What's next?

You wait two months for a post, then three arrive at once. ;-)

Since the Alpe d' Huez triathlon I have been trying to think about what to focus on over the next year or so. Immediately after the race I was hoping to get a steady week's training in while staying at our friends' amazing place, Chalet Pomet. Situated in the village of Morillon about three hours' drive from Venosc I was going to get some steady cycling and running in ready to see me through to the end of the season but once again, my foot was not playing ball. I did a very gentle 40 minute run on soft ground and after I finished it was really sore, so I decided that there would be no more running for a while. The day after I took myself off before breakfast and decided to ride the Col de Joux-Plane, which is the nearest big climb about 10 kms away. I completely underestimated it, with it being every bit as high as Alpe d' Huez but considerably longer in terms of its less steep gradient.


Only 8kms to go

 I had not eaten beforehand so was very low on energy the whole way up, but it was a beautiful morning. A couple of other riders were out (who I went past; nice. :-) and I ticked off each kilometre steadily (about 13 of them). The view from the top was magnificent, with the low lying cloud which I had ridden through half an hour earlier providing a lovely sense of scale to the sheer bulk of the mountains all around. Unfortunately the monster that is Mont Blanc which can normally be seen in the distance was obscured, so with the morning temperature being a bit chilly I decided to go back down.

Selfie on the top of Joux-Plane

The descent was a complete scream. With much longer straights than Huez I was able to get up a lot of speed before breaking hard for the hairpin bends. My foot gave me a bit of gip when I hit a bump, with the extra flexing giving me a sharp pain now and again but seemed ok other than that. I did a couple of shorter rides in the week but with my foot being uncomfortable they were very gentle bimbles, so the rest of the time was spent eating, drinking, sightseeing and hitting the hot tub. Normal family holiday stuff.

So what next? Well for me, the season is already starting to draw to a close. A couple of time trials over the next month or so is the only thing in the pipeline. I will withdraw from the Abingdon Marathon as my foot will not take the load at the moment and once again, running will be put on the back foot (nice pun). I have a new job which is going to be pretty full-on for the foreseeable future and  will make training pretty hard to fit in so I have been thinking about what to do, and I think I've come up with a pretty good solution.

Most of the members at the Phoenix always talk about their annual mileage. So how many miles did you complete last year? My best from last year, was 5000miles; pretty good I thought, but that's nothing compared to some of the mileages that other members have done over the past. So I am going to give myself a target, starting in September and see if I can keep to it. It will not matter whether it's a bimble to the shops, commuting to work or training, it will all count. The only thing that will not count is the turbo as it will have to be road miles. The more time and mileage I complete on the bike the faster I will get. Simples.

So, what's my target? It needs to be more than 5000 miles, and something that will stretch me a bit. 7500 miles would be an average of 20.5 miles/day or 144 miles per week. Hmmm, that's pretty tough, but I like the numbers. Let's see.

Alpe d' Huez Triathlon

So I had got the Thunder Run out of the way and despite my foot being quite sore, I had been pleased with how the running had gone. I had covered the 42km marathon distance in a tad over 3:25 on fairly patchy and low quality running and done another 8kms and felt pretty good at the end. The next day was about getting the car packed ready to catch a late night ferry to Calais. Ten hours later after driving through torrential rain the whole way we were on the edge of the Alps, with a daughter puking into a carrier bag that had holes in the bottom of it and a lost toll ticket which had been whipped out of Sue's hand by a rogue French mistral. That was a bit of a low point. Thankfully as we pulled into the campsite in the pretty little village of Venosc, the rain stopped and the sun came out. It looked like the camping and triathlon Gods might be on our side.

Wednesday was my first view and ascent, in a car, of Alpe d' Huez as I had to get to the top to register and collect my number. Oh blimey. I looked at the first couple of ramps and my heart sank. I might just have bitten off more than I could chew here. This was a most definite obstacle in my path. A very big obstacle. I should explain that my last long training ride had been a couple of weeks before with Simon where we did a solid 90 miles with an ascent of Ditchling Beacon that had been awful. The flat bits were fine but the hills were very slow and far below what I  would normally be like on hills so I was not feeling particularly positive about going up the Alpe. Anyway, I collected my number and had a load of pasta and decided to use my usual tactic of having a beer and burying my head in the sand.

The race start was a very sociable 2pm so we had plenty of time to get ready. Sue and the kids would spend the day at the top of the mountain where there was a great sports centre and they were going to do a bit of indoor climbing and swimming. All I had to do was set up T2 (put my run shoes on the floor) and then cycle down to the start. I was a bit stressed about this beforehand but I need not have been. All I had to do was take my swim gear in a rucksack with me to set up T1 and get to Lac Du Verney. to get there I had to descend Alpe d' Huez to hairpin 5 which is 5kms from the top (all the hairpins are numbered) and then turn off for the village of Villard-Reculas. It was stunning ride in its own right, mainly freewheeling in a small group with people called Jean-Luc, Yvette, Phillipe, etc. It just put the most enormous smile on my face and really got me prepared for the day. At the lake they had put nationalities together so I was able to while away the 45 minutes before the start chatting to a few other Brits. The main topic of conversation was of course the climb and people were talking about 60 minutes being a really good time for the climb so in my mind I prepared myself for 80-90 minutes.

Ready to roll to the start

Swim
The other thing I had not prepared myself for was a 1200 person mass swim start. I was breaststroking around and the water was quite chilly (13.3 apparently) and loads of other swimmers swam across to the far side and then immediately got out to sit on the side, which I found rather odd. I was having a look around and christening the wettie with a super long wee when the hooter went. Queue 1000 athletes jumping into the lake and all heading for the first turn buoy. It was a complete bunfight. I was punched, kicked, held, dragged back and generally royally interfered with. I didn't find any feet to draft off at all; no one was swimming straight so I just had to sight as best as I could and hope for the best. On the odd occasions when I did get some clear water I knew that I was pretty slow anyway so I just tried to take it easy and save something for later on. I have to say that despite all the biff, I enjoyed it and it was a beautiful lake to swim in. T1 was slow and by the time I jogged out of  T1 I was well down the field.


Bike
The first 15 kms is a flat warm-up to the bottom of Alpe d' Huez and it was a blast. Out of T1 is a drop down to the dam on the lake before heading out on the long straight valley road to the town of Bourg d' Oirsans which is the town at the bottom of the climb. It was an absolute blast. We were all drafting on this section, there was no way that you could avoid it with so many bikes on the road at the same time. I was floating along at the back of a peleton of about 40 riders when a referee on  a motorbike gave me a long hard stare, so I dropped back a few metres until he roared off up the road, completely ignoring the other riders all in a bunch. Idiot. That said, the organisation was great. The police stopped the traffic and the drivers had all got out of their cars and were clapping and cheering us on, something I doubt that the nimby brigade in this country would do. Love. It.

Cycling doesn't get much more fun than this

So we made our way through Bourg before taking the left turn onto the D211, the iconic 21 hairpin bends to the top of Alpe d' Huez. As soon as I hit the first bottom slope I snuck the gears into the small chainring, found the largest sprocket and started to spin my way up. Within seconds I just knew it was going to be ok. The good thing about having such a rubbish swim was that I was able to overtake a steady stream of riders which gave me people to chase and the first 10 hairpins flew by. The big hairpin bends gave a brief respite from the climbing before it ramped up again but in the main it was just a steady grind/spin. Like Boxhill but just about eight times longer and a lot more spectacular. By this time the temperature had really got up and I used the 2 feed stations on the Alpe to pour water over my head which helped a lot to cool me down. Between 10 and 5 was tougher, I think I was running on empty so got some energy drink in which perked me up and from 5 with the top getting nearer I was able to pick up my cadence a little again. The hard thing was getting to 0 only to find that there was still a little bit of climbing to get you into the ski town and T2 on the football astro pitch.  The climb took me just over 70 minutes which, on reflection, I have to be happy with.

Another super slow T2; no quick laces and a bit of cramp. Doh.

Run
I bounded out of T2 feeling absolutely brilliant. Only 7kms to go. The first kilometre was really good as I went out onto the trail path at the top of the mountain, but within 7 or 8 minutes I found myself very out of breath, like I couldn't fill my lungs with enough air and I could feel myself getting very hot again. I can only think it was the altitude kicking in, making my heart rate go through the roof and I just had to stop and walk for a bit until I had got it under control. It was a bit of a shame as my legs felt great but I couldn't hold a pace that only a few days before had been really easy. It was quite  a tough run being very exposed and on some lumpy trail paths, but eventually we turned back downhill, into the centre of the ski resort, across the football pitch before turning right down the blue carpet. Lots of high fiving, a shout out from the announcer and the best after race buffet I've ever had.



Topping up my tan. Ouch.

This was a great event. I was worried about all the effort of getting me, my stuff and my family all the way to the Alps for an Olympic-ish distance event, but I would do it again in a heartbeat. To have ridden arguably the most iconic climb in cycling in a race is something that I will always remember and I really hope that I get to do it again in the future.


Adidas Thunder Run 2014

Ok, I have not blogged in a long while. Life, work, family, stuff. Some of it important, some of it not. And within all that I was trying to string some decent training together and failing dismally. I had put together a team for the Thunder Run last year when I had put the entry in for a team of 8. Unfortunately, that team rapidly dwindled from 8 down to 7, then 6, then 5 and finally, with two weeks to go down to , when another injury blighted another runner. I managed to get Jon, a friend from work to join us so we headed off to Catton Park as a 5 team.

The night before. Drinking tea; talking rubbish

So what is the Thunder Run? It's a 24 hour non-stop relay of teams from 2 to 8 runners and some solo runners as well (loons!). It's on a hilly 10km loop and you run through the day and night handing over a slap band. There's dodgy catering facilities but it has best been described as a music festival, but with running; and no music. :-/   Simon, Jon and I drove up on the Friday to set up our tents for the whole team, with Martin and Sarah arriving early Saturday ready for the 12pm start in the afternoon. Many clubs, mainly from the Midlands had arrived very early and cordoned off large areas so we ended up quite a way from the hand over point, but nicely positioned at the 9km point.






















Martin still smiling

As team leader I took the honour of running the first lap and it was great with all the supporters cheering us on at the start and as we made our way around the course with much of the first 3 kms weaving in and around the tents manned by all the teams. It was a testing course with a short, sharp hill in the first 800 metres, which then just had a series of open grass track with gentle rises that would become full on hills as the event wore on. The really nutty bit was at 7kms where the runners spent 200 metres zig-zagging through trees and over tree stumps and roots. Difficult in the day when you're fresh and a trip-fest at night when you're tired. After that it was a steady drop back to the main field on the hand over, so after 45 minutes I was done and Simon was on his way. Obviously, despite carrying no injuries for the last few months my left Achilles started to really ache and my right foot got very sore, presumably from working hard over some of the rutted sections. Bugger.

Sarah at the 9km point next to our tent.

As it turned out, 5 runners was a really good number to have. It would mean that we would potentially be running 50km which would be quite a challenge but not hanging around for a long time. We got into a routine of seeing our team runner coming in at 9kms to hand over and that would give the signal that the next runner after that had approximately an hour to get ready. While it didn't involve spreadsheets and predicted timings it worked pretty well. The hard thing was getting the feeding right. I found by my third lap that I had eaten too much and it was a very slow one while I had the burps. Thankfully, the weather was kind, although possibly too warm, with a bit of rain through the night, although not enough to make running too difficult.

We ended up being the 21st team out of 69 with 25 laps completed. Had I gone out a shuffled round another 10kms, which I had the opportunity to do we would have been 15th! Unfortunately my foot was really sore by this stage and discretion was required with me racing the Alpe d' Huez Triathlon a few days later, so we were happy with that.

All in all, a great event. If you run, you need to do it.