East Leake Triathlon

Today was only my second sprint distance triathlon of the year and was to be the last one. I've been in Ibiza for a week and whilst I'd managed to behave myself with the wine and fatty food I was hardly in the shape of my life as I tackled todays challenge :

Swim 8.53
Got behind a slow swimmer on the first length and didn't really recover. swam OK, but exited the water at c.7.50 which was probably half a minute down on my true race pace. Took me a minute to run round to T1 and over the timing mat.

T1 - 0.55
Super smooth except I hadnt noticed that my race number had fallen off the bike.

Bike 35.25
Managed to squirt a gel into my face for the second race running. Bike course undulating with a strong wind seeming to circle and never really behind. Averaged 22mph after pushing it towards 23.5mph at the turn. Did not get overtaken which was a good sign that it was a decent split. 27th fastest I think overall and more to come next season. Dismounted slowly and need to master the dark art of the flying one ! T2 took 45 seconds.

Run 22.24
I would estimate that the run course is 4.7k rather than a full 5k, however it is three runs up an incline so I was grateful for the short course by the end of it. Raced a bloke who I thought was in my wave, but it turns out he was in one 3mins earlier. Ran a strong pace throughout, but there is massive scope for improvement for next year.

Overall - 47th out of 326. That's it for 2013 really - I have a 10k booked each month in Q4 and will regularly Parkrun, but its mostly now months of winter bike training ready for spring.

Newark Parkruns

So there's a new Parkrun in Newark that's been running for a couple of months and with it being only 20 minutes away it was rude not to decide to use it as Autumn speed training :

The idea is to pop over when I can (ideally fortnightly) for a Saturday morning bash - this is how they have gone...

02.11.13 23.41
How on earth I managed to post a Newark Parkrun PW today I will never know. I managed a 7.04 first lap buoyed by a bit of racing against a club mate early doors, knocked out a 2nd lap at 7.30 and kept up an average pace of 7.25m/m by the time I crossed the finish line. I have to admit that the really hard initial effort blew me up a little bit - but c'mon - a 7.25 average pace should have seen me in done in around 23mins dead !

26.10.13 41.55
As I was running the Poppy Run the next day, I offered to run this one with Heidi to see if we could get around in a new PB for her. Enjoyed the company at a more relaxed pace and Heidi managed to run at least 2.7 of the 3.1miles which is amazing although the result in the end didn't reflect the achievement.

14.09.13 - 23.26
Rain all night had soggied conditions somewhat and the temperature had definitely dropped a notch as I lined up for this weeks Parkrun. I was alert this time and positioned myself towards the front of the pack and was away at a good consistent speed. First mile clocked in 7.07 and felt very hard. I focused on a pack of runners in front of me and tried to keep it steady. Forgot to look at my watch for the second mile split but I did for the third mile which again saw me dying
 and it showed 7.30. I crossed the finish this week in 23.26 for a 5 second improvement on the week before in what I perceived to be a harder effort.

07.09.13 - 23.31 
Turned up nice and early as usual, parked too far away found out how undulating the course was on the walk through to the start. Got chatting and missed the start, spent the first 200m sprinting on the grass down the side to make sure I didn't lose too much ground. First lap of 3 felt reall good, the course was technical but enjoyable with a mix of terrains and some ups and downs along the way. Completely spent by the third laps finish, and happy to finish to post a sub 24 on a harder course than Colwick.

LRRA 30m TT

Got up this morning and really didn't fancy todays TT !

I didn't think I'd be able to keep going over the full distance given the actual lack of riding outside of club time trials for one thing, and the other was that I knew it was a windy open fen course !

By the time I'd digested a bit more caffeine though I came round to the idea a bit more and after quite a long warm up ready for my 9.38 start time.

Well the first 5 miles which I suspect were assisted came and went in 12 and a half minutes and I was averaging a good 24.5 mph. The next 5 also felt good, however culminated in a hill which slowed things down a little. Now it was a headwind tester as we turned left and I really had to battle to keep the speed at 22 mph. This road seemed to go on forever and I was thankful to get to the end of it !

I didn't get a lot of time to celebrate as a bloomin' great big Combine Harvester pulled out onto the road and I spent forever sat up following the thing at 16 mph. That was my tilt at the handicap finished at that point.

The rest of the TT was spent trying to catch people in front and cursing harvesting ! I did keep a good speed in the last 10 miles or so and dragged the average to c.23.5 mph to finish in 1.17.11, albeit a better day could have been had.

Next up is my last TT of the year - next Tuesdays Wheelers 5

Lincoln Wheelers Autumn 5 Series

26/08/13  11.40

Turned up to find out that I was supposed to be the organiser - d'oh !

Got over that little hiccup and agreed to take the reigns for the next two events. Made my way to the start to go off at no.6 and absolutely mullered the first couple of miles which felt like they were wind assisted.  Turned left to go to Laughterton and the road seemed to last forever ! Caught my minuteman and tried not to show how much it was beginning to hurt. Crossed the line with a minute PB at 11.40 and an average of over 25mph for the first time....

03/09/13 11.59

Slightly windier to the point of being 20 seconds slower than last week. Didn't feel I paced it very well and was hanging out my arse by the end of the third mile. By the time I'd hit the last mile I was really striggling and relieved to finish just under the 12 minute mark.

My TT season finished for 2013 !

Colwick Parkrun

Yesterday, I decided that with a drinking trip planned to my Dads this weekend, that I'd best get some exercise in early so that I wasn't totally inactive for 3 days.

My session of choice was a return to Colwick for a third attempt at their Parkrun event, which also gave me the chance to pop around the corner and check out some hotels for a stag night I'm organising.

The run itself went without incident and was a 23 minute effort as I had predicted beforehand. I tried to run a strong controlled pace and for the most part this worked. Had a hard last mile trying to stick with it and came in less than a minute outside my PB from 2011 for this course.

There will be more Parkrun attempts throughout Autumn and Winter as I attampt to get faster for next years shorter events.

Bassingham Bash 5 miles

Its been a busy year, and yesterdays Bassingham Bash 5 mile road race was all about getting a little bit faster over a little longer distance as I build myself up to some hopefully faster 10k races over the Autumn period.

Bassingham is a village just five miles or so outside of Lincoln and this race was being held as part of a village Gala that was taking place in the afternoon - in fact the start of the race was to be at 2.30pm !

When I arrived, there was a brass band playing, a car boot sale in full swing and even some Morris dancing taking place. For such a low key race, there was representation from most of my clubs including UK Netrunner, Lincoln Wellington AC, and Lincoln Tri Club.

My plan for the race was to hold a 7.45 m/m pace - no mean feat having ridden 40 miles out to Upton chippy on the previous evenings club run ! I felt a bit tired, but buoyed by recent performances (and a caffeine gel) I felt I had a good chance of maintaining the target average as I lined up with 50 or 60 other runners for the start.

It went a little like this....

Mile one - 7.24 - A loop around the village and a bit giddy as I didn't really know how I was going until the first mile split flashed up.
Mile two - 7.27 - I was blowing a bit as we headed out into the fens and I concentrated on trying to keep my breathing under control and heading along the shortest line as possible.
Mile three - 7.41 - Struggling a bit now and fully focused on not dropping away from the lady from Wellies that I was now using for pacing.
Mile four - 8.01 - Yep, average pace dropping rapidly, and really hurting to keep this up. Steyed with my pacer but hanging out of my arse - gald to see the mile 4 marker in the verge and my overall pace showing as 7.42 m/m which was a safety gap of just 3 seconds.
Mile five - 8.05 - Back into Bassingham, and trying to keep things going until the finish. Mile 5 definitely a little easier than mile 4, although I was about done by the time I got back onto the sports field and passed the finish line.

First five miler and therefore a new personal best, cheers !

Lincoln Wheelers 10m TT series

10TT 06/08/13 24.01

This will be a very quick one .....

....a bit like the Ingham 10 course that I rode on Tuesday evening ... boom boom !!

This is the fastest of the Lincoln Wheelers courses due to the last half a mile being downhill, but still the first 9.5 miles are surprisingly undulating in places and I felt I did well to hold an average of just over 24mph for the first part of the course, before steaming down the hill for a 24.01 finish and a nice new shiny 10m PB.

As is par for the course for me now at Tuesday night club meets, I went for a little jog afterward, and got back in time to see that I was 7th fastest on the night.

There's a couple more opportunities to ride this course over the next few weeks and I'll pop back and update this page with my progress !

10TT 13/8/13  24.14

Boom ! 2nd week in and another crack at the Ingham course. The wind seemed stronger and thre didn't seem to be any backwind at all. I started the ride well and was strong all the way to the roundabout, but really struggled on the way back with every rise feeling like a mountain. I did attack the downhill this week and finished just 13 seconds down on the previous week but progress had been made overall when I look at the tables. Onwards and upwards...

10TT  20/8/13  24.00

Will I ever get under 24 minutes ? In what I felt was a stronger wind than the previous two rides I posted my fastest time of all 3. I felt more measured in my pace getting to the roundabout and as a result maybe had more in the tank for the return leg. Absolutely hammered the downhill this time and was pulling some very angry faces as I ramped up the speed at the exit of the final turn. 24 minutes dead now being my PB for a club 10 !