July
- I should have mentioned that in June I managed to secure an entry into the Outlaw Triathlon, an iron distance race in Nottingham. I did this race the previous year but high temperatures over 30C and possibly cycling too hard on race-day meant that I fell far short of my goal of 10 hours, I turned in splits of 59 minutes, 5:30 and then a 4:37 (!) hour run to complete the race in 11:11 hrs. Very disappointed with the result I vowed to get my revenge on the course that had ruined me that day. Unfortunately most of my training up to June had been for olympic distance triathlon so I had some work to do during my time at La Santa and in the remaining 5 weeks before the Outlaw!
- The work involved a lot of cycling, pretty much every day and riding at least 2 hours at a time (I got through A LOT of chamois cream in those 5 weeks!). I did some swimming, luckily I don't really need to swim a lot to maintain sub 60 min fitness, and several very long brick runs (an 80 mile ride and 18 mile run being the longest of those). Which were something that I completely neglected the previous year, and probably caused my disastrous run split. After quite a relentless 5 weeks I followed this block of training up with a 1 week 'taper' and the end result was 9hrs 58, 1st in M20-24, and 18th individual overall at the Outlaw!
The Outlaw
- Swim - 57:45
- Started on the far left in the 'fast pen', still surprised how many people never fail to absolutely smash the first half and then implode after 2000m. Quite a bit of argy-bargy and leg-grabbing this year, I resolved this by turning around to simultaneously do backstroke and yell profanities at the offenders. I probably wasted a lot of energy doing this but they backed off.
- My GPS reckons I swam 4041m instead of 3800, I need to learn to swim in a straighter line!
- T1 - 4:00
- CRAMP
- Forgot my cramp curing banana
- Bike - 5:26:53
- 194W AP, 200NP, 33.3 kph, 85 rpm
- Windy as you like, the course is pancake flat though so I can't really play this up too much.
- Rode very easy, felt a bit annoyed with how easy I was going by the end but it paid off I think
- T2 - 3:07
- Nothing to report, put socks on which I noticed a few people around me didn't seem to bother with.
- Straight into the portaloos before starting the run properly.
- Run - 3:26:37
- Overall I was happy with the run, I smashed the first half in 1hr 33 to try and bank as much time as possible but inevitably faded soon after 14 miles and it was quite a struggle from there. I like this tactic though as I feel that I would never speed up if I went out at 8min/miles and probably go way slower overall.
- However, I spent about 10 minutes in the loos, I actually 'ran' a 3:18 according to my Garmin file. I need to sort out my stomach problems or even my entire diet as it was quite dire towards the end as I had to make a pit stop in the last 2 miles which required a mad dash to the line to make sure I went sub 10!
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| Also a bottle opener! |
August
- The day after the Outlaw I felt very good indeed as I had just moved into my new pad in Wimbledon, my legs were in tatters but my spirit was high!
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| The south of France is beautiful, unless you're a coeliac! |
- The next week I went on a family holiday with my parents and brother, it was the first family holiday in many years and I was very excited as we were all bringing our bikes and embracing the smooth tarmac and cycle-friendly drivers of Southern France. The drive down was something I think we were all silently dreading as memories of our childhood holidays came bubbling to the surface of our minds like bubbles of swamp gas in a bog. Luckily we all survived the trip and had a cracking time. I managed to put in about 550 miles of cycling during the 12 days we were there.
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| S'mores in the new pad |
- By the time we came home from France I had barely swam at all during the 3 weeks since the Outlaw. However I decided to do another iron distance triathlon as I felt very fit still, especially after the training I did in France so I thought I should capitalise on my good form. Enter, the Midnight man, a race around a dual carriage way in Dartford with 1/4, 1/2 and Full distance races starting at 6pm with the full distance cut off being 11am the next day (in contrast with the traditional 6am and 11pm times of most ironman races).
The Midnight Man
- This race probably deserves an entire blog post of its own but this post is getting quite long now so I will summarise the race like I did for the Outlaw:
- Swim - 57:10
- Somehow, despite not swimming for 3 weeks I was 45s faster than the Outlaw. Or maybe I just managed to swim in a straight line this time!
- Bike - 5:21:29
- 215W NP, 211 AP, 33.6 kph, 88rpm
- 20 laps with 4 dead turns each lap.
- No lighting on 2/3rds of the course.
- THE single hardest thing I have ever done. It was wet, it was windy, it was dark and it was relentless. The first 10 laps were okay, the last 10 were desperately lonely and testing.
- Absolutely bonkers, some nutters were riding with no rear lights. This was annoying but coming up with a new threat or insult to yell at them each time I passed gave me something to do and kill time.
- Run - 3:22:23
- Started out in my customary fashion with 6:45/min miles for the first 10k and then faded down to about 7:45s.
- Plagued by stomach troubles again, probably lost another 10 mins in the porta-loos although after a week in France eating predominantly butter, bread and beer I was not surprised by this at all. I still reckon a sub 3:10 IM marathon is in me if I can manage to sort my stomach troubles out.
- No GPS file for this one, my Garmin decided to corrupt the file :(
- Total - 9:46:53, 1st overall (there were only about 100 people entered though)
- After finishing this event I realised a few things:
- A sub 9:30 is definitely in me,
- I need to work on my aerodynamics and increase my power on the bike, that I am putting out consistent sub 60 min swims and sub 3:30 IM marathons shows me that I have the fitness to produce a quicker bike split. If I could ride around 5:10 and follow with a 3:15 marathon I'd be knocking on a sub 9:30.
- And finally - swim training is unnecessary (kidding!!)
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| 4am, just finished an ironman yo |
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| Recommended |
The rest of the year
- In September I started my MSc in sport, health and exercise sciences, my dissertation will be on the mechanistic basis for the decline in stroke volume during whole body exercise and extravascular dehydration (fancy eh?).
- I ate a lot of cake, chocolate and booze over Xmas, I am very fat now. However I'm working it off during my preparation for the London Marathon this year!
