Dan Halliday

Forestman Ironman Triathlon Winner - 26/06/11

2011-07-03T21:50:00.007+01:00

Crossing the line!!

Popping the champagne with the world's best and most energetic support crew

With organiser Richard and very proud fiancée Rowena at the finish

Getting good support from the guy who was in T2 with me, top bloke

On the hot western loop

Setting out on the run

The Support Crew

Looking nervous!

Hotting up on the bike

Ford near the start of the bike

Pre-amble

This seems crazy in hindsight given how the race eventually went but I was seriously considering not racing and even if I did I didn’t expect to race well at all.

In the week beforehand I started experiencing a very tight chest and laboured breathing which I think was partly anxiety and partly hayfever/exercise enduced asthma. I also went for a very short ride on Wednesday and felt horrendous which was really worrying as I was expecting the bike to be my strongest leg as this was where I had been able to do most of my training.

On top of this I had had an ear infection for months and had not swam since a sprint tri on 3 April until two 50 length swims in the week before the race to check that I hadn’t forgotten how to! A stress fracture in my foot had put me out of any real running until the beginning of May and I had only been able to build up to 90mins because of the worry that it might go again!

This all sounds rather negative but I’m not sure I’ve been any more stressed in the build up to a race before (ask poor Rowena!!) As I say, it seems bonkers now but it has taught me that I need to learn to be more relaxed about things!!

Race Weekend

Rowena and I flew down from Edinburgh to Southampton on Friday night after work and were picked up by my parents in the motorhome. We had managed to get a campsite less than 5mins walk from the event centre at Sandy Balls which was handy and so I just wandered down on Saturday morning for registration and the briefing. This was the point when I started to get really nervous as the course was described and the size of the undertaking sank in.

I cycled the 15mins or so to transition to make sure my bike was all working properly and was glad to feel that my legs were in a better start than Wednesday night’s debacle. As I unclipped from my pedals it felt a lot looser than normal but I had just put new cleats on and so knew it couldn’t be that. I had a quick look at my pedal only for half of it to come away in my hand! Then followed a mad dash around the local bike shops for a new pedal and fortunately I was able to find a shop in Ringwood that had some similar for £20 secondhand.

After racking we drove around the rest of the bike course so that there were no nasty surprises and headed back for a good pasta dinner and an early night.

The alarm at 3.45am was a bit of a shock, not least for the rest of my family and fiancée Rowena (did I mention I was engaged?!?! J) but the advantage of staying in a motorhome was a fresh coffee, orange juice, toasted soda farl and two bagels for breakfast!! I wandered bleary eyed to the coach for the short trip down to the lake. It was really misty at this point and unclear whether the swim could go ahead as planned. In the end they had to delay the start by 10 mins in order to check that every buoy was visible from the previous one but otherwise the course was unchanged.

The Swim – actual time 60.30, chip time (+T1) 64.13

Swimming had never been my strong point and given that my lack of recent swimming and the fact that I hadn’t put my wetsuit on for nearly a year my plan was to swim really steady and just make sure I got through ok. The start was fairly calm given the relatively low numbers and I managed to settle into a rhythm early on although failed to get onto any feet. This continued for the first two laps until I started to get a bit of cramp in my calves and feet. This coincided with a big group of 10-12 going past me but I was unable to hold on without kicking at all so just eased off and took the last lap steady. I was surprised but pleased to hear from my brother that I was only just over the hour. I took my time in T1, sitting down to get my wetsuit off and into my X-Bionic bike jersey. I decided to go for Skins tri-shorts and tops so that I could have space for spares and nutrition in my back pockets and also change easily into a fresh top for the run as I knew it was forecast to be hot.

The Bike – actual time 5.05.20, chip time 5.06.56

I was conscious not to go too hard at the start of the bike as it seems that if you ask for any advice when doing your first Ironman everyone says to take the bike conservatively. I still found myself rolling along pretty quickly on the first section which is the flattest on the course and I was surprised to see my average speed over 37kph. I knew this would probably be too fast but decided to wait and see how it played out over a lap as it was tougher on the back end with more climbs.

I stuck rigidly to my nutrition plan which was to take a High5 bar straight after the swim and then a gel on every 30mins and a bar on every hour, stopping twice to refill drinks bottles meaning 6 in total for the bike. This seemed to work really well and there was never a point when I felt dehydrated or lacking in energy.

I was passing a lot of people early on as expected but after the first lap it got pretty lonely. It was good to have Rowena and the rest of my family at 2 points on each lap as it gave me a boost knowing that they were going to be there and broke up the time. I took the lead about halfway round the second lap of three and was still feeling really strong. Whenever the road went up I sat up on the hoods as I have only ridden my TT bike once since last July and was worried that I might have problems with my back, neck and shoulders if I tried to stay in the time trial position for 5 hours!

My average speed was still over 36kph after two laps and I had thoughts of Hywel’s bike course record from last year of 5.01 but not long after this I really started to tire and had to ease off to make sure I didn’t completely blow before the run. The little drags that I’d flown up on the first two laps were suddenly a struggle and the climb up Ornamental Drive was a killer, especially as my lowest gear was a 42/23, something I’d not really thought about beforehand. In hindsight I should have had something easier to make sure I could go easy up a climb if I wanted to.

By this time the fog had cleared as promised and it was really starting to hot up. The last 5 miles or so are quite kind as they are nearly all gradually downhill and you can ease off whilst still keeping a good speed and start thinking about the run. I rolled into T2 with a bike time of 5.05, much quicker than I had expected and hoping that it wasn’t too quick to hold together a decent run. I was surprised to see the 2nd place guy come into the tent just before I left as I thought I had a healthy lead but he must’ve rode a much better paced effort and taken a lot of time out of me in the last lap as we started the ride less than a minute apart. We had a quick chat and he mentioned that he was a biking specialist and not much of a runner which was reassuring.

Run – actual time 3.46, chip time 3.51.53

I took my time in transition, sitting down to change my top, put compression X-Socks on to protect the calf I’d been having problems with, get plenty of fluid down me and stop off in the portaloo!

I had decided not to run with a watch or Garmin as the course is very lumpy and therefore holding a steady pace is nigh on impossible and I didn’t want to pressure myself if I wasn’t holding the 8min miles I thought I’d be able to do (having not seen the course previously!)

I started off at a decent pace up the first road and was surprised that my legs felt ok given how I was feeling towards the end of the ride. I took time at the first aid station to get a couple of gels and plenty of fluid down as it was now about 12pm and starting to heat up. My plan to power walk anything more than a slight uphill drag felt strange at first as I could happily have ran them if I wanted but paid off in the end, especially given that I’d not run more than 13 miles in training and wanted to save my legs as much as possible.

Out onto the out and back section and my support crew were out in force. This made such a massive difference and I’d like to say thank you to all of them for keeping me going. It’s a mentally tough course and seeing people cheering you on at least every 15minutes is a massive boost. For the afternoon my morning team were joined by my uncle and cousin who live relatively close by.

I started to feel a bit crampy on the first out section and so stopped to have a quick stretch to try and knock it on the head before it got any worse. I had a prolonged stop at the turnaround and got lots of infinit drink, coke and a couple of gels down. On the way back to the middle point I was hoping to not see anyone for a long time and except the guy I’d seen in T2 who was falling behind quite quickly I reckoned I was at least 2miles ahead of the 3rd place guy and then after that there were lots of people fairly well bunched together, so I had a decent buffer and no-one looked like they were flying (not really surprising given the course!!)

The first half of the run went without incident, I was into a steady routine at the aid stations as the heat and removed any appetite for food; one water, one infinit, one coke and a water over the head. I was hot but didn’t feel like I was suffering too much for it, the cooling effect of the X-Bionic top seemed to work well and I stayed well hydrated, stopping to relieve myself at least 4 times!

The lowest point for me after I’d collected my second band of three and was heading back to the middle point in the hottest part of the day. My energy levels seemed to dip and my stomach was feeling really gassy. I waited until the forested section but had to pull over and relieve the pressure (in at least 3 waves!), with some nearby bracken proving effective in the absence of Dulux! Although this took a good few minutes, I felt so much better afterwards and was able to run strongly from there on.

I always had in my mind that I just needed to keep running and not blow up to take the win and I never really felt on the limit on the run (although clearly exhausted at the end). Having reached the middle station for the last time and turned for home I picked it up a bit knowing that the relay team was not far ahead of me and their runner was really starting to flag. I caught him just before the road with a mile to go and was able to enjoy the gradual descent back to Sandy Balls knowing that I’d won.

Total time – 10.03.02

I was ecstatic to win and slightly disbelieving given the build-up I’d had, but there was a tinge of disappointment to see 10.03 on the clock. I’d had no idea what time I was on without wearing a watch although 3 minutes is a long time and in all likelihood I’d have missed out on sub-10 anyway.

All in all I had a day well above my expectations and it’s making me reconsider my decision to drop doing much triathlon and concentrating on cycling for next year. I’d love to Hawaii some time although with a honeymoon to save for I wouldn’t be able to do it next year even if I could qualify so I’m thinking of just doing HIMUK next year alongside the cycling and then aiming for a European IM in 2013. Rowena was suitably inspired by the whole event to say that she would like to do one sometime so maybe we can make it into a holiday at Austria or Switzerland in 2 years time.

RaceNewForest put on a fantastic, tough and friendly event and it was great to meet lots of the other competitors who all had a massive smile on their face.

Post race I’ve not been anywhere near as sore as expected, probably because the pace is never really that high in any of the disciplines and so you don’t get the muscle breakdown that shorter, more intense efforts gives you.

Results can be found here

John O'Groats to Land's End - Part 1

2011-05-30T16:40:00.010+01:00

Day 0 – Thurso to John O’Groats

When I first decided on doing this challenge I hadn’t realised quite how far away and difficult a place John O’Groats is to get to! I had (clearly now hopelessly optimistic) ideas of getting up there in the morning and getting a decent chunk out of the way on the first day. In reality it takes 7.5 hours on the train and the first one goes at 10.30 and that only gets you as far as Thurso, still 20 miles from John O’Groats! We were staying at a B&B at Dunnet’s Head, mainland Britain’s most northerly point and ~10 miles west of JOG and so initially cycled there from Thurso. It was not a good sign that we were already complaining of heavy sacks and tired legs and that evening proceeded to remove any previously necessary items that
were no longer deemed quite so important!!

The plan for the next day was to head west back through Thurso and the thought of doing 20 miles out and back to JOG before the day had really started wasn’t a particularly appealing thought and so we decided to head out and back to JOG on Friday evening. By this time it was already 7.30 and we stopped off at a hotel en route to enquire about food. They stopped serving at 8pm but we needed to get to JOG and back in the light; after much pleading we persuaded them to take our order and start cooking whilst we hightailed it out to JOG with the word’s “now scarper and hurry back” ringing in our ears! The flat out 50 min 2-up time trial effort that ensued wasn’t quite what we had envisaged as an easy start to the trip but at least we managed to get the obligatory JOG photo and have a tasty dinner!

Distance: 39.5 miles
Climb: 143m
Time: 2h 23mins
Average Speed: 16.6mph

Day 1 – John O’Groats to Inverness

The day started with what can only be described as the worst B&B breakfast I’ve ever had. The cereal was limited, the sausage and bacon Tesco value at best but worst of all was the toast; dry enough to suck all of the moisture out of your body, quite how toast can be that bad is beyond me! Still, given what we knew was in store it was all quickly demolished and we were on our way.

The route for the day was significantly longer than necessary, but given our experience on the A9 later in the day, the quiet roads and beautiful, remote scenery made up for it. We headed west for around 40 miles until we reached Bettyhill, passing a number of other JOGLErs in both directions before heading south on the B road through to Altnaharra. The landscape was pretty bleak and we were glad that the rain had stayed away. The wind was still around though and a headwind made for slow progress.

We stuck to basically the same nutrition plan throughout the trip, start eating 2 hours in and then every hour until lunch, then another 2 hours before every hour again; each hour we ate something around 250-300 calories. However, the method for this changed significantly during the trip, this day there was no stopping and we were eating on the go, something that James clearly needs a bit of practice of! By the end of the trip there were 5-10 minute breaks for every food stop!

We always tried to get well over half of the day done before stopping for lunch (more like afternoon tea in most cases!) to provide a psychological boost for the afternoon, although we really had no alternative on this day due to the remoteness of the terrain. We stopped after 86 miles in Lairg, having already cycled nearly non-stop for 5.5 hours, James’ previous longest ever ride was only about 65! On the way into town I mentioned to James that I was hoping to find a café to get soup, a panini and some nice homemade cake, well that’s exactly what we found! In hindsight we probably didn’t eat enough in the morning and then ate too much at lunch but it was bloody good at the time and recommended for anyone that happens to be in Lairg, it’s just on the north side of town by a lake on the main road.

We were treated to sunshine and shelter in the afternoon and made good progress, particular highlights were crossing Bonar Bridge (!) and heading up to the viewpoint looking back over the Highlands on the road that cuts over to Alness. The last 20 miles or so were not quite as enjoyable as we hit the A9, a road I’m very glad we weren’t on for the rest of the day. Quite where all the traffic was coming from in the North I’m not sure but it wasn’t particularly enjoyable. There was a long drag over the Black Isle just north of Inverness that seemed to go on for ever, and the bridge over to Inverness was a welcome site.

The evening meal provided some entertainment with James laughing at how little food I was eating, only to discover that my 275g pack of stuffed pasta had significantly more calories than his 750g sack of potatoes that he then had to struggle through! The Bazpackers hostel that we stayed at was in a great location next to Inverness castle and great value at only £36 for two people for a twin room.

Distance: 134.3 miles
Climb: 2,021m
Time: 8h 20mins
Speed: 16.1mph

Day 2 – Inverness to Oban

One of the shorter and flatter days of the trip, essentially following the Great Glen to Fort William avoiding the A roads where possible and then around the A roads to Oban. We started off on the south side of Loch Ness on a nice, quiet road before heading inland and up to the viewpoint above Fort Augustus with great views in all directions followed by a slightly hairy but exhilarating descent down into the town. Here we had to stop to don rain jackets for the only rain we were to experience until the final two days of the trip, looking back we were extremely lucky with the weather.

The pre-planned route had us following the cycle way on the other side of the Loch from the main road into Fort William but it was clearly not designed for road bikes and all of 30m into it my back wheel lost traction and I was unceremoniously dumped on my arse. We decided not to risk the rest of it and backtracked onto the A road as far as Spean Bridge before again being able to follow B roads into Fort William for lunch.

After learning our lesson from the previous day we thought we were having a slightly more restrained lunch although the cream scones were more like a whole cake each and so we still left feeling a bit heavy! James also tried the local delicacy – an Irn Bru Milkshake, the waitress wasn’t even sure what the ingredients were!

The west coast of Scotland has very few road options and so headed down the main A road to Oban. Due to this we had to keep in single file although it was a very different experience to the A9 on the previous day. We took turns doing 3km on the front and the time flew by with an average speed close to 19mph!

My plan before the week had been to go for a short run after each day’s cycling to keep my return to running up although I rather underestimated how difficult the cycling would be and so this was the only day I managed to get out, going for 25 minutes along the waterfront and looping back round the hills into Oban.

We stayed at the fantastic Corran House Hostel, nominally a hostel but with facilities that wouldn’t have been out of place in a budget hotel, we had a twin room with a wide screen digital TV and a bath and all for under £20pppn! In addition, there was a kitchen fully stocked with essentials and breakfast items with a very reasonable price list and honesty box (eg 20p for cereal, 20p per egg). We headed into town for dinner but Easter Sunday isn’t a particularly good day for finding somewhere to buy food to cook and so we resorted to local fish and chips which hit the spot. We had an early start the next morning and so an early night was in order.

Distance: 109.0 miles
Climb: 1,307m
Time: 6h 45mins
Speed: 16.1mph

Day 3 – Oban to Newton Stewart

It was an early start to the day as we had to catch the 11.20 ferry from Claonaig to Lochranza which was 60 miles away. A call from Jess just before we set off to say that she had only just made her ferry from Ardrossan to Brodick because she had to be there 30 minutes before made it worse and we thought we had only 3.5 hours to do the 60 miles, meaning an average speed significantly in excess of what we had done in previous days. The first section of the route was quite hilly and our average speed was nowhere near high enough to make it time. Fortunately the route flattened out and we were again able to swap turns on the front taking 3km at a time and knocking off the miles pretty quickly.

There were a couple of sizeable climbs and it was interesting to see that James was stronger than me on them. It would appear that hill running translates well to uphill cycling as I was considerably stronger on the flatter sections. It may also be a result of me being slightly heavy at the moment which really kills you on the climbs. I was conscious that I still had a lot of cycling to do in the day and the days to come when James had rest on the horizon although I don’t think I could have kept up anyway!

Predictably we made it to the ferry in plenty of time (there is no 30min requirement on this ferry which is much smaller than that from Brodick) and it was a shame that we had had to ride the section hard as when I did take the chance to take in the scenery it was stunning and somewhere that is now firmly on my list of places to go to. (but in a more relaxing manner!)

We met Jess at Lochranza who had cycled clockwise around Arran from Brodick and had a nice relaxed cycle around the remainder of her circuit taking in some samples from the Arran cheese shop and an ice cream en route! Jess noticed that my back wheel wasn’t tracking correctly and it transpired that an earlier noise which James and I had ignored was in fact one of my spokes snapping! We spent the ferry journey working it out so that I could ride the last section that James was doing to Troon before swapping for his wheel.

For the short 15 mile stretch to Troon, Jess took our bags in the car and it was amazing what difference it made. I can see now why people touring use panniers and not big rucksacks and if I were to do another long journey in the future then I would definitely look into getting some. We stopped at the seafront in Troon for fish and chips before Jess and James returned to Glasgow in the car for work the following day.

Unfortunately I still had another 55 miles to look forward to, including a couple of big climbs through the Galloway forest. Shortly after climbing out of Ayr I suffered my only puncture of the trip, an area that I was extremely lucky with, ironically on the rear wheel that I had just swapped with James!

Now I was on my own, I had the iPod out and was listening to IM Talk podcasts, I find that these pass the time much more quickly than music as it gives me something to focus on. I knew the roads from a previous cycling holiday in the region which gave the comfort of knowing what was still to come but also an appreciation that there was still some tough riding to come. The climbs over Galloway forest were long but not particularly steep and on nice quiet roads which makes such a difference to how enjoyable riding is. The view from the top was spectacular and I knew it was nearly all downhill for the remaining 20 miles or so.

After a long descent racing a white van man at ~30mph there was a 6 mile or so stretch along into Newton Stewart and I was starting to run seriously low on energy, so much so that I was munching on emergency flapjack despite only being minutes from finishing. This was probably exacerbated by the time, it was approaching 9pm by the time I reached Newton Stewart due to the broken nature of the ride but having started 14 hours earlier it was a long day. This was probably the only time on the trip that I felt close to bonking and I was very glad to reach my destination, Newton Stewart SYHA which I had all to myself!

I was worried about finding food at that time of night but fortunately the local Co-op was still open and I was able to knock up a tasty and calorific pasta with smoked salmon and creamy blue cheese sauce as well as stocking up for the following day.

Distance: 140.4 miles
Climb: 2,262m
Time: 8h 24mins
Speed: 16.7mph

Day 4 – Newton Stewart to Kendal

Oh boy, this was one tough day: One of the longest days, the first full day on my own and a strong easterly wind that was straight in my face for the first 4 hours of riding.

The morning was awful, I was struggling to ride at 14mph into the wind and the problem with riding in one direction is that if the wind is against you, it’s against you for a long time. I was really suffering psychologically as well as physically and had to have a 10 minute break after Castle Douglas to pull myself together and munch a whole bag of sweets. I think I was possibly feeling the effects of running on empty towards the end of the previous day.

At this stage the only thing that was keeping me going was knowing that Rowena was making the trip down from Edinburgh to meet me for lunch and I was so pleased to eventually get to her just east of Annan, not far from Gretna. It was really good to have a couple of hours off, indulging in the picnic that she had brought and generally forgetting about the cycling that I still had to do.

Unfortunately it was eventually time to go and so after an emotional farewell she headed back up the road and I carried on my long journey south. However, this was not before she had driven in front of me at 20mph for the short section to Gretna to save me from the last bit of easterly headwind!

I was in much better spirits in the afternoon although my legs were still pretty shot. It seemed to take a long time to reach the north of the Lakes from Carlisle but once I got there I was in familiar territory and the time went by much faster. The sun was starting to go down as I came over Matterdale to Ullswater and it quickly started to get colder. This was soon solved by the ascent up the Kirkstone Pass, guaranteed to raise your body temperature! The sunset at the top was spectacular with pink skies framing the sweeping views across the Lake District.

Due to the extended stop with Rowena it was another late night and this time I had to stop to put lights on for the last section down to Kendal, eventually arriving around 9.30pm. I was kindly put up by Helen Jackson and Paul Vousden who not only provided somewhere to sleep but also cooked me dinner and washed my kit which was less than fresh by this stage! What luxury!

Distance: 134.0 miles
Climb: 2,222m
Time: 6h 52mins
Speed: 15.1mph

Day 5 – Kendal to Sheffield

This day felt like the crux of the trip, if I could get through this day then I would finish it as it was the last big day before getting James back for company with the following day to Coventry much shorter than any of the others. The initial climb out of Kendal was tough but otherwise the morning wasn’t too bad, the weather was good and the wind was relatively calm. I stopped after a couple of hours for a break in Settle where Rowena and I have spent a number of weekends together and it was good to be somewhere familiar.

The day got significantly tougher from Keighley as I headed over the Pennines, all of the towns are in the bottom of valleys and the roads tend to head straight up and over joining the towns with no thought of saving height. On top of this a lot of the climbs are at least 20% and there were a number of times where it was all I could do to keep the pedals moving, weaving over the road trying to make the gradient less!

I stopped for lunch in Haworth, home of Emily Bronte and was fortunate to pick a day and time when the steam train was coming through so I sat eating my jacket spud and watched the enthralling spectacle of the steam train pulling out of the station.

It took a lot of persuading to get going after lunch as I knew that I had a brutally steep climb straight away! This trend continued for the rest of the day and I could feel that my legs were starting to get trashed, on hills like that there is no possibility to take it easy as you have to put a lot of effort in just to stay upright! Despite being the shortest day so far it had easily the most climb and I was extremely glad to reach the top of the climb out of Holmfirth knowing that the last of the big climbs was over for the day.

The final hour or so into Sheffield was relatively straightforward although my knees were starting to get painful which was to be a feature of the rest of the trip.

I spent the evening at Team Accelerate team manager Stu Hale’s house having pizza and pasta and discussing the Coast to Coast race which is coming up on the August Bank Holiday weekend.

I was kindly put up for the night by Julia and Gareth Hobson and again got my kit washed which was a real bonus and helped to keep my body (except knees) in generally good condition.

Distance: 103.4 miles
Climb: 2,651m
Time: 7h 6mins
Speed: 14.6mph

John O'Groats to Lands End - a Summary

2011-05-03T21:37:00.003+01:00

The challenge of cycling from John O'Groats to Land's End has always been one that has piqued my interest but it's never been something I've had a fascination with. I was always planning on using the two consecutive long bank holiday weekends to fit in a training week based around cycling and had originally thought of going to Corsica before the lack of cheap flights this early in the season scuppered that idea. I had to be in Birmingham for college after the second weekend and so then thought I could cycle from Edinburgh and this quickly evolved into JOGLE. I had no interest in riding for a time or non-stop (Like the crazy guys from The Epic Tri) and equally didn't fancy riding the shortest route and missing out all the fantastic bits of Britain. My route was based around fitting in as many of the interesting (and therefore generally hilly!) parts of the UK and passing through friends and family en route.

I was lucky to have the company of James (my sisters fiancé) for the first 3 and last 4 days of the trip, which was a good job as my spirits were pretty low by the time he rejoined me. Looking back on it now, it doesn't seem like an overly difficult challenge although I'm sure as I remember each day in more detail all those moments of doubt will come flooding back. I finished at the same time as a couple of other guys who really looked emotional and like it was the satisfaction of a big life goal. To be honest, I felt a bit underwhelmed and I think it must be because I knew a couple of days prior to finishing that I was going to complete it and so there was never that build up of anxiety over not finishing.

There were however 2 times earlier on in the trip when I really questionned whether I could complete it; the first was on Day 4, the first day without James and a long trip from Newton Stewart to Kendal, I had a block easterly headwind all morning to Gretna and was really struggling for energy. Fortunately, Rowena had travelled down from Edinburgh to meet me near Gretna for lunch and a long break, some re-fuelling and most importantly the pyschological boost of seeing her put me in much better spirits for the afternoon which went by much quicker!

The second time was at the start of Day 6 out of Sheffield. I had experienced some ITB issues at the end of the previous day, was keen to knock them on the head before they got serious and so spent a lot of the evening on a foam roller and stretching them out. Unfortunately I didn't pay much attention to my quads and so the resulting imbalance from tight quads and loose ITBs meant my kneecaps were being pulled all over the place and I had excrutiating pain on the inside of my right kneecap. Sheffield is not an easy place to get out of, there are climbs in all directions and I had to stop a couple of times in the first hour to have a stretch. Fortunately they eased off and I was able to manage the problem for the rest of the trip.

Over the next couple of days I'll write a bit on each day with a few pictures where I have them (my phone was a bit temperemental in the later days!) and post the Garmin track for anyone that's interested. The Garmin was a fantastic tool for the type of ride I wanted to do and we found ourselves constantly saying how useful it was. I preprogrammed all of the routes prior to starting and we did the vast majority of the riding on minor back roads, something that wouldn't be possible if you had to get a map out at every other junction.

Brief highlights of the trip for me were:

Cycling down the West Coast of Scotland from Fort William through Oban to the ferry at Claonaig.

Sunset on the top of Kirkstone Pass

The chocolate brownies that Julia gave me for my ride from Sheffield!

Only having one puncture the whole trip

A summary of the distances, times etc. is:

Distance: 1163 miles

Climb: 21,049 metres

Time: 71 hours 44 minutes

Average Speed: 16.2 mph

17/04/11 - East Fife Triathlon and Illness :(

2011-04-18T14:58:00.007+01:00

Last weekend was the first triathlon for the year, a local sprint race held just up the road in Cupar. I had trained the day before as I was using it more as training than anything else although as ever I wanted to do my best once out on the course.

My estimated swim time wasn't quick enough to get me in the fast heat and so I felt like a bit of a numpty wearing my GBR AG kit in the penultimate heat! I was starting 5 seconds behind Rowena in the same lane which she wasn't too happy about, but she had a really sore rib (now suspected cracked!) and so let me through early on.

I felt surprisingly good in the swim and despite getting held up a bit by others in my lane I was able to swim 11.52 for the 750m. Decent for me but typically I was 1m15 slower than anyone that beat me overall. Transition was a bit slower than normal, I stopped to put shoes on properly as I'd forgotten elastic bands and then still struggled to get on the bike quickly!

The bike was a 2 lap affair with the 1st third all uphill, 2nd third all down hill and 3rd fairly flat back to the start/finish. I was fairly well up in my heat on the swim and so it was mainly people from the wave in front that I was overtaking but it was still good for motivation up the long drag at the start. By the end of the flat section on the first lap I was on my own and didn't see anyone else for the remainder of the 3rd lap, I can see this being one of the reasons that faster bikers deliberately put a faster estimated swim time than they can do as it would have been much better motivationally to be chasing people down. I felt reasonably good on the bike and was satisfied with 3rd fastest split 40 seconds down although I know there's a lot more to come once I start doing some faster work as all my biking has been very short spinning style intervals or steady rides.

I was anticipating the run being a real struggle with only being a week back into running and I wasn't disappointed! I felt pretty sluggish from the start and never felt like I was running strongly but I managed to maintain the pace around the 3 laps and had the added motivation of Rowena starting her first lap just before I did my third so I couldn't let her catch me! I was surprised when I saw the results to see that I was only 30 seconds down on the quickest run with the 4th fastest split, perhaps the cycling training has meant that my running legs haven't gone too much.

Overall I was 8th, see results, 3mins down on the winner.

This week had been a good week with lots of good biking and feeling like I was starting to belong in the fast ERC road rides that go out on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Unfortunately I woke up on Saturday morning feeling a bit snivelly and an hour into the ERC ride realised that I was getting worse quite quickly so turned round and went home, a shame as I was planning on a 4-5hr ride and then another decent ride on Sunday. I feel pretty dreadful today and so I'm off training and just hoping that I can myself right to support Ant and Bruce in the early hours of Thursday morning and especially to start my own JOGLE ride on Saturday morning.

Overdosing on vitamin C, water, garlic and fresh fruit and veg although it's probably a case of shutting the gate after the horse has bolted!!

Fortnight's Training

Monday - To complete

Tuesday -

Wednesday -

Thursday -

Friday -

Saturday - ERC ride 2 hours

Sunday - East Fife Tri and 30min cool down ride
Monday - 40 min run
Tuesday - 2hr ERC ride
Wednesday - 90min ride to Coldrain
Thursday - 90min ride to Edinburgh
Friday - 60 min run
Saturday - First hour of ERC ride and hour home (Ill)
Sunday - Off (Ill)

03/04/11 - Open5 Grizedale

2011-04-07T21:07:00.004+01:00

The final race of this year's Open 5 series took place on Sunday in the mountain biking mecca of Grizedale in the Lake District. We woke on the morning in the Halliday race bus (otherwise known as my parent's motorhome) a few miles from the race centre to a rather grey day and worries of a similar day to the previous race in the Dales. Fortunately by the time we had registered and prepared for the start the Spring weather broke through and there were plenty of people sporting shorts and t-shirts.

Photo: James Kirby

The race for me was one of those days when you set a plan and execute it perfectly, only for the plan to be not be what it should have been!!

Having not run for ~8 weeks I decided that it would be sensible to run first for a shorter than normal time and then get out and clear the bike. This strategy seemed even better when I saw the points available with those over the other side of the road only 30 points in total and the rest fairly compact with two peripheral 5 pointers also easy to drop.

I cleared the controls that I planned in 1h15 including a small wobble on 33 and a stop for a dodgy stomach!! I headed out hard on the bike but my legs were not enjoying the change from running to biking with my muscles really feeling the effect of the time off running. I also realised I had put my saddle to high and I was having to stretch for the pedals causing my calves to cramp and so before the main descent to 16 I had to stop and adjust it.

My technical descending has been improving, especially now having full-suspension and I was pleased with being able to ride the whole of the bridleway marked as technical without having to dab. My legs were starting to come to me by the time of the climb to 20, which was a good job as it is apparently called the Alpe d'Huez of the Lakes! The control had been moved earlier in the week and so I lost a little time double checking I was in the right place but not a lot as it was a very obvious location.

The next descent was great fun and soon I was up in the forest to the east of Grizedale and back where I had run previously. This control proved harder to find than it should have been and I fell into the trap of discussing it with other people also looking and not thinking clearly. Eventually I realised that the run map would have more detail and after checking that it became clear I was one wall junction too far along and eventually found it pretty easily, amazed that I had ridden past it previously.

Having lost ~5-10 minutes I pushed hard and made the decision to head out and back to 5 and commit to clearing the bike controls which I thought would be a close shave. After collecting the next couple of controls it became obvious that I would comfortably clear the bike and so I backed off for the last few kms and still finished with 25 mins to spare.

In hindsight I could have definitely got all but the far away 20 pointer on the run and could possibly have cleared it at a push.

Fortunately 560 points was just enough to win the male solo although I was comfortably beaten by the male pair from Keswick Bikes. The race has given me a lot of confidence in my biking legs which should be further enhanced by the John O'Groats to Lands End ride which is now only a fortnight away.

A special mention to Rowena and Jess who decided in the week before the race to enter and stormed away with the female pairs in their first and second adventure races respectively. Even better is that Rowena seems to have been bitten by the adventure racing bug and so we may even be able to race together some time in the future!!

Otherwise it was a tricky week for training with a lot on in the evenings with work, but to be honest the rest probably did me good for the weekend.

Weeks Training
Monday - Off
Tuesday - Off
Wednesday - Circuits pm
Thursday - Arthurs Seat Bike intervals
Friday - Swimming am, Hour run pm
Saturday - Lake District Walk
Sunday - Open5

27/03/11 - What a Difference a Day Makes

2011-03-28T19:41:00.006+01:00

First night out for a long time on Thursday to celebrate Rowena's last ever university lecture and remember now why it's been a long time!

Friday was a right off with the previously planned 6am swim never going to happen and even if I did I would probably have been zig-zagging all over the lane!!

Saturday was a disaster, I went out with Rowena for a couple of hours with the plan being to then carry on for another couple of hours to her parents whilst she drove. Even at a slower than normal pace I felt so lethargic and had no power in my legs at all and was pretty depressed about how I was feeling by the end! I decided to ditch the rest of the ride and hoped I'd felt better the next day but I wasn't feeling too good about things.

After a good night's sleep I woke up on Sunday still feeling pretty sluggish and seriously considered not going out. However, I knew that I needed to get back on it and so forced myself out on my planned 170km route around Perthshire and Fife, eventually ending up at Anstruther to meet Rowena and parents for the famous fish and chips. The first hour was pretty hard going and I was not looking forward to the rest of the ride although the return of a warm sun for the first time this year was very welcome. I gradually felt my legs returning to me and by about 2 hours in I felt like I was riding pretty strongly. Listening to the IMtalk podcast combined with the good weather made the time go pretty quickly and before long I was heading down in to Dunkeld after the beautiful ride up and over the A822.

On the next section my Garmin decided that it didn't like my pre-programmed route and tried diverting me around the Firth of Tay, presumably to avoid the toll bridge but not that particularly helpful when I'm on roads that I don't know particularly well. Still, the pace was still good and my average had creeped above the 30kph mark. The sun across the Firth of Tay was fantastic and it really inspired me to keep pushing. I had to stop in St Andrews to pick up some more water as my usual 2 bottles wasn't enough given the increased temperatures.

I was due to meet Rowena and parents at 6pm but my faster than expected pace meant I was going to be early and so I headed around the coast via Crail instead of heading straight to Anstruther. This was the hardest part of the ride but I was wanting to push all the way to 180km as this is the distance I will have to do in my June Ironman. I was pleased with 5:49 for the distance which would have been respectable in a race on that route which had around 2000m climbing, especially on a road bike rather than TT and good to know that I can definitely ride the distance.

Fish and Chips was a great reward and I was surprised that I didn't feel particularly tired. Unfortunately it's not all good news as I've woken up this morning (Monday) with the ball of my left foot very sore, if anyone has any relevant advice I'd be pleased to hear it, I have read that I should move my cleat back a little although wary of tinkering given that I've never had problems there before.

Weeks Training
Monday - Spinning and Weights am, Circuits pm
Tuesday - Swimming am, Glentress Red Route pm
Wednesday - Spinning am, Circuits pm
Thursday - Off
Friday - Hungover
Saturday - 2hr easy ride with Rowena am
Sunday - 192km Perthshire Ride pm

20/03/11 - Lake District Weekend and Team Training

2011-03-21T21:32:00.007Z

A couple of weeks since last writing and quite a lot has happened! John O'Groats to Lands End is all finalised, the bike is in at the workshop getting some sturdier tyres and making sure everything else if tickity boo, the accommodation is all sorted and transport arranged, can't wait now.

The weekend before last Rowena and I headed down to the Lakes. It started badly as we nearly didn't make it out of Edinburgh due to the snow and petrol stations with no fuel. As a result I didn't start my Fred Whitton attempt until after 11am. It was a pretty miserable day and whilst the air temperature wasn't too bad, I was wet through after about 20mins and never really got warm. I made good time over Kirkstone, Honister, Newlands and Whinlatter but was starting to get a bit disheartened and was hoping to see Rowena by the side of the road to give me an excuse to stop. She wasn't there and so I carried on; however on the descent into Lorton some of the crap that was all over the roads due to the rain got into my eye and I had to stop to get it out. Those few minutes stationary were enough for my body temp to drop right down and soon I was shivering uncontrollably. I made the decision to call it a day, particularly as the late start meant I would have been doing Hardknott and Wrynose in the dark, and made my way to a pub and called Rowena to pick me up. Still, a good 4hr + ride and at good pace, at Buttermere I would have been in the top quarter of last year's race despite being on a mountain bike and not have any other riders to work with.

I made up for missing the final two passes by riding them from our B&B at Hawkshead (Howe Farm which is highly recommended if you're looking for somewhere in the area) with Rowena on Sunday, a much nicer day and some good views from the top.

This weekend was Team Accelerate training in the Peak District with a focus on skills. We spent Saturday afternoon with a MTB tutor, focussing on cornering technique and general bike positioning, something I definitely need to work on. We went out for a fun night ride which became less fun as my lights started to fail about half way round, must remember to check my batteries next time!

Sunday was white water kayaking at Matlock and I ... was rubbish! I'm sure I used to be quite good at it when I was younger in the scouts but maybe my memory is conveniently hazy. Caz and Julia looked good, Kev and Al were solid if not the most stylish and Gareth and I appeared to be having a competition for who could capsize the most which ended in a pools friendly score draw at 2-2! I seem to have the opposite instincts from what I ought to be doing, especially with feeling like I should be on my upstream edge rather than downstream. Still, it was good fun and definitely motivated me to do some more.

I've started going to Edinburgh Triathletes midweek swim sessions that start at the ungodly hour of 6am. As a result I have been evicted to the sofa bed in the living room so I'm the only one that the 5.45am alarm wakes up!! However, the group environment is something I feel I need in order to get my swimming back up to a respectable level and you feel great for the rest of the day!

Other training has been going well, with a few sessions missed due to work commitments but generally managing to keep a consistent level up and the biking is really starting to come on. I've entered a road race for the first time in a long time the weekend after JOGLE and hopefully the miles will give me the legs to put in a good performance.

I'm planning on starting running again in the next couple of weeks, building it up very slowly so that hopefully I am able to be training properly again come May which will give me a couple of months before Forestman.

Fortnight's Training

Monday - Spinning am,

Tuesday - 80 length swim

Wednesday - Spinning am, Circuits pm

Thursday - Swimming am, Circuits and Bike intervals pm

Friday - Swimming am (6x200m)

Saturday - 4.25hr Bike Lakes

Sunday - 3hr Bike Lakes

Monday - Spinning and Weights am, Circuits pm

Tuesday - Edinburgh Triathletes swimming am (3200 yards)

Wednesday - Circuits pm

Thursday - Off

Friday - Off

Saturday - MTB Skills training and 3hr Night Ride

Sunday - 3hr White Water Kayaking

06/03/11 - Quick one this week

2011-03-06T22:28:00.001Z

Not got much time for blogging this week so will be a quick one. The week was fairly standard, with 3 swimming sessions - wonders never cease! Starting to feel a bit more like normal in the pool (quite slow rather than very slow!) which bodes well for being in decent shape or the Forestman in June. Cycling is also coming on and pleased to get some good mileage in the legs today with a long ride out into the Borders. I've never been out to Talla before but I'll certainly be back, the sun came out just before I got there and the scenery was amazing, no doubt helped by the tailwind I got down that stretch! Around 90 miles and 5 hours on a cold and windy day is a good pace at this time of year. The Garmin track is below:

We spent Saturday having a relaxing day in a hotel near Glasgow and went for a fantastic meal nearby in East Kilbride, not somewhere you would normally associate with haute cuisine but the open seafood lasagne I had at Peters Seafood was one of the tastiest things I've eaten in a long time. They were also extremely accommodating with Rowena's veggie requests, definitely recommended if you are in the area.

Weeks Training
Monday - Spinning am, Circuits pm
Tuesday -Swimming am, Bike Intervals pm
Wednesday - Off
Thursday - Swimming am, Arthur's Seat Bike Intervals pm
Friday - Swimming am, Gym lunchtime
Saturday - 2hr easy ride with Rowena am
Sunday - 142km ride in the Borders pm

27/02/11 - Picking up the Bike Mileage

2011-02-27T15:32:00.012Z

With the John O' Groats to Lands End ride only 2 months away I need to start upping the mileage on the bike. I've been doing plenty of spinning and intervals in the gym but there's no substitute for miles on the road, and the sudden onset of Spring gave me a perfect opportunity this weekend. We spent the day on Saturday with Jess and James to celebrate their engagement, starting with Glentress on Saturday morning. We did the full red route and a couple of laps of the skills park, giving us a nice 2 hour ride on a sunny Scottish morning with the Yeti proving it's worth on the bumpier later sections of the run. I had my new Garmin Edge 800 out for the first time and it's a great bit of kit although not a great deal of use on trails except for reviewing after, the file can be seen here.

We spent the afternoon eating and watching England win the Rugby (with two not particularly happy Scots!) Before we went out to watch the entertaining Blues Brothers in the evening we had a selection of canapés on the cake stand that I got for my birthday, pretty tasty!!

Sunday brought another fantastic day and so I changed my plan of cycling to Glentress to watch the duathlon and headed out along the East Lothian coast. Rowena came with me for the first bit up to nearly Aberlady before heading back to make sure she got back in time to watch Scotland lose again! I continued on to North Berwick and then cut inland to Gifford before heading back home via Tranent, the exact route can be seen here. Around 3 hours and nearly 90km, not a bad start but need to crank it up over the next few weeks.

Training during the week was ok, although I was very tired at the start of the week following the Cross Country and night out on Saturday last week. At least I'm having a prolonged period in the office which makes training a lot easier although this could end at any point.

Weeks Training
Monday - Off
Tuesday -Swimming am, Bike Intervals pm
Wednesday - Spinning and weights am, Rowing intervals and kettlebells pm
Thursday - Off
Friday - Swimming am, Arthurs Seat Bike Intervals pm
Saturday - Glentress Red Route am
Sunday - 90km East Lothian Road Ride, Yoga for Athletes

20/02/11 - Scottish Cross Country Champs

2011-02-20T20:37:00.003Z

I have been sticking well to my plan of not running to try and get the bones in my foot sorted out but had already said I would run the National X-C. I didn't want to let the team down and so headed across to Falkirk with Rowena for the finale of the cross-country season. The course was much more to my liking than the 4km champs; plenty of mud and hills, a real cross-country course. The start was carnage with around 450 men toeing the line, and the first few hundred metres was a bit of a procession if you weren't right at the front. The first significant hill was around 1km into the lap and it spread out fairly quickly from then on. I tried to go fairly steady at the start but as usual went out pretty quickly still. I expected to be stronger than those around me on the hills, but actually struggled and lost a couple of places each time on the longer climbs. I think it was partly to do with the lack of running but also the extra few kilos I'm carrying at the moment. The descents were another matter though, cross-country runners can't run down hill, especially if there's a bit of mud!! I must have made 4-5 places on every decent downhill for no extra energy.

I started to suffer towards the end of the 2nd lap of 3 and the last was a real battle but I managed to just about hold my position and was pleased to finish in 100th, especially as my pre-race goal was to be in the top 100! Not sure how accurate the course distance was but if correct I'm pretty happy with 45.50 given the tough course and my limited running. There were some excellent results, with Murray Strain in 5th, Duncan Coombs in 36th and Hector Haines in 46th. Full results can be seen here.

Rowena was disappointed with her run, fading a little after a very strong start but still finishing in 67th.

The rest of the week's training was fairly decent, although had some lingering fatigue from skiing and the travelling involved. Glentress this afternoon was fun, some snow on the upper parts of the red trail and it was the first time that I had done the Spooky Wood section of the red run which was awesome, especially on my new full-suss bike.

One bit of very exciting news that I had this week was that Jess and James have got engaged, with the wedding planned in summer 2012. We have a fun day planned next Saturday to celebrate and looking forward to seeing the ring!!

Weeks Training
Monday - Spinning am, Circuits pm
Tuesday -Swimming am
Wednesday - Spinning am, Rowing intervals and kettlebells pm
Thursday - Bike and rowing intervals pm
Friday - Swimming pm
Saturday - 12km National Cross Country Champs, 45.40
Sunday - Glentress Red Route pm

13/02/11 - Chamonix!!

2011-02-13T17:00:00.004Z

Just got back from the airport after a fantastic 3 days of skiing in Chamonix with Rowena and Bené, a french girl that Rowena met whilst studying in Oslo. We're already talking about when we can next get out there, whether winter or summer.

I was worried about the snow before we left as that area of the Alps has not seen any for about a month, almost unheard of. Fortunately they clearly have contingency plans for such circumstances and whilst there was little opportunity for going off-piste the pistes were in decent condition, especially early in the morning before the sun got to it. And wow, what a sun, we had virtually unbroken clear skies and sun for all 3 days of skiing and it was incredibly warm for early February. The benefit of the dearth of snow was that the pistes were very quiet and not a single queue for a lift meaning we could ski as much and as quickly as we wanted.

The French cuisine was fantastic as ever, why can't we have boulangeries selling freshly baked baguettes of that quality in Britain?! All in all a fantastic few days off with good skiing, food, weather and company!

I trained pretty hard from Monday to Wednesday knowing I wouldn't get the opportunity to do anything whilst out in Chamonix and skiing is always good strength training so not too worried about losing much fitness. My elbow is still feeling a bit strange and so I'm heading to the doctors tomorrow morning to see if it could be an infection.

Week's Training

Monday - Spinning am, Circuits pm

Tuesday - Swimming am, Bike intervals pm

Wednesday - Spinning am

Thursday to Sunday - Skiing!!

Open 5 Kirkby Stephen

2011-02-07T22:37:00.004Z

Wow, what a day! Teaming up with Matt for his first ever adventure race at the latest in the Open 5 series. The only other time we have competed as a pair was at the 2008 OMM in Borrowdale and we all know what happened then (check this video if you don't!)

Arriving at registration we knew it wasn't going to be pretty but it wasn't until you were up on the tops that the full scale of the weather hit you. We decided to bike first because of my foot problems (see posts below) and set off with the intention of getting the majority of the controls. We were riding hard but didn't seem to be going anywhere fast! Matt got blown off his bike once and we resorted to running with bikes when into the wind even on the flat. We got to the far end in not much over an hour and a half and thought we were on for roughly a 3.5/1.5 split which usually works pretty well. Unfortunately the riding at the far end was slow going and we ended up taking over 4 hours despite having no navigation problems and only stopping once for ~5mins to put on jackets.

The tough riding also put paid to my running legs and for the first time in a long time I was the weaker team member. Matt took all of the wind and pushed me up one of the hills near the end, a rather sobering experience! We managed to get 6 fairly high scoring run controls but the extra time on the bike ended our hopes of getting a high enough score to win. Both of the really high scores (Kim Collison in the Male Solo and the winning Male Pair) ran first for ~2 hours and did a nice compact bike route taking in most of the big points. Still, we managed (a rather distant) 2nd place which was a good result for Matt's first AR.

In hindsight we should have cut the bike shorter but not too disappointed overall as we executed the route that we decided on well and our bike pace was good when comparing with other strong bikers who biked first such as Andy Conn and John Houlihan.

Sister Jo and Eddie Winslow had a fantastic race in the Mixed Pairs, winning by nearly 50 points and with a score that would have placed them 3rd on the male pairs.

Big kudos also to other sister Jess, who managed 4th place in her first ever adventure race, only 4 points behind 3rd on a day when I'm pretty sure I would have struggled racing as a solo.

Despite only wearing Skins shorts and base layer, race top and OMM Kamleika smock I was more than warm enough whilst racing, a testament to the quality of the kit. It wasn't until I finished that the shivers really kicked in!

06/02/11 - Plans for the Year

2011-02-07T22:04:00.003Z

Pretty crap training week, but getting on a plan for the next couple of months. Decided to pretty much have 2 months off running (with the exception of the Scottish Cross-Country Champs which I have already committed to) to let my foot settle down. Having had a stress fracture a few years ago I know that if I carried on it would have been an acute fracture. So I've decided to focus on my swimming and biking along with a bit of rowing and other strength stuff.

With the Forestman Iron Distance triathlon in June a lot will depend on what swim and bike shape I'm in, I know that if I'm really bike fit and have done some running before the race then I'll be able to run, that's what I've always done. Especially with the weather improving and the days getting longer it's time to hit the road again.

Had a weird experience on Friday morning when I woke up with a very sore and swollen elbow for apparently no reason. The pain has eased off (I did circuits today) but the swelling is still there. I'm going to leave it for the rest of the week and go and see someone if the swelling is still there.

I'm also planning a big challenge for the Easter/May Bank Holiday Weekend week. I've got the three days off between the two long weekends giving me 11 days off. In this time I'm planning to do John O'Groats to Lands End but on a scenic route. Roughly going down the west coast of Scotland, through the Lake District, into the Yorkshire Dales, through the Pennines, then the Peak District before the boring bit through my old home in Coventry, down to London and the South Downs, west across through the New Forest, Salisbury Plain, Quantocks, Exmoor, Dartmoor and finish. Hoping to do it with minimal kit and staying at Youth Hostels/friends and family. Route will hopefully be finalised in the next couple of weeks and will post it up on here.

Off to Chamonix on Wednesday for 3 days skiing, although hopefully they'll have some snow in the next couple of days!!

Rowena's starting blogging on a new adventure sport and travel website, www.magneticjunction.com, see this blog post for an overview of the idea behind the website, which is soon to feature an article on Team Accelerate's very own Guiness World Record holder George Bullard.

Week's Training

Monday - Spinning am

Tuesday - Circuits in Hotel Room pm

Wednesday - Off

Thursday - 5 x 7 mins mixed bike intervals, 30 mins rowing intervals, 20min kettlebell circuit

Friday - Swimming am

Saturday - Off

Sunday - Open5 Kirkby Stephen (see separate report)

30/01/11 - First Cross Country Race for 7 Years!

2011-01-31T21:38:00.005Z

Another week up north with work, restricting training to the gym, but managing to get some consistency in. Unfortunately this has led to some discomfort in my foot, close to where I had a stress fracture in 2005 and so I am taking this week off from running to try and let it settle down.

The weekend saw a fantastic trip to the blue route at Glentress with Rowena and some other friends on Saturday to try out the new full suspension mountain bike. The trail wasn't particularly challenging but it was good to be able to get up some speed and not have to worry about anything nasty lurking around the corner! The bike took a bit of getting used to as the position is slightly different but after a while it felt great.

Sunday was the Scottish National 4km Champs for my first x-c race since I left school in 2004. It was as tough as expected and I suffered for my lack of speed training. Still, I didn't disgrace myself and finished in the middle of the pack and also in the middle of my new club, Edinburgh AC's runners. I actually quite enjoyed it but will be looking to do some longer races, starting with the 12km national champs in February.

Weeks Training
Monday - Off
Tuesday - 8 x 3/1 Bike, 20min Hilly Profile Treadmill run pm
Wednesday - Weights am, 40min Hilly Profile Treadmill run pm
Thursday - 4 x 7min fartlek bike, 8 x 3/1 Treadmill @ 16kph, 3% incline
Friday - 20min easy run, weights pm
Saturday - Boxacise am, Glentress MTB 2hours pm
Sunday - 4km National Cross Country Champs 14min am, Yoga for Athletes pm

23/01/11 - A tough week at work but some good training

2011-01-23T20:07:00.002Z

Up north again with work so tough to get the training in that I would normally have planned and restrictions on time mean that I'm having to do most of my training during the week in the hotel gym.

Still felt like a good weeks training and starting to feel like I'm getting back into some sort of fitness after the festive break and struggling with flu for a week at the beginning of the month.

Saturday and Sunday saw the Edinburgh Uni Big orienteering weekend; a tricky street race around Dumbliedykes and Carlton hill on the Saturday which I took a while to get into but had a decent run in the end. No speed at the moment and rustiness at sprint style 'o' but pretty happy, results here.

Sunday was a more traditional orienteering race on Arthurs Seat with lots of climb and route choice. I've done a number of races on the area before but think that this was the best that I had done with the amount of gratuitous climb minimised. I had a pretty clean run so but felt slow on the hills losing quite a lot of time on the legs straight up the hills but pleased with my navigation and an 8th place finish with no-one ahead of me that I feel I should beat right now.

In between the two was the Ceilidh held in a local community centre, great fun and probably as sweaty as the rest of the weekend!

Fairly quiet weekend up next before my first Open 5 of the season racing with Matt and then a long weekend away skiing in Chamonix with Rowena!!

Week's training
Monday - 45mins spinning am, 20mins @ 15kph on treadmill in hotel + weights pm
Tuesday - 6 x 3/1min cycling am, 40mins @ 15kph treadmill pm
Wednesday - 20 mins @ 16kph treadmill + 2% incline pm
Thursday - off
Friday - 4 x 7min fartlek biking + weights am, 40min run Arthurs Seat pm
Saturday - Trying new bike + boxacise am, Edinburgh City Race 52mins pm
Sunday - Holyrood Park Orienteering am, Hockey match pm 3-0 victory and I scored!!

2011

2011-01-15T16:03:00.002Z

Well, 2010 ended disappointingly with a poor performance in Abu Dhabi, the long and short of it is that we are currently a long way off the top teams in terms of speed and Caz and I (in particular) are not particularly good at coping with heat!! Anyway, onwards and upwards in 2011.

I have two main races that I am aiming at in 2011, the Forestman Ironman Triathlon on 26 June and the Coast to Coast adventure race over the August Bank Holiday weekend. Having done a couple of Half-Ironmans in the past this will be my first step up to the full distance and I am hoping to get close to 10 hours although this is certainly not a race to be chasing times with a hilly bike profile and an off-road run.

It is looking likely that I will be doing the C2C in a mixed team of three and we'll certainly be gunning for the top of the podium in this race.

There will be plenty of other smaller races along the way and I'm quite excited to be racing with my little brother Matt for the first time in an Adventure Race at the next Open 5 at Kirkby Stephen.

The rest of Team Accelerate are as busy as ever with teams entered for a number of the big World Series races this year, for updates on everyone's progress see the team's Facebook page and shortly the new website which is in the final stages of preparation prior to launch.

Press Coverage of Abu Dhabi

2010-12-04T11:19:00.003Z

Off to Abu Dhabi on Tuesday as long as the weather lets me leave! The snow has proved great for resistance running and is probably as close to sand running as you can get. Unfortunately the air temperature is somewhat different!

We've had some good coverage in the northern running guide and a press release from the organisers is starting to reveal the level of the challenge that we're undertaking!

Belated Update

2010-11-22T21:07:00.009Z

It's been a busy few months with racing, exams and a move back to Scotland so apologies for the recent lack of blogging, I'm going to try and be a bit more regular from now on.

The big race to report on is the Adidas Terrex Adventure Race over the August bank holiday weekend, part of the Adventure Race World Series. A race report of our 2nd place finish from teammate Dave can be found here.

There was also an hour long highlights programme shown on Channel 4 a couple of weekends ago which can still be seen here.

Straight after the race I moved up to Edinburgh and am now living and working up here. It's fantastic to be back in a fantastic city, living with Rowena and great training locations & partners. Unfortunately it makes getting back down to England for training and racing more difficult and so the number of domestic races I attend next year is likely to be much lower than previously.

The weekend just gone was the Team Accelerate annual review with a look back at the year just gone and more importantly planning for the year ahead. It's exciting times with a further expansion onto the world scene with teams being sent to the World Series races in Switzerland, Sweden and the hopefully the World Champs in Australia along with a number of teams at the big domestic race of the year, the Open Adventure Coast to Coast.

It was also a chance to get our hands on some snazzy new kit from Skins and X-Bionic and as well as a traditional photoshoot up in Grindsbrook above Edale we had an interesting shoot in a studio that is normally reserved for fetish shoots! Photos will start making there way up onto the team Facebook page.

Personally I have my final ACA exams in July and so can't make the Switzerland or Sweden races but all being well I'll be at the C2C and in Oz.

I'm also entered for an Ironman in June and plan to do a number of other smaller Adventure Races in the UK.

Up first though is the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge in December, with Dave, Julia, Caz and I flying out a fortnight tomorrow. It promises to be a long tough race over 6 days, with the highlight of the race a 2-day 125km trek across the empty quarter. Hopes are high of a good finish although it will be interesting to see where we stand at the top level on a stage race with speeds much faster than on the expedition style races.

Photos from O24

2010-08-03T22:04:00.005+01:00

The start

Coming in off the kayaks

Arriving at the transition prior to the long trek

Setting off on the long trek, complete with sausage pasta pot

Before the orienteering on Sunday morning

These two photos probably sum up the second half of our race fairly well ... (sorry Kev!!)

Running up the hill near the end of the orienteering

Finally finishing

Check out the ankle tan/dirt lines!

Passing out seconds after sitting down!

In an ice bath ... the things we do!

Weekend Training

2010-08-02T20:17:00.005+01:00

A good weekend's training in the Peaks with a monster 7 hour ride from Derby to Sheffield on the Saturday and a long run from Sheffield to Hathersage on the Sunday. Paying for it today though as my knees are incredibly sore, probably as a result of muscle tightness from the O24 and my kneecap then not tracking properly.

Route available here

Open 24 North Wales - pics to follow

2010-08-02T20:12:00.000+01:00

I teamed up with Kev Honeysett for the final and longest event of the Open Endurance Series, the Open24. Prior to the weekend we knew that the event hub was at Betws-y-Coed and that at some point we would be coasteering, kayaking, running and biking but other details were kept secret until registration the day before.

We arrived on Friday evening and I was in good spirits as I had just heard that I had passed my latest chartered accountancy exams and also that my transfer to the Edinburgh office had been approved (finally some hills to train in!)

As we had guessed the coasteering was to be off the coast of Anglesey and this was followed by a paddle around the west coast into the Menai Straits and then a series of run/mtb stages including a long night run over the Glyders and Tryfan. The final kit bag packing took longer than expected as usual and we eventually headed back to the luxury of my parent’s motorhome at around 9pm. I ate as much as I possibly could which I reckon was around 250g pasta with meatballs, cheese and tomato sauce and 8 pieces of banana cake! That might explain why I didn’t sleep too well as it was uncomfortable whenever I rolled onto my front. We woke at 5.45am forced some porridge and bagels down and drove down to the town where we picked up our route book complete with the point scores for each control.

The weather had turned overnight and we were told that Option B was in force which meant that the kayaking would only happen in the Menai Straits to avoid the chop out in the open sea.

The first stage was coasteering from Rhoscolyn which involved a short swim across the bay and then a series of scrambling over and jumping off rocky outcrops whilst trying to avoid the numerous jellyfish that had congregated to watch the spectacle. This stage was relatively straightforward and being untimed meant a nice leisurely, if a little cold start to the day. The transport from the finish of the coasteering to the main race start in Rhosneigr by powerboat was one of the highlights of the race although I’m glad I’m not someone that suffers from seasickness!

We had about an hour to wait before the start so headed to a nearby café for a mug of tea and a final check over the maps. The start was at 30 second intervals in team number order with a quick run to the bikes before a fast and fairly flat blast around Anglesey to the Menai Straits taking in a trail run at Newborough on the way. The pace was fairly high from the start and having out and back sections allowing you to see other teams around kept it that way. We had started a couple of minutes after Stuart and Simon from For Goodness Shakes and Kim and Neil from Inov8 and could see we were pretty close to them over the first half of the bike. We had a swift change at the trail run start and had a decent trot around the 10km route, catching Neil and Kim and closing in on those ahead towards the end. We were again quick in transition which was probably the biggest positive to come out of the weekend’s race and set off on the bikes across to the Straits at the same time as Stuart and Simon. We managed to put a couple of minutes into them by the start of the kayak and hoped to extend it as we were in the faster Nelo boat.

The kayak stage went ok but we had a few issues and in fact ended up losing a bit of time to the teams around us. The practice we had had in the Nelo the weekend before had involved getting in with a solid bank to help us, the deep water starts that were necessary here were a different kettle of fish. The nelo cockpits are very small and I have to sit up on the back before wriggling my way in, not ideal when the boat ends up rocking all over the place and definitely something we need to practice before the Terrex. Kev started suffering with cramp, especially when we had to get out of the kayak for the checkpoints and the first control on a buoy took us about 4 attempts to reach as we circled around getting dragged by the tide/wind! We managed to regain the time lost in transition and amazingly after just over 5 hours of racing the top 3 teams were within 3 minutes of each other with the eventual winners John Houlihan and Tom Gibbs from Adidas Terrex just under 15 mins down.

We set a good pace on the bike section and decided to drop our first control of the race in order to try and hit the next transition window early to give us the most possible time on what we had highlighted as the most important stage of the race, the long night run over the Glyders. Towards the end of the stage Kev started suffering more badly with cramp and the first signs were showing that perhaps we had started off too fast. The ride up the bridleway to transition was a lot hillier than it looked on the map and in hindsight the sensible option would probably have been to use the main road up the other side of the valley. We were the 4^th team into the transition and on leaving had more than 30mins lead on teams that had chosen a different control to drop and so had 10 more points than us and 52mins on John and Tom, the only team to clear the whole of that stage who had 25 points more. At this stage I felt we were in a pretty good position.

We took it easy out of transition and took time to take on some proper food with pasta and fig rolls being my tipple. The plan was to clear all but 2 or 3 of the run controls and I felt without any significant problems we ought to manage it comfortably within the 7.5 hours we had for the stage. Unfortunately the significant problems started fairly shortly afterwards! We took in the two fairly low controls near the lakes and then headed back across to those above the previous transition and met a stream of other teams coming up. We had a chat with Bruce and Nicola who were going well but the relentless hills were taking their toll and we had to stop to try and rejuvenate Kev. The cloud had closed right in and for the rest of the stage you could rarely see more than a couple of metres ahead, especially with the headtorch beam reflecting off the mist.

Descending off Y Garn we had some trouble finding a control on a fence corner as the paths marked on the map were incredibly difficult to follow with the visibility so poor although looking at the splits not too many other teams had problems and we lost around 15 mins! Unfortunately that was nothing compared to what happened over the next 2.5 hours, we started our climb up the Glyders and abandoned hope of actually finding the path pretty early on. Kev’s cramp was really starting to kick in and fatigue was taking over. It took an eternity to reach the ridge and when we turned left along the ridge we were surprised to find another team coming back towards us saying they had just come from the same control as us. I checked my compass (which I should have done earlier!!) and we were heading 180 degrees the wrong way along the ridge! At the time I couldn’t for the life of me understand how it had happened but reviewing my route after we had skirted around the right of the summit on the ascent and so hit the ridge from the other side and in fact only travelled about 100m too far.

We searched for the next control together but couldn’t find it anywhere, it was on a boulder stack and we spent the next 45mins searching every boulder in a 100m radius of the path junction (probably checking each one more than once) but to no avail. Eventually we had to give up and move on. Looking at my route tracker we were in the right place and must’ve just been extremely unlucky not to find the SI box. The plan then was to descend off the east and down the slope to the control on the waterfall, but I was worried about losing too much height and we managed to somehow cross the main path without noticing and descended off a pretty frightening descent where we met Jo and Al. We both had conflicting views of where we actually were (they were right!) and we set off in different directions. Fortunately we stumbled across Tryfan (you can’t really miss it even in the mist) which allowed us to relocate and rethink our route. Kev’s tiredness meant that we had to take the shortest route to the next transition and only picked up 4 controls on the way, missing a lot that we had initially intended on doing. This also meant that the route we did for the controls we ended up getting was very inefficient and involved a lot more climbing than necessary.

We caught back up with Al and Jo and pushed the last bit into transition as we knew it was tight with it closing at 3am. We rushed through transition and then took our time once out to fill up water and get some food on board. Tiredness was clearly starting to kick in as we headed out of transition the wrong way and nearly rode off the map only for a whopping great lake that we weren’t meant to be seeing to hint that we might be heading the wrong way.

The change from feet to wheels seemed to re-invigorate Kev and we quickly passed a group of teams that had left transition at a similar time. This section was quite short but I managed to make another stupid nav error around the control at the bottom of the forest and so we had to drop one of the 25 pointers in order to make the transition cut-off.

The final run section was a real slog and we very rarely broke into a trot although the pace of the teams around didn’t seem to be much better. At the end of this stage was a descent into some disused mines for a hunt for 4 SI boxes. With all the other teams around it was quite fun but I wouldn’t have fancied it on my own! After pulling ourselves out of the mine on an inflatable kayak it was onto the bikes for the final time.

We pushed hard on this section and managed to maintain a decent pace despite the tiredness. I made a route choice error heading up to the short orienteering section and this meant we didn’t have enough time to head into the northern loop and so cruised back to the finish, nearly half an hour inside our allotted 24 hours. We scored 2645 points which was enough for 6^th place.

Looking back we maybe went too hard early on and should have rethought the planned route for the long run to take account of our physical condition at the start of the stage but these are things that I have learnt for future races and it’s good to get the mistakes out of the way now before the more important races later in the season.

The journey home was interesting, I had a map for discussion in one hand and a pillow in the other as I sat down but before I could put the pillow behind my head I was asleep and woke up 2.5 hours later just outside Coventry, definitely the best way to travel!

Thanks to James, Andy and the Open Adventure crew for another great race, Skins, New Balance, Mountain Hardwear, OMM, High 5, X-Socks, X-Bionic and Accelerate for keeping me warm, comfortable and energised throughout the race and my family for providing great support and unlimited replenishment after the race.

Roll on the Terrex.

ETU Champs Athlone

2010-07-07T21:14:00.006+01:00

It was an early start at 5.30am to get a big bowl of porridge and a bottle of High5 Energy Source Xtreme in long enough before the race start at 7.30am. I had slept surprisingly well as I often struggle to sleep properly the night before big races as I mull things over. The first thing I noticed was the noise of the wind whistling and the rain against the window, it was going to be an interesting day, especially on the bike. I left the apartment at 6.15 and walked down to transition for final preparations, there were a lot of people looking quite panicked running around with disc wheels as the organisers had made the decision to ban them due to the high winds. I wasn’t sure whether to be pleased as my 808s would now be amongst the fastest out there or worried that I’d struggle to handle the bike in the high winds, especially as most people appeared to be running less deep wheels on the front.

Fortunately everything with my bike was fine as we had to rack our bikes the night before (it certainly wasn’t hot enough for the tyres to burst!) but it still took me a while to drag myself away from transition as I always think I’ve overlooked something. I met up with the support crew and on went the baby oil and wetsuit and I had a High5 Caffeine Gel to give me a boost before the start. It was at this point that I started to get nervous as I thought about what might go wrong with the swim and how important it was to my overall chances. There was a bit of a wait to get into the water and it was a first for me with a deep water start all lined up along the elite start pontoon.

I’d only just had time to finish warming my wetsuit (!) when the starter sounded the horn and we were off. Although we were all strung out due to having to be touching the pontoon it was carnage at the start, by far the most aggressive swim I’ve ever done despite the number of athletes in each wave being much smaller than normal although I guess that comes with the importance of the race and the range of abilities being less than normal.

I thought I’d gone out quite hard but on sighting ahead seemed to be able to see everyone in front of me! Early on I caught an elbow to the goggles and a flailing hand on the nose and half expected to see red as I came up to breathe but fortunately it wasn’t too serious. After about 300m it had settled down and I was able to get onto the back of the second group. I felt like I was swimming ok but was conscious that there was quite a big gap developing ahead. The swim was one big loop in the Shannon coming back past the pontoon half way through and as I was approaching the far turnaround I could see the leaders coming back towards the pontoon for exit and I reckoned they were 250-300m ahead, not good as I had hoped to minimise my losses in the swim to 2-3mins.

I had my Dad by the swim exit to let me know the time gap to the leaders and I was disappointed but not overly surprised to hear that it was 4.48, my swim split being 23.11 which isn’t too bad for me although I think it might have been a little short. That put me in 91^st male overall and 18^th in my age-group, I had a lot of work to do on the bike!

The potentially short swim was made up by the epic transition, I decided to get my wetsuit off as soon as possible in order to do as much of the run with unrestricted legs, and this seemed to pay off as I was 2^nd fastest in my AG and 8^th overall for the transition although it was still 2.16. At this stage I wasn’t particularly confident on how the bike would go as my legs felt very sluggish running up from the river to the bikes.

It was a bit windy (and windy!) at the start of the bike and it took me a while to get my feet and shoes sorted. By the time I had reached the roundabouts a km or 2 in I was starting to feel better. My tactic for the race was to let it all hang out on the bike and at least put myself in contention for a decent place and hope that my run held itself together. Having recced the course on Friday I knew that the way out was the time to put the effort in as it would be hard to make up much time on the way back downhill with the wind. I was regularly passing people but still knew there were a number of people up ahead.

An advantage of the out and back course is that you know exactly how you’re doing when riders start coming back towards you, I had just seen a quite large group ahead when the leader (Craig Dale) came past the other way with the motorbike escort. I didn’t have my watch on me or know exactly where the turnaround was but it felt like I had caught up some time. I passed the big group which must’ve been the majority of the swim pack in front of me just before the turnaround and think I was just outside the top 10 in my wave and slightly higher in my age group as the wave included the 18-19 and 20-24 age-groups as well.

The way back was fun with the wind behind but I was regularly running out of gears and was unable to put much time into the riders I had just passed and only took another 2 places on the way back. Whilst I had a good bike split a consistently tougher route would’ve suited me as I was going well and unable to convert it into the time difference that I could’ve done on a different course. Nevertheless I was over the moon with a 55.04 bike split, 2^nd fastest in my age-group and 3^rd fastest overall which pulled me up from 91^st to 22^nd overall and 18^th to 7^th in my age-group. Fastest was an incredible 52.34 by the eventual winner of my age-group Bryan McCrystal, a quick google search reveals that he was 4^th in the 2009 Ireland Time Trial national champs so not a bad guy to be beaten by.

My T2 was a bit slow as my bike fell off the rack and I stopped to pick it up and re-rack it losing 15-20 seconds on the quickest. I exited T2 just behind a guy in my AG and quickly overtook him. I was running with an Irish guy in the age-group below and we used each other to pick off some more guys in front. It was hard to tell whereabouts I was overall but I knew that I was quite well up but probably out of the medals. I also had a faster running GB guy in my AG starting just behind me who caught me at the end of the first full lap of 4 and although I managed to stay with him for a short while I knew that I wouldn’t be able to sustain it. The run felt a lot tougher than when I had ran round it on the Thursday and the two short hills on each lap really knocked the stuffing out of me although I had great support from my parents, sister Jess and girlfriend Rowena which kept me going. Towards the end I knew that I couldn’t catch anyone in front but was having to work hard to make sure I wasn’t caught from behind and was glad to eventually cross the line in just under the magical 2 hour mark at 1.59.36. The run of 37.07 wasn’t as good as I might have hoped for although a few people have said that it was 4-500m long so not too far off a decent pace given that I had pushed the bike. I was 7^th in my AG and 15^th overall on the run although only 3 people were more than a minute quicker.

Overall I was 5^th in my AG, 1.23 off a medal and 13^th overall. Results can be found here. As usual, no-one that beat me was slower in the swim and in fact everyone in front of me was at least a minute quicker. The fact that I ended up 4.24 down on the fastest overall time and was 4.48 down in the swim tells its own story. I might be able to make up that sort of deficit in local races but when racing against higher calibre athletes I know I can be right up there on the bike and run but I’m certainly not going to take minutes out of them to make up for a weaker swim.

The afternoon was spent watching a very impressive performance by Alistair Brownlee in winning the elite race, ably supported by his brother. We then spent a couple of extra days in Ireland including heading out to Galway and Connemara national park for a relaxing couple of days during which I indulged myself in all the things that I haven't been eating for the past few months. I've managed to put on a remarkable 4kg in 4 days since the race, although I'm back on a sensible diet from tomorrow.

I need to have a think about my future triathlon racing as I think I would need to put in a lot of time, effort and money into specific coaching for swimming in order to achieve decent progress from my current position in Olympic distance racing. My competitive nature means that I don’t think I’d keep up the motivation to race at my current level with no real prospect of winning big races due to my poor swim.

I may be more suited to Middle Distance/Ironman racing where the swim makes up less of the total race time, although I would still need to improve my swim to race right at the sharp end. I’m thinking of aiming towards UK Half-Ironman at Wimbleball in June next year as the tough hilly course should suit me.

However, my focus for the next few months is on the Adidas Terrex adventure race in the Lakes at the end of August so it will be a big shift towards longer, slower training to ensure I can make it through 4 days of non-stop racing, I’ll also be looking to get some more kayak time as this is my weakest of the three main disciplines in the race.

I’ll then be racing the World Duathlon Champs in Edinburgh the weekend after, although only 4 days rest between the end of a 4 day non-stop (no/very little sleep) race and a 2 hour flat out duathlon is unlikely to yield as good a result as I might otherwise be capable of but being a course I enjoy and the city I went to university I couldn’t not race.

The final big race of the year is the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge in December, a 5 day stage adventure race in the UAE with some big prize money up for grabs and some gruelling stages including a 120km desert run section.

It's nearly time

2010-06-26T16:53:00.002+01:00

The whole year's training has been building up to next weekend's European Age-Group Champs in Ireland. I've got one more hard run interval session this evening and then a brick session tomorrow before starting the wind down. I travel out by ferry on Wednesday to give me a few days to get over travelling and suss out the course before the race on Sunday.

I have been asked by a few people what my hopes are and to be honest I don't really know. I've only done one triathlon so far this year which I won but the competition is going to be far stronger in Athlone. I do however have some targets based on my own performance and if I meet those then I ought to come away with a decent result.

Swim

My swim is still by far the weakest of the three disciplines although I am definitely stronger than this time last year. Using a wetsuit in the pool (without tumbles) I did 21.50 for 1500m and am about 1.5 mins slower without so if it all goes well and I am able to get on the right group then hopefully I can minimise my losses to 2-3mins.

Bike

It's been an odd season so far on the bike as I was quite depressed about my form early on as the first few time trials I did were very poor and my bike speed at Clumber Duathlon and Big Cow duathlon was way down on what I had hoped. However, after a big week in Spain I came back much stronger and in the last couple of weeks have been flying in TTs, culminating in a new pb of 21.16 for 10 miles last night. I'm hoping to be right at the top end of the bike splits and put myself in contention for the start of the run. Having biked 56.28 for 25 miles last week I hope to ride within a couple of minutes of that if the course is accurately measured.

Run

Running has always been my strongest discipline and I was in decent form early in the season. I've not done any racing or testing recently but think that I should be in decent form. I'd hope to run 35min pace off the bike and although I doubt that that will be the fastest it should give me a decent finish if I'm able to execute the bike and swim as I hope.

Overall I'm hopeful for a decent finish but not knowing the level of competition I'll be happy if I race to my potential. (cliché I know!)

To follow the results go to www.triathlone.com which should be updated fairly quickly after the race.

Ultra-Fit Triathlon

2010-05-27T17:35:00.005+01:00

I'd had a great 10 days training in Spain with Chris, taking advantage of the better weather and having some time and getting 43 hours training in in the 9 days of training we had available. The biking terrain was fantastic just over the border into Portugal with relentless hills and good road surfaces. The focus was on swimming and biking with just a couple of runs as I felt these were the areas I needed to work on most.

I arrived back from Spain late on Wednesday night and was then in London until Saturday afternoon and so bar a quick gym session at the hotel on Friday morning I had the whole 3 days off. My legs felt slightly heavy pre-race and I thought it could go either one of two ways, either I'd be really fatigued and struggle or I would be flying, and hopefully the latter! The race was the Ultra-Fit 3Quarter distance triathlon (1km/30km/7.5km) held at Dorney Lakes, the venue where I had a terrible day last year and pulled out, so I was keen to put that to the back of my mind. The temperatures were soaring and it was 27.5C as I drove down at lunchtime, yep a lie-in on a race day, almost unheard of!

I racked up and entered the lake ready for the start, when the starter gave us the 1min to go mark I realised that I hadn't put my timing chip on my ankle and it was still in my bag on the edge of transition. I started to panic a bit but realised that I could pick it up in T1 and probably be ok. The swim started frantically as usual but quickly thinned out. Whilst sighting ahead I realised that I was fairly near the front, a new experience for me! I felt like I had a fairly decent swim, a couple of occasions I made the decision to swim a little off the straight line to get on people's feet but otherwise my sighting was pretty good. I came out at the back of the 2nd pack and only 1.5-2 mins down on the leader. I then ran to my bag and rummaged around for my timing chip, fortunately finding it fairly quickly and probably only losing around a minute.

I felt good right from the start on the bike, 6 laps of Dorney Lake on closed road with a fast road surface. By the far end of the lake on the first lap I could see that I was in around 10th place and only a minute or 2 behind the leaders. I settled in and began picking off those ahead of me. As the slower athletes came out onto the course it was hard to work out whether I was still overtaking people ahead of me or lapping people but I knew that no-one was overtaking me and so I must be going ok. At the end of the bike I looked ahead into transition and there was only 1 guy just leaving as I was entering which gave me a boost and I raced quickly through transition knowing that a first race win was on the cards.

The run was a 3 lap out and back affair so you always know exactly where your opponents are! I could see that the guy in the lead was having some problems and when I caught him at the first turnaround point he said that the heat was getting to him and that I could have the win. I said thanks but was a bit cynical and so pushed a bit harder back to the lap end to try and break him. On the way back I could see that 3rd place was a good minute or more behind and so if I avoided cramp then the race should be in the bag. I felt great through the run, not having to go too deep and being able to enjoy knowing that I was going to win was a great (and new) feeling and I ended up with a 2.5minute victory, taking the fastest splits (excluding one relay runner) for both the bike and the run.

I know that the level of competition was a lot lower than in most of the other races I've done, but the times I did were good and more importantly I felt strong and it's given me a morale boost for the next few weeks training.

I'm into proper preparation phase for the Europeans now, counting exactly what I eat to try and get my weight down a couple of kilos to around the 70kg mark and focusing on stretching and getting enough sleep.

Big Cow Duathlon

2010-04-17T20:20:00.003+01:00

After the disappointment at Clumber this was my only remaining chance to qualify for the World Champs in Edinburgh. Although it is not one of my main aims for the season I was still quite nervous beforehand, especially after the bad cramp at Clumber.

It was an early start at 5.25am given the slightly ridiculous start time of 7.45am but Matt was also racing so it made it a bit more bearable. It was the usual ogling at all the expensive bikes when we got there, especially for Matt who was on his (albeit nice and new) road bike with no tri bars. As always it took us longer to get ready than expected and by the time we got to the start we didn't really have much time to warm-up.

As a result we set off fairly steady, running together as we had decided to do for the first run with quite a lot of people haring off into the distance. However, as ever some people had gone off too fast and we were soon working our way up through the field. After the first lap and half (of 3.5) it had settled down and we had worked our way into a decent little group. Checking the garmin we were on a good pace, looking at around or just under 35mins and we came in at 34.45 a new 10k pb for both of us although I reckon there'd be around a minute more if it were a straight race, especially looking at my average HR of 171bpm. However, there were a lot of fast runners there, with the fastest doing 30.02! (he couldn't ride a bike though)

Transition was fairly swift and I managed to get out at the front of the pack that I had come in on from the run however the bike was a struggle from the start. I'm not sure whether I'm out of shape on the bike, not used to biking after running or if it's because most of my bike training has been on the turbo and my muscles need to adapt to riding on the road. Psychologically it's a lot harder than I experience at triathlons where swimming is my weakest discipline and so I'm always overtaking. It was made harder by a massive pack of 15-20 riders catching me at the end of the first lap, including a number of people I'd struggled past earlier. They were riding 2 or 3 abreast and no more than a metre behind the rider in front, it was like watching a Sunday club ride. Despite wanting to qualify for Edinburgh I wanted to play fair and so I dropped off the back along with another couple of riders. Within a couple of minutes they were gone up the road and I was back to struggling on my own. I'd had a couple of cramp twinges in my calf but it was looking like it should be better than at Clumber. I was glad to get off the bike but struggled in T2, my hands had gone numb and I couldn't get my helmet off, in the end I had to pull the strap over my chin without undoing it. My bike split was 1.04:55, 5 minutes down on the quickest and 2-3 minutes down on people that I was riding at the same speed as last year, with the training I've done over the winter I really ought to still be up there so a bit of thinking needs to happen.

Onto the last run I couldn't see anyone ahead of me at first but I knew there was a fairly big group 1-2 minutes ahead. I started fairly steady to try and ensure I didn't get cramp but after about half a lap I got into my stride and was able to push on. I was happy with my pace of 3.36/km and able to overtake a few people towards the end but just missed out on the sub-2hr time. Overall, I was pretty happy with the running but disappointed with the biking (and the drafting) but it looks like I've qualified for Edinburgh so it was mission accomplished in that respect. Matt had a predictably difficult time on his road bike losing a fair bit of time and also paid for it on the 2nd run but looks like he has also managed to qualify for Edinburgh.

Trossachs and the JK

2010-04-09T22:24:00.005+01:00

A couple of great weekends orienteering and it was good to see a near full strength field at the Trossachs which always attracts the top guys for the challenge even if it's not an important race. Physically I felt pretty good both days in Scotland but my navigation just can't keep up at the moment and although I didn't make any big mistakes on the middle race at Touch I was losing little bits of time on most controls. Given my lack of orienteering recently I was pretty happy (and I beat Matt too!) Sunday started disastrously with a big mistake (around 6 mins lost) on number 2 and the lack of motivation from that mistake affected me for the first half of the course. I was caught by Ewan McCarthy on the way to 14 and that re-invigorated me and we had a good ding dong battle around the rest of the course. He was stronger on the uphills but I was able to catch back up on the flats and downs. Again, not a horrendous result but it could've been a lot better given my fitness.

Last weekend was the JK down in Devon, and unfortunately I had to be at college on Good Friday and Easter Monday so was only able to race the two weekend races. The middle race on Saturday was a bit of a farce, the maps had been printed on the wrong type of waterproof paper for the type of printing used and this meant that any mud you got on your map stuck and became ingrained, not ideal when the area has become a mud bath. I fell up to my waist in mud on the way to my 2nd control and couldn't really read the map properly for the remainder of the course, frequently having to stop to wipe it on wet grass to clear the mud. I still didn't quite have the pace to compete with the top guys and finished midway down but importantly ahead of Matt and Chris Mitchell!

I fancied my chances on Sunday as I have always tended to be better on faster areas and I thought the sand dunes might suit me. Unfortunately I hadn't taken into account my rustiness and although I didn't lose big time on any controls I was clean on less controls than I wasn't. Again I lost motivation after easy mistakes, something that never used to happen but is probably because the races don't really matter for me anymore, and again I got caught and became re-invigorated. This time it was Dave Schorah and Hector Haines that caught me at around control 21 and I was determined to stay with them. Probably due to having a bit of a rest as I had taken it easier on earlier controls, I was able to push on and open a gap and just about maintain it to the finish. Looking at the splits I sped up considerably and was managing a fair few splits in the top 5. Quite promising if I decide to concentrate on orienteering again at some point in the future (which is quite likely I think).

This weekend is the Big Cow duathlon where hopefully I can qualify for the world champs in Edinburgh and make sure I beat Matt who is also having a go at qualifying.

A New Modelling Career Awaits

2010-03-21T19:47:00.003Z

I mentioned last weekend that we had done some photoshoots for Team Accelerate sponsors and amazingly they are already being used. Have a look on run247 where you will see this picture advertising skins recovery tights. Apparently they're also going to be used at the Paris and London Marathon expos, so keep an eye out if you're there! Maybe I ought to get myself a manager...

I finished a duathlon!

2010-03-21T19:28:00.004Z

Although it was only my second duathlon today at Bosworth Water Park I was having worries that it might become a bit of a bogey event and was thinking of all the different ways I might dnf after the disaster a couple of weekends ago! I had done a swim session and a 90min bike with some hard efforts in yesterday and was treating this very much as a hard training session as opposed to an important race. However, as soon as you are toeing the line, the adrenaline kicks in and you race just as hard as you would at any other time. From speaking to a couple of guys beforehand it looked like it might be quite a strong field, even though the total field was only 70-80 odd.

The run was very wet and I was envious of those that had brought trail shoes instead of racing flats, I'm not sure if they were permitted but x-c spikes would've been the best bet. I started off quite hard but not a silly pace and I quickly found myself in a group of 4 a few metres behind a group of 3 at the front. In my group was a guy I knew from when I ran with Hinckley RC who was a bit quicker than me at that time so I knew it was about the right pace. One of the front 3 had gone off too quick and he dropped back, but otherwise the places remained pretty much the same round the rest of the run, and I finished the first run in 4th place, 17.40 and 30s off the leader.

I had a fairly quick transition, overtaking the 2nd place guy from the first run and was out with James Turner who I knew had beaten me at the Rugby Sprint Tri last year. I sat off the back of him for half a mile or so when suddenly there was the unmistakable sound of disc wheel flying up behind me and the eventual winner, Craig Twigg came flying past. Unfortunately he came past on the first hill which meant there was no chance to get a pace line going as he was straight past. There was then a steep descent with a busy junction at the bottom and I got caught up behind 3 cars and James got away as I slowed to a near standstill and lost all momentum. I settled in at my own pace and was feeling the effects of the session yesterday. Shortly before I reached Fenny Drayton at about 6 miles I was caught by another competitor and I sat in with him for the rest of the bike. It's strange using other people to pace as when I do triathlons I'm normally overtaking people the whole way round as my swim is weak, whereas I'm much more in contention early on in Duathlons. I finished the bike in 5th place overall and also with the 5th fastest split but nearly 3 mins slower than the fastest, still a lot of work to do before July.

Another swift transition and out onto the last run. I was quite apprehensive after what happened at Clumber but I got into my stride fairly quickly, but so did Duncan who had finished the bike with me. I thought I might run away from him straight away as I had been quicker than him on the first run but at the turnaround point on the first lap he was still right on my shoulder. I could hear him breathing quite heavily and at the end of the first lap I decided to push for a couple of hundred metres to see if I could break him. It seemed to work and by the turnaround I knew 4th was in the bag. I was catching Turner as I had at Rugby Sprint Tri but again I ran out of distance and ended up 18 seconds behind. Second run was 18.04, 3rd fastest split only 18s behind the fast and most pleasingly only 24s slower than the first run. Twigg's bike gave him an unassailable lead and he won comfortably, a minute ahead of the fastest runner on the day Conor Murphy.

An excellent event, with no frills as advertised, but in terms of a racing experience it was as good as any of the bigger events I've done.

Team Accelerate Training Weekend

2010-03-15T16:46:00.003Z

A chance for the team to meet up and define the goals for the season... For me it looks like after the ETU Triathlon in July it'll be a full focus on the World Adventure Series race in the Lake District www.adidas-ar.com at the end of August, time to get some kayak practice in!

We had a brief tour/presentation of Podium Performance's facilities in Sheffield where we will be able to get some assistance with fitness testing/biomechanical analysis etc. Looked like a good set-up and nice to see that they were thinking about the specific demands of AR as opposed to a one-size fits all approach.

Saturday also included a bit of rope-work practice at Rivelin crags, and a photoshoot for some of the sponsors in the Spring sun.

On Sunday we went out to the local Dark and White adventure race, a similar format to the Open5s but over 4.5 hours instead. I teamed up with Eddie for the first time in a race involving navigation and had a much better time than last week! We made a couple of tactical errors but were otherwise pretty satisfied with our performace, finishing 1st in the male pairs and only 1 point behind the overall winner. Nice to finish a race with plenty of time for once and not feel too tired afterwards!

A Tale of 2 DNFs

2010-03-09T15:20:00.004Z

National Duathlon Champs on Saturday at Clumber Park and I was quietly optimistic about my chances despite having not raced a duathlon before and unsure of my race fitness. I ran the first 10km at what felt like a good pace but not flat out and was pleased to see the time as bang on 35mins on entering transition. Onto the bike and I felt good for the first half a lap or so but without being able to put much power down. Midway through the second lap my hamstrings started to twinge with cramp and so I eased up and tried stretching them out as I was riding but it wasn't doing much good. Onto the final run I felt ok for the first couple of hundred metres but then the cramp hit badly again and thinking I was way down on the qualification places and wanting to race well on Sunday I decided to pull out. Not quite sure why I got cramp, maybe a combination of the cold, not having done much intense running and not being used to going from running to biking. Now the results and the qualification places are up it seems that I may have been able to suffer round for a place but the way my hamstrings are today it was probably the most sensible idea.

Sunday was the latest Open5 series event in Sedbergh and I needed to win in order to keep any hopes of winning the series alive as I am unable to do the next race (at work on a bank holiday, what's that all about?!) It was a beautiful day and the Howgills looked awesome in the sun. I decided to bike first following my tactical issues of the last race as the run allows more chances to cut short if running late on time. I felt ok on the bike, but understandably from the day before was lacking a bit of spark and looking at the splits was riding a bit slower than my rivals. After just under 2.5 hours I was at the far end of the map and looking at a fairly linear route home to clear the bike course. However, I missed changing gear prior to a steep hill and tried cranking it on a bigger gear and my chain promptly snapped. Unfortunately I hadn't put the correct tools in and had no other option but to get on the phone to my Dad who was spectating to come and pick me up. I still decided to do the run as I was up there and managed to put my disappointment behind me and clear the run in around 1h45.

It looks like I'll finish 3rd in the series which is a bit disappointing but whilst the weekend was a big disappointment I'm actually feeling quite positive as the signs are that the winter training has gone well and there are more important races to come later on.

Lab Testing

2010-03-02T14:03:00.003Z

Up to St Helens at the weekend to get in the lab and see how the winter months' training has been working. I know that I've been feeling good running and biking at tempo but with no races (except Open5s where it's hard top judge fitness) it was nice to get some hard numbers around the progress I've been making.

On the bike my Threshold Power has increased from 290W to 310W even though I am 1.5kg lighter and my Max Aerobic Power has maintained at 350W. Looking at the numbers, the test supervisors thought I was going to continue for another couple of minutes but my legs couldn't cope, this should be rectified by the shift in focus of training as I get nearer to Athlone in July. My fuel burning has shifted towards fat which is good news and my VO2 max has increased.

Running, my Threshold Speed has increased from 17.7kph @1% incline to 17.7kph @3% incline and I lasted 1min15s longer on the ramp test and 10 seconds more on speed test.

All good news, and hopefully I can translate it into decent results with my first "proper" race of the season at Clumber on Saturday.

Followed it up on Sunday with one of the tougher session I've done: Turbo - 20mins L1, 20mins L2, 20mins L3, 20mins L2 followed by 30mins L2 run.

Alderney

2010-03-02T12:51:00.003Z

Rowena and I escaped to Alderney for a long weekend. Was nice to get away from it all, see a bit of sun and have some excellent seafood. A couple of photos from the trip are below, the first of which is the view from our hotel window!

BUOC Chasing Sprint, Cannock Chase and some decent cycling

2010-02-17T16:15:00.005Z

Maury Ballstein: What do we do when we fall off the horse?
Derek Zoolander: [thoughtfully looking up and mouthing the words silently] ... fall off the horse...
Maury Ballstein: ... we... get back on!
Derek Zoolander: Sorry, Maury. I'm not a gymnist.

Love that film, anyway, last weekend was time to get back on the horse after most of the week was written off to recovery from the Open5. The Team Accelerate training weekend had been cancelled, which although I was looking forward to was probably a good thing, and so I decided to get a late entry to a couple of local orienteering events and do a fair bit of cycling as well.

Saturday morning I did a 3x10 min with 3 min rest bike session as part of a 70min ride to Birmingham University for the chasing sprint. This was a shortish prologue with a mirco-O section followed by a slightly longer (~3.5km) final with a 2 hour break in between. I started off terribly on the prologue, but settled into it and was pleased with my smoothness around the micro-O, finishing 50 seconds down on GB team member Matt Crane.

The final started fairly well but I didn't have the legs and got in a bit of a muddle on a couple of the longer legs, finishing 2 mins down on the final and 3 mins overall but comfortably in 2nd place.

Some map extracts can be seen here.

Sunday involved a just over 2 hour ride straight into a head wind to Rugeley and straight into the Brown course at the West Midland League event. My legs were pretty dead straight away and I was suffering on anything uphill. My navigation was good through the complex parts when I was concentrating but I lost quite a bit of time switching off on what should have been easier sections. Again it was Matt Crane that beat me into 2nd but I was a long way behind. I opted for the lift back but managed an hour swim in the afternoon before crashing in front of the TV.

This week has been much better, with no sessions missed, although I am off to Alderney tomorrow evening for a long weekend with Rowena, so a bit of adjustment to the schedule will be needed. I'm putting my wetsuit in so may brave a swim in the English Channel! I'll try and get photos if I do!

Disappointed but not Disheartened, Open5 - Haworth

2010-02-08T20:56:00.002Z

The third race of the series in Haworth, a small Yorkshire town, famous for being the home of the Brontes. I was in the position of series leader for the first time and so had the honour and pressure of having my name instead of the usual race number. (Jo was also in the series lead, first time a brother sister held top spots on male/female solo?) Prior to the weekend I was feeling fit and confident about having a good race and was looking to consolidate my position in the series. However, the preparation started to go downhill on the Saturday evening. We had met up in a pub nearby to watch the England rugby match and then went off to Hebden Bridge to look for food. We had been recommended a Greek restaurant, but that turned out to be rather upmarket and the only Italian was fully booked. We ended up in a Thai, which although extremely tasty was to have a negative impact on my race the following day. I had booked before the rest of my family and so had got a place at the YHA in Haworth whilst they headed off to the Travelodge in Bradford. I had a single room which was about as small as physically possible to still fit a bed in! Unfortunately the bed was too short and about as comfortable as sleeping on a concrete slab. After a few sleepless hours I gave up and went downstairs in search of a more comfortable alternative. I ended up on the floor in the lounge using the sofa cushions as a bed. Whilst more comfortable, the dayglo emergency exit light wasn’t ideal and I ended up getting about 2 hours sleep in total. Heading back up at around 6.30am I met a confused looking James Thurlow who was off out to set up the event. I stocked up on the excellent cooked breakfast and headed off to the event.

I was pretty happy looking at the map at registration, the run navigation looked more technical than usual, especially with the cloud down, and the majority of the biking looked quite fast which should suit me as I am more physically strong than I am technically able. The bike route especially looked like it would depend a lot on the point distribution. The usual faff ensued and I ended up starting about a minute before the cut-off. I had decided on an anti-clockwise run loop and having quickly checked that my planned first few weren’t dummies I set off. As seems to be the norm on the run there were no real big pointers and a fairly even spread of points and I decided to try and clear it. I started off towards 39 and the pre-race warning that the paths weren’t particularly well mapped was confirmed straight away. I lost some time on 39 by looking right against the crags and not in the car park and ended up heading out and then back in. 37,31,28,27,24,23,21 were fairly straightforward although I had a couple of small lapses in concentration, running past a couple of them and stopping too early for others, mistakes I don’t normally make in adventure races. After 21 was where the fun started, I decided to try and do 22 in as much of a straight line as possible but got pretty confused near the control and lost some time. I had intended on going around to 25 but failed to find the path and so just went straight, I lost a bit too much height but was never in danger of getting lost. I was too low on 30 and it seemed to go on for ever and then 33,36 home was pretty straightforward. It was on the way to the transition that the Thai from the night before first impacted my race and I had to pull over for a quick toilet stop. Nevertheless, I had cleared the run in 1:47 and was pretty happy, although looking back at it I could have been a good 10mins quicker with better execution.

After a fairly swift transition and the first this year in which I haven’t got naked I headed out on the bike. Initially I was very cold on the bike, especially my hands but after the climb to 2 I warmed up. 1,2,4,9,14 was fairly uneventful with another toilet stop in the quarry at 2 and my chain jamming fairly frequently with the gritty dirt the only delays. I decided to drop 11 as it was only 10 points and given it was highlighted on the map as being rough I thought I could be there all day. It was on the climb up to 12 that I started to feel like I was lacking in energy and I realised then that I had only had 500ml of sports drink and a handful of jelly babies in the 3 hours so far. Ironically I had been telling my sister to make sure she ate and drank more than last time and this time it was me with the issue. I think it was a combination of the cold meaning I didn’t feel thirsty and my dicky stomach making any food (and especially gels) not very appealing. Eating enough is particularly important for me as my last sports testing highlighted that my glucose/fat burning ratio is quite biased towards glucose compared to other endurance athletes and so I have to make sure I get enough going in to maintain performance. Still, I didn’t feel too bad and getting to 8 I still had 1h45 to go and it looked like I had plenty of time. Heading over from 8 I re-overtook a female pair that had clearly either not listened or chosen to ignore the rules regarding not riding on the dashed black tracks, it really annoys me when I see other people cheating but there’s not much you can do about it as a lot relies on trust. My parents also told me later that they had seen a number of teams coming in/out from number 5 near the pub, somewhere you could definitely not get to without going off bridleways.

I headed over the top on the road committing to getting 20 and was confident about making it back with plenty of time, especially as when I got to the potential cut-off to 10 I still had 1h30 left and would’ve got back far too early if I had cut it off then. I had a bit of an issue finding 20 as the bridleways didn’t seem to quite match up with the ground and also had another toilet stop. I had then planned to head back out to the main road and take the small bridleway down to 18, however it wasn’t immediately obvious and so I headed down into Hebden Bridge and round on the roads. In hindsight this was a bad idea and if I had dropped 18 I reckon I would’ve just about been back in time. Heading up to 13 was tough but the surface was good and I made good progress, if the rest of the way back was like this I thought I might be in luck. Unfortunately the tracks quickly deteriorated and became very muddy in places. The short, steep section prior to 10 killed me and it was all I could do to move forward whilst I was pushing my bike up the pudding like ground to 10. By this point I knew I was going to be late and I was pushing as hard as possible to minimise my losses. Unfortunately this was having an effect on my decision making and I still went for 5, thinking that I couldn’t afford to drop the 30 points it offered. In hindsight I would’ve only been a couple of minutes late if I had dropped it, losing 30 points for the control but gaining ~55 points for a lower penalty which would’ve been enough for 3rd place. I was just under 19 minutes late and lost 65 of my hard earned 575 points and finished in a disappointing 6th place, losing my overall series lead to John Houlihan. He had the opposite problem to me, he did the slow section on the bike first meaning he did less than he probably could’ve done as he thought the rest would be slower and ended up clearing the run with 15 mins to spare.

Overall it was poor preparation, poor execution and poor decision making under pressure and when fatigued that culminated in my disappointing performance but a lot of lessons learnt and I’m not too disheartened as my fitness was good, I gave everything and I would rather have done what I did than finish half an hour early thinking if only I’d had the conviction to go for it.

The effort I put in seems to have put a lot of stress on my body. Having finished I got cold very quickly and despite a hot meal at a pub up the road in front of a warm fire I never felt that my core temperature was back at what it should have been. The three hour journey home was spent with the heating on full blast and my mum sweating next to me whilst I still didn’t feel warm. I had a hot bath when I got home and felt hot for a few minutes but 5 minutes after getting out I was shivering again. I went to sleep in full thermals and with a hot water bottle. Today (Monday) I felt like a bit of a ghost at work but at least the body temperature was ok. It’s not something I’ve experienced before (and not too keen on feeling again!) but it felt like what I might expect mild hypothermia to feel like.

I don’t think anything alone caused the crash that I experienced but was probably a combination of a lack of sleep, a lack of energy consumption, getting pretty cold and pushing really hard in the last hour to minimise my losses. A couple of days R&R are definitely in order and will definitely be more careful about what I eat the night before a race in future!

Open5 - Hawkshead

2009-11-03T15:10:00.001Z

The warning signs on the M6 gantries were an ominous sign as a wet and windy day, reminiscent of the OMM weekend last year greeted us on arrival in the Lakes. Fortunately it wasn’t cold (I raced in shorts and short-sleeved race top throughout) but certainly made for some interesting conditions.

I had an excellent run with fastest split on all but 1 leg that I did and was out of transition after 1.5hours with one thought, to clear the bike. I started well and seemed to have grown a descending mojo overnight – possibly because I couldn’t see what I was riding on for all the water! Half way round and I was worried that I might be finished too early having missed a couple of low pointers on the run. However, 2 punctures and an incredibly painful and slow section back over Black Fell near the end put paid to that thought and it ended in a mad rush to lose as few points as possible.

Unfortunately I ended up 10.44 late and a points penalty of 25 points, ending up 15 points behind the winner. I’ve been fortunate with a lack of punctures in the past so it was inevitably going to happen at some point and good to know that I would have won without them despite having 10 days off prior with man flu.

Also congrats to my sister, competing in her first ever AR and not having done any “proper” mtbing in the past, managed to WIN the female solo, beating some well established racers. Whilst I was out there I was worried whether she would be riding the bike at all given the conditions but it seems she’s a bit of a natural!

Selections are in

2009-10-30T10:36:00.002Z

The selections are finally in for the European Age Group Triathlon champs in Ireland next year and I have scraped in. Now just got to work on my swimming to get up to a level where I can realistically challenge for a medal.

Open5 this weekend in the Lakes - have been ill for the last week or so so not too sure how I'll get on. World Cup cycling in Manchester on the Saturday which should be fun.

London Rat Race

2009-10-02T16:16:00.002+01:00

Teammate Julia's Report:

http://www.sleepmonsters.co.uk/racereport.php?page_action=rep&race_id=6977&article_id=6104

Great fun race, perfect weather, shame about the 30-odd seconds over 7.5 hours of racing that cost us the win.

Thanks to the guy at the start on Sunday that let me have a couple of his immodium tablets - they were a life saver!

Season Update

2009-09-21T21:19:00.009+01:00

Well, it's been a while since I last posted, have been a bit tied up with Work, Study, Training and Racing.

Season has been mixed with a win at Open12 adventure race but a dnf at the Open24 due to my teammate's injury. My triathlon goal for this year was to qualify for the GB age-group team for the ETU champs next year. I had a solid race at the qualifier but nothing amazing and am still waiting to hear if I got a rolldown slot, it does look fairly hopeful.

Have had some issues with the calf problem I picked up at the iROC race and my shins still aren't perfect but have managed to keep training allbeit on a reduced run volume than I would like.

Did my last triathlon of the season, the New Forest Middle Distance (Half-Ironman) Triathlon yesterday (see report below) and am doing London Rat Race this weekend. Then it's into the winter Open5 adventure races and hopefully a decent block of training.

New Forest Middle Distance Triathlon

2009-09-21T21:19:00.007+01:00

I entered this race a long time ago as a nice end of season race and a first stab at a half-ironman. My main triathlon aim for the season was to qualify for the Olympic distance AG team at Bedford in July and after that race I didn't really have any structure to any training, just doing some Time Trials and a few adventure races. Running was a problem, with my calf injury picked up at the iROC race giving me some grief I was not running more than twice a week and hadn't run for more than an hour since sometime in June. To be honest I'd kind of forgotten about the race. Come race weekend though, the competitive spirit came through and I was up for giving it my best shot.

I travelled down with my brother on Saturday and sorted out all the registration issues and got to grips with how the split transition worked. We then went for a drive round the bike course so I had an idea of what was ahead. The hills looked fairly tough but the thing I was most worried about was the wildlife! Anyone who has been to the New Forest will know what I mean with wild horses, pigs, cows, sheep etc. strolling casually across the road seemingly oblivious to anything else around them. I didn't fancy being on my aerobars at 30-odd mph and rounding a corner to see a herd of cows in the road. The road surfaces seemed really good and what looked like some fast sections up on the top of the plain.

We found an excellent pub for dinner (The Sir Walter Tyrell at Brook if anyone's interested) and sorted out the spectating plan for the family whilst tucking into Lamb Shank. We stayed overnight at a local campsite which was fortunately fairly quiet and I got a decent night sleep. Waking at 5am was a bit of a shock to the system but with a 7am start I needed to get some breakfast down a decent time before and get the tents down. Transition had been set-up the night before so all I had to do was to check my tyre pressure and do a mental check of everything else I needed during the day.

I was pretty relaxed prior to the start, probably due to having no real expectations or goals for the race. A couple of last minute toilet stops and I was ready. It was nice to have a decent amount of space to line up for the start which meant far less argy-bargy than normal. I had decided to try and start fairly hard to try and get on some decent feet. That didn’t really work out as my shoulders felt pretty tired early on and I was swimming with clear water in front. I found a few feet at various points but it seemed that both I and those around me were having some difficulty swimming in a straight line! I had what felt like a fairly average swim for me and came out in 40th place and 39.41 (including T1 I think). Only the small matter (!) of 10 minutes down on the leader and more importantly 4 minutes behind anyone that finished ahead of me. Swim improvement is the main aim over the winter to at least give me a chance on the bike and run.

T1 was fairly uneventful, although a little sandy and I was quickly off on the bike. There was the customary line of quicker swimmers/slower bikers in front of me and it was good to have people to pick off up the first climb. I felt pretty good over the first 45mins or so on the loop round ornamental drive and back on to the top of Broomy Plain. It became clear on this flatter, windier section that I had gone off too fast as I started to struggle to reel people in and was getting a bit uncomfortable in the aerobars. I had moved these closer together for doing TTs and shorted tris but probably should’ve tried it out on a longer ride as my shoulders started to ache. Having passed one more guy just before the fun descent down past where we had been camping I then didn’t see another biker on the same lap as me for the whole of the rest of the course. Nice in some ways, but hard to know how I was going as I don’t ride races with HR, speed or power.

My family were out on the course and giving me splits to Hywel and I was keeping the gap fairly constant at around 8-10mins which was good. Not that I could have done anything about it anyway but I assumed Hywel was in the lead and only found out at the finish that James was way down the road, he had an amazing race and by all accounts looked very easy doing it. The stretch back along past the start seemed to go on for ages and strangely I was willing the hills to come sooner as my back was starting to ache. Back on Broomy Plain and having listened to a Mark Allen interview on IMTalk in the days preceding I was trying to “empty my mind” and try and remove any negative thoughts as I was really starting to struggle. It seemed to help and it wasn’t long before I was on the descent swooping back into Sandy Balls.

Bike split of 2:37:14 for 7th quickest and only 5.5mins behind 2nd (James was a bit quick!). Looking at the splits I definitely went off too fast as I caught the guy that finished one place behind me after about a 1/3 of the bike course and he came out of the swim 4mins in front of me. I then only took another 1.5mins over the remaining 2/3 of the bike. A lesson learned but don’t think it had too bad an effect in the end.

T2 was a bit of a shambles – although I had walked through it on Saturday I hadn’t expected the bike dismount to come so quickly and only had time to get one foot out of my shoe. A slip on the cleats convinced me to just remove my shoes and carry them so I trotted into the bike drop off point and into the changeover tent. Off with the helmet, on with the trainers, visor and gel belt, grab and drink and then back out and up the hill.

As I came out of transition there seemed to be hordes of people coming off the bike. I hadn’t realised how many people there were close behind me and I was already worried about the cramp that had plagued me at Helvellyn coming back. I was on a strict 1 gel washed down with water per drink station and hoped that this would be sufficient to get me through. The first hill I took fairly steady, not wanting to go out too hard knowing that I could always speed up later on if I had the energy. After a mile on the road we turned off onto trails and would remain on them until the same mile downhill back to the finish. I forced myself to walk any steeper uphills to save my quads which I felt were the most likely to cramp and tried to let myself go on the downhills. After about 3 miles I got into a decent rhythm and caught the guy in front. I was sticking to my nutrition plan and it seemed to be working out alright.

I passed my brother and sister at about 6 miles who told me I was in 7th place and that the guy in front was about a minute and a half in front and flagging. I caught him just after the “Sandy Gallop” which was not as bad as I had expected from what I had heard and managed to pull away before the bottom of “Heartbreak Hill”. I looked behind at the top to see how far ahead of him I was and got a bit of a shock to see 3 other runners at the bottom of the hill. I think the hill made it look closer than it was but I was still a bit worried with still over 3 miles to go knowing I was going into unknown territory for my legs at over an hours running. At the 10 mile point it was back the way we had come out and I felt sorry for all those just heading out on their run but got a lot of appreciated encouragement.

The last few miles went past pretty quickly and I was glad to have held on to cross the line in 4:51:20, 6th place overall and 1st in my age-group. Pretty pleased given my disjointed training and lack of running and more evidence that if I can get my swim sorted I can challenge right at the pointy end.

Run split including T2 of 1:34:25 for 6th fastest split, 5mins behind James (1st) and 3mins behind Hywel.(2nd).

Thanks to Richard and his crew for a fantastic event and hope to be back in the future for more of the Race New Forest events.

(Pictures to follow)

Grendon Triathlon

2009-05-18T15:40:00.002+01:00

First triathlon of the season and it didn't go as well as hoped. I always knew that I would lose a significant chunk of time in the swim but 3.5mins when the leaders are only doing 10mins is too much. T1 was slow as I struggled to get my wetsuit off.

I felt decent out on the bike and was passing lines of people but it's hard to tell how well you're going when all the faster people are already way up the road. T2 was better but I didn't have any elastic laces so had to take some time doing them up. I lost about 3.5mins to the quickest over T1,Bike,T2 and reckon at least 1.5mins of that was due to transition so not too bad on the bike front.

The run was a sluggish effort and I never really felt like I got going - more brick sessions needed I think and was just over a minute down on the fastest. Overall it wasn't disastrous but I know there's more in me.

Soleus Injury

2009-04-29T12:29:00.001+01:00

The iROC race has taken it's toll on my legs and my calf is still not recovered. Managed to run for 20mins yesterday but was a bit painful by the end - it's strange as I can do calf raises with straight and bent legs with no problem, any advice would be welcome.

iROC 18/19 April

2009-04-27T12:13:00.001+01:00

Last weekend was the inaugural iROC race in the Durham Dales and it promised to be a monster – 6 races held over a 24 hour (ish) period, each a full on race in its own right.

I had been looking forward to the race for a while but my excitement had turned to trepidation by the night before as the scale of the physical challenge dawned on me. I travelled up to Durham on the Friday and opted to stay at my sister’s flat instead of camping to get as good a night’s rest as possible – I was going to need it!

Saturday morning came quite cold but fortunately not raining – the weekend could have turned quite miserable with bad weather, not getting dry or warm between races would’ve dampened spirits but luckily we were blessed with another cracking weekend of weather.

I arrived at 10am with the first race starting at 11am and decided to try and get everything sorted out for the later races in advance. I put a tent up even though I wasn’t planning on sleeping there overnight so that I could have a bit of a lie down between races and Adam had a massive tent with him which was perfect as a garage/kitchen/chill-out area.

The first race was a 13km fell race with ~900m climb. It was a tough course, with no flat areas to note and mostly off paths or roads. It was quite difficult to know how hard to push, mindful of the racing still to come in the day. I felt like I wasn’t pushing too hard and got to the summit of the main climb in around 6th place although looking at my heart rate and how my legs felt afterwards I was probably going harder than I thought. There was then a long descent all the way back to the event arena before turning round and heading back out on a smaller loop, up a brutal short climb and then down through the forest on the singletrack that would form part of the mountain bike events later in the weekend. I finished in 6th which I was fairly happy with and set about trying to take on enough fluids and energy to try and recover for the orienteering at 15.00. This was one of the biggest challenges of the weekend and I tried to eat and drink a decent amount straight after finishing so that I would be re-fuelled but not be competing on a full stomach.

Races 2 and 3 – the orienteering races were ones that I felt I ought to win and I had my eyes set on leading overall after 3 races to give a chance of an overall victory. Rumour had it that Morgan, who was clearly the best runner there, wasn’t the best navigator and hopefully he would end up down the field. Unfortunately this wasn’t to be and he still managed 3rd place. I had no navigational issues but was feeling really sluggish after the morning effort and was a bit disappointed to finish 2nd and 2 minutes down on Tim Higginbotham. Interestingly, this race was the one I felt worst in all weekend and probably due to the intensity of the fell race.

The third race started at 19.30 and was billed as a night orienteering, although it was still daylight when we set off. I still took a headlamp as I thought the forest would be quite dark and it wasn’t worth risking not being able to see the map. The race was a 60min score, you had to get as many controls as possible in 60mins with the further away controls worth more points. I had decided before seeing the map that I would try and get them all as the orienteering loops race had only taken me 64mins and that had involved going up and down the hill twice, whereas we would only have to take it in once on the score. The mass start meant that there was nothing to stop good runners following navigators and so Tim, Phil and I were trying to think of ways to get away without Morgan tailing us. This involved some childish games at the start trying to hide at the back of the group and when the horn went for the start, instead of running off we stood still and hoped Morgan would follow the masses out and across the bridge. It looked like it had worked as we sprinted off to the controls within the event arena but as I looked back Morgan was streaking across the tarmac towards us. Tim’s victory in the first orienteering had put him 2nd overall behind Morgan and so it was Tim that Morgan was sticking to. Fortunately for us (Phil and I) Tim had some issues with his Achilles (I think, hope you’re ok) and this allowed us to get away and into the forest with Morgan too far behind to see where we were going. Here we caught Bruce who had not been part of the shenanigans at the start and together with Jon formed a group of 4 that would work together to the finish. Coming towards the last controls it was clear that we would get them all and thoughts turned to beating the other three in the group. I managed to get ahead towards the river to the final control, but as I increased the pace coming out of it I got cramp in my hamstrings and calf and had to ease off as the other three went past me and I finished in a disappointing 4th place.

I knew I was in trouble for the MTB sprint as it started only 20mins after finishing the orienteering and I did everything I could in the time to get rid of the cramp – stretching, electrolytes, rolling pin massage. I didn’t get cramp on the bike but I had to ease off as I could feel the muscles twitching and thought they might go at any point. This and my inability to just let myself go on the technical descents was my downfall and I finished way off the pace in 33rd and blew my chances of an overall victory.

The final race of the day was a night fell race, two loops like the morning with the same second loop but a shortened first loop giving a total of ~8km. The drop in pace from the morning was noticeable and I was glad to get round without cramp. I ran most of the way with Kim and this time managed to get away at the end for a pleasing 6th place, with two of those ahead of me not competing in the other races. After shovelling some food down I jumped (well hobbled) into the car and drove back to Durham for a hot bath and a comfortable bed.

Waking up on Sunday was not a pleasant experience, getting out of bed was a challenge and the prospect of 4 hours of mountain biking was not sitting well! Ever optimistic I hoped that somehow my walking muscles were not related to my biking muscles and as soon as I jumped on a bike I would be feeling fresh. Unfortunately this was not to be and I endured a tough day in the saddle. I had no spark in my legs and was predictably slow on the technical sections. Still I battled on and even managed to persuade my body to do another lap when I finished a lap just within the 4 hour limit. It was enough to finish 5th overall and Adam and I comfortably won the pairs.
Overall, a fantastic weekend; great weather, top racing, good atmosphere and all things being well I’ll be back for another shot next year. A bit disappointed with my result and my body is still suffering a week on!

Things starting to progress nicely

2009-01-08T11:39:00.003Z

A rather more positive post than my last with hopefully the worst of my injuries still behind me. The knee problem seems to be all but sorted, with a little lingering stiffness/soreness but getting better by the day even with increased workload. The shins I am slightly more worried about but I am due to get an MRI scan on my ankle to see if there is something in there that may be causing the problem and also to see a podiatrist to think about getting orthotics. Thank god for private health insurance!!

I am back up to pretty much full cycle training and have been swimming consistently for the last 2-3 months now. I have got my 400m swim time under 6mins for the first time (best was 6:20 during the summer) and I hope to have it down near 5min30 by the time the real race season starts. Cycling is still progressing well and I still feel there is quite a lot more gain to be had.

I am glad to be back running again, although I have decided to only do 3 sessions a week and keep a close eye on my shins.

After a family Christmas I was up in Scotland from 27 December until 4 January staying with Rowena and it gave the perfect chance to see how my limited training had been progressing with the New Years Day Tri in Edinburgh round Arthur's Seat.

During my time at Edinburgh Uni I'd done plenty of training around the area but never raced and somehow the existence of this race had managed to escape me, although in my uni days getting up on New Years Day for a triathlon might have been a bit optimistic!

I had managed to get into the "elite" heat, which was a mass start, choose any lane you want affair. The 400m swim in the soon to be closed/renovated Commenwealth Pool was the first I had done in a 50m pool and as I waited by the side of the pool the other people in the heat were chatting and it seemed that they would all be getting on for a minute faster than me. I was getting worried about a complete humiliation - everyone in the race, some 450 people plus many supporters were watching the elite swim as it started straight after the race briefing. Fortunately just before the start some more competitors appeared who were more in my swimming league. I managed to get in a lane with only two other swimmers, we had 30 seconds to decide on a direction of swimming and then we were off. The three of us started side by side, with Craig Dale (the eventual winner) quickly pulling away. I was slightly slower than the other guy in my lane and so decided to ease off slightly and pull into his feet. I managed to stay there for about three of the eight lengths and then tried to focus on keeping my stroke long and smooth. My swim split, including getting out of the pool and climbing the stairs to transition was 6:48 and 12th fastest. I'm not sure of my actual swim time but I would imagine it was somewhere between 6 and 6:15, fairly happy considering the 50m pool.

Given the time of year I had decided to dry my hair, put on a windproof and gloves in T1 but it still seemed to take me ages and I took a painfully slow 1:25, 50th place and nearly a minute slower than the quickest.

The bike course was three laps of Arthurs' Seat each with a tough hill around the back. I felt strong and there was no lingering knee pain to worry me. I was quickly overtaking people and before long the first hill climb started. I stayed seated until the final steep bit near the end, conscious of having to do it another two times. The support around the bike course was fantastic with hundreds of people around the route, especially near the turnaround point. My sister, her boyfriend, my brother and my girlfriend were also all racing and it was at the turnaround point that our support group of various family and friends were waiting. It was a fantastic boost to hear them cheering and thanks for all of them to dragging themselves out of bed on NYD! I seemed to be stronger on the hills than the flat as I passed a guy on the final hill but on the flat section after I just heard the whoosh whoosh whoosh of his Zipps as came back past me again. Still, a very pleasing bike leg, 2nd fastest in 32:27 and the only guy that beat me was in a relay team.

T2 was better than T1 but still not exactly rapid. 23rd in 0:56, 23 secs slower than the fastest.

Coming out of T2 I was in 6th place overall with 2 people just in front of me. I quickly passed them and then passed a further two on the long descent down towards Holyrood Palace. I worked hard up the hill, and managed to overtake some of the cyclists who had just cruised past me on the descent. I could see another runner near the top of the hill who it turned out was Craig, the leader but at that point I wasn't aware that I was in 2nd place, one of the disadvantages of being a weak swimmer and coming through the field is that its very difficult to know how you're doing. Once on the flat at the top the gap was larger than it had looked going up the hill and I knew that I wasn't going to catch the runner in front, although I still kept on pushing as I knew my little brother was out to beat me on the run split! I came down the hill and past the support for the last time and my sister that wasn't racing said I was in 2nd place. I glanced behind to check that no-one was closing in and eased of to enjoy the last little section up to the finish line where I could see Craig finishing ahead. I got the 3rd fastest run time of 22:48, only 6 seconds off the fastest and plenty clear of my bro who won the Junior category in his first ever tri.

Really happy with how I performed with the slight exception of transitions but I plan to work on these in April/May in the build-up to more important races. I was only 31 seconds off Craig, a former junior international I'm informed, and I was 38 seconds slower than him through transitions. Full results can be found here.

The big positive for me is that I could still run well, given that I had not run for 3 months up to 2 weeks prior to the race and since then have built up from 10 to 3o minutes steady every other day. This may also be down to my cycling conditioning, which now it is improved allows me to get closer to my straight run speed. As above, I will now only do three runs a week as it seems the cycle training I am doing also benefits my running and it is doing running where I seem to get injured the most.

Hopefully, injuries permitting I will now have 2 months of good solid training ready for Adventure Races in March/April and ultimately building up to the Bedford Tri in July and potential selection for the 2010 AG Europeans in Ireland.

Frustrating Times

2008-11-01T16:35:00.000Z

Having had an excellent stint of training up to September things have unfortunately not gone so well since then. Injury-wise I’m experiencing some pain in both my lower legs between the calf muscle and the shin bone. I’ve also had some pain behind the patella in my right knee. I believe the former is a running-related injury and the latter to do with not having my bike set up correctly.

Since they flared up I have done pretty much no running or cycling and although they feel better I want to get a professionals opinion and see what preventative measures I can take rather than just healing measures once the injuries have already occurred. I have bitten the bullet and paid for a professional bike fit so that I can rule that out as a potential cause. It was a very informative session and led to putting my saddle up by nearly 2 inches! I am hoping to see a physio soon but the mechanisms of getting it on private healthcare take a while with various referrals needed from a GP and forms to fill in.

To add insult to injury I am now just at the end of a week of bad illness and my first ever days of work. However, this was much my own doing: I had a slight sniffle towards the end of last week but was due to do the OMM (of lead news story fame) at the weekend with my brother and didn’t want to let him down. We started on Saturday morning and the rest, as they say, is history. The worst non-winter weather conditions in the Lakes that many can remember which undoubtedly did nothing for my health! After Monday-Wednesday off work I am feeling much better but can’t seem to shift my blocked nose, so still no training allowed. On the plus side, Matt and I unofficially won the first day of the C class and I’m sure (health permitting this time!) that we will be back next year for another stab.

It is getting very frustrating having not really trained properly for nearly a month now, although on the positive side it’s about the best time of year to get injured/ill. Hopefully everything will come into place in the next week or so – physio advice, back to full health and back to getting the winter miles in.

Helvellyn Triathlon

2008-09-27T16:01:00.002+01:00

Sorry its been a while but here is (a rather long) report of a fun days out.

This race started out as something that looked a bit of fun one day in the office and ended up as the focus of my season's training. It was what got me up before work to go swimming and what drove me to maintain a consistently healthy lifestyle.

My swimming has improved significantly in the last six months to a level where I can hope to come out of the water in the top half but still a long way down on the quickest. I felt confident about my biking and knew that the Kirkstone Pass held no unknown horrors as I had been up it 3 times in training a few weeks previously. The run was something at which I felt I ought to be right up there with the top guys, although I wasn't too sure about my form on steeper hills.

I had had a few niggles in the month before the race but at Rugby Sprint Tri,my designated warm-up race the weekend before I felt in good nick. I had a decent race there (see below) but also suffered fairly major cramp in my right calf during the run. I managed to stave it off at the time but the next morning was agony, it felt like Ricky Hatton had punched the muscle multiple times, exactly in the dead leg spot. I took a couple of days off training and stretched lots but it didn’t seem to make much difference and I was starting to get worried about my prospects of even making the start-line on Sunday.

On Thursday evening I decided to go with the rolling pin technique to try and iron out the build-up of gunk in my calf but couldn’t bring myself to do it hard enough to have any benefit, unsurprisingly my sister had no such qualms! I sat with a rolled-up tea-towel in my mouth to bite on as she rolled up and down the affected area in a scene reminiscent of the scene from Braveheart when the arrow barb is removed from the old guys chest! Fortunately, like most things that are excruciatingly painful it did a lot of good and after another dose of the same treatment on Friday I knew it was ok to race on.

I have never been particularly bothered about getting really organised for races but since starting triathlon I get quite paranoid that I have forgotten something and so a huge list was written prior on Wednesday to ensure I had everything I needed (and plenty more besides!).

The journey up on Friday with my mum was a nervous one, firstly as the big day was looming but more worryingly, the Great British summer was well and truly upon us and numerous weather warnings had been issued across the country. The M6 was highly dangerous in places, not helped by some lunatics who hadn’t turned their lights on. Fortunately we arrived at our accommodation in one piece and were meeted by our larger then life (but slightly potty) B&B host. We then went down to the fantastic local pub in Tirril for a cracking lunch – a great place to stop if you are travelling on the M6, only about 5mins from the junction by Penrith and much better than motorway services food.

We then headed into Glenridding for registration and the big build-ups of water on the road weren’t particularly encouraging. At registration they said that the race was still planned to go ahead but it was likely that there would be some shortening of the route in places. We then met Rowena and parents, (the first time our parents had met!) and heaeded up to Aira Force for a short walk and a look at the waterfalls. This was one place where the recent deluges were and advantage and the falls were in full flow. We drove over the pass into Ambleside for dinner and then home early for a good nights sleep.

Our B&B hosts had been kind enough to make us a full cooked breakfast at 6.30am and we awoke to the delightful smell of bacon cooking and fortunately dryish conditions outside! I checked and double checked that all the right waterbottles were filled with the right drinks and we set off to Glenridding. The water had subsided somewhat but there was still some standing water on the roads. Having sorted my bike and set-up transition it was revealed in the pre-race briefing that the swim had been shortened to ~800m (although probably more like 1200m) and that the run had been shortened to only go up to Red Tarn and then back, Swirral Edge being far too dangerous in the conditions.

I said my goodbyes, and received my final good lucks before donning my wetsuit and swimhats and heading with trepidation into the lake. It was cold – not too bad on the body but putting your head underwater was not something I was looking forward to doing for the next 20 odd minutes. The mass of swimmers headed out into the lake, with no-one really seeming to know where the start was and then suddenly a klaxon went off. We all looked around at each other, a few people started off and then the mayhem began. Fortunately I had hung back as everyone made their way across to the “start” and although out of the main pack, didn’t lose any time like some others seemed to have done by starting too far up the lake. I felt like I was swimming fairly strongly but was aware that plenty of people were passing me. I managed to stay out of any trouble but definitely need some practice at swimming on people’s feet as I’m sure I could gain some time by effective drafting. As we got to the area where the river entered the lake, I got hit by a number of waves whilst breathing to my right but I knew the wind was blowing from my left and didn’t really fancy breathing that way either. I conciously tried to rotate my body more during the stroke to allow for an easier breath and got away with only a few mouthfuls full. Rounding the turn-buoys was a bit of a rucus as usual but they passed fairly uneventfully and soon we were heading back for home. I struggled to pick out the point on the shore where we were exiting, but one of the advantages of being down the pack is that you can just follow the people in front. It seemed to take longer than I was expecting but eventually I exited the water and ran up the transition chute with cheering supporters on either side. I was over the mat in 22:36 and 107th place, 6.5mins down on the quickest.

Transition 1 wasn’t great, my wetsuit came off fairly swiftly but my hands were really cold and I panicked a bit when I failed to do things the first time. My number belt took three attempts to get on and my helmet strap another couple. Finally though I had my bike in hand and was heading out onto what is quickly becoming my favourite part of triathlons. 2:07 for T1, losing me over a minute to the quickest and losing 5-10 places on the road, clearly an area I need to improve but hopefully a quick win with a little practice.

The bike leg was 38miles, heading north out of Glenridding, north up to Matterdale, continuing onto the A66, left along there for a few miles before heading down through St Johns-in-the-Vale, along the edge of Thirlmere, up Dunmail Raise, through Grasmere, into Ambleside, up Kirkstone Pass and down the other side back into Glenridding.

I started fairly steadily, concious of what lay ahead, especially as I had only ever done sprint triathlons before, although I still found myself passing plenty of people. The first few miles were mildly undulating but with some quite steep corners where it would have been easy to fall given the conditions. I was then witness to a horrible crash and had it been 5 seconds earlier I could also have been a tangled mess on the floor. I had pulled out to overtake a couple of riders when the front rider rode through what appeared to be just a puddle but turned out to be a gouge in the road filled with water. His front wheel dropped what looked like a foot and there was never going to be any other outcome except him hitting the deck. Unfortunately the guy behind was too close to react and went straight over the falling front rider, if I hadn’t have pulled out just seconds earlier I could have been the 3rd bike in a pile-up. I thought about stopping but decided there wasn’t really anything I could’ve done to help and so continued but told the next marshall that there had been a crash.

We turned away from the lake and onto the first significant climb of the course, up to Matterdale. I was still regularly passing people but it was also here I got overtaken on the bike for the first time in my triathlon “career” by Ben Bardsley, who eventually finished 3rd and had the fastest bike split. I stayed close to him for a decent length of time, but when I focussed on getting some food down me for 30 seconds he was away and I didn’t see him again. I noticed a number of times on the bike that when I went to eat/drink I slowed considerably and people I had just past were coming back at me. Something that needs a bit of work, but is probably just a case of concentrating on continuing to drive the legs even when taking on fuel. Fortunately the wind had changed direction from when I did it in training and it was blowing with me down through St Johns-in-the-Vale and down alongside Thirlmere. It was fairly lonely along this stretch, I think having passed those athletes that were strong swimmers but poor bikers and not caught those that were strong swimmers and also decent bikers. Going up Dunmail Raise I was caught by a guy that I had started the bike with, he was going well and must have taken a bit of time to get into his rhythm. We zoomed down the other side of the climb and in the aero position I was worried about going into the car that I was behind as my hands weren’t anywhere near my brakes! As I entered Grasmere the traffic had started to build up although thankfully it didn’t slow me down too much. I started to turn my thoughts to what was to come – the Kirkstone Pass!

Near the foot of the slope, I quickly hauled in the guy who had taken me up Dunmail and we then rode side by side up the initial climbs. We were then passed by a guy that was absolutely nailing it, although I’m not sure whether he finished as I can’t see someone that would’ve fitted his times on the results. I ignored his speed as I could see that I was quite quickly catching up a good group of riders ahead. I worked hard up the hill, although it seemed a lot more difficult than when I had done it in training. There is a bit of respite about 2/3-3/4 of the way up and then you see it, the Struggle looming large in front of you, like a wall of concrete. The weather on the day made it even more intimidating as you could hardly see the top and it gave the image of a neverending rode heading up into the clouds. I was now passing people quite regularly and the adrenaline started to flow as I neared the top and the noise of the supporters on the summit grew louder. I had no real idea where I was in the overall race but hoped I had worked my way into around the top 30. As I passed mine and Rowena’s mum just before the summit they said that I was in 12th place! That spurred me on as I felt I had my strongest of the three disciplines still to come. Coming down the other side of the pass wasn’t as bad as it had been previously as it was into the wind which considerably checked the possible top speed. I still took it fairly easy as it was still fairly wet and I didn’t want to risk coming off at all. I passed another couple of people on the run into transition and as I came in I was told I was in 9th, I started to dream of a top 5 finish. My bike split was 1:55:37, 8th quickest and 5mins down on the quickest.

Into transition and as soon as I had racked my bike my legs started to cramp – just what I had been hoping wouldn’t happen! I had decided not to put elastic laces on as I wanted the stability of properly done up laces on the rocky descents, however with my legs starting to cramp I could’ve done without having to bend over and tie-up my laces. My struggles resulted in a slow transition of 1:41, losing me a few of the places I had just gained at the end of the cycle.

The cramp seemed to disappear as I headed out on the initially flat run alongside the campsite however as soon as I hit the hill it reared its ugly head again. In the rush at T2 I had forgotten to attach my gel belt and so all I had was the water in my Camelbak. I struggled up the hill and also had to stop for a quick toilet break, I have heard of triathletes not bothering to stop but I couldn’t bring myself to do it! Having stopped my legs felt much better and I managed to get up with a group of 4 or 5 runners. Passing Rowena and Euan on the hill spurred me on and I started to feel more confident. Thanks to all for coming out to support, it helped a lot at the hard parts of the race. Unfortunately as I hit a flatter bit near the hole in the wall the cramp came back again and this time it was in both my hamstring and my quad which is unfortunate as when you stretch out your hamstring it cramps your quad and vice versa. After a little while stretching I was able to continue and fortunately as the route started heading downhill, the different muscles being used abated the cramp. I was getting passed by a number of people and had turned my thoughts from a top 5 finish to just getting to the finish! It wasn’t long before I hit the tarmac and the final descent into Glenridding, I passed my Dad and brother who had just managed to get there from Matt’s overnight race to see me finish and I that surge of adrenaline you always get towards the end of long races came and I was able to run strongly into the finish.

I finished the run in 1:05:34, 29th place and 9mins down on the quickest, at least 5mins slower than I would’ve hoped to have been. I need more work on how I can combat cramp. Overall position was 17th in 3:27:38, 17mins down on the winner, but only 5.5mins down on 6th, which could have been achievable on another day. Thanks again to everyone who came to support and all things being well I will be back again next year.

Full results can be seen here.

Warwick Sprint Triathlon tomorrow, where I hope to get my first podium finish in a triathlon!

Great Few Weeks Training and Rugby Sprint Triathlon

2008-08-26T19:43:00.007+01:00

Well, it’s been rather a long time since my last update and quite a lot has happened in that time.

I have had a couple of fantastic weeks training building up to this weekend’s Helvellyn triathlon with weekends in Northumberland with Team Accelerate, a recce in the Lakes and 6 days in Norway visiting Rowena.

Northumberland included running from 1am to 7am and then getting straight on the bikes until 1pm! We also got to hone some climbing skills and take to the river on kayaks.

The Lakes was an opportunity to familiarise myself with the Helvellyn route and I left far more confident with my ability to cope with the demanding course.

Norway was awesome; Rowena’s accommodation is about a 15min jog from the edge of the lakes and hills. I managed to get in a good amount of training, especially open water swimming in the lake, whilst also seeing the sights and sounds of Oslo. It was refreshing seeing the general way of life of Norwegians where you seem to be the odd one out if you’re not going running after school/work. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the UK, how many little groups of 14-16 year old girls do you see running? I had a slight niggle in my knee which felt like an ITB related strain but after a good bit of stretching it seems to be ok now. Fingers crossed that it doesn’t develop into anything more serious.

Last weekend I had my final warm-up race before Helvellyn at the Rugby Sprint Triathlon and I was hoping to finely tune my skills, in particular those relating to the transitions where my lack of experience has shown in previous races. It was a 400m pool swim, followed by a 20km road bike and a 5km run around the Bilton Grange School grounds.

I couldn’t have got off to a worse start as in my lane there was clearly someone who had underestimated the time it would take him to swim 400m and so he was a good deal slower than all the other people in the pool at that time. Unfortunately he had just started a length when I started and so I was stuck behind him for nearly the whole of the first length doing head out of the water breaststroke – extremely frustrating! I felt fairly strong during the swim and happy that the significant improvements I have made over the past few months would take fruition. I encountered a bit more congestion towards the swim and eventually left the pool in 6:38, nearly 20 seconds down on what I had twice managed in training during the week and a little disappointed.

Transition 1 was fairly smooth and I only lost 5-10 seconds on the quickest so a big improvement on previous efforts. I had decided to try the time-gaining technique of leaving my bike shoes clipped into the pedals. I got away well but struggled to slip my feet into the shoes and had reached the main road before I managed to get them in. I am not sure how much time I lost from faffing around, but probably 20-30 seconds, although I would have gained that much from not putting my shoes on in transition. Still, another few seconds I can gain just from a bit of practice.

Out on the bike I felt strong but was a bit worried that I couldn’t see anyone ahead. I worked hard down the A45 and having turned left onto the country roads there was a decent train of people up ahead on the hill giving me something to aim at. I pushed up the hill, using the psychological benefit of catching people to push me on. I then reached the section of the course I knew from the Rugby 6 mile road race I had done previously in the year and knew that there was only one hill to go. Having climbed that hill (it seemed much easier on a bike than towards the end of a road race!) the course turned left and onto the road with the most speed-bumps I have ever seen, not ideal for being on tri-bars! I knew I was nearing the end of the course and so I took the energy gel I had stored in the back of my tri-suit ready for the run. The last section seemed to drag on longer than expected, but after around 31mins I turned back into the school for transition.

As soon as I got off the bike I knew something was wrong with my calves, and especially the right one. My transition went smoothly but as soon as I started running I experienced a rather bizarre sensation; my calf started cramping which caused my foot to shake uncontrollably! Fortunately there was a drinks station after about 50m of the run and I stopped to take on some fluid, the lack of which almost certainly led to the cramp in the first place, and to stretch out the muscle. I started off fairly gingerly but fortunately settled fairly quickly into my normal running rhythm. Although I was disappointed to have lost what I think was around 60-90 seconds I am glad that it happened on this race which wasn’t important for me and gives me a learning point for future races. (I have already bought a drinks bottle designed to slip on the front of my tri-bars). I felt fairly strong for the rest of the run, finishing in around 19mins I think although my splits didn’t work for the bike and run.

My total time was 58:19 which put me in 6th place overall, a satisfactory result considering the problems I encountered. On another day I could have come 3rd, but still some more training to be done before I could have challenged the top 2 who were 4 minutes ahead. Full results can be seen here.

This week has been a bit of a worry, with the cramp I got during the race causing my calf to be extremely sore, almost like a dead leg, but fortunately it seems to be easing off today (after some excruciating rolling pin treatment) and should be fine for the weekend.

And this weekend, the big one that I’ve been training for for the past 6 months, the Helvellyn triathlon. A 1 mile swim followed by a 38 mile road bike including the Kirkstone Pass, and finally a 9.5 mile run up England’s 3rd highest mountain Helvellyn. I am not setting myself any positional goals, as this will totally depend on the calibre of the competition but I hope to break the 4-hour barrier.

My rough estimations for the splits are:

Swim 28 mins
T1 2 mins
Bike 1h 55 mins
T2 2 mins
Run 1h 30 mins
Total 3h 57 mins

I hope to be alive some time next week for a decent report.

Nottingham Triathlon

2008-08-06T09:56:00.011+01:00

My new tri bike and wetsuit arrived on Friday and I was finally kitted out and ready to go. Pushed it a bit fine on getting the stuff in time and didn’t leave much time to practice but glad I was now a par with the top guys kit-wise.

Managed to go for my first wetsuit open water swim on Saturday morning (the first of two 6.15am weekend wake-up calls, what’s that all about?!) at Bosworth Water Park. I was surprised at how warm the water was and how much more streamlined the buoyancy of the wetsuit made me feel (probably a clue that my swim body position needs a bit of work!). Although I know I’m not the strongest swimmer I felt confident that come the race I wouldn’t be too far down.

The rest of Saturday was spent dehydrating at Edgbaston watching England lose the Test Match. Not great preparation, but it was a last minute decision to go and didn’t fancy spending £2 on a little bottle of water!

Felt fine on the Sunday morning and had my now standard breakfast of porridge before the 1hr drive to the National Watersports Centre at Holme Pierrepoint just outside Nottingham. It was a cracking day and the racers were turning up in their droves. There were some seriously fit looking guys around with equally mean looking machines to compliment.

I had a few stomach wobbles before the start, possibly nerves but probably due to visiting the “Taste of India” van at the cricket! although felt fine once the race was underway.

We swam across to the other side of the lake for the start and I was rather apprehensive having read about the usual carnage at the start of open water swims. It occurred to me that as we were milling around treading water that we were all only occupying a box 2ft by 2ft on the surface but once we all started swimming we would quickly become 6ft by 2ft and wouldn’t all fit in the area we were currently in!

There was no messing around and the hooter signalled the start, everyone started swimming like they possessed and I quickly disappeared towards the back of the field, managing to stay out of trouble but probably quite slow over the first 1-200m. I found my (it seems rather slow) rhythm and set about minimising the loss. I missed a trick by not drafting enough and too often found open water in front of me. The turn around the buoy was carnage as everyone bottlenecked into a tight area but having cleared this I soon reached the exit of the lake.

I had had some trouble getting my wetsuit off after training on Saturday and was worried I was going to make a tit of myself in T1 but thankfully it came off fairly quickly.

Out on to the bike and this was where I thought I could really gain some places. I started quite hard and was passing people at a regular interval. The course was 4 laps of the lake; a long straight with the wind followed by two sharp bends, then a long straight back down the other side into the wind before swinging back round past the transitions.

I felt strong and no-one passed me throughout the 4 laps (partly due to my lowly position from the swim!). Fairly happy with my time as it included the first transition where I inevitably lost some time to the more practiced guys, however need to work on my cornering on the new bike as I lost a fair bit of time. (16 corners in all, 1-2 secs per corner – it adds up quite fast!)

T2 was a bit of a nightmare – the racking was too low for my bike to rest on the saddle and I faffed trying to sort it out.

Out on the run and I was immediately caught by a guy who I had passed towards the end of the bike. He was flying along and my initial thoughts to tuck in behind him didn’t last long! Nevertheless, there was still a long string of people in front of me and I set about gaining as many places as I could. I had a few aches in my neck and back – presumably from using aero bars for the first time and my stomach was playing up a bit but I knew I could stick it out for 5km. I passed around 15-20 people and think I ran a fairly even pace, with only the one person passing me.

Finished in 26th overall out of 250 odd so fairly happy with my first attempt. With a little practice I think I could easily gain a minute on transitions which would have put me in the top 20. My main loss was in the swim where I was 3.5 minutes slower than the fastest and at 2 minutes down on everyone in the top 14. Bike was ok, again 3 minutes down but over 30 rather than 10 minutes, I hope once I’m more used to the bike I will be up with the faster times. My run was up there, less than 2 minutes down on the fastest and that included my slow T2 time. Some promise but a lot of work to the 6 mins on so I needed to get right up there.

Full result can be seen here.

Hathersage Hilly Triathlon

2008-07-22T16:18:00.003+01:00

Having failed to locate any decent hills anywhere near home, Matt and I decided to head up to the Peaks for the weekend. We left mid-afternoon on Saturday and arrived in Hope a little later than hoped (sorry) at 6. In fact it turned out to be a good time to get out as we had the hills to ourselves and the weather was still fine. We ran at a steady pace for 2 hours taking in Lose Hill, Hollins Cross, Edale, Grindslow Knoll, Nether Tor and Crookstone Knoll. Afterwards we headed into Sheffield for some much-needed grub and a bed courtesy of Team Accelerate manager Stu.

Sunday morning was the first of two triathlons that I am doing in the build up to Helvellyn in September. The Hathersage Hilly Triathlon organised by Sheffield Tri Club started with a 420m swim in a heated outdoor pool, a 20km bike and a ~6.5km run.

For some reason the registration was between 7:00 and 8:00 with first starts at 8:00. Why it was this early I’m not really sure as it would surely dissuade people from travelling to the event from slightly further afield. Nevertheless the entry list was full with around 250 people competing. I was one of the last starters just after 10:00 and it gave me ample to time to remind myself how (or how not to) do the transitions.

I felt ok in the swim, but not quite as strong as I would have hoped and splashed out in 7:27, 41st quickest time. The fastest time was a quite remarkable 5:09 although five people went under 6 minutes. My first transition was a little slower than I would’ve hoped. My top got stuck on the top of my back as I was putting it on – perhaps I should have put talcum powder in it or taken a couple of seconds to dry my back. Then my helmet’s straps got slightly tangled. Matt was watching and thought I lost between 30 seconds and a minute.
I started fairly sluggishly on the bike but had got into my rhythm by the time we hit the long climb. This was the road up from Froggatt to the top junction above Longshaw Estate. It was a fairly gradual climb, certainly you could stay in the saddle the whole time. The key thing was that the gradient remained pretty much the same all of the way up and so once you got the right cadence going you just had to stick in there. I felt strong up the climb, passing people at regular intervals which helped me mentally. At the top we turned for home and straight into the wind. This was the section where I could have done with a tri-bike rather than my road bike (new one coming this week!!) as I was getting buffeted by the wind. The descent was fast but not too hairy and I got stuck behind a few slow moving cars just as I was re-entering Hathersage. I was fairly pleased with how the bike went and was a little surprised to see how far down on the quickest time I was. I did 43:12 in 29th place with the quickest time being 36:28. In part I think it was due to both transitions being included in the bike time as the clock started as soon as you got out of the pool and stopped as you headed out on the run. Obviously this doesn’t make up nearly 7 minutes but 3 minutes quicker and I would’ve been in the top 10 on the bike. Hopefully with a new TT bike I can pull a little more time and then there’s a few minutes to be had through hard work!!
I hadn’t been able to find toggles/springy laces on the Saturday (when I realised I didn’t have any) and so had to stop and tie both shoe laces in transition. Once out on the run I felt fairly sluggish with a little case of the “jelly-legs” that triathletes tend to suffer from but after 4-5 minutes I was into my running. This was fortunate as shortly after that came a series of climbs, most of which were runnable but it was quicker to walk on some of the steeper sections. Again it was helpful having a line of people to pick off and I got stronger as the run went on, sprinting in to finish with the 5th quickest run time of 27:26 about 30 seconds down on the fastest. Hopefully with some more ‘brick’ training I can get rid of the sluggish section at the start and be right at the top of the run times.

Overall I was fairly happy with how I performed, finishing 9th and first U25 and there is definitely room for some fairly “quick-win” improvement. Full results can be found here although the run times appear to be the positions for the run and not the actual times. Next attempt is at the Nottingham Tri in two weeks time which will be my first ever open-water swim and a slightly different feel with waves of starts rather than the time-trial style which this had.

Not had a quote for a while so here goes…

“A ship in the harbour is safe. But that's not what ships are built for.” - Anonymous

Holme Moss Fell Race - 13 July

2008-07-16T11:16:00.007+01:00

On Sunday I ran the Holme Moss Fell Race in the north Peaks. I stayed overnight at the Crowden Youth Hostel, where I remarkably got my own single room and decent breakfast for 20 quid! I woke to a glorious day, with the sun shining brightly and not a cloud in the sky, I was glad that I had decided on including my CamelBak in the pile of potentially useful stuff in the back of my car!

I arrived at the start with what I thought was plenty of time, but hadn’t reckoned on the 20-long toilet queue for only one toilet. I, along with Rob (Little) and Will (Spain) ended up jogging up to the start from the cricket club registration area with kit everywhere to make sure they didn’t go without us.

The start of the race was fairly quick considering the length, a 17.5 mile race with 4500 feet of climb, that’s more than climbing Ben Nevis from sea level! I held myself back not to go off with the front four (which included Rob), having got used to the 30-min road races it was a bit weird. A gentle incline up the road took us to the first checkpoint where we then cut onto the fell for the first time. After a short while we descended sharply down to Ramsden Clough and the first of many river crossings of the day and then the first serious ascent up the other side. At this point the race had started to get strung-out and I found myself alone in 6th place but feeling fairly comfortable. After the initial climb we then followed a rough path along the side of Twizzle Head Moss towards the radio mast at the top of Holme Moss. This was an energy-sapping section with a lot of little ups and downs and sections of deep peat. Reaching the top we turned left along the road before descending steeply down the other side across Heyden Brook and up onto Tooleyshaw Moor on the other side. At this point I calculated that I was 30 seconds behind the two guys in front and a little more than that in front of those behind. The next section was a fairly long, mostly gradual descent down into Crowden, and the scene of my only navigational error on the course. I had caught Rob on the descent and looked ahead to see one of the leading runners on the track below. Not seeing a path down we decided to cut straight down to the track, but this left us with an uphill run and we were caught by the three runners behind who had found a gradual path down. I reckon it only lost us about a minute, but psychologically it felt like a really bad error.

Now in a group of six we passed through a drinks point in Crowden where I had my first energy gel of the day at about the 70min mark. The next climb up Bareholme Moss was the first little struggle for me and I lost a bit of ground on a few of the guys in our group. The following descent to Crowden Great Brook was steep and a bit rocky and so I was wary of my ankles and lost some more time. The climb up the other side was fairly crazy with knee to waist deep undergrowth and a sharp gradient meaning that arms were just as useful as legs to get you up. I managed to catch back up with the rest of the group of 6 and when they started drifting too far left, myself and another guy took the more direct route and consequently had a little lead at the top of Laddow Rocks.

In true Tour de France style we tried to make our break stick and put in a concerted effort to get away along the Pennine Way up to Black Hill. We gained perhaps a 20-30 second advantage over the chasing trio but in true Tour de France style when we hit the uphill the chasing group reeled us in! The Pennine Way was a series of paving stones which really started to hurt my calves following the more forgiving terrain of the first half of the race. I reached the top of Black Hill together with the three pursuing runners, with my fellow breakaway-ee really starting to suffer and dropping a little behind.

The run across Holme Moss and back to the radio mast we had visited a good hour and a half earlier was fraught with danger. There were areas of deep peat, ankle-breaking hidden streams and everywhere was generally very wet. I survived right until near the end where I fell heavily on my ankle. I soldiered on to the mast but lost ground on the three guys in front. It was in fact one of the worst places I could have done it as there was a fairly prolonged steep descent to follow on which I lost at least a minute on those in front but I was fairly confident I could maintain my 8th place once I hit the tracks at the bottom.

However my legs had other ideas and once on the track they almost completely seized up. I plodded along through the reservoirs but was then caught by a group of 4 as we went up the hill on the other side. I tried to stay with them but they ended up going past me like I was running backwards! The best I could do was to keep running and after what seemed like an eternity I arrived at the finish in 2:52.40 and 12th place, exhausted, slightly sun-burnt, satisfied to have finished but a little disappointed that I didn’t finish higher.

Thanks must go to all the volunteers from Holmfirth Harriers who put on extra (and much needed) drinks points due to the unexpected hot weather. Hopefully I’ll be back next year for another stab and a better position.

Dollar Hill Race

2008-07-09T16:33:00.004+01:00

On a weeks holiday up in Scotland with Rowena this week and managed to fit in the Dollar Hill Race on Saturday. I had looked at the results for last year and thought that I could win if I had a good run. Unfortunately I had overlooked the fact that this year it was incorporating the Scottish Hill Running Champs! I flew up to Edinburgh on Saturday morning for a quick bit of breakfast and then off to the race.

The first 5 mins along the road and up through the woods (north of 1) were scarily fast for a race that I knew would take at least 1hr 20mins and take in some pretty significant hills and I found myself in around 15th place coming out of the woods. However except for the front 5, who broke away from the rest of the field early on, it seemed a lot of other people had gone off too fast.

The first climb up Saddle Hill was extremely steep and at times I was using my arms more than my legs to haul myself up. There was a short respite before another steep section up to the top of White Wisp which I reached in 32mins of solid uphill! By this point I had climbed up into 6th place but with a steady stream of people behind and a large gap to those in front.

The next section was a nice run along the ridge from points 2 to 6 on the map above and although I was overtaken by one of the runners from behind I still felt strong and didn't let him pull away. Then came the worst section of the race for me. I struggled with the steep downhills, having not taped my ankles and not wanting to risk injuring myself lost some ground and slipped back into 8th place with others closing fast from behind.

I knew that once I had hit the road I could maintain my position and was happy to stay in 8th place to the finish and first U23. I finished in 1.22:22, eight and a half minutes down on the winner Jethro Lennox. Rowena ran well, winning the female U23 in 1.45:19. Full results can be seen here.

Tonight we are heading over to Newburgh in Fife for a 5-mile multi-terrain race. Not sure how I'll fare as my legs are still sore from Saturday!! Shows I need to get in some more hill running before the Helvellyn triathlon in September.

Milton Keynes 10k

2008-07-02T21:25:00.002+01:00

Well, the less said about this race the better. I had felt lousy during the day but decidedly perkier when I was making the decision whether to drive down or not and so thought I'd give it a shot. Warming up felt fine, although there wasn't much need to "warm" up with the hot and muggy conditions.

I wanted to run in the same manner as Sunday, with an even paced race and felt fine on pace through the first 3km. This is where it all started to go wrong, the 4th km was 16 seconds too slow although I didn't feel like I was going any slower and was still with the same people as before (at the end of the race a number of people expressed a doubt over the accuracy of the markers so that may have been a factor). Having seen that split time I tried to push on but only got slower, my legs felt heavier and my heart rate started to drop. Eventually I pulled out after about 7.5km knowing that it wasn't doing me any good. Although in contradiction to the quote at the bottom, I felt it was the best thing to do and allowed me to train this evening.

Hard to put my finger on exactly what went wrong, although it was probably a combination of the effects of Sunday's race, a hard day at work with a lot of time on my feet and swimming in the morning (although on the plus side it was the first time under 30mins for a mile!!).

This race just about brings the road racing season to an end for me, with my attention now turning to fell races in preparation for the Helvellyn triathlon at the start of September.

To finish, the quote that I say to myself the most, especially towards the end of interval sessions and when the alarm goes off at 6.45 to go swimming!

"Winners never quit, quitters never win"

Prestwold 10k

2008-07-01T09:49:00.004+01:00

This Sunday brought the Prestwold 10k, the second race of the summer Leicestershire road race series. It was held on the Prestwold driving centre track just outside Loughborough and is advertised as the flattest 10k in the county. True to their word, we arrived to a vast flat open space criss-crossed with tarmac, unfortunately this meant there was little shelter and the wind was particularly strong in places (more on this later).

A large field of roughly 800 had turned up, obviously keen to take advantage of the flat course to achieve a new pb. However, in their wisdom the organisers decided that the temporary scaffolding that they used to funnel people through the start would only be wide enough to fit around 8 people across. This led to the customary jostling pre-start and elbows in the side once the hooter went. Fortunately I managed to start only a couple of rows back and got off fairly cleanly.

I have found road races quite a steep learning curve since starting early this year and have often gone off to fast. On Sunday I was determined to run as even a pace as I could to try and attain my goal of running sub-35mins for the first time. I had only run one 10k previously, on a quite hilly course, and run 36.20 and so was hopeful that sub-35 was within my grasp.

The first 3km were anti-clockwise around the inside of the track. I had to hold myself back not to run faster and let people run away from me. This was followed by 2km on the country roads around the outside of the track and passing the 5km mark I felt good and on track at 17:16. We then came back into the track and I worked hard through the next 2km still feeling strong. Then came the killer; just after the 7km marker the course turned sharply right up a slight hill, which I must have run down but didn’t feel. Far worse though was that it was straight into the aforementioned wind. I slowed considerably for the next 2km, running 7:26 which left me needing to run under 3:15 for the final kilometre to break 35mins. I pushed hard but could only manage 3:28 leaving me with a final time of 35:13. All considered I was happy with the performance and hope to go a little better this evening at Milton Keynes.

Rowena was down for the weekend and also ran. She was probably a bit polite at the beginning, starting quite a long way down the field and was rather disappointed with her time of 44:11. Full results can be seen here.

My little bro Matt is out at the Junior World Orienteering Championships in Sweden this week, his first international competition which will no doubt be a big learning curve. Yesterday was the first race of the week, the 2.8km sprint race for the men, won by Stepan Kodeda of Czech Republic in 13:21 with Matt 2:38 down in 98th place. Rhodri Buffett was top Brit in 42nd place. It looks like a cracking race with lots of tricky control sites and route choices. The men's course can be seen below and the rest of the week's racing can be followed on the JWOC website.

and finally a classic …..

“To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift” – Steve Prefontaine

Close(ish) but no cigar

2008-06-26T10:11:00.010+01:00

It was perfect running conditions and confidence was high prior to our attempt to break the mother & son record for the Sutton Park Gates run, but unfotunately it wasn't to be. I felt like I was running well, with a time of 47.29 for the 7.8mile course, but it's always hard on a time-trial run that you don't know to know how hard to push and I probably finished with too much left in the tank. Hopefully Matt will be able to run next year and we can push each other round to a sub-45min time.

My mum had a good run to come home in 59.44, especially happy to break the hour mark for the first time, although was a bit bemused at how she only beat last years time by a minute when she is fitter and didn't get lost this year! This put our total time at 107.33, just under 3 mins behind the record. The individual record is a frankly ridiculous 38.30, although the fact that the guy who set it is in the top 40 all time British 1500m times with 3.38 might have something to do with it!

See here for the route.

A quote from one of my heroes today:

"Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever." - Lance Armstrong

Today's ramblings

2008-06-25T11:12:00.010+01:00

It's there, in black and white, the first time my little brother has ever beaten me in an orienteering event, to add to the comprehensive beating he gave me in a road race a couple of weeks ago. I fear it may be the opening of the floodgates although I don't intend on giving up without a fight. Moving back in with Matt and the parents should be good. Although we have slighlty different training goals at present, we ought to be able to drive each on to bigger and better things; there's nothing better to get you motivated than when your pride is at stake.

This evening's Sutton Park Gates run brings a change to the usual Wednesday orienteering events with a ~8mile race visiting all of the gates around Sutton Park. My mum is particularly keen to beat the mother and son/daughter records which look do-able, although the last time I ran I rather embarrassingly went the wrong way!

Today sees the return of Euro 2008 to my evenings, the last two football-less nights have seemed like a lifetime. It's remarkable, I remember the range of emotions watching that final qualifying game; one moment we're through, the next we're staring an embarassing defeat in the face which would justifiably lose McClaren his job. I was gutted, the thought of a major international tournament with no interest, not even another home nation to tag along with. But this tournament has been the most enjoyable I can remember since Euro '96, with some fantastic free-flowing football, a raft of upsets and some charismatic managers. From a neutral point of view it's been great to watch and penalty shoot-outs are infinitely times more enjoyable when you don't care who wins!

I've managed to keep a little interest in who wins by entering a competition at work for the winners and runners-up. I'm feeling rather smug as my more by luck than judgement prediction of Germany to win and Spain to bottle it in the final looks increasingly likely by the day. So just for tonight, I'll be donning my lederhosen and having bratwurst for dinner.

and to finish...

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goals." - Sydney Smith

....and so it begins

2008-06-24T13:38:00.000+01:00

I had been meaning to do this for a while, but in my usual non-sport related lazy way I kept putting it off. However, SkySports is not working at home right now and so I needed something else to fill the blanks between eating, sleeping working and training!

I'll try and keep a track on the training I do, the competitions I enter and anything else interesting I'm thinking about. (don't expect a great deal - I'm not really the deep thinking type!)

On the horizon for me over the next few weeks are:

The Prestwold 10k on Sunday, allegedly the flattest in the county. Hoping for a new pb and to go under 35mins although the last couple of road races I did were not great and haven't been able to put my finger on why.

Last race of the East Midlands summer league on Tuesday with the Milton Keynes 10k.

Up to Scotland on 5 July to visit Rowena for the weekend, which handily coincides with the Dollar hill race.

and to finish...

"It's a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don't quit when you're tired you quit when the gorilla is tired" - Robert Strauss