I'm Enjoying the Off-Season

After 2 years of cycling I'm really enjoying doing something different, although for you triathletes swimming and running doesn't really constitute something different! I've also introduced some weights into my weekly routine, a low weight higher rep session and and higher weight low rep session. I must say that my muscles are noticing the change in emphasis as well, and I do ache in a whole bunch of different places!

I've done 2 swim sets this week, Monday was 5 x 200m + 8 x 33m lengths of drills and technique. Wednesday was a MASSIVE 6 x 200m session on 4:30 with swim times as:

3:32

3:34

3:39 (fatigue setting in already)

3:47 (easy)

3:34 (increased effort level)

3:57 (very easy)

Considering my swim history over the last 2 years I am absolutely delighted with these times. Distance in increasing slowly; absolutely no need to rush.

Bike prep is continuing. I would recommend anyone who needs some Shimano 10-speed STIs to pop over to Parker-International's website; they have brand new 2008 Ultegra STI's for an absolute bargain price. I can now upgrade my Planet X bike to 10-speed and complete my old Scott re-build that will be left at the new house in Leeds.

Eating and drinking is continuing apace; in fact, even better than the bike prep! I got on the scales yesterday and it wasn't pretty. Never mind; I'll start eating sensibly again next week.

All the best fellow Bloggers.

More Work on the Bikes

With rest taking priority over traning I managed to spend some more time working on my bikes this afternoon. After a small amount of fettling I took the Litespeed around the block to make sure everything was working OK and I'm glad to report that all is good; the gear changes could be a little snappier so maybe need to increase the cable tension a tad, but not much. Sorry about the poor quality photos, I will use a decent camera next time rather than my phone.

I then set about putting the RoadRacer Mk 2 mudguards onto the Planet X, and apart from the compact dimension causing some problems resulting in me having to fit the old Mk 1 rear mudguard, I now have mudguards fitted. Hopefully this means I will ride a lot more through the Winter but I'm terrible when it comes to riding in the cold and wet so may be it won't!

With that job out the way I then set about turning the turbo bike from a tt set up back to a road bike. This was a fairly straightforward job as this bike has downtube shifters so there are no gear cables on the handlebars to change over. I then had to remove the Profile Fast Forward seat post, replace it with a road one and swap the saddle over. Easy peasy. Need to measure and set up correctly but the parts are all moved across now.

I've also been putting my old Scott bike back together. I was going to sell this but it will now be built up and left at our new house in Leeds. I just need some STIs and cables to complete this, but as we all know STIs are not cheap so this may have to wait a few weeks as funds are needed elsewhere just now.

Looking ahead, I should get to the pool a couple of times this week to continue my swimming renaissance, complete 2 weight training, 2 easy turbo and 1 x 1 hour jog/walk sessions. If the weather is OK and all is good I may even get out for a road ride next Saturday; it won't be hard and it won't be far but it would be nice to get out.

Small Steps, One at a Time

Today I decided to put my jog/walk strategy to its first proper test. Could I do it? Could I sustain it? The test would be 10.55 km (one quarter of a marathon) done as 3.5 mins at 10.5kmh, 3.5 mins at 7kmh, then repeat until I reached 10.55km, done on a treadmill. The good news is that I reached 10.55km in 1:11:22; assuming I could continue with the strategy and maintain the speeds that would equate to a marathon in 4:45:28 and, if I could do that on race day, I would be over the moon. Afterwards I felt good and some 8 hours on I have no stiffness in my muscles and no fatigue. All good signs.

Bike blinging continues. Check this out:

Yes, a gold chain. Ultimate bling? Or chav-tastic? Personally, I can't wait for it to arrive; I think it will look ace.

Bike Blinging

Not having to train in the evening is quite pleasant. Today I finally finished unpacking my TT bike from the Barcelona trip and stripped it of it's useful parts. The brakes went onto my Scott in preparation for bike duties at the new house. The FSA ceramic bearing bottom bracket was removed and fitted to my Litespeed. The rear mech was removed to also go onto the Scott, but not before I took the FSA ceramic bearing jockey wheels off and replaced them with 'normal' Ultegra ones. The ceramic ones were fitted to the Ultegra SL rear mech on the Litespeed. Do ceramic bearings make a difference? I don't know if it can be measured on a power meter but it certainly feels easier to turn the cranks by hand (finger!) and certainly feels much, much smoother.

The Litespeed (my Outlaw race bike) is now almost ready for 2011; it just needs new clip on tri-bars (and new tyres before next season starts, of course). It needs a clean and a polish and then I will post some pictures. It's quite under-stated and, to me at least, is all the better for it.

Hopefully we are all enjoying rest and cake; or does anyone have any races left this year?

All the best.

Winter Training

What do you do in Winter?

I guess the first things to do are to critically analyse your season's performance and then consider what needs to be worked on to generate the greatest improvements for next year. For me, in very simple terms, it is quite straightforward. Based on my season review I need to work on better cycle endurance, ie be able to sustain a higher speed for longer. For next year though, I also need to add swimming and 'running' goals. With The Outlaw on 24 July 2011 being my A race next year, my 2011 targets are as follows:

1. Be able swim at a minimum of 2:00 mins per 100m for 3800m.

2. Be able to cycle at a minimum of 34kmh for 180km.

3. Be able to jog/walk at a minimum of 8.5kmh for 42.2kmh.

Easy to write down, but the hard work still has to be done.

Swimming. The next few weeks will be spent getting used to swimming again and I'm happy that I'm already swimming at sub 2:00 per 100m so just need to work on maintaining the speed as the distance increases. I'm under no illusion that swimming 3800m is my biggest challenge for next year. I also need to ensure that I don't overdo the swimming as getting fed up with going to the pool is possibly the biggest threat to my 2011 goal.

Cycling. Cycling will take a back seat until the New Year while I concentrate on developing my swimming and 'running' skills and general conditioning work. Weekly cycling in this period will include: one easy (as in sub 140 bpm) turbo session, starting at 30 mins but increasing to an hour over the next couple of weeks; one max sprint interval session done as 30 seconds max 4 mins L2 recovery; one LSD road ride (max 140 bpm), starting at 2 hours duration.

'Running'. The running is in ' ' because I don't plan on running, so whenever I say running from now on I mean my jog/walk strategy. Again, I can already achieve the speeds I have set and so I will be working on doing this for longer. You never know, as the weeks go by I may find that I can extend the jog intervals and reduce the walking, this could significantly affect my marathon finishing time. We shall see.

Conditioning. General strength work as well as core stability and flexibility exercises, something that is increasingly important as we get older and something that I am certainly guilty of not doing enough of throughout the season.

So there's my plan for between now and the New Year. I'm feeling very positive about 2011 at the moment and don't want to lose the enthusiasm.

Rest well folks.

Dunsfold Sportive

My last event of the year, based at the Top Gear test track at Dunsfold aerodrome. The weather was cold, very cold. My car thermometer was showing -1 as I approached the venue, much colder than I had anticipated but fortunately I had packed a light base layer, arm and leg warmers, and a gilet. Unfortunately I had overlooked winter gloves.

I met up with my ride buddies for the day, Ed and Darren, and we headed off towards the end of the long route queue. We were soon passing people and I was feeling good. I was working hard though, and HR was bouncing around above 160bpm for a large proportion of the time. After about 70km I mentioned to Darren that it felt like I was riding through treacle (not a very pleasant experience!) and I was clearly holding Ed and Darren back. At the last feed stop, with 40km to go, I decided to change to the mid-route and let them ride the final 18km loop without an anchor. I reached the finished, packed the car and enjoyed a nice hot cup of tea.

I had about 40 minutes before Darren and Ed appeared at the finish line that gave me time to take stock of my season. If I'm honest, I reckon I peaked at the New Forest Rattler towards the end of August; this was certainly my best ride. After that it was a struggle to maintain motivation with domestic matters taking a priority and some cumulative fatigue from training for an A race in October. C'est la vie.

Looking ahead, we will hopefully be in our own house by Christmas that will bring plenty of opportunity for practising riding hills. I plan to ride the bike less between now and Christmas and focus on swimming, jog/walking, and SCSF (strength, core, stretch and flex). It will be interesting to see how 2011 pans out.

Rest well folks.

Wheels for Sale

Planet X disk wheel (Shimano). Good condition with minimal wear on the brake surface. For sale with Vittoria Corsa Evo CX tub that has plenty of life left in it. No skewer or cassette though. £300.

Planet X 82mm front wheel. Very good condition with minimal wear on brake surface. For sale with Vittoria Corsa Evo CX tub that has plenty of life left in it. No skewer though. £120.

Or £400 for the pair.

Also for sale are a pair of Zipp 440s. Yes, Zipp 440s, not 404s! The 440s were the predecessor to the 404 so they are a number of years old. They are 700c carbon rims for tubulars. I am at least the 3rd owner but have done no mileage at all on them in the last 2 years. The previous owner changed the hub so the rear wheel will accept Shimano 9 or 10 speed cassettes. Since owning them the front has been overhauled at Phil Corley Cyles in Milton Keynes who replaced a few spokes. These are not new and are for sale without tyres, skewers or cassette. And can be yours for £150.

Contact me on 93844 2077 or leave a message here.

Happy Birthday to me!

:-) :-) :-)

The first steps ...

After my successful trip to the pool yesterday I decided I should maintain my enthusiasm by getting on the treadmill again. The point of this exercise was to set my jog and walk speeds to meet my sub 5 hour marathon target. After some trial and error I have settled (at least for the time being) on a jog speed of 10.5kmh and a walk speed of 7kmh (according to the treadmill - will evaluate on a couple of other treadmills and then take it outside!), alternating each for 3.5 minutes at a time. By my calculations this should have me completing the marathon a few seconds under 4 hours and 50 minutes. Even better news was that it was so easy to do.

So that's it, the race strategy is now sorted and up to Christmas I will focus on getting lean again, building strength and doing plenty of core, stretch and flex activities. There will be 2 x 30 min swim sessions per week and 1 hour practising the jog/walk strategy on the treadmill and a long ride (2 - 3 hours) at the weekend. I reckon this will see me into the New Year in the best shape I will have ever been in. The New Year will see formal training resumed, focussing on developing swim endurance at race pace, bike endurance at race pace, and extending the time practising the jog/walk plan. I will also do longer walks (not runs) to get used to being on my feet for a long time; ideally this will happen after my long ride at the weekend to get the benefit of walking with tired(ish) legs.

Welcome Back Turbo Man The Triathlete!

Yes, in 2011 I will be returning to Long Distance Triathlon by entering The Outlaw on 24 July. Not exactly sure why I've decided to return to tri but the time just seemed right to give it another go. Sorry for appearing to build up the suspense but I had to get in the pool and try swimming again before making any announcement. So today I headed to the pool at lunchtime to see whether those feelings that made me stop so suddenly 2 years ago would re-emerge, and if not, whether I could still swim. The initial feelings were positive, I was actually looking forward to getting to the pool, and even climbing in and experiencing that horrible feeling as the cold water hits your stomach didn't put me off. I adjusted my goggles, took a deep breath, and pushed off. I kicked under the water surfaced, breathed out and my arms just seemed to know what to do, and did their stuff (well as much as they ever could!). Bilateral breathing just seemed to happen and I didn't suck in great lungfuls of water. Touch turn at the far end (I never learned tumble turns) and then steadily back. It's a 33m pool so took a bit longer than I remembered but I reached the end and stood up.

" Well that went as well as could be expected" as Wallace would have said!

The goggles leaked a bit so I faffed about adjusting them, just like old times. I did a few more reps of 2 lengths and then decided to time a few to set some sort of benchmark; I thought that if I could swim at 2:20/100m pace it would get me through 3800m in just under 90 minutes which would be a good start to my Outlaw on race day. The times were very consistent at 70 seconds for 66m so about 1:45 per 100m pace, very very happy with that. I reckon 2:00/100m over 3800m is a more realistic pace for me to aim for in July 2011.

With the decision now made the next step is to set some benchmarks for my jog/walk strategy. I want to average 8.5kmh for the marathon that will get me home just under 5 hours; not fast but my marathon PB (set at IM Frankfurt in 2006) is 5:11 so a sub-5 time would still qualify as a PB! I will do some tests on the treadmill and outside to see what sort of pace I can jog at and walk at and then determine how many minutes of jogging I need to do compared to walking. I'm setting out with the intention of jog/walk, and it will all be worked out in advance to deliver a pre-determined marathon time. It won't be fast but I'm hoping it will be fast enough. And I want to enjoy it so there will be no runs of 3 hours + in training.

So there you have it. Turbo Man the Triathlete is back. Wish me luck as I expect there will be some doubts on the way.

All the best.

So what does 2011 hold for me?

I was chatting to a colleague in the changing room today - yes, I went to the gym for 20 minutes easy on the bike and a 25 minutes introduction to weights - and we were talking about 2011 and, specifically, what were my plans?

I know that I will be on a course at Shrivenham from mid-August to mid-October so my season effectively ends in early August. So I need something to aim for, probably in July. I actually have an idea, I just don't want to share it just yet. If it happens, then it will probably surprise a few of you and maybe shock 1 or 2 others. But I think it might be fun. There are a couple of things I need to do before I'm sure and, from what I've read of late, I'm still not sure the event will actually be happening. So no point getting too excited just yet.

I'm still working on the details, but between now and Christmas I plan to focus on increasing my strength, by working with weights and core, stretch and flex sessions. I will still cycle, both in the gym and on the road, but just not as much. Come the new year this focus will switch around, so that cycling takes priority over strength. How long this phase will last will depend on what events I decide to complete. The Magnificat 200km sportive will definitely be one of my events as I under-performed there this year.

I'm still resting well, eating rubbish and enjoying it.

What does a resting athlete eat?

Full English breakfast (2 eggs, 2 rashers of bacon, sausage, big mushroom, baked beans and toast).
Lashings of hot coffee.
Fresh cream apple turnover.
More coffee.
Fresh cream cherry scone.
Surf and Turf (fillet steak with fresh king prawns, green salad, peppers, onions, carrots with balsamic vinegar).
A Crunchie (and it wasn't even a Friday!).
3 small Dairy Milk bars.
More coffee.
Red wine.

Thought I should add a few more words about my race, so here goes:

As for my race (the bike in a relay team), it never really got going. We received a yellow flag in T1 because I wasn't wearing a number, despite the relay teams being briefed that there was no need for the rider to wear a number on their back during the bike leg. This had made me somewhat grumpy and set the tone for my day. Matt was the 4th relay swimmer out of the water in 49 mins and handed over to me and I worked hard through the twisty part of the town with a plan of letting things settle down once on to the main part of the bike course. Unfortunately, despite feeling very good, my breathing was under control and it felt like I was barely putting any effort on to the pedals, my HR was sky high and refused to come down. I reached the 1st turn in about an hour and took the opportunity to use the tailwind to try and get my HR down. I backed off to about 34/35kmh but still my HR would not come down (at the 3 hour point my average HR was 163). And just to make matters worse, from about the 2.5 hour point my stomach decided it did not want to receive any more of the nutrition I was attempting to put into it. If you've never been tucked on your tribars at 40kmh and puked I would certainly not recommend it! And this became the norm for the next hour. Take nutrition and a few minutes later I would receive a mouthful of vomit back from my stomach. Hardly a fair exchange I would say. At one point I tried to say thank you to a marshal and it came out as 'BARF!' It took me an hour of this for my befuddled brain to tell me to switch to water. This seemed to do the trick although by this time I was dehydrated and way behind my nutrition plan and my sub 5 hour ride was now nothing but a dream. I therefore chose to sit up and enjoy the view and spin my way home. I was surpised that even doing this I was riding comfortably at 33/34kmh. And my HR, at last, dropped in to the 140s.

So that's Challenge Barcelona done and dusted. I have the Dunsfold Sportive to look forward to on 17 Oct and then I will get into my winter plan (lots of gym work, weights and only a small amount of cycling).

Eat well folks!

Challenge Barcelona - My 'Man in the Arena moment'

I really like the 'Man in the Arena' speech made by Theodore Roosevelt in 1910 (see the famous summary above). For me it epitomises why many of us compete (in whatever sport). We put ourselves out there but by it's very nature the result cannot always be positive. But we keep trying. And the fact that we keep trying is more commendable than those who prefer to comment on our failures.

For me, Challenge Barcelona 2010 was my 'Man in the Arena' moment. I came up short. I wasn't covered in dust, sweat and blood, but by dust, sweat and vomit. It was hot, very hot, and humid and I failed to take action to reduce my sky high HR early enough. I could get the nutrition in, but it refused to stay in. I am hugely disappointed as I thought I had prepared very well; I was below 70kg and my bike power was slightly up on 2009. And yet it still went horribly wrong. There is very little more to say about my performance.

Matt Molloy was my room mate in Spain and swam for the team in a very impressive 49 minutes (although what was more impressive was that he didn't barge into the bathroom and take a photo of me shaving my legs - take note Monsieur Briggs!). He then went on to cycle for another relay team in an almost as impressive 4 hours 50 minutes. Matt has entered IM Austria in 2011 and hopes to qualify for Kona; he's also hoping to break the Irish IM record that currently stands at 9.01 (I think!). I'm confident he can achieve both; he's a really nice guy and I wish him every success in 2011.

As you are probably aware, Cavegirl Kelda ran for us. For 18km. Kelda has had a great year of cycling but a bad year of running and a marathon in the heat was a big ask and, as it proved, several steps too far. So be it. Another 'Man in the Arena' moment perhaps?

It's now time for my winter break and, to be quite honest, I am ready for it. I want to eat cake, drink wine and not keep a training diary. I have an idea of what I want to do between now and Christmas but my 2011 plans are completely up in the air at the moment. Let's wait and see shall we?

Rest well folks.