro wheels and a few days later I unearthed these in my garage; they are Shimano WH-6500 wheels circa 2003. I used them for a couple of years when I first got into triathlon and they were really smooth and comfortable and I reckon they would be good for the winter trainer. After some faffing about getting the 10-speed cassette to fit I was somewhat peeved to discover the muppet that did the hub re-build a few years ago (and I haven't used them since) had lost a bearing and so there are only 8 on the drive side instead of the required 9. This would probably account for he freehub 'grabbing' when freewheeling so I will pack it off to the LBS for a service and hopefully it will come back smooth as silk.

Rattler Pictures

Me, looking dirty but happy!

My ride buddy, Hamish:

And some mucky legs!

Yesterday we had an interesting day out to Dorchester to visit the Terracotta Warrior Museum. Somewhat smaller than we had anticipated it was nevertheless interesting although I left with more questions than answers. There was lots of information about the Emperor and how he united China but very little about how the warriors were found and the excavation process.

More importantly, though, today is GCSE results day and we are waiting (im)patiently for news of our eldest son's results. Fingers crossed.
Edit: The results are in - 5 A*, 5 A and 1 B. He is very pleased (as are Mum & Dad). :-)

New Forest Rattler

Today it was back to the New Forest for the Rattler sportive; I did this event last year but had some mechanical issues that held me back, alhough I did still manage to finish. So this year the mission was to finish without any mechanical dramas and hopefully take a bunch of time off my 2009 standard (4 hours 20 mins).

I left the house under overcast skies and with a steady drizzle of rain. I picked up Hamish on the way and we arrived and registered in good time ready for the 0830 start. We were somewhat surprised to see the first riders set off at about 0815 and after unloading and assembling the bikes we wandered across to the start to see a fairly lengthy queue already waiting. We joined the end and set off at about 0915.

Our plan was to ride moderately hard all the way (not a very technical plan I grant you) with brief stops at the 2 feed stations to stock up on supplies if required. After a couple of miles we had left the rest of our start group behind and quickly caught up with the tail end of the previous group. The rain had resulted in the roads being quite slippery, and in a couple of places it was quite treacherous, with mud and gravel washed on to the road. We caught an ex-Army guy wearing a Help for Heroes shirt and after a chat he joined us until the first feed station where Hamish and I stopped and he carried on. We didn't stop long - top up the drinks bottles, 2 pieces of flapjack and a quick wee and we were off again. Once again it was just Hamish and I and we were exposed to the wind. We were, though, working well together and were maintaining an average speed above 20mph. Too well it would seem, as we picked up our own peloton who were happy to sit on our wheels but let us do all the work. We got a little fed up with this so attacked up a hill and left them behind. Shortly before the 2nd feed station we caught a group of 4 who were riding just a little slower than us. Rather than go through the whole 'peloton' thing again we decided to join their group and sat with them until the 2nd feed station. After repeating the routine off the 1st aid station we were on our way again, and quickly caught a large group that were travelling quite swiftly. We agreed to ride with these but we both noticed that, as the miles went by, the group was getting slower and slower. Decisive action was required. With 21kmto go, at the bottom of a hill, Hamish and I exchanged a 'look', had a quick exchange of words and then we accelerated; me at the front and Hamish on my wheel. We went passed the rest of the group and fully expected a few to grab our wheels. I had my head down and didn't look back until we reached the top. Not only had we left the group behind but they were actually out of sight! I was working hard at this point, and didn't realise how hard until I noticed that Hamish wasn't coming through to take a turn on the front, so we eased back a bit to recover. We were still going reasonably quickly though so I was surprised when a glance over my shoulder revealed a small group catching us, and at some pace. They came passed and we grabbed their wheel. Jeez these guys were travelling quickly. Just hanging onto their wheels my HR was bouncing around between 155 and 160!

We kept this up for a few kms and then we reached Blissford Hill. All 25% of it! Fortunately it's not very long and although we lost 30 metres or so to the rest of the group on the climb we soon caught back up and then all worked together for a very fast ride to the finish. Hamish and I were delighted to finish with a total time of a few seconds over 4 hours. My bike computer showed a ride time of 3 hours 54 minutes so I was well happy with that.

At the end we looked like we had participated in a cyclo-cross race; some very amusing sock marks! A great ride and another well organised event by the Rattler team. The hot soup, roll and tea at the end was very much appreciated. The New Forest is a lovely place to cycle through; today we had to avoid ponies, donkeys and cows, although there was no sign of the pigs we saw when we did the Spring Sportive in April!

I have a couple of days of downtime now; we're off to the Terracotta Warriors museum in Dorchester tomorrow; should be very interesting.

Rest well folks.

Fillet Steak

Mrs TM has taken the kids to see their Grandad for a couple of days and I have taken advantage by trying to be a little adventurous in the kitchen. Adventurous for me that is.

I love steak and so yesterday popped along to the local butcher for a bit of fillet steak; he only had 2 small pieces left but they looked ideal. I wasn't 100% sure how to cook fillet steak but we had taken delivery of the Primal Cookbook just a couple of days earlier that suggested how to ccok it. I therefore followed the simpe instructions and the result was ... mmm mmmm mmmmm delicious. Beautiful piece of meat fantastically well cooked. I kept it simple - I got some chips from the chip shop on the way home, 2 fried eggs on the chips with some tomato sauce, fried some onions and mushrooms and put the steak on a bed of lettuce. It really was good. I followed this up with my favourite pudding at the moment, banana, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries with fresh double cream, and washed it all down with a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape. And a flake to finish off!

Dinner doesn't come much better than that.

Woodcote Sportive

After a gentle week that involved some core, stretch and flex and riding my PX out on the road a few times, I was up early this morning heading towards Reading for the Woodcote Sportive. With 3 distances available I had (of course) chosen the long route; 83 miles and some 1800m of climbing. The weather forecast was for warm and dry conditions but it was going to be windy. Hey ho! It's the same for everyone.

I met up with a few buddies from Shutt Velo Rapide (see here for quality cycling kit: http://www.shuttvr.com/ ) and crossed the startline at 0915. I was riding my PX for the first time in a sportive and was curious to see whether there was much difference in a high end aluminium frame (my Litespeed) compared to a bottom end carbon frame (the PX). The route is best described as rolling with a few 15%+ hills thrown in for good measure. After the first hill I dropped my Shutt buddy but ended up riding on my own fighting the wind. My climbing ability has improved massively this year, due to a combination of things. My power is up a little, the bike has been set up properly after a bike fitting session, and I've lost a bundle of weight. Just before the first feed station at 45km my Shutt buddy came passed in a small group and I tagged on to the end. After a quick stop for a wee, top up the bottles and a slice of flapjack, we headed into the longest section of the course - the next feed station was at 110km. We were going well, picked up other riders and dropped some off, as is the way with sportives. The odd rider came passed as well. Some we hooked up with, some we let go as they were clearly way above our level. In the end we were 3. We arrived at the last feed station just before the 4 hour mark, and after a quick transition we set off and soon became part of a large group. At the next major hill, though, I hit the front and rode at what I considered to be a comfortable pace. I was therefore surprised at the top to look round and see just 2 others with me. The 3 of us were still together. Before the last climb we picked up another rider and with 15km to go I figured it was hammer time. I kept checking to ensure we were together but at the top of the last climb it was just me and one other rider; I'm not entirely sure where we lost the other 2 as my eyes were looking up the road and my heart was in my mouth! My surviving ride buddy was strong on the flats and set a good pace to the end; I led up the hills while he rode on my wheel and together we crossed the finish line. I was well chuffed to have achieved gold standard, not just for my 40-49 AG but also achieving a time that would have got me gold for the under 40s.

The PX rode well. It's a little more forgiving over the bumps but it doesn't feel as 'alive' as my Litespeed. I'm not sure exactly how to describe it but the PX just feels 'duller'. It's not bad, by any stretch of the imagination, and for a sportive its a good frame - handling isn't particularly 'racy' and it's reasonably comfortable. It certainly went up the hills very well and I had no issues on the descents. I would, though, really like to try a good carbon frame, such as the Cannondale Six or Specialized Tarmac (amongst others), and see how they compare.

My legs are fried now, so I guess it will be another couple of days of rest and active recovery. Next Sunday is the New Forest Rattler; a 79 mile sportive with a sting in the tail - the 25% Blissford Hill!

Train smart, recover well, and race hard. All the best.

New Gadget

At last, a gas inflator that fits a disk wheel; this will mean a couple less things in my saddle bag on the TT bike.

I'm thoroughly enjoying my recovery week; some gentle cycling, core, stretch and flex, cake, beer and tonight is curry night with some brandy & coke. On Sunday I am doing the Woodcote Sportive, a moderately tough 83 miler with some 1800m of climbing. Nice and easy, not chasing any times.

More Outlaw Pictures & Stats

Kelda’s swim: 1.02.25 - 129th place overall, 14th Team
T1: 1.39 82nd place leaving T2 - 47 places gained in T1 - the joys of relay teams!
My bike: 5.14.36 - 21st overall, 3rd Team - 28th place into T2
T2: 0.33 6th overall - 26th place leaving T2
Si’s run: 3.34.35 - 21st overall, 7th Team

Total Time: 9.53.50 16th overall and 5th Team.

And by my reckoning a new RAF Tri relay team record!

Outlaw Pictures

The swim start; Kelda was in there somewhere:

Mick out of T1 and around the lake:

Simon looking good (I guess this was lap 1 or 2 then!):

Westy:

Greg:

The Outlaw

What a thoroughly enjoyable race. In fact, I will go further. What a thoroughly enjoyable weekend. The stats are that the RAF Tri relay team finished 16th overall and 5th relay team home; splits (important to all triathletes!) were as follows:

Swim - Kelda - 1.02.25 (14th fastest of 26 relay teams)

T1 - 1.39 (9th)

Bike - Me - 5.14.36 (3rd)

T2 - 0.33 (6th)

Run - Simon - 3.34.35 (7th)

Total - 9.53.50 (5th)

It was a very early start. Awake at 0400 but Kelda provided an excellent breakfast of cheese omelette followed by berries and yoghurt. I felt really good as I walked down to transition, loaded my bike with bottles and pumped the tyres up. For the cyclist in a relay team that was all I needed to do. I said hello to the other RAF Tri competitors I saw and also a few TriTalk buddies, and then had a good view of the start. And then I could relax. Yeah right! I went to the loo, chatted to my fellow relay cyclists, checked kit, went to the loo etc etc. After some 50 minutes or so and the first swimmers emerged from the water. Seeing other relay teams hand over and set out on the bike was immensely frustrating, but we knew that an hour was a realistic target. I saw Greg MacDonald emerge after a great swim, I gave a shout of encouragement and he ran over, shook my hand and wished me good luck before he headed off to collect his bike. Paul Fullalove followed just a few seconds after Greg.

After 62 minutes or so I got the shout from our 'spotter' that Kelda was out of the water. A few seconds later and Kelda emerged from the change tent to hand over the timing chip. After a bit of a faff the timing chip was around my ankle and I grabbed my bike and headed out onto the course. The first part of the bike leg was around the boating lake and I was already into the groove and overtaking people. A couple of tight bends and it was out onto the road and then along a dual carriageway where the inside lane had been coned off for the race - excellent. My HR belt didn't seem to be transmitting the right figures as my computer was showing 240+ bpm at this point, and I resigned myself to racing by RPE, something I wasn't overly keen on after my disaster in Barcelona last year. However, it sorted itself out after a few miles and I settled into a rhythm. The 13.5 miles to the lap route seemed to take an age, but once onto the laps the route was relatively traffic free (although this would change as the day wore on). After a few miles I was heading up the only real hill on the course when I head a voice I recognised "Come on Mick, you've got no excuse!" It was Westy on his gorgeous Fuji bike. We chatted briefly before he headed off on his way to recording the 3rd fastest bike split of the race, and one of only 3 competitors to go under 5 hours for the bike. The bike route had excellent marshalls and feed stations but towards the end of the lap it got a bit lonely, and on a couple of occasions I wondered if I had gone off route! In some of the villages there were groups of supporters, and it reminded me of Frankfurt 2006 where the whole villages seemed to come out to support. In a couple of places, the organisers had to be creative to overcome safety issues at dangerous corners, and on one corner they had built a wooden structure that you rode up to travel in single file before re-joining the road. On another occasion you missed a roundabout by cutting through a pub car park! Very innovative. Towards the end of the lap was a very fast dual carriageway section where I took advantage of the tailwind and an 11-tooth for a few very fast miles.

At the end of the first lap I was greeted by Kelda and Adrian cheering me on. I think they were a little concerned because I was somewhat behind their predicted time of arrival. But I had a plan and after my issues at Barcelona last year I was determined to execute it properly. I'd set myself a target of riding at or about 145bpm for the first 2 laps; I say about because I was happy to let the HR rise above this going uphill (but not excessively so) but would then let it recover on the subsequent flat or downhill. This meant I was overtaken by a few people but I was determined to not allow myself to be sucked in to going faster than I had planned. I was still averaging around 35kmh so was happy. On the second lap I started to catch the BOPers but at this stage they were fairly well spread out and didn't cause any problems. I was also more disciplined in controlling my HR on this lap that resulted in a small drop in average speed. At the end of lap 2 I saw Kelda and Adrian again and headed off on to lap 3. It was now time to execute the next stage of the plan. HR limit was increased to 160 although this was not to be breached on the hills, and I was surprised how much faster I was travelling. I have 2 particular memories - one was of travelling downhill into one of the smaller villages and passing a 30mph speed restriction sign at well in excess of 40mph! The other was following a BOPer into a village that had one of those electronic speed signs - the BOPer went through and it was showing 14mph; I followed at 22! I was enjoying this lap; I saw an RAF trisuit ahead (still one of the most easily recognisable kits out there) towards the end of lap 2 but couldn't quite close the gap. But towards the end of lap 3 I caught him and gave a cheery hello mate as I went passed. I thought it was Paul Fullalove, but when the next RAF guy I passed WAS Paul Fullalove I was a bit confused (turns out the previous RAF rider was Greg MacDonald). I didn't dwell on it too much as I was working hard at this stage of the race, and at the end of lap 3 I headed for home (having had a near miss with a family pushing a pram). The next couple of miles were a head down full on TT effort, but the not very steep uphill to the right turn at the traffic lights really hurt, and I had the first twinges of cramp. The next few miles were painful - twisty, turny, potholes, speed bumps, gravel, you name it, if it could slow you down it was there. But out the other side there was only a mile or so to go to T2. I'd already recced the return bit and worked out where I needed to remove my feet from my shoes. Despite a woeful lack of triathlons of late I executed a perfect dismount and handed my bike to the very young ATC cadet, despite him being on the same side of the bike that I was. I looked up, and to my dismay, there was NO RUNNER. Simon, where are you? WHERE THE **** ARE YOU? A lady marshal obviously witnessed my distress and pointed to the far end of the tent. I looked up and there was Simon waving. I 'sprinted' (it's a relative term because 1, I don't run at all, and 2, I'd just ridden 111 miles (yes, only 111 miles) on the bike!) to the far end of the tent and Simon whipped off the timing chip and was on his way. I collapsed in a heap and was extremely grateful for the recovery bag provided by Kelda - Mars bar chocolate milkshake and banana. Excellent.

I was initially somewhat disappointed by my time, but after finding out that the fastest bike split was 4.52 and only 3 people went under 5 hours I was reassured that I had done OK. A quick check of the provisional results suggested I had recorded the 20th fastest bike split (of some 900 entrants). More importantly, I had a plan and executed it, managing to ignore other athletes and ride my own race. I had fuelled appropriately and was spent at the end, not before.

After something to eat and a very pleasant shower I was changed and back at the racetrack to watch Simon's progress. After 2 of the 3 laps he was looking good, and possibly heading for a marathon PB. Unfortunately Simon suffered an attack of cramp and in the final 8 miles dropped some 20 minutes off his ETA based on his lap 2 time. However, we were delighted to see him heading for the finish and at the end we ran down the finish chute together and crossed the line, arms raised (with me crashing in to the finish line marshal for good measure).

This was the first running of The Outlaw and it was an exceptionally good first effort. I had planned to give up time trialling at the end of this season, but as I drove away I mentioned to my son that I could be tempted back for another attempt next year. So who wants to make up a relay team for The Outlaw on 24 July 2011?

Ready for The Outlaw

The bike is ready. I am ready.

The helmet visor is brilliant - I don't have to wear sunglasses now which makes riding longer distances in the TT position a lot less stressful on my neck (I find the ridge of the sunglasses blocks my vision).

Just need to sort the 'admin' now; tent, sleeping bags, food etc etc.

Stats

An interesting stat (or maybe not!), in the whole of 2009 I managed 197 hours and 46 minutes of cycling. So far in 2010 I have managed 208 hours 55 minutes and I still have 9 weeks of the season to go. See, I said it was interesting. :-)

Some great performances at IMs Bolton and Regensburg today. Well done to all.

Last Hard Session Before The Outlaw

This morning it was time for the last hard session before The Outlaw next Sunday. After some discussion on the RAF Cycling forum I decided that a 50 mile turbo TT was in order, and that as there is no opportunity to warm up on the bike prior to a triathlon relay bike leg, I decided to use the warm up protocol as suggested by the RAF Cycling Head Coach, Dave Green.

So, after taking the dog for a walk along the beach, and without breakfast, I climbed on the bike armed with nothing more than 2 litres of water and a single Trek bar. The warm up protocol is essentially a steady increase in effort over the first 15 minutes or so until you are at your target race (or in this case test) pace. The warm up went well and after 20 or so minutes I settled in at a steady 44kmh. I had a plan to eat, drink and stand up for short periods to keep things comfortable but after 40 or so minutes the sweat was making things a little uncomfortable. At this point I was not confident I would complete the test but I persevered and after 80 minutes I changed up a gear and reduced the cadence to about 85rpm; speed was around 46kmh and I was feeling much more comfortable. Breathing was under control, HR was in the low 160s, power was good and my legs were feeling strong. I'd already decided that with 16km to go I would treat it as a 10 mile TT and push hard towards the end and I was glad that my legs were up to the job.

Despite the slow start I hit 80km in 1.49.15 and am thoroughly delighted with that. Average power was 10% lower than than my FTP and ave HR was about 85% of max, so a little higher than I would want to ride over 112 miles, but then I'm not anticipating riding at 43.9kmh!

So that's it, I have done all the hard training I intend to do before next Sunday's race, although there is one turbo session to be done on Wednesday night to remind the legs what to expect. I will now have 2 very easy days to allow my legs to recover from today's effort, Wednesday's turbo session and then easy days on Thursday and Friday. Saturday I'm travelling to Nottingham so will be a rest day and then Sunday is my personal D-Day. I feel in good condition and certainly better prepared than I have ever been before. So here's hoping for a good race.

I'm off to check how my buddies are doing at IMUK and IM Regensburg. All the best.