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!

Less than two weeks to Ironman UK and the limited amount of training I’ve done so far has clearly established one thing. There’s not going to be much quality training the next week or two! I had some illusions that I might throw in some decent sessions, but so far no luck. My legs are coming round, but as my short, easy run last night showed they have a way to go. If I feel the same next Friday I’ll start worrying.

All this extra time allows me to catch up on reading, patch the damage to my wet-suit and spend hours analysing data and speculating for Ironman UK. My speculation can be divided into two categories, firstly equipment choice and secondly potential performance. What’s about to follow is a series of charts, graphs and lightweight analysis from Challenge Roth. From this data I’ve then foolishly attempted to extrapolate something about the Ironman UK course.

Racing by Heart Rate and Power

Averaging a heart rate of only 132 BPM on the bike course at Challenge Roth had surprised me. Previous Ironman races had seen averages in the region of 142 BPM. Ironman Lanzarote was the only instance with such a low heart rate and I was injured there. My bike time was perfectly acceptable given the set-up (heavy box rim training wheels) so I didn’t feel that I needed to be too concerned about fatigue as a factor.

I decided to compare the relationship of power to heart rate for the race. A bit of analysis in excel produced the graph above. What it shows is a consistent relationship between the two. As heart rate increases so does power. Take a line around 132 BPM and sure enough it produces roughly my average power of 210 watts.

When planning a race I usually aim to hold my heart rate in the 140-145 BPM region. Let’s be a little more cautious and expand that range to 135-145 BPM. Allowing a bit of recovery too! From my Challenge Roth graph I could extrapolate a range of power from 220 to 260 watts. Playing on the safe side again it would suggest racing above 220 watt and below 250 watt for the most part. The data suggests I could maintain a comfortably aerobic heart rate in this power range.

Wanting to back this theory up a little I decided to apply the analysis to some of my training data. Taking a range of data from long rides over the past few months and again plotting the average power for heart rate. The result was the graph above, based off around 50,000 data points from training. I’ve put a quick linear trend line in place to give a rough idea to values. The graph seems to back up the data from Roth, again suggesting for a heart rate of 135 to 145 BPM a power range of 220 to 250 watts would be expected.

A simple conclusion from this is that when racing Ironman it wouldn’t be unreasonable for me to expect to average 240 watts. That’s a good 30 watts higher than I managed in Roth. However my normalised power was a much closer 230 watts. This suggests that there was enough work above the average to produce a higher normalised figure. Likely caused by the climbing and wind. I have data for the alititude, but nothing for the winds, so the next step was to look at the relationship between heart rate, power and gradient.

Challenge Roth – The Bike Course Profile

I’ve updated my graph of Challenge Roth power and heart rate to include altitude as well. It’s here more for general interest as over the time-scale of five hours it’s hard to see much more than a very general pattern.

Total altitude change for the race is an ascent of 1210m with a descent of 1240m (T2 is separate from T1) according to my Garmin (my GPX file available on GPSies.com). With data including elevation recorded every second by the Garmin I had a detailed profile of the course to analyse. Taking the change in altitude over time I quickly established some general figures. Identifying that 44% of the course is descending, a mere 1% flat and 55% is ascending! I was a little surprised by this as Challenge Roth is known for its fast course. As mentioned I can’t factor in wind speed or direction to this analysis of course.

Whilst overall the course is predominantly climbing plotting the distribution in change of altitude between data points shows that the majority of that climbing is very subtle. To the point that with bigger buckets you would consider most of it flat. As the graph shows whilst there is a wide range of negative gradients the inclines are mostly very small. Factor in tailwinds and the like and it’s easy to see why the course is fast. A section of flat or tiny incline following a descent will be very fast, especially with the wind behind you.

My conclusions from this? Well primarily it starts to back up the view that Roth is fast due to rapid descents and a lot of easy terrain. Throw in useful tailwinds on those smooth roads and it’s not too hard to see where the speed comes from. Knowing I prefer a relatively low cadence to most ad that on the day my 11 cog was skipping forcing me to avoid it I suspect that this would result in lower than expected heart rate and power averages. I simply couldn’t turn-over the cranks fast enough to generate the heart rate or power my training might lead me to expect.

Relating gradient to Heart Rate and Power

The final step of analysis I’ve performed is to look at the relationship between the gradient and my heart rate and power at the time. Essentially taking the range of gradients encountered on the course and then averaging my heart rate and my power for each of them. This should then let me see how the terrain was affecting my ability to raise my heart rate. From this I get the graph above.

It’s not surprising that both power and heart rate rise as the road goes up. Whilst gearing choice will affect how much I think most of us work much harder against an incline than on a descent. I’m a great believer in trying to maintain consistent effort throughout a race, but I’m far from a perfect practitioner!

The trend isn’t surprising then, but what I was more interested in was how this related to the 132 BPM figure and the 210 watt averages. Looking at the lines it does seem that around the zero mark is where 132 BPM and 210 watts occur. Once the gradient is below zero and I’m descending I get the drop off in heart rate and power. Above zero and I’m much closer to that 220 – 250 watt region and the 135 – 145 heart rate.

I’ll openly admit there’s a lot of limitations to this analysis. I don’t think gradient alone explains everything. To my mind there’s a relationship at least at Roth. Perhaps I’ll try and analyse some more training data in the future to see how it holds up. The downside with analysing training data is there’s a greater percentage of freewheeling on descents so this may skew the results. Not being able to factor in wind or fatigue in any clear fashion into this analysis clouds the results further.

Implications for Ironman UK

The main message I’m taking from the analysis is that if I freshen up for the big day I should expect to hold a power of 220 – 250 watts without problem. I won’t be racing with my power meter, opting for faster race wheels this time so I will use heart rate instead. Training and racing data suggest I should aim a a heart rate of 135 – 145 BPM to achieve that power range.

The other message is that the nature of the course may affect my ability to maintain these values. Taking the profile of a single lap of the UK course above it seems downhill might be quite common. To check this out I used a GPS file (again from GPSies.com) to apply similar analysis to the course. It appears that total climbing for the course with be around 1600m and with T1 and T2 being the same descent will match. 31% of the course is descending, 40% flat and 29% climbing. That’s not the impression given n the profile above, I suspect the relatively low number of data points in the GPS file used contributes here. It’s certainly no where near as accurate as my Roth course.

Based purely on the profile my impression is of a relatively fast course. A couple of steeper sections of climbing, but followed by long periods of descending over rollers. I can’t comment on how technical the course is or the influence of that on speed. Wind and road surface will obviously be major contributing factors too. A quick graphs looking at the distribution of gradients doesn’t clarify things too much.

A lot in the flat region with a wide distribution of gradients from that. The smaller spread of data points and subsequent greater change in altitude makes it harder to compare directly to the Roth graph. My impression is of a much more rolling terrain with some notable climbs and descents mixed in.

What’s clear is until I see the course on the Thursday before the race there’s only so much I can draw from this data. I suspect it will suit me a little more than Roth with less opportunity to run out of gears.

Conclusions and Limitations

You can tell I’m in recovery/taper at the moment. You have to have a lot of time on your hands to do something like this! How much it really tells me for my future races I’m not sure. It was interesting to at least attempt to backup some of my suspicions. Ironman UK is almost a test bed for what I’ve seen in this data!

Primarily what I’m taking away from this is that my 135 – 145 BPM target for heart rate is pretty reasonable. The power range I get for this is roughly 220 to 260 watts and that seems to hold true for training too. That’s a fairly pleasing 3 – 3.5 watts/kg for an entire Ironman bike. I think the top end of that power range may be pushing it at the moment, but it’s hard to be sure.

I’m more confident that terrain and conditions that aid cycling. So descents and tailwinds to an extent work against my ability to hold my target heart rate. Certainly I need to ensure my highest gear is working perfectly on race day in the future! My natural cadence works against spinning out on descents, I tend to hit my limit quite quickly. Perhaps a bigger chain-ring in the future!?

For Ironman UK I will continue with the heart rate strategy I’ve used in previous races. Hopefully the nature of the terrain is such that this will be easier than in Roth. My view is that whilst having to work harder and maintain a higher average wattage likely means a slower bike time it should mean a higher bike position. Not being able to reach your target zones will certainly have reduced my relative position in the field.

Onto the limitations. I think they’ve mostly been mentioned already, but are worth emphasising again. This isn’t the most scientific of analysis, but rather something I’ve done to at least explore how I’ve raced on the bike.

Wind is a significant factor in bike riding. Anyone who’s trained in Lanzarote can confirm that one! At no point is it factored into these calculations as I just don’t have the data. Similarly I can’t factor in variables like road surface, rolling resistance etc. There are plenty of other factors that might affect the ability to work at a given heart rate or power on race day not least injury or fatigue.

Aside from the missing external factors this analysis in itself is very simplistic and almost certainly flawed. Whilst I studied statistic as part of my Biology degree it’s fair to say that was a long time ago! At best here I am very generally looking at data and drawing conclusions.

I should also mention that whilst the 135-145 BPM figures chosen seem sound it’s relatively arbitrary to choose them. They are based off aerobic values for my training, but at the same time there are other factors to consider in choosing the range. You could look at the 132 BPM in Roth and argue I had a much better run off this time compared to the 142 BPM in Ironman Australia or Western Australia. Also it’s worth considering if my ability to absorb my nutrition was significantly improved by the lower average intensity.

I don’t think I’m alone in spending time attempting to analyse past racing and training data in the run up to a big race. You hope you’ll find something that will confirm you’ll have a fantastic day and a new PB. The reality is you never really do and sometimes come away with more questions than you started. At least in this case I think I’ve essentially ended up with a plan to continue as normal.

My race report was a little sterile. I mean it even had a graph of power and heart rate in it. To balance things out here’s a second report about my experience in Roth and some memorable moments.

The first thing I have to say is how superbly organised the race is. From the very start I was well cared for. I was fortunate to be able to arrange a homestay through the race organisers and it really made the experience. Over the weekend Roland and Manuela Boehm made sure I wanted for nothing. They were superb and without their help I’m sure I wouldn’t have had the race I did.

I arrived in Nuremberg on Thursday and was immediately met by my homestay. They whisked me off to the race venue so I could register and browse the Expo. I like to get registration out the way early it just helps me stay calm. It didn’t take long to get that sorted, but I lost track of time in the massive expo. I’ve not seen one that size before so many shops and different brands on offer.

After that it was straight to my home for the next few days and building up the bike. In the past Roland had run a bike shop and whilst I was happy to put the bike together he insisted on going the extra mile in cleaning it and tuning it for me! I don’t think the bike’s been in such good condition for a long time. Add to that his contacts meant I got extra discount on some bike bits from the Stadler bike stall at the expo! Can’t complain about that.

Friday morning started with an ample continental breakfast. Nothing was spared to ensure I had everything I might want to eat. Then it was off for a quick swim at the local lake Igelsbach. The water was beautifully clear and warm. A good start to the day. After lunch it was a trip out on the bike. Just a short spin which left me wanting to see more of the beautiful countryside. The roads were so smooth as well it seems such a perfect training venue.

The pasta party in the evening was the next appointment. I was seriously impressed by the quality and range of food options available. Certainly ended up going a little over board whilst there!

Saturday started with another great breakfast and a little light training. This time getting to swim in the larger lake Brombach which was again warm and clean. My homestay gave us a massive barbecue at lunch time with plenty of different meats and salad. A perfect final meal leading into race day. I got a lift over to the swim start to drop off my bike and run kit bags. Then it was home all done for the day. As has become tradition I switched to a diet mostly consisting of energy bars for the rest of the day. It’s not the nicest food in the world, but it’s low in bulk and fibre!

Race day meant the usual early start, up at 4am! Breakfast was all set out for me though and once done a lift to transition was ready. I got to the race start with a good 90 minutes to spare. Plenty of time to set things up, make those last minute toilet trips and calm yourself pre-race. I was feeling pretty good about things by the time I stepped into the water. A little apprehensive as you never know how the day will go, but not too worried.

SWIM

When the canon went off and the swim started it was hectic at first, but with a wave start things settled quickly. I was much more confident of my swim after the past months training and just kept concentrating on keeping my stroke strong. I must admit to thinking things seemed much further than they looked out of the water. In fact towards the end of was getting a little bored of swimming! When I saw transition coming up and knew I just had to go past it, under the bridge and back I put on a spurt. Once I was under the bridge I discovered that the turn-around was actually much further up the canal than I expected! Oops, a few more minutes to go yet. I settled back onto some feet and kept working.

I’ll be honest I’d hoped to break 1 hour in this swim, but can’t be disappointed to be on the hour instead. I think there’s room to go harder so next time I’ll push a little more perhaps. Transition was well set out, again not too crowded due to wave starts. There was loads of help, I think you could pretty much have everything done for you if you wanted! I prefer to stay in control of my transition even if I’m not the fastest.

BIKE

Out onto the bike and I’m feeling OK, but not great. I watch my heart rate to keep it down, but find my legs feel a bit stiff anyway. The first impression of the course is how good the roads are compared to what I’m used to. It’s an immediate speed boost right there. I was pleased to see relatively little drafting and active draft busters out there. Early on a fair number of riders come past me. It’s obvious there are a lot of strong bikers here, but I didn’t feel I could work like that that day.

I settled into my nutritional strategy for the race without any problems and was pleased to find it worked really well. The only thing I noted was in the cooler conditions I had to pee a hell of a lot! When I passed people stopping at the side of the road I thought how much time I’d lose if I did the same!

The first piece of climbing out of Greding proved to be pretty minor. I was actually glad for it, the hills providing me an opportunity to push a little harder. In fact of the whole course I enjoyed this undulating climb the most. Once at the top things were fast as you descended all the way to get to the bottom of the Solarer Berg. The second notable bit of climbing in the race and famous for its crowds. Nothing quite prepares you for the first time you encounter it.

As you approach there are barriers on either side of the road with crowds behind. I wondered if that was it, but the road kicks up more and the barriers stop. From that point on you work your way up through crowds of supporters cheering from both sides. There’s not much room to pass if you need to something of a frustration on the second lap. One tip for the future, don’t go into it in too high a gear. The crowds will push you on and you’ll over do it! Once this climb is done it’s fast again for the rest of the lap.

I’m used to feeling better after a couple of hours into my ride and this was no exception. So as I got into the second lap I felt I was starting to move up the field again. Suddenly a clicking noise came from the front wheel and looking down something seemed to be attached to the tyre. I tried to get it off with a bottle, but it wouldn’t budge. Whilst the repetitive clicking was irritating I kept pushing on, hoping it wasn’t going to cause a puncture. Come bike collection after the finish I learnt it was a piece of electrical tape, no danger just irritating!

My only other frustration whilst out on the bike was the inability to use the 11 cog. Despite the superb tuning my gear system had had it seems a knock in transition had misaligned something. ON some of the fast flats and descents I’d have to spin the 12 a little faster rather than face the skipping chain on the 11. Not ideal for me with my preference to grind away at bigger gears. I again wonder about increasing my chainring for a course like that.

After the second lap you peel off to head into Roth itself. It’s a nice smooth and fast road into the city and I pushed as best I could to keep my ride time close to 5 hours. Prior to race day I’d been aiming for 4:55 and was roughly 10 minutes off that. I think in part my inability to work hard early in the day stopped me breaking 5 hours. I wondered how brining aero race wheels instead of heavy training wheels might have changed things. On the one hand having power is useful, but then if Zipp is to be believed the 404s would be worth minutes!

RUN

Transition came upon me very quickly. I do think the bike course may be slightly short. Not much, but it’s definitely not too long. I quickly got my feet out of my shoes so I could leave them on the bike. I was quite pleased that I managed it in such a short distance! Helemt was off as I dashed into the transition area. The excellent volunteers had my bag ready to hand to me and I was in the tent with my own assistant! Thanks to the nice lady working at the CEP Socks stand I had a new trick to get on my socks faster. What do you know? It worked really well and was a lot less faff than usual. Shove a handful of gels in my back pockets and off I go. Well off I go once I get past the couple chatting as they stroll out of transition.

Having had two terrible runs in my races so far this year I was hoping for more. My legs didn’t let me down feeling good from the very start. I checked my watch at the first kilometre and was happy I’d not gone too fast. Maybe a little faster than planned, but not too far. A guy came past me at speed asking the time, clearly on a mission. I knew though that for my race to go well I needed to keep things under control. As it was I was him 20km down the road when I went past.

There’s a bit of climbing to get out of transition and onto the canal path, but nothing too tricky. I opted for the quick, small steps approach I’d found worked well in trail runs. Once onto the flat I just settled into a rhythm. Feeling the urge to go again I decided I’d try a trick I’d seen some pros do in Ironman Western Oz. I pulled down my shorts and tried to pee. It didn’t work! So from that point on the couple of times I needed to go I just went straight in my shorts! Hey it saved me a minute or two I’m sure. The weather was a bit on the cool side for me and my sweat rate was quite low – fluids were passing through me quickly.

My nutrition strategy here was based on five High 5 gels in my back pocket. All my favourite Summer Fruits flavour. The plan was one every 30 minutes or so at an aid station so I could take water on too. Somewhere around 15km I was a little off pace and decided I needed to up the rate of gel intake. The low intensity of effort was ensuring I was absorbing the food, but it wasn’t enough. The problem was I wasn’t carryng enough to last the race then. Fortunately with High 5 being a race sponsor I could potentially stock up at an aid station.

The first station I passed was handing out the dreaded caffeinated orange gels. In Ironman Oz I had a bad experience with them and wasn’t going to touch them! I worried that these might be my only option though. At around 25km I entered an aid station consuming my last gel. A girl ahead was handing gels out. Seeing me eat a gel she assumed I wouldn’t want any. I spotted they were Summer Fruits though and grabbed the four in her hand causing her to squeal! I needed to get them where I could as I knew they worked for me.

Once past the canal path at the other end of the course there’s some nice forest trail and roads. It was a pleasant break in scenery and I didn’t mind the undulations that came with it. I was a little frustrated by the additional and random placing of distance markers between 28 and 31 kilometres. No way to monitor pace. Not a complete disaster as I was still feeling good. Thirty kilometres is a bit of a psychological barrier for me. I fear reaching it and suffering from the energy dip I have in so many races. This time I was still moving.

Having promised myself I’d push the last 10km if I felt good when the 32km marker came up I had no choice. Add to that a quick mental calculation showed that uping the pace would get me in under 9:25 potentially and with a run PB. A clear no brainer! I started to push figuring at worst I’d slow for the last bit and still have a respectable time. An uphill trail followed, but I didn’t feel the need to slow. When I pushed harder, my body responded.

At 7km to go and back on the canal path I took a gel on. For the first time my stomach felt a little unsettled. I realised I was ow at an intensity where digestion would be an issue. No more gels from here to the end, but with 7km to go it should only be 30 minutes. With 5km to go, still feeling good I pushed some more. It felt great to be running like that. Rhythmical and with good form. Totally focussed n reaching the end. I didn’t feel that pained. I couldn’t go harder, but it seemed I could keep on going like this as long as I wanted. Even then I wondered if I could have done this sooner?

The return to the finish line took me back down the trail I’d climbed at the start. A bit of free speed, great! The downside was larger rocks on the trail which you could feel through the soles of racing flats. The odd occasion I landed on one I’d feel spasms in my quads. I asked them to just hold on for a few more kilometres then do what they wanted! Into Roth and a couple of little climbs were there to make those quads suffer one last time! More twinges and more requests that they just hold out.

Then there was the long finish shoot and a couple more people to overtake. As I entered the final corner the runner just ahead slowed to run with his son. The kid came flying out and I only just managed to dodge him. Narrowly avoiding an accident in the last 200m! I pushed on and sprinted into home feeling elated to have a good race in the bag.

AFTERMATH

No cramps or any other problems came on. I’d been fearing with those twinges in the legs I’d have a full on cramp when I stopped. Instead I comfortably walked to the recovery tent and headed straight for the food. Once again the catering was top quality. The selection of pastries we’d had at the pasta party were there again. This time I sampled them all! I ate my fill, got a massage, cleaned up then left to meet my homestay.

Once again they did everything to make my life easy. Helping me collect my biek and kit and taking me home. More cake, some coffee and a kebab later and I was full-up. We headed back to the race finish to watch the closing ceremony. Cheering in the last runners and then a fireworks display. A really good finale to such a great event. I don’t think I got to be till nearly 1am that night.

The next day we went back to watch the awards ceremony and more pleasing to me to eat more of those pastries! I was allowing myself to eat whatever I liked till I landed back in the UK. Once on home soil I would be strictly Paleo again. I tried some non-alcoholic beer which wasn’t too nice to be honest. Apparently it doesn’t taste much like proper beer, but I can’t remember that well! I stuffed my face the rest of the day on chocolate and another barbecue from my hosts.

Then Tuesday it was sadly time to head home. I continued to make the most of my eating allowance to take on as much cake as I could. Have to stock up before the run in to Ironman UK after all! I must guiltily admit to eating a Burger King burger for the first time in something like 10 years. The idea of eating something that bad which I wouldn’t normally touch appealed too much.

True to my word since landing back home I’m sticking to paleo eating. I had an amazing amount of fluid retention which rocketed my weight up! Happily it’s dropping off in no time as my body returns to normal. I’m pleased to say I can see my ankles again now. I’m slowly introducing gentle training back to my body. Nothing too harsh though. A 50 minute easy ride the other day proved to be close to its limits! The next two weeks are all about getting ready to race Ironman UK better than I did in Roth!

Not my placing, but rather my average heart rate on the bike! Just like Lanzarote I struggled to raise it on anything other than the climbs. Fortunately I managed to move a little faster this time! The final score was 9:22:09 for 124th overall which I’m pretty happy with. Finally I have a decent race in the bag this year and can build on it.

The day started at 4am when my homestay family woke me. Not that I was sleeping too heavily the night before a race. A nice big breakfast followed, not particularly Paleo, but then it’s been hard to be even the slightest bit strict on that out here. The important thing was it had a good mix of protein/carbs/fat though. If anything I felt a little too full! All done and off to the race venue.

Having such a generous homestay here near Roth has made my life so easy. Whilst others would have to worry about parking I was given a lift and dropped near transition. I didn’t have much to do once there so 90 minutes was plenty of time to set things up and get a couple of last minute toilet visits in.

Getting to the race. I was pleased to be feeling relaxed and having minimal race nerves. My confidence in each discipline has been quite high lately and I’ve been feeling well recovered this last week. So once in the water a brief warm-up (a bit too brief I think) to get to the start line and up near the front. When the cannon fired I went out hard, but was quick to settle into a manageable rhythm and find feet. A canal swim made drafting pretty easy.

After the first turn around things thinned a little so I kept pushing to try to move up some places. It seemed to work. With less jostling it was easier to focus on technique. Eventually I reached a point where I felt it was more efficient to draft a small group and sat in. At some point the swim started to drag and felt long. It was a relief to see one hour on the clock when I exited the water. A step in the right direction and something I hope to improve over then coming months.

Out onto the bike (transition was uneventful!) The weather was reasonably good – not too hot, but not cold. There was a strong wind though and unfortunately it was head on for what I’d been promised was the fastest part of the lap. The course is good fast in places, but with rollers and climbs that make some demands. I would say it definitely takes a strong biker to go really well here.

I’d made a plan to start out easy and build. It would be true to say I largely followed this and it seemed to work very well. What surprised me was how easy I went overall. Downloading my powertap last night only confirmed what I suspected. My average heart rate was 132 BPM during a race. Compared to either of the Australian Ironman races that’s 10 BPM lower! It’s a shame I don’t have power for them to compare. The graph below shows an averaged plot of wattage and heart rate over the course. It’s good to see consistency in effort, but a shame I couldn’t put out more on the day. I’ve seen better in training.

Part of the issue was the faster downhill sections where it was possible to spin at high speeds. They weren’t such a significant part of the course to lower the average that much. Certainly their impact on average power wasn’t that bad. I did feel that my ability to work on the flats is lacking somewhat and something to address. However on the climbs or into headwinds I go much better. It seems the additional resistance helps push me to work harder!

I stuck to a simple nutrition strategy of a Mule Bar on the hour and High 5 gels in between. Possibly benefiting from the relatively low intensity I had no digestive problems with this. I was careful to flush the food down with water to help absorption. In the cooler conditions the consequence was I peed a hell of a lot on the bike!

I’m not too disappointed with the bike time. I would have liked to have gone under 5 hours, but it wasn’t to be. My pacing worked in that my actual effort remained quite constant over the entire ride. Pleasingly I picked back a lot of places in the final 30-60km. I definitely felt stronger by the end, but with a small concern for the run.

Second transition came round faster than expected as I watched my Garmin! Not that I was complaining! I dashed through and got to try out a technique for getting the compression socks on quicker. What do you know it worked! Of course then as I’m leaving I get stuck behind a guy and girl who felt like casually walking out. It’s a race!

I settled into a very comfortable run pace. Going on perceived effort it felt like any easy training run. Checking off kilometre markers though and I was moving a little above my target pace. I eased up a little not wanting to push too hard too early. With a single lap to the marathon I knew everyone ahead of me was an additional place in the race. Great motivation as you pick people off. I was always careful to monitor my pacing though, never pushing just to gain places.

Somewhere after 10km my pace dropped off target whilst perceived effort remained the same. I stuck at it, but was afraid to push harder concerned I’d pay the price later on. I was still gaining ground on others which was important. Mentally the 30km point was the make or break section of this race. I wanted to be feeling good then.

The relatively easy pace made nutrition easy. I’d take a gel before an aid station and swig down water. I avoided all other products having found solids upset my stomach as does even the slightest hint of gas in coke. It was a good job they were handing out High 5 gels on the course as I’d severely underestimated my requirements! Whenever I spotted the Summer Fruits variety being handed out I grabbed a handful to shove in the back pockets.

Come the 30km mark (which was a little confused with some misplaced and additional distance markers) and I did feel good! I started to push things a little and work myself a bit more. Transitioning to a more noticeable breathing rate. To be honest still not that high. It was at 32km with ten to go I really picked things up. I’d planned if I felt good then I go. Add to that I knew I could set a run PB and bring the race home in close to PB time.

So I pushed and it didn’t feel bad. I’ll admit I was a little surprised! I kept things moving well and took on a final gel with 7km to go. My stomach told me that was it for food. At the higher effort I wasn’t going to absorb things to well. With around half hour to go though I figured there was enough in me to last. The next important marker was 5km I lifted the pace again aiming to finish strongly.

I’d estimate I did the final 5K in around 20 minutes so a decent closure. It took a lot of focus to maintain, but felt relatively good. I was pleased to feel like I was running properly in the last section too. Really focussing on efficiency and good form. A few more places in the bag, a sudden side-step to avoid being hit by another racer’s child near the finish line and I was done. The new run PB of 3:11 was mine and I was less than 2 minutes off my Ironman PB. Whether Roth or Busselton is a faster course will be the debate in the back of my head from now on!

Overall I’m happy with a 9:22. It was a solid, but not perfect day and I walked away from it feeling pretty good. I never felt near my limits the entire race so something I have to think about is how much harder can I go? There’s room for more effort in there for sure. On the bike I think the single week’s taper wasn’t sufficient for me to be fresh. Hopefully I’ll be able to get the heart rate and power up a little more by Ironman UK. The run was great, but could I have pushed earlier and got under 3:10?

Lots of questions and three weeks till my next chance to answer them!

Firstly an apology – this should be the fourth part about my training. To be honest with packing, getting some taper training in and trying to relax a little bit I’ve not had the time. Parts four and five will be up in the next week. For now there’s a little break for Roth.

In four days time, all being well, I’ll have completed the third Ironman distance event of the year. When I entered Roth I had no thoughts about Ironman UK. I can’t even say how that second event crept in, but there it is three weeks afterwards. When I entered Ironman UK I had no thoughts about needing to race my best there, but again that crept up on me! So I have Roth in four days a race I originally planned to go as fast as I could in. Plans change though.

The goal for Roth is to have a strong training day. I will race from the gun, but I will temper my performance always bearing in mind that I only have a few weeks to a more important race. I want to go well because I honestly need the confidence boost after my past two races. I’ve worked hard to get here, perhaps too hard is the question, but we shall see.

I want to see a strong swim coming in comfortably at an hour at the slowest. I’ve never felt so good in the open water as I have recently. I have a lot of kilometres logged in the wetsuit and a lot more confidence about it I should be able to deliver better times than I have. The key to this is placement. I need to avoid getting penned in, but actually find a good draft. At the start I want to go out really hard, but keep that brief and settle in a draft quickly. From then on it’s about swimming at a comfortable, but effortful pace. In Lanza I feel I only started to work properly in the second half. A good warm-up will be key to get the arms comfortable and ready to have a strong catch and fast turn-over.

My bike will be set-up with my training wheels. The aim here is to collect a full Ironman bike course’s power data. I’ve numbers for all sorts of training rides and races up to Half Ironman. It’s time to find out what really happens out there on the bike. I’ll guide myself by heart rate as that’s what I normally race on. I want to see what that translates to in power. I’ve yet to decide whether I’ll hide power or not. The aim is to ride hard though, at the upper end of what I think I’m capable of. Assuming the stories about Roth being fast are true I’d love to see a 5 hour bike.

The run leaves me in two minds. I know this is the bit that will really beat my body up. At the same time I’m feeling great about my running. I’m going to put on compression socks in transition, my experience is they help with the post race recovery more than anything. I’ll lose a minute to get them on if it helps get me ready to race in the UK. Out on the run course I will be running on feel as usual and will target a comfortable aerobic pace. My typical goal is to break 3:10 and it’s not happened yet. Given I feel I should hold back I’m not sure what will happen. It’s really going to be a case of see what those first 5 or 10km tell you!

Whatever else I’ll aim to finish the race strong having enough in the tank to push at the end. Hopefully recording a good time, maybe even around or below 9:30. That’d be the ideal, if I can achieve that and not feel I gave my all I’ll be very happy. Steven said to me if you’re on for sub-9 go for it. I’ll put you in no doubts if that looks possible all plans to hold back go out the window. I’d take a sub-9 hour Ironman and whatever the day brings come Ironman UK without hesitation!

The nutritional plan for this race is to again follow the solids on the bike, gels and fluids only on the run approach. I’ve had two races on this without stomach issues which is great. I’m planning a bit more solid food on the bike this time in the form of Mule Bars. Combined with my usual bottle containing a High 5 Summer Fruits gel solution for the rest of my carbs. Onto the run and I’ll be sticking with the High 5 Summer Fruits gels and taking mostly water from aid stations. Later in the race I may also take on some coke and even energy drink. It’s going to be a careful balance in the run, too much sugary foods and my stomach will be unhappy.

Race weather is looking like it might be OK as of Wednesday afternoon. Light rain if any, but hopefully some sunshine. Following my experience in Switzerland last year I have kit to cope with storms! I’ll probably have a gilet and arm warmers in my bike bag just to be on the safe side. Hopefully they won’t be needed.

My taper seems to be going well. I’ve done less than I originally planned, but I’m feeling good for it. I was typically over-ambitious in my goals for the week! A combination of shorter sessions with race pace intensity work and a little beyond has done me good. My legs are starting to come back to me on the bike and I’m feeling stronger. I’m freshening up, but not giving up too much fitness in the process which is exactly the aim. I could feel better in the lead up to a race, but I could certainly feel a lot worse. The fatigue that’s been hanging over me in the last week or two of training is lifting. If my timing is right I’ll be firing close to my best on Sunday.

Being a little obsessive I’ve drawn up a plan for every day up to the race. Where and when to do everything, including rough outlines of what to eat! As usual with big races I want to get things out the way early so there’s none of my last minute rushing. I admit I may have a bit more to do than I’d like as my bike clearly needs a bit of attention. Beyond all this I’ve a detailed plan for the days after the race and the recovery process. Nothing is being left to chance for this one. I’m putting my all into both Roth and then Ironman UK.

I’ll be relying on the kindness of my homestay to help me get around, but so far its sounds like I’ll hardly have to do a thing! I can’t wait to get over there, meet them and experience the atmosphere in Roth. I’ve not been this excited about a race in a while. Whilst I don’t know how much internet access or time I’ll have free I’ll try and get a blog update with pictures from Roth in before race day along with some Tweets. I’ll also aim to have my race report up in usual prompt time.

So the goal is to get a solid training day and a confidence boost from this race. The plan is to race the swim and bike hard and then go by feel on the run. Let’s be honest here it’s looking like I’m saying I’ll go hard on the run too! Once I’m out there how I feel will dictate the day so perhaps a fast race will happen. At the very least I hope something better than my last two!

Halfway through! Yesterday I covered how my year has gone so far, the approach I’d taken to training around a heavy race load and how that would continue. Today I’m going down to the micro level to look at how I structure my week.

There’s a link to Training Plans in the right hand column. I’ll confess now that it’s heavily outdated. The plans you see there were true during October and November last year. After Ironman Western Australia I was a little less strictly structured in my weekly plan. It’s a good guide to how I trained whilst in Oz though. In Lanzarote and since being home the exact structure is a little different.

My weekly training structure is largely inspired by the principles of a basic week. The idea is pretty simple, probably why I’m drawn to it. The structure of my training week doesn’t vary much – I do the same type of training at similar sort of times. Part of the principle is that there’s a lot of endurance specific fitness to be gained from a simple consistent level of training.

The most important aspect of the basic week is that it will always contain a certain set of key workouts. That is types of workouts such as a long endurance ride or a squad swim session. These key workouts are the backbone of my training. They’re the ones I don’t want to miss because they’re the biggest contributors to my adaptations. Around them are other sessions, less key, but still important. They help keep the volume up in each discipline and over time develop strength and fitness.

The key sessions. I suppose the whole point of this post is to look at the key sessions and my reasoning behind them all.

Generally my biggest priority each week is to maintain a high volume of cycling. A typical week contains in the region of 500km on the road. This is divided across all seven days. I rarely take a day off riding even if it’s just the commute to and from the lake. I’m a firm believer that bike fitness is the key to a successful Ironman. Not because you get a faster bike split, but because you can set a solid bike split and run well off it. If I ever doubted Lanzarote proved how devastating a poor run is to Ironman times.

I’ll aim to have one long endurance ride in there. I consider that to be a minimum of 5 hours ride time, but have gone so far as 9 hours early in the year. An important part of this is that whilst I ride by feel I have the powertap in front of me and try to keep the power in my endurance zone. Typically after a couple of hours I find I feel good and my riding will pick up a lot. Route and terrain dictate difficulty and I’ll work hills reasonably hard. When alone they’ll be little to no stopping on this ride. Once I’m into the build periods I’ll certainly try to have mini-blocks of race pace in there. Remember though that Ironman race pace isn’t all out.

Most of my other riding will fall into the 3 or 4 hour region with an occasional easy ride of only a couple of hours. When I’m feeling fresh I definitely try to keep the work rate up on these shorter rides. I like to do at least one deliberate hill session a week as a way to work at the top end of my power a little more. Hills or strong headwinds are great for my training as they don’t let me lose focus and go easy.

Riding this much can be mentally draining so if I can arrange company for some of them I will. Who I go with can also seriously dictate the type of riding and sometimes it’s important to choose riding partners carefully! I’ve made mistakes here before!

My key run session is unsurprisingly a long endurance run. I generally have a minimum of 2 hours for this with the occasional 2.5 hour run thrown in. I rarely go so far as to run 3 hours outside of races though. I wonder about the benefit of being able to train for that time, but so far have been too concerned by the risks. A 3 hour run in hot weather in Oz certainly put a lot of fatigue and extra recovery into one of my final build weeks prior to the Ironman. Key to the endurance run is I start slow, but build pace. By the end if the run has gone to plan I’m close to my Ironman race pace and very comfortable. The ideal is to arrive home feeling I could keep going!

Outside of that run I’ll aim to have some kind of session most days. Often it’s just a very easy 30 minute run a little below Ironman pace. I’ve found very regular running has done a lot of good for my run strength and over time it’s felt a lot easier. My body seems to switch into running more easily even when feeling fatigued.

On days with shorter bike training I’ll often up the run to an hour or so. Recently I’ve taken to adding in speedwork through short distance run races. With no taper to impact on other training I turn up and run a 20 to 40 minute race as hard as I can on the day. Sometimes it isn’t pretty! If I feel I need more run focus I may throw in two long runs in a week, one sorter than the other and normally spaced apart. Long runs always take place on days with short or easy bike sessions planned.

Swimming is the tough one. I’m no fish and whilst not a terrible swimmer it doesn’t come easy. I’ve adopted a very volume focussed approach to swimming particularly with the facilities in the UK. Pools aren’t so good here, but I have access to a lake and can get a lot of work done there. Despite the volume approach some swim analysis and a weekly masters session have been key. The importance of technique makes coaching essential at least on occasions in the plan. A good squad swim is the best way to work some intensity into my swimming. Add to that the mix of strokes giving all round swim fitness.

Currently all my other sessions are open water. The result is I’m incredibly comfortable swimming in my wetsuit and swimming continually for the Ironman distance. Outside of squad swimming simply getting in the water near enough daily is important to me. Working on good technique day in and day out until it starts to become second nature. As my comfort in the water has built I’ve added in endurance swimming sessions aiming to swim for anything up to 2.5 hours. I’d not necessarily advocate these as optimal Ironman training. the over-distance sessions give me greater confidence for the swim though. I aim to have at least one, but preferably two 5km open water swims a week now. These are non-stop continual swimming aiming to keep pace and turn over consistent. Always with good technique!

Variability. Obviously the point of any training is to make the body adapt and become fitter. If you repeat the same thing over and over the body will adapt to cope with the stress. At some point thoug the stress needs to change or adaptations will slow and stop. The basic week is less static than it’s name implies.

Sunday night I grab a scrap of paper, get a biro and scrawl out some notes and codes onto the back of it. After 5 minutes or so I have my next weeks training. When I draw the plan up I’m looking to place the key workouts to fit in best around any other events or activities scheduled. Whilst I’ll generally do the same workouts at the same sort of time, sometimes life gets in the way!

Spacing of workouts aims to keep tough sessions apart to help allow recovery between them. Generally I work to a principle of trying to have two or three days that build up training load before an easier one. Volume or intensity are the routes to increasing training stress so a harder days sessions will consist of one or the other.

I download training data into WKO+ so I’m able to track the training load for the week. The aim is to be building the Chronic Training Load over each build week with the easier days allowing some recovery to the Training Stress Balance. Whilst WKO+ works in exact numbers there’s a degree of interpretation to them. Sometimes if I’m just feeling good I’ll push that little bit more and others I’ll hold back. Sunday’s plan can get adjusted as the week goes on if reality isn’t living up to expectations. As I’ve mentioned though, keeping those key workouts is, well, key.

Fun and games. Sometimes you need to change things around a bit. It can be for a mental boost, to focus on particular issues or worst case to deal with injury. I like to incorporate challenges into training. Recently there was the 30 runs of 30 minutes in 30 days. I got so close, but an injury forced me out of that one. I will be back to it though, it was great for the running! Similarly the 8km open water swim was born from a desire to test myself in a different way to normal. I’ve also tried brick runs off every bike (great in a hot climate!)

All the time with these challenges I’m maintaining the general consistency of the plan and the key workouts. It’s hard to say if a given challenge contributes to improved performance, but at the least they keep things fresh. Both the routine running and the brick running were great for me. More from uping my run volume than anything else I suspect. The 8km swim was great mentally, but I think probably too long to be of specific Ironman use. You need to have a lot of time to train to make it worthwhile!

Resting up. You may have noticed I made no mention of rest days in here. Planning on a weekly basis means if I feel a rest day is needed I can slot one in. I very rarely take total rest days, generally having easier training days to back off training stress a little. I’m well aware most programs out there are quite structured about having rest days or easier weeks. I prefer to take the rest and recovery when my body tells me it needs it. Personally I’m of the view that the body is constantly recovering, whether you’re training or not. The only difference is when you’re training the rate of breakdown can exceed the rate of recovery. Taking easier days where the body isn’t broken down too much gives some opportunity to recover, but helps keep adaptations developing. Sometimes, rarely, a full day off is needed though.

Bringing this to a close my Basic Week is a weekly structured program assembling a collection of what I consider key workouts. Along with this I aim to be very routinely swimming, biking and running. Near enough daily for each of them. I focus on keeping the key workouts good above all else. Week on week the structure is similar or even identical. Changes occur over time to increase the training stress as I adapt or to focus on limiters.

I’m confident that the result is greater fitness than I’ve previously achieved. At the same time I’m acutely aware that while I converted this to performance in Ironman Western Australia I’ve yet to do that this year. Which leads to tomorrow when I’ll be more critical and look at my mistakes and failures in the past year. There’s been a few!

I started to touch on this in yesterday’s post. Today I’m going over the details of my year so far and what still lies ahead.

The plan for the year is built around a heavy race load with the knowledge that without work I have plenty of time to rest and recover. In the future work will be an issue and I can assure you that I’ll reduce my training and racing to compensate. This is very much a case of striking whilst the iron is hot!

Gordo has referred to the benefits of taking a year out for training as an age grouper and also the costs. He definitely believes it’s only sustainable for a period of time before you need to take a break. My plans for next year have some new challenges which will take me away from the full-on program I work to right now.

With an intention of six Ironman races in the year I mentally divided them up into three sets of two. Australia and Lanzarote are done with little success, I hope for better with the next pair of Roth and UK.

The year started with a good two months of solid training, building from a break of a couple of weeks in December. With minimal down time after the last race my base phase wasn’t the build up from a sedentary start. I remember listening to an interview with Chris McDonald where he talks of not really being able to take long breaks from training. As a pro triathlete who came to the sport late in life he doesn’t have the background to sustain performance in all areas with significant breaks. I wonder if that’s still the case for him two years on? As a late starting age grouper with high aspirations my situation is ultimately the same.

Those first two months I built my hours back up and kept the load high primarily via volume. Part of the aim was to get ready for Epic Camp and perform well there. Whilst my weekly structure followed a basic week I focussed on long sessions at easier intensities. Occasional group training or short races spiced things up with a little hard work. After two months the signs were good and I was starting to feel pretty strong. I was certain my endurance was at new levels at the very least.

Epic Camp was mixed for me, I was solid at first, but performance at races fell off. My ability to keep going was there, but I wasn’t able to call on extra reserves. Of course bruising the ribs didn’t help! They also enforced the extra recovery I promised myself after Camp. Something I’d learnt about from my mistakes the year before where I trained too hard after Epic Italy.

Following Epic Camp I had an easy couple of weeks before heading to Geelong and almost a mini-Epic Camp with Toby. We had a very solid week of training and whilst I didn’t feel I was at my best then a few weeks later I was going well on it. These two camps essentially finished off the base and afterwards the intensity in my program started to increase. I felt better able to cope with harder sessions and working at higher efforts. One thing to stress is even then the intensity levels being talked of are those appropriate for Ironman racing. A strong focus on endurance levels of power and speed, not flat out sprinting. Joe Friel recently posted an interesting blog post comparing the power zones triathletes and cyclists work in.

I aimed for a two week taper for Ironman Oz, some of the process was dictated by the fact I was travelling home at the same time. The result was I rested too much and was flat on the day. I’ve commented how I use WKO+ and TSS to help guide training and I was aiming to taper with it in a way that Joe Friel has recommended. In this case I didn’t and raced with poor form and moderate freshness. I recovered from Oz quickly despite the long journey home. I was well set up for my next training block in Lanza.

Lanzarote was great training. The company and environment gave me a really solid block with a good high weekly load. There was no more base phase as there wasn’t the time or need. My body was now in shape for slightly more intensive race focussed work. Essentially I was in a new build cycle. I trained very hard and the results were good. I was feeling my fittest that year and surprisingly fresh with it. Good rest and recovery was a key factor here.

This time I was able to stick closely to the Friel tapering method. With the Critical Training Load (CTL) I’d built up my taper was likely to be very short – roughly 10 days at most! I was happy with this and feeling great when the disaster of the abscess struck. I want to be very clear that was caused by friction with an old and broken saddle. I chose to race anyway and fought through to a result I was less than happy with. My preparation felt perfect, my fitness and form was great, but shit happens!

I’ll note here that none of my race plans involve big tapers – I don’t feel I need one particularly. Mark Allen advocates 4 weeks which seems far too long. Three seems to be quite a traditional number touted about. To me two seems about the longest needed. However I try to drive a lot of the tapering choice by the Training Stress Scores (TSS) in WKO+ and the rule of reducing CTL by about 10% overall whilst building a positive Training Stress Balance (TSB). This is still a work in progress and I do let feel override this if needs be. I’m not too hung up on these numbers!

Two Ironman races, three weeks. So to Roth and Ironman UK. Three weeks between them – not much time at all. Not ideal in the typical scheme of things. However I am in both these races and I want to race them both. I realise it’s unlikely I can have stellar performances in both if either. However talking with Chris McDonald at Epic Camp this year gave me some encouragement. He managed a win in his second Ironman in one week last year. I picked up some tips on transitioning between two close races which I’ll be trying out.

Very clearly this may prove to be a disaster. My approach is to treat Roth as a big, tough training day. What does that mean? It’s about testing out bike position and equipment and being sure I’m happy they’ll go well in the UK. Also an opportunity to try out racing at my new lighter weight and see what happens there. I’m taking the powermeter to collect race data for future reference. That alone will be incredibly valuable. I consider the run to be the most physiological damaging part of the race. Stylish compression socks will be back on and I will be moderating my pace carefully. It will be a hard race, it will be a harder training day, but the aim is to come out of it with a quick recovery.

Then those three weeks. There’s been an article on the Team TBB forum about their approach to heavy race schedules. The advice roughly takes the form of getting your body moving the day after the race. Starting with swimming and cycling and then introducing the impact of running. All short and low intensity at first. Extending a little in the middle and easing off for the final race. To an extent you’re bypassing the full recovery process the body goes into if you rest up after a big race. At the same time you’re keeping the stress as low as possible.

I’m fairly confident about this approach, even though it’s new territory to me. Following the races this year my typical training load has gone from 5 hours in the week after the race. Then 20 or so in week two and by week three 25 to 30 hours, roughly back to normal. For this process I expect it to follow more of a 10, 15-20, 10 pattern I think. I’ve not exactly charted it yet. Massage, sleep, good food and all the usual elements of recovery will be in there too.

Will this work? I’ll know in about a months time. I will be working my hardest to make it happen for me. I have attempted to train my best for this and make the most of the resources at my hands to make the decision. I took advice before contemplating doubling up Roth and the UK. I must admit at the time I had been assuming I’d have got my Hawaii slot in Australia or Lanzarote!

And beyond. August is going to be a recovery month. Unstructured training will be the key. I will train as time allows, though they’ll be a few other demands on me. The aim will simply be to get some recuperation done and not lose too much fitness in the time. Towards the end of the month I’ll start up a training program again similar to my work after Ironman Western Australia.

September will see me head out to my favourite training venue in the Pyrenees courtesy of BA miles! A weeks hard training in the mountains to kick-start the September campaign. The focus will really be about working on bike strength again and seeing if I can build on what I had earlier in the year. The exact plans that follow in the month will depend on whether I get to Hawaii or not. As mentioned Challenge Barcelona may be my other option. The primary difference will be when I back down the training for my race.

ITU World Long Course Champs will swiftly follow. Fortunately it’s an O2 distance race this year so a little bit more manageable after an Ironman! I will be looking to hold a solid race there, but probably not being able to exceed Ironman pacing at that point. Once that’s done it’ll be some more rest before a final build phase to a third Ironman Western Australia. My favourite race on the circuit and also my training base in Oz this coming winter.

Then my year is done and I can finish with a true break before thinking about the next one. That is a lot of racing, that is a lot of training, but there is recovery in there. Experience tells me if I behave well that the timings are adequate for me. Good rest and good food are key. There’ll not be much slacking off in between.

Tomorrow I’m going to write about the details of my weekly training and the type of sessions I do.

Starting a blog and creating some kind of public profile means anybody can find out about me. I don’t know the impression people come away with, hopefully positive. Recently chatting on a coffee stop revealed that prior to Epic Camp Steven had expected me to be totally different. In fact from what he said the impression I must have given in this blog was the opposite of what I’m like!

With this in mind and inspired by some recent commentary and criticism I feel the need to justify myself. This is going to be long. So long I’m actually splitting it into five posts over the next few days. It’ll all be out there before I race in Roth. I hope it will be of interest to at least some of you. More importantly I want it to clarify my approach to training and racing.

Long Term Planning.

To start things off I want to talk through my long term plans coming into this year and over all for this sport. It’s quite obvious my year is very event heavy by age group standards. There are those who question the wisdom of this. Certainly I must admit part of my motivation is a simple love of racing along with the challenge of racing a lot. There’s something about the process of testing yourself that drives me. Add to that I want to push and test my boundaries and the idea of six Ironman distance races in a year is born.

Is this optimal for race performance? Possibly not, but my belief is that at the Ironman distance the percentage effort we are mostly racing at allows for multiple races. There are plenty of examples of pros racing lots – Bella Bayliss, Hillary Biscay, Petr Vabrousek, Chris McDonald and lots of Team TBB guys. Sure to be fair you can balance that out with even more pro athletes racing infrequently – Craig Alexander, Normann Stadler or Cameron Brown. Both parties have displayed a range of successes, my examples of infrequent racers more so than the others!

What this says to me is that it’s perfectly possible for a highly trained, fit individual to race multiple Ironman races per year. Clearly it does happen in many instances at the professional level. You can also find examples of age groupers routinely racing; generally the limiter for these age groupers is time or money. Whether these athletes are racing at their absolute best is another matter. Without accurate analysis we’re essentially dealing in anecdote. Comparable data for this sort of test is pretty hard to come by. Should someone have some I’d certainly be interested to see references.

At this point I make an assumption. I assume my training and fitness is sufficient to handle a similar race load to some of these athletes I mentioned.I know I am not as fit as these pros, but I also know I am at a very high level of fitness. Having ridden with one or two of them in the past I’ve seen first hand what the difference between an age grouper like myself and a pro is. There is a notable difference, but I also know that the gulf isn’t as big as I expected. Perhaps it seems like hubris, but if they can do it then so can I!

Racing a lot, especially long distance racing does have implications for the way I structure my training. However, even before that adopting a full-time training regime already had massive implications. Aspects like periodisation, focussed training blocks, tapering and recovery all fit in around a larger pattern. Base, Build, Taper, Recover become a little more mixed up. Not just for me, but I’ve seen similar patterns in other full-time athletes age grouper or pro. I’ll go into details of my training blocks and methodology tomorrow.

There are a vast range of training methodologies and approaches out there. I’ve read books and web sites about many of them and probably only touched the surface. All the time I try to apply my critical faculties to determine what I agree or disagree with. There’s plenty of science touted to support the different views and as with any scientific paper one has to question the validity of the method before drawing conclusions. Much of sports science suffers from a lack of test subjects and tiny data sets. Aside from that, much of it, particularly in nutrition seems to be funded by interested parties! Coming from a background in biology I always find it a little concerning. Opinions change over time as new research comes into play so what’s considered best now may not be five years down the line.

What this means for my year’s training plan is I’ve taken what I’ve read, what I’ve learnt talking to other athletes and coaches and what my experience tells me. I’ve considered all of this and structured my approach on that basis. I am influenced by how many races I have and where they’re placed in terms of where my training blocks fit together. As with any athlete I follow a plan I believe will work well for me and will fit with my environment and personality.

I opted for a simple basic week structure. The principle being that at this point in my development there’s much to gain by slowly building fitness through consistency and volume. Similarly I choose to race a lot because I believe the racing gives me a lot of experience which will pay back over the years. I can assure you some experienced athletes have told me how sometimes it comes down to hard work and patience. I can do both! I’ll come back to the way I build my week in a couple of days.

It clearly seems like I do an awful lot. If you add up the hours I train and race then I’d agree. I love to train, I enjoy the hours I spend doing it. Whilst volume is high, the intensity isn’t always that high. I’ve encountered this before – the assumption that I must ride or run harder than I do. A big part of my training is at very easy or moderate intensities. A much smaller part is at higher intensities. I think I’ll save the debate of volume versus intensity for another time. I see value in both and prefer some degree of a mix, but ultimately must confess to being a volume orientated athlete.

Outside of the numerous Ironman races I have I have a lot of smaller B or C races. These ones I rarely taper for and are primarily there for training. A lot of that portion of intensity comes from them. What better way to get the most out of yourself than to race? I don’t often do them at my best, my body is simply too tired to. However I go in and work hard at them and enjoy some moderate success. What I do get is more valuable race experience and a very good workout. It’s also a lot of fun too and adds variety. Variety is very important when you train long hours!

What about Kona? I want to race Kona. It’s important to me and if things had gone to pla I would have that slot now. They haven’t so far. I came close in Ironman Western Australia. Then an average race in Ironman Australia and an injury for Ironman Lanzarote stopped any chances there. Ironman UK is the next chance and I’ll give it my all. Preparing with Roth three weeks earlier is unorthodox, but I’ve made my entries and will stick to them.

Originally the plan was to have my slot and use the Roth/UK combination as an experiment. Things change and I know I’m increasing the risk of missing that Hawaii slot this year. For those who already think I do too much I’ll disappoint you more by telling you my fall back plan is to race Challenge Barcelona and the ITU World Long Course Championships if I miss Kona!

To finish this incredibly long first part (and bear in mind there may be five parts in all!) I want people to realise it’s taken me time to reach this point in my training. I didn’t just jump into 30 hour training weeks one day. Whilst I’ve not been in endurance sport for that long by many standards there has been a five to six year build from big weeks being 10 hours to them hitting 40.

Personally I consider that a reasonable rate of growth. Discussing things like a rule of building training by 10% a year or similar is simply slavishly following a rule of thumb. I’m not aware of physiological issues though perhaps there is research behind the number that I’ve missed. I assume it is a convenient conservative safety guide to minimise risk to athletes in general. Sometimes if you really want to push yourself though you have to take some risks.