Feeling the love again

I guess it has a lot to do with the improved weather, but cycling has become a joy again after spending the last couple of months or so feeling that I was getting nowhere. Saturday was a little frustrating. After my unexpected pb the Wednesday bafore I was entered for the SCCU 10 time trial, which was to be my first ever 10 not on the G10/42 course. The G10/57 is meant to be a much faster course and it was a beautiful morning with very little wind. It looked like my first sub 24 was well and truly on. I had picked up my number, got my tt bike prepped and swung a leg over it to spin the 10 minutes to the start, only to be told the event was cancelled after the first few riders had started as some unexpected roadworks popped up. Although it was a 30 mile round trip, I was much more annoyed about not starting and getting a time. Safety first and all that, but frustrating all the same.

I helped marshal a road race in the afternoon, which was a new and interesting experience. I thought that I would just be pointing the peleton down a road, but no. At one point I was standing in the middle of the road, hiding behind a large red flag as a car drove at me a 40 mph. Thankfully, he stopped. :-)  The bike outriders were grumpy and so was the commissarie, who may have forgotten that I had given up almost my whole Saturday to help out (unpaid). I don't expect eternal gratitude but the odd 'please' and 'thank you' wouldn't have gone amiss.  Think I'll stick to tting. A much more friendly bunch.

I saw this picture on Facebook the other day.

How not to ride up Boxhill.

Only yesterday I was cycling up and over Boxhill on my commute home when a lovely little canard microlight flew directly overhead. I was completely transfixed for a few seconds and very nearly did exactly the same as this fella. At least there was no one around to see.

A bit chuffed

It was the second evening tt last night and I got a pb! 24:04, which is a 3 second improvement on last year, addmitedly on a full tt outfit unlike last year, so there should still be a lot more to come. I really want to see 23:xx before the season is out.

An update

I have been ticking along with my training, enjoying a few different sessions but not really pulling up any trees. I’ve had lots of other things going on so it’s been a case of just do what I can, when I can. I suppose the really nice thing has been my first evening 10 of the season aboard the Argon in full tt trim (although I have managed to lose my tt helmet, doh). The deep section Planet x wheels felt great and I really noticed three things. Any form of cross wind makes for a dicey situation when running the 80mm deep front wheel. Tubs roll beautifully and the ride through the aluminium frame felt a lot smoother. And lastly, they are very slippy through the air, which I noticed most on the couple of rises on the G10/42 course with the bike carrying a lot more speed through the down hills, requiring less effort when stamping on the pedals climbing up the other side. I achieved a 25:02, and while I gave it a good go and that's almost a minute down on my best time last season, that’s a time I am really please with in light of my current fitness and I am confident that I will be going sub 24 before too long.

I have had a few Sunday rides with Simon and we cycled out to the G10/42 course again and 2-upped it, trying to drop each other off our wheels. He was too strong for me at the end but it was a proper hurtbox session which I need plenty more of, sandwiched into a solid 50 mile ride. I am trying something new on the turbo by mixing up my standard long interval sessions and including some much higher intensity sets with maximum efforts over short 30seconds-2 minutes intervals with a longer recovery. I just fancy trying something new and seeing what effect that it might have and whether more lactate threshold work will benefit my 10 / 25 / 50 tting.

The other bit of news I have is that I will be doing the sprint version of the Alpe d’ Huez race. This is down to logistics of getting there in time; having enough time to register and set up camp. The sprint race is on the Thursday so gives us a lot more time to get to the Alps and enjoy the experience. It’s all relative in terms of it being a sprint as I still have to drag my lardy carcass up Alpe ‘d Huez, but I will have a couple more days to recover from the Thunder run too. I have entered the Grafman Half Ironman, and while my cycling and running are steadily improving, swimming, once again, has gone awol.  Time to go to the pool.

The blues

I'm desperately trying to summon up some enthusiasm to train but it's proving hard. I'm definitely not firing on all cylinders which obviously doesn't help but even with that as an excuse/reason, I'm just not very good at the moment. I tried to kick-start some mojo by going out with Simon on Sunday around a lumpy and scenic route that we have ridden quite a bit in the past. It takes in a lot of short, steep climbs up Coldharbour, Holmbury Hill, Coombe Bottom and Crocknorth, and we normally finish with Boxhill. It is a very pretty route and normally this is enough to take my mind off any problems that I might be having but this time I just couldn't get into any form of rhythm when going uphill; constantly changing gear, my position on the bars and even stopping on a couple of occasions to remove or put on items of clothing, just as an excuse to stop. It was a solid 50 miles which normally would leave me with a happy glow, but I wheeled my bike into the garage when I got home and was glad to see the back of it.

The organiser of the SCCU Sporting 21 TT which I (barely) completed a couple of weeks back, was kind enough to send me a picture of my suffering. It made me realise that I need to lose some timber around my middle if I want to get a bit faster this season.



Suffering

A slight change of fortune

After a few weeks of very little training I was going to get firmly back on the horse last week only for me to pick up a sore throat and ear ache. Nothing major, I think mainly due to feeling run down and stressed out at work, so I took the decision to kick back and let itself sort itself out before doing anything major. Thankfully I was over the worst of it by the time Sunday came around as we had a long ride to Worthing and back scheduled. This was going to be my first long ride of the year (over 50 miles at any rate) and with my dire performances in the time trials so far this season I was a little apprehensive about how it would go. The idea was that Kingston Phoenix would have 2 groups setting off, one 15 minutes before the other, with the faster group starting second and then hopefully catching the slow group en route. There was a healthy number set out in the slow group but the fast group consisted of only Simon and I, so situation normal. It was a shame that there were not more with us but it gave us the opportunity to work hard. I ensured that I was really fuelled up and ate loads of carbs the night before and had an enormous bowl of porridge in the morning. I didn't want to bonk again like I had a few weeks before.

The weather was grim; cold rain for nearly the whole ride and a stiff headwind all the way out. So it was a simple task of working at a good tempo effort for as long as possible, sharing the work with Simon and getting some good quality dual carriageway miles in the bank. I was fully expecting my legs to go pop quite soon but after the last few weeks I was in a fairly belligerent mood and just thought, 'stuff it'. No point sitting up taking it easy when I've got a full tt season to do and the Alpe d' Huez to climb. Do your worst A24.

I loved every minute of it. It was one of those rides where everything just clicked and even the hard bits felt good.  We caught the other group at Dorking after they had stopped to pick up a few more riders and then pushed on by ourselves. Simon is in great form and where I was able to be glued behind his wheel coming home with a healthy tailwind and clipping along at an effortless 27-28 miles per hour was a real blast. I took my turns on the front and they were tough but being hunkered down on the drops trying to make myself as aero as possible, forcing myself to push a bigger gear was what I needed.

Maybe it was being back on my road bike? Maybe I just expected so little from the ride and any form of improvement would be a blessing? Maybe it was just a change of attitude? I don't know, but I enjoyed every hour of it (especially the coffee and chicken sandwich on the way home) and it has been a massive confidence boost. I did tire quite a bit in the last 10 miles and Simon skipped effortlessly away from me as we climbed up and over the hill outside Dorking, but with 70 miles done already and the first signs of real fatigue in my legs I was a happy chappy. 80 miles in total in just over 4 hours were numbers that at this stage I am very happy with. Onwards.

Taking a hit

Fast bike, slow rider

The last three weeks have seen my training stall completely with me only managing a couple of hours each week. This has mainly been down to work and life stuff which I just was not able to balance up; having to work late meant that I was just too wiped to do a session at night. This has also led to me eating absolute rubbish as well, which is a complete double whammy. Virtually zero training and a steady gain in weight as I attack another pack of crisps, does not make an endurance athlete, even a mediocre one.

There will be a few changes in the Wheezy household next year and I am going to have to change the way and time that I train accordingly. I am going to have to start trying to get some sessions in early in the morning before work so that I can have my evenings free for concentrate on family and work commitments.

My bike fitness has really taken a dive. I did a 25 mile tt three weeks ago which although was slow, felt fairly comfortable, but then last week I did a Sporting 21TT. 'Sporting' in TT terminology means 'lumpy' or 'slow'. I was very, very slow. The first 10 mile loop was uncomfortable with the second one just being downright awful. To add insult to injury I properly bonked on the 15 mile cycle home trying to say on Simon and Brian's wheels as we spun slowly home and I couldn't even do that. Today was a little better at the SCCU Sporting 10. I was able to hit it a bit harder but a long 28 when I should have been doing a low 26 is pretty hard to stomach. Tomorrow is the last SCCU Sporting event of the early season, the Sporting 25. I intend to get there early and try to get a few miles in before the start to bulk the ride out a bit and then use the tt as training. I am simply finding it too hard at the moment to push any form of hard effort without red-lining very early.

I have the Alpe D'Huez triathlon in a few months time and I am going anaerobic on the smallest rise in the road. I am going to hit the hills really hard over the Easter break and try to claw some fitness back;  I think that I might even need some double bike days. The last month or so has shown me that in cycling, at my level at least, nothing beats volume.

Owned

With the sun shining it was time to get the Argon out of the shed and get some tt miles under my belt, So Simon and I headed out early this morning to take in part of the 25 route that will be the first tt of the year, next week. This was the closest I was able to get to Simon all morning.


On the Mickelham Bends below Boxhill

I had absolutely nothing in the tank at all and it's just down to not getting enough volume done on the bike, so the first few time trials of the season are going to smart a bit. Simon was looking pretty bombproof again, making it all look so easy. I'll be playing catch up again this season.


It was great being on the Argon though; the downhills were a lot of fun. A couple of hours with 36 miles on the clock including a stop for a bulging tyre. Very odd.

Running continues to progress with my legs feeling strong. Still not doing any speedwork and just concentrating on solid, easy miles.

Exciting times

As I said at the end of my last post I still had not entered a triathlon. Well now I have. :-)

The original idea had been to go to friends who live in France and then do Embrunman but unfortunately we just couldn't make it work for reasons I won't bore you with. Anyway, while sorting out our holiday it became clear that there was a possibility that I could do the Alpe d'huez triathlon before doing the rest of the holiday.  There was a bit of a problem with this plan however, in that I am already committed to the Thunder Run which takes place on the Sunday with the d'Huez triathlon on the following Wednesday. Oooffff. That's quite a heavy workload and I spent a week or so thinking about it before signing up. At the end of the day I want to enjoy myself and I am not fussed about how fast I go in France. I just want to ride up some really big mountains and enjoy myself so I ll just stick the Van Nic in the 28 sprocket and winch myself up. Simples.

I am very excited.

February

The weather has definitely dampened my enthusiasm to get out and play on the bike in the last couple of weeks. I have been getting one or two turbo sessions in per week, continually fiddling and tinkering with my tt position but I have not actually been out on a bike in a couple of weeks. My usual commute rides have not happened with a mixture of cba and having to carry lots of luggage to and from work. Even with a Ti framed bike, that's not conducive to a good training ride so the turbo it is. Yesterday I managed my first commute ride over Boxhill; my standard 1 hour ish ride home when I have the time. I felt completely rubbish. I actually got off my bike to see if the rear brake was rubbing, but it wasn't. I just seemed to have very little power to turn the cranks. My bike fitness just seems to have seeped away somewhere.

However, My running is going well, probably too well. Something is bound to happen soon but at the moment I am riding the crest of a wave. My #Jantastic three runs per week remains intact and last week I even did four runs, with an additional 20 minute dreadmill run on Friday. On Sunday I ran 14.5 miles with Paul, a friend who is running London in two months and we bimbled around Altringham with a few of his mates on one of the few dry and sunny mornings of the month. It was a very easy steady run, over hills and dales, running new trails and afterwards I felt great.

I have entered the Abingdon Marathon in October with some guys from Tritalk who inhabit the 'Sub 3 hour thread.' I have been a serial lurker on there for a few years and while at this stage sub 3 is not likely a 3:15 gfa time would be a good thing to aim for. I'm looking at a much longer lead-in with less intense training in a bid to get to the start line fit. I was worried that three runs would not be enough but I seem to have achieved a nice balance of work and rest and in particular my lower legs do not feel continually battered and sore.

Other than the Abingdon Marathon I have been very lax about entering more events as I am saving up for some deep section rims for the Argon but I need to think about a final event for the #Jantastic challenge. At the very least I could go for a 5km Park Run but a half marathon would probably be more useful, but to predict a time at the moment would be pretty hard to do. I genuinely have no idea where I would stand. Ultimately, I don't really care as I am swimming, cycling AND running for the first time in a long while. Happy days.

First race of the year

I took part in my first running race yesterday since I did the London Marathon in April last year. Woop woop me. It was the Human Race Iceman 16km trail run on the Army training grounds in Frimley. I had entered it a few months ago as something to give my running a bit of a focus over the winter and I wanted to do something a bit different. Human Race events tend to get a bit of a bad press for the cost of their events and at £27 this was not cheap for what it was, but it was a very well organised event over an interesting and tough course.

My major problem on turning up was that I was not wearing running shorts, instead opting for lycra leggings which I normally never wear except on the bike, over cycle shorts. I looked ridiculous and resembled a skinny beetle with weak lower limbs. I was very self conscious.

I knew it was going to be fairly hilly and with only a handful of 8 and 10 mile runs over very flat terrain under my belt, the plan was simple. Start very steadily, stay running steadily and then see how I was feeling over the last few kilometres if it was possible to push the pace a bit. So on the hooter most of the field left me standing while I set off at a trot. We all spent the first few miles trying to avoid the puddles before we all realised that this was going to be impossible and we might as well just run through. The first large loop started easily enough before we encountered the first few hills. They were all very short and very steep and before long people were walking up them. This was where I found I was able to begin overtaking quite a few people who had gone out way too fast.

After the first loop I was feeling very comfortable and then came the next loop, run twice, which was apparently the hardest part of the course. It started with a wide flat bridle path that was gently rolling, followed by quite a narrow technical section through woods. After this came the hills. Well, actually it was one hill but we ran up it about 6 times. Once per lap I had to walk as people had stopped in front of me and as it was single track there was no way around them until we reached the top. The first time was a lot of fun and I was overtaking people steadily and even picking up the pace steadily on the flat sections. The second of the small laps did start to sting a bit, but I just kept picking people off and even had enough at the end for a sprint finish. 32nd out of 270 and 6th in my age group on minimal training, but most importantly my achilles and calves held together over a tough course and I had a lot of fun. Maybe, just maybe, I'm getting my running legs back.  :-)

A solid start

I'm a happy chappy because I'm running regularly again. I've used the Marathon Talk podcast's Jantastic Spring motivation challenge to give me a bit of focus but the main thing compared to previous years is I have reduced the number of weekly runs. For the past two years I have tried, and failed, to do 5 runs per week during Jantastic. This has ended up with me breaking down spectacularly well before April. This time, it's 3 runs per week. Quite simply a couple of easy 30-40 minute runs and one longer one at the weekend. Last weekend I did 8 miles including some fartlek for the middle 4 miles. It was lots of fun  and the fastest I have run for a very very long time. Yesterday Simon and I went to Richmond Park and got 11 slow miles in; the longest I have run since the London Marathon back in April. I need to just keep on doing what I can with 3 runs per week and enjoying it.

It's hardly been cycling weather recently so my cycling has been sporadic, usually involving a quick session on the turbo and commuting bits and pieces. I'm still tinkering with my position on the Argon. I raised the set by 2mm last week and it made a massive difference, opening up my hip angle so that I felt that I was able to breathe much more easily. It doesn't take a genius to work out that being able to get oxygen down into my lungs will significantly help my power output.

As usual swimming is the thing that seems to get hit but I'm not stressing too much about it. In a few months when the lakes open again then I'll start to try to get wet more regularly. At the moment a hard one hour session a week at Kingfisher will do with the odd second swim when I can. It's all good.

2013

So it's the end of the year. Time to look back at what could have been, nearly was and what was  actually achieved. I have just logged onto my Training Peaks account to find out some numbers for this year.

 I have cycled over 2500 miles this year not including turbo sessions. I have spent 165 hours on a bike. This totalled 70% of my training time.  Baring in mind that I didn't really get onto a bike properly until around May I'm quite pleased with the bike numbers and I've enjoyed the training and tting that I have done. I knocked almost a minute off my 10 mile tt time this year so I must be doing something right. Next year I will be working hard to get my tt times down. In particular I would like to go under the hour for a 25 tt. That's quite a big target but I should get there or thereabouts. I am very confident of new pbs in all tt distances with me being on board a new set of wheels and with a very solid base of bike miles now in my legs. I won a few club events which was nice, but ultimately I have really enjoyed my time on the bike this year. It's been a real highlight of all the things that I have done.

I have run for 385 miles which has taken me 47 hours. This was 20% of my training time
The year started well with a comeback pb over a half marathon (1:27:50) but after that running has been very frustrating. Yes, I got round the London Marathon but it wasn't very pretty and I am still nowhere near achieving a sub 3 hour time. The vast majority of my running has been zone 2 steady running, which is ok, but I enjoy the faster stuff a lot more and my body responds well to it; well, the aerobic part of me. To be honest, I'm just not sure my muscles, tendons and ligaments have got it in it to cope with the training required to do this and gradually I am starting to see that this is a bit unrealistic at the moment. I think that I can cope with 3 gentle plods per week and at the moment that is going to have to suffice. That said, to do a much quicker Ironman race than my current best effort does not actually require a fast run off the bike, I just need to be able to run off the bike, slowly, and I'll get a pb.  My running fitness is going to have to be earned on the bike.

I swum 27,000 metres which took me 13.5 hours. This was 5.5% of my training time
I need to swim more.

In total I have averaged 4.5 hours exercise per week.
This doesn't sound very much and lower than I thought but there was quite a lot of inactivity between late February and April when my back injury flared up as I ramped up the mileage towards the London Marathon. This only works out at about 35 minutes per day, but it's been enough to see me keep my weight under control and stay relatively fit and healthy. I'll take that. The percentages I have quoted above are in the right ball park but skewed by the fact the first 3 months were run heavy and the last 6 months have been bike heavy. If I can get that more balanced throughtout the year then that will be a really good start.

Have I enjoyed it? Thankfully, yes. Despite not doing enough racing I have really enjoyed most of my training. It would be nice if I could start a training schedule and stick with it before injury strikes.

I am targeting going long again next year. It maybe that I have to be realistic and enter a half or two rather than the full IM distance. There are a couple of races that are grabbing my attention but at the moment nothing is entered. The Anglian or Cotswold 226 long course races looks like fun. To be honest, I'm still dreaming about Enbrunman but that looks like it's still on the back burner and will have to wait another year.


These were my targets for the year that I wrote at the beginning of 2013.

1. Marathon PB. Currently 3.18. Realistically, sub 3.10 should be doable, sub 3 on a stellar day, sub 3.15 for a London marathon 'good for age' time as a minimum.

Nope, not even close. But did run another marathon which is never a bad thing.

 2. Olympic tri; sub 2.20. Qualifying for the World's is very unlikely but sub 2.20 may well be within my grasp if I can....

Nope, not close to this one either. I didn't actually do a triathlon this year. My early season injuries just didn't give me the confidence or hope to try.

 3. PB my 10 and 25 mile tt times. Ideally 23.30 for a 10. I'll probably need to invest in some aero help to achieve that, but you can never own enough bikes.

Well, one out of three isn't too bad.  ;-) 

So, targets for 2014.

Go long again. No time to aim for, Just get to the start line. At the moment that will be enough.
Sub 1hr for 25m time trial.

Thanks for reading. Have a great new year.

Not quite going to plan

Following a solid month of cycling and commuting I have spent the whole of this week resting. I just ended up finding myself being really tired and no amount of sleep was helping to relieve how I was feeling. I knew that trying to train through it all would have been counter-productive so I decided to kick back and relax as we head into Christmas. I started to get back into it this morning with a very relaxed 30 minute run and tomorrow I will have another bimble around Surrey on the bike.

So next season. Well, it's all changed already. I was hoping to enter Embrunman for 2014 but it's not happening now. Unfortunately the date just doesn't fit with some other things that we have planned as a family so my European IM debut will have to wait for another season. As a result I've decided to not use Coach Cox for my training plans anymore. His plans were great but as I only had the one goal in mind, the ascent of the Col D' Izoard and then to run a marathon afterwards I decided to call time. It's a big shame but there's a few other things for me to focus on.

Firstly, the Thunder Run. A group of us are going to enter this 24 hour running event as a team of 8. I heard about it via the Marathon Talk podcast and it just seemed like a really good fun event. Hopefully we will all run the equivalent of around 30km over the day and night while camping in the Derbyshire Dales. What's not to like? In order to help get the ball rolling I am going to be taking part in Jantastic again this year, but I am reining it in a bit. Instead of 5 runs per week which has seen me crocking myself for the past two years I will be capping it at 3 in order that I can get to the start line uninjured.

Secondly, I have become the TT Secretary of the Kingston Phoenix which will mean I am responsible for organising our evening 10s and promoting time trialling within the club. With that in mind there is a group of us looking at doing the National 24hr TT in June which should be quite a laugh and is the focus I need at the moment. So, some new things and some disappointments, but hey, it's only a hobby.