Rushcliffe Parkrun

Today is my 40th Birthday and I decided to spend it doing the things that I love....

- Shopping at Decathlon
- Eating Meatballs @ IKEA
- Running races !!!!!!!!

So it was an excited Andy that made my way early to Rushcliffe Country Park to take part in my 4th ever Parkrun event, my first run race since March, and my first comeback race following the calf injury.

Normally I would have dropped in on Colwick and done their event but instead had heard about a new Parkrun being set up in the Nottingham area and decided to give it a go.

I didn't know how it was going to go as I lined up because I've not done any speed work for a good few months and decided that this would just be a tester race to see how I went. When we got sent on our way I soon settled into my usual uncomfortable 5k pace and fell into about 20th place or so. There looked to be a few hares tear-arsing into the distance, but I kept at my own level and hoped that by the time the first mile flashed up on my Garmin that it wouldn't be embarrassingly slow !

6.50 is what the watch read which is there or thereabouts for me at this distance so I was happy. I was not happy about how knackered I already felt and at the end of the first loop my brain was telling me to stop. I didn't though (not for the want of trying) and soon found myself clocking a 2nd mile at 7.05 pace. With just one mile left to do I was hanging on for dear life but within my PB if only I could keep going.

It was a tough ask, but the reward was evident as I crossed the finishing line with a shiny new PB of 22.24 on my 40th birthday........ not bad for an old boy eh >

Evans Ride-It Nottingham

Seems like an eternity since I last sat down and blogged a race/event report - but following holidays and the injury, this morning I finally got my ass into gear and took part in my first event since August - the Evans Ride-It Nottingham 70 mile Sportive.....

Boy, I've missed those mega early alarm calls on an eventing Sunday morning, so it was with great joy that I was rudely awaken by a 5am alarm this morning !! One bowl of race day porridge later and I was ready to make the one hour trip over to Church Warsop nr Mansfield for the event. I arrived far too early, but not too early as to bag a lot of free High 5 zero, which cancelled out my £12.50 entry fee - bargain !!

When the time came for the event to start, I somehow found myself right toward the very front and was one of the first away. Immediately, I felt the cold air temperature, and suffered from face freeze for the first couple of miles before acclimatising. something very strange happened at mile 3 - I found myself right at the very front of the field and leader of the Sportive on the road ! This, however didn't seem to last for long as there was a rider who blew straight through the field and out of the front. from that point on I settled into a group of four riders riding in second place on the road - quicker than my usual riding pace and hard work but manageable just !  Up and down we went through the rolling countryside, and whilst there were no long climbs as such, there were frequent inclines which started to take its toll on my legs.

After about 55 miles of this, I was really on the edge of being frazzled, and was pleased to see a feed station so I stopped for some cake and to have the pee that I had needed since about mile 10 !

The last 14 miles or so were really hard work and I dropped off the group that I had been riding with and rode most of the last part through Clumber Park on my own. I had a target of beating four hours in mind and that kept me motivated even though I was completely knackered !
I missed that four hour target by about a minute or two, but was just happy to be finished and back at the HQ for a bowl of warm chilli and a coffee.

Whilst finishing my meal, I was joined by the lads that I had been riding with and they told me that the earlier chap had in fact ridden the medium route, so therefore our group had been leading the Sportive ! (Not that it is a race of course - even though you are timed and there is a winner),

Would I do another Ride It event ? You betcha - 100 miler in Milton Keynes next year !

Cunning Plans

In some better news, I've started running again and from a 1 mile start, have managed to work my way up to nearly four miles in just a few weeks. To aid recovery, I've taken to walking a good way before I start into any sort of run and this seems to be working well. The plan is to reduce this walk week by week, to the point where I can just run straight from the house of an evening. The Percy Pud 10k has been entered as the comeback race on December 2nd, and I'll be posting my entry for the Stockport 10 the Sunday after shortly.

My cycling is getting back up to scratch thanks to the weekly club runs, and the plan is to continue this up until Xmas. Then during the Winter training rides in January, I intend to muller myself week in week out to ride with the fastest club ride.

Swimming is also going to plan with a club session every Wednesday resulting in c.1900m, but I need to double up by going to the pool at weekends really.

Despite spending so much time training, I've clearly still got too much time on my hands as I've spent a lot of time over the past few weeks pondering on what I would like to do over the next couple of years, and have come to the following conclusions :

- Once Lanza & Outlaw have been completed next year, I will solely concentrate on 70.3/middle distance races as they are easier to train for and I feel they are my best distance. These will also be flatter races because to be fair I'm no climber and I don't think I ever will be !

- Time trialling - I've decided to do a lot more of these as I enjoy them so much (except restricted gear which I won't be doing again in a hurry !)

- A big challenge ride - LEJOG or London to Paris - I really like the idea of this and will be working on sorting something out for possibly 2014.

There you have it, some cunning plans indeed.... I hope they come to fruition !

Enforced lay off...

So following my exploits at the Relays where I failed to get out on the run, I have had to take a back seat and try and let my calf repair.

There's some damage deep within the muscle and I'm hoping that its not going to keep me out of action for too long. I started to cycle the commute again this week, and also swam for 30 minutes on Wednesday evening with no reaction bar a little stiffness. The big test will come tomorrow I'm sure as I venture out with Lincoln Wheelers for a steady 40 mile ride.

Gutted to have had to cancel 3 races this month, but after 4 years of racing with little injury and little time off, maybe this is a break that I really needed and will do me good!

Plan to start running again with light jogging in a further three weeks as need to give things time to repair.
Until then.....

National Club Relays

Over before it began....

That is really my take on how this years Relay Championships went for me ! It was the third year in a row that I had competed in this event, and the second year in a row that I had teamed up with AJ, John and Mark - last years Horny Imps and this years newly named Imps return. In last years event we had finished in 4 hours and 9 minutes and had finished (albeit top) of the last page of results - this year we were a year older and a little faster so aimed to at least improve on last years rank.

Perfect conditions greeted us at Holme Pierrepont  (National Water Sports Centre and home of the Outlaw !) with little wind and overcast conditions. The previous days racing had seen a deluge and had nearly seen the event cancelled so we could count ourselves as very lucky ! We had plenty of time to get prepared, and the whole Lincoln Tri area was a very relaxed place to be with lots of catching up going on.....

At just after 10.00am we all pretty much on mass made our way down to the start and organised ourselves by trying best we could to pick the best stops to hand over our relay elastic band. At about 10.15 the first wave of swimmers were off and I made my way to the barrier to take my place and wait for John to come flying out of the swim for a handover.

Swim 11.49

I received the elastic band from John, turned on my heels, took a few strides and the pop ! Pain in the left calf, and I literally hobbled and plopped into the water. I was a mixture of angry and panicked on that first leg and as a result blew up very early on. I also drifted off course towards the centre of the lake which meant I got no draft and ended up zig zagging a bit to the bouy. Turned the bouy, settled down, made sure I didn't kick and swam well back to the transition to hand the band over to Mark - who could see there was summat wrong as a limped toward him !
In terms of the time it was OK all things considered and much better than last years diabolical 12.30 swim. I made my way back to the Lincoln Tri tent and as I did came across a physio tent who popped some ice on my leg and asked me to come back for a proper look after the bike leg.

Bike 23.54

I am absolutely made up with the bike leg considering the injury that I carried. I was able to sit and spin my way round, and also got into a comfortable position on the straights to avoid too much fidgeting.
The drawbacks were that I had to remain seated , I had to remain in lower gears than I am used to as any pressure bought on pain, and I wasn't able to stand and power out of the corners as I like to do - so that time astounded me and gives me great heart of what might be next year after recovery and a good winters preparation with the Wheelers as I make the step up to A group riding.

Run 
Joking right - not a prayer !

AJ ran my leg and then his leg like a trojan to bring the team home in 3 hours 52 mins - an improvement of 17 minutes over last year and 111th place on the day - comfotably away from the last page of results !

My first DNF then technically, and an end to any immediate race plans. I will continue to swim and hopefully bike but running is out of the question - will check with the physio this week to confirm what I can and can't do ! Til next time .....

Ironman UK 2012 - race report

On Sunday 22nd July I competed in my second Ironman distance Triathlon at Ironman UK held in and around Bolton in Lancashire. I had been training hard over the past 7-8 months and was ready to go by the time we left lincoln on the Friday for the trip over to Bolton - this was is how my weekend went......

Pre-amble

Our journey took a little over 2 hours and we arrived at our hotel for the weekend in the early afternoon. Our digs of choice for the weekend was the Novotel @ South Manchester. The Receptionist made some reservation changes to keep our room away from the wedding function room which was very much appreciated. Hotel was OK as far as hotels with woodchip effect plaster walls go, but it was clean and best of all quiet !
Later in the afternoon, we made our way over to the Reebok Stadium to register and collect my race pack , transition bags, and importantly yet another Ironman goody bag - this time a mid size rucksack - to add to my collection that the missus refers to as 'hoarding' - tut !(Clearly you can never have enough IM bags !)
We stayed for the race briefing which was enjoyable - and then stayed longer for the Pasta party which was better than expected. In fact the whole weekend was beginning to feel more polished than I had thought, as I had some pre-conceptions of Bolton being a bit on the grim side ! Got back to the hotel feeling more positive and managed a decent nights sleep.

Saturday was spent packing the various transition bags with kit that I would need at differing stages of the race. Amongst things I forgot to pack were socks for both the run and the bike ! We would spend the rest of the day dropping bags and bike off at T1 (Pennington Flash) & at T2 (a school near Rivington). We also popped into Bolton to see the finish arch being erected and to convince Heidi that there was more to Bolton than a Greggs and a Cash Converters ! (In fact there were two Greggs so there !!!).
Planned on getting no sleep at all, but fell asleep during Casino Royale, so got a bonus 5 hours sleep !

Raceday


Got up at silly o clock and had a couple of porridge pots and a coffee to wake me up. Spent a good few minutes applying more layers of Riemanns P20 sun lotion. I then managed to completely cock up putting on the race number tattoo, when I forgot to remove the backing paper because I'm a tit !! After a bit more messing around checking stuff that clearly didn't need to be checked, we got in the car and made the shortish journey over to Pennington Flash where we turned up very early at c.4.40 am !  Pump the tyres, spend 20 minutes chasing around T1 to find a marshall with a marker pen to number me up. Finally with half an hour to go to the start I headed back to the car to get the wetsuit on to make my way down to the start.

Swim
Must have faffed around a little too long as I managed to get quite far back in the field waiting to get into the water, and I could see that there was no way the race was going to start on time, In fact, I think it was ten minutes late going off as people were still piling in and then having to swim over to the floating start area. I positioned myself towards the middle and eventually we were set on our way.
Lots of biff first off as people found their way to their natural positions in the swim, and lots of athletes aimlessly swimming across each other heading for who knows what. The swim was a triangular two lap affair, with big bright orange buoys marking each turn - so how these numpties were managing to zig zag so badly god only knows ! For my own efforts I felt really good and paced the first straight well. I began to drift out to the left of the field on the return leg back to the start and promised myself that I wouldn't go so wide on the next lap. Halfway done in c.41minutes as we exited the water for a short run section (more of a mudslide in truth as the ground was bogged by the time I got there !). Second lap, not gonna go wide, oops gone wide, not just wide but very wide. Took the opportunity to have a pee with no one else clearly around me and then doubly concentrated on keeping my line on the straight and narrow on the last couple of legs. Had some more biff with some more directionally challenged numpties, but all ok in the end. Exited the water in 1.28.43 for a new IM swim PB of a whole 31 seconds ! Seriously though, happy with swim, felt it was an honest distance, not sure it was as long as some have said (Garmins showing 2.90/99 miles). Felt good running up the long stretch to T1 and all going to plan.

T1
Seemed to take an age here with some of it taken up using the loo, some of it trying to dodge bodies and find a place to change, but mostly because I dally a bit. At 8.54 though, an improvement again over Austria, so getting better ?

Bike
This is more like it ! Straight down into the aero bars and passing lots of people on the stretch up to the loop.    Tried not too push it too hard, and kept myself occupied by counting the people that I passed, also remembering to net off the people that took me. After a good solid 16 miles , got to the bottom of the Sheep House Lane climb to start the first of three 31 mile loops which would complete the bike section. Took the first climb nice and easy and before I knew it I was already tear arsing down the descent at over 40 mph !! I knew there was a tightish left at the bottom from watching last years race so took a good line to make sure I didn't end up leaving the road and landing in the low level reservoir. The support in Belton was amazing when I got there and the good weather bringing out the crowds. I did feel a bit sick on the bike during the first loop, but reasoned that it must have been some dodgy flash water still left in my system.
First loop completed and back round for my second crack at Sheep House  ! I noticed that the sun was properly out by now and it was getting very warm. I sweated my way up the climb the second time and wished that there was more cloud cover. Great support again out on the bike course, and although baking, felt a little better as the Flash water seemed to have finally gone from my system. I was also still riding well, although the results show a drop from the first lap and continued to pass people. The 3rd lap again started with another trip up SHL which was a complete horrible slow grind from bottom to top as my legs were screaming every time I got out of the saddle. I was so pleased to get to the top I really was ! It was far too hot and I was cooking at this point on the bike. I lost a minute when the chain fell off the ring but that was the height of any event on the whole bike course. The support didn't die down all day and 'colt alley' was a joy to ride towards the end of each lap. I rolled into T2 in 6.40.39 which I was delighted with. (Austria had been 6.37 on smoother roads and with 600m less climbing !). I even managed a trot through transition once a helper had taken my bike..

T2 - because of my cleats on my shoes, did a penquin waddle in the sports hall, grabbed my bag and did a quick change. What made up the rest of the time of 4.25 was waiting for a portaloo before deciding to give up waiting and get myself out onto the run.

Run
It was very hot, but I still ran a very fast first mile knowing that my PB and potential aim of sub 12.30 was definately on ! Mile 2 slowed me down a bit but I was still going well albeit aware that something was not quite right. Walked through the first aid station and grabbed a portaloo, in which it became really clear that my hydration was in a bad place. I took some more water and then got on with my marathon best I could. The run route into Bolton takes you along a river via a tow path and it was on this section with no shade that I really began to suffer. I started taking 20s walk breaks to see if that helped, but these became longer and longer and by the time I got to mile six I was done. I had no energy and was subjected to walking up a long climb to get onto the New Chorley Road. My nutrition going wrong is something I hadn't experienced before and I didn't know how to put it right. I made sure I took long walk breaks, and was selective about what I took from the aid stations, even trying ritz crackers. I could see that I was not alone, there were lots of people around me suffering in their own way with the heat and doing the best they could to get on with it. First time that I saw Heidi I fessed up that it was going to be a long day and that I was sorry. At this point I still had three loops of the run course left to do which is around 18 miles. I needed a plan and I needed one quickly cos the walking was getting stupidly long.
I decided on a walk run cone counting strategy in a genius attempt of trying to fool myself into getting going again.........and it worked ! Right, walk two cones (approx 20m), run 10 cones (approx 100m!).
This strategy got me through a further one and a half laps before I bumped into a great bloke called Paul from TriTalk who had a knackered Achilles but was still aiming to finish best he could. Between us we cone counted the rest of the Marathon, albeit going from a 2-10 strategy to a 4-7 shuffle but the most important thing was that we got there and I had really good company on those last two laps ! It didn't matter that we were counting the cones aloud as we passed them, or that we lost count in the confusion - we got the job done ! 5.14.03 for the run.



13.36.44 for my second Ironman, and though it didn't go to plan, I was proud of the way I stuck at it and ground out a result. I finished in the top half of all finishers so at least I did meet one of my goals for the day in the end. Oh, and WOW, Bolton, what a surprise ! I expected it to be a bit low key and grim, but it was a brilliant venue with brilliant spectators - I have been buzzing for days afterward.

What's next ? I'm booked for Ironman Lanzarote in May of next year (that will be interesting with the Sun and all that heat again) and then Outlaw at Nottingham in June. Right now, I'm not planning any IM's past those dates.

For the rest of the year, apart from the odd Tri, I'll be mostly trying to improve my run speed and having a go at a few more time trials !

Been busy......

Well, its now just over two weeks until this years big event. I've completed 28 weeks of Don Finks 'Be Ironfit' training plan and complete full or near full distances during the last few peak weeks. The next two weeks training are going to be taper weeks which will see a reduction in the volumes so that I erm reach race day in tip top condition..........hopefully !

Training has gone well in all, although I've had a few niggles along the way which I've had to manage. This year has been much easier physically, as I came into the plan already running 10m races and therefore run fit, and also cycle fit from Sunday morning club runs. What has been tough has been the mental side of things where it has been harder this year to keep motivated - whether or not this has anything to do with the gloomy weather I don't know. I have made the decision that for Ironman Lanzarote next May, I won't be using the whole 30 week plan and will just use the last ten weeks - that should help keep the old motivation up !

Target for Bolton is simple - work hard, keep calm and try and go faster in each discipline - overall target is to beat last years time of 12.51 - with going sub 12.30 being the goal for the day !

I'll next update with how I got on...