Trains, Travels

Today’s post is dedicated to laziness. After a week off training and so much of everything else I normally do it seems appropriate. It’s also a bit of a mix of content as there’s not too much to tell from a seven days spent mostly laying about doing nothing! I do have a chart though.

Binge Eating! I promised myself a week off and time away from the Paleo Diet. I think I delivered on all counts there. I treated myself to a Domino’s Pizza (Full House for those interested). I know, they’re not the best, really that wasn’t the point. It was all about having some greasy, junk food I enjoy. It ticked the boxes on that count. I have eaten a load of cake and I really mean a load. I ate bread for a while, but found it didn’t do much for me. Completely at odds with the avoiding healthy foods I had porridge for a change! Fish and chips, biscuits with my tea, deserts and puddings with my meals… The list could go on.

Unsurprisingly there’s been some weight gain. I expected as much, but trust in my ability to get to race weight. Being back on the carbs I noticed how easy it is to eat a lot. I definitely found that I was hungrier in general and that despite eating a lot of food soon felt hunger once more. Not so surprising with cakes, chocolate and biscuits, but porridge is promoted as giving long lasting energy. An omelette seems to do a much better job in that regard.

Today marks a return to proper Paleo eating. I’m glad to be back! Some of the foods off the diet are fun in moderation. I can’t deny a fondness for cake. Outside of that though I genuinely enjoy Paleo more. The large meals of salad and vegetables and protein emphasis leaves me feeling much fuller. Hopefully it won’t take too long to undo the damage of my binge week!

Ironman UK Bolton Course For those interested I’ve uploaded the course from my GPS. You can download it from GPSies.com. The route is exactly as ridden, 3 laps of the course on the day. Plenty of waypoints so nice and accurate too. I’ve seen people searching for this in my logs so hopefully it’s a help to them.

The Taper

A little bit of a revisit to the subject of my Ironman UK taper. With the advantage of hindsight I guess I can claim it worked! At the very least I can say I was able to achieve my goals. I’ll never know if I could have done better by another route.

Another of my favourite charts – straight from WKO+. I’ve mentioned them before, but to recap we have Acute Training Load (ATL), Chronic Training Load (CTL) and Training Stress Balance (TSB) corresponding to what might be termed fatigue, fitness and form. I’ve referred to Joe Friel’s blog and his views on tapering using this chart before. The aim is to have as high a fitness and form as possible come race day. Tapering reduces fatigue and improves form, unfortunately it also reduces fitness. So objectively the aim is to maximise the improvements in form and minimise the loss of fitness. Friel suggests that you want a taper to result in no more than a 10% decline in fitness.

I’m mentioning these details because if you look at my chart above and follow the CTL (fitness) from a week prior to Challenge Roth through to Ironman UK you’ll notice far more than a 10% drop. I don’t think it’s surprising to find that I couldn’t stick to that guideline racing this close together.

I tapered a single week into Roth and did stick very closely to the 10% reduction in fitness rule. I’d say I raced well in Roth, though felt I wasn’t as free of fatigue as I’d like. Whilst fatigue (ATL) and form (TSB) would suggest I should be pretty fresh. I think the reality of my months of training and racing weren’t showing through.

Immediately following Roth I attempted to follow a plan that had plenty of light training. There were mixed results and I managed to train regularly, but certainly couldn’t manage much in those sessions. The result was there was no chance of limiting myself to a 10% reduction of fitness over that time. CTL declines pretty steadily over those three weeks. What training I did prevented it completely plummeting. In the final week before Ironman UK you can see it plateau a little as I’m able to train a bit more. At this point though the drop off was so large I was no longer concerned about any kind of 10% rule.

Performance on race day was pretty good. I felt none of the fatigue I’d experienced in Roth and definitely felt able to work well throughout the race. I would be hard pressed to identify a loss of real fitness between Roth and the Ironman UK. If there was it was more than compensated by that significant reduction in fatigue. My view is that after many months of high volume training with little break I needed a solid rest. As it happened a three week period of light training between the two races proved ideal.

More about recovery

So I come to a full week off training for even more recovery. You can look back at the chart and see fitness dropping even further! For the past week I’ve felt terrible. My legs have been stiff and once again I’ve been retaining a lot of fluid. I’m curious to find out potential causes of this reaction. It’s only been Roth and Ironman UK where I’ve experienced fluid retention in recovery. Why it’s occurred for both these races, but not before is an interesting question.

With the week now done I’m looking to get myself moving again and very slowly introduce training. Level off the loss of fitness and then start a gradual increase in a couple of weeks time. I wonder if the extensiveness of the taper for Bolton will help in the overall recovery process. Whilst the past week did feel awful I’m starting to feel good now. Hopefully a proper massage tomorrow will have my legs ready to start some exercise.

Generally I’ve bounced back in two to three weeks after a race. I’m looking to be a bit more gradual about it this time. My focus now is on good dietary habits and a bit of weight loss ready for training. I’ll be thinking through the Kona build in a future post.

Today’s picture is courtesy of Helen, go and check more of Helen’s photography or Tom and Helen’s blog. All good stuff as you can see from the awesome race photo.

Effectively I’ve spoilt the ending right from the title! I’m too happy with the result to wait though. Almost exactly one year after going full time I’ve booked my Kona slot! It took a while, but I’ve achieved that particular goal. Just got to remain healthy and get myself there in good shape now! However this is supposed to be the full length race report from Ironman UK.

As mentioned previously I arrived in Bolton on Thursday so I could get ahead with my final race preparations. Various factors made Saturday a little more stressful than I’d like. Poor weather made bike racking a bit more of a process than expected with some confusion as to what was going on. The briefing happening at the (dry) Reebok Stadium also ensured more driving about too. When I eventually got back to the hotel I was feeling pretty tired! Probably a good job as I needed an early night for an even earlier start.

The alarm went off at 3am on Sunday morning, of course I’d woken a few minutes before anyway and was up. The usual routine of race breakfast (Powerbars, bagels and some honey) and getting ready then off to the race start. Got there with plenty of time so quickly had the bike set-up and was ready to go. I felt remarkably calm and relaxed despite the fact this was my last chance to get a Kona slot. Sure I had big goals and expectations, but I knew what to do. I can only assume it’s from racing so much this year, each race is a little less daunting.

At around 5:30 we were herded towards the swim start. With a narrow entrance to the waterway it took a while to get everyone in. I made sure I was up front and in the water early. Whilst it let me warm-up a little and position myself as I wanted it also allowed me to get quite cold! I’m sure I described the water as quite warm the other day. It is when you’re swimming, but floating there you start to feel the temperature. I moved myself about to keep warm and kept a position up front and not too far from the inside of the field.

A short delay to get everyone into the water and then we’re off. I went out fairly hard, but rapidly set into a comfortable and manageable stroke. I’ve been happy with my swimming of late and was feeling strong in the water. Then just after the second turn as I started the next lap I got a cramp in my right calf as someone tapped my foot. Never had that in open water before! I paused and looked up only to be told I should be swimming in the direction I had been swimming in by the guy who’d tapped my foot. I was somewhat bemused by that one!

Experience with calf cramps in the pool have taught me to relax the muscle and let it ease out. I was quickly off again, but nervous as to whether the calf would hold up. I could feel twinges in the muscle and was very aware of where the cramp had occurred. Frustrated by this and being told where I should be swimming I pushed harder. Soon moving into clearer water. The field thinned out around me as the second lap progressed and I had few people to draft off. I felt strong though so wasn’t worried, I was optimistic I was moving up the field.

When I got to shore I nervously stood and found that whilst I could feel the cramp in my calf it wasn’t too bad. So I jogged up the slope at a relatively easy pace. The time on the watch was a shocking 1:08 which left me with no doubt that the swim was long. I knew not to worry about this with plenty of time to claw back positions. Besides it’s not until you see how many bikes are in transition you know how you’re doing anyway. I only need worry if half of the bike racks were empty!

It was a long trip back up to transition so plenty of time to check out how the leg would hold up. So far, so good. My T1 time is pretty poor and I put this down to a couple of things. Firstly I was very tentative in changing – again worried about my calf. Secondly I didn’t prepare my arm warmers well so putting them on damp arms took ages! I won’t make that mistake in the future.

Finally out onto the bike and it was pretty much straight into the climbing. Any plans to keep my heart rate low to start went out the window. A short block of hard riding had me above my planned heart rate ceiling. I did allow myself some spikes on climbing so I wasn’t going to worry. Also I knew there was some good down hills to recover on a little while on. The wind on these faster downhill sections proved to be fairly substantial though! Honestly I prefer that though, t gives me something to work against!

My first lap went by reasonably uneventfully. I was a little bemused by a couple of competitors who during the first 30km went back and forth with me a bit. A lot of the time though they rode parallel chatting and blocking the road. I’m not sure if they thought it was a social ride! Every time I went past them they stuck with me and eventually went ahead. Towards the end of the first lap I finally moved off and left them behind to continue their conversations. Their choice to race like that, but blocking the road was pretty inconsiderate.

The second lap became quite lonely as other riders thinned out. I reassured myself it was a good sign I was well up the field! There were few targets to chase so focussing on my heart rate was a useful tool in managing pace. I was passed by a competitor on a decent TT set-up at some point in this lap. He proved to be useful in helping push me on as I paced myself off him. Somewhere in the third lap I started to really feel good and made a move. The last 30K I pushed hard for a better cycle time. Part of me wondered if I could have pushed sooner and another part worried this would take something from my run.

You’re spared details about heart rate for now as I’ve yet to download it. I think the bike was very slightly on the long side like the swim. Overall I’m happy with my performance there, though still feel I’m taking the bike too easy. I had no problem with my nutrition of Mule bars and High 5 at the intensity and the result is a very solid run so perhaps I’m getting it spot on. During the run I pondered how I need to work to improve my power output at the lower heart rates I race Ironman at. Rather than racing at a harder effort, improving the performance at my Ironman effort is the goal.

I arrived back into T2 with a 5:36 bike ride. Not spectacularly fast, but I suspected respectable for the course. I was glad to have ridden with socks on if only because it meant running through the mud was more comfortable when I left the shoes on the bike (though I was disappointed to see I’d rubbed a hole in the toe of my favourite socks!) Again I didn’t race transition too fast taking my time to get ready. I was relying on compression socks to keep the earlier cramp in check. It had been fine on the bike, but I still worried!

Nerves seem to have defined my race. I spent most of it concerned I was either going too easy or too hard, eating enough or too little… The list could go on. Whilst I hadn’t had those pre-race nerves to deal with it was almost like I was running scared. A simple mistake could ruin any chance of making the podium and having a chance at Kona. I focussed on sticking to my plan and trusting it would work. There was nothing else I could do, I was relying on having portioned my effort and nutrition to allow a strong run.

Getting out onto the run my calf was fine and I settled into my rhythm at a comfortable aerobic pace. It soon became apparent there wasn’t a marker for the first mile. It didn’t take that much longer to realise I wasn’t going to be able to track my pace this time. I didn’t panic I’d keep going by effort – ultimately that’s all I could do. I moved past a handful of runners in the first few miles and then it was pretty lonely until I started seeing the pros coming the other way. To keep things interesting I counted them hoping to work out my place. Unfortunately the convoluted route in Queen’s Park put a stop to that.

At this point I knew I was somewhere in the low 20s and also now that I was heading back knew how close my nearest competitors were. I consciously put a little bit more effort in wanting a bit more gap. All the time not wanting to blow myself up. Whilst my legs ached I reminded myself that I’d conserved a lot of energy, was well rested into this race and was keeping my nutrition up. I had nothing to fear and should keep working, no slacking off.

Back at the far turn around I caught another couple of runners. With no markings for those on the final lap I could no longer gauge my competition. A young athlete came past me quickly so I picked up pace a little, but clearly couldn’t match it. I hoped he was on his first lap so still fresh! A bit further along a woman came past at a good pace and I pushed myself to go a bit harder. Looking at my watch it was 2:30 and I figured I probably had 40 to 50 minutes to go. It was time to push to the end like in Roth.

I regained some ground on the woman who’d passed me. On the nasty climb out from the canal I overtook the young guy who’d been running so well earlier, clearly he’d been going far too hard. Then I passed the woman on the way into the park for the second time. She too had lost some of her pace. I was also pleased to have passed one of the pro men, that’s less common! Further into the park and I pass another pro woman and know I’m moving up the field. I kept pushing harder, even up the tough little climbs. With no idea how much further the finish line was from the park I was trusting I could hold out.

Coming to the end of the park section I was going full out. I kept the pace high through the back streets hoping I didn’t have far to go. Asking how much further of marshals and spectators did little to clear things up. I was committed now and had no choice, but to keep going. Then there it was, the finish line! I kept the pace up down the chute, relieved to be coming to the end and already happy with my performance. Credit has to be given for a spectacular finish line even if I can remember little of it!

That was it, race done! My final time was 10:04:47, not a PB, but on such a challenging course a decent result. I got my medal, hat and t-shirt. Then I realised I could check my position from how many t-shirts had been handed out. More importantly I could get an idea of my age group position! I was pleased that it looked like third. I’d made the podium. A check of my phone confirmed this along with a message to let me now that the Kona slot would roll one and I’d get it! To top it all off my run time was under 3:10 and well up in the field!

I spent the rest of that day satisfied with my performance and looking forward to the awards ceremony. After that it was just waiting till earlier today when I got my award, my first ever Ironman trophy! I was happy enough with that, but then got to top it off by accepting my Kona slot! It was never planned this way, but in the end it was my last chance that delivered me the spot. Now I can’t wait to get out there in October!

I should go to bed… First a very quick report.

The top-line figures: Overall 10:04:47 for 24th overall and 3rd in my age group!

The Swim: Firstly it was long, very long. That’s the main reason I took 1:08. Given that time put me 112th in the field I hope that confirms the length! Only issue was a calf cramp at the turn around for the second lap. Never happened before and left me much concerned I’d suffer on the bike or run. I was tentative in T1 running slowly to the transition tent and carefully getting changed.

The Bike: Challenging is definitely the right word for it. This is not a fast course by any means. A combination of the constant undulations and climbs and strong winds. I worked to keep to my goal heart rate zone and whilst I’ve been too lazy to download the data (you’ll get charts another time) I think I did a better job at this. As I so often find the later laps felt better and I really pushed the final 30km to transition. My 5:36 did a good job of moving me further up the field.

The Run: I felt fine as I set off on the run. A little worried maybe I’d pushed to hard on the bike or spent too much time out of the saddle. Pushing that aside I settled into a comfortable pace. Biggest frustration was the complete lack of distance markers making it impossible to track pace. So I stuck to feel. The run course has a few nasty up hills to contend with, but also it’s share of faster down hill sections. Somewhere around 2:30 into the run I decided to push and see what happens. I had no idea how far in I was, but figured I had 40 to 50 minutes to go. It paid off and I did my first sub-3:10 Ironman marathon. Very pleased with that and once again I finished strong.

Hawaii? There are two slots allocated to my age group as far as I’m aware. I’ve been informed that Alex Brooks, who took second place in my age group already has a slot. If that’s the case as long as I’m at the roll down to take the place I’m going! Hopefully I’ll be posting the news tomorrow!

Bed time now.

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!

After weeks of dedicated focus on diet and weight loss my birthday marked a day of excess. For once I’d say to hell with portion control and hello to cake and sugars! I have to admit I was looking forward to it quite a bit, particularly as I planned to make the above New York Baked Cheesecake. An entirely new venture for me. My favourite dessert, the last thing I wanted was for it to be a let down. I’m pleased to say it was a big success and despite its size vanished that day (in no small part thanks to me!)

Before all that I’ll pick up from the events on Saturday. As I mentioned on Twitter the big picture won out and I didn’t run. This gave me a total of 28 days of running at least 30 minutes per day. A pretty good effort and frustratingly close to my target. However I am pleased that I didn’t allow a personal challenge to get in the way of the smart thing to do.

In fact I was smart enough not to bike or run on Sunday and to completely rest on my birthday. Sure it didn’t make my training graphs look as impressive, but it was the right thing to do.

Sunday wasn’t easy by any means. I started the day with a trip to the lake. I had a big plan in mind. Ten laps of the lake for an 8km open water swim. Pretty epic and excessive, certainly further than I’d ever gone in a single session. A little bit of messing about before hand delayed my start in the lake and as things went I had to get out at 7km. That’s still excessive! So I allowed myself the treat of some chocolate brownies shared with my mates at the lake (thanks to mum for making them!)

With 2 hours of swimming in my arms I headed home for the next bout of excessive behaviour. Something I think far more people will appreciate. Excessive eating. The weather was beautiful and it was perfect for the planned barbecue. During the course of lunch I would estimate I consumed roughly 1.5kg of meat. Yep, that is a hell of a lot of meat. Technically I was still being pretty Paleo at this point. The consumption of cake that followed throughout the rest of the day was definitely off the charts. I would guess I consumed a whole fifth of that cheesecake, a good portion of fruit cake, some more brownies and a bit of a ridiculously sweet birthday cake!

You should have seen the scales the next day! Let’s just say I put one heavily anomalous data point into my weight chart! Still two days later and we’re back to normal and back to losing weight. I’ll be blogging about my success with Paleo and lower carb eating in the future though.

Excess consumption has its place, but once done it’s best to get things back on track quickly. So come Monday and my actual birthday it’s back to being a modern day Paleo man. I ate pretty lightly that day, especially with zero training taking place. I relaxed in the sun and tended to the sore knee which was showing good signs of being much recovered. All in all a very pleasant and relaxing time. The first total rest day in a month and much needed as I realised the last four weeks had seen almost 120 hours of training! My body was and to an extent still is excessively tired. It’s a good job my aim is to be at a peak for Ironman UK and not Roth.

There is one final bout of excess before things return to more normal parameters. My failure to hit 8km in the water frustrated me so Tuesday I went to the lake earlier. I got in and set off feeling a little warmer than I’d like with the fantastic weather we’re having. I stuck at it for the 10 laps to hit 8km! Probably more when you allow for course deviations that creep in. I was pretty satisfied with that!

Once I got home it was straight out on the bike to meet Steven for an easy ride. It was relatively easy thanks to a couple of coffee stops, but he’s riding pretty solidly right now so it wasn’t a cruise. It was good to catch up as always and chew over a few issues. Discuss the benefits of massive over-distance training like my swim. Pleasingly my knee was holding up well. I was aware that something had been wrong with it as I rode, but it wasn’t getting any worse.

The final test of the day was the SAAB Salomon Forest Trail 10K I’d entered as race number 4 in my mini-series. Any thoughts of racing were gone instead I planned a 10km training run with a goody bag at the end! So lining up at the start I placed myself well back mostly concerned with my knee. The horn sounded and off we went at a leisurely pace.

The first 4km I was barely working. I kept to 5 minute kilometres so a real jog! The knee was feeling fine though. Somewhere around that 4K mark I picked things up. I was loving every minute of the trail run just like the week before. This was far too much fun for a race! My run form felt great, really stable above the waist my legs moving effortlessly below me (it wasn’t that hard a pace). I just kept on building towards the end crossing the line in 45 minutes. No kind of record and a little disappointed that if 100% confident of my knee I could have raced well.

Even so it was a fantastic evening. Thoroughly enjoyable and once again I found running trails an addictive experience. I want more of it! Enough that I’ve entered the Rivington Trail Half Marathon race in September! I just wish I had easy access to trails right here on my doorstep. Running the roads gets repetitive and boring, but the forests never seem to.

Here we are. The knee seems to be fine and I’m back into training. I’ve a rough idea of the next few days plans and what my focus will be. I want to try and get some good sessions in on the bike if I can, I certainly feel I need them. Swim and run feel great. I’m enjoying open water swimming so much lately and have plans to go longer still! Running is comfortable and I’m starting to gain confidence for my races. Cycling seems to come and go though, I want some consistent work in there for the next few days.

And then it will be Roth.

I am two days short of 33 years old. As I mentioned last Tuesday I seem to have strained a knee ligament. In classic overly focussed fashion I’ve been ‘training’ through this. Mostly concerned that I’m losing fitness or not building enough for the impending key races. I’m posting so soon after the last one simply from the frustrations of today’s ride.

Thursday and Friday I took relatively easily. Kept the swimming up, minimised the biking to my trips to the lake and admittedly stuck to the running. Sometime on my Friday run to masters swimming the knee hurt a little more than I liked. I was close though and figured a swim would do it good. Bad form in some fly kick sets didn’t help though and the run back home was quite sore too.

Still Friday night I iced, compressed etc. Woke the next day and felt it wasn’t too bad though worse than it had been the day before. Rode over to the lake for yet another swim! To be honest it didn’t feel too bad and the extra levels of rest meant my cycling was starting to come back to form.

The swim was uneventful and I decided to go ahead with the plan to ride that day and try and get back onto plan. My mistake was arranging to ride with others rather than at my own very easy pace. My mistake entirely. For the first 30 minutes or so things were OK, but after the easy ride had turned more towards tempo my knee really started to ache. By the end I was relying on my left leg for most of the work!

I got back to my mate’s house and opted to take his very kind offer of a lift home rather than face a slow and painful bike home! Since then I’ve iced and rested and just hope it improves. My plans for tomorrow have changed, no more bike for sure. I still however will do an extra long swim.

Whilst my birthday is Monday my family is having a small party on Sunday. Lots of food and a little bit of relaxing on the diet front. To kick celebrations off though my plan is a two hour swim! Actually to be honest I’m aiming for ten laps at the lake which will be at least 8000m. I figure that should help with the food intake that day!

So I’m getting older and feeling a bit decrepit right now. And I have a dilemma in front of me. I started my 30 runs challenge a little before the first of June. Which means I have two runs to go… What to do? On the one hand the bigger picture calls for resting the knee. If I do that and keep it up tomorrow there’s a good chance come the good weather next week things might be working better. On the other hand two more runs!

We’ll see, either in my Twitter feed or the next post. Look out for my cheesecake too!

I am in familiar territory. Unfortunately not the comforting kind, but a place of uncertainty. Sometime last year in Oz I must have blogged reporting on problems raising my heart rate in training, feeling tired and under-performing. Guess what’s back?

But before you skip ahead I’m not that worried. The last time this happened was 4 weeks before Ironman Western Australia and the result was my best race ever. Whilst it’s a mere 2 weeks to Roth the all important Ironman UK sits 5 weeks away. So the plan for this situation is simple. I push on ensuring I stress myself with volume where intensity isn’t possible. Also I rest seriously – when I have the time to put my feet up they go up. With luck I will overload the system enough without ending up in a pit I can’t get out of before Ironman UK. A discussion of overreaching and overtraining might be one for another post.

Ouch! If I’m going to worry about anything it’s the twinge in my right knee. Coming on at the end of my long ride on Tuesday, I’m not entirely sure how it came to happen. Without wanting to throw random accusations about I think I managed to tweak something a little hitting one of Berkshire’s numerous potholes!. The result is a sore/painful point at the top left of the kneecap where the quad inserts. A mix of icing and stretching and a bit of fun with my Trigger Point roller seems to be helping. Yesterday it forced a very easy jog for my 30 minutes of running and looks like today will be the same. Similarly I’ve cut the bike load in the circumstances. Trying to make up by a double swim session today – 3.5km at the lake this morning and then a 90 minute squad session tonight! On the bright side I hope that effectively this will mean I can train harder the next two days.

Whilst the pain started on Tuesday it didn’t really have much affect on Wedensday. That is until I’d finished the Woodland 5 Mile and a Bit race. I swam in the morning and went on a fairly easy, but reasonably long and undulating bike ride. All was well. Careful planning of the day meant I spent the entire afternoon sitting in a warm conservatory catching up on a stack of reading (with some good strong coffee of course!) Despite this I was really finding it hard to motivate myself for the impending race.

‘Race’ Number 3. Still I headed over there in suitable time and managed to stumble onto the venue more from luck than map reading or adequate sign-posting. I felt tired though. Very simply low on energy and enthusiasm. So I strolled to the start line at a sedate pace and with 10 minutes to go did a slow 3 minute warm-up. I didn’t think much more about it and tried to relax.

Once we were off it was clear a fairly large group were moving away from me. At this point I made a half-hearted effort to respond and go with the lead bunch, but really it wasn’t happening. I settled in to a solid, but too comfortable pace not really pushing myself the way I’d like. After a couple of kilometres things clearly picked up and I did move up the field a little over time. Far more importantly I started to really enjoy the race. The trails were lovely, not too technical, but not too simple. Even the climbs which worked the calves were good fun! I was happy to be running a high tempo pace, not at my best, but harder than general training.

No idea of my placing when I crossed the line, I didn’t really care. The second I stopped though pain hit in the knee and I was a little concerned! For all the pleasure of the race I dreaded the idea that I’d inflicted an injury on myself. A slow walk back to the car seemed to relieve a lot of the discomfort and I went home a little happier. My time and pace for the race were poor, but in terms of training it was a good session if not quite the top end I wanted to hit. I’ve one more race to go next week in my little mini-series. That said I’ve been enjoying doing this and may well seek out more. Is 4 days before Ironman UK too close to do one last tempo run session for fun?!

Since then Thursday was easy as planned. Actually it was easier than I’d planned, but when I rode to the lake and found the knee was very unhappy things changed. Today looks to be easier too, the knee is getting better, but I don’t want to chance it. So lots of swimming and a lot less biking and running. I’m still on the 30 runs in 30 days mind you! I think a couple of easier days will do me some good, as I say I’m clearly well fatigued right now! For the next week I want to put in some solid intensity prior to Roth and make a last hard training block ready for Ironman UK.

Before I go I seem to be becoming addicted to Twitter! Not really badly, but having resisted so many forms of Social media I’ve ended up on another one. You can follow my Twitter account or just see the updates in the right column. Yeah OK, they’re not ground breaking!

At the start of the week I scribbled out a rough training plan, totted up the hours then put a couple of exclamation marks after them when it came to 45!! One week later (and yes late with a post again) and my Sunday has become a Beach Day sans beach of course. I missed that 45 hour week by about twelve hours. Not to worry it was an absurd target really! Not least when a few things seem to be conspiring against me or at least the smoothness of my training…

Run race number 2 (in a series of four) – my second bit of run intensity was quite an event for entirely the wrong reasons. I prepared by swimming first thing, then riding 200km during the day with Steven and friends. Obviously the perfect warm-up for a fast 10Km at Queen Mother Reservoir. Actually I did come in third overall, but with a horrible time of 39:08 which shows how soft it was!

Just plain unpleasant – shortly before the race starts I’m feeling a little tired from the day’s exertions. Still it’s a training race the aim is to go as hard as I can. The course is two perfectly flat laps with only a little wind exposure to worry about. That’s until you get to the start line and find your stomach churning. No toilets nearby and no time there’s nothing I can do, but hope to hold on.

We’re off and it soon becomes clear there’s not masses of competition. It also becomes clear my stomach is far from happy. Still I stick in fourth place for all of the first lap and the lead guy pulls out. If I was smart so would I. This was a training race after all. I keep going onto the second lap and then it hits me at 6K in. Diarrhoea! There is nowhere to go, we’ve even had explicit warnings not to pee on the site. I keep pushing on and hope for the best.

For those that follow my blog you’ll know I’ve peed myself on every stage of a triathlon without problem. Tuesday was a new experience I thoroughly recommend avoiding. My guts were in full on rebellion and nothing was going to stop them. Given there was nothing I could do I pushed to the finish letting nature take its course as I ran. Like I said plain disgusting and thank God for showers and changing rooms afterwards.

I should also mention the other symptom that evening of Runner’s Haematuria. I was too dehydrated and the result was a little blood in my urine. It cleared up almost immediately, but it’s always a shock to see.

One final note – always take a towel, shower gel and a change of clothing to any race, you may well need it!

Mostly in sickness – I put the unpleasantness down as a one off. Just one of those things. Wednesday became heavily curtailed cutting into those long training hours, but I just felt so lethargic. Since Tuesday evening my stomach has not been right. Somehow I’ve got some training out, but if 45 hours was ever in reach it wasn’t this week. Stomach cramps have disturbed my sleep twice now, though I think things are improving at last.

Enough quality? Probably the most frustrating aspect of this week is the feeling it hasn’t been good enough. Compared to my build up in Lanza this just seems a little weak. Sure the run races are some intensity and I have had moments on the bike. Is it enough? I would love to be hear typing about how strong I feel and how ready for my races. Instead I find myself uncertain and with a sense that my fitness is all over the place.

This morning I struggled over to the lake on the bike. Struggled round 4 laps of the course and then struggled home. By the time I was in the door there was no doubt today was a Beach Day. Later I’ll do my 30 minute run and that’s it. So there we go. A real sense of lethargy has dominated this week. Brief moments of quality have cropped up, but not as much as I want to be seeing now.

The next run race is this coming Wednesday. I hope to complete it in full health this time. I’ll be aiming to duplicate this weeks volume of training, but with a little more intensity. I’ll be scribbling out an overly ambitious weekly plan in a while! For Roth I’m not truely tapering so I still have one more build week to get in after that.

Do I feel ready for Ironman UK? Nope. I’ve looked at the results and I’ll need to podium in my age group for sure. I don’t feel I’m there yet, but let’s give it a week or two yet. I’ve certainly been in that shape for the UK Ironman 70.3 before (and incidentally had on and off sickness in the build up there). Rigth now, more than Hawaii I just want to post some strong Ironman times and prove things are on track.

Honestly that’s not the reason I’ve been quiet the past week. I’ve had plenty of time when I could have written something, but not much inclination. Partly because life is simple and repetitive right now – I get plenty of sleep and train quite a bit too.

Finally I made myself stop and take a picture with my new phone. When I got the new phone there was a plan behind it – get a decent camera and then you can take pictures out on your rides. The reality is I’m not big on random stopping when riding. What tends to happen is I think a view would make a good picture, but then I don’t really want to stop. I make deals in my head to stop at the next 5 minute mark. Then when I get there I decide there’s no where good to stop or more likely the good view is long gone! Today’s picture of some sheep was made possible by looping back on my route and timing things so I could stop for a pee at 2 hours and get the photo. Cunning!

I’ve been pretty lucky with the weather though. I mean it’s not hot, but it’s sunny and not so cold. Despite that I routinely go out wearing slightly less than I ought to. I’m reminded of a coffee shop owner on the Gold Coast telling me how everyone there would moan it was cold in the winter, but nobody wears more clothing. Living in shorts becomes habitual! Still I’ve enjoyed the weather and been getting out on the bike plenty.

Even open water swimming has been fine. My fourth time in the lake since I’ve been back, no idea what the temperature is, it’s colder than Oz for sure, but fine. It amuses me to see so many people putting on thermal caps or wearing base layers under their wetsuit. Really, it’s not that cold, if I can cope I’m sure it can’t be. I braved all of 50m without the wetsuit at the end of today’s swim then decided that if I swam the 200m to the buoy it just meant I had to swim another 200m back and it was cold!

I have been very carefully doing hour long runs over the past week. I seem to have worked out most of the calf problems I was having and currently my only concern is a tight ITB and hamstring. My run focus hasn’t been much on pace, but more on keeping up a high cadence and good technique. The result has been no drop off in pace, but some comfortable running. With two more weeks of training prior to the taper I hope to build this up well and maybe even thrown in a little bit of run focus.

It’s four weeks today that Lanza happens. I fly out there in 2 days time and get to practice on the course for the following few weeks. Hopefully that’ll work as well for me as it did in Busselton. I’m keen to get out there and really focus on training for a couple of weeks. Not expecting much in the way of internet connection so updates may be sporadic and brief. Might stop me rambling!

And to avoid that I’ll stop now.