The evening ride. Helvellyn Tri?

Top ride out this evening with Mr Ashworth. Blast round the Helvylln Triathlon bike route after work.

The Man!

The struggle was just that. Straight out from work and into this climb is not exactly ideal but it is good to feel the burn and suffer every now and then! Steve has not been on a bike for a couple months but rode strong. I am sure a little competitive spirit helped us along and there was defiantly an unspoken battle for King of the Mountains going on!

Really enjoyed this evening. Good to catch up with a mate and ride hard during a training session. Nothing like training with a like minded partner to get you out of your comfort zone! Always good to mix it up in this way.

Sections of tonight's ride were defo up to race pace and feeling good. Still training on my 8speed steel framed bike with big chain rings. Not ideal for these steep hills for too long but my legs are getting strong from it. Our total time for the ride was interesting. Just checked out last years race results. If I can just improve my swim........ Hopefully gonna get an entry in when they reopen. Perfect final hard training session 4 weeks before Wasdale! Psyched.

Nice one Mulebar for a speedy next day delivery and saving me from a total bonk on tonights ride! Lost it for a bit but a Lemon Zinger gel pulled me out of the hole!

Top fuel

Time Trials

Just a quick post. Said I was going to do some time trials in sports to give me some times and numbers to improve on and analyse. Never really been into this before but it is defiantly an essential tool. It gives you a time to chase, motivation to train and some hard facts to track your progress.

So here are the times:

Swim 400 metre. Around 9mins. First lesson, always check your kit is working! My waterproof watch appears to be not waterproof! Used the pool clock so prob slightly out.

Bike 10 Mile time trial. 25min 36secs. On the famous Levens course with the Kent Valley road club. Very windy on way out. AVG HR 175bpm.

First lesson I need to take from these efforts is learning to pace myself properly. This will come with experience. When I try to swim hard I seem to tighten up and my stroke becomes shorter and I move slower whilst putting in more effort. Very similar with the bike. Pushing a little to hard early on means I slow down in the last couple miles, despite working much harder.

Some solid times to measure progress with. Only issue I can see is the need for some longer time trials. This would simulate my goals more closely. These two are really full, eye popping lung busting, anaerobic efforts. Still very important as the higher your threshold the faster you can go for longer amounts of time. But as Ironman is a predominantly aerobic race, developing aerobic capacity should be the main goal. Go slow to get faster in other words!

Any comments, tips, discussion or whatever are most welcome!

Oh yeh, recorded my weight and body fat this week too. Bit personal for the world wide web though! Obviously I would like to reduce this.

Need to get my heart rate monitor and watch sorted asap!!

A faster swim........

As mentioned before, swimming is my least practised and therefore one of my most limiting elements in a triathlon. Any sport requires hours, weeks, months and years of practice to become proficient in and realise full potential. Skill acquisition, muscle/nervous memory patterns (engram's) and base fitness only come though time spent doing and learning.

When I started out swimming in October it really was an exercise in not drowning! I could manage about two to four lengths, felt like I was fighting to move forwards and the harder I tried the slower I seemed to move. I felt panicky and swallowed more water than you can imagine. Swimming one mile, let alone two was impossible. Sound familiar ??

Putting off getting in as long as poss!

So I practised. I watched you tube videos of people swimming. I watched others swimming at the pool. I borrowed the Total Immersion book by Terry Laughlin from a friend and even tried out some of the drills. I asked people questions about how they swam. Triathlon usually takes place in open water so I bought a wetsuit (www.headtothehills.co.uk) and started swimming in the lake at the end of February. I found a great group of friends who had experience and were kind enough to help and support me.

At times I felt down and frustrated. Some sessions I had to shorten or adjust. I had to tell myself to stick with it, one step at a time. Some things I tried did not work so I tried something else.

Soon one mile did not feel that far and and two point four was tiring but manageable. Not fast but defiantly not a problem.

One of my goals in my training for Wasdale tri (www.wasdale-tri.co.uk) is to improve my swim. First I need to gather some info to set a goal. A 400 meter time trial in the pool tomorrow will give me something to work with. A time to improve on. Future posts on how this goes.

I have also started attending the Kendal Tri club (kendaltri.co.uk) pool session on Monday night. Fantastic coaches and a real friendly crowd. £3.50 a session!!! For improving technique this is like free gold. Totaly recommended.

Out on Windermere with Pete (aka Bownessy, he spends enough time in there!) and Andrea from head to the hills this morn. Stunning morning and the lake is pretty warm. Out for a bit of time in the saddle this afternoon, make the most of the sunshine!

So now its time to practice, practice and practice some more!.......Then a bit more!

Chilly swimming back in March

Back to it!

Time to get back into the swing of things then! A few easy swims and a couple of bikes to and from work this last week have gone well so I decided to do a double session today.

Woke up early this morn to sunshine (honestly!) so headed off to Miller ground for a steady open water swim in Windermere.

Motivation was high, I had that sense of excitement walking down to the lake and felt like running. I like swimming from miller ground early morn. Its always quiet, has a nice walk down through woods and a great view of the Langdale Pikes is framed in the distance looking out over the lake. This morning was mill pond flat too.

A Mill pond flat lake Windermere

Took it steady and did about a mile. Concentrated on technique, slowing everything down and just enjoyed. Swimming is defiantly not my strong point in triathlon and my biggest gains here are to be made through learning and practice, not through hard sessions and high mileage. It is great for recovery from other sessions too.

The Langdale Pikes across the water.

Really enjoyed this morns swim.

Home for breakfast and a rest then headed out on the bike for a couple of hours. Wanted to see how my body would cope with a longer ride and picking up the pace a little. This would give a good indication how well I was recovering 2 weeks after Celtman.

Did just under 50km in a couple of hours. Legs felt fresh, felt good out of the saddle working hard up some hills and similar picking the pace up on some flats. Most of the ride was super steady though.

The route I did is here http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/110667329 along with a load of other training rides in the lakes. Open to the public so feel free to browse if your looking for ideas.

Looking good to start with some base training next week then. Starting to get psyched for Sep 30th now! Wasdale Tri has been entered and it looks awesome!! Bring it on.

www.wasdale-tri.co.uk

Celtman the movie!

A superb video.Nice job guys.

If you were not luck enough to be there this should get you psyched for next year!!

Recovery.....

So, one week after Celtman. I still have my race number and split print out blue tacked to the wall and am still wearing my blue t-shirt, the result of the last 8 months hard work! I defiantly feel a sense of pride and achievement now, but have to admit the last week has been a bit of a struggle in other ways.

I am finding it quite hard to let go of Celtman. I keep checking the website still, looking over all the photos and thinking about the beach at Sheildaig, the water in the loch, the descents and climbs on the bike, the Coulin pass and the summit of Ruadh-stac-Mor. A bit of a grieving process of sorts I suppose. One thing for sure is that the race has left its mark in many ways.

Still have a tweak in leg but this seems to be improving daily. Ice and elevation for first three days took the swelling down. Some very light easy stretching after a bath seems to be helping relive the tightness. Should be getting some treatment next week to help it on its way. A deep tissue massage, although painful seems to work wonders for this sort of thing. After the swelling has gone and movement without pain is possible, an injury needs stimulation to promote and speed up healing. Easy does it though.

The good thing about triathlon though is you have three sports to choose from in which to train, which is ideal for me as I quite frankly am a moody so and so if I cannot exercise in some way! Motivation returned the last few days so I spent thirty mins in the pool today, running through some drills and stretching out. Felt that excitement on the way to the session which is always a good sign. Just relaxed and did what I felt like, no rigid plans, sets or stop watches. Plan to try a real easy cycle tomorrow if I feel like it but no pressure. The main thing is the psyche and motivation is there, I know the base I have built up is not going to disappear over night. Without recovery all the training is useless as the body and mind will just break down.

Have thought about and set some goals for the future. Have a few races lined up,more on this in a future post. Hopefully this will help ease the sense of loss now Celtman is done. But in the short term, its is rehab the leg and pick up the swimming. The rest will follow.

The morning  swim, Loch Sheildaig

A few useful links: http://www.active.com/triathlon/Articles/Bouncing_back_from_Ironman.htm
http://www.active.com/triathlon/Articles/Recovery-Tips-for-Ironman-Triathletes.htm
http://www.trainstravels.co.uk/2011/09/02/rules-for-ironman-recovery/

Celtman 2012 race report

As I said earlier, one of the hardest but most rewarding days of my life on so many levels. The journey to race day morning started back in Oct 11, thrashing about in a swimming pool barely able to swim four lenghs. I will talk more about this in futre posts though. The day had arrived, my first triathlon!

Arriving late Thursday night in Sheildaig after a long drive from Ambleside, Steves van was converted to sleep mode and we attempted to sleep. My mind was racing with a mix of fear and excitement that. I probally managed three decent hours sleep before waking to a beautiful view of loch Torridon. I went for a swim to see how cold the water was and steady the nerves. It was pretty chilly and I was certainly glad of the early march swim training in Windermere.

After signing on, meeting other competitors and the organisers it was clear this was a fairly laid back event. I had fears of super serious, hardcore ironman veterens making me feel out of place and bossy officials getting mad at me for not knowing what to do. This could not have been further from the truth. I had the feeling that we were all in the same boat (organisers included!), all together preparing for a long, hard day with the same worries and fears. I prepped, checked and re checked my kit, filled bottles, sorted out nutrition and once again attempted to snatch some sleep.

Sign on was 3am, next set up T1 then be ready to board the coaches for the journey to the start of the swim. Anxiety was once again setteld as we boarded the coaches and I got chatting to a fellow competitor about training, previous events, the areas we came from and the day ahead. The scene on the beach with torches buring, the sound of bag pipes, the sun begining rise and mountains in the distance over a flat loch was truly amazing. We informed the swim had been cut a little short due to water temps and before i knew it we were wading into the water. I was one of the first in and I felt releif that it was about to begin. All the months of prep, early mornings, long hard days training, and over half a year of effort were about to be worth it. I kept reminding myself this was what it was all about.

The horn sounded and we started swimming. My first experince of a mass swim start. I settled down, enjoyed the sunrise over the hills, saw lots of jelly fish and got pretty cold going through the middle of the loch. I did tighten up towards the end and suffered some cramp issues but made it to the slipway, managed to stand up without falling over and needing help and got ready for a bike ride. 1hr02mins for the swim. Steve my legendary one man support crew did a fantastic job helping me get changed whilst still suffering cramps and colds hands and I was soon on my bike cycling up and out of T1. The hill at the start helped me warm up a little and I felt happy to be on to the land part of the days journey.

I felt good at the start of the bike but road fairly cautiously as was my plan. First hitch of the day was my HR monitor not working. Nothing major though, I like to train on feel lots rather than always rely on gadgets. I very had a good idea from training how hard I could ride and still run so all good. I picked up a bottle from Steve just after Kinlochewe. It was around this time I noticed a slight niggle at the top of my right calf. Probally from the cramp I had in the water and T1. This would haunt me for the rest of the bike and run and gradualy got worse throughout the day. No chance I was giving up though, not after all the effort to get here.
Despite this I felt great on the bike, was riding within my limits and passing other riders, moving slowly up the field.

Then disaster struck. My gear shifter broke, leaving me stuck in one gear at the bottom of a hill somewhere near Poolewe. Damm bikes! I had so much trouble in training with bikes and thought I must be due some luck. Clearly not just yet! Luckily Steve was waiting at the top of the next hill. I felt so sorry for myself and thought about just getting in the van and sacking it off. Steve was amazing, helping me change pedals and get his bike sorted so I could carry on with the race. I rode off still full of anger and slowly stated to gain back the ground I had lost. Despite the growing pain in my leg I felt good. My first real rough patch occured leading up to the main climb and lasted till Garve. The road seemed to go on and on but I tried to remind myself that the end always comes, keep moving forwards and you will reach it. This was what I had signed up for and this low point would pass and I would eventualy reach the other side. Look up the "pain is temporary" vid on you tube! I soon felt better but then hit another low patch in the last 15 miles. My leg was really hurting, I had to keep coasting on downhills in an attempt to stretch it out. The power in my legs felt low, the saddle was getting seriously uncomfortable and my neck and shoulders ached. The road seemed to stretch on forever and I kept thinking I would never be off this bike! I felt alone and weak. It had also started raining.

But the end did come and the part of the day I was most looking foward to.7hrs25 for the bike. Steve informed me we would comfortably reach the cut off so no stress there. I felt I had biked well considering, but would I be able to run? A handfull of pretzels and I was off.

I could run! I felt strong to. I ran out to the top of the Coulin pass, Happy with my pace and pleased to be off the bike my spirits lifted. Also seeing other competitors and having a bit of a chat helped. The leg loosened up running the downhill and flats through the magnificent pass. I could see the scree slopes of Beinne Eighe looming in the distance but concentrated on finding a rythm and enjoying my running. The two aid stations were fantastic. The volunteers were amazing, I hope they did not get too eaten by midges! I had one of those moments when you see exactly what you need and want to eat on the table before you. A handful of small cinamin profriter roll type things and some water went down a treat. Another slight low patch hitting the tarmac into T2A passed as I saw Steve ready for our journey up the mountain.

It was great to be with a good friend climbing the mountain after the lonely moments on the bike. I still felt strong and we were passing people climbing the hill. Being cumbrian fell runners we manged to run most of the ridge and I have to say the feeling on reaching the top of the last Munro is one I will remember for the rest of my life. We could now let gravity do some of the work and it was amazing to feel so sharp, strong and at home descending the technical trail to the road. We flowed down the hill in amazing surroundings. We had gained lots of places on the mountain. The mountain rescue team on the hill did an amazing job.

So, the last few miles of tarmac into the finish at Torridon! I dumped my rucksack and took a cafeine gel with a few sips of water. That lonely feeling returned on the road, I just kept telling myself not to stop, keep the rythm and it will be over soon. The wind picked up, blowing straight up through the valley in to my face.
Then Steve appeared out of a car in front of me! He had hitched a lift down the road, unable to close the gap :) in order to help me home! I noticed another runner gaining on me. I was not sure how far I had to go and really did not feel I could lift my pace much more without exploding. Steve assured me it was fine but I dug deep and found the extra I needed not to lose my hard earnt position at the finish line. I lifted the pace again for the last few hundred meters, breathing hard and powered by adrenaline. I crossed the finish line in a time of 14hrs 13mins.

I was truly spent and felt I had given all I had during the course of the day. The course had demanded everything of me and all the other competitors that day and we had responded.

Thanks to all the volunteers, local communtiy, mountain rescue team, the race organisers, competitors and support crew for one of the most amazing days of my life. Also thanks to my friends and family for encouragement, advice and for putting up with my moodiness and fretting along the way. Special thanks to Steve for being awsome on the day. Could not have done it without you.

Next year?.....................



Probally!!