Parkrun #7

19:18 34/994

No stupidly long warm up this time. Just a quick 800 m jog and then straight to the start. I put myself much nearer the front and found myself galloping along at my usual pace much more quickly, although my legs were a bit heavy initially. It was a pretty windy day so the middle leg felt quite slow (my Garmin has decided not to send any data to my laptop so I don't have any pace info at all), but I was still overtaking a few people in the last kilometre. I started my sprint too early and got overhauled on the line by a whipper snapper. Still it was a comeback pb, so pretty pleased. Wheezy Junior did his second Parkrun and set a new pb by over 30 seconds as well, so that was a great effort. I think he'll be going sub 22 before too long.

Other than that. not a lot to report. Running is going ok but no real long runs but I am keeping the faster running going. I've got to get some time in the saddle at some point as my first Sporting tt is this weekend and it's going to be a horrible one. 27 hilly miles on no real training whatsoever. It's going to hurt. A lot.

Parkrun #6

22:34mins. 127/907


A disappointing end to the week in this morning's Parkrun. This also constituted my long run for #Jantastic so I had to get 12 miles under my belt.  A steady 3 laps to start with which I began at 7:30am felt ok although my Achilles tendons were particularly tight at the start. I got swallowed up at the start of the ParkRun proper and as a result pushed too hard the opening 2 kms. It had rained all night and it was very slippy underfoot and the first kilometre was very boggy and I found it very hard to get into any form of rhythm. By the time we got onto the gravel path things were a bit better and I could see that I was in my usual place at around 30th ish position. Normally by the time we get to halfway I am feeling strong and start to overtake quite a few people but I really noticed that I was going the other way and struggling. I had had a busy week's training and had got 7 sessions in and I was beginning to pay for this. As we ran past the playground I could feel my pace tailing off but I was hanging onto the group that I was with.

Only the final tight left hand turn to negotiate around the playground so I deftly avoided the large muddy puddle on the bend and planted my foot firmly on what remained of the path, only to find my leg skidding beneath me on loose gravel. I was down before I even registered that I had lost my footing and took the full impact on my left knee and hip. To add insult to injury I also found myself in the puddle that I had been trying to avoid in the first place. I've come off my bike a fair few times but I have to say that this was the most painful accident that I have ever had training or racing. I have left a lot of skin in bushy Park.

I have just looked at my Strava log for the event and I had blown pretty badly before then. The first 3 kms had all been around 4 minutes, but my 4th one was 4:12! I've been doing a lot of speed work and some turbo sessions but I have not been recovering enough. I don't think the 15kms I ran beforehand had as much to do with it as the training during the week. It looks like that next week will be an enforced recovery week anyway as I am finding it hard to bend my leg at the moment. Sub-optimal. Lesson learnt.

Parkrun #5

22:37 234/1079

Somewhat slower, but this was a blast. It was Wheezy Junior's first Parkrun so we spent the first 4km together. he did brilliantly and really enjoyed it, and unlike me when I was his age, he didn't sprint the first 400 metres then end up walking. (The number of times I used to do that....). Just a really solid, consistent pace throughout. We has run the first 1km and last kilometre as a warm up so that he would have a good idea of what to expect and to recognise a few landmarks in the last kilometre. When we got to the playground I pushed on and ended up overtaking 35 other runners but Wheezy Junior was only 30 seconds behind. A top effort.

The next day I met up with Simon for a very lumpy 3 hour ride, taking in Coldharbour Lane, Leith Hill and Whitedown. I have to say that considering my complete lack of base miles I felt pretty good. Simon was having a tough time as he just has not been able to get out on the bike at all in the last few months and he kept getting dropped. Once we start racing I'm sure his fitness will return and I'll be eating his dust as usual, but it seems that his metaphoric hill is a larger one to climb at the moment.

I seem to have found a pretty good pattern to my weekly training. 3-4 runs, with nearly all of them including some form of speed work or faster running, even if just a few fartlek efforts. My commute cycling, again, with some form of hard effort at some point, and finally a longish ride to burn a few calories. I don't think I'll be setting the TT world alight in the early season but I do feel like some form of fitness is creeping in. It will be interesting to see how  go in the next few parkruns and whether any meaningful chunks of time will be shaved off. It would be nice to think that I can dip under 19:30 and start to think about sub 19 in the next 6 weeks or so. Just the small matter of staying injury free.

Parkrun #3 and #4

#3  19:31  41/1154

#4 19:45 29/844   8th MV40-45

Once again a gradual decline due to not enough training. A bonkers couple of weeks at work left me doing a very minimal amount of training. Both these runs were bulked out to 6.5 miles by running a slow warm up lap. Saturday's run was very wet and slippy underfoot with lots of sleet making it squinty and difficult to see. The last few hundred metres I really blew up and got overtaken by a couple of other runners. The plan is to get back to running four times per week and getting a quality interval session in.

Yesterday I went for a slow bimble with Simon, covering 11.5 miles in just over 90 minutes and it was my longest run in quite a while. The hills were a struggle but no major worries and it was good to get a few miles under my belt.

Parkrun #2 17/01/15

19:28  36/1219 7th MV40-45

An odd one, this time. I was going to start nearer the front  but with about two minutes to go to the start I suddenly found about another 150 people in front of me. Where did they come from? There were also pacers this time and once the starter set us off I saw the 20 minute pacer almost 100 metres in front of me as I dodged and weaved to try to find some open space to run in. It was well over a kilometre into the run before I got near him and cruised at the back of the pack until halfway, before pushing on a bit. Like last week, by the time I got to the playground I was barely hanging on but |I managed to hold off a couple of fast finishers for 36th place and a failry solid sub 20 time. There were quite a few more MV 40-45 runners so I got pushed a bit further down, but a good run, nonetheless. I think with a clear run in the first kilo that there might be a free 10 seconds to be had but I think that it's going to be fairly mediocre gains (if at all) for a few weeks.

Cycling has been very limited. My short commute rides on Monday and Tuesday, a 45 minute turbo last night and another one tonight. Small gains but its something.

Parkrun #1 10.01

20:06 33rd 4th MV

A great start considering I've done no speed or conditioning work for a very long time. I did a slow warm up lap to try to get my legs firing before the off. It was dry but very windy, with a nice tailwind in the 2nd km and a headwind in the 4th. The usual cavalry charge down the first straight when I left everyone burn off and by the first turn I was overtaking a steady stream of runners. I felt great through the first 3kms and knowing the wind was going to be in my face very soon I worked hard to get in a pack of 10 runners about 10 metres ahead. Instead of sitting tight for a bit I kept going and so found myself pretty exposed afterwards. The last km was just about hanging on. I was exactly a minute slower than my last parkrun, but in the circumstances it was great start to the year.

I've ridden a couple of 1 hour rides home from work and a couple of other runs for the week, so steady if unspectacular week of training.

Muppet

So I got everything organised last night to go and do my first ParkRun of the year. Printed off my barcode, charged my Garmin, got my kit ready, set my alarm. A great night's sleep and I woke myself up at 7am. Only it wasn't 7am. It was 8:50am.  My alarm clock had decided to have a wobbly owing to some duff batteries so yes, I missed the start of the ParkRun which starts at 9am precisely. Vexed doesn't begin to cover it. Anyway, a gentle 5mile plod at 8:10 miling instead so not all bad.

Onwards.

2015

I suppose that I should look back at the year and write a load of posts about the mileage and time that I have spent training, but I can't be bothered. :-)

The last 8 weeks have seen very little going on with my training and hence the lack of blog posts. I've been doing a couple of runs a week but nothing structured and cycling has been even more random and sporadic. My Van Nic lies broken in the garage after I managed to decimate one of my shifters owing to a very inconveniently sheared gear cable. So even if I wanted to get out and ride it, I couldn't. I have attempted a couple of very half-hearted turbo sessions as a compromise with mixed success. The turbo dungeon has been a particularly dreadful place to be this winter.

I have set myself one goal for the year and that's to do 30 Park Runs. My Saturday mornings are usually free and if I can commit to one 25 minute session per week then that's better than nothing. Yes, I want to ride a sub 60 25 tt and a few other things but I will worry about those things as and when and running is just a lot easier to do at the moment.

If anyone finds my mojo then please return it as soon as possible. Thank you.

Minimal Ironman training

Up until a few weeks ago I was doing very little exercise and I was really missing it. When I did bimble out for a run to ride it really helped me to de-stress and I remembered what I have been missing, but when time's tight it's easy to take the easy option and junk the planned run or ride in favour of something else. I tend to dislike the threads that I see on various triathlon forums that are titled 'What's the least amount of training I can get away with and still get around an Ironman?' It just seems all wrong to me. Shouldn't it be 'What's the most I can do in the time I have available and get around an Ironman?' That said, I have been paying a lot more attention to these ideas and training methods if I am to go long again at any time in the future.

Then again, there's the question, 'If I want to go sub(17/16/15/14/13/12/11/10) hours, what's the minimum amount of training I will need to do?' I know that I cannot set aside 20+ hours per week to train and to be honest, I don't want to anyway, as there are too many other factors in my life which are important to me. But, I would like to race long again and work towards a time goal, sub 12 as a minimum and sub 11 hours as a bit more of a stretch target. But how can I do that on the limited time that I have? I've read Fink from cover to cover and while there's some good advice in there the thought of following a 30 week schedule with a lot of early doors long aerobic work is not for me. I just don't think I have the dedication to follow something like that so religiously for so long.


So I started looking around for other ways of approaching Ironman training and I hunted around the tinterweb for some advice. 'My Secret Sauce' by Sami Inkinen, a Kona qualifier with a sub 9 personal best  discusses some points which turns a lot of conventional IM training wisdom on its head and makes really interesting. This blogpost came up with some really useful stuff too.

The common threads are a) biking on a turbo trainer, b) no brick workouts and c) no long runs.

While I'm cycling everyday to work, it's a very congested and short ride so just not suitable for specific cycle training. Now it's winter my Argon is bolted to the turbo so I can jump on and do a 45-90 minute specific turbo session which is a lot more time efficient than trying to get out on the bike.

I found a couple of posts, like the one here written by the excellent Coach Cox that also gave some pointers on time crunched Ironman training. 7-10 hours per week is considered minimal, so just over an hour per day and when you factor in a weekend bike of 2-3 hours that's only 4-6 hours of training during the rest of the week. The other key factor here which would really help me is only one session per day, rather than trying to squeeze in two per day. This means getting an early session in before work is potentially doable, particularly if it's a turbo session in the garage.

So, my thinking for the next few months is this;

1. No swim training at all. Forget it. I can swim and when I get nearer to the event then I'll stick my wetsuit on. At the moment it just isn't time efficient. If I were to do two swim sessions per week it might make me 10-15 minutes faster over an IM race; in the grand scheme of things this is not worth my time.
2. Turbo twice per week. One long interval session (based around 2x20 intervals) and one short interval session (based on 8-10 repeats of 2-5 minute efforts.)
3. One long ride per week; this might be an hour on the way home or a 2-3 hour Sunday ride.
4. A long run, no longer than 90 minutes in duration. I will put some fartlek efforts in their to add some variability and speed.
5. One 30-40 minute run with intervals.

This will give approximately 7 hours per week, which in anyone's book is minimal Ironman training. The last three weeks have seen me start the process of adopting the above strategies. The turbo sessions have been hard work but they have already started to pay dividends. I went on a slow ride with Simon yesterday, just to catch up and have a coffee, but we climbed Crocknorth Road, one of my favourite hills and I felt pretty good the whole way up, even getting to the bridge before Simon, which has not happened in over a year. This year's season has given me the impetus to kick on next year and go long again. Let's see how little I can do to do it.

cycling 10 times per week

That's the truth. I am. Which is really great, but unfortunately as it's only a two mile commute trip from work to home and back it doesn't really count as quality miles under my belt. I have a further confession to make. I bought myself an ebay special for the journey as I didn't want to use the Van Nic for it and I had sold my langster a few months back. The commute bike is a GT Nomad bought for £50. My confession is that I then went out and bought a rack and panniers to cart my stuff around in. I am a fully paid up cycle commuter which I feel very smug about. The traffic is heavy and my bike is perfect for it and it's downhill nearly all the way in the mornings. I am saving myself a fortune in petrol and feeling very smug. With a lack of racing and training I have got myself into a few commuter races, for example drafting off a rider in full OPQS team gear while I'm riding in a shirt and tie. A small and inconsequential win.

I've been doing no training at all except the odd hour here and there. I just don't have the headspace for it at the moment but I need to find some time for something. My target of 20 miles per day in my last post is now laughable in the extreme. 4 miles per day will have to do for now.

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.