Not 10.30 in Busselton

It seems that I'm not going to make it to WA for the ironman after all. I thought my achilles tendon was fixed but then I had two days at work with five hours teaching each day: this meant five hours standing up and walking around, and by the end of day two the pain was back again and it was quite clear that I wasn't going to go. So that's that then.

I spent a week being grumpy and playing violent video games (Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer... oooooh it's good) but now I am resigned to my fate and am focussing on the future. It being winter and the ankle still being sore I am going to focus on cycling strength and swimming I for a couple of months. I have got a simple programme to make my biking better: three turbo sessions a week, one long intervals (e.g. 2x20 mins hard) one medium intervals (8-12 x 3-5 minutes very hard) and one nasty sprinty session (40 secs max effort, 20 secs easy, rinse and repeat 6-8 times, take a rest, repeat until you're sick over the handlebars). Add in actually riding outdoors when the weather permits (I got in 30km this morning before the heavens opened) and I should be biking well come the spring. Swimming: I'm just going to try to get two sessions a week in and just be consistent, which I think has always been my problem in the past.

What's next? I've signed up for a UK race next summer (The Outlaw in Nottingham) and I'm going to aim for that and a bunch of half-ironman races as well.

Deja vu

Well, following a lot of painful and expensive physio my ankle has improved to the point where I am hopeful that I will be able to race in Busselton again. It's still a bit sore and after an incident where I went for an unauthorised run to test it out I havne been told very firmly that I am not to run for at least another ten days. I can't afford to lose any more running fitness so I am going to have to get some deep water running in. This is a bizarre activity where you get a float belt and run on the spot in the deep end of the swimming pool, thereby providing entertainment for other pool users and a workout which hits the running muscles without loading them and aggravating any injury. In order to make this a little less boring I have ordered not only a float belt but also a waterproof MP3 player. At least I won't be able to hear the little boys sniggering at me.

This is all feeling a bit too much like deja-vu. I tore a muscle six weeks before IMWA last year and could do nothing but water running until the race. That was excruciatingly boring because I was doing it in the dive pool at the local "aquatic centre", which while suitably deep had about a 30 cm space between the top of the the pool and the water surface, meaning that not only was I monotonously running in place in deep water but also that all I could see while I was doing it was the tiled wall of the pool. At least this time I'll be able to see passers by and enjoy the warm feeling that you gain from knowing you've given them something to talk about over dinner.

Ankles

Well, the best-laid plans of mice and men are ganging aft aglay again. The sore left achilles tendon that I picked up in Barcelona has stubbornly refused to go away despite several sessions of rather painful physio applied by a cheerful guy called Kevin who tells jokes while he tortures me. This means that I can't run, and unless things get better real soon now I won't be going to Busselton. I have another session on Tuesday with laughing Kevin and we'll make a decision then.

In the meantime my other training has been a bit less than it should have been because of general grumpiness. The only notable episode was my bike ride last Sunday. I went out last weekend with the plan of riding an hour hard by myself, then linking up with the club ride for an hour before heading home. The hour by myself was hard work... I seemed to be working hard and not going very fast, but I assumed this was because of the wind, even though it seemed to be slowing me down no matter what direction I went in. Met up with the guys from the club and off we went. I knew something was up when I got dropped on a little hill even though the pace was very easy. I hung in there until the other side of Cobham when I just couldn't stay on any more, peeled off and limped home. I was assuming that I was ill or similar but once I got home I had a look at the bike and found that the back brake caliper was rammed right over to one side so that the brakes were rubbing really hard. Duuurrrrrr. Still, I got a good workout.

Back in business

Well, time to get training post-Barcelona. Of course, being me, I have picked up a running injury - achilles tendonosis ("an injury typical of the older athlete") in my left leg. I went to the physio today and he agreed with me that it wasn't too serious and was mostly caused by my ridiculously tight left calf. Following this diagnosis he proceeded to beat the **** out of said calf, all the while cheerfully telling me jokes while I writhed in agony. Second most painful physio session I've had, beaten only by the chronic muscle tear 3 weeks before Comrades that had to have the scar tissue broken up. Hopefully I'll be back running in a week or two.

In the meantime I've been getting ahead of The Plan - originally I was going to take two weeks completely off after Barcelona, but I've been getting on the bike trainer and doing some hard sessions already: I feel fine and it's actually really nice to feel tired again. Swimming tomorrow morning and then another trainer session on Sunday. I'd like to actually go for a ride but what with family stuff and so on there isn't really time so that'll have to wait. As the nights draw in and the weather gets worse I suspect I'll be spending a lot of time on the trainer, which is not a bad thing so long as I get out on the TT bike once a week for some aerobar action.

Getting it wrong

One moment I forgot from the previous post. There I was on the run in Calella, about halfway round and starting to pick up speed again after the little wobble at the start of lap two. I pull into an aid station and get a cup of gatorade, drink it and grab a cup of water. It's hot and I'm feeling pretty yucky with salt all over my face. I decide that the water's not going over my head, it's going over my face. I take my sunnies off with one hand and chuck a cup full of liquid full in my face with the other. Quite a bit goes up my nose and as it starts fizzing in my nostrils I realise that it is, of course, not water but coke, and that it's now up my nose, in my eyes, all over my face and running down my front.

Typical. The only time in my life I put coke up my nose and I can't even get that right.

Haemorrhage in Catalonia

Swim start in Calella. Photo used with kind permission

of "Dakinho" 

Challenge Barcelona (4th October 2009, Calella, Costa Brava, Catalonia)

The race may be called “Challenge Barcelona”, but it is in fact about 50km from the city. Calella is a resort town on the Costa Brava which is normally a prime destination for the Chelsea shirt and beergut crowd. The beach is gorgeous and the sea fabulously warm and clear but the main use to which it is normally put is as a support for the chairs and tables of the many beach bars that are lined up along it. I suspect that some of the late night clubbers were a bit surprised as they weaved back to their hotels at 6 AM on Sunday morning to find the town filled with skinny people heading for the beach, dressed in lycra and carrying track pumps. Transition closed at 7 but my wave didn’t go until 8.20 so I blew some air into my tyres, stuck a bottle on the bike, made sure all was well and went back to the hotel where I got changed into race gear and wetsuit. I then took my time walking back down the beach to the race start, next to the sea with the warm waves washing over my feet and the sun coming up in front of me. 

Once at the start I bumped into a bunch of other turbos milling around waiting for their starts and got someone to zip my wetsuit up. Ten minutes wait in the outer pen, then another ten in the inner pen listening to announcements over the PA that were mostly drowned by the noise of the burners in the two tethered hot air balloons that were being used for filming. Finally we were called to the front, off went the hooter and I walked into the sea for the start of the race. I took it easy, managed not to get knocked about at all and settled into my stroke. Out to the big yellow buoy, turn right and follow the line of red buoys for 1500m… what line of red buoys? There was one, then a motley collection of variously coloured and positioned floating objects. Their small size made spotting them tough with the swell, but I was fortunate in not being the greatest swimmer so I had plenty of other people to follow. The water was beautifully clear and I could see the bottom and the swimmers around me very clearly. I drafted for a bit at the back of a fairly big pack but I got a bit bored with staring at other people’s feet, none of which were exactly attractive. My decision to move on was helped by the arrival of Mr Splashy, someone swimming with a very vigorous kick and showering enough water everywhere that it was making it hard for me to breath. Fair enough, if he wants to tire his legs out before he even gets on the bike that’s fine.

I was feeling pretty good and the large size of the sea made for a roomy and trouble-free swim. Round the turnaround buoy that marked the furthest distance from the swim finish and now we had a real, proper line of round yellow buoys to follow. Unfortunately they were the exact same shade of yellow as the swim hats that had been issued to our wave, so spotting round yellow buoys in a sea full of round yellow heads gave a few challenging moments. I could see the hot air balloons at the start, and watched them slowly creep closer as we followed the yellow buoy road back. Round the last turn buoy and a 300m dash for the shore. At one point there was a lovely moment when by chance five of us were all arranged in a staggered line, arms entering and pulling in complete synchrony. I hit the beach in 1:16, a big improvement on my feeble 1:21 from IMWA in December. I took my wetsuit off under the shower as I desalinated myself, quick dash into the transition tent which was pretty chaotic, found my orange bike kit bag, pointy hat and sunglasses on, grabbed my bike shoes, stuffed the wettie, goggles and yellow buoy impersonation kit into the bag and jogged round to the bike. Shoes on, grab hold of Brunhilde and jog to the “mount” line. Onto the bike I hopped and cycled off into the wilds of Calella. Total time for T1 was 5.12.

Coming out of T1. Note the very serious

expression. I am a very serious person.

The bike course wanders a little taking you out of Calella until it gets onto the main coast road from town, the N11. This not being the UK where even the idea of closing a road and thereby causing some slight inconvenience to a few motorists is enough to get you arrested for sedition, the organisers had got a 35km stretch of this closed, with the course consisting of two long 66km laps out to Masnou and back and then a 42km shorter lap that has a turnaround in Mataro. The remaining 6 km are the stretch out of and into Calella. The first 10km or so from Calella are rolling with a series of small hills, and then it flattens out, with the last 10km into Masnou being absolutely pan-flat. The road surface is beautifully smooth all along the N11, but the short sections in Calella feature plenty in the way of speed bumps, potholes and wide, tyre munching cracks. I skipped the first aid station by the roundabout in Calella because I had a couple of gels and a bottle of drink on the bike. They went down pretty soon and it was bang bang bang up the hills and wheee! down the other sides until I got onto the flats past Mataro, where I settled in about 10m back from a French rider called “Frederic” (names are on the race numbers) who was wearing a pair of compression socks that were offensively tasteless even for compression socks, grey with bright orange tops. There was a slight headwind and we were moving along at about 32kph. I couldn’t do what I’d planned and use my heart rate to judge my effort because the HRM had decided to misbehave and was reading 155 bpm no matter how hard or easy I went, so I just tried to go at a reasonably speedy but sustainable pace. After a while Frederic and I went our separate ways and my retinas were no longer distressed. As I snuggled down on my aero bars, aero helmet flat against my back and powered into the wind another frenchman came past, sitting up casually on a road bike, one hand on the hoods and the other holding a cellphone to his right ear.

Round the turn at Mataro and back to Calella was nice and fast with a touch of wind assistance. I gleaned a little entertainment from the names of the other competitors: I was particularly pleased to find myself going faster than Jesus. I saw plenty turbos on the way back including a yelling fist-punching and generally mental Tim on his way to a 4.45 bike split. The whole area around the roundabout was packed with people and it was great to see all the Turbo supporters there. The second lap went much like the first, slightly slow on the way out and then nice and quick on the way back. My split for the first two laps was 4.11, giving a predicted bike time of about 5.35. Wahey! I was just trying to decide whether I was a) awesome, b) totally awesome or c) just completely, totally ****ing awesome when I went past the aid station at the Calella turnaround (which happens, incidentally, to be next to a sign that reads “Km 666”. “Gatorade?” I shouted at the volunteers but there was none, only agua… and nothing to eat either. I wasn’t too concerned: there was another aid station at Mataro, 20km away, and I could get there without any trouble, surely? After another 10km I had my answer. I’d a nasty dose of gutrot the day before and into the morning of the race, and I suspect that I hadn’t absorbed much from the meal the night before and from breakfast, so I probably started the race low on glycogen. Now without the boost of extra carbs my small supply of blood glucose completely petered out and I had the mother of all bonks (in the cyclist sense, not the “News of the World vicar” sense). I had to ride the remaining 10km to the Mataro aid station at 20 kph, wobbling in the road and feeling like I was about to pass out. I had some ibuprofen with me just in case my neck started to really hurt (which it didn’t) and I was so desperate for carbs that I gobbled a couple of them down in the hope that they were made using lactose or glucose as a binder. Didn’t have any noticeable effect and I carried on wibble-wobbling up the road until the tell-tale drift of discarded bottles that indicated the approaching aid station. I grabbed a bottle of Gatorade and two mule bars, drank the Gatorade in one giant swig and scoffed the precious food. I was soon feeling a bit better and starting to put some pressure on the pedals again but even at the end of the bike I was still feeling a bit rough. My bike computer had joined my HRM in the land of failed electronics by then, (note that both of them worked perfectly all year during training…) and was telling me that I was riding at 25kph with a cadence of 55 when I knew I was going much faster with a cadence of at least 85. I counted down the kilometers back to the km 666 sign from the roadsigns.

Going back into town I made the error of taking my feet out of my bike shoes a long time before the finish, not realising quite how convoluted the route back to T2 was, and had to ride round a bunch of roundabouts and underpasses etc. with my feet on top of the Sidis. No matter. Final bike time was 5.47 so not too shabby even with the bonk. T2 was quick and I scampered merrily out of transition and jogged along the path leading to the main section of the run. It was hot.

Once I got to the main section of the run, four laps of a 5km stretch of road to the northeast of Calella I was faced with the psychological barrier that comes with the sign that reads “1st lap: 3km”, meaning that there’s 39 km left to do. You’ve just swum 3.8km, biked 180, the sun is beating down like a hammer and you have to run a full marathon. Only one thing to do… just get on with it. For the first lap I kept nicely to my target pace of 5 minutes per km, making my first and second acquaintance with the cabbage field, and waving at the other Turbos on the course. Towards the end of the lap I started feeling rough. Coming back into town there was a bar next to the road with people sitting there drinking giant steins of ice-cold lager. Just seeing this seemed to be almost inhuman torture. Then through the turnaround, lots of nice support from the people there but I was finding it hard to stick to pace and feeling distinctly wobbly. At the aid station just past the turnaround I spotted Brian Hood and meant to give him a gentle slap on the bum and say something witty in passing - unfortunately I wasn’t really in control and it turned into a giant thwack and a yell of something really quite rude. On I jogged for about another 500m and then the anvil that had been falling towards me for the last few kms hit and wham! I was hardly able to stand up, let alone run. I was walking in a mostly forwards direction but I was feeling really bad, staggering from side to side in the road and looking down the barrel of my first ironman DNF. After a minute or two of shambling I suddenly felt a hand on my arm: Brian had caught up with me and grabbed hold of me, probably to stop me falling over in the road. With a little encouragement he got me to run slowly along with him and and soon I was starting to feel almost human again. We went through an aid station (I think Brian was still with me then but it’s all a bit hazy) and took two minutes to drink about a pint of coke, scarf down a (disgusting) gel and chuck about half a gallon of water over myself. Now I was definitely feeling up to running and on I went, but any thoughts about time were gone and I was focussed on just getting my sorry ass to the finish. I stopped looking at my watch and thinking about splits except for taking two minutes at every aid station to make sure I got properly fed and watered. 

Apparently I look like my Dad in this photo.

Don't recall him ever wearing lycra shorts.

As the kms ticked by I started feeling better and better. The sun was going down and it was a lot cooler, and I’d been making sure I got lots of carbs and fluids at every aid station.  I kept on passing a lady running in an RAF top: I’d overtake her between aid stations and then when I stopped for my two minutes she’d come past me. We must have done this five or six times. The run course was now littered with the casualties of the race walking, sitting  and in a few cases just lying down. I kept my focus on just running between aid stations and didn’t even let myself look at my watch until the 39km sign, when I was pretty surprised to find that my elapsed time was 10.44 with 3km to go. I was feeling better than I had at any time since I got off the bike, and I decided to go for the sub-11 time that had been my target all along. I put the hammer down as much as I could, round the turnaround, skipped the aid station and past the 41km sign with 8 minutes in hand. It was in the bag but I kept going hard even though I was flagging a bit. Through the hilariously placed subway under the railway line (“you want me to run up that ramp?”) and then onto the path back to the finish… said hello to Adam… and round a bend… and round another bend… then there was a sign saying “last km”. Huh? Carried on running, round some more bends, through the transition area as the watch ticked remorselessy through 11.00… out of transition, down a ramp and finally into the finish chute, where there was a couple finishing together just in front of me. They were taking their own sweet time about getting to the line, waving, high-fiving the crowd, hugging each other, stopping so their mates could take pictures, hugging each other some more, next thing they’d be pulling out guitars and leading the spectators in a rousing chorus of “We shall overcome”. I didn’t want to mess up their party by charging through, although had I known how long they were going to take I would have done, so I let them finish without me spoiling the pictures and then crossed the line myself in a time of 11.02.

So the race that was meant to be a relaxed training race turned out to be a bit of a drama. I’m very satisfied that I held it together and finished in good form and very close to my target time after not one but two catastrophic bad spots, the second especially. I guess that these problems were a consequence of the episode of gutrot the day before the race which must have taken a lot out of me, so I’m not concerned that they are likely to be persistent. I’m now fired up for IMWA and really looking forard to it: if I can avoid getting gutrot the day before then I should put down a nice fast time. I want to get out training but unfortunately I’ve destroyed my right big toenail, probably from running in wet shoes with the laces not done up properly and it’s a little too painful to run or bike with, so I’ll have to man up to the prospect of a few more days off.

Nothing written about this race should end without a big thank you to all the Thames Turbo supporters. You’re all fab but I have to mention two people: Pam let me take her away and spent her birthday watching pre-race nervy triathletes wandering about and muttering to themselves without complaining and Martin got sick, missed a bunch of training, decided he wasn’t fit enough to race but still came along and, with his plastic trumpet, was joyfully enthusiastic for the rest of us. I’d have been green with envy and snarling at people as they went past: you’re a better man than I am Mr Walsh.

Pre-race hypochondria part 2.

Well, it looks like I might have dodged a bullet there: the cold that was threatening to move into my lungs and take up residence for a month has left and the nasty attack of gutrot that I also managed to pick up at the weekend has also gone. Hopefully that's all my illness over the weekend before the Barcelona race.

Of course, the (almost completely gone) cold etc. also gives me even less incentive to train during the taper period, which is now resembling a complete collapse rather than a proper taper. Proper tapers have carefully designed reductions in volume and increases in intensity to leave the athlete feeling as though they are a finely tuned weapon, ready to be unleashed on their hapless competitors. I just feel fat. Still, better overweight and undertrained than underweight and overtrained, to quote Bruce Fordyce.

Pre-race hypochondria

It's one week to go before the Barcelona race. I am in my usual state of pre-race hypochondria: being quite susceptible to colds that then go on for weeks I have missed a fair few big races in the past, so I get extra paranoid in the week or two before a race. This time I have managed to pick up a bit of a snuffle and a sore throat: it'll either go in the next few days or it'll move into my chest and the Barcelona race will not be happening for me.

The taper for this has not been too smooth. The last long ride was the Southern Sportive, which was a pretty tough day out. I chose to do the medium length option at the last minute because I wasn't feeling too perky, so in total (including riding to and from the start) I got in 120km of hilly windy riding. Finished the sportive in 4.28, not exactly fast but I did spend a good part of the ride out by myself slogging into a headwind. A couple of days later I put in my last long run, a massive 24km epic. All was OK on the run but I picked up a niggling pain in my left calf which has put me off running. It's slowly going and touchwood it'll be fine for race day. Swimming has been slack: I have been putting training off when I shouldn't and I'm not really where I ought to be. Had a nice 1900m in the lake at the Princes Club yesterday though. Today was meant to be about 50km on the TT bike as a final shake-down, sporting my new pointy hat, but I've blown it out because of the aforementioned snuffle. Hopefully get it in tomorrow if I recover miraculously quickly. All in all then quite a few little irritations that will hopefully be smoothed over by a week of very little training.

Vit

It’s 02:39 in the morning of Sunday the 6th September and I’m downstairs staring at a laptop screen. I’ve just posted something replying to a question on Facebook, and I’ve said that I feel like a “smashed piano”. It’s the best way I can think of to describe the twitchy, jangly, splintered way I’ve been left after the Vitruvian Triathlon the day before. I can’t sleep and at the same time I am absolutely exhausted. I would read but I can’t concentrate, and so I make a mug of hot chocolate and go to the place where no-one has an attention span of more than 30 seconds, surfing the internet while more sensible people sleep.

It would be wrong to say that I forgot about the race, but I certainly gave it very little thought until the day before. Our 10th wedding anniversary was on the Thursday, and I was focussed on organising a surprise party for that evening. I knew the race was coming but had done nothing to prepare or plan for it except to book a place to camp and to decide that it was just a training day for Barcelona and so I shouldn’t taper. Thus on Friday morning I woke after a late night having already done a 95km time trial and a 20km run that week plus sundry swims and shorter bike and run sessions with the prospect of a half-ironman race the next day. I assembled the usual big box of triathlon paraphenalia, threw the bike and some camping gear in the car and drove off to Rutland. I left at 2.30 in the afternoon thinking that I’d get there nice and early and have time to drive round the bike course. That plan was frustrated by hideous traffic for most of the way there and I finally arrived at about 6.30. Tent up, registered, bike racked then a big bowl of sun-dried tomato and artichoke risotto in the cafe (nice but too much sun-dried tomato) and I wandered back to the tent for an early night. The full moon was low over Rutland water and the evening was cool and quiet.

I was already awake when my alarm went off at 4.50 the next morning, listening to the wind stirring the leaves of the tree next to my pitch. Trisuit on, with a Helly thermal top over  it, and I walked over to transition to set up and pump my tires. All was done much faster than I expected and by about 5.15 I was queuing at the cafe to get my breakfast of a banana and a big mug of coffee. I stood outside the cafe and consumed them, then got a second coffee while the PA started up. For some reason they played some Elgar before starting on the usual race morning diet of cheese from the eighties, and it was a lovely moment for me, standing in the pre-dawn darkness listening to the music and watching the transition area slowly fill up.

The tranquil start soon turned into a bit more of a rush. I went back to my tent and got my wetsuit on, back to the race start and pretty soon it’s time for the mid-life crisis males’ wave to go. The “beach” is composed of sharp crushed rock and very painful to walk on, and then the lake is cold and dark and weedy. I get my head in the water and do a few strokes and try to move further back and then the hooter goes off. My swim is immediately pants and in the first 50m or so I get knocked about a bit and then inhale some water, meaning that I have to stop, get my head out of the water and calm myself down while the rest of my wave scoots off. Once calmed down I get back to swimming and now that I’m not getting pushed around the swim is fun. Sighting is hard out to the first turnaround bouy because of the rising sun, but the rest of the loop is easy. The swim is two laps interrupted by a 25m run along the shore. I check my watch and it’s 20 minutes for the first 950m. That’s rubbish, even for me: I’ve been regularly doing 27 or 28 minutes for 1500m in open water by myself, so why can’t I do the same when it actually matters? Oh well. Back in the lake and round again and I finally make it out in 39.35, although I wobble a bit on the way out and my official time is about 40 minutes. Transition was reasonably fast and then I was out on the bike.

The bike course takes you out along a short stretch of B-road until you turn left onto the A606, heading West. This was when the 10-15 knot westerly that had been shuffling the leaves over my tent played its hand, blowing directly in our faces. I got as aero as possible and span away but it was disheartening to be moving so slowly, I was still cold from the swim and generally I felt pretty miserable. 

Things looked up a bit after the left turn onto the A6003, where the wind was now a crosswind. The overhyped series of three short hills known as the “Rutland ripple” was next. I went up the first two out of the saddle in the big chainring, and then for the third I decided I should get some carbs in and pulled out a gel at the start of this last climb. I tore the end off the packet with my teeth and then found myself too busy riding for a bit to actually consume the contents, so I went most of the way up with a gel packet hanging out of my mouth like some strange plastic dog’s tongue, breathing hard around it. Up at the top of the hill was a bunch of supporters from the tritalk.co.uk forums, all of them dressed up in ponchos and sombreros. Why? Why not? Over the top and then the left turn onto the A47 and the wind was on our backs, which together with a great road surface, a slight downhill grade and me having finally warmed up led to an effortless high-speed section. I managed to clock 26mph at the speed warning thingy in Glaston, then it’s the high-speed turn onto the road through Ketton and finally back onto the A606, grinding West again into the headwind. At the drinks station I checked my time for the first lap: 1.18. Not so bad. For some reason I didn’t take a replacement bottle and that meant that I’d go thirsty for the second lap. Not too much of a problem because it wasn’t too hot.

The second lap was much like the first, although the traffic was building up and several times I got stuck behind cars that were themselves stuck behind slower cyclists, and I also got blown around a little on one of the high speed descents in the ripple region. The trucks coming the other way meant that the crosswinds were coming in big gusts, and it got a little worrying going downhill at speed on my aerobars and getting pushed around. I was feeling good towards the end of the lap and pushed hard into the wind to get back to transition. There’s a big speedbump in the road just before the turn off into the transition zone and as I was heading for the gap between the bump and the kerb some muppet on a mountain bike (not a competitor) swerved out into the road in front of me without looking, causing me to slam on the brakes and mutter some rude words. That meant that I was distracted and forgot to take my feet out of my bike shoes, and I had to waddle across the transition area in my cleats. Total bike time 2.37, giving a 32 kph average speed which I am pretty pleased about.

Helmet off, running shoes on and out onto the run. Because of the Great Achilles Tendon Injury my run training has been minimal and the last time I ran 21km or more was December 2008 at IMWA. I had run 20km earlier in the week and 18 the previous week as part of my build up back to running fitness but I really didn’t have much of an idea how hard I should be going. Fortunately I started getting stitch almost as soon as I started running which limited my speed and meant that I didn’t have to worry about pacing. I controlled it by breathing carefully and ramming my fingers into my side but it persisted for the first half of the run.

The run takes you along the shore of Rutland Water, over the dam and along the other side to a turnaround point just over 5km from the start, after which you run back the way you came, turn around again and do repeat the lap. There were a few distance markers but I didn’t pay much attention to them after the first one indicated that I’d done the first km in 4.09 - I knew that I was running at about 4.30 to 4.45 pace, so the simplest explanation was that the marker was in the wrong place. Because of the stitch I didn’t indulge in any of the tasty treats on offer at the drinks stations, but I don’t think it had much of an effect: I certainly didn’t feel like I needed carbs. Crossing the dam was nice and then the run along the far shore was into a tough headwind. Around the turnaround and I let the wind push me back to the dam, and then along the shore back to transition. My time for the first lap was 46 minutes, faster than I expected which made me think the run course was short. I measured it later on Gmaps pedometer and in fact it seems to be absolutely right, but at the time my surprising speed made me trust the distance markers even less. Heading out on the second lap my poor run fitness was starting to tell and the stretch into the wind was hard. I spent my time trying to work out if I was likely to go under five hours or not, but I didn’t have a really good idea of my total time to that point because my watch was only showing the run split. It took me a good half an hour to remember that I could change the display to give me total time by the simple means of pressing a button, and at the turnaround I found that I had about twenty five minutes to get to the finish.

Since I was pretty tired by then I was a bit worried about whether I’d make it, so I tried to keep the pace up despite really not feeling like it. I had a gel at one of the aid stations which went down very nicely, then over the dam for the fourth time. Because I didn’t trust the distance markers I wasn’t really sure of how far I had to go so I just went hard all the way back to the finish line which I got to in a total time of 4.57 after a 1.35 run split. The announcers were doing their own endurance event and managed to keep a good level of enthusiasm for all the finishers - it was nice to hear my name as I came in. I got a bottle of Hi-5 and then had to have a little lie down on the grass by the finish.

Overall a satisfying race. Apart from the swim everything went well and I got the pacing right. My bike fitness is getting better all the time but I’ve still got a long way to go before I’m up to speed with the running: I should be going at least five minutes faster on a course like that. I had meant to treat it as training only and wasn’t planning to push it too hard but unsurprisingly once I’d got a whiff of a sub-5 finish that all went out the window. I certainly left it all out on the course: although I felt fine that afternoon I was really tired in the evening, slept badly and was no use for anything the next day. 

Hmmmm.

Well, the time for Barcelona is drawing close so I thought I should start getting some race-specific training in. Most of the guys from the club were off for a 100 miler this morning but I decided that about 100km by myself in race-simulation mode would a) be better training than spending 5-6 hours sitting in someone's draft and occasionally stopping for cakes b) act as a shakedown ride to make sure that all is well and working properly for the Vitruvian next weekend and c) mean I got home a lot earlier. The race bike already had the aero wheels on so I headed out in full TT mode to do three laps of a faintly complicated flat route taking in the Thames Turbo sprint tri course plus a detour to Hampton Wick and another one along Hampton Court Way. This last section only happened for the first lap because the road is one of those ones made of concrete slabs with gaps between them and I found it too bumpy on the TT bike. The plan was to go out and ride at a reasonably hard pace and see how I did. The flat course was chosen because both the Barcelona race and IMWA are dead flat and I wanted somewhere where I would be in the aero position for as much of the time as possible.

The course of true training never runs completely smoothly and the "shakedown" part of the ride certainly paid off. Firstly and most importantly I learnt that I should not ride long distance in my 2XU trisuit because it leads to some serious abrasion to parts of me that should not be abraded. Secondly I learnt that I really have to do something about my left aerobar armrest which does not take kindly to going over bumps, reacting to them by flopping down and leaving me riding at a strange angle with my left arm about 6cm lower than my right. The above problems led to a number of stops to tighten things up with allen keys or to rearrange bits of my anatomy in the hopes of reducing the friction, although neither approach was succesful. The strip of nine speedbumps through Lower Sunbury could not be negotiated in the aero position without causing armrest wobbles, so I decided that this stretch of road was the "feed zone" and rode through it each time sitting up and swilling sports drink. I've broken an aerobar going over these bumps before, so I think this was a wise precaution.

These problems aside, it was a good hard ride but I am a bit disappointed with my average speed, which was 32kph over a final total of 95km. I have been really trying to improve my bike speed, mostly with hard trainer sessions, but I guess I've missed enough biking because of all the travelling around this summer that I'm still not getting up where I want to be. I'm glad I've got IMWA coming 9 weeks after Barcelona - I think there are going to be some repeats of this morning's fun and games during that period.

Someone with some real iron

This guy has what it takes.

Chicked!

On the sometimes entertaining and sometimes rather worrying US Triathlon forum "Slowtwitch", to be "chicked" means to be beaten, preferably in a humiliating way, by a girl. I, and several hundred other runners, were chicked today at the weekly Bushy Park 5k Time Trial by a skinny little blonde girl who turned up, asked a lot of questions about the route and then ran a 16.25 - beaten only by one man. Turns out she was the 2008 Australian 10,000m national champion, so perhaps the humiliation is not so great. I was some 30 places behind, with an 18.56 - not great, but better than previous efforts this year.

My running is slowly getting there: I ran my first BPTT in July when the achilles started behaving itself, and my times have gone 19:33, 19:27, 19:18, 18:56. It's a big relief to dip under 19:00 again -at future events I will now allow myself to wear racing shoes rather than trainers because I won't worry about looking like a prat who has the pretentious shoes but not the speed. My PB at BPTT is 17:57 - not too bad because it's not a fast course; despite being dead flat the surface is poor. It'll be nice to be knocking on that door again.

Here I am pulling faces in the last few metres of today's race.

Ironman fragrance

I just got an "Ironman newsletter" in my email. It includes this:

"Ironman fragrance collection

Exclusively at Avon, the Ironman Eau De Toilette Spray evokes the lush Hawaiian setting of the renowned Ford Ironman World Championship held in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. The result is a victorious fusion of energizing citrus and exotic spices spiked with rich woods. The Ironman After Shave Conditioner and Ironman Roll-On Anti-Perspirant Deodorant also feature this signature Ironman scent."

It's almost beyond parody, but I'll try... Obviously a true IM fragrance should have a fusion of the heavy base of vaseline and the sharper tang of sweat, spiked with a hint of urine, a soupcon of vomit and just a touch of chain lube.

Rob 

Why not Barcelona?

Why have I decided to do IMWA when I am already entered for the Quelle Challenge Barcelona IM-distance race in October? One simple reason: I'm not going to be properly fit by the time Barcelona comes around. I have been very slowly recovering from a nasty bout of achilles tendonosis that I got in January, and have only reached the point where I am able to run more than once or twice a week recently. My longest run to date is 15km and I don't think I'll be able to get much above 21km until mid-September. I have also had my swim and bike training disrupted by a series of trips abroad over the summer - yes, I could run when I was in Greece last week, but for the two weeks teaching tropical ecology in the forest in Borneo I really couldn't do a lot. On Monday I'm off to Turin for a conference so that'll be another week off the bike and with lots of distractions to stop me running and swimming. My original plan was to go for it in Barcelona, but now the plan is to not taper too much, take it a bit easier in Barcelona, and then I have nine weeks to sharpen after the race. Might involve a lot of trainer sessions in October and November as the weather gets worse but c'est la vie.

Why 10:30?

Why 10:30? Why not 10:45, or 10:15, or 11:00 as a target time for this race? Well, let's have a look at my previous performances. I've done 3 IM distance races now. First was The Longest Day in 2000, where I finished in 11:49 (I think). I can't remember my splits except that the swim was atrocious, something like 1.44. Fast forward to 2008 and I managed 11.34 for IMUK, with a much faster swim (1:20) a slow bike on a hilly and windy course (6:30) and a nice fast run (3:23). Transitions were slow, both of the order of ten minutes. Finally, in 2009 I went to Busselton without much training and managed a PB of 11:29, with splits of 1:21, 6:08 and 3:49, with faster transitions - T1 was 5:40 and T2 3:55. Looking at that last set of splits, the run time was very slow for me. I was really feeling the lack of training on the run, and given that I'd really done very little running apart from water running in the months leading up to the race it's hardly surprising that I was so slow. Since I did 3:23 on the hilly IMUK course I would expect to do at least 3:30 at IMWA when properly trained, even allowing a bit extra for wilting in the sun. My IMWA swim split was annoying: I got a bit beaten up at the start of the swim and basically forgot to keep my stroke nice. Still, being a little conservative I should face up to the fact that I am a lousy swimmer anyway, so let's keep a 1:20 estimate.

I rode the bike course very conservatively at Busselton because I knew I wasn't very fit and I wanted to save as much energy for the run as possible. I still came close to breaking six hours, though - what should I guess for a day when I'm actually properly fit? This is the difficult one to estimate because conditions can play a big part at Busselton, with the possibility of strong winds slowing everything down. Hmmm. I reckon that if I were properly trained and it wasn't too windy I should be able to manage a 5:30 bike split. Right. Put those together, add in 10 minutes for transition and you get 10:30. A difficult but not impossible target, and those are always the best ones.

11.29 in Busselton

Me and my bike during Ironman Western Australia 2008

I don't go out a lot or drive an expensive car... so I have decided to do one ridiculously extravagant thing this year. I am planning to travel all the way from London to Western Australia in December with the sole intention of completing Ironman Western Australia 2009. Not only do I intend to complete IMWA, I am hoping to be able to do it fast (for me, anyway). I did the race in 2008 while I was working in Perth for a few months, and my finish time was 11.29 despite a series of injuries and other problems in the months before it that meant that I was extremely undertrained. I think that on a good day I should be able to crack 10.30 on the fast flat course at IMWA, hence the name of this blog, which I have started for a number of reasons: firstly as a diary for my own reference, secondly for the entertainment of friends and family and thirdly to give me a bit of extra motivation to train as the days grow shorter later on in the year.

When I did IMWA last year I wrote up my experience, and that seems a good place to start.

IMWA 2008 race report

Since I am spending five months working in Perth, Western Australia, I thought that while I was here I might as well do Ironman WA. To me, this seemed like a good idea but unfortunately the triathlon gods disagreed with me. They didn't want me to do this race, and they had a sophisticated and multi-layered plan of interventions to ensure that I stayed away. Having knocked me out of IMUK earlier in the year with a five week chest infection that ensured I hadn't done a lot of training by the end of September, the next phase of their plan was to get me to pull some back muscles schlepping heavy bags around at the start of October, as we moved all the junk that's necessary for a family of four from the UK to the other side of the planet. The back problem led to some muscle imbalances that started all sorts of things going wrong and culminated in a torn left quad six weeks before the race. I found myself a physio who knew what he was doing, after one false start, and managed to get some biking and a lot of water running done, along with two sessions a week of pretty painful therapy. Two weeks to go and it was fixed and I could run again, but obviously I was woefully undertrained, with only two decent long rides (both in the same week, one 85km and one 100km, the latter on the IMWA bike course) and no proper long runs. Still, I thought, I've paid me money so I'll do the race, and all that water running should count for something.

Friday morning and we all set off for Busselton. The triathlon gods hadn't finished with me yet, though: about 100km South of Perth the head gasket on the cheap and rubbish second-hand car that I'd bought thinking “it'll do for five months” blew and the engine overheated and basically destroyed itself. I went back to Perth in a tow truck, with wife and kids in a very expensive taxi. Hmmmm. After a period of despondency I decided that I was going to do the sodding race if I could, and phoned the race office: they said I could register on the Saturday if I got there by 11 AM. I dashed around a bit and got a hire car, and at early o'clock on Saturday we set off, getting to Busselton at about 10 AM. Great. I went to the office and they said I should go to the race briefing and then find Colin in the registration tent, so I learnt not to draft on the bike and that the best way to avoid problems with the stingy jellyfish is to have been stung lots by them in the past. Helpful. After the briefing I went along to the registration tent as instructed, where I found a group of about twelve people all in pretty much the same boat. After much confusion Colin was finally pinned down and he produced The Official List of People Allowed To Register Late. Those pesky triathlon gods, getting desperate, had made sure that The List was rather short: only about six of the group of supplicants were given the hallowed green wristband and all the good things that come with it.

The rest of us, those whom the gods had decided to destroy, were sent back to the race office. The race office people said “Ooooh, we'll have to ask the race director. You just hurry up and wait over there.”. So we waited for a while, because the race director was, not surprisingly, a bit busy. Eventually someone came out and took us aside and said we had to go back to the registration tent. At this, we rebelled. Fortunately some of my co-late registrants had arranged this weeks in advance and had printouts of emails from the race office confirming this, which made it tricky for them not to let us in. Eventually we were herded into an outer sanctum behind the race office, from which we were taken individually to an inner sanctum where we stood trembling in front of a lady who I believe is the RD's wife to plead our cases. I noticed while I was pleading mine that I was wringing my cap between my hands in the approved “But moi family have farmed here for generations, master, and served you well. If you throws us orf your land then young Willum will starve!” way. Late registration is clearly something most serious, and not to be permitted lightly. After I had explained my situation, however, and it was decided that I had genuinely been held up and wasn't just some slacker, all was fine and I got my stuff nice and quickly. Hah! Once again I thumbed my nose at the powers that be and scampered off to rack my bike and sort out my gear.

The next morning I had the traditional 4 AM start, ate breakfast and off I went for the race. The triathlon gods had one last go at stopping me starting: the valve extender for my back wheel broke off as I was pumping it up, leaving me with a tyre that was a little soft but without any means of blowing it up if it got any softer unless I either pulled the tub off the wheel or tried to put my spare valve extender on by feel, which would risk deflating the tyre accidentally without getting the extender on properly. Cunningly, I did neither: I thought the wheel was rideable and so I would just leave it as it was and worry about the valve if I needed to. I handed my pump in, got marked, changed into my wetsuit and strolled down to the swim start. The sun was just rising and the few clouds in the sky were lit up flamingo pink as I ate a PowerBar, listened to some lady identified only by her non-standard first name sing “Advance Australia Fair” in an pseudo American accent (this being Australia no-one paid any attention) and watched the pro start. Off they went and then it was 15 minutes until we lumpen masses started. I got in the water, splashed around a bit and then lined up with the other yellow hats towards the back of the pack until the gun/horn/cannon/flock of doves (I cannot remember at all what they used) went off.

The swim is nice: you swim out along the West side of Busselton Jetty, which extends 1841m into the sea, back along the East side and then parallel to the shore for a short while to get to the swim exit. The contrast with my last IM swim at IMUK could not have been greater: one in a freezing cold lake filled with completely opaque greenish-brown water smelling faintly of manure, and the other in the warm clear blue sea. On the way out I swam right next to the jetty, which was a mistake because lots of other people wanted to do the same thing and I got knocked around a lot: had to stop twice because my goggles were knocked and started leaking. This all got me a bit confused and my stroke took a trip to Loserville for a while until we came around the end of the jetty. There's a definite feeling that you're out in the open ocean at the turnaround, with quite a bit of swell and the land an awfully long way away. Coming back I got it together a bit and caught quite a few people before going round the big yellow buoy and then following the line of little white buoys that lead you up to the swim exit. Swim time a pathetic 1:21. I'd been hoping for a 1:15 but never mind. Wetsuit off, bike shorts on, smeared with sunscreen by a helpful volunteer and off I went.

The bike course is three laps of an absolutely pan flat course with a section following the coast followed by a section shaped like an inverted “T” (if you have North at the top of your map) with the long section (the cross part of the T) running roughly NE/SW. I knew I wasn't especially fit so I settled into a reasonable gear and spun away keeping my cadence at about 90-95 and my HR at between 140 and 145. The first lap was windless and fast, taking about 1.55, and I spotted my family at the bike turnaround in town, which was nice. I overtook a fair few people, ate a PowerBar and drank some Hi5 electrolyte stuff. Going onto lap two the wind was starting to get up and for some reason my bike shorts were really starting to cause me some pain. I'd worn them for a 50km ride and they were fine, but now it felt like they were made of sandpaper. Ow. This really made it difficult for me to stay nice and low and aero because I was constantly squirming around trying to find a comfortable spot. The long stretch back from the first bike turnaround to the second one on the Bussel Highway was a bit of a grind (Murphy's law states that the headwind will come on the longest straight stretch of road in any race) but eventually I cruised back through town, two laps done in about 3.58. Going out onto the third lap I was really suffering with the shorts issue and wondering if I would manage to keep going for another two hours or so. My attention was briefly diverted by seeing a big pack of riders going back into town and blatantly drafting: although they were mostly keeping some distance from the rider in front they were all well within the draft zone, and given that this was a section where they would have been going into a respectable headwind and most of them were sitting up I guess they were getting quite a nice tow. These guys were all faster age group racers heading in to the end of their bike ride, all done up with aero helmets and disk wheels, all cheating away. I heard later that there were a lot of drafting penalties – good.

Once I'd finished being annoyed my attention returned to those parts of my anatomy that were feeling as though someone had taken a belt sander to them. I had a flash of inspiration, pulled into an aid station with a first aid tent and scrounged some vaseline which almost completely cleared up the problem. I got back to business and kept spinning along, feeling a lot happier than I did on lap two. My lack of training was starting to tell and my cadence was dropping, but I was OK: I made a point of taking it easy because I knew I wasn't too fit and there was that small matter of a run to come later. It was getting hot and I was a bit worried about keeping enough fluid coming in so I made sure I got a bottle of electrolyte mix at every aid station and just kept on slurping it down. I managed to drop two bottles in the road which wasn't good: one had not gone back to its proper roundness after I'd taken a drink and just slipped sideways out of the bottle cage and went under my back wheel, the other I just dropped. Hopefully no-one had any trouble because of them. Round the turnaround on the Bussel Highway I had a tailwind for a while, then back into town was a bit windy and grim. I saw some people heading out for their third laps – these people may be slower than most, but they must have amazing psychological strength. I think I would have found it really difficult to keep myself going if I were in that position. Hats off to them.

Back into town for the third time and my computer was reading 180km with about 3km to go – it's nice to know that all that is between you and the bike finish is the measurement error on your bike computer. Round the roundabout, back up the road and into transition where a nice lady took my bike away. I told her that I never wanted to see it again and she had the good grace to laugh even though she must have heard that a hundred times already. Final bike split was 6.08 for an average speed of 29.3 kph: not exactly fast but about what I expected. I made a classic error in transition and forgot to change my shorts before I put my running shoes on, then tried to do it with the shoes on which I managed but with some comedy hopping around which must have given a few people a bit of an eyeful, quick stop for sunscreen and off I trotted for the run.

My plan was simple: just run at about 5min/km and see how I did. The run is three laps of a course that goes right along the seafront, first West of Busselton for about 6km, then back and past the transition area and about 1km further to another turnaround. It's partly on roads and partly on the cycletrack that runs next to the beach, it's as flat as the bike course and although some of it is shaded by trees a lot of it is exposed both to the sun and to the wind, which was strengthening some more. There were already a few people walking when I got on to the run and it was clearly going to be a long trek for some. Just after the first aid station I found my wife and kids, which gave me a big boost, then I was off into the heat again. There was lots of great support from the spectators on the run and I kept myself busy reading the messages chalked in the road, some of which were pretty funny. I think my favourite was “Jen: stop talking and get running”. Not long after I started the first lap I saw the leaders of the men's race going past in the other direction, and they were certainly moving. It must be difficult to run a sub-3 hour pace on a course that's narrow and littered with people who are either walking or running a great deal slower.

That first lap of the run was pretty hard mentally. After the excitement of getting off the bike has gone (in about 15 seconds) you have to face the fact that you've got a helluva long way to run and that you are a long way from finishing. Like everyone else, I deal with this by using “segmentation”: you don't think about the whole task, just the next part, in this case getting the first lap completed. Still, it seemed to take a very long time to get to the turnaround before I could start moving back towards Busselton, and then there is a section where you run on a bike path on top of the dunes with the hot wind blowing at you like a hairdryer and with the Busselton Jetty floating there in the heat hazy sea about 5 ½ km away and apparently not getting any closer no matter how far you run. Still, just keep those feet moving and eventually you get there. I passed the family again and shouted to my four year old “What do we say Catherine? Suck it up, Buttercup!” which she gleefully repeated back to me. Past the transition area and onto the second lap. Only 28km to go. They gave me an orange scrunchie (no really, a thing for girls to put round their ponytails) to wear on my wrist to show I'd done a lap.

Lap two was more or less the same as lap one. I kept on plodding, except by now I was walking through the aid stations. This was necessary to let me make sure I drank enough, and had nothing to do with being absolutely dog-tired. By now I was starting to spot the salt people – these were guys who for some reason weren't throwing as much water over themselves as they possibly could (I was sluicing myself at every opportunity and putting ice in my hat on occasion) and the amount of salt that had crystallised out on the outside of their gear was amazing, often making black shorts look grey. I had a chat with a South African bloke who was on his last lap but he left me behind and I carried on running nice and slow and easy, passing quite a few people and not being passed by many at all. I saw the family again and once Catherine had spotted me I got an earful of “Suck it up!”. Back through Busselton and up to the Eastern turnaround and I went past the chute taking runners to the finish, thinking that the next time I saw it I was going down it. After picking up my new white “last lap” scrunchie I stopped briefly when I passed the family again to let them know when I was expecting to finish and headed off into the heat again. Now there were more people walking than running and some of them looked pretty rough. On the way back to Busselton I was passed by someone in a Wrecsam Tri suit (they get everywhere) and again we chatted briefly but he was on a mission ad I couldn't keep up. Even with only a few km to go I couldn't find the energy to speed up now and I was just grinding away and the walk breaks at each aid station were getting longer until I noticed and stopped myself doing it. Round the last turnaround and less than a km to go and I was still too knackered to speed up so I just enjoyed the last bit: lots of high fives etc. from spectators, then down the chute, through the finish and thank you for the medal. Run time 3.49, overall time 11.29.

I am pleased with my time: given the minimal training I managed to get in I think I did pretty well. The only part that really went wrong was the swim – I was doing 7.40 400s easily in the pool without a wetsuit the previous week, so how I managed to swim so slowly I do not know. The slow bike was a deliberate decision because I was worried about being able to finish the race, and I'm sure that if I'd tried to go much faster I'd really have paid on the run. The run was really slow for me but that was mostly just because I'd hardly mnaged to do any proper run training. Sure the heat was a factor but it wasn't desperately hot (maximum was about 27 degrees) and I don't think that slowed me down too much, it just made it a bit harder. The race in general was superbly organised (except for the minor issues about late registration, but that came right in the end), the course is lovely and if you're fit it is seriously fast and the whole town is really supportive: people in shops and cafes all want to know how you're going to do or how you did and the volunteers are absolutely outstanding. My only complaint is the shockingly bad availability of pizza after the race – none in the food tent you go through after the finish and then the pizza joint near where we were staying had sold out completely by 8.30 in the evening. Very poor planning indeed. I had to make do with chinese and got sweet and sour sauce on my finishers' t-shirt. Maybe that was the triathlon gods having the last laugh.

Lurching across the finish line...