Update!

So I've been getting really slack lately (Not just updating this blog!), I've written about lack of mojo before now, but unfortunately I'm really struggling at the moment, certainly less than ideal exactly a week before I'll be running the Outlaw Half Ironman Distance race. I'm beginning to think its a triathletes true calling to constantly be self analyzing and never being happy about current performance. I've also been finding my actual desire for the final IMUK goal waning, probably mostly down to pure self doubt, and being unhappy with training, rather than not wanting to race.

I'm more than happy with my swim fitness and technique. I even managed 1500m in open water this week to try out the 2xu wetsuit I got at Christmas time. Quite a bit different to my old Orca S4 which went missing at London Tri. Much better fit, and it seemed a lot more bouyant than I remember the S4 being. Could just be a bit of placebo though. I only stayed in for two laps, as it was seriously cold on the face! For sure I'll be going back for some more though as open water is so so much more enjoyably than pool reps! 1500m was done in under 25 mins, so looking at around 1:40/100m which I'd be happy to do at IM, and Outlaw! Faster than my time at London Triathlon last year too which is pleasing.

The root of the worries are still the bike leg unfortunately. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my bike fit, and the improvement that it made. Certainly it was a move in the right direction but I since did a few 60+ mile rides, every time I would get near the end of the ride only for my quads to absolutely give up. Something I've never really had on my road bike, where I'd be comfortable to go 100+ miles and not feel too shabby after. Something which could possibly be conducive to a decent IM performance!

So I decided to try and eliminate the differences in the road bike to the TT bike and bring them a little closer together, my thinking is that this will help things. So the first thing I did was change something completely unrelated, the handlebars!  (Sensible is my middle name!)

In fairness its something which has dogged the bike from day one, while flat extensions do look the dogs danglies, unless you have double jointed wrists they aren't the most comfortable for long distances. So I managed to get a set of Bontrager bars with J bend extensions, which are so much more comfortable, leaving your wrists at a natural angle. Also much lighter than the outgoing bars so a nice weight saving too. Bonus.

So arm comfort improved, another aspect that has varied from road to TT bike has been the chainset. Now I ride a compact 50/34 with 172.5mm arms on the roadie, and can spin circles very nicely, and the reason my quads don't feel smoked after a long ride on the roadie is that I activate my hamstrings  a lot more much more to spin circles, result they pain is shared more equally across all the active muscles. Something which I have since realised just doesn't happen on the TT bike, which has a 54/42 chainset with 175mm arms. Now, I have changed the 42 for a 39, to aid climbing, but it still doesn't allow the best climbing, and I always have to get out of the saddle for steepish climbs, so its something that has always been calling for change really. I've decided to now change this to a compact (50/34) with 172.5mm arms to match the roadie. Hopefully this will improve matters. Although due to delivery problems this will be debuted during Outlaw half. Hmm :/

The third thing I've recently changed is the saddle which was also causing me grief over distance. Now I've dabbled with ISM's before and got on fairly well, but the Prologue I have at the moment is just not working. Initially they always seem great, and work well, but over distance it just chafes the inner thigh way to much. Having worked out that I have narrow sitbones (no idea how as I seem to have plenty of junk in my trunk if you catch my drift) I just don't think I'm compatible. So in further quest for comfort I've gone back to a conventional specialized toupe. Another much lighter component than the outgoing item, Bonus 2.

All these weight savings have however been largely nullified by the addition of the profile design bottle cages I added to my seat however. The speedfil is only big enough for a couple hours riding so I needed another cage for extra, so I've dumped the saddle bag, and have tools in one bottle and drink in the other. Looks snazzy too!

Anyhow, I managed to get out this Saturday to try the new saddle (not the crankset, grrr) and to my delight it was much more comfortable, and whats more enable to me to engage the hamstrings and spin much better circles due to the alteration in position. Something which must have been thrown out due to the ISM saddle. My thoughts are that it just move me much too far forward. So changing to the compact should improve this even more hopefully.

Picture below, looking better than ever in my opinion. (I prefer the new crankset too, so once that's on it'll look even better. Important for it to look good, even if I am dog slow riding it.) Also undecided on what wheels to use for Outlaw, tubulars, or clinchers?!

The ride on Saturday was not my best though, I only managed 50 miles as I just wasn't feeling the full distance I had planned, also due to fiddling with the bike all week I set out without the ability to shift into the big ring (fail). I couldn't be bothered to stop to try and correct as it would take a while, so I spent the whole ride on the inner ring. Not too big a deal as the 54 ring is only really used on the very flat and or downhill but just another mental thing to wear me down.

Ride link: http://app.strava.com/activities/56192756

So I managed 50 miles in just under 2:40 which seems OK, and should see me to an Outlaw bike leg of just over three hours. My legs didn't feel too shabby afterwards either so all the improvements seem to have made a something of a difference, but I haven't had any time to really build confidence so its still a massive unknown.

Running, various life events, weddings, illness, work stress and long hours (Something which is relatively new to me, having recently moved to a new job) have all added up to my run volume being somewhat reduced. Usual Friday sessions have pretty much fallen by the wayside and run pace has been steady to say the least. Having said that I did manage a half marathon one past Sunday recently as a confidence builder. Slow and steady (2hrs) but I felt decent throughout. The subsequent Sunday I didn't run at all though, through just being a sloth and lack of motivation.

This week has been slightly better however, I've hit all the sessions, not the full distance on each that Fink prescribes but I can't expect to build from having done little one week to full again next week. Another reason why Outlaw is going to be a bit of a baptism of fire.

The way I see this at the moment though is that all of this drivel is going to result in two outcomes this time next week.

Option 1 (The preferred): All woes will be forgotten, after a great swim, a top bike leg with minimal fatigue and great average speed, followed by a decent run leg and a finish in sub 6 hours. I'm bolstered by this, my training for the full IM kicks up a gear and I begin to hit all key sessions. 

Option 2: The swim leg goes as expected, I all but blow up on the bike, and I shuffle around 13.2 miles of half marathon in severe pain and a time of a million hours. I'm completely washed out and have no confidence for the full distance, training takes a dive, and I write a blog crying about it!

So, tune in next week where I'll reveal my fate! Oh my days, why didn't I just stick to Olympic distance.

EDIT 28/05/13:

So Sunday had a really decent run, felt good throughout and finished with a strong last 3/4's of a mile, so that made me a bit happy to end the week with.

Also finally got the necessary spacers to fit my new s900 sram compact chainset which I'm pretty happy with. Here is to hoping it does me well, and the crank arms are an improvement. Love the exogram x-glide design too!

w/c 29/04/13 and Sprint Tri Race Report.

So this week began a little differently to those prior as I was due to be competing at my first race of the year, a sprint triathlon. So in all it was going to be a week mostly spent taking it pretty easy.

The weekend before however I visited a friend and took a whole weekend off exercise. So on Monday I felt so sluggish I had to hit the gym, and ended up doing 5k on the treadmill with some weights and a bit of core work. Great. Although this started to show on Wednesday after my other sessions that I was paying for Monday and hurting. I pushed through the sessions until Friday, and decided to skip the scheduled run as I was just beat.

Saturday was a pretty interesting day as I went to get my bike fit done on the Boardman TT bike. I had an hour spent in their studio on the turbo playing around with my position. In the end we didn't move too much, but its made a massive change to my comfort and power on the bike which is great!

Race Ready, looking good!

So along came Sunday and race day for the Sprint Tri, my first in this format (400m swim, 20km bike, 5km run)!

I got to the race nice and early to scope everything out and get my bike racked. I set my transition area up nice and tidily although it was a bit of a squeeze next to a lot of other competitors. Luckily the weather was great, sunny and around 15 degrees. Although there was a bit of wind, it would be a tailwind on the outward leg of the bike, and a headwind on the way in. Not too bad as it was mostly climbing on the way out and downhill on the way back! After I racked I got into my trisuit and went down to the swim. It all got going pretty quick and I was soon in the pool and away on my 16 lengths.

I'd submitted an estimate 400m time on the online registration of 07:30, although having then tried this in my gym pool I found I was actually capable of a 06:30. I let my other competitors in my lane know, and they agreed to let me past if I was at their feet. Within 4 lengths I was passed the other two people in my lane and on my way. I felt decent all the way through and paced well. I was soon jumping out the pool looking at my watch I had swam a 06:14! I jogged out towards transition and got my stuff on. Transition went smoothly if a little slowly. Probably could have got away without socks! But it only took 1:32 in all. I was then out on the bike, and feeling good. It was fantastic to really not have to worry about pacing as I knew I could pretty much go all out for each of the disciplines.

I loved the freedom of that, rather than being constrained for fear of blowing up later on. The bike went really well and I before long I was overtaking the wave that had set off before me! At the turnaround I suddenly had a lot more wind in my face but it wasn't too bad and I kept pushing on. The course overall was a nice out and back on a well surfaced and wide road, so traffic wasn't a problem really.

Back into transition and a nice quick 45 second stop to get my running shoes on and grab a gel. Off onto the 5k run round a field and housing estate out and back. I felt pretty decent on the way out so paced back a little to get a rhythm going after having been on the bike but the legs felt really solid which I was happy about. Started pushing a bit and was soon on the way back in. Sprinted the last 400m and felt strong. Really happy with the performance and didn't really feel tired after which I guess is a good sign for the extended distances to come!

Overall the results look like below:

Swim (inc 150m run to T1): 06:33
T1: 1:32
Bike: 35:47
T2: 46:85
Run: 23:05

Total: 01:07:45

Really happy overall, and nice to get some race practice in!

As the weather was so nice for the rest of the day (18 degrees and sunny!) I decided to go for a quick recovery spin on the road bike. Ended up getting a bit of a blowout/pinch flat at about 48mph descending a steep hill which was pretty interesting! Luckily its a straight descent, so I managed to slow the bike, and the tyre was completely flat by the time I was going about 20mph. I continued to slow and managed to stop with the tyre still on the rim! Quick repair and a co2 canister later I was back on the go, and managed 15 miles in the sun :)

Looking forward to the next couple of weeks now, and in particular the Outlaw Half!

w/c 15th April

My thoughts and motivation towards Ironman have been quite strange and worrisome at times during this week. I seem to go through stages of thought towards my goal varying from: “I’m well prepared for this, I’ve done the training I’ll be fine” to “what on earth am I doing! I won’t even finish the bike leg, ahhhhh!!” I’ve also had pretty varying levels of motivation. Anything from, “I can’t even be bothered to move today”, to “I can’t wait to go for a run/cycle”.

Luckily thoughts an motivation erred slightly on the more positive side and I ended up having a pretty good week, that’s if you discount swimming being included, as I basically missed all three of my scheduled sessions, and only swam a paltry 500m or so when I did get in the pool. I’m putting all this down to increased pressure and stress at work, with longer hours which I’m not used to all straining my schedule. Where before I was out of work at 4 on the dot and raring to go, I’m now lucky to get away at 5.30 and much more worn out.

Anyhow, Tuesdays run session went pretty well. I decided to go a little harder than usual, and ended up surprising myself with a 10k pb for the year of 50 or so minutes and a total distance of 7 miles so I was pretty happy with that. Wednesday was unfortunately spent on the turbo due to severe winds. However, I went much harder than usual in this session, and really gave it to myself for the 45 minute interval course I had set out. 30 minute run straight after felt pretty decent too.

Thursday rolled around and after leaving work I felt decent for another cycle spin and perhaps even a swim, but on getting home I was sapped, so took the evening off and just chilled out instead.

Friday I felt refreshed and went for a steady 6.5 mile run after work which felt good.

Saturday I woke a dead calm day and glorious sunshine, it was still a little chilly when I set out on the bike, but it’s the first ride of the year I’ve gone without gloves, in a jersey and shorts with just a baselayer top underneath. It was soon warmed up and it made such a change to be cycling in gorgeous weather. My speed reflected this, although I consciously was pushing a lot harder than last week’s effort. Ended up clocking up 55 miles, in a minute over 3 hours at an average speed of 18.5mph. Still a massive amount off where I’d like to be, but an improvement nonetheless. I felt pretty burnt out post ride so just relaxed.

I was surprised to wake Sunday with pretty achey legs, although was equally surprised at how an hour long morning spin corrected this, and they felt surprisingly good after that. Spent the rest of the day watching F1, cycling, and moto gp before an evening run. I was scheduled for 1:30, but didn’t feel up to it, and clocked just an hour instead.

Overall a decent week, although I’m still slightly worried at the lack of speed on the bike. I’ve booked in for a bike fit in two weeks time, so hoping this can solve at least part of this!

w/c 08/04/13. How do you pedal again?

This week begun where the prior weekend left off. Poorly, quite literally. I was still feeling under the weather through Monday, although a major improvement compared to the weekend. No exercise missed Monday as that's always been my rest day. Tuesday arrived and again I felt considerably better, enough to consider some exercise at least. I kicked off the weeks efforts with a simple jog on the running machine at the gym, and some simple weights. Nice and easy.

I then managed to get outside Wednesday and Thursday for some outdoor bike sessions, which I always look forward to. Reasonable sessions, just putting the volume in at Z2, and spending some time spinning at 100+RPM.

My first outdoor run came on Friday, and I felt up for it but as soon as I started I knew it was going to be tough. My body seems to dislike any more than 4 or 5 days off, before it begins to forget how to exercise. The legs felt completely blocked and even the slowest pace was tough going. I stuck with it and got a solid 45 minutes in.

Then came the weekend and a few home truths really started to kick in, with a few realizations and what I hope will be light-bulb moments too! I shall explain.

I've made no secret of the fact that I've always felt that my strongest discipline is my cycling. A 1:02 split at London Triathlon on my road bike, is none too shabby in my opinion. Last year I also managed over 150 miles in  a day and felt pretty good at the end of it to boot. It was always my thought, that if I could improve my cycling from there, I'd be in good stead for a decent IM bike split.

However the last few rides have been disappointing to say the least. Even taking into account the windy and rainy weather they just haven't been up to par. I've got off the bike feeling wiped out after 50-60 mile rides, pace has been mediocre at best, and I've been petrified of bonking again. (Pathetic I know, but I've really not experienced it until this year). For context, the 150 mile ride I mentioned earlier was done on a beautiful day, with not much prior thought, at a 15.5mph average, and feeling good after. My previous longest ride was just over 40 miles at that point!

So I got off the bike feeling pretty gutted at being completely shot, after just 65 miles at 15mph average, albeit in pretty harsh conditions. It just didn't seem to stack up. I'd never been this bad at cycling, and I'd taken care of everything before during and after the ride nutrition and hydration wise.

Some deep thought, and a post on Tri-Talk (Thanks very much for your genuine help everyone on there!) I had a couple of things to think about.

Firstly I took a look back through all of my bike training this year. I estimate about 65-70% of this was done on a Turbo to begin with. Nearly every single ride was Z2 as well, barely anything above a 140bpm average.

Secondly I looked back at all my training prior to London Triathlon. Now I know the ride is much shorter, but as I didn't really know too much about training back then, nearly every ride was spent sprinting, or at Z4 for anything from 20 minutes up to an hour. So I really knew how to rev the engine and go for it. Something I appear to have completely lost.

Thirdly I remembered how to pedal properly! This sounds utterly ridiculous, but I put this down to spending the winter almost exclusively on the Turbo. On an easy Sunday ride I realised my pedaling technique had gone wrong. I was constantly pedaling toe down, and had lost the good technique I previously had, which was much more shared amongst the large and the smaller leg muscles. I had been spending all my rides previous to now just mashing toe down, with my quads. I just hadn't considered it in the least. No wonder my legs were burnt out after a ride. I was concentrating everything into poor form. And the results had been showing for the worse. I'm yet to do another long ride, but am sincerely hoping this is almost completely what I've been doing wrong this year. I'm pretty sure it is, so am looking forward to this weekend for that reason.

Not to mention the fact, that I've also decided to change some of the prescribed Z2 sessions, for slightly harder Z4 sessions to really get my top end power going. These two things combined I'm hoping will see me making some progress soon.

So after that reasonably eventful Saturday I hit my Sunday goal of a 1:30 run. Much better than Friday's effort, my legs felt decent, and I just struck out and kept a decent pace for the whole length of time. Covered almost exactly 10 miles in that time. Now I know this is pretty sedate pace, but its an improvement for me and I'm pretty happy with my running overall now.

All in all a good week. I feel slightly revitalized due to the rest, and keen to crack on. Looking forward to getting more decent cycling miles in too! Almost 3 weeks until my first race of the year is helping to focus my mind.

In total my week in training has looked like this:


Swim: 1500 Metres
Bike:  95.7 Miles
Run: 15 Miles


Thanks for reading!

w/c 01/04/13

Looking outside at the bright sunshine a clear skies, and seeing the outdoors not looking like the arctic tundra for the first time I can remember this year, this weekend was not as pleasant as it should have been.

The week started off very well after a good Tuesday and Wednesday's exercise. However on Thursday I did not feel right, and through better judgement decided to take a rest and miss my scheduled sessions. I awoke Friday with a nasty cold, and so Saturday and Sunday was spent sofa bound feeling consecutively worse, spectating the best weather I've seen at a weekend this year! Gutting does not begin to cover it.

Especially gutting as I had my first 10 mile TT booked for Sunday, which I had to miss as well. To improve recovery and moral I did my best to increase the McVities share price by consuming my body weight in biscuits and other horrendous foods, so I suspect I have gained a stone across the weekend as well!

Feeling better as of Monday, so am hoping to get back into training by tomorrow if not Wednesday, albeit a cut down volume to start me off.

However, its not all negative, this week has seen me take part in the least physical activity since September last year (Probably to me detriment). So its my expectation that my body really could have done with the rest, and should have hopefully recovered quite a bit now. My motivation to get back out there has certainly improved as well, so I can't wait to get back on it now!

So this weeks stats are as below. Stop laughing at the back!!

Swim: 500 Metres
Bike:  19.8 Miles
Run: 10.9 Miles

w/c 25/03/2013

Just a short update this week.

Motivation partially returned upon the realisation that I wasn't getting as much sleep as I had been used to in previous time of heavy training. Action taken, earlier bedtimes. Result, my best training week (sessions hit wise) in nearly 7 weeks. Also helped by a redoubled and much more concerted effort to drop a couple more kilo's in preparation for the upcoming races. I suspect also very much helped by having had the Friday off for Easter!

So this weeks stats are as below:

Swim: 6,000 Metres
Bike: 96.5 Miles
Run: 22.3 Miles

Stats for March:

Swim: 16,000 Metres
Bike: 360 Miles
Run: 77.4 Miles

In comparison to stats for Feb:

Swim: 12,500 Metres
Bike: 275 Miles
Run: 62.1 Miles

I also spent the Friday getting the TT bike a little more IM friendly. As stock the chainrings are 54/42 and a big cog on the back of 23 teeth, so its safe to say not the best for climbing! I swapped out the small chainring on the front for a 39 tooth ring, and added a 12-28 on the back. So I'm much happier spinning up the climbs in the saddle now, which will also hopefully save the legs on some of the climbs.

Looking forward to another good week, and my first 10 mile TT next weekend.

w/c 18/03/2013, does the bear sh!t in the woods?

w/c 18/03/2013

Its been a while updating this so thought I'd crack on again!

Training has been following relative mediocrity following my previous update. There seems to have been umpteen reasons for not completing sessions, or missing sessions each week. Probably because I appear to be seeking out the excuses thanks to waning motivation. The drawback of having nearly every hour of the day following work on Tuesday Friday, is that the merest social event, or unscheduled event results in a missed session at the moment. Also having had a few social events in the last few weeks (and missed sessions) has left me questioning the reasons for my routine of sacrificing them to satisfy my usual unending dedication to training. ho-hum

Attempting to get back on track and completing a full week is not being helped by the UK being gripped by a nuclear winter, increased time spent at work (recent new job), and increased expectation from don fink! (I'm currently following Fink's "Be Iron Fit" competitive training plan). Enough excuses though, I'm beginning to sound like a racing driver!

This week began as most others do with a pleasant rest day on Monday, its always good to let the legs rest, and I usually feel great for it come the first session of the week on Tuesday. I managed to hit both swim and run sessions on Tuesday, and sprinting in heart rate for the second time in a long time at heart rate Z4 felt amazing (170bpm+).

Moving into the later stages of the week I missed Thursday and Friday's planned swim, and Friday evenings run as well. I'm beginning to think I really need to make a habit of getting my swim sessions down before work in the morning to ensure their done.

As mentioned earlier the UK appears to be in the grips of a Siberian winter so on waking Saturday morning I was greeted with horizontal snow! So I spent the afternoon on the turbo, watching repeat stages of the 2012 Tour-de-France for motivation. After a few weeks of struggling with my TT position, I've really got it locked in now, and am happy to spend that amount of time in the position. Me being me, and a man, the default starting position a couple of weeks ago on the bike was obviously the most aggressive. But on the stark realization that I couldn't actually hold it for more than 10 minutes, and that I am not in fact Pete Jacobs, I've reverted to a more sensible position by moving the bars up and the seat back a bit. Following the turbo, I managed to hit my first brick session of the year, and went for a 15 minute run after two and a half hours monotony on the turbo. I wasn't expecting to feel quite so good in all reality. Quite an empowering feeling to belt out a couple of sub 8 minute miles straight after pedaling non stop  for two and half hours. That's when the feeling of proper fitness hits home. If I could bottle that feeling and sell it I'd be a rich man!

Sunday morning was spent getting ready for a steady run, for which I managed 50 minutes steady pace. Again the conditions cutting me 10 minutes short due to the loss of feeling in my hands, even with gloves on (excuses!), that and having to go all caveman with a nature shit on my outward leg, (yes I carry toilet roll :embarrassing: and yes, I thought, f*ck it, time to go home after that). Does the bear sh!t in the woods? Not in the UK, but I do, so watch out fellow runners! I'm thankful I live somewhere that most of my runs are trail runs too! Positives coming from this though were that I felt so much faster than before at the same effort level. Revving the engine on the short amount of Z4 work I've done over the last two weeks, after having done months at Z2 only, appears to be paying off already. That's pretty exciting as hopefully another few months of it and hopefully I can be faster than I've ever been.

Consistency in training has to be one of the main aspects of Ironman training, and at the moment I'm dissapointed in myself to not be achieving this key to what I would call success (finishing IMUK!), so I'm really hoping I recover some more motivation, the weather improves, and the clocks going forward should help get there.

I've never really been one to excessively plan things, so to have every week mapped out, with minimal room for error either side of each session is a struggle, and not something I've experience before. I've no doubt in my ability to finish the race, but know I'll be down on myself if I don't do so in a reasonable time. So I'm hoping writing about it will help me get my sh!t together!

On a more positive note, I've entered a 10 mile TT for two weeks time, so will be looking forward to that, as I've never tested myself over that sort of distance before.

To summarise, I really hope the weather improves, and I can get some motivation back. Actually getting out on the bike of an evening and running in the light after work should nudge this on!

Summary:

Monday:        REST
Tuesday:        45 min Z2 run with 5 mins at Z4 10 mins in. 2700m swim.
Wednesday:   45 min Z2 ride (turbo). 15 min Z2 run
Thursday:       1 hour Z2 ride (turbo).
Friday:           unscheduled rest day
Saturday:       2 hours 30 ride (turbo) and 15 min run
Sunday:         50 min run and 30 min 100+ RPM spin ride