Trains, Travels

Back from Spain and training, spending the evening recovering from the weekend and dealing with a few things on my to to do list, including a blog post.

For a change I took a camera with me on my first day’s ride, a 90 minute warm up with a nice climb to the village of Lentegi in it. The pics are from Lentegi before I started the descent back down. Having managed to remember everything this time I could see all this too.

Weekend was good, I essentially did the same rides as the previous Spanish weekend. This time I was putting out a bit more power on each ride, especially on the climbs. Which is all good in the scheme of things. Whilst getting round to sorting out computer set-ups (bothering to install Parallels and Windows XP on my MacBook basically)I’m having to rely on PowerAgent that comes with my Powertap. Its not as good as WKO+ for analysis, but the latest version has some and looking at the trends from my workouts, it’s generally up.

On route I stayed overnight at a hotel next to Gatwick. It very nearly passed all my basic hotel quality tests, until the Channel 5 signal disappeared right as House was about to start. I should also add that 2 other important items on the hotel assessment is the quality of the shower and the comfort of the bed…

The most notable event of the weekend came on the second day’s ride. Things are going well, it’s nice and warm and sunny, I’m riding well and I’m just on a nice sweeping descent. It’s not too technical so I easily pick up speed and soon I’m doing about 70kph. At this point something small and hard bounces off my chest and then hits my knee. It’s not unusual to hit insects of course they don’t usual manage to get a lucky pot-shot and sting you on the second impact. At that point I feel the pain from the venom just above my knee, slow myself enough to have control on the corners whilst I flick out the stinger and then wonder how allergic I am to the sting. I know some members of my family are allergic to bees or wasps, not sure which, but then I’m not sure what stung me. I figure best course of action is to keep going to the next village, if I’m going to have a horrible reaction probably better with people about. Long story short, no reaction, bit painful for a while, lump on leg for next few days. I said it was most notable, not most interesting…

Holiday reading was Sir Ranulph Fiennes autobiography “Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know” which I highly recommend. Sure he’s probably not the greatest writer ever (I’d point you more to the likes of Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf for that), but his life is interesting. Eventful, out of the ordinary and with themes of endurance and commitment that appeal to me. That’s as far as I’m going for a book review, I picked up a couple of other books at the airport, one on risk and one on decision making. Generally I spend my time buying books or eating when at airports, there doesn’t seem to be much else to do.

Finally, filed under gratuitous toplessness - my friend, Martin, from Masters swimming spends his time racing dressed as a camel. Not out of a weird fetish, but rather to raise money for charity. They’ve a website for Humphrey and also a flickr account… Having brought the suit along to a Masters session a couple of weeks back I’ve ended up in a few shots. I’d like to emphasises I only do this sort of thing when I think the pictures are tastefully done.

Mostly packed already and with contact lenses this time. Back off for a second weekend’s training in Spain where the weather is supposed to be sunny and a warm 25C. Not that it’s been so bad here lately, bit wet at times, but finally warming up. I’ll get to try it out with a 2 hour run over lunch.

Trying out a new mapping tool, my third now and so far so good. That’s my easy run from my bike-run-bike workout last night. The mapping software handily follows the roads which makes it much easier to have a reasonable estimate of distances done, that said if that’s really a 7K loop then I have to wonder how long the Cambridge Duathlon run actually is, my time last night was close to the time for the supposed 7.5K of that course. The brick session last night was all done at easy intensity, the bike portions on the rollers and the run at whatever felt comfortable. I’ve spent most of this week with a sore left leg, muscles tightening up from the race and the ITB tightness I get really flaring up. Lots of stretching has been in order and some very painful massage too. So it was good that things seem to have improved.

So mission statements for the next year or two… I recently read 7 Habits which is why I’m talking of my plans in terms of a mission statement. I’d not actually recommend the book that much, for me there was a lot I was already familiar with at least in terms of personal behaviours and processes. Perhaps there’s more use from the perspective of business and working with others in that environment, but it seemed less relevant to me. Also the endless examples from his life are just a little too perfect and frankly, sickening. That said the ideas it expresses in terms of what is necessary for success, concepts like being Principle Centred seem sound to me. I’ve tended to think of them in terms of objectives and motivations up till now, knowing these makes it much easier to make choices to support them.

I don’t have a mission statement yet, it’s going to take a while to come up with a precise one. I certainly have ideas on objectives and motivations and ultimately I’m really looking at tidying these up into a coherent statement. Some of these have been brought to the forefront of my mind recently by a race I saw online, The North Face 100, 100km trail run in the Blue Mountains. It would be fair to say that whilst I’ve thought of this kind of racing in the future I’ve never put anything into my plan yet, it was always after Ironman. Reading the website I was keen to give that sort of race a go whilst I’m in Oz, I’ll have the time available to prepare, but the issue is how does it distract from other objectives?

I have an objective to get my Ironman time down to the 9 hour region, let’s be honest, to go sub-9 in a race. My year (or more) of dedicated training time was one of my main contributors to this goal, no distractions of work and commuting to prevent me doing the training, recovery or rest required. If I’m going to get that fast, then this coming year will be the time to do it. So with that in mind when I look at a 100k trail run, or a marathon how does that impact my ability to complete that objective? Obviously I can’t know for certain, but the potential is it negatively impacts upon this. Based on that likely effect I have to consider do I postpone one objective, or the other, or possibly extend the time frame for the sub-9 hour goal?

Well, I’ve spent a few days puzzling over this, not willing to give up on one or the other entirely, though if pushed I would have to admit that rationally the ultramarathon should go. This is where motivation comes in though, why did I decide that I was willing to commit time and money to a year of training and no income? What did I ultimately want to come out of this? As important as triathlon has become to me and as much as I get from it I’ve always considered my ultimate focus to be endurance in general. At its broadest my objectives for the year are to improve myself as an endurance athlete, not specifically a triathlete. Triathlon is the tool I primarily use to do this because I enjoy each of the 3 sports.

Clearly motivations and objectives overlap and have varying scopes (I guess that the computer programmer in me), my broadest objective is to become an extremely fit endurance athlete. Within that I have objectives like qualifying for the Hawaii Ironman, a sub-9 Ironman, racing as an elite in an Ironman! Running ultramarathons and ultra-distance events, the list could go on. It’s unrealistic to think you can be successful in all of these specific objectives at the same time, clearly where the route to achieving objectives overlap you can work towards more than one. However any work towards the specific goals is work towards the broader goal and ultimately that’s the main thing.

Where does this rambling train of though lead? Well I can do the 100k trail run if I want, it will contribute to my broadest goal, but the reality is it may impact specific Ironman goals. My choice comes down to whether I’m willing to add an element of risk into my ability to achieve those goals and probably extend the timeline require to complete them. Whilst training for an ultramarathon might contribute to my Ironman goal in the sense they both involve running, it’s not specific to it and will likely make the sub-9 goal much harder. So have I actually made a decision? Nope. I don’t need to yet I’m going to wait and see how training and racing goes later this year. How I hold up under the higher training loads and more long distance racing. Plus entry isn’t even open for next year anyway, they have to run this year’s event first.

Ok, there you go - in conclusion I break down stuff into objectives and motivations, try to work out what mine are, think about it a lot and then don’t come to a firm conclusion on anything. I will also have a lot more time to do this when I’m in Oz. Aside from this, I have to learn to stop putting things off, pissing it down outside now, hopefully it’ll pass soon enough and I can go do the run I’m supposed to.

Or near enough. 9th overall, 3rd in my age group at this morning’s Duathlon. Not too shabby, but it was a pretty small field this year with more significant races drawing away a lot of entrants and the pissy weather putting people off. To roughly quote the conversation with my mate before the race start.

I’m not sure who the fast guys are here. Who am I going to pace myself off?
We’re the fast guys.

I then spent most of the race somewhere around 30 seconds behind him, never quite managing to bridge the gap. Some excuses… I had to wait for a car at the compulsory stop on the bike course and I dropped my arm warmers and started to head back to pick them up, before thinking WTF it’s a race. They’re expensive arm warmers, I can’t just throw them away. Fortunately they were still there so I picked them up as I set off home.

Thoughts from the weekend… Firstly, petrol is really expensive now… Driving round the M25 with a nearly empty tank I was relieved to make a service station then the price of the petrol led me to audibly swear on the forecourt. I could have saved 2 quid if I’d filled up back near home. I spent the evening in one of the more depressing Travelodges I’ve been in, quite an achievement. Things I check in these places - presence of Channel 5 on the TV, biscuits with the complementary tea and coffee, free shower gel and room temperature… Pretty much lacking on all fronts and surprisingly sparse too. On the plus it was cheap by booking early and the bed was comfortable enough. So it was a fairly dull evening in with nothing on TV and only Infinite Crisis to keep me company. It was a guilty pleasure, over the top superhero story telling, really poor plotting, but kind of entertaining.

Woke up race morning and it was grey and drizzling. What crossed my mind is whether I really wanted to be doing this… It’s good to note though that regular early mornings means the race morning early start isn’t too much of a problem now. In an unusual move I was at the race start early and didn’t have to rush about, instead I could spend more time complaining about the cold and the damp. Which once I met my friends I did plenty of.

Getting to the point of things - the race. Overall I’m happy with things, a solid race, nothing spectacular, but starting off the season it’s not so bad. I’m not used to working at that intensity though, largely due to the Ironman focus meaning I don’t often race with a heart rate in the 160s-170s. I didn’t really feel good until I was nearing the end of the bike to be honest, at that point I felt settled in and could have done a couple more laps. That said the wind and the rain was a bit brutal at points and made you work for your speed at points of the course. Running is OK, didn’t feel I was at my fastest though, but a solid pace I could have held for a bit longer.

The issues? My left ITB is playing up a bit, very tight and sore at high intensity, I need to spend a lot of time massaging and stretching it to get the most out of intense training. It was a limiter for a period of last year too so it’s an issue I know of and have to deal with.

Annoyingly the zip snapped on my 2XU top as I tried to open it on the second lap. I really like the 2XU endurance shorts, but have had trouble with the tops on a couple of occasions. The under arm tends to rub and in longer races it’s a bit uncomfortable by the end. This may be an excuse to try another brand of tri suit and see if I can find the perfect race kit. I am liking the look of the Zoot Ultra range, hard to get here, but I might try to import some to try. The retailer at the event had some of the Zoot shoes on display too, looked quite nice and you could have fully matching kit…

For the coming week I think I need to start working on my nutrition, quality not quantity, too much cheap food and fats in there. I need to start getting more sleep and I need to get myself sorted on actually filling in my training diary properly rather than tracking it all in my head. Also there’s planning a mission statement and goals for my year or two as a full time athlete, so many races, so little time and to truly improve you have to focus. More on this sort of stuff another time. Another weekend in Spain is coming up and some nice warm weather to look forward to.

Excuse the random nature of this post, I’ve nothing specific to write about so this should be labelled under tedium.

Third race of the season arrives this weekend, the Cambridge Duathlon. The photo above is from my first time at the race… No I didn’t buy it. It’ll be my third time doing it, though they adjust the course each year to ensure results aren’t comparable it seems. I don’t really know how I’m feeling about it, there’s a bit of pre-race nerves there, but it’s only a C race in the end. I find it hard to get my mind into the first races of the year, really I need to get a good result to give me a psychological boost and feel more positive about all the training so far. You never really know how well what you’ve done is paying off until you race.

A bit of sports psychology is probably going to be next on the reading list as I feel it’s an area that lets me down. I race a fair amount I’d say, comfortably over 10 events of varying size in a year. 2 Ironmans, 4 halfs and a few other races last year for example. It worked well though with a big period of racing leading up to my first Ironman in Austria when the race came I was feeling good off the back of some of my results and comfortable with everything that surrounds a race. Western Australia was a little less ideal, whilst I was still racing quite strongly, my trip became a little too much of a holiday and my preparation wasn’t quite there.

To go back to the initial point though - I do need to work on my ability to focus and maintain effort during long races. Confidence is an issue too, I doubt my ability and plan in the run up to an event and it can take quite a bit of work to overcome this. I’m wary of the field, not enough hard science and fact for my tastes at times, so I’ll cautiously try some of the literature. In the end though if something works I’ll give it a try even if I have to struggle with spiritual/hippy garbage!

In other reading I have quite enjoyed Into the Wild this week, to damn with faint praise it wasn’t bad. It recounts the life of Chris McCandless a young man who abandoned his family, wandered America and pursued a dream of living in the Alaskan wildeness that ultimately killed him. The topic itself is interesting, the writing style is engaging, but at the same time just felt a little bland. There were elements of the theme of heading off into nature, or going off on an adventure I could certainly appreciate. I don’t see myself wandering into the wilderness though and couldn’t conceive of doing so on the back of such little planning.

When I’m in Oz I certainly plan on spending some time in the bush, camping and hiking. But I plan to have all the appropriate equipment and information to support that kind of trip. Reading books relating to mountaineering, adventure racing and survival I definitely empathise with the fast and light approach. Makes sense to me the focus is about preparation, skill and control all things I rate pretty highly. So to me the appeal of hiking, climbing and the outdoors is about going to these places with the right mental and physical preparation and the exact equipment needed. Or maybe I’m just an elitist who doesn’t get why you might do something just for pleasure and not to suffer! Admitedly it’s easy to be elitist when your experience is limited in this area, I may change my mind when faced with it! The Alps, Oz and New Zealand will hopefully provide me plenty of opportunity to test this approach.

I promised rambling and I’m delivering… Training goes pretty well this week, fair bit of all 3 sports though nothing too heavy. Been using the rollers with my bike and seeing some improvements in handling and cadence. More technique work with swimming, dredging the pool doing band work. A good 2.5 hour long run in there too to trash the legs and confirm my trainers need replacing (well it’s been about 1000km). Will be attempting a bit more intensity on the bike this evening, a masters session for intensity on the swim and a race at the weekend to round it off.

New trainers are on the way, 2 pairs to try the alternating approach that supposedly makes them last longer. I suspect running lots on a worn out pair of trainers was a contributory factor to my run injury that plagued the second half of last year. I don’t want to make that mistake again. Plain Saucony ProGrid Omni 6s rather than exciting trainers like the Grid Fastwitch 3. I’ll save the shoe fetish issues for another post…

A little early with my post-weekend blog. Right now I’m watching the London Marathon ‘highlights‘ and the rain out the window hoping that it’ll pass and I can sneak in a run. Otherwise it might be more time on the bike and really I’ve biked a lot lately and could do with a bit more running. The return to swimming with the club went better than I feared; there’s nothing like a hard 100m front crawl set that leaves you coughing for breath and wondering if your vomit to welcome you back (I didn’t).

I was at home for the first time in weeks and with relatively few weekends home left I attempted to sort some of my possessions. I have a lot of possessions, really, loads. It’d be fair to say that before I really got into racing my main interest was accumulating stuff. I don’t really regret it, but it’s a pain in the arse now. Everything I own that I don’t take with me either has to be stored at my parents or got rid of. What I’ve learnt as I try to dispose of things is if you look on e-bay, not much of my stuff is worth much to others. Currently Oxfam will be doing pretty well I think.

But the real problem I have isn’t so much about the money, or giving this stuff away, nor the space available for storage. I just don’t know whether I want to keep a lot of this stuff. On the one hand as I go through the hundreds of Science Fiction books I own I find loads of classics of the genre. I’ll not read them again, I don’t reread books, at the same time there are some great titles here. Really my choice is do I keep these books so that when I return, should I decide to settle, I’ll have some books to cover my walls. And really, what is that for, to reference? Or simply so I can remind myself or others of how much I’ve read.

So I’ve spent a lot of time considering this. It’s fair to say that the urge to possess things is gone, I don’t really feel much need to accumulate stuff or spend my money on things. Sure I spend money, but it’s to go places, do things or on the equipment needed to meet those ends (OK and food). At the same time, disposing of chunks of my property for money or not seems a big step. It’s not really that I fear I’ll need them anymore (and supposing I did I guess I’d buy what was needed again, I can’t need it all), I think it’s just hard to make such a clear statement of a break from the past. Still as today has gone on I’m increasingly inclined to make that break and to let Oxfam do very well indeed.

I achieved a little bit towards this aim this weekend; a few books are gone. The next step is to make the decision one way or the other and commit to it. Once it’s done no going back and no regretting it.

The weather looks poor still, if I run I’m getting wet that’s for sure. Over 20 hours training this week with a rest day which isn’t too bad, but I feel I just need a little bit more running in there. Guess I’d better follow my wristband and HTFU!

The difficult part of this is writing something when not much has happened and there’s not much going to happen. Effectively I’m reliant on the mundane events of my life actually being of interest to others… As such this post promises to be an exciting one.

I’ve got straight into adjusting my road bike setup, my first purchase for the changes arrived the other day and is already installed - Oval R910 clip-on aerobars. I’ve titled this post in honour of the strange English of the Oval instruction manual. The Pinky Move is a vital step if attaching the arm rests to the extensions. Well it would be were it actually possible to do this, but my components didn’t bear much relation to the description in that bit of the manual.

I’ve lowered my handlebars a half inch and added the aerobars on and so far I’m mostly happy, some tweaking to do, but I think they’ll work well. I’ve a new zero set back seatpost on the way to move my saddle a little further forward which should allow me to sit more comfortably whilst on the aerobars. Hopefully I’ll get to try the setup out in full this weekend and decide if it’s all going to work for me.

Enough about kit and bike setup, fascinating as it is. Training has been pretty reasonable this week and by reasonable I mean there’s been lots of it. I’ve compensated for the recent lack of swimming with trips to the pool each day and trying out a new drill - bands. Basically tying your legs together so you can’t kick and then floundering in the water as all the flaws in your body position are revealed. I’m pleased to say I did a bit better on my second day with them.

Running is going fine, the endurance seems to be there, I need to do some faster work on fresher legs though. Cycling has happened this week, but nothing too hard, legs have been tired and my left ITB is pretty tight as usual. My mission for the next week is to stretch and massage it out so interval work on the bike doesn’t hurt so much. I’ll be getting in the bike volume at the weekend.

I managed to time starting my blog with a run of weekends away… Well there’s a break in the run now so this weekend I’ll be stuck at home. Out on the bike, sure, but none of that Spanish sunshine or French rain to accompany me. Not much more to be said about it.

Occassionally I think about what to blog and I have vague ideas of writing some kind of insight to my plans, thoughts on relevant subjects, motivations… Basically something profound and clever… When I get here, I end up writing about lowering my handlebars and swimming with a rubber tube tied round my legs…

At least if you leave your contact lenses at home… I’d like to say how nice Spain looks, but to be honest I didn’t see it that well when out on my ride. It added a new dimension to descending too when you can’t pick out all the details. I should say my sight isn’t so bad that it was really that dangerous, but it wasn’t ideal.

Otherwise it was a good weekend’s training - some solid biking in Spanish hills, first open water swim of the year and a little bit of running. It was a bit of a shock to the system to be able to go out on the bike in just shorts and a jersey worrying more about sun burn than the cold. I learnt a few things:

• I can manage a ride without my contacts, so should I lose them in a race I could cope
• I still can’t descend as well as others (but I can use my eyesight as an excuse pretty well)
• I can climb well though and make up for the loss of time on descents
• Aero setups make a big difference on the flat, especially with a headwind
• Without my contacts I get motion sickness in choppy seas
• Day 1 easy rides, become all out efforts quite easily (not my fault, I wasn’t the only one pushing it)

I can take a few things away from the weekend. Firstly and most obviously, don’t forget things like contact lenses, no point adding more difficulties. With some motivation I can put out a pretty solid ride for quite a long time, add a more aero setup on the road bike and it should be no problem sticking with the others when they’re down on their aerobars.

The plan then is to sort out my road bike set-up and use my next two races and training camps to test it out. If I can get it right and be well balanced, powerful and reasonably aerodynamic then it’s what will go to Switzerland. So this week I’ll pick the components I need, buy them and fit out the bike for the weekend. A couple of test rides, then it’s the Cambridge Duathlon the next weekend. Finally this month I’m heading back for another weekend in Spain where I can see if the changes work.

Travel today was a bit of a nightmare so along with sore legs I’m breaking the 2 hour training rule again and will make things up over the next few days.

Finally obligatory comments on the weather… It was warm, sunny, I wore shorts… I dodged the snow… I’m happy… And it doesn’t look so bad really for the rest of the week

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Another weekend, another location. This time 3 days training in Almunecar, Spain. I will take the opportunity now to get the obligatory weather commentary out the way - all there is to say is that for a change I am going somewhere where it’s sunny and warm. For a change I have no complaints!

Spain will be a few days of bigger volume training, a first open water swim of the year and who knows, maybe I’ll get a bit of a tan. Getting back into training this week has gone well so far, nothing to strenuous, but some decent sessions. Recovery went a bit out of the window again once I was back home and having to go to work and muscles have tightened up a bit. The past weekend definitely let me recover, but at the same time climbing did stress the muscles a bit and they’re still pretty tight. Plenty of time till Switzerland still, so nothing to worry about.

Segueing massively on the subject of fitness I became an uncle for a second time yesterday. I now have 2 nieces related to me which according to the coefficient of relatedness is the equivalent of one daughter of my own. It’s about as good as having your own offspring, but without any of the hassle! At least from the perspective of my genes anyway.

I’ve bought my ticket to Oz and set a date for departure. I leave the UK on September 18th 2008 and I’ll arrive in Oz on the 20th. Things go to plan I won’t be back here until 2010! Having chosen the date I’ve also produced a number of spreadsheets planning races and training down there. There is so much I could choose to do, suddenly a year doesn’t seem so much time. I’ve broaden my search from just triathlon to adding in road running, ten maybe some crits? How about trail running? Adventure racing? Not forgetting going climbing… The list goes on.

More decisions - bike kit for my trip. I’ve made the decision to take the road bike and leave the time trial bike at home, it’s just more versatile and that’s more important when I’m away for a year. Next up have been decisions about seatposts and tri bars. Bontrager XXXLite seat post is the first choice - reversible so I can adjust my road position for time trialing. Not chosen clip-ons yet, will need to be something that can sit close to the bars and get me low on a road bike. Final big choice was race wheels, and it’s going to be the Zipp 404s going with me, again just more versatile than my Xentis wheels. They were fun, but I think they’re going to have to go to ebay.

My gut feel is this is the set-up I enjoy riding the most. I did well on it at the UK Ironman 70.3 last year and had a good race at the Monaco Ironman 70.3 on it the previous year. I love to ride my road bike and the set-up looks good, which is important. Having made the decision the question in my mind now is should I just go with this set-up now? Rather than racing Switzerland on the Cervelo, race it on my road bike instead. I might try a couple of my upcoming races on it and see how I feel/perform.