Juneathon 2010

I'm entered into Juneathon this year, its a sort of online bloggers competition to exercise and write about it everyday during June.......it will be ideal preparation as I start to ramp up my distances for my A race in Antwerp in July.
So I suppose, this makes sense to do, it will help me keep focused and get fitter. Perfect !
This afternoon I'll be going for a spin on the road bike and hope to get at least a couple of hours in, this will be an ample warm up for the endeavours of June.

bring it on !!

So then... hows that training going ?

Last week we had a week away, luckily making sure that we outran that pesky ash cloud just before it managed to close half of Britain....again !!!

We also managed to book a hotel that had a sort of primitive gym, so I was able to keep training going in some form. Each day, we managed a swim , either in the sea or in the pool. I also ran twice, although the second time, Heidi swears that I came back with sunstroke. There were two exercise bikes in the gym, and once i had fixed the seat, I got four seperate one hour sessions out of them : I wish I could ride as fast at the speedo was telling me out on the open road !!!!!

In all, one of those pleasing breaks where you don't come back feeling bloated and guilty -- quality !!!

During June, I will be competing in the Dambuster triathlon, which is my first crack at Olympic distance. I will also be blogging everyday, as I attempt to win the Juneathon prize, more details and an explanation coming shortly.....

What a difference a week makes....

Woodhall Spa Sprint Triathlon

You can accomplish a lot within a week ! Within this last week I have been mostly dedicating my time to improving my cycling as my lap times on Monday at Mallory definately needed some improvement. Thankfully, my biking partner in crime has been back in the UK, so we managed to cram in two evening rides this week at a reasonably fast and challenging pace. Averaging 16mph on Thursday and 16.5mph on friday despite the very windy and wet conditions.

Todays Woodhall Spa Triathlon was special, as it was where I decided last year to give Triathlon a go, having turned up as a spectator that time around.

This year I arrived having now completed six Triathlons in total and looking for an improvement on both Mallory Park and the season opener at East Leake. At registration i didn't have my photo ID and had to go back to the car to get it, eventually though I was given my race no's and as an added bonus got a T-shirt that actually fitted me for a change ! I racked my bike in Transition, tested my OCD to the full, by checking everything three times over, and then made my way to the pool for todays fun and games........this is how it went.....

Swim 400m 10.17

The outdoor pool was a blessing , and I could have ordered in a six pack and stayed in the pool all day it was that nice ! Instead though, I had to compete and duly lined up for my starting slot at 8.44am, and complete 12 lengths of a 33 metre pool.

We were soon off and I could immediately tell that I was back in a swimming pool as I lost all of the bouyancy gain of the open water. We started in the shallow end and had to swim to the deep end and back - the deep end really feels like swimming uphill, but may be just my eyes playing tricks on me. The swim came and went without any real incident and I climbed out the pool ran into T1 in 10.17 seconds, just 2 secs off a PB, d'oh!!

T1 - 1.43, an improvement from last week, but slower than I am used to, I spent too long messing around with the race belt and lost valuable time as a result.

Cycling 24km - 52.23

A massive improvement and a PB average speed of 17mph ! The bike route is very deceptive as there are no hills or undulations that I remember but there are long steady inclines that you are not really aware of until you are halfway up them. There was also a wicked cross wind at times which confused me as it seemed to change direction. Regardless of these things, I span the pedals well, and knew the time was going to be a good one when I overtook three times the amount of people that overtook me. I'm just hoping the guy on the carrera bike (like my own) didn't think I was being funny when I said 'nice bike', I just hope he saw I was too riding a carrera when I overtook him.

T2 - 1.12 , maybe it was a long transition area, but I know I'm quicker than this...

Run 5K 25.50

My quickest Triathlon 5km, however I suspect that like Southwell it is measured short.My garmin was telling me that my pace was very good and it was pleasing to be able to keep my legs turning over after having ridden so hard on the bike. I crossed the finish line in 1.31.28 which I consider to be my best performance at Triathlon.

I ran into Hugh from Mansfield Tri Club whilst checking out the results. It was after reading Hugh's blog last year that gave me the idea of moving to multi sport. As we chatted, Rory Underwood, the ex England winger and keen Triathlete finished in a time that was marginally behind mine, I think I might be living off that for a while um.....

Next race is the Dambuster which will be my first crack at Olympic distance racing and this means that I will need to knuckle down in training for the next six weeks or so !

Why don't you come on over Mallory ?

- Mallory Park Triathlon -

Just like the professional footballers do, I gave myself a little bit of a fitness test yesterday, which comprised of a short bike/run combination. Feeling OK afterwards, I passed myself fit (my doctorate is no doubt in the post) and made the decision to go ahead and compete at the Mallory Park Triathlon. This event would be my first taste of open water racing, and as my only experience was the session at Holme Pierrepont a fortnight ago, I rather hoped that the water temperature would be too low, which would turn the event into a run/bike/run Duathlon.

The trip from Lincoln to the Mallory Park race circuit is not especially long and I thought that I had given myself time to get there well before registration closed, but lo and behold the signage disappears near to the circuit and I lost myself twice over trying to find it. Thankfully, I could still register even though I was late, and then had enough time to rack the bike , and put my wetsuit on. Lincoln Tri really invaded this event, being our club champs, as there was a good group of us competing. The club also put up a tent and flags, so we all knew where to congregate.

It wasn't long before we had to make our way down to the start and I made sure I lurked at the back of the pack, to be honest I nearly bottled it there and then. Once I had gotten into the water though I decided to give it a go at least to the first bouy which was about two hundred metres away, I could just see it in the distance as it had started raining. I had enough time to put my head under once and then we were off !

Swim 19.03

It was hard work for the first part of the race as I swam with my head above the water, because it was cold and because I was trying to avoid panicking. When I did go underwater all I could see was a poo coloured milkshake and it was nothing like the pool where you can see the lane bottom and can guage how quickly you are going. At the first bouy we turned to the right and the water seemed very choppy and thats where I ended up swallowing a lot of it. At this point I think I heard somebody giviving up behind me and that was when I decided that it would not be happening to me. Something clicked and I relaxed and started swimming like I do in the pool got into the groove so to speak, I overtook the two people in front of me and started to pull away, I managed to keep my rythym right until the end where I was gratefully helped out of the water and back onto dry land. My legs felt funny and I did a zombie shuffle all the way into T1.

T1 3.03 - Jeez, what was I doing in there, taking a .......????

Bike 50.08

This was a straight ten laps of the full race circuit. Now correct me if I'm wrong but when did they start putting hills in race circuits ? Well,not so much of a hill but an incline, and it had to be climbed ten times in total, mind you, it made for great speeds on the way down the finishing straight ! There was some great Lincoln Tri support on the bike leg (cheers) and this made the laps a little easier. Some laps the incline was easy and on others it seemed much harder - go figure?

T2 1.07 That's more like it !

Run 30.09

This was a full bike lap (including that incline!) and two smaller laps. It felt like I had done all of the hard work and I just enjoyed the run. I didn't do anything daft and looked after my calf, the aim of the game was finish and my one pace kicked in and that was that.

Total time - 1.44.11 which is PB now for this distance and a target to be shot at. I am pleased I carried on today and that I won my race where my only opponent was me.Lincoln Tri had a very successful event with the Chairman coming third individually, and collecting the team prize for first four club individuals across the line.

Next week sees a return to pool based Triathlon frivolity at Woodhall Spa, ooh, a lovely warm pool, can't wait....