Race Report - Woodhall Spa Triathlon 1.21.37

I returned to what I like to call ‘the home of triathlon’ today and competed in the Woodhall Spa Sprint triathlon.

2 years ago, I popped along as a spectator to this event having read a blog online and eager to learn more about Triathlon – I can honestly recommend this strategy as it put to bed any fears about taking the plunge as the sport is full of normal people of differing shapes and sizes and not the muscle heads that I had previously thought dominated the scene.

Last year I entered as a competitor and was really pleased with a solid showing of 1.31.28, this year, however, following some improvement seen from the start of the season, I wanted to beat 1 hour and 24 minutes in line with the goals that I set at the start of the year.

This is how events unfolded :

Swim 9.38
It was overcast and windy as the Met Office had quite rightly predicted, but in the 33 metre outdoor pool at Woodhall it was absolutely bloody lovely – honestly, I could have lounged in that pool all day it was that nice, but there was some racing to do instead so I had to get down to the nitty gritty. I was in wave 29 scheduled for 8.56 am, but with a slight 6 min delay we were off shortly after nine. I know not to hammer the first couple of lengths, so I duly ignored that thought and absolutely attempted to hammer the first few lengths. By halfway I was beginning to blow and my bi-lateral breathing had been replaced with the two stroke gasping that I tend to use in open water swimming. Still though, I had not been overtaken and in fact completed a stealth overtaking move of my very own – I’m betting the chap could not even see the flailing man in black inching past him. I did calm down a bit later in the swim to be fair and found myself smiling as I left the pool with a sub ten pool swim for the first time ever !

T1 – 1.40
Took my time, easy does it and all that, made sure I rode with socks on, so took a little longer than I normally would.

Bike – 46.16
I have a lovely new set of Planet X deep rimmed carbon wheels which I bought back in April, but again because of strong winds I bottled out of using them and spent some of yesterday afternoon changing back to the standard spoked version – this is a real shame because apart from a few turns, the Woodhall course is ideal for them. After I had dallied around a bit at the mount line, I eventually got myself clipped in to the pedals and away I went. Strong winds were apparent from the off and I just hoped that it would turn out to be a mostly cross wind as I struggle in headwinds. For the first part of the course it certainly was and I found that I could keep a decent speed in spite of the battering I was getting. The course profile shows a steady elevation for the first half of the course, but in my opinion although this is true, it is made up mostly of deceptive flats and there are no climbs at all on this course. I rode well during the middle part of the course overtaking some earlier starters without being overtaken myself. I was also pleased because by this part of a ride I’m usually starting to feel heavy legged, but in this race they were holding up really well. As we turned towards Horsington though, the wind became a strong gusty headwind, so I buried my head and just kept spinning the best I could. Eventually I could see the welcome sight of the marshalls on the Stixwould Lane junction which meant I was almost back in transition. 46 min ride then compared to 52 last year – can’t be too unhappy with that now can I ?

T2 1.10 – Took my time again and dallied with changing the swim watch for my Garmin, acutely aware that if I was more business like I could save a lot of time in transitions.

Run 22.53
No water on the bike meant that I had to stop at the water table at the start of the run and have a cup ! Once I had necked that I was away, running at a slow pace I thought, but my garmin was telling me it was very fast. Out on the main road, the adrenaline wore off and I decided to pace myself a little above my Lincoln 10k pace which I figured I could hold. I was then overtaken by the only person to overtake me all day and promptly chased after him – so much for sensible pacing ! Again, the adrenaline wore off very quickly and I returned to my previous pace. Apart from the occasional feeling of stitch, the run felt good and more importantly so did my knee !!
Over the line then in 22 mins and a 1.21 overall, a 10 minute improvement on last year and Top 35% of the field – a great improvement on my bottom five finish in my first tri in August 2009 !

Next week is the Blenheim Sprint triathlon and I’ll log in again shortly after...

So , about them goals from the start of the year....

Back at the start of the year, I set myself some goals that I wanted to achieve in 2011 :-

- Lose 6kg

- Train more socially

- Achieve 1.25 at East Leake, 1.16 at Southwell, 1.24 at Woodhall and finally 2.59 at Dambuster in June.

- Listen to my body and stop when it tells me to !

- Finish my first Ironman inside 14 hours.

This is how I have done so far......

- I have lost 11 kg's !

- I did 1.19 at East Leake and 1.09 at Southwell - both well ahead of target ! However, Woodhall is in 2 weeks and 1.24 could be a big ask, but Dambuster is do- able !

- I did join 2 local cycling club rides , but didn't get on too well with them to be honest - the first one I punctured twice in the first 8 miles and had to exit, and in the second one managed to fall off after some wild riding from the fella in front - since that time I have mostly ridden on my own, all kind of 'One Man Wolfpack' !!!

- I have listened to my body and have been very careful, for example I will not kill myself on the bike to impress fellow riders if my legs still hurt from that weeks long run !

For my Ironman adventure, it is now only a little over six weeks away, and so far my longest run has been 16 miles, longest ride 63 miles, and longest swims 2400m.

Over the coming weeks, the run will peak at between 19-20 miles, the rides will peak at 6 hours, and I will do five laps of the lake meaning 4km. In all then, training going well, and time rapidly disappearing !

Lincoln Grand Prix Sportive 56m - 3.21.50

Following the enjoyable day out that I had in Milton Keynes back at the start of last month, I tried my hand at a second cycle sportive , this time the Lincoln Grand Prix sportive held the day before the famous Lincoln GP cycle race.

There were two distances on offer – a 56 mile route or a 93 mile route – I picked the 55 mile route as this tied in nicely with my training plan, and was a little gentler on my legs as well in a week where I have completed both a triathlon and a half marathon length training run.

The weather was set to be appalling for the event day, with thunder storms expected and a solid spell of rain lasting for most of the day – it certainly was shaping up to be a gloomy day. Taking the anticipated bad weather into account, I decided to use my yellow Carrera training bike again rather than get my newer and much lighter carbon racing bike wet ! ( The weather although threatening rain most of the day remained dry in the end up until the very last 20 minutes !).
I arrived at the start area at Bishop Grossteste College very, very early and was surprised to see that it was already busy – indeed in my time of registering and then queuing again for the timing chip, the whole room became rammed with people and it became very apparent that the organisers had maybe underestimated the sheer numbers of people. When I left to get my bike out of the car, there was a massive queue just to get registered which snaked out of the building.
So, from there it took a little over fifteen minutes to get the bike ready, attach my number to the handlebars and arrange my pockets etc. At a little over 8.15, I passed by a marshall who scanned my timing chip and I was out on the course heading through the top half of Lincoln, to exit the city on the east side heading towards Cherry Willingham. I think I was again a little over excited at the start and found that I was cycling very quickly through the city, however once out of the centre and onto the country roads the adrenaline had subsided and I began to ride sensibly.

The 56 mile route broke down into three distinct parts from the information on the organisers web page – the first section was a flatish 16 miles, the second section had all of the elevations and too lasted 16 miles, and the third section was the home leg which looked faster with an overall downhill profile before rising sharply as you re-entered Lincoln, finishing with steep clims back into the Castle area to finish.

The plan was to ride on my own to re-create the conditions I will face in Austria, and to not benefit from the slipstream of other riders with an aim to average 16.5mph. Phase one of this was completed, as I rode at a good pace for the first hour as we made our way though Short Ferry on our way towards Gautby before turning North for the second hillier leg.

Now, the second leg looked very hilly on the profile graph on the website – the truth is that I didn’t really notice any hills as such, just some slow ascents and overall found it undulating at worst. At about halfway through this section, and 26 miles overall, there was a refreshments stop serving coffee and the like, and I popped in momentarily to top up my water bottle. Once back on the road, there was just another 6 miles or so to negotiate before we reached the highest point on the course which was at Sixhills. Again, this landmark was reached ahead of schedule and from there it was pretty much all downhill. I rode with a couple of blokes for a short while, and then traded places back and forth with another chap until we reached Faldingworth and then finally Welton.

By this point my legs felt tired, but I knew that there was only about 7 or so miles left until the finish. I also started to have some pain in the front of my foot which seemed to ease when I took the foot out of the pedals and stretched my toes a little. Finally, I made my way back into the city, down Yarborough Hill and up the very steep Carline Road. The very last stretch saw a climb of the very wet and slippery 1 in 6 gradient Michealgate climb before getting a marshall to swipe my timing chip again to signify the end of the event. The organisers then directed us back to race HQ for some free soup and sandwiches ............................ .....mmmm....lovely ! Taking into account the water stop, and the time spent at roundabouts and traffic lights, the actual time taken was pleasing and the average was nearer to 17mph ! Out of 152 starters at this distance, my time was 59th quickest, so a pleasing turn out all round !

Race report - Southwell Triathlon 1.09.38

This was the second time that I had attempted the Southwell course as in September 2009 I did the Essendex Last Minute Triathlon which is essentially the same course and same triathlon organised by the same people.

Having lost now somewhere in the region of 13 kilos since I returned from Honeymoon in October, I was quietly hoping to do much better than the 1.22.41 that I managed in the previous Southwell race. To do this I would need to better a 11.54 swim time, a 40.55 ride and a 27.32 run - this then is how it went :

Swim 10.24

I like to wear those calf supports that you occasionally see runners and triathletes wearing but could not for the life of me find out whether you put these on before the pool or in one of the transitions. In the end I had to post on the Lincoln Tri forum to ask the question and the consensus was that it would do no harm to swim in them – so I did in the end, and it was the right thing to do because they were not detrimental to the swim and dried out very quickly. I was very lucky today as my lane was reasonably clear and the poor chap in the lane next to me had a line of four breaststrokers to deal with !! My 16 lengths came and went without any fanfare and I even managed to overtake someone (with another swimmer coming in the opposite direction ! – it was like a very slow version of chicken !!!) I glanced at my watch as I gracelessly flopped out of the pool and saw 9: something, so was really pleased with that. Once I had run out of the pool area and over the timing mat the swim time had increased to 10.24.

T1 – Takes a bit longer nowadays due to the putting on of socks and the bike shoes, but worth it overall because T2 suddenly becomes a lot quicker (or so I thought !!). T1 + T2 time in 2009 = 2.17, today it was 2.22 - so actually a little bit slower - but I'll persevere with is for the time being as I believe that having socks on for the bike gives me a faster bike split.

Bike 34.14

My bike times have been tumbling nicely this year and this is in part due to being able to use my time trial bike for events where as last year I was saving that bike for Antwerp. I have also bought some carbon wheels for the bike from Planet X, but did not use these today as it was ever so slightly windy and to be honest, having nor ridden with them yet, I am not confident enough to use them yet. So I rode my TT bike with the standard wheels that it came with.
The first part of the Southwell bike course is up and down, which I struggled with until I had got some bike speed into my legs. By the time I got to Thurgarton though, they were nicely warmed up and I set off the roadside speed trap at 30 mph ! – indeed, all the way down to the Lowdham roundabout turnaround point I rode really well, but as soon as I turned back for Southwell I understood why – there was a bloody great headwind which made the return trip extremely difficult. I persevered against the wind and eventually found my way back into transition – a good 6.5 minutes quicker than my last attempt. It is interesting to note that I did had not been overtaken by anyone at this stage of the triathlon – which is unheard off !!

T2 - Not a lot to do here as it was mostly done in T1 !

Run 22.38

There are some things in life so horrible that you completely block them out of your memory ! This would be the ‘Southwell Slope’ which is a 400m incline at the start of the run leg – OK, I admit it, I suppose its not that bad once you are running up it, but when you see it initially and you are still crackered from the bike, it does look a bit of a tall order.
The run leg at Southwell then is two laps of out and back, which is up the slope, round some quiet lanes, turn around a cone, and then back down the slope, then to the finishing arch. My run started far too fast, because of adrenaline no doubt, and by the time I tackled the slope for the first time I was already beginning to blow a bit so sensibly decided to reign my excitement in a bit. Once I had managed to get up to the top of the slope for the first time I felt a lot better and my breathing regulated. From here on in, I ran a steady pace and then gained some time by going back down the slope very quickly. Before I knew it the run was nearly over, and I managed another one of my rare sprint finishes. The aim at the start of the year was to do this event in less than 1.16, so to achieve a 1.09 finish means that I am over the moon. This also meant that I finished in the top half of the field for the first time in Triathlon.

Event Report - MK Cycle Sportive - 100km - 3.51.39

This morning saw an early drive down to Milton Keynes to try something a bit different !

It was a cycle sportive event, which takes in a pre-determined route, is timed, but is not a race, so really the only person that you are truly pacing against is yourself. You could enter two distances today - the standard 100km or if you fancied it, the much longer 100 miler. I picked the 100 km because that is further than I had ever ridden and would be a good test of my ability at this stage of my training for IM.

I set myself the test of averaging 16 mph which would see me finish in around 3 hours and 53 mins - I chose this because translated into Ironman terms this would be a 7 hr bike time which is my target. So, alarm set for 4.45, set off at 5.45, and arrive at Milton Keynes at 8.00 to receive my timing chip and race number, plus a really good free cycling shirt !

The organisers started people off in waves from 9 am which meant that at 9.07 my wave started out - and at 9.07 I also discovered that my bike computer was kaput which meant that I would have to play things by ear and hope that I'd worked hard enough by the end. By 9.08 I found that this probably was a race in all but name as people seemed to already putting the hammer down and I was being passed a lot - but all I wanted to do was keep a comfortable cadence because it was going to be a long day.

The first part of the race, er event sorry, was very hilly, none more so than Brickhill which went up, and up and when you thought you were at the top, it went up again and again ! Needless to say, it was a hard climb but totally satisfying when you reached the top. We also rode through Woburn Abbey which was a stunning setting, but also presented a tough climb ! I was particularly nervous going over the cattle grids in these grounds, even more so than when I go over railway crossings.

So, the middle part of the event was a little flatter, took in some stunning countryside, there were some more hills, some more descents, some people passed me and I started passing more an more people. I can tell you that images of groups of cyclists twisting and turning well into the distance among the fields was one of the finest sights I think I'll ever see !

I felt good on my diet of water and flapjack right up until the last feed station which was only 10 km from the finish - at this point my legs seemed to go, and I had less energy - still there was one particularly nasty climb to negotiate, but once through that we all of a sudden were back in Milton Keynes and I was going for a fast finish - and at 3.51.39 over a minute quicker than target time. That time was good enough for a silver standard, but probably meant that I had finished !

A grand day out and unlike Duathlons I can definately see me doing more of these !

Race Report - Lincoln 10k - 52.28

Two years ago I entered the Lincoln 10k to lose weight and get back in shape. I ran the course that day in a little over an hour and three minutes and from that moment I was hooked ! Last year, I completed the course in 57 minutes, which was an improvement over the first year effort, so this year I was looking for a little improvement to keep things going in the right direction.

Being my local city race, and also starting at the crazy good time of 11am, I was able to have a decent nights sleep without worrying about setting the usual early alarms. So, after downing some raceday porridge and an asda flapjack bar, we were on our way ! We parked on Lee Road, which was closed for through traffic, but open for access, so we just accessed our on road parking !

The organisers had made a real effort this year to fix that age old problem of people starting in the wrong box by providing coloured wristbands which corresponded with your starting pen. This seemed to work well because I could see no fat fairies or walk for lifers anywhere near me, so thumbs up for that one !

At about ten past eleven the wheelchair athletes were off, and less than twon minutes later than that we were also off ! For the first two years of this race I had started too quickly and paid for it later in the race, this year I vowed to finally change and start with a steady pace that I knew that I could sustain. This I did, and by the time I had finished the first part of the run which takes you towards our great Cathedral, I felt good where last year at the same stage I began to fade. The first couple of kilometres were covered in a little over 11 minutes. The support on the course was amazing today and is one of the things that sets Lincoln apart from other 10k races.

The race continued at a steady pace and I ran through the 5km marker at a shade under 27 minutes which meant that if I could replicate that in the second half of the race then my PB could be in danger of falling. I took some water at this point because it was a really warm day and most of it went over my head just to cool me down. The kilometres ticked by and if anything I was getting a little quicker and began overtaking people and doing my person to person bridging thing. At 8km the clock read 43 mins something and I then just gave it everything that I had left for the last two kilometres. I rounded the Cathedral and just went for it on the cobbled section knowing that I was well going to be well within my old PB time. One sprint finish later and I was over the line and had posted a new PB by over two minutes and finished in the top 40% of the field.

So in two years of running, I've improved down from 63 to 52 minutes over the six mile distance- and I know that I could go quicker ! I will be looking then to break 50 minutes at some point in the future and that has to be next years goal. For now I'm 16 weeks throuh the 30 week Ironman training plan and things are going well. Next week I'll be attempting my first 60 mile Sportive cycling event and will update the blog with what I find.

Race Report - East Leake Triathlon 1.19.22

Todays date was circled in big red pen on the calendar, and is one of the most important dates in my calendar. It is the first Triathlon of the 2011 season, and officially my Triathlon season kicks off here after waiting the best part of 8 months since my last one. The clocks went forward an hour overnight which meant that this mornings half five alarm, was in reality, a half four wake up call, but thankfully I managed an early night, so it wasn't too bad ! This time I packed the car the night before, and double checked it so I had more than enough time to get to East Leake in good time, which I did, again rocking up a good hour before my swim start time. East Leake is in Leicestershire, near to East Midlands airport and close to the village of Gotham - so - a Batman themed race report is in order !

Blam ! - Swim 10.56

As swims go, this was OK, the time includes a long run to transition so is there or thereabouts my best time for the 400m distance. I was started at around 9.09 with no delays, and immediately forgot all of my training and decided to thrash around uncontrollably and get my breathing all wrong. I was overtaken by two competitors and it felt really slow going, a ten minute swim time came as something of a surprise !

T1- Took my time, socks, cycle shoes, and full gloves because it was bloody cold !

Kapow ! - Cycle -41.18

Following the Duathlon, I was confident that I could go under last years cycle time of 48 mins, by how much though I wasn't sure. The cycle started with a slow spin out of East Leake where I was just trying to get some warmth back into my cold wet legs ! Within a mile I was warming up nicely though and managed to get down into the tri bars to get out of the wind. My legs felt good and I seemed to be making good time, passing a few people on the way to Kingston Upon Soar for the turnaround loop. On the way back to Gotham I started to get that treacle feeling again but this time dropped the gears and span it out. When I got to the Gotham bypass I knew that most of the hilly parts were done and that I had made very good progress. I arrived back into transition in 41 something and for the first time started harbouring thoughts for a sub 1.20 finish.

T2 - because I already had socks on this was quick and non fussy !

ZAP ! Run - 24.07

I couldn't set my garmin so therefore couldn't check my pace so decided to aim for 9 minutes laps which would see a run time of 27 mins which would be better than last years 28. I feel like I ran freely and within myself and as a result was able to finish strongly - 24.07 being my fastest split over a triathlon 5km.

In all, a good solid start to a season I am really looking forward to.