Tuesday 27 August 2013

Feeling good.

I was meant to head out on a 3 hour ride on Sunday but I just felt absolutely wiped out with too many late nights catching up with me and with the rain teeming down I decided to take another day off. I was so glad I did as Coach Cox had scheduled in an optional long ride on the Bank Holiday Monday instead, so with an early start to meet Simon and James, a clubmate of his, I got an early night and felt a lot better for it. We did our lumpy 3 hour ride with the only deviation seeing us heading out to Newlands Corner to do that climb which I have not done in a while. We 3-upped down the main road before heading left and up to Newlands. This was the first time in over two years that I was able to stick with Simon and go past him on a hill which is indicative ( I hope) of how my fitness and ME has improved over the last couple of months. I was really pleased with how I was going and I felt even better on the ascent of Coombe Bottom with it's nasty last 30 metres. Boxhill was even better. I was not pushing it particularly but just kept a really solid cadence and big-ringed it up the hill, passing dozens of other riders as I went, with Simon glued to my back wheel. It felt really, really good. At the top James had to leave us so Simon and I did a recce of the Hilly 12 time trial which I'll be riding next week. Can't wait.

Saturday 24 August 2013

Final 10 of the year

You would think that being a teacher and on holiday that I would have a lot of time for training, but it just never seems to work out that way with something continually cropping up and my days often having no real structure like normal. Usually my commute ride home via Boxhill is a solid 60 to 90 minute session that I can tick off but finding that time during a holiday day seems difficult. That said, it's about spending a lot of decent time with my children so if I am more lax with my training at this time then I cannot say that I mind. I suppose on top of that my latest injury to my achilles has stopped me running completely and that's always the discipline that is most easy for the time crunched triathlete to train in. No faffing about with kit or getting to a pool; just stick on your pumps and get out the door and 40 minutes later you're done.

Saturday afternoon was the last 10 of the year where I was hoping to maybe duck under 24 minutes but with a strong 25-30mph gusting southerly it was never going to happen. Again, a major mojo dip as I spun over to the start. I don't know what it is but I just don't get up for it when I am warming up. It's not until I have a number on my back that I seem to mentally switch and get my race face on. Anyway, 25:00 which in the conditions I was pleased with, even though I was beaten by Russ, my two-up partner by 1 measly second.  

Coach Cox had been prescribing me one swim session per week but I have been going back to Kingfisher Tri to get a second swim in per week. With no running happening at the moment and my Achilles injury being unlikely to let me to for the foreseeable future it seems that I need to be burning the calories elsewhere. All my swimming equipment has decided to give up the ghost so a mammoth wiggle order has been put in for a winter of pool work.

So my racing schedule for the next month or so is my last three time trials of the season; two 25s and the hilly 12.

Wednesday 14 August 2013

Ironman UK

So while I was away on holiday, the Ironman UK race was taking part in sunny Bolton. It's an event that usually attracts a lot of the Tritalk crowd and in particular I wanted to try to follow Lee's progress during the race. Unfortunately it was not to be with my phone conking out as soon as we arrived and due to a technical hitch, no way of charging it until the following Wednesday. I spent most of that Sunday, mentally ticking off where Lee should have probably go to on the course and hoping that his race was progressing as planned. It turns out that it had and then some.


I had been following Lee's progress on his blog for a couple of years and I  had given him some of my thoughts on how to go about it but I have to say that his approach was far superior to my rather haphazard approach to the Forestman and his dedication to his 30 week plan really paid dividends. I had told him that if he beat my Forestman time then I would double my sponsorship for his charity and needless to say that is precisely what I will now have to do. Can't say that I mind. :-)

Lee's written a great blog about his race here.

Another IMUK blog comes from another member of the Tritalk community, Dave Rowe. Again, it's a wonderful read, even though he is a pirate. ;-) It's encouraging to read about a couple of Ironman athletes where the wheels don't fall off and it proves that with the correct training, pacing and nutrition that it can be done.

In other news..

Yep, mullered my Achilles. I did a lot of stretching yesterday and tried a gentle run as it didn't feel too bad but I only managed 5 minutes before turning round and coming home . Thanks to Phil to pointing me in the direction of the Alfredson protocol which will become a focus over the next few weeks in place of running while I continue to bike and swim.

Onwards

Monday 12 August 2013

Holibobs

Last week was a much needed family holiday to Cornwall. I was in two minds about how much training I was going to try to squeeze in and the decision was eventually made for me with my right Achilles reacting badly to a gentle run just before going.  So the plan of putting in a few runs along sun drenched Cornish beaches were scuppered as was the idea of taking my wettie and doing a few open water kilometres when the bottom literally fell out of my wetsuit. I found the most enormous tear in it and it was time to pension it off. So I had a whole week off doing nothing except a few stretches, lots of frisbee throwing and some endurance pastie eating. Pretty good.

The Achilles continues to be problematic. I had a very comfortable and gentle 30 minutes' running yesterday and felt great but it was a different story when I woke up this morning as it was stupidly tight and tender. More stretching and then a hour's ride before breakfast; it was good to be back on the bike again. I have my last 10 mile tt on Saturday and then a couple of 25 tts which I would like to round off the season with a pb if possible before I get down to some hard work over the winter. TheBournemouth  Marathon looks doubtful unless I can shake this injury off soon.