Trains, Travels

I’m sat in a typically soulless Premier Inn with two nights till race day. Admittedly I’m a little tired, but with a planned lie in tomorrow bed seems less urgent. You see tomorrow’s weather isn’t looking that hot. If I repeated today and trained early all I’d do is get my race kit dirty! So lots more sleep, a big, big breakfast and then maybe light training if the clouds look good.

Thursday was a very long day for me. Starting at 4:10am so I could get in a proper brekkie before driving to collect Toby. Sure it added a bit more time to my journey, but I was glad for the company. We made pretty good time up the motorway stopping for coffees on route. It was definitely a milky coffee day so skinny cappuccinos were my preference. Word of advice – do not buy coffee from Caffe Ritazza. I love coffee, but this was so bad I chucked most of it away. It was one of those cappuccinos where you were glad to have far too much frothy milk!

This isn’t about bad coffees though. We got to registration sometime around the middle of the day. The advantage of turning up early on Thursday is all was quiet so rego took no time at all. Unsurprisingly some kind of cycle training DVD was in the goodie bag! I think every UK Ironman event I’ve done has had one. The expo was small, expensive and uninteresting which is great – I don’t need the temptation. I still did the habitual Powerbar purchasing which was silly given I’m sticking to real foods at the moment.

Skipping past lunch (a lot of chicken, a theme so far this trip). We went for a drive round the course. Toby had been up the week before attempting to ride it with mixed success. Having two of us there made it easier for him to guide and me to drive. It was an interesting mix of cross referencing a map I’d loaded into my Garmin and the paper map. The race booklet maps leave a lot to be desired and don’t go far in making the course clear. Whilst we think we got it in the end we’ll be relying on marshals on the day.

I’ve seen discussions about the course, but until yesterday had no real idea what to think. Overall impression is that it is a reasonable challenge, but not exceptionally tough. I don’t think it’ll be a fast course mainly due to potential winds, the road surfaces and constant pace changes. The climbs are fine, nothing much of note, but the regular undulation will require regular changes of gear and pace. Make sure your gears are well tuned they’ll get a workout!

Overall I liked the route. There’d been an air of negativity on the journey up and during rego. A lot to do with the potential for cold and wet conditions. Sunshine whilst we drove round the bike lifted the mood and some positivity crept in.

This morning I did an hours ride just to keep the legs going. Whilst I wore gilet and arm warmers I was pleased that I felt pretty warm. In race conditions if the weather was like today then things should be fine. A set of light arm warmers in my bike bag will do me. I’ll shove an extra bike jersey in there in case things change though. The ride confirmed the influence of prevailing winds and road surfaces. Whilst my effort was easy, the pace was also low! I hope with a swim getting the heart going I’ll be comfortably putting out a few more watts.

Back to Thursday… During our travels by car Toby pointed out some of the run course. It’s all very vague, more so than the bike course. That’s definitely coming down to needing marshals to point me in the right direction. At least I’ll have pros ahead to work things out! There’s a few bits of hill in there from what I can see, but nothing to really worry about. I’m aiming to feel good on this part of the race and work to my strength.

Checking into my hotel about 5:30 in the afternoon brought an end to all my driving. Shamefully I opted out of a ride with Toby so he headed off back to where he was staying. I just wanted to chill out exhausted from sitting on my arse in a car for hours on end! I called this hotel soulless, but the staff are friendly and it looks great from the outside. All of that means the quality of the restaurant is extra disappointing!

Pleasingly I stuck to Paleo eating through Thursday and at least the start of today. I’ve been eating more, but mostly fruit. Oh, and a lot of chicken! Paleo ended at midday today when I consumed some bread. I’ll admit to feeling a bit guilty, but the stomach distress induced by a 20 minute run convinced me I needed to switch to more processed food and less raw veg! So in the last two days I’ll be eating carbs again, but not over-doing it. I’ll probably not opt for that whole Powerbar carb loading game this time!

As mentioned I got my bike ride in before breakfast today. I rode down to the race start and a little way up Sheep House Lane. It’s really pleasant riding round here, spectacular views and lots of little climbs to make you work. I realised it had been a while since I’d been out for a ride on a chilly morning like that! I actually enjoyed it. Once I was back at the hotel I was straight over for the breakfast.

Breakfast here is all you can eat. With self-service on the continental selection, but unusually you order your cooked food. I felt slightly awkward when asked the question of how many eggs I wanted. I nervously ased for three which was fine, tomorrow I’ll go for more! A paleo breakfast at an all you can eat buffet was managed. Tomorrow I will hit the breakfast hard and with no restrictions!

After brekkie it was over to the race venue for the practice swim. We had to be walked to the reservoir to stop us running amok in the private Anderton Centre. Then counted into the water! Toby was straight in and I followed after him and headed out for one lap. Whilst I couldn’t catch him I felt pretty good. The water was cool, but far from cold. The plan was a lap to get an idea of how race day might go. I kept a moderate pace throughout and was surprised only one person came past me. I wasn’t going that fast I think most people didn’t do a lap or messed about before starting.

So feeling like I’d had a good, solid swim I checked my watch as I left the water. 35 minutes for one lap! Terrible. I can’t have been going that slowly and my slightly wide course at the last turn couldn’t cost that much?! The southerly wind had created a bit of chop and some waves on the reservoir, but nothing that significant either. I was frustrated as I walked back to the tents. Fortunately catching up with Toby confirmed that he thought the course was long too and had found it slow. It looks like the buoys aren’t in the right places yet. So on Sunday swim times will either be slow or the buoys will be different.

Since then I’ve had my stomach issue inducing run, dropped off the Paleo routine pre-race and gone and watched Harry Potter. I wouldn’t recommend it that much, it was a bit slow and way too focussed on teenage angst. I’m glad to have left all that behind me a long time ago and it wasn’t done well enough to make me want to be reminded of it! I am embarrassingly keen to go and see GI Joe in my recovery weeks though! I mean come on, all that action, guns, women in leather…

Weather will dictate what if any training gets done tomorrow. It’ll be short, easy sessions in the dry if at all. No swim as the hassle of going to the one hour window is too much. A lie in will do me much more good, they worked well in Roth I found. I’m feeling pretty good about the race now, the negativity is gone and I’m keen to give it a go. That’s it from me till after the race, hopefully with a good report.

I head up north to Bolton early tomorrow morning. No idea on what if any internet access I might get so I think it’s safest to get the race plans up now. If there’s a chance I’ll post thoughts once I’ve seen and experienced some of the course. As you can see I’m getting there nice and early. I like to be signed up and ahead of things leading into a big race. All part of ensuring I remain relaxed.

What started out as a spur of the moment entry because it seemed fun to do your home Ironman has taken on a much bigger level of importance. This is my last opportunity to qualify for Kona this year! Be in no doubt this race is a big deal for me. I want to post another good result. More than that I want to put my best race performance out there.

Having raced three Ironman distance events so far this year, one of them just three weeks before Bolton, might raise questions about my preparation. It’s a fair point and I’ll be honest I think the race load has certainly taken a bit out of me. I stress a bit though. There’s still plenty in the tank to go hard this weekend. Had I known Ironman UK would be my last chance at Kona then I would have prepared a little differently for sure. I don’t regret the path I’ve taken one bit whether I get the slot or not.

Challenge Roth was an amazing experience and a great race. I went a little harder than my planned ‘training’ race. Most notably I pushed myself on the run more than intended and certainly paid the price in recovery. In return I gained a lot of confidence from my race and felt like things were back on track. I know I can race well and be in control doing it. I also felt there was room to do more!

There was a price, these last few weeks have been tough physically and mentally. The recovery process felt slow and I have been convinced this would fail at times. I have only been able to do the simplest of training to keep the body ticking over. There’s not been lots of quality because it’s not been an option. Just getting out there and moving was often the aim. Now in the third week and with days till the race I’m pleased to say I’m feeling a lot better. When I train I have to hold back a little perfect at this point in a taper. Running no longer hurts the legs like it did last week – it all feels normal again.

I’m ignoring the charts in WKO+ that I usually judge fitness from, this is uncharted territory. I think there’s great potential that this enforced rest period will do me a lot of good. Realistically it was something like a three week taper. Despite recovering from a previous race, maybe the end product is I’m going to race the freshest I have since Ironman Western Australia! I hope so at least.

Sorry enough preamble on with the plan

Swim

For those who’ve seen past plans this is the familiar one hour swim! I think I should be able to comfortably manage that now. The fact I don’t frustrates me no end! Placement and pacing issues along with my ability to draft seem to be the thorns in my side. So for Ironman UK I’ll stick myself near the front as usual, but a little to the side to avoid the worst of the scrum.

Go out hard initially, but keep that brief to avoid too much oxygen debt (a problem in my Ironman Australia swim). Settle into a solid pace feeling the effort in my arms. Then the important bit, look for feet and jump on them! Don’t be afraid to move if the pace seems to low, but don’t be surprised if being out the draft proves harder work.

Also remember that I tend to feel stronger and more comfortable as time goes on. Look to be able to push things a little more around the 2km mark and to keep on from there. As others slow keep picking up pace and catching feet. I think it’s a two lap course so I’ll aim to up the work on the second lap. Always tempering things by remembering there’s still a bike and run to come.

If I have one other thing to remember it’s getting in the water as early as I can and getting a good warm-up. It’ll make things so much easier to start and as I feel stronger with a couple of kilometres in the arms it’ll get me there sooner.

Bike

If you’ve waded through them you’ve seen all the analysis I’ve done of late. I’m going into this race well informed! The only missing piece is knowledge of the course itself and I’ll be driving that tomorrow. I won’t have power, but will have heart rate so it’ll come as no suprise to hear the plan is a heart rate range of 135 minimum through to about 145BPM. I believe there’s a couple of short-ish, sharp climbs in there so I’ll allow a small amount of spiking on those.

Bike set-up is the same as for Roth. It’s somewhat inspired by reading articles on the ‘Big Slam’ position. The seat is set-up pretty slack and the stem is short and not too low. I probably end up with the back in a similar position to having the hands on the drops. Using the aerobars means I’m narrower of course. What’s important is this is incredibly comfortable for me and I feel powerful in the position. Sure I can be much more aerodynamic, but would I be faster?

The position was good enough to go 5:04 in Roth. This time I’m taking off the training wheels and will be riding my Xentis TT tubulars. I’m hoping they’re as fast as claimed and I’l be saving quite a few minutes over my training wheels! I don’t worry too much about the equipment though, it has to be right, but the important factor is my performance.

With 3 laps I can break down the ride into thirds. Initially my aim is to keep at the low end of my heart rate and get comfortable. Whilst there is a climb out from transition to make this trickier it’s worth doing. Once I’m settled in I’ll start to build my effort. Whilst keeping in the heart rate zone I’ll try and build perceived effort each lap. With fatigue setting in this probably means I just end up maintaining pace!

I’m trusting in the fact that throughout my training and racing heart rate has been a perfectly good measure of my effort and matches well to my power. At some point I’ll discuss aerobic decoupling in my riding and how closely my heart rate and power trend. I also have a lot of faith that I tend to ride stronger in the latter half of long rides. I’ve seen it in both training and racing data. I know that the first could of hours can feel a slog and then suddenly I can ride!

Nutritionally it’s a combination of bars and gels once again. I’ll be using apple strudel Mule bars on the hour along with High 5 gels on the half hour. If I’m in a comfortable intensity range this will digest fine and keep my calories up. As usual it’ll be washed down with plain water and that’s all I’ll take on the course. Seemed to work in Roth though I’ll admit towards the end I fancied a change!

I can’t give a time goal as I’ve no idea for the course. All I can say is I’ll ride by heart rate and perceived effort and aim to put a bit more on the road than in Roth. However at the end of the ride I want to be ready to run.

Run

I’m not entirely sure of the run course, I’ve read about it online and admittedly been confused! I figure by race day I’ll have it worked out and they’ll be enough marshalling to guide me too!

I have a goal to break 3:10 in this run if I can. Perhaps I’ll find on the day the bike will take more out of me than I think, but following Roth it seems possible. This means a strict pacing strategy again. Checking off kilometres (or maybe miles, better work those out in case) to ensure I’m maintaining speed. I need to be looking at 4:20-4:30 kilometres for my goal.

In pure running terms this pace is no problem. I know at first it’ll feel easy if anything, but the important thing is to hold back. Keep things ticking over. At aid stations I’ll be using my own High gels as I prefer them and taking on water. Nothing else just enough to wash down gels. What I’ve learnt from Roth is to carry more of those gels, especially when not available on the course. Also start on one every twenty minutes from the start.

All of this is aimed at getting to around 30km feeling like I did in Roth. At that point I want to ask myself if I can speed up and know the answer is yes. Once I pick up pace I may try to take on one more gel, but from about 8km to go there’s little point. It’s all about pushing the pace till you cross the line. Get this right and rather than losing time in the latter part of the marathon you pick even more places up.

I know this strategy worked in Roth. I know that it requires me not to overdone the ride and to have kept on top of nutrition. I can do all of this fine now, it’s all well practised. I just need to go out there and take all I’ve learnt from past races, combined with all the recovery I’ve had. Put that lot together and I think I can pull it off.

Well that’s what I plan to put out there on the course in Bolton. I’m a little nervous, but a lot excited. I’m keen to race again and to have another good one. After a few wobbly moments I’m feeling positive and confident I can do well. I know what to do, I’ve done it often enough! It’s time to really see what I’m capable of!

You would think by now I’d be immune to pre-race nerves. It’s not like I’ve not been here before. However those who’ve dealt with me this past week may have noticed a higher level of stress than normal. Little hints have been dropped in my tweets and facebook status too.

The week following Roth I was tired, lethargic and heavy. I also wasn’t the least bit surprised by this. My motivation to train was fairly low as evidenced by how long I’d chat at the lake side and how little I’d spend in the water! Still that was all fine. With so much time to spare I drew up a plan for the Roth to UK period. Lining up my second week of training and how I’d bring myself back into form ready for a final easier week pre-UK. Fantastic.

Then came the second week. I wasn’t heavy anymore, but still a little tired and lethargic. As for that motivation, well chatting on the lake side was more fun than swimming. I went for my first short run on Tuesday having opted out on the Monday. Just thirty minutes and it started out feeling great. Five minutes in and my calves were killing me! I had to cut it short and get home before I did damage! Now the panic really started to kick in. It hadn’t been this hard to get back into things before. Look at Lanzarote I first ran six days after that one!

Wednesday saw a bit of training, but again no running. Apart from concern over the calves motivation was low and fear of being unable to run high! A really good massage in the early afternoon helped things along. Not that it stopped me skipping any training on Thursday and in the end it wasn’t till Friday when all I did was one, successful thirty minute run!

Relief at last! I can run and whilst a little sorer than usual it felt good! I do still feel tired, but not as tired as I have done. I woke this morning and felt a little bit of that motivation had returned. Onto the scales and I’m at my target race weight! Then I was off to the lake and cycling felt good. To top it all off even the swimming felt better than it had all week. It’s a turning point! After days with a growing sense of panic suddenly the confidence returns.

With confidence comes a bit of perspective too. I’d been convinced that the last two weeks my recovery was slower than for any of my previous races. Certain in fact that this week I should have been able to do so much more. Watching my training load drop off in WKO+ and convinced my fitness was ebbing away. If my recovery was slowing what chance did I have of racing?

A well timed blog post on Ironman recovery from Chuckie V started reassuring me. Hs athlete had a similarly tight pair of races and the advice was really to hold back on the training. It raised a question. My perception has been that I’ve been recovering poorly and previously had got back into quality training much sooner. When I drew up the rapidly discarded training plans I assumed in week two I normally did 70% of a normal week. Significantly I assumed I needed to now and that if I couldn’t something was wrong. Was it really the case though?

Fortunately I log my training and have plenty of data to go back and examine! WKO+ would let me test my perceptions and how far off the mark they were. Why I didn’t think of this days ago I don’t know!

Comparing the hours

The obvious thing to compare is training hours. The chart above is a rough break down of my training hours as logged over the past 11 months. During that time I have four Ironman races to consider. There’s a few inaccuracies in there for sure, but it’s a rough guide. If you pick out the very low volume weeks of five hours or below you’ll see week one of my race recoveries. There’s one exception the week starting the 9th February 2009 was a recovery week from Epic Camp New Zealand. I needed that one too!

I could very roughly draw a conclusion that the pattern was week one less than 5 hours total train, week two in the region of 10 to 15 hours total training and then week three typically more than 25 hours training. It’s a very rough conclusion though. For a start look at Western Australia the first race in the period. Recovery starts on the 8th December 2008. I can tell you the plan was to have a proper rest and mostly I did. The tiny bit of training was an ill advised three hour ride with a mate! The next week I did nothing and then through myself back into training in the third week.

Rather than go by the bigger picture I’ve charted the 21 days following each Ironman race for total training volume. As mentioned Western Australia had almost no training in the following two weeks, but that was exactly the plan. For Ironman Australia the first week was largely spent travelling back to the UK so no time to train. Once home though I got back into training pretty quickly.

Interestingly Lanzarote and Roth follow a very similar pattern for week 2. What you can see though is that after Roth I managed to get a little training done in the first week. Something I’d previously never managed. Again that was largely the plan. So whilst I wasn’t able to replicate the training after Ironman Oz, I certainly trained in a similar manner to Lanzarote. For all three of the earlier races week 3 involves a lot more training. Largely it appears a return to normal training really.

If it wasn’t for the fact I’m racing in a weeks time I think Roth would likely be following a similar pattern. Whilst my perceptions and fear was that my recovery was worse than previous races the pattern looks very similar. With a race around the corner I’ll not be bumping up that volume though I’m tapering with just a little more training volume than normal. So does this mean my recovery is perfectly on track?

Comparing Training Stress

If you’ve waded through recent posts you’ve read plenty on my usage of Training Stress Score (TSS) in WKO+. Volume is one part of the picture, but training stress is possibly a more useful one. So the same 11 month chart as before, but this time plotting the TSS for each week. Very roughly weeks one to three post races follows a similar pattern to volume.

So going straight to the 21 day chart to see how TSS varied for each race. Once again the pattern is pretty similar to the volume chart. The important thing to note here is how much lower the TSS is since Roth. Compared to Oz or Lanzarote I am clearly doing a lot more easy traning. The question is does that indicate greater fatigue or slower recovery? I can’t fully answer that if I’m honest.

What I can say is that Ironman Australia was a very ‘flat’ race for me. I never felt at my best and I would claim that on race day my performance was quite low. Perhaps the ability to return to quite a high level of training so quickly was because the race hadn’t been as stressful as planned. Lanzarote is another odd case a complete disaster of a day for me. The intensity was significantly lower than usual, but the duration was far longer than usual. Was the cost a slower recovery relative to Oz?

Looking at Roth the TSS is lower, but also I actually have some training stress during week one. Did this force me to keep the stress lower in week two? It’s certainly something I’ve never tried in the first five or six days after an event. What I won’t know is whether I could return to my normal training levels for week three. The plan is to keep these fairly low stress levels until race day.

Having spent an hour or two putting graphs and charts together I’m not sure I’m any the wiser! It appears that I’ve managed similar volumes of training, just not gone as hard, or spread it out a little more. I think there may be some signs there that I’ve not been recovering as well as I planned or hoped. However the problem is each race presents a unique set of circumstances making it hard to really compare any of them.

I come back to my gut feel in the end. Having gone through this process I think I have been recovering more slowly than in previous races. I put a lot of this down to the intensity of racing in Roth. Despite claims of using it as training I went pretty hard and my recovery is slower as a consequence. Perhaps if I’d not taken time off after Western Australia I’d see a similar pattern? If that’s the case I’ll take some confidence that I picked up in week three and into week four there.

The important thing is I’m not worrying anymore and starting to feel more confident for race day. Recovery is occuring. My legs may still be sore at times, but I’m noticing the changes and return to form. I’ll not be testing my fitness or trying to put out a normal weeks training this time though. The plan is to train a bit each day up till Thursday and hopefully give myself a little form for race day, but no more fatigue. Next Sunday we’ll find out if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew!

No more charts or graphs prior to Ironman UK I promise! Maybe some afterwards and I will do those final ‘Justifications’ posts too. I’ll try and keep things short though!