The fact I have not blogged for a month tells its own story in that this month has been a relaxed and lovely time with very little training. After the Outlaw I started some regular, easy running only to get injured a couple of weeks ago. At the time it just seemed like a gentle Achilles strain but it soon got quite bad, not helped by the fact that we were doing a lot of camping and walking so I never really rested it properly. I cycled gently into work last week and it even hurt doing that, so I just put my bikes away and forgot about cycling and training for a while.
This two weeks though has given me a lot of headspace about what to do and how I want to do it. Another Ironman? Sub 53 for 25? Sub 1:55 for 50miles? Sub 4 hours for 100 miles? All good goals and all achievable with a lot of work. The thing is, my cycling has been all about one performance goal after another and all the training that they require, and somewhere along the way cycling has turned into an increasingly joyless affair, with me being more concerned about power outputs and CdA coefficients rather than the landscape I'm cycling through and the sheer enjoyment of turning a set of cranks.
As part of my time trialling targets I have been seeking out faster and faster courses, and this usually requires dual carriageways, with a net downhill, and fairly high traffic flow to push one along. Not the nicest environment to be cycling on and an increasingly dangerous one. Two months ago, a club mate and friend was killed on the F11/10 course after being struck by a vehicle. It made the National news and our club is still in mourning. A few weeks before, during my 50 TT where I set my pb, I had my closest ever pass by a van that left me shaken for some time after and in the same event a rider who finished only 20 seconds after me was hospitalised for a week after being hit by a car as he crossed the finish line. I guess you could say that I have lost my bottle, but the more I put myself in harms way, the more likely some idiot is going to hit me and at the moment, that's not a risk I am prepared to take. It's not a case of not time trialling any more, but I do intend to be a bit more selective as to what and when I ride a TT. I want my time trialling to be fun again rather than the feeling of being in some arms race, where I have to find the fastest courses, most areo helmet, buy the latest TT frame just to keep up. I am just an average MAMIL after all and no one really cares if I I knock 30 seconds off my 10 mile time. Increasingly, I am becoming less bothered too and as I get older I'm going to have to put in significantly more work just to stay still.
So I want to change the way I ride and why I ride and I think I have found it.
Audax.
What on Earth is Audax? Well, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure. It's described as something between touring and a time trial; a kind of long distance touring ride event with time requirements in order to get to the control points by a designated time. They are usually fairly long with 100, 200, 300, 400 and even 600km events. The fact is that they are on more picturesque, quiet, hilly routes and they seem a bit more sociable. Not that the people I have met and competed in in time triallling are not sociable, just that when actually riding it. time trialling is by its very nature an individual experience.
Every four years the premiere event in the international audax calendar takes place, the Paris-Brest-Paris audax and the next one is in two years' time. It's 1200kms long, which in anyone's book is a very long way. That's quite hard. The other hard bit is that to qualify to ride it by ridding a 200, 300, 400 and 600km event in the run up to PBP. So a big goal but one I can do at a more sedate and sociable pace. The drawbacks? It seems that the most essential bit of kit an audax rider needs is a beard and I have always found one quite difficult to grow. Still, I've got a two year head start..
Thursday, 31 August 2017
Tuesday, 1 August 2017
Outlaw Triathlon
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| Nice socks |
I had forgotten how much kit and preparation doing a triathlon takes, but Simon and I enjoyed the buzz of the day before, mooching around the expo and eating lots of carbs before the rain came.
Swim
The Outlaw swim is as easy at it gets, at least in terms of sighting. Quite simply, one mile up the rowing lake in a straight line, a 200 metre leg across the top and then swim in a straight line back. I love a mass swim start; you can literally feel the energy in the water as everyone sets out, finding their own space. Simon and I seeded ourselves at the back of the second pen and that seemed ok as we had clear water for the first 300 meters, but then the swimmers for the other two pens to our right came across and there was a couple of minutes of breaststroke and biff before it settled down again. I swam the entire leg on my own as I couldn't find any feet swimming straight, so gave up. I exited the water in 1:15:xx which was pretty much what I expected.
T1
Saw Simon in transition, he had exited just 6 seconds before me. Lots of vaseline on my feet. I wore my one piece tri suit but put my favourite cycle shorts over them for extra cushioning and I wore compression socks for the first time. The weather forecast was for rain later in the bike so I wore my Kask helmet but without the visor. 7.5 minutes.
Bike
So this was going to be my strongest discipline but the plan was to bike really steadily to at least give my legs a chance to run afterwards, so the plan was to sit on 20mph which should give me a 5:35 ish bike split. Basically, that's exactly what happened and I ended up rolling back into Holme Pierrpoint in 5:38:xx. I really, really enjoyed it, but the first 40 miles were hard for a very different reason as basically everyone went past me and it took a lot for me to keep my effort reined in. Simon had mounted his bike at exactly the same time as me and he was off like a scalded rabbit and I was not to see him again for another 7 hours. From about 40 miles I started to steadily overtake other riders and as the miles went on I overtook a lot of people, many of them who I had seen go past me a couple of hours earlier. (I checked the results splits and in the end I moved up over 170 places).
As well as keeping to my planned easy pace, I was also conscious of ensuring that I was eating and I had a bit of an epiphany with this. I like simple, so I formed a simple plan. I filled up my top tube bag with 800 calories' worth of food, mainly crisps, jelly babies, crackers and snickers bars, so all I had to do was keep chomping on the items in there for the first 4 hours which would be my 200 calories per hour and then for the last hour and a half I would switch to High5 energy drink, so that I would not be consuming solid food immediately before starting the run. It worked a treat, although I would have liked more savory food. The crisps and crackers soon turned to dust and I was trying to scoop the remnants out although they coated the jelly babies well enough, so I had a ready made sweet and savory mix.
The big thing that time trialling has taught me has been to keep aero and I stayed on the bars pretty much the whole way. When the wind got up later in the morning there were a lot of riders on very expensive tt bikes sitting bolt upright in the wind, gaining no benefit from their machines at all, which just seemed completely daft. The course is very flat although there are a few very gentle rises over bridges and the like, but every time the road went up I put my chain onto the small chainring and increased my cadence. I really did try to defend my quads at every opportunity and I had no qualms about it. The last few miles I took it easy over the rough road back into Holme Pierrepont and started to mentally gather myself for the next 26 miles.
T2
Jelly legs getting off the bike, socks off, vaseline on my feet, socks and trainers back on. 7.5 mins
Run
I am used to that feeling of feeling great for the first few hindred metres of a triathlon run when ones legs haven't quite worked out what they are now doing and feel all light before the run muscles start to protest. Again, this happened, but weirdly, they didn't protest for another 13 miles. I set off feeling pretty fantastic actually, and by the time my Garmin found a satellite about 90 seconds later I was running 7:30 miles which was way too fast yet felt completely effortless. I had the common sense to immediately throw out the anchor but 8:15 miles felt about right, although still considerably faster than my 9 minute miles that I was expecting. So the plan was walk the aid stations and keep feeding little and often and just wait for the wheels to fall off and then do as little walking as I could manage. The first half felt really good and I kept to 8:15-30 miles depending on the spacing of the feed stations. When I gor to halfway and collected my second band the gantry clock was on 9:01, so amazingly a sub 11 finish was still quite comfortably on, but I could feel my legs and in particular my quads tightening. I was really chuffed that I had done everything right on the bike and I had started the run feeling very fresh, but ultimately I did not have the run conditioning in my legs to keep the pace going as cramp and muscular fatigue set in.
About half way around the second loop at 16 miles by Trent Bridge I caught Simon and this coincided with my first really bad spell. I took some coke on board and my stomach didn't like it, so I had a bit of a power walk while it settled, then started running again. As my quads tightened it just got harder and harder to get going as my legs were really painful before I settled into my shuffle, but I felt better as I was heading back to the lake and the final two laps of it. At 20 miles I had my worst part and I was in my biggest hole mentally. Everything hurt now and it was all I could do to keep my shuffle going between aid stations and I had to stop for a pee break and I tried to gather myself for the last 10km. I think by this stage it was getting a bit hotter and maybe I overheated, but I was feeling quite shaky, but a few handfuls of crisps, coke and electrolyte drink seemed to sort me out. Back to the shuffling.
As is the way with these things, I managed to pick up the pace a bit towards the end and even managed to finish with a 9:30 min mile. The finishing chute was very welcome and I stopped the clock at 11:28:09, a whole hour less than the Forestman. Much more importantly than that, I had a real blast.
As well as keeping to my planned easy pace, I was also conscious of ensuring that I was eating and I had a bit of an epiphany with this. I like simple, so I formed a simple plan. I filled up my top tube bag with 800 calories' worth of food, mainly crisps, jelly babies, crackers and snickers bars, so all I had to do was keep chomping on the items in there for the first 4 hours which would be my 200 calories per hour and then for the last hour and a half I would switch to High5 energy drink, so that I would not be consuming solid food immediately before starting the run. It worked a treat, although I would have liked more savory food. The crisps and crackers soon turned to dust and I was trying to scoop the remnants out although they coated the jelly babies well enough, so I had a ready made sweet and savory mix.
The big thing that time trialling has taught me has been to keep aero and I stayed on the bars pretty much the whole way. When the wind got up later in the morning there were a lot of riders on very expensive tt bikes sitting bolt upright in the wind, gaining no benefit from their machines at all, which just seemed completely daft. The course is very flat although there are a few very gentle rises over bridges and the like, but every time the road went up I put my chain onto the small chainring and increased my cadence. I really did try to defend my quads at every opportunity and I had no qualms about it. The last few miles I took it easy over the rough road back into Holme Pierrepont and started to mentally gather myself for the next 26 miles.
T2
Jelly legs getting off the bike, socks off, vaseline on my feet, socks and trainers back on. 7.5 mins
Run
I am used to that feeling of feeling great for the first few hindred metres of a triathlon run when ones legs haven't quite worked out what they are now doing and feel all light before the run muscles start to protest. Again, this happened, but weirdly, they didn't protest for another 13 miles. I set off feeling pretty fantastic actually, and by the time my Garmin found a satellite about 90 seconds later I was running 7:30 miles which was way too fast yet felt completely effortless. I had the common sense to immediately throw out the anchor but 8:15 miles felt about right, although still considerably faster than my 9 minute miles that I was expecting. So the plan was walk the aid stations and keep feeding little and often and just wait for the wheels to fall off and then do as little walking as I could manage. The first half felt really good and I kept to 8:15-30 miles depending on the spacing of the feed stations. When I gor to halfway and collected my second band the gantry clock was on 9:01, so amazingly a sub 11 finish was still quite comfortably on, but I could feel my legs and in particular my quads tightening. I was really chuffed that I had done everything right on the bike and I had started the run feeling very fresh, but ultimately I did not have the run conditioning in my legs to keep the pace going as cramp and muscular fatigue set in.
About half way around the second loop at 16 miles by Trent Bridge I caught Simon and this coincided with my first really bad spell. I took some coke on board and my stomach didn't like it, so I had a bit of a power walk while it settled, then started running again. As my quads tightened it just got harder and harder to get going as my legs were really painful before I settled into my shuffle, but I felt better as I was heading back to the lake and the final two laps of it. At 20 miles I had my worst part and I was in my biggest hole mentally. Everything hurt now and it was all I could do to keep my shuffle going between aid stations and I had to stop for a pee break and I tried to gather myself for the last 10km. I think by this stage it was getting a bit hotter and maybe I overheated, but I was feeling quite shaky, but a few handfuls of crisps, coke and electrolyte drink seemed to sort me out. Back to the shuffling.
As is the way with these things, I managed to pick up the pace a bit towards the end and even managed to finish with a 9:30 min mile. The finishing chute was very welcome and I stopped the clock at 11:28:09, a whole hour less than the Forestman. Much more importantly than that, I had a real blast.
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