Not another average Joe!!

Moved to a new home

2012-08-29T04:35:00.002-07:00

I have moved to http://www.joeskipper.co.uk/ I'm still doing all of the blog posts but they will all be appearing on the above site.

The reason i'm moving is it just looks better for sponsors with the tabs at the top and it makes it clearer to see what results I have and just a bit about me. Also it should be much better for those of you who read the posts as they will be catagorized so you can search through to the ones which interest you i.e training, race reports, and random musings. As well as this it will also be easier to coment as you won't have to be a member of blogger like on here.

Bootcamp Day 6 & 7

2012-08-27T05:56:00.002-07:00

Day 6

To finish the week off I did a swim session on Saturday morning which for the main set was 10 max effort sprints to the end of the pier then pretty much full recovery and then repeat. My friend was timing the efforts and they were all around 1m25-1m.30 so it would roughly work out to just over 100s in the pool.

In the afternoon I did a steady 9 miler which included 3-4 sprints up some of the scores in Lowestoft, I was feeling fairly tired by now in the week so it wasn’t that big a day.

Day 7

I did a road race today but because I was on one of my old road bikes I didn’t have the garmin mount on the bike so can’t upload the ride on strava. If I can get hold of a mates garmin who rode the race I will use that but apparently it ended up being 62 miles and averaged just under 26 mph. The course was fast and people were constantly attacking but nothing could really stick. Two of my teammates did manage to get in a break but unfortunately it was pulled back and the race ended in a sprint finish. I tried to help one of the guys get into a decent position for the finish so he could have a go in the sprint as there was no way I was getting involved in it as firstly I can’t sprint for toffee and secondly it’s sketchy as hell with a load of choppers that have sat at the back of the pack for the whole race suddenly thinking they are Mark Cavendish.

So that’s the end of the week then, considering the circumstances (Illness at the start of the week) it was pretty good. I mean when something like that strikes you do have to be on the side of caution, however I did manage to get some decent intensity in and had fun with the whole week. Over the next week the general plan is to cut the volume right back but get some decent intensity in which will hopefully see me fresh and in good form for the weekend at Galway 70.3. Next update will be either just before the race or after where hopefully I will be writing some good news.

If anyone else fancies coming on one of our training weeks post a comment on here or get in touch with me as it’s always good to have more people join in, hopefully next time we will all be fit for the whole week.

Bootcamp Day 3, 4, and 5

2012-08-24T15:54:00.001-07:00

Day 3:

After feeling like I was on deaths door yesterday I was desperately hoping to feel better so I could get stuck in but really wasn’t sure how I would fair and just hoped I wouldn’t be nailed and getting dropped.

As it turned out I felt o.k. on the ride, not great by any means but in fairly good nick. We ended up with just over 4.5 hours on the clock. A link to the ride we did is just below.

http://app.strava.com/activities/19610819

After the ride the plan was in the evening to do a fairly decent run session, the plan was to do 3k at Half ironman pace 5.50mpm, 2k at a quicker pace 5m.40mpm, and 1k at 5.30mpm pace with 60 seconds rest in between reps and twice through. The times are nothing to write home about but after a big ride in your legs it’s fairly hard. I did the warm up and literally felt as though I was going to s**t myself so had to dive into a bush, I thought thank god I’ve got this out of the way now and not when were doing the reps! Unfortunately this wasn’t the case and 2 more times once we had started I need a s**t and had to stop, luckily my house is on the sea front otherwise it would have been embarrassing! The other two guys managed to do the session and thought it was a good one. I could tell I’m feeling a lot better but it was always going to be optimistic to expect to recover completely in one day and I was pleased to get the long ride in at least.

Rob Recovering between sessions!

Day 4

Today I felt excellent, well back to my normal self unfortunately Paul Hawkins wasn’t fairing so well and the big man was bed ridden. To be fair he did manage the swim which we all did in the morning, it was probably between 3.5- 4k I did the max efforts of 20 strokes in this.

After the Swim me and Rob went for a run which was just a steady pace, it ended up being around 1 hour 5 minutes at like 7m 50 pace, at the end I did 6 max effort sprints up one of the hills opposite my house which takes around 10 seconds to get up and then just jogged back down to the start after each rep. Strava route of the run is just below:

http://app.strava.com/activities/19613074

To finish the day off I did the time trial and rode out to the course and back as a warm up/ warm down, it’s only about 20-25 minutes to get there so a good distance. Rob was being cautious for this so decided to give it a miss as he wasn’t feeling great and didn’t want to come down with anything. Last week when I did the time trial I managed 21.46, my course record is 21.45 and if you break it you get £150 so I really wanted to break it tonight as last week I was riding blind and was sure that if I knew how close I was to it I could have got it. Anyway on the way out there my gear shifter broke and I had to either ride in the 39/11 or 53/11 the course is flattish but on country roads so twisty and turny and that gear was just to much for me and I just couldn’t really get over it. It felt as though I was fighting it and accelerating out of the corners was very hard but you just have to man up and get on with it. In the end I recorded 22.25 which isn’t to bad and slogging that gear around has probably done some good.

Strava route of the ride is below.

http://app.strava.com/activities/19610804

Hawkins Tucked up ill (I think he will kill me for posting this up)

Just wanted to say that what ever that illness was that I had it seemed to be very nasty and contagious but only effected you for a short time as my Mum, Dad, and Sisters were all bed ridden today and I have never seen that before in my life, My mum had to even ring her sister up and get her to do the breakfasts in the guest house which she has never had to do. I’m writing this on day 5 now and everyone seems to be pretty much over it.

Day 5:

Today Paul Hawkins went home as he wasn’t feeling good enough to do a decent days training and would have been going home on Saturday so he thought he might as well travel back today which is probably the best thing to do. It’s just one of them tings I suppose but it’s such a shame that the illness came but you can’t help when you get ill and you just have to be sensible and listen to your body.

Anyways me and Rob were feeling good and were well up for a hard day so this morning we did a 13.5 mile run where we started off steady for the first hour and then really picked the pace up. To make it easier we finished the run up the Lowestoft scores which are basically a combination of steep steps and hills which force you to go hard and then once at the top really try and keep the pressure on.

http://app.strava.com/activities/19613068

After the Run we chilled out at home and then set off on a ride. The plan was for 3 hours but it ended up being about 3.5 hours. It was quite funny actually as Rob was in a right state for the first half of it and he looked like he had seen a ghost, I was doing a few efforts up some of the hills and when I spoke to Rob he said I’m not doing anymore hard stuff today. I said don’t worry we will stop for a coffee in a bit and you will feel fine. He seemed unconvinced but f**k me it was like someone had shoved a rocket up his arse after we left the café he was absolutely motoring and was like a man possessed. It was a good effort and it capped off a decent ride, the full ride details are on the link below.

http://app.strava.com/activities/19610816

I finished the day off with a swim, it was only about 35 minutes and for 25-30 minutes I was drilling it against the current and literally barely moving then once I changed direction I was flying and got back to the start in 5 minutes. It was really choppy and my next race is in the sea so good practice.

Oh and man the steak and chips tasted good tonight!:)

Bootcamp Day 2 & 3

2012-08-21T15:05:00.002-07:00

Day 2 started all well and good, the weather was excellent motivation amongst everyone was on a high and we were all ready to crack on with some decent training, unfortunitly for me and little was I know to know it wouldn’t end that way but I’ll get on to that more in a bit. Anyway the first session was a swim and the main part of the set was basically to start on the land and swim around the pier and back in as quick as possible,, we did this 5 times and for the first time we all started off together but after that we handicapped it so we would all be sprinting against each other for the last 50 meters to get out of the water first. Rob would start first, then me, and finally Paul it really was brutal and after each rep you were crouched over gasping for breath.

After doing 5 of these we did some more easy swimming to recover and then Paul came up with the idea of doing a rep where you started on land and swam around the pier to the other side do a 25 meter beach run around some bucket and get back in and sprint around the pier again. These were also handicapped and we did 3 of them, they were very hard also. It was an epic swim set and I was so nailed after it, but it certainly beat swimming in the pool and as my next race Galwa is in the sea it’s probably good training.

After the Swim we had breakfast and later on set out on a 3 hour ride where we did 30 minutes of steady riding then 15 minutes over about 5 drags in a big gear in tt position and then 1 hour steady, 1 hour through and off hard, 15 minutes warm down. The ride which we did is below.

http://app.strava.com/activities/19290299

After the ride the plan was to get changed have a bit to drink quickly and get out for the run pretty soon to get used to running just off the bike which is all well and good and I’ll be the first to admit it I should have listened to Hawkins who said we should give it more time because it had been so how we should wait and make sure were well hydrated before we go out but stupidly I didn’t listen which cam back to bite me. Anyway while were talking about the run, it went really well at the time, the plan was 10 minutes hard and then 50 minutes steady. I did the 10 minutes hard at 5.26mpm pace which I was pleased about as I was thinking I would only be around 5..40.

http://app.strava.com/activities/19294411

Later that night I got really ill and I think suffered from heat stroke or something as I was sick a good few times and had loads of other nasty things. It was well grim, I also completely lost my appetite and couldn’t eat anything after the ride and run until 12.30 at night which isn’t good but there was nothing I could do. So today I have had to have off as I think I would have completely wrecked myself if I had of carried on and there’s still plenty of more das left. It’s hard to have a day off when your so keen to crack on with it and seeing the others carry on.

Another thing about the heat is I think when you’re living in England especially in Manchester the heat is never normally a probalen it’s normally making sure you don’t get hypothermia so I think it’s definitely something you have to learn to respect. Paul said to me when I described how I felt that is how you feel after doing an ironman, I couldn’t think of anything worse, total destruction still keen to try one though just to see what is actually like.

Day 3

According to the other I was saving myself for the rest of the week, I’m a southern fairy, Pussy, and went to hard yesterday! All I know is that there was no way I was in any shape to do anything today. The other lads went for a swim in the morning, then did some running hill reps and finished off with the chain gang in the evening.

Bootcamp 2 Day 1 & Ely Middle Distance Triathlon

2012-08-19T14:26:00.001-07:00

According to Paul Hawkins I shouldn’t be writing this as the bootcamp hasn’t started yet and I’m soft but I think a half ironman counts as the start.

Anyway today I did the Ely middle distance race, originally Paul Hawkins was going to do it with me but unfortunately he didn’t get away from his Sisters wedding in time so I was flying solo for this one.

My plan for the race was pretty simple really, well on paper it was I wanted to win it as there was £450 up for grabs but as it was the first day of the training camp I didn’t want to kill myself.

In the end I swam hard as I knew this would be a good opportunity to take a chunk of time out of the others, I got out of the water in 2/3^rd with first place just 10 seconds ahead and then managed to take the lead after half a mile. After that I didn’t see anyone else for the rest of the bike and run until just after the half way point as it was an out and back. I saw that I had a big gap so shut it down for the rest of the run. The temperature was scorching and aid stations were scarce which made it very hard.

My Bike and Run Data are below and final results are also:

Bike:

http://app.strava.com/activities/19059770

Run:

http://app.strava.com/activities/19051283

Final Results:

http://www.stuweb.co.uk/event/1090

In the evening I went for a swim with Paul Hawkins in the sea it was only about 2k but it was nice and good to get in there especially in the heat.

Hawkins and Rob Brundish did a progression run which was 10 minutes w/u 20m half ironman pace, 20 minutes all out, then warm down, I was on my bike next to them for this though!:)

I’ll update tomorrow so check back then, the plan is swim in the morning then 3 hours on the bike with a run off it with the first 10 minutes being hard.

Wiesbaden 70.3 European Championships

2012-08-17T07:20:00.002-07:00

I’ve got a few things I want to add in this blog but first of I’ll crack on with this race report. The swim was a really weird course it was like a small n shape where you had to get out do a little beach run and jump back in and do a bigger n shape back to transition and like always once the swim started it went like shit off a shovel for the first 200-300 meters. I managed to find myself in a big pack of guys and it felt like we were moving along at a decent rate so I was happy with where I was. It pretty much stayed like this until the end of the swim. Looking at the result and comparing my swim to Antwerp it seems that I definitely had an even better swim here and I was fairly pleased with my swim at Antwerp so that is a big positive.

Out onto the bike and I new before I started that my Garmin bike computer was playing up so I had planned to put my garmin 305 on whilst moving at the start of the bike as the bike was 1 lap and I wanted to know roughly how long I had been going for and how much longer I had left unfortunately for me while trying to put it on I dropped it and had to stop and put it on so lost about 20 seconds. After that everything went smoothly and I was feeling really good. I caught a couple of people up at the start and eventually found myself in a group of about 5 people, 3 of the people I was with were Boris (eventually finished 3^rd) Daniel, Thomas Hellriegal, Boris was absolutely smashing it and I remember he caught me around 8 miles in and I though Boriis who the hell is he I’m not going to let him have me so I was smashing it trying to stay with him and after about 20 miles he managed to get a bit of a gap maybe 100-200 meters but we were holding him, however eventually he started to pull away and we could see about 8- 10 guys in front which at this point must have been the lead group. At this point 25 miles in we had a climb of about 3 miles and I calculated them to be about 1 minute ahead which on a hill looks like nothing at all but we were absolutely turning ourselves inside out to get across and I expect they were doing the same to stay away. Eventually 3 guys managed to get across at different point however I couldn’t get across and had to settle with having Tom for company for the rest of the ride. The really frustrating thing was whenever we got to a climb you could see them in front, it was as if I was a donkey and someone was dangling a carrot in front of me, it doesn’t matter how fast or slow you go as you aren’t getting it. A few guys did come back from the group after they had blew there doors off.

Anyway starting the run and I wasn’t really sure how my legs were going to feel as I had really drilled the bike, the bike was one of them courses anyway which just makes you go hard as there was so much climbing in it (1500 meters) that you had to go hard and plus I had to as I wanted to keep myself in contention with the pack and for a decent result. Out onto the run and I didn’t hungry or low on energy just a bit heavy legged which I think is expected after a hard bike. On the first lap I was passed by Mark Threlfell but I kept him in sight and on the 3^rd lap I re- passed him and pushed on. There really isn’t anything else to write about the run as I didn’t get passed or pass anyone else. One thing I have to add though is that the course was fairly hard as it was very hot and 2ks of each lap were uphill on a trail through a park with about 600 meters of flat road at the top and then downhill for 2ks through the park back to transition where you had about 400 meters of flat and dead turn, you had to do this 4 times it certainly wasn’t an easy loop and I got it as an accurate 13.1 miles so I’ve got to take my hat off to Michael Raellert as running a low 1.11 in those conditions is a fantastic time.

Overview of the race

I finished in 15^th place in what was undoubtedly the strongest field I have ever raced against and was right amongst the action so I’m very, very pleased about that however looking back on the race now I know there were a few things I could have done to save me quite a bit of time which may have got me across to the pack. This was with the garmin I should have put it in one of the swim to bike transition bags as this would have meant that I could have put it on while running to my bike and would have saved me the time I lost when I dropped it. I could have put my helmet on and number belt at the same time which would have also been quicker.

I remember that it took me about 20 minutes to catch Hellriegal and some other gu who he was with but we came out of the water at roughly the same time so when you think about it that’s a hell of a lot of energy I would have saved which may have got me across to the pack. It’s all simple things really and I’ll remember this for m next race.

A Few Thank You’s

I want to say a quick few thank yous to Mail big file who have started to sponsor me and are helping me with accommodation and travel expenses as without them I wouldn’t have even been able to take part in that race. They have also made me a website which just need a bit of tinkering to be done but the website is joeskipper.co.uk check t out and let me know what you think.

Other Thank yous go to Clif bar for the nutrition which is awesome and really helps with training and racing and to Royles for the kit and bike they have given me which is also a massive help and Paul Savage who has been coaching me for the last year.

What’s Next?

After this race I have taken pretty much a week off where I have just done the odd run or swim but just for fun, more then anything it’s a mental break to make sure I’m fresh for my next races I will have coming up which will be Galway 70.3 and Paix de Aix 70.3 in France on the 2^nd September and the 23^rd September.

There is also a Bootcamp 2 coming up which is were doing in Lowestoft and will start on this Sunday with The Ely Monster Middle distance, basically if I’m honest me and Paul Hawkins are hoping to get some cash and not kill ourselves but we will see. Nothing is ever that straightforward and I’m sure it will be good fun!

Taking part in the Bootcamp is me obviously, Paul Hawkins, Rob Brundish, and few others may come down for a day or two of training. I think what I will do for this Bootcamp is do a daily blog with strava links of the training which were doing as I think it will be quite interesting. One thing for sure I’m pretty certain we will all crack at one point or another. Any wa check back from Sunday onwards for daily updates of the bootcamp and some priceless quotes!

Antwerp 70.3

2012-08-09T07:07:00.003-07:00

I should have done this race report ages ago but you know what it’s like it’s so easy to put something off and then never get around to doing it but finally I’m getting my act together and doing it.

Now with me things never go to plan and before I had even started the race my first problem arose. On the Tuesday I travelled down to Lowestoft from Manchester which all went smoothly no dramas so far, everything packed and ready however when checking my emails on Wednesday I had one from Matt Ellis who I was travelling with and in it amongst a load of other things he said DON’T FORGET YOUR PASSPORT!!! Oh shit I thought, I knew instantly that I had forgotten it and I knew exactly where it was. You can imagine the panic the day before I’m supposed to travel and my passport it is 250 miles away. I was leaving at 6am the next day as well so it wasn’t as though anyone could post it. A courier said they could get it to me for £250 but the problem was it was in my house and no one was there plus I’m not made of money so that was ruled out.

So a bit of quick thinking and I came up with a cunning plan, I managed to rope a friend in (Aimee you’re a legend) and basically as my phone had recently decided to give up on me and my new one didn’t have my landlords phone number on I had to get Aimee to go to my next door neighbours house so they could ring my landlord who would then open the house for her, then hopefully she would get my passport and go to Manchester Piccadily where hopefully we could rope someone in to taking my passport to Norwich where I would meet them and give them £20 for there trouble.

As with most plans they very rarely come off, well mine don’t anyway and no one would take the passport so my last hope was to get Aimee to put the passport in an envelope and leave it on the front carriage of the train in the baggage rack. I would then cross my fingers and hope it was still there when the train arrived in Norwich 5 hours later. Luckily it was still there and at 8pm I had my passport, and they say there is no such thing as a free ride!

Right after that bit of drama I will actually get onto how the race went:

The Swim:

This was a one lap affair it started flat out as always and my plan was the same as always. F****n nail it and hope for the best, try and stay up there and hope you end up in the front pack. I went really hard at the start and was in a pack which split and I ended up being towards the front of the second pack. There were 2-3 people in front and sitting on there feet it felt o.k not slow but not really hard so once or twice I went to move up and thought if I can swim faster then this I’m just going to go for it and limit my losses but when I went out of the draft it was just a lot harder and I wasn’t going any quicker so it was pretty handy being in this pack as for me it was a decent speed and I couldn’t go any quicker swimming by myself.

When I got out of the water they said a group of 3 were 2m 20 ahead, I knew there was a main pack behind them not massively in front of me as I could see them it turns out that they ended up being 1m 30 ahead. Looking at the swim splits afterwards I was closer to people I have raced against before by about 20-30 seconds so that’s a positive and shows my swimming is coming on in the right direction.

Time 24m 10 Seconds

The Bike:

At the start of the bike I didn’t feel to bad but after about 10 miles I wouldn’t say I felt bad but I just didn’t feel good either and just couldn’t ride like I normally do in these races where I’m breathing fairly hard and putting down some decent power. I felt unable to breathe hard and hold a decent power it was just one of those days. I think the course didn’t help me either, on paper it’s the easiest course you will do pan flat, no turns, good road surface, not much wind, sounds perfect and easy doesn’t but the thing with courses like this is they suit a rider who can just keep tapping away at a steady rhythm. There is nothing to break it up, if yoou go really hard for a certain point there’s no respite like going really hard up a hill and cruising down the other side. If you cruise on a flat course like this your competitors are just pulling away and taking time out of you. It’s not often I can’t wait to get off the bike and start running but after about 30-40 miles I couldn’t wait. I tried to keep my focus and give it my best as you have to really I knew it wasn’t my day but the bike is only one aspect and at one point I think I was up to 8^th place so there was still everything to play for. The fact that I found it easy to eat solids meant that I new I wasn’t pushing that hard but when I did try and push it my legs just went, the upside to this was I would have good legs for the run but in my opinion if you feel good starting the run you haen’t gone hard enough as it’s a race it’s supposed to feel hard and I love that feeling where when you get off the bike and you feel pretty nailed and you want to stop but you keep pushing on. Our man that’s a good feeling and when you feel like that you can tell you’re on to a good result.

Bike Time 2 hours 13 minutes 01 second (Positive is if I get the 15^th fastest Bike with one leg the I’m going to cause carnage going 100%)

Run:

A 3 and a bit lap affair around Antwerp. Because I was such a fanny on the bike my legs actually felt pretty good for a change which was a rarity for me, a nice rarity a bit like getting everything on your Christmas list at Christmas. Well not quite that good but it was good! I used my Garmin for this just because I could really, I don’t know if it helped me or not but I came in to the transition with Matt Ellis but got a few seconds on him in there but after about a minute he caught me and that was the kick up the arse I needed. We were running at around 5.45mpm-5.50mpm when ever I looked at it but with the 90 degree corners I think you lose a bit of pace around these so after the 1^st lap the average was 5.54. After the 1^st lap Matt dropped off the pace a bit and I pushed on then and managed to get the average down to 5m50 after the second lap. The crowds were awesome and this really helped make you push more. On the 3^rd lap I started to feel it and was having to really dig in. I managed to catch 10 miles in about 58.40 but I was starting to really feel it and the cobbles and sharp turns were starting to feel really hard, when your tired they really do kill you as you lose your speed and have to accelerate after each turn which when your on deaths door isn’t easy. I got the total run as 13.39 miles in 1h 19.01 average 5m 57 per mile.

All in all 15^th place 3 hours 59 minutes 18 seconds, the full results are on the link below if your interested. I would say that this race for me was a no thrills race it wasn’t good, it wasn’t but nothing to get excited about. My next race is Wiesbaden 70.3 and as I write this I’ve just been in London watching the Olympic canoeing and Kayaking it was great and another bonus is I’ve managed to blag first class on the train and am enjoying the complimentary food and drink, now That’s how I roll!

Wiesbaden Looks to suit me with a hilly bike and flat run, I’ve been tapering my training for this and feel good so fingers crossed I’ll have good legs on Sunday. It’s the European 70.3 Champs and has a stacked field but I’m looking forward to taking on the big boys and hopefully breaking into the top ten.

http://www.chronorace.be/web2/Classements/live/LiveLigneResults.aspx?eventId=6335076761604&IdGroup=4&lng=EN&mode=large&IdClassement=8339&Result=officiel

A little update on what i've been up to

2012-07-09T05:55:00.002-07:00

Since UK70.3 i've been specifically working on my running and swimming. The running hasn't seen any big changes just re- jigging my training so that i'm hitting the sessions fresher and able to get more out of them.

With regards to my swimming i've known it has been the weakest for a while but didn't really know what aspect of it I was weak at, by this I mean I didn't know if it was my strength, speed, technique etc! So without actually knowing what aspect you need to work on it's hard to get improvements. After the last couple of races I feel that it's my speed that's the specific weakness strengh wise i'm o.k relatively speaking as I don't swim much slower then my 400m pace for 1500m or 1900m so the aim is to do a lot more speed work and really just work at really gettin much faster over 400 metres. I also know my technique is probably far from perfect so am not neglecting drill I include drill in most of my sessions but physically I will aim to get much faster and my target is to get under 4m 40 for 400 metres in training, Having a target I believe will definitly also help as you are actually working towards something.

My training has gone well recently I've done some good sessions and am pleased with the times i've been getting for reps and how i've been feeling. I've got this week to get through and then I will be resting up for a week so that i'm nice and fresh for Antwerp. I'm really looking forward to this race and feel as though i'm mentally ready for a big race which is one of the most important things I think because if you really want to get a big performance you have got to get it into your head that it's going to be bloody painful and be ready to push yourself right to the limits. I've been getting myself mentally prepared over the last few weeks for this and am well up for smashing it and seeing what happens. Physically I feel that i'm in a good place at the moment and as long as lady luck is on my side a big result will be on the cards.

A night in a Liverpool hostel, Oh and the Triathlon

2012-07-05T01:52:00.002-07:00

Liverpool 5150

I was looking forward to this race with it having a stacked field this year due to being the European 5150 championships (non drafting) and with it being fairly local so having a lot of support out on course from other Manchester Tri members.

The course is very quick with a fairly flat bike course, the good thing with the bike course is that it’s not very technical at all so if you’re not strong on the bike then your going to get shit canned especially if it’s windy like on Sunday as there is just no respite.

Pre Race

I had to be in Liverpool the night before as the pro briefing was on the Saturday, basically from going to these I’ve leant that not much actually happens in them but it’s good to have a bit of a catch up and banter with the other lads. After I decided that I would stay in Liverpool the night as I didn’t want to spend another 1 hour 30 travelling back on the train and then spend another 1 hour 30 the next morning so I basically ended up staying in literally Liverpool’s cheapest accommodation which I found on some hostel site.

When I arrived there they told me that one of the other people who was staying in my flat had somehow locked the entry to where I was staying and it was impossible to get in, I don’t actually understand what had happened but I couldn’t get in anyway and the landlady tried to find them and get the key. While I was waiting there I asked them if they were busy tonight hoping they would say no, the reply I got was not what I hoped “yeah we’ve got a couple of stag party’s staying in flat 5 and flat 7, there’s a group of lads staying in flat 3” you get the picture anyway.

Unfortunately the land lady eventually came back unable to get the key so never mind they took matters into there own hand and just battered the door open with a hammer, Job done and they let me have 10 quid off for my trouble! (Not that I would have been doing much else) So I got my key and the pleasant offer from the landlady that who gave me her mobile number in case I needed anything and the lovely offer that if I didn’t pull tonight at least I’ve got her number, Lovely! Oh and I had the pleasure of having the bedroom door without a lock on, I was hoping she wasn’t planning on giving me an unexpected surprise in the middle of the night!:)

Anyway race day arrived and I managed to have one of the best nights sleep I think I’ve had before a race and I would definitely stay there again it was a ball!:)

The Race

The Swim

It started off rapid as always but I knew it would so psyched myself up for a hard swim and had it in my head that I would just work as hard as I can until the end as I wanted to limit my losses in order to keep me in it so just put my head down and drilled it. I ended up swimming the whole swim pretty much by myself apart from some guy behind me who I think liked the feel of my feet and occasionally touched it throughout the swim, maybe he’s one of them people who have got a foot fetish or something!:) I managed to have one of the best swims I’ve had being only 25-30 seconds behind the 2^nd pack which contained Paul Hawkins, Ben Howard and a few others which is pretty good for me but still 1m 50 behind the fastest swimmer.

The Bike

The course was literally straight out 180 turn and back. It was very windy and the race was literally all in pieces so there’s not much to say about this other then I wanted to put myself in the best possible position for when I started the run so I just beasted it. I ended up being with Ben Howard (turns out he can do more then just sing) and we just worked our way up the field. With my swim being what it is at the moment in one of these Olympic races I have 2 options which are:

Pace the bike but be out of contention but will have better run legs!

Go really hard on the bike put yourself in contention and get near the pointy end and x your fingers in the hope you still have your run legs.

I don’t like the sound of number 1 as it’s a race it’s not supposed to be easy and plus you will never feel like your at the pointy end of the race. Anyway I got off the bike in 10^th with Ben Howard and some other guy just ahead in 8th and 9^th.

The Run

I started off pretty had but after the bike I struggled to get a high leg turnover going and get my lungs really working but I gave it my best shot and by the end of the first lap I got overtaken by Lawrence Fanous. Starting the 2^nd lap my legs felt as though they got into it and I could get my legs going better and work my lungs a bit more. I saw Richard Stannard catching me. Although at the time I was not liking I did kind of relish the opportunity of trying to hold him off and have a sprint finish with him, well he caught me with about 400 metres to go and put in a surge he got a bit of a gap on me and I had like to voices in my head one saying it’s alright Joe don’t worry it’s only for 11^th it don’t matter just jog in and the other saying MAN UP you PUSSY don’t let him get away you can beat him, at this time as well I heard a lot of the guys who I know cheering me on so I dug deep and was really on the limit I managed to get back on his shoulder and new if we got to about 60 metres to go I would have him. We turned the corner to the finish with about 200 to go and it kicked up I went to sprint, he went to sprint and my legs just went bye bye Richard! Yep unfortunately he got me but I like to think that I gave it my best shot and when I went to sprint I literally couldn’t and blew up massively ended up going so slow for the last 100 metres but it was fun.

In Reflection

It was a very good race I finished 12^th place but ended up only 1m 23 seconds off Macca in 5^th place so you couldn’t ease off. Also it was the best Olympic distance I’ve ever raced as it was full on the whole time everyone just went flat out and hoped they didn’t blow. I know a really good race like this 3 weeks before Antwerp 70.3 will pay massive dividends.

I also want to say a massive well done to Roger Witz Barnes a fellow Man Tri member who finished in 7^th place and was running shoulder to shoulder with Macca for a while.

Reflecting a bit more on my own performance I think that physically I was feeling good but I wasn’t as mentally up for it like UK 70.3. I mean don’t get me wrong I was still well up for it but to get the absolute most out of myself I need to get my head in the zone for a good 3 weeks before the race and just visualize it and try and think where abouts it’s going to hurt and just basically get myself ready to completely f**k myself up. I’m mentally getting ready for my next race Antwerp and just going to go so hard, I don’t know what position I’ll get but I think I’m going to be very tough to beat and I am going to give it absolutely everything.

One other thing I wanted to say was that if you know me you will know that I’m probably like the least biggest fan of compression clothing, I will never wear it certainly not during sport and I’ve never even tried it after sport but at the expo there were some guys from this company called 110% play harder who let me try these ¾ recovery tights on where you can fit ice packets in to simulate an ice bath. Now I tried them on and I have to say they worked amazingly the next day I felt surprisingly good and I don’t know if they made a difference or if I didn’t try hard enough but it’s got me thinking and I may have been converted! Only for recovery purposes though!

Until next time see you later, Oh and below is a video of the pro race!

UK 70.3 Wimbleball Race Report

2012-06-18T09:38:00.001-07:00

This race had been a goal of mine for a long time as it's supposed to be a tough course and the fact that it gets a stacked field so you can race against people of a really decent calibre. this site is great if your into your long distance racing and has all the previews of the races and reports which are put up very quickly after the race http://beyondgoinglong.co.uk/

Pre Race:
The Training:
I had been training really hard for this since just after Tri Star cannes on the 29th April. I did a week training in wales with Paul Hawkins followed by the Marshman middle (as if a middle distance tri isn't hard enough already). After the week in wales I sat down with Paul Savage and we came up with a plan of attack for UK. The plan wasn't to radical really with pretty much the same sessions I was doing before my injury I sustained at the Buxton mountain tt as I was improving every week so we would only be chaging for the sake of it. There was however a specific 70.3 session on a sunday which literally killed me every week if you follow me on twitter I probably bored you to death every sunday with complaints that I was nailed and how it was the hardest session I had ever done week on week for about a 5 weeks!:) This session consisted of a 3 hour ride with 1 hour at 70.3 pace or what I hoped would be 70.3 pace which was around 90% of ftp and started off at 320w and by the end of the training cycle (1 week before) I was doing 340w now i'm not saying my threshold increased by 20w but the perceived effort was the same. After the bike I would get home where I would have all my running kit out ready get changed as quickly as possible and do a 30 minute tempo run at 70.3 pace or quicker over as undulating terrain I could find near where I live which isn't much I have to admit!

Friday- Sunday
I travelled down early on the friday morning with Paul Hawkins and no sooner had we left the drama started. Just as we were about to get on the motorway I had a horrible feeling I had forgot my helmet. I don't know what made me think it but we stopped the car I checked the boot and yep I had forgot the bloody thing! I knew Paul was not going to be a happ chappy and his response was for f***s sake can you not try and blag one when we get down there. Fortunatley he was up for going back and I picked it up and then we were off second time lucky. Luckily the rest of the trip was hassle free once we got down there we met up with Matt Ellis who was also racing and set off to recce the bike course, we had all heard so many different stories about it that we wanted to check it out and see how much of a pig it really was. I didn't think it was actually that bad I would class it as rolling with 2 climbs each lap, my garmin recorded it as 2400 feet of climbing per lap.
After reccying the course I had another little problem, I was supposed to be sharing a room with Rob Brundish and the plan was to meet him at the race site. Now this sounds great doesn't it but I couldn't ring him as there was no signal there so it wasn't until about 7pm that I ended up bumping into him which wasn't a problem in the end but I was starting to worry as I thought I was going to end up camping with Hawkins.

Saturday
Me and Rob decided to go for a swim the day before the race as it's low impact and I like swimming the day before if I can because I find if I don't swim for 2-3 days before a race my technique can feel awful on the day of the race. Anyway the sea was only anout 3 miles away from where we were staying so we drove to the beach parked up and went to "Swim" we walked out got to the sea and got bloody stuck in some quick sand, it was bloody horrible stuff as every time you took a step you sunk to between your knees and hips! We must have looked like a write pair being the only two on the beach in wetsuits crawling to try and spread the weight out so we didn't sink. Eventually though we got back to the car drove to another beach and got a decent swim in.

After the mornings antics we went to the race site racked the bike and then had the endurance event of waiting in traffic for at least 1.5 hours to get out of the field so we could get home.
At the B&B me and Rob were chatting about what we both thought was a good result, a great result and what our game plans were. I said a good result would be top 10 a really good result would be top 5 and my aim was to swim hard, smash the bike and hope for the best on the run. We both said we just wanted to give it 100% and had kind of a pact that we would make sure we were on the limit all the time, to make us feel better we had it in our head that it didn't matter if we felt nailed on the run as it would only hurt for 80 minutes (A bloody long 80 minutes)

The Race
If you haven't closed the tab on me and are still hear this is how the race went.
The Swim:
I thought I would try something a bit different and I started about 15 metres over from the main group with one other person. This enabled me to get a really good start for me without taking a battering. I felt like I had a really good swim as well and got out in just over 25 minutes. There was a run up to transition and instead of just putting my helmet on I put some socks and bike shoes on as well. The reason I did this was you can tighten the velcro up tighter, the run to the bike was on grass so you would be able to run at the same speed without damaging the cleats, the mount line was on a hill so it was much easier to get going with shoes already on.

The bike:
I could tell I felt good on the bike from the off as I was breathing hard. If i'm not going that well it's my legs that are the limiting factor they will feel heavy and my breathing isn't that deep. If I do a race without tapering I am likely to feel more like that but tapered and fresh I was hoping to be able to push it really hard and get the lungs working. Not long after starting the bike I overtook Paul Amey who is the GB record holder for the ironman which he set in november last year at Arizona with 8.02 I couldn't believe it and I thought yes I have an Alloy for the bike but when I went past him he didn't come with me so I just kept my head down and well just f****n spanked it. I got onto the main road and said to the someone what place am I in and he said 7th I thought no way 7th already I couldn't believe it as I was expectining hime to say 15th or worse so this was so motivating and really encouraged me to work hard. I kep my head down and passed Paul Hawkins a bit later and then Ben Howard. We kept together as a group and eventually caught Harry Wiltshire and Mark Threlfell after about 17-18 miles it was between the bottom of the doodgy decent onto the main road and the steep climb. A little bit later Harry fell off the pace. I didn't like riding in the group as the pace felt easy and this isn't what I wanted so knew I had to try and drop the others, I mean cycling is my strength so I need to play to my strengths and get a gap not to mention Fraser Cartmell and Philip Graves were up the road and as Ben Fish says who I work with at Royles win by the biggest margin or lose by the smallest, it was as if I could see him saying it to me so I thought right the first opportunity I get i'm going to absolutely drill it and if I can't get away i'm going to make them hurt. The first opportunity to really try and get away was the hill at the start of the second lap it's shortish and steep but it's flat over the top so you can keep the pressure on right over the top and if you get a gap there is no repite for them so once we started the climb it felt fairly hard and I thought this is good as I knew if I was finding it hard the others would be to so I went as hard as I could and just kept the pressure on. Luckily I managed to get a gap so just kept the pressure on, at the start of that climb they gave us time splits to the two leaders 4 minutes to Graves and 2.30 to Cartmell, I kept getting time splits to Cartmell and couldn't believe how quick the gap was coming down and at the bottom off the sttep descent I managed to catch him. It was quite funny really once I catched him as I was in my Man Tri Kit and I think everyone thought I was some chopper or random age grouper that had jumped on his wheel as whenever we went up a hill with spectators they were cheering him on and giving him time gaps to Phil but no one was even acknowelding me, also when we finished the 2nd lap they knew he had finished but tried to send me around for another lap!lol I actually found it quite amusing though to be honest.

The Run:
Oh my god this was the hardest run course I have ever done! I was told it was lumpy with bit on trails. Now if i was going to design a run course that was least suited to me I would make it off road, hilly, and twisty and turny pretty much the same as Wimbleball. I started the run with Fraser and thought I would try and stay with hime, hope Graves blows and then outsprint Fraser at the end for the win!lol Sounds quite easy, executing it though is a completley different ball game and staying with Fraser wasn't happening as he put a bit of a surge in up some grass uphill section and I just couldn't stay with him I tried my hardest but I was really suffering, this is the bit what I love about these 70.3s the mental part and constant fight to keep a high pace and not give into the demons that tell you to slow down. I think in every half i've done even when I've been going really well you still get these demons but you can tell your moving well and know your onto a good result so the suffering is worth while but when the running seems hard it can be easier to give in but you have to expect it and as Jens Voigt says shut up legs!

Anyway after about 2 miles you get onto this dam where you run out and back
it gives you a chance to see anyone whos within about 3 minutes of you and to my surprise I saw Mark, Ben, The German guy who came 2nd and Fraser behind them some how he went the wrong way I have no idea how but I was in 2nd and couldn't believe it. after about 3.5 miles I got overtaken by Mark and the German and then on the 2nd lap Fraser went passed me. I was now in 5th place and for the rest of the run had a constant battle with Ben Howard I could see he was hurting but I was absolutely nailed as well and felt like I was doing a death march. He had me down to 30 seconds at one point with a lap and a mile to go and I thought to myself give it everything you have Joe for 1 lap and if you still have 30 seconds with 1 mile to go 5th place is yours. The next chance I got to see him was on the dam for the last time and I saw that I had taken a little bit more time out of him but not much ad it was still going to be touch and go as I was blowing up big time and didn't even know if I would make it to the end. The xt chance I got to see hime was at the point with 1 mile to go and to my surprise he was no where to be seen but now I had bloody Paul Amey chasing me down and he was running like a man possessed I though oh no, I dug deep into the hurt box and just managed to hold him off but it wasn't pretty and I was a spent force at the end so final position was 5th and time was 4.27. I have never felt so f****d everything hurt my arms, my legs, just everything but I absolutely loved it to me that was a proper race and I just wish there were more races in the UK with that strength in depth in the field as it's just so intense and is all out for 4.5 hours and I loved that to me that is a proper race and if it wasn't for the cost of getting to these Ironman branded races I would be doing a lot more of them.

My next A race is going to be Wiesbaden it's the european 70.3 champs and I want to have a really good race there, I'm addicted to them and can't wait! In the mean time I will be racing Liverpool 5150 on the 1st july, Tristar Milton Keynes on the 29th July and maybe another one in between I would like to do Antwerp but will have to work out the costs.

I would also like to say a massive thanks to Royles for sorting me out with loads of kit for training i've been using the gore run and bike wear and have to say it's fantastic stuff. When you have great kit to train in i'm sure you can get more quality out of the session plus you look the part which is essential of course! And I would like to say thanks to Paul Savage who has been coaching me since last april for hardly anything and I owe him a massive thanks for that as I know without him I would not be anywhere near where I am now.

National Sprint Championships and full steam ahead for UK70.3

2012-05-28T08:03:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I took part in the National Sprint Championships. I did this event last year and I found it really helped my preperation for the longer events as it gives you a really solid speed workout without taking that much out of you over the following days. I new the race would get a strong field which was another positive about doing the event as it would mean that you would be pushed from start to finish to get a decent result.

The race was set off in numerous waves every 10 minutes which ment as well as racing others it was also a time trial as well as you couldn't ease off because you didn't know what people in the other waves were doing and the last thing you want to find out is that you've been beaten by 1 second.

The race itself started off bloody quick but it was absolute carnage and the amount of times I got pulled back was ridiculous. As well as that it's really annoying as some of the guys have a really good sprint on them but are on there knees after 100-200 metres so your trying to overtake them but struggling to find room to get past. All being said I felt as though I was swimming pretty well. My time was 10.09

Once onto the bike I worked my way through the field and arrived back into transition in 3rd place from my wave. My time for it was 29.13, I had the average speed as 25.7 mph so not bad. I had a good transition and felt as though I was running well but at the time I didn't know what place I was in or who was ahead of me. I was passing loads of runners who were out on the course from earlier wave and felt as though I was running well but my time was only 18.39 which is slower then what I do my tempo runs at off the bike in training so I don't know if the course was long or what but I felt good while out on the course so can't really have any complaints although I would have liked to have achieved a better position.

On reflection the race has come in a big block of training in preperation for Wimbleball which is one of my big aims for the season and I race I would love to get a solid result in. The training at the moment which I've been doing has been really specific to 70.3s and I feel as though I can run 5.50s quite happily for a half marathon after a tough bike but running FAST is proving more difficult at the moment. I think part of that could be due to missing a lot of track sessions stemming from when I had the crash on my bike and then due to racing at the weekends following that so hopefully with a few speed sessions between now and then I will be able to get another 1-2 seconds a mile quicker over the half marathon.

Cycling on the other hand is going really well and i've been hitting some good sessions in training. At the moment i'm doing the following sessions

:Tuesdays 4*10 minute reps at above threshold with quite long recovery, the 4th one though is 30 seconds harder 1 minute easier

Wednesday just a steady 2-3 hours, easy cycling just enjoying it really.

Thursday VO2 max intervals which consists of 2 sets of 4 minute reps with 2 minutes recovery. I aim for 95% of 8 minute max power and it's a frickin killer.

Friday, chain gang which basically consists of 7.5 laps of a 3.5 mile circuit doing through and off followed by a sprint at the end of every lap. I think this basically equates to working at around threshold for 8 minutes then 20-30 seconds at well over threshold for the surge and sprint, 1 minute easy spinning while we re-group and then repeat.

The next post I do will probably be at the end of this week and will just be about my training, hopefully I will be able to write that i've hit some really good sessions. It will certainly give a good insight into how well I can do at wimbleball.

Almost forgot well done to all the guys in the sprint champs and especially Roger who is also from Man tri who won. Full results are here http://www.racetimingsystems.com/public/results.aspx?raceid=1972

Boot Camp and Marshman Triathlon

2012-05-06T13:26:00.001-07:00

After arriving back from Tristar Cannes on Sunday night I had work on Monday and then headed to Chirk in North Wales for one of Paul Hawkins boot camps, I was also joined by Dan McParland who is in training for Ironman Regensberg where he's hoping to qualify for Kona. Now for those of you that don't know Paul he's ex marines, a proper back to basics guy with regards to training, there's no technology, no fancy heart rate zones or power meters just hard work and lot's of hills and my god did we go up a lot of hills! Basically no frills training but you know you're going to be working hard and if it doesn't crack you it will make you strong!

So this was basically what the week consisted of::

Monday:
work, try and recover after racing tristar cannes yesterday. I was excited about what lie ahead and hoping for good legs otherwise I was going to be getting a s**t kicking all week.

Chirk Castle which we ran up to many a time!

Tuesday:
And the fun begins. The weather was supposed to be bad in the morning and then get better in the afternoon so the plan was to get a quality run session done in the morning and then head out on the bike with a swim session at the Chester academy in the evening to finish the day off.

9am- progressive run 20m/20m/20m easy pace, hard, balls out smashing it. This run was so painful, Paul seemed to have the better of me on the uphills and was putting me in some serious pain, the were numerous time were I thought I can't keep this up but I thought there's no way I'm letting him get the better of me, then n the flats and downhills I repaid the favour and i'm sure Paul was thinking the same thing. Quality session, really fun as well!

11.30am
3 hours 15 with a chain gang around the Shropshire tri course (40k) and then 30 minutes steady riding before tackling a load of hills with one of them being one of the steephist hill I have ever seen with one of the gang having to walk with there bike up the hill. I won't name them as i'm sure there stil feeling the shame! Hawkins was having a tough ride and took a battering on the chain gang but full credit to him for digging in.

6pm
Swim session at the Chester Academy main set was 3*200 *3 off 4 minutes descending the pace easy/hard/flat out was hitting around 2.45/2.33-2.35/ 2.27-2.29. Good session.

Wednesday
9am - Hawkins had to head back to Manchester regarding some job so me and Dan went out on a 2.5 hour ride. We went up the horseshoe pass and did bits of though and off at various points during the ride. Dan was taking a bit of a battering, now your probably getting the gist that there's a bit of theme going on here Paul yesterday, Dan today I wonder who's turn it will be tomorrow????

2pm
Swim session me and Dan did a session doing a load of work with pull buoy, paddles, and band etc mainly steady swimming.

6pm ride to do the 10 mile time trial do a short balls out run off the bike and attempt to cycle back. With the plan being to have a brutal day tomorrow instead of Friday as the weather was forecast to be better and after having a tough day Dan decided to give the tt a miss. Me and Paul did it, it consisted of a 40 minute ride there, 10 mile time trial on a tough course I did 23.27 which isn't very quick considering the power 370w (should be on Strava), then a quick transition and a 5 minute run as hard as possible to get used to running off the bike quick, this hurt so much and I could feel the lactic building up in my arms. 10 minute jog back and a 40 minute ride back where I was absolutely creeping!

Thursday
8.30am 5.5 hour ride of riding time over literally the most hills I have ever seen. We started off in Chirk headed up the horseshoe pass where I just felt completely battered. Once at the top we headed over to Bala, up some massive hill to Lake Vernwy and then back to Chirk via Oswestry. We went up loads of hills that were really steep but only lasted between 2-5 minutes but they were relentless and being on a bad day it's fair to say it was brutal. I felt like I had spent the day in the company of the school bully!

Run off the bike, once we got in all 3 of us quickly got changed and headed out on a run. Me and Paul just had stopwatches so didn't know pace but Dan who was with us for the first 20 minutes said we were running at 4 minutes a k pace and it definitely seemed as though we kept going at the same pace. Hilly terrain but felt really good running.If it wasn't for the thought of getting a stinking on hot Curry from Chirks finest curry house I think I would have imploded somewhere in North Wales and would probably still be there now.

Friday
9am Quality trail run around the hill near the horseshoe pass, loads of hills pretty much all of road, stunning scenery. Absolutely awesome run. We all ran together and it was just the hills that made the run hard in places. 2 hours.

2.30pm Swim session at some gym Paul's mum got us in which was like a Turkish spa. main set was 40*100s varying it every 10 doing different things followed by the jacuzzi where some lady kept saying to us she wanted to take a picture of us! Yes very strange but then we are in Wales so I'm guessing it's just the norm round this neck of the woods.

6pm 45 minute run easy pace just a bit of social and a great way to finish the week off. Just used it as a leg loosen-er.

Saturday:
Travel back in the morning in order to get to work the travel down south for the Marshman triathlon. Busy Day!

Sunday:
Marshman Triathlon
Now being down south I though you were supposed to get really good weather but as sods law has it in Manchester it was warm and sunny but in Kent it was windy, dark and bloody freezing!

The terrain around Marshman, today was fairly windy and the head winds feel never ending and are soul destroying. Because of the flat terrain you can never free wheel!

About 25 minutes before the race was supposed to start we were informed that the referee had taken the temperature of the water and that being only 10 degrees it was to cold to swim in so unfortunately the swim was cancelled and what replaced it was a monster of a duathlon. The race was now to be a 5.4k 1st run 92k bike and a 21.1k last run.

1st Run- once the race started everyone literally belted it from the start. I thought maybe they were hard of hearing and thought that the race was just a 5k run as it didn't seem like they were holding anything back. I jogged round and took it easy knowing that gaining 20-30 seconds was pointless as your legs would be trashed for the bike and would lose all the time not to mention the fact there was still a half marathon to go.

Bike- I started off hard on the bike and managed to catch the 1st placed rider by 7 miles. Once in the lead I pushed on for about another 10-20 minutes. I remember looking at my bike computer around 45 minutes in and really struggling to concentrate. I think I went through this phase for about 30 minutes and I just remember feeling really bored as I had an idea I was quite far ahead of everyone but had no one to catch, it was very bizarre but this went on until about 75 minutes in and i manged to snap out of it and reminded myself that there was only 1 hour to go and managed to get back on it and push it all the way to the end.

Run 2- I had no idea what my lead was starting this and as I was a late entrant into the race didn't know what the course was like but I remember looking at my watch and seeing 2 hours 43 on the stopwatch and set off at a hard/comfortable pace which I felt I could sustain for the duration but also if I saw someone gaining on me I knew I had a few gears to pick it up if need be. So that's pretty much what did for the run.

One thing of note however is that for some reason I just felt quite sick on the bike, it wasn't as if I was going to be sick though I just couldn't stomach any food. I don't know if it was due to the early start or what but after 45 minutes I hadn't eaten anything and I just remember forcing a gel down me and i had to do this a few time on the ride. I didn't eat as much as what i normally would and noticed this on the run as the last 30 minutes I felt like I was starting to run on fumes. Very strange.

It was a great event and a solid end to the week and it was a great training session as it's so much easier to work at these intensities and I doubt that if I hadn't been in a race I wouldn't have been able to go that hard after the week before it.

Results:
http://twitdoc.com/view.asp?id=47559&sid=10P3&ext=PDF&lcl=Marshman-Prov-Overall.pdf&usr=TLSportsEvents&doc=92589532&key=key-2odfku76rryvv2jdzey3

Tri Star Cannes

2012-05-04T05:36:00.002-07:00

First off I want to say thanks to the Bottin family in France who were amazing they picked me up from the airport on Thursday, let me stay with them all week until Sunday, took me to reccy the course, took me to the race on the Sunday and then back to the airport after the race, and Christine Bottin cooked some awesome food which went down a treat, I have no idea what some of the stuff I ate was but it tasted bloody good. So a massive thank you for everything it’s much appreciated.

A profile of the bike course is above flat eh! However the run course was pan flat just running along the coast, it was 2 laps of an out and back.

The swim for the race ended up being cancelled due to big waves, I took the picture above while we were all waiting around. That wave was fairly big but every so often there were some absolutely huge ones coming in. So instead of doing the swim we had to do a really bizarre 1 kilometer run in our wetsuits to transition as if we had just got out of the water. The race then carried on as normal with the 100 kilometer bike and 10 kilometer run to follow.

After exiting transition I was in 5th place and I could see 2 groups of 2 people in each ahead of me so as the first bit of the race was pan flat along the sea front I thought I would put my head down and make the most of it before we hit the hills as I was on a time trial bike and a lot of the others were on road bikes so I knew they would have the advantage when we started climbing.

I quickly caught 2 guys in front of me but in the process had one little scrote who hitched a lift behind me up to the guys in front. Anyway I carried on and once I hit the first climb I had two guys about 20 seconds in front and then me and 3 guys behind but as we started climbing they helped with the pace setting. Once we got to the top of the first climb 2 of the favorites overtook us Marceau and Cherbaut. Cherbaut later dropped out for some reason. However once Marceau caught our group he put a dig in straight away. It was quite funny as some German guy comes next to me and goes we can't let him get away! It was actually quite funny as there was so much desperation in his voice.lol. Anyway we went after him and there was about 6 of us in the group at this point and I knew what the course was like for the next 15 miles as it was a part what I reccied the other day and I was not looking forward to the descent. Now normally I would be loving the descents and I would have enjoyed f****n these guys over going down there, however today I was to get a taste of my own medicine. The tires I have on my Mavics are absolutely cack there some Victoria Slick tire and in the wet have absolutely no grip, going up the hill my back wheel was sliding out!

Anyway back to the descent and this descent was very technical, switchbacks, really deceptively tight corners, huge drop offs and wet continental roads. To add to this Marceau and Cherbaut who was still in the race at this point and he knew the roads really well and was absolutely hammering it down there. I was absolutely shitting myself but knew I had to go as fast as possible because I knew from the course reccy the other day that there was a very tough 3.5 kilometer hill and with a load of us in the pack it was obvious it was going to kick off.

And kick off it did, once we started the climb everyone went full pelt and splits were appearing everywhere, I just put my head down and went as hard as I could possibly go. I knew that over the top of the climb the descent wasn't very technical and that there were some flat sections where I would be able to make up time, or if I was with the group I would be able to attack them so I dug deep. I think I was about 20-30 seconds behind the first guy going over the top of the hill but I lost about 15-20 seconds on the descent so pretty much kept the same gap going up the climb. It's a shame I didn't have better tires on as I know I would have been one of the faster guys on the descent and would have been at the front the going over the top where it suited a tie trial bike and I think I might have been able to get a gap as the guys on a road bike would have been much slower.

Anyway after the climb the group all came back together and we hit the last hill where there were a few attacks going off but no one was able to get much of an advantage and no one was willing to let anyone get away as with only a 10 kilometer run to do at the end any gap would be significant.

We all ended up hitting T2 together, we gave our bikes to the helpers and then had to leg it as fast as possible to the far end where our run bags were. This is where I made my biggest mistake of the race, it didn't click to me at the time that because we were all in the pro wave our bags were all together so there was only enough room for 2 people at a time to get there bag and I happened to be the 5th person to get my bag so there was a big elastic effect as the 1st 2 people got there bag then the next 2 and then e and some other guy so I ended up losing about 20 seconds which might have made a difference. Looking at the overall times it wouldn't have but if you start off running with someone you may be able to stay with them. One thing I will do next time though is make sure if I come into transition with a group I will make sure I'm at the front.

once we started the 10k everyone went pretty much hell for leather and it was hard to run fast after doing such a hilly/hard bike course. I feel as though I can run well fresh but struggle after a hard bike so that is one thing I will definitely be working on. Nothing really happened in the race on the 10k apart from we all gave it full gas, were pretty much spread out and suffered a lot. Even on the last lap when I knew my position was sealed I still tried to give it everything I had as you can't do this kind of effort in training and I could tell I need race fitness.

So that's basically it. The reason this update took so long is because since I got back from the race I have been on a training camp in Wales with Paul Hawkins and another mate Dan Mc Parland it's been really hard and I've been to tired after training to cohesively write anything. I'll do a blog on it in the next couple of days as it's been pretty epic and we've all had a bad day, unfortunately for me mine was yesterday on the long ride. It was horrendous just getting the s**t kicked out of me on every hill in what felt like north wales for 5.5 hours, luckily I felt good on the hour run off the bike I think the thought of a spicy curry got me round!:)

My next race will be Marshman on Sunday, it's not a big race but there's nothing else on and it should be a good burn up, I'm really looking forward to it and can't wait!

An Enforced extra Long Taper

2012-04-20T08:02:00.004-07:00

Tapering is such an individual thing and it’s one of them things which I think really does vary massively among athletes as there’s no one size fits all way to do it. Some people like reducing the volume and keeping the intensity and others like reducing the intensity and keeping the volume. Normally when I taper for a race I will reduce the volume but keep the intensity there, I’ve tried many different ways but the above seems to work best for me.

However due to my injury I have been unable to do literally anything for the last two weeks so it’s pretty much been a massive enforced taper. It will be interesting to see how I go next week as I’ve just started getting back into light training and although I haven’t really pushed it you can tell when you feel good and I do feel as though I’ve got shit loads of energy and that I could go really fast, weather or not I can remains to be seen. I’ve got challenge Cannes next week so it will be interesting to see how two weeks of doing nothing and one week of ticking over plays out.

Biking and running feel really good in particular but swimming I feel as though I’ve got the energy but just lost that feel for the water a bit which you get from consistent swim training. From experience I know this takes about a week to get back so hopefully by next Sunday I will be firing on all cylinders. It’s very tempting to jump straight back into doing loads of training but I know that there would be nothing to gain from this with tri star Cannes next Sunday.

One thing which I see all the time with people who I train with and from talking to people is that there seems to be this common trend among people who get injured and then when they are recovered they jump straight back into training and then get injured again, it’s as if they panic and think there fitness has just vanished when it just won’t.

Patience is one of the most important things in life and it’s so underrated. If you’re impatient your likely to not do things to the best of your ability, get injured, and even disillusioned and lose the enjoyment in what your doing. This is a random example but you wouldn’t give an 11 year old an A- Level exam and expect them to do it and get an A, it’s something that takes years to work up to and a lot of hard work and dedication. You can also use the same example of when you were at school there will no doubt have been a time where you had to miss a period due to illness or going on a cheeky holiday, I bet when you came back you didn’t forget everything, to be honest you probably felt refreshed and ready to really work hard. So next time you get injured and can’t train try and take the positives, in the grand scheme of things your not going to lose anything and in my case it’s just been an enforced taper.

One thing which I have been careful of on this period of time off is not to gain weight as I did a blog about a month or so ago where I said I was aiming to get down to around 73-74 kilos. I’ve been trying hard and doing it very gradually so didn’t want all the hard work to go to waste so with not being able to do any exercise I’ve been trying to eat very healthily and pay extra attention to this and after weighing myself this morning it seems as though I haven’t gained any. One thing I did notice was that after my crash my right leg had swelled up so much that 3-4 days after the crash I weighed myself and I was 3.5 kilos heavier I was very surprised as like I said I was watching what I was eating so can only assume it was water weight due to the swelling. My leg was absolutely huge, a rugby player would have traded me for it.

Anyway looking to Tristar Cannes I would love to make the podium but would be pleased with a top 5. All I hope for though is good luck as I’m sure if lady luck is on my side then I will definitely get a good result.

Buxton Mountain Time Trial

2012-04-11T13:38:00.007-07:00

Hindsight is a wonderful thing isn’t it, how many times have we said “ if I knew that was going to happen I wouldn’t have done it” or “I wish I did this or that” well one thing I wish I did was use my bloody brakes more in the Buxton mountain time trial!

Unfortunately I lived up to the triathlete stereotype and managed to deck it with no one else even around me or taking me out! Shameful I have to admit after coming from a cycling background but I guess that’s what you get for spending too much time with triantelopes!

It was all going pretty well as well, my time for my first lap was 30m 08 seconds which was a very competitive time after looking at the results at the end. My second lap was going well to and I could tell that I was making good time and, well when you can tell your going well and you know the descents are fast you tend to take a few more risks then you normally would especially when you know the course from the previous lap.

Here is a Strava file of my race up until I crashed http://app.strava.com/activities/6297822 The other guys who are ahead of me on the segments (Tejvan Pettinger) was 2^nd overall and (Matt Clinton) was 3^rd overall and is the former national hill climb champion.

Also my friend and training partner Dane took his GO Pro camera around on the bike course, it’s got a quality soundtrack and words to it so you can use it for training in the future, or if your like me and need stabilizers you can use it to learn how to turn a corner! Oh and if you want to know where I crashed its the bit about 33m 40 what he's named Cow S**T corner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O19CaCOgKg&feature=youtu.be

Unfortunately this crash has had bigger consequences and although it's just a load of road rash I've been unable to do any proper exercise since Friday and have had to pull out of Tristar Mallorca which was this weekend and I am absolutely gutted about this as there were some decent people entered and I was really looking forward to taking them on and seeing how I compare to them. It was a big decision to make as the flights were all booked but when your Nan can beat you in a race then you know your not in any shape to do a triathlon! And that's not to mention the pain, now i've had road rash before but my god I don't ever remember it being this painful, I feel sorry for the people who have been around me since the crash as i've just been constantly moaning about it but it is just constant agony. It's got to have increased my pain threshold as I haven't been in constant pain like this before.

My next Triathlon is Tri Star Cannes on the 29th and I should definitely be ready to race that one and will be super, super motivated and hopefully not to well rested!:)

I also had a bike fit done before this race and up until I crashed it felt fantastic. If you ever wondered what a bike fit entails then here is a video of the different steps which Paul Savage did with me and what you can expect http://www.physio-coach.co.uk/index.php/video/id/11
The picture below is of me in my new position during the Buxton Mountain TT

A real Mans Time Trial

2012-04-03T07:05:00.002-07:00

Circuit of the Dales 50 miler, I competed in the circuit of the Dales 50 mile time trial yesterday. It’s on a very tough course which does exactly as the name suggests. The course starts in Ingleton and heads towards Sedbergh where during this part of the course it’s just small undulations and this is probably the fastest part of the course although because of the constant up and down nature it’s impossible to get into any sort of rhythm and this bit suits a punchy rider, once in Sedbergh the course heads towards Hawes where there are bigger hills but fewer of them and knowing the course would really help over this bit as you could go full gas up them and then with the descents being so fast it was impossible to pedal down them; my Garmin got my fastest speed of 46mph which is fun on the tri bars, 50 mph would have been nice but I suppose 46 isn’t bad for a first ride on the bike.

Heading into the time trial I had been in full on training so didn’t really know how my legs would react but I knew it would be a good test and in these situations you just give it 100% and see what happens. Because I got my bike on Friday I was riding the time trial purely on feel with just a stop watch as I hadn’t had time to fit the bike mount which was a change. I was told before the start to aim for 2 hours 10 minutes and as I didn’t have any other Idea I just went with it and tried to gauge my effort assuming that’s how long I was going to be out there for.

To be honest there’s not much to really write in a report from a time trial but once I started I tried to go fairly hard but make sure once I got about 75 minutes in I would be able to really dig in and push it to the finish. All went well until about 19 kilometres in where there was a sign pointing left, at first I didn’t think thee TT went down there but I had a quick look behind me and the guy who I had just overtaken went down there so I swung around and took the turn only for the rider who also had taken it said to me “we weren’t supposed to go down here it’s straight on” so back on course and then head down again. After that mishap number 105 who was 3 minutes behind me overtook me and I managed to stay about 30-40 metres behind him for about 10-15 minutes before he just got away.

I had another little tustle with someone from about 50 minutes on for about 15 minutes. I remember he was number 103 so started a minute behind me so when I overtook him he must have thought where the hell did I come from and knowing that in theory he was a minute ahead of me now he didn’t want me to get away, at the same time I thought I’ve got to get over a minute ahead of him to beat him so for 15 minutes I would get ahead of him and then he would overtake me back again a minute or to later. Eventually we came to a drag and I just smashed it as I knew if I got a 50 meter gap on him that would be it and thankfully it was.

Tat this point I was about 70 minutes in so thought write last hour now and I tried to really pick the pace up and my legs actually started feeling a lot better I think that can be a case when your in big training it takes a while to get into it. So anyway I carried on plugging away and then hit Hawes after around 80 minutes. This next bi from Hawes to the finish was horrendous it was predominantly uphill and into a head wind and at places I felt as though I was hardly moving but I was breathing hard so knew that it didn’t matter as I was obviously working hard so it was just a hard part of the course and those that had gone to hard early on would be punished here. After about 1 hour 40 I started feeling quite hungry despite taking a gel after 45 minutes which could explain why my legs felt a lot better after around the hour mark. Anyway as this was into such a slow part of the course and I had got into a kind of a rhythm so really didn’t want to get one out as I thought I might not get back into a good rhythm again before the finish.

Now I knew I wasn’t going to blow up before the finish but wonder if having a gel at about 90 minutes would have given me a bit of extra oomph. Should have really taken it but I didn’t blow so it wasn’t too bad.

After about 2 hours in I thought the finish has got to be coming up sometime soon so I tried to just go really hard hoping it was coming up. It was really strange doing this as you wanted to go full gas but knew if you weren’t going as well as you thought you were you could be going for up to 15 minutes which is a bloody long time. It turned out for me to be less though and after a few minutes I turned a corner and saw the finish line so just went for it and my official time is 2 hours 5 minutes 41 seconds in 9^th place which is a solid result. I would definitely do this race again and I think knowing the course would be a massive advantage.

Full results are here http://www.velouk.net/2012/04/01/results-2012-circuit-of-the-dales-50m-time-trial/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=results-2012-circuit-of-the-dales-50m-time-trial

I did take my Garmin in my back pocket just to get some data and this is the Strava file http://app.strava.com/activities/6033016

The wrong turn is segment 12 so you can see it cost me a good 2 minutes but apparently quite a few people took the wrong turn which did make me feel a bit better knowing I wasn’t the only numpty!

This weekend I’ve got Buxton Mountain Time trial on Friday which is 3 laps of this brutal circuit, apparently the hardest TT in England and looking at the course profile you would be hard pressed to find a harder one http://www.buxtoncc.org.uk/events/bigMTNprofile.htm

Start Sheet is here http://www.buxtoncc.org.uk/events/2012/Buxton%20MTT%20Start%20Sheet.pdf

On Sunday I’m going to do Crewe Air Products 10k, apparently it’s a fast course and if I’ve got good legs I’m hoping I can get a good time. It’s supposed to be quite a quick course as well with good legs I think I can get close to 32.30.

What is the Normal?

2012-03-30T08:33:00.006-07:00

The other day during a tough interval set I thought to myself what is it that makes people want to be good at sport! I mean seriously let’s think about it, you have to really hurt yourself in training which leaves you feeling as though you’ve been abused and that’s if you’re lucky, you feel tired a lot of the time, and for most people hey have to fit training in around work which means early mornings and late nights. Now that’s just a few things which I’ve come up with off the top of my head. I mean if we think about it it can't be normal.

The above things put like that sound dreadful don’t they which leads me to believe that triathletes, cyclists, runners aren’t normal are we!?

The funny thing is that we always come back for more and try and push the boundaries even further. I know before a tough interval session I’m dreading it but afterwards once I’ve finished it the feeling you get is immense you just can’t beat it.

I reckon this all seems normal to most of you guys who are reading this, however to some people, actually probably most people they will probably think that were strange for not going out on the piss 2-3 times a week, or for not wanting to earn as much money as possible and instead trying to get off early to make training sessions.

One of the addictive things I think is the search to reach our potential. It’s addictive when you can see yourself improving all the time and it just makes you want to do more and get better and faster. When you start off 3 times a week seems like a lot but then you get used to that and you do a bit more. You also can’t beat the banter among training partners and the competitive rivalry during tough sessions.

I don’t know where I’m going with this but it struck me the other day what makes us go through the pain and suffering of tough session on a regular basis. I think I said to one of my training partners the other day I could have gone out on a Saturday night caused a load of trouble and ended up in a fight and it would have hurt less then an interval session.

Training this week has gone pretty well. I did a tough bike ride on Sunday http://app.strava.com/rides/5698679 and I think with a combination of the clocks going forward an hour and with me having a poker night for my birthday on the Saturday it took more out of me then I thought it would as for the next few days I felt fairly tired. The average power was 242w and Normalized was 258w which is high for a long ride but perceived effort wise it felt o.k which I’m pleased about.

Tuesday I had the tough threshold interval set which involved 3*12 minute intervals with 8 minutes rest in between, the target was 351w and I managed 357,358,357 then I did a 4^th 12 minute block that involves 1minute slightly easier 30 seconds harder. The power for this was 308, 395, 311, 416, 308, 413, 313, 404, 313, 418, 307, 425, 317, 425, then 45 seconds at 316, and 45 seconds at 433 to finish it off.

Wednesday Track session was 8*800 meter reps going off 4 minutes so if it takes 2m30 to do a rep you get 1m.30 recovery. I started off at 2m31 and descended down to 2m24 for the last rep. I felt better as the session went on and was very pleased with the last rep.

Thursday was another tough turbo session that involved 4*4 with 2 minutes between reps then 8 minutes rest and the same again. So an easy sessionJ, the target for this is to hit 95% + of 8 minute max power so for me 371w +. I did 376, 375, 377, 377, 378, 376, 378, 381 quite an embarrassing thing happened to me as well during this, really I shouldn’t write it on here but it’s a bit of a laugh. During the rest period between the sets I was in a bit of a state and I was doing the turbo session outside and I really needed a piss but didn’t want to walk through the house and get sweat every where well that’s my excuse to be honest I couldn’t bother to walk up the stairs but anyway I went to the end of the garden and watered the plants only to turn around and see my neighbor staring at me. It was quite embarrassing but I don’t think she knew what I was doing so I pretended I was ill and it seemed to work! Anyway all in all I’m pleased with how the training has gone as I’ve been training hard for the last few weeks now so am hitting these sessions tired so it’s quite encouraging. I’ve got a 50 mile time trial on Sunday which is called tour of the dales and is over hilly terrain but should be a good test. I also picked up my P3 from Royles today which looks awesome just got to do it justice.

Just another training one!

2012-03-22T13:39:00.005-07:00

Since Valencia a couple of development have happened Royels Triathlon shop have committed to sponsoring me with kit and bikes etc which is MASSIVE. They are giving me Gore cycle kit and Adidas run wear. I have only been out in the cycling kit a few times but it’s awesome, very comfortable and looks awesome as I’m sure some of you guys are aware you HAVE to look good on the bike. I have got some awesome black kit and white kit which makes me look well quick so even if I don’t go quick at least I will look like the dogs B******S. Below is a picture of some of the stuff I have got from them. Oh and if you want to look quick or sexy on the bike check the kit out http://www.royles.biz/category/84/Cycle_Clothing apparently dogging on a bike is the new thing so you won’t have any problems attracting a partner with the kit. Right going slightly off track again so I’m going to stop there with this one before I get in trouble, (it’s easy to see why teachers used to say easily distracted on my school report isn’t it!)

Another thing is MailBigFile.com which is a company that sends big files have said hey are going to help me out as well. There based in Lowestoft where I’m originally from and basically just love triathlon. There awesome guys and if you need to send any big files then there your guys. One kind of promotional thing were going to do is see if it’s faster to send the file over the internet or if I can beat it on my bike.

http://www.mailbigfile.com/?gclid=CML9toPE-K4CFcgntAod6SpU0A

My next race is Tristar Mallorca which is a 1 kilometer swim, 100 kilometer bike, and a 10 kilometer run. There are some decent guys in there a few of note are Philip Graves who is the youngest ironman winner in history and a good swim biker, another is Joerie Vansteelant who don’t quote me on this I think has been world duathlon champion if not he has been well up there numerous times. For a right up on the startlist check this link

http://star-events.cc/site/en/trstmanews/2544-stellar-startlist-for-tristar-mallorca-2012-

For the Geeks that love all the numbers and training stats or want to know what I’m up to in training then I’ll carry on reading, if that stuff puts you to sleep well probably best to skip this bit and watch this http://www.channel4.com/programmes/four-in-a-bed/4od#3298423

When I came back from Valencia I thought it would be a good time to do a 2*8 minute test on the bike. Basically it’s what Chris Carmichael uses to work out FTP and the idea is to well f****n bury yourself on the first one and see what power you do then take full recovery and go again using your best one as the one you use to set your zones. My best one was my first which was 391w last time I did it was in November and I managed 362w so a decent improvement.

Both of these tests were done on the turbo and I generally find my power is less on it for some reason but it’s all relevant so it doesn’t really matter as my intervals are done on the turbo anyway.

I did a road race the other week and here is the average power from it lap by lap http://app.strava.com/activities/5064726 the reason the circuit that says 1 looks to be really short it’s because for some reason when my powertap is in at the same time as my Garmin for some reason it takes the speed from that and says I’m going well slow (maybe I’m just in denial!). I have the normalized power from that race as 389w for 20m which is a massive pb I was well chuffed about that but not so happy about getting dicked on by the other two I was in the breakaway with in the sprint. I’ve never had a good sprint but I now have a non existent sprint!lol

The key sessions which I’m doing during the week are:

Monday

PM- Tempo run 2 miles at 6mpm then 3 at 5m.20 or 30 minutes best effort which is around 5.35 sometimes quicker sometimes slower depends on my legs.

Tuesday

AM- Swim intervals (speed session) 3*100s 1*200 then 5*125m 1^st 50 sprint 25m steady 50metres at 400m pace *2

Threshold Intervals Bike

3*12m at 360w

1*12m 30 seconds 400w+ 1m 310w

Wednesday

PM Track session either 400s,800s,1ks

Thursday

AM 4*4m with 2m recovery between each interval and 10 minutes recovery after last rep then repeat. I aim to hit 371w+ which is 95% of 8m max. My best effort on this session was last week where my legs felt great and I managed to hit them all at 381w or above.

PM Long run if you can count that as a session, only steady pace between 7mpm-7.30mpm.

Friday

AM Swim session Threshold intervals anything from 250 metre reps which are just over 3m in length to 400 metres a the moment.

PM Bike intervals 10*2m with 2 minutes recovery between reps, the aim of this is to just beast yourself and hit over 400w on each interval.

Saturday

AM Running, 5*5 minute reps with 2 minutes recovery between reps. The aim is to hit sub 5.20 mpm pace but this is a hilly loop so it’s much harder then it sounds, no seriously it’s quite a hard loop I’m not being soft!

Sunday:

Long ride 4-5 hours steady with a run off, I’m going to be doing 3 miles hard, I’m not sure how this will go down but if I can do around 5.30-5.40 pace I will be pleased.

The above is a list of the key sessions which I do each week, the others are steady stuff of strength work like band and buoy work in he pool. If anyone really wants to know what else I do actually do put a comment up and I’ll right back but it might disappoint you!

One thing which you may have noticed about the training plan is that there are a lot of intervals or hard efforts in a week. I think that these are key sessions and as long as you make sure you can recover from them then it’s good but if you can’t recover from them then it’s to much and it’s best to do less of them but more quality. I got asked the other day what doo I think of or how do I get through a tough interval session; this is how I get through them:

I imagine myself in a really good race and I’m having a great day I just try and feel like I’m actually there now just smashing it proper hard, basically imagining I’m putting the others in the hurt box. Like in these videos below!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjYGuL89vAo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHUWTwPu_LA&feature=related

Another thing I try and do is just feel the burn in my legs which I think I can just hold to the end and then towards the end of the interval just try and push it a bit more.
When I’m doing them on the bike I use my power meter so I make a game of trying to beat the power from the previous rep (warning makes it F****n painful and will put you in a whole world of pain) when running just trying to beat the time of the previous rep.
I also am a firm believer of training in a group as I believe this brings out the best in you and helps to push your limits, when running on a Monday Ben Fish who I work with paces me and I basically just try and hold on, makes for a great session. Also when swimming I’m doing a lot of swimming at the moment with Louise Whittaker http://louisewhittaker.blogspot.co.uk/ which is excellent as we can handicap the reps and make races of it etc when doing hard reps which is great as it brings the best out in both of us.
Decent Tunes is a must for me Dance, hip anything with a good beat, most of you will probably think what a load of tripe but it does the job!:)

Other then the Tri-Star Mallorca race I have got the circuit of the dales 50 mile time trial on 1^st April, Buxton Mountain Time trial on the 6^th and hopefully a 10k in Crewe on the 8^th. Other then that I will be training bloody hard and hopefully come the 15^th April I will be flying

A typical days diet

2012-03-14T08:00:00.003-07:00

Some of you may be disappointed in hearing that it doesn’t include the triple crown, for those of you who are unaware of what that is it’s basically a Mc Donalds for Breakfast, Burger King for diner, and KFC for tea. That is for a fatty what winning a triathlon s for a triathlete or winning a cycling race is for a cyclist (it's a good achievement, something to be proud of).

Now below is what I ate on a random Tuesday, the aim is to eat enough and healthy food which will enable me o train as hard as I can and also recover as best as I can but also I’m trying to lose for bags of sugar so I can get faster and well win more races basically. It dawned on me recently that I pay so much attention to what training I do and recovery that I shouldn’t spoil all that hard work with my nutrition so I’m paying more attention to this aspect and am hoping it will pay off and give me an extra few %.

Up at 7.30

Bowel of Porridge

Swim:

This session was an endurance based one so the reps were quite long but it wasn’t done very quick but a lot of the session was done with a pull buoy, band, and paddles so there was a lot of resistance/Strength training in there.

After the swim I had a Clif bar for a bit of energy before the run.

Run:

This was just a 1 hour steady run and is the only run I do each week where I’m not fussed about the pace so you can really enjoy it and take the scenery in. I did 8 miles at a comfortable pace.

Salad gourmet style included:

Nuts (hazelnuts,almonds, some walnuts)
Tomatoes
Sun dried tomatoes
Olives
Dried cranberries
Corn in the cob
Bread with low fat cheese spread
Olive oil

Tasted fantastic I have to say.

Quite hungry still and tired so Pulled a bit of bread off the loaf and had a spoonful of peanut butter on it went down a treat. Then had an hour and a half power nap as I was pretty tired from the mornings training and I want to make sure I’m ready to go for the evening’s session which is hard.

Bowel of fruit and fibre with banana, blueberries two strawberries and a few hazelnuts, and walnuts, raisins also spoonful of brown sugar (tasted bloody good)

Oh no what a shame there’s no phot of a bowel of fruit and fibre what will you do now! :)

Cappuccino X2 the first one was so good I had to have another one, went down a treat! I was also wired for the session so it did it’s job. I need to be psyched up for this turbo session to get the best out of myself and make sure I am riding hard enough. Hurts like hell but so satisfying when you nail it and it’s improving my cycling big time.

For the Session and after.

Two bottles of Clif energy drink for the session and some 90s Dance music, everybody has there guilty pleasures don’t they or is it just me?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_sPoEIpmwU

Some serious tunes that link give some of them bad boys a go next time your on the turbo.

The session involved 4*12 minute reps with the first 3 at threshold. To gage threshold I use 90% of the power I averaged for an 8 minute max test. I did 391w for the 8 minute test so the aim for the first 3 was to average at least 351w. The 4^th rep is 30 seconds at over 110% of threshold so at least 385w and 1 minute at around 305w which is just under 90%. I managed 358,360,357w and the 4^th rep I did over 385w on all of the 30s efforts.

This session is very hard and because of the intensity of it you burn a hell of a lot of carbohydrates so I need to make sure I replace them otherwise I will completely compromise the following days training. As well as that because the room is next door to the swimming pool as you can imagine it’s very hot in there so replacing the electrolytes is a must as the times when I haven’t replaced them I have cramped up after the session and just felt on deaths door the next morning.

Builders bar after the session is definitely needed to bring me back around other wise I don’t think I would make it home. I think I would need to hitch hike a lift. This is good as it contains 20 grammes of protein so the muscles can start to recover and also carbohydrates which will help to replenish the glycogen stores.

Tea loads of Veg as apparently it’s better for you then fish and chips.

Broccoli, sweet potato, butternut squash, carrots, parsnips, onion and 3 chicken drumsticks and gravy and this is really random but I had some sour cream and chive dip on the chicken tasted pretty bloody good if I’m honest but that might have been because I was pretty hungry.

Afters hot chocolate, apple and some nuts with dried cranberries and raisins.

Well that’s pretty much it, my sister gave me the idea of doing a blog on this so if you think its s**t blame her! In all serious though that is a fairly typical day food at the moment although I do cook it in other ways like using a slow cooker for some evening meals which is great as you can make really simple and healthy meals very easily, cheap cuts of lamb and pork are very good for this kind of thing and you put It on before you train and then when you come back have a healthy meal ready and waiting for you, you could basically take the place of a wife!lol

I really don't know why I put pictures of the food I ate on here I guess it adds a bit of colour to it, oh my god I sound like a right girl don't I! Right that’s it I’m going to go now before I drop myself into any more trouble.

The Race from Hell

2012-03-04T08:16:00.001-08:00

I don’t think I’ve ever done a race where I’ve experienced so many things going wrong as I did today; it really was the race from hell! Somehow I managed to finish in 7^th place but to be honest I think I was lucky to even get to the finish. So let me start with what happened starting from yesterday before the race.

Saturday AM:

I managed to get chatting to some Spaniard who could speak some English and he was planning a reccy of the course between miles 18-36 this went smoothly the bike was working fine and I did a few race pace efforts and the legs felt very good. I was looking forward to causing carnage on the course tomorrow.

Saturday PM:

I went down to the transition area to rack my bike. But before I racked my bike I wanted to do “A BIT OF MAINTENANCE” on it. Now my bike mechanic skills are limited at best so this basically involved pumping the tires up, cleaning it and oiling the chain. Up until oiling the chain everything was going fine but this is where things went pair shaped, I put the oil on and then when adjusting the gears to make sure all the cogs were running smooth the cable or rear mech just broke! It just wouldn’t work (OH SHIT WHAT DO I DO NOW!) luckily or so I thought there was a proper mechanics thing there which was sorting everyone’s bike out, there was a bit of a queue and I had to wait about 25 minutes while he changed the guys tub who was in front of me. But it wasn’t like I could go to anyone else and I didn’t have a bloody clue how to fix it so I waited and eventually he got round to giving it his best shot which looked like he tried everything but after about 35-40 minutes basically said he couldn’t fix it.

Now this is where panic set in what the hell do I do now? I got in contact with one of the event organisers through talking to the guy who was in charge of the audio as he could speak English. I then explained to them that I had come all the way from England to do the race but my bike had just broken on me would they be able to find me one which I could borrow. They went around some of the trade stalls and found me a BMC Time machine TT bike, it was a bit on the small side being a medium small but I was just ecstatic to get a bike which I could ride as I knew I had been feeling bloody good leading up to the race and new a top 3 was at least on the cards if not a win.

The guy from the stand then said to me I’ll take your bike home and this bike and set them up as exact as I can, I’ll meet you here at 7am tomorrow and you can try it. This was getting better and better I thought. The organisers said that it would be fine for me to put my bike in transition tomorrow as long as it was in there before 8am. I left in good spirits thinking everything had been sorted and was looking forward to giving it my best shot, as the guy was lending me the bike I left in high spirits and was super motivated as I didn’t want to let him down.

Sunday AM:

I had breakfast and cruised down the road to where transition was for 7am. The guy had built the BMC and said that it was pretty much exact to my Scott (perfect or was it?)

Now there’s an age old saying that goes if things seem to good to be true they usually are!

The guy gave me the bike to try so I rode it up the road and back and it fitted me very good and felt amazing, much better then my Scott so I was super stoked! I went back to him and the general gist of the conversation went as follows:

BMC GUY “have you got the money”

ME “What money?”

BMC GUY “2 grand you’re buying the bike right?”

ME “ err no I thought you were lending me the bike and plus I don’t have any where near that amound of money, can I give you some money to rent the bike for the race?”

BMC GUY” no

(At this point my wheels were quickly disassembled from the BMC and the race organiser who was standing near by said you have 20 minutes to get a bike in transition you can use yours or your out of the race)

The mechanic who tried fixing my bike yesterday finished by tightening the cable so I had a choice of 2 gears 54/11 or 42/11, it was a flat course but very windy but at the end of the day I wasn’t going to watch the race so if that was my only option I was going to give it full beans and hope for the best so off I went to transition racked the bike and got my kit sorted in there.

The Race:

The Swim: It went off quick as is is always the case but with about 70-80 in the elite wave I thought there was only 75 but I saw some compeitors with a number of over a 100 so I really don’t know how many there were in it but anyway it started off full on and there was shit loads of biff. I was like WTF but was ready to throw a few shots to some chops but didn’t and just concentrated on the swim. I had no idea what position I was in up until the first buoy but shortly after that I could see a group ahead a gap and then a few people leading my swim pack just in front of me. I had had enough of getting smacked and found the pace o.k and idn’t want to let a big group gain time on me as I it would take a lot of effort to close them down on the bike so I swam hard and lead the pack which I was in and I think managed to hold the gap roughly the same all the way to the end of the swim.

The Bike:

I quickly got out onto the bike and some guy came past me while I was putting my feet in my shoes, he was moving well and I kept him at about 30 metres for a bit and could see we were catching loads of people. He seemed to be about the same pace as me which was spot on so after about 5 minutes I went past and did a circular action with my finger (basically saying let’s work together and smash it) he was well up for it so we just put our heads down and took about 10 minutes on the front each, when our behind you have to keep 12 metres other wise you get penalised for drafting, being this far back I don’t think gives you any draft benefit but it helps having someone else set the pace for a while.

After about 30 minutes of riding you kind of got a sense you were at or near the front of the race as spectators seemed really excited when we came past and the camera motorbike was spending a lot of time with us. I shouted what position? And he said 3^rd at this point I was behind the guy who I was working with so new we were both in 2^nd and 3^rd position and we were working well together so I was well chuffed as I have a lot of confidence in my run and new that if I got off the bike with 2 minutes or more on the chasers there was no way they were catching me.

After 30 miles we took a turn and went on some roads that really resembled the fens the terrain was completely pan flat and it was windy as hell, they were really technical to and we were constantly riding headwind crosswind for the next 7-8 miles which was a nightmare when you are going from 42/11 to 54/11 but I survived it and once we hit the main road after 38 mile I thought yes tailwind back and my average speed was still on 25mph so I new I was on for a good time and must be putting a lot of time into the guys behind but then disaster struck and after 39 miles the cable for my gears just went completely loose the the chain wouldn’t stay on any of the rear sprockets. I stopped tried to fix it and then carried on for a few hundred metres before it happened again, this happened one more tie and then I managed to limp half a mile up the road where I saw some guy in cycling clothes spectating (at this point 2 people had overtook me) I jumped off my bike and said can I borrow your bike mines f****d! I think he thought WTF is going on. Luckily though he had the same pedals as me so I just jumped on and off I went, unfortunately for me it wasn’t a tt bike, didn’t have aero wheels, was to big, had bomb proof wheels on which is all well and good when training but not so for racing. Anyway it was a bike I was still in 5^th place and was going to be able to get to transition, the next 16 miles were some of the most depressing miles of a triathlon I have experienced as a slow stream of people who I had overtaken earlier came past, in my quickness to get a bike I didn’t think of taking my energy stuff of the other bike so had to do the last 16 miles which are some of the most crucial nutritionally in a half with just water.

Anyway I gave it my best shot and made it back in about 10^th place, shortly after I arrived in transition a few other guys came in and we started the run together.

The Run:

There was about 5 of us which ran out of transition and they went steaming out like they were running from the coppers or something. I don’t normally take my garmin but I left it in transition and thought I would give it a go this time and when I saw they started off at 5.20mpm pace I eased off as it was inevitable that they would blow up at some point. I then just settled into my own rhythm of running at 5.55mpm pace and just ticked the mile off. It felt quite easy at the start but I new from experience you have to respect a half marathon as it’s a long way and will bite you at some point. The run is 3 laps and I ran the first lap at bang on 5.55mpm pace the second lap the average was 6mpm and I remember looking at my garmin after the race and I went through 10 miles in 1h 2 seconds. At this point had ran myself into 6^th place and was ahead of all the people who ran out of transition with me but I had been having a bit of a tussle with one of the other guys and after 10 miles I imploded a bit and he caught me. The last 3 miles were in the 6.20s and I went through 13 miles on a few seconds over 1.19 and came 7^th in the end.

Post Race Thoughts:

Well as you would expect I’m pretty gutted as physically I felt great. Syvian Sudrie of France won and even if I didn’t have the problems I had he would still have won but I think I would have come 2^nd if not with out doubt 3^rd as he wasn’t a great deal in front of me by the end despite me f*****g around by the side of the road with a broken bike and just having 2 gears for the previous 40 miles.

Now I don’t want to dwell on this or make excuses but it’s just absolute gutting when you know that physically you could have achieved a decent result but due to mechanical issues you aren’t able to. I seem to find myself stuck in this kind of grey area where the kit I’m using is all 2^nd hand or won from prizes in other races. The bike I’m using is pretty unreliable for some reason even though it’s the bike I use the least and in the best weather but there’s nothing I can do about it until I get some decent results and am able to get some sponsorship the problem is if the bike your using can’t even get you to T2 your stuck in a catch 22.

If anyone knows or would be able to help sort me out with a frame that would be amazing as the Scott I’m riding is a ticking time bombe it’s got a crack in the stem and well let’s just say it’s had its day. The wheels I’ve got a great I just need to get hold of a reliable frame if anyone has any suggestions or ideas help as I know I’m capable of so much more but can’t show it as I’m spending more time by the side of the road then riding my bike.

The Positives:

Felt Great and got 7^th the race was also the Spanish championships so a decent field.

Good Run

A massive one is I’m pleased that I kept mentally strong despite everything that was happening I pushed to the end. When things go well mental strength will come easy but races never go smooth you always suffer bad patches. This is something I will look back on and use to help me in the future.

Felt strong on the Bike.

To be honest there are lot’s of positives to take from this and shit happens it’s just a shame that it only takes one big negative to spoil it but ‘m no going to dwell on it. I know what I’m capable of and my time will come. I’m not going to let this get me down as I now I’m going bloody well it’s time to focus on Challenge Fuerteventura which is my next race build on what I have, doing the Hail Mary might help as well.

All the hard work

2012-02-24T13:15:00.000-08:00

I haven’t really done a kind of training update for my blog in a while so I thought I would do one for a change

All the hard work is done now and I definitely feel ready for my first race on the 4^th March. Training has been going really well and I’ve literally been beasting myself day in day out for as long as I can remember especially over the last 3 weeks where I’ve been constantly setting training PBs.

So first things first swimming, since I got back from the Kinetic PB training camp I started swimming by myself at the aquatics centre in Manchester and I’ve been seeing improvements week on week so all in all it’s going well. The actual training itself consists of 5-6 swims a week which are split into Endurance, Threshold, or Speed sessions. To be honest I’ve changed the training which I do for swimming massively but can tell it’s working I recently swam a sub 5 400 and it felt hard but not flat out, something I would have had to kill myself for previously, I also feel much stronger when doing longer intervals which is key for triathlon when your doing swims of 1500m+.

Swimming is still my weakest discipline but it’s improving all the time so I can’t ask for anymore then that.

Cycling:

Going off the power from my powertap I’m definitely putting out more power then last year but have been unable to race due to there being none on yet. Last year I think the most power I put out in a 10 mile time trial was 357 W, I recently did that in the last 12 minute effort on the turbo on Tuesday. My power generally seems to be lower on the turbo so a good sign if the powertap isn’t over reading!:) I’ve also put in much, much less miles then in previous years. I have been done 2 speed sessions religiously through the winter, something I had never done before and it seems as though it’s paying dividends. I feel fresher and stronger but time will tell.

Running:

This has gone from strength to strength. A session which I use to gage myself on is my tempo run as I’ve been doing them on roughly the same roads since I started running. Last year I was doing it as 2*3 mile tempos with a really easy mile recovery in the middle and was averaging around 5.55-5.58 pace for each section of 3 miles and felt as if I was killing myself to achieve this. Then when Paul started coaching me in April I started doing a 5 mile tempo run and was managing to dip under 6 minute per mile pace but the last two miles were excruciating. I think at my best in the season I averaged around 5.50 pace which was relatively fresh and I had properly psyched myself up for it. On Monday I managed 5.26 minutes per mile pace with the week before at 5.37 pace. These two runs were done after a day at work and I think definitely show progression.

So with my first race on the 4^th march I’m feeling very confident, I’ve trained the most consistently and the hardest I have ever trained. I don’t feel fatigued though from it I feel really fresh and just can’t wait to get stuck in, I entered this race at the start of my winter training phase as motivation to get me through the winter and it’s certainly done the trick. I’m currently out in Spain at Kinetic PB again with the Man Tri training camp so will probably do an update during the week about how it’s going. I’m out here as a coach for it and I have to say it’s a unique experience as when I’ve been on training camps in the past I basically just smash myself every day but with me tapering down and the fact that if I did that to them guys they would probably ring my neck it’s been a unique experience and organizing the training to make them get the most out of there week has been a unique experience and really fulfilling.

Being Hard or just being Stupid

2012-02-09T09:40:00.000-08:00

As endurance athletes we all like to pride ourselves on being hard, I mean 99% of the time the person that hurts the most will win. Countless hours and sacrifices are made in order to get to the start line.

Now at the moment all that hard work is being accumulated in the hope that we can beat a personal best, win races, or even suffer more then you have before, maybe you just want to smash your mates in training, whatever presses your buttons!

The problem what we face though is the terrible weather especially at the moment, no one want to lose the fitness which they have gained through December and January but when the temperatures are below freezing and it’s snowing or there’s ice on the roads what do you do? Major Dilemma, you can dress up warm face the elements and make the most of it, but is this really sensible?

Now I may no be the sharpest tool in the box, actually let me correct that I’m definitely not the sharpest tool in the box and have been a fan of the “no such thing as bad weather just bad clothing” but things have changed recently. It’s as if someone has turned he lights on and I’m seeing things differently now. It came after not this Friday gone but the previous Friday where I found myself riding through at least 3 Blizzards, pissing rain and pretty much everything you don’t want to ride in (I really don’t want to know what I did in a previous life).

I had o stop at a café and get 2 black bin bags over my kit to help stop the rain and try and help me warm myself up, I did 4.5 hours and didn’t feel to bad once I got in well that’s a lie after my housemate opened the front door and I got out the shower. If anything I was actually quite smug thinking nothing can stop me, I’ve just banked 4.5 hours in the worst possible conditions.

The next day at work when I telling the lads about what I had been caught up in Nick basically said “you’re an idiot training in that, the cold will have taken a lot more out of you then you thought and you will make yourself ill”. At first I thought it will be fine but I did notice that after that mornings training I felt much more tired then normal, I didn’t think nothing of it at the time but people said I did look pretty nailed. It was a pretty routine Saturday I didn’t do anything different then normal. Then on Monday I felt nailed on my long run, and on Wednesday felt as if I was coming down with something I didn’t read to much into it at first so carried on as normal then on Thursday it got a bit worse so I took Thursday off, Friday very easy, and then Saturday off.

The 3 days which I pretty much took off cleared it and I’m fine now but I wouldn’t be surprised if it all stemmed from the extra stress I put my body under on the Friday. The result was a dodgy long run a few days of missed training which as a one off isn’t bad but when training for any sport consistency is key and while it might of seemed like a good idea going out at the time in hindsight it wasn’t one of my brightest moments and in future I will be sticking to the turbo.

I know some people will say going on the turbo is the soft option but if anyone has done a 3 hour turbo session they will know that it’s definitely not an easy way out! A good session to do on the turbo if you ever find yourself unable to get out on the road and want a good substitute for a long ride try this- 20 minutes steady, 8*10 minutes with 10 minutes steady riding between reps, alternate big gear and normal cadence for the reps and you don’t want to do them full on probably about 25m tt pace. It’s a solid session but the time goes fairly quick and it will definitely be a good substitute for that long ride. I think you have to be fairly fit to complete that, if your not to fit at he moment or can’t stomach the full 3 hours try either:

20m steady, 4*10 (as above), 20m steady

10-20m w/u, 3*20m at hardest consistent effort with 5m recovery between efforts, 10m w/d

The session above is a great session which I have been doing every Tuesday, hurts like f**k though and upon finishing it you do feel as though you have been abused but no pain no gain!

Anyway if you do decide to go out in really bad weather just think making yourself ill or falling off will only make you slower and less fit. Oh and if it’s only cold and wet there’s no ice on the floor that’s o.k. stop pussying out MAN UP and get on the ROOOAAAADDDD!

2hour 20 marathoner Ben Fish Interview

2012-02-03T09:44:00.000-08:00

Now I’ve spoke about myself way to much on this blog, I mean even though my favourite topic is talking about myself even I’m getting fed up of it so I’m sure you guys must be!

So for this blog post I’ve come up with something a bit different, I’m going to do an interview with fellow work colleague and 2 hour 20 marathon runner Ben Fish. For those of you that don’t know Ben he’s 29 years old, has an ectomorphic body composition which is no surprise given the mileage he knocks in week in week out, he’s very modest and extremely hard working as well. Ben has helped me in some of my training runs by setting the pace so in return I’ve been helping him with his marathon specific tempos although I’ve been doing it on my bike next to him, he also won the Chester Marathon at the end of 2011.

Ben Fish Interview:

So Ben How long have you been running for and how did you get into it?

I've been running for 15 years and got into through wanting to improve my endurance for football. Up to that time I tended to do more cycling and was mainly encouraged into sport through my Dad.

How Many Miles a week do you run in a normal week and how does your training vary in a marathon specific phase?

Last year I covered over 4,000 miles which is about 80mpw average for the year. In a typical marathon block I get between 100 - 110 mpw. This year I plan on increasing that, always easier said than done though...

How do you manage to fit the training in while working full time?

By incorporating regular training runs to and from work. It takes a lot of planning logistically; take too many clothes and your backpack will weigh a tonne! Routine is very important, miss a morning run and those planned miles have gone! There's no other time in the day you can make it up.

Is there anything you do to help improve recovery?

With work and running twice on most days I use recovery drinks, but only after hard sessions or long runs. If I run hard in the evening, I'll go slightly easier the next morning. Trying to get adequate sleep is difficult at times, but 7 - 8 hours is essential in big training phases, otherwise you end up getting ill or injured.

The Legend Ron Hill (above)

There’s a rumour that you did a days work and then ran home from Wilmslow to Darwen (31 miles) Is this true?

Yes, it was after a long shift on Monday and I didn't get home until 10pm, 3 1/2 hours after I finished work. It was easy going until I hit Bolton, then it's one big climb to the edge of Darwen, then a couple of miles downhill. My quads ached for quite a bit after that! It's certainly not a regular run and now that I live in Fallowfield I need to find new places to run to for those kind of runs!

What is your biggest Achievement?

There's two achievements that spring to mind. Winning the inter-counties 10,000m in 2006 was probably the best race I have won. The other one was running for England and getting my pb of 2hr 20 for the marathon in Toronto in 2009.

What are your goals and aspirations for the future?

To run for Great Britain in the marathon, it’s been a long unfulfilled ambition that I refuse to give up on. To achieve that I know I have a long way to go and will require 4 minutes to be knocked off my current marathon pb.

Are there any runners from the past and do they inspire you if so how?

From the past it has to be Jim Peters from the 50's. He wasn't a natural and ran ugly, the story of his running career is fascinating, he went from an average track runner to the worlds best marathoner in 2hr 17 whilst holding down a full-time job. He's one of those athletes’ people like myself can relate to; he just got stuck in and run bloody hard... no nonsense! Ron Hill is another one, he's from Accrington (not far from Darwen) and a living legend, and it’s great to see him still getting stuck in after all these years and is always happy to offer advice to local athletes. Those guys would still be ranked in the top 10 for UK rankings in the marathon, in fact, Ron Hill's time would have had him ranked 1st for 2011!

The hard as Nails Jim Peters (above)

What do you think about when you go through a bad patch during a marathon, and how do you pace it?

It's certainly not easy, but I try to think about why I am here and what I came for. You've got to tell yourself that you've done the training and you can handle it. Think of those beastly training days you've put yourself through. You've got to practice the pace you run at often through tempo runs and workouts, if you can get through those unscathed then you should be able to handle it in the race. If you get your pace wrong and go off too fast, then that's where you can get yourself into trouble.

What tips would you give to Triathletes to improve there running?

Well, with only having to concentrate on one sport I suppose I have it quite easy! A lot of base mileage I do probably isn't as essential for a triathlete as the bike will put the hours in for endurance. Speed is crucial, as the saying goes "it's speed that kills, not the distance". Some of the top triathletes would give even the nations best runners a tough time in a 10k. Weekly track sessions are very important, then you want to be including a tempo run (practicing race pace at 50 - 75% of the race distance), then a long run where the main focus is time on your feet and finishing strongly (over-distance work).

As most Triathletes can only run 3 times a week what would you advise doing in these sessions if training for a:

Sprint/Olympic?

The long run isn't as important, but quality has to be the focus through track sessions and a tempo run. A session such as 1k reps (2 - 3min recovery) at 5k race pace are ideal, which will enable you to cope with the demands of racing hard over 10k.

Middle distance/Ironman?

It's still important to keep up the speed session and tempo runs, but a weekly long run needs to be added. The body has to be conditioned to run continuous for a prolonged period of time. Sessions such as mile reps at or just under threshold pace work well for intensity of a half marathon/marathon stage in a triathlon. For an ironman, if you cut out the non-essential aspects of training a marathon runner does (slow and steady runs over moderate miles) and integrate the key workouts (speed sessions, tempo, long run) you should be able to have time to train effectively for the other disciplines. Running shouldn't take up more than 30% of training and off 3/4 runs that should be about right.

I hope you guys enjoyed reading this and it’s something I wouldn’t mind doing occasionally just for something different. Ben if you’re reading this thanks!

Inskip Half Marathon

2012-01-22T13:26:00.000-08:00

Today I competed in the Inskip Half marathon near Preston. Before the race I was hoping for time under 1.15 but really wanted to get in the 1.13s if I’m honest as I believe that’s the kind of times you need to at least be knocking in to be able to do a good half marathon off the bike in a 70.3 (1 hour 17 or below).

As this was my first stand alone half marathon I didn’t really know what to expect, well I did I knew it was going to be bloody painful as it’s only 75 minutes so your racing pretty much bang on or as close to threshold as possible and I know how bloody painful 25 mile TTs are in cycling.

Anyway once the race started two guys shot off pretty quick and I had to really stop myself from going with them as I have a tendency to start off bloody hard and race shit or bust which normally leaves me limping home! So I settled in a group of 4 with fellow Man Tri member Howard Mead, the pace felt really easy but we went through the first mile in 5.33 so I was pretty content to sit there as it felt really easy, after about another half a mile we turned into the headwind but we still went through the 2^nd mile in about 5.44 which again felt easy but as we continued to plough along into the headwind it felt very easy sitting in however first place had dropped 2^nd and was at least 40 seconds ahead and 2^nd was about 20 seconds but slowly pulling away. I had reached a dilemma and had 2 choices:

keep sitting in the group 2^nd and take an easy ride and ditch the others with a mile or 2 to go and probably get 3^rd place.

Put myself on the line, gamble and go shit or bust, try and catch 2^nd and then give it your best effort and see if you can win, success could be 1^st or 2^nd and maybe a decent time, failure could be a crap time and a shite position, also will be a lot more painful then option 1 and could end in tears!

I picked option 2 because at the end of the day it’s a bloody race and it’s not supposed to be easy is it. NO GUTS NO GLORY so off I went I caught 2^nd after about 1.5 miles and thought 1^st isn’t pulling away so I ditched 2^nd place on one of the drags and knew that once I had a gap on him that was it for him as we were going into the headwind so I knew he wouldn’t be able to close the gap. Little f****r tried to come with me though as I heard his breathing get heavier and heavier as I heard this I just turned the screw a little bit more. To be honest I nearly started blowing myself but it was quite fun!!! (cruel bastard).

So my head went down again and I thought come on then let’s have it I could see the leader and timed him at roughly 40-45 seconds ahead of me after about 4-5 miles. I went through 5 miles in 29.20 which is pretty crap but the head wind was grim, but at this point I couldn’t give a crap about the time I wasn’t racing for a time I was running to catch the leader and if I got a good time excellent. The gap to the leader stayed at 40 seconds until we took a left turn after 7.5 miles into a tail wind section where I rapidly started to catch him, it went down to 30, 25, then next it was 10 seconds and I was thinking bloody hell I might actually win this race, then after about 9.5 miles I caught him.

Now they say what goes around comes around and basically what I did to the guy earlier in the race got done to me. Once I caught the leader I upped the pace and I have to admit I had been on the limit for like the last 3 miles and I tried to go with him but it put me massively in the red. I knew he would do this and hoped it would just be a little acceleration and that it would settle down. I thought it’s just mind games and I knew that he had eased up just before I caught him so he could do this to me to try and crack me but I just couldn’t stay with him. He got a gap of about 10 seconds and held it at that until about 11.5 miles when I blew my doors off and limped in 35 seconds behind him in 1 hour 15 and 43 seconds.

I can’t remember the guys name and the results aren’t out but apparently he did a 2.24 marathon last year and a 31m 10k so he was probably in his comfort zone but at least he had to work for it a bit at the end and didn’t get it all his own way.

This race has been a massive confidence booster for me as running is by far and away not my strength so to be able to compete with runners and be up there is well like I said a massive confidence booster.

I’ve got my training programme for the next 6 weeks and again not a lot has changed it’s just little tinkering which includes:

Swimming later in the morning, in the pool for 8 instead of 6.30 as this gives me an extra 1.5 hours sleep and after doing it on the training camp I had much more energy and could train at a higher intensity and recover better.

Running off the bike, I am doing a 2 mile run off the bike on a Friday at faster the race pace 5.40 mile pace to get used to starting the half marathon fast as people always run fast out of transition and I don’t want to get dropped and plus after this the pace of the race should feel much easier. I will have my running stuff ready and aim to be out the door as quick as possible to replicate a race.

Running off the bike on a Sunday this time 4 miles at 5.55 mile pace which is the pace I will have to run at off the bike to pretty much win some 70.3s as long as I get off the bike in contention.

More strength work in swimming and one or two other things.

Hope you like the race report and one last thing which isn’t really related but I’m hoping to get into coaching and would like to coach someone. I’ll be honest and I’ve only got my level one coaching qualification in triathlon but I have a lot of experience from coaching myself and training and racing for as long as I can remember. If anyone would be interested in this and would like to know more email me on joeskipper@hotmail.co.uk I would be more then happy to go into more details and really do have a passion for this kind of thing!

Until next time,

Ciao

Willy waving and pissing contests

2012-01-18T10:00:00.001-08:00

Willy waving and pissing contests were what our cycle rides were described as in Spain, personally I would call it having a laugh, proper training, last man standing, Manning up.
Manning up was actually the mantra for the camp which I thought was quality.

During the first week in Spain there was about 8-10 of us from Man Tri, and a further 4-5 from Leeds including Harry Wiltshire, I'm pleased to report back that I didn't get dunked in the pool or held up getting into the changing rooms after a session so all is well!lol. In all fairness to Harry it was great having him out there for the cycling as the lad like a good burn up on the bikes which is right up my street and anyone that's ridden with me before will know that i don't need much encouragement to start a chaingang.lol.

In the second week we lost everyone from Leeds and Manchester apart from myself, MR Hawkins, Natalie Barnard, and the BTF squad who are based in Loughborough.

Training wise during the camp I can't remember everything I did as to be fair there was quite a bit and I have a memory like a sieve. The sessions which stick in my mind (the decent ones, to be honest the other ones probably aren't worth writing about anyway) are listed below:

Swimming:
Lots of paddle and band work, could go into more detail but is there really any point!

Oh we did do a bit of sea swimming and Swam to this island which was a 4k round trip.

Cycling:

4 rides stick in my mind, 2 0f them were about 85 miles and the other 2 were around 100 miles.

The first one went from Cuevas where we were staying to, Sorbas over a shit load of hills to Carboneras and then back to Cuevas. Below is a picture of the hill out of Carboneras.

The ride above was pretty awesome as we took the first 25-30 miles relatively steady, there were a few hill but they weren't particularly hard. Then once we got to Sorbas as you could tell people were getting a bit restless Rob Harvey who was leading the route basically said it's 25 miles to Carboneras over a couple of hills smash it if you want. This is exactly what we did and I pretty much did a 2 up with harry. Then once we got to Carboneras everyone was pretty f****d so we had a s**t load of coffee and food then cruised back. This picture above was of the hill out of Carboneras which didn't feel good on the legs after the stop. We then rode steady until about 15 miles away where we started a chaingang which got faster the closer to home we got. Total ride was 85 miles with a lot of climbing and we averaged 20 mph moving speed, my power meter is getting fixe at the moment but I can remember Roger saying he averaged 240w for the ride.

The other rides went to a place called Uleila Del Campo which was where the mountains started and it is amazing as there are literally no cars on the roads there so you can smash the descents.

Below is possibly the cheesiest video of me and Paul descending, unfortunately it's of the slower part of the descent but you get the picture, it's a nice place and there are no cars. Plus the cafe at the bottom of the descent sold me 3 coffees, a cheese and ham toasty and a 1.5 liter bottle of water for 5 euros!! NOW THAT'S A BARGAIN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2AX_z2azXs

Right I'm starting to talk crap now so I'll be quick. On the climb up to the top of that descent I got my garmin to find Rogers power tap so I could sneakily use it to pace myself! Who needs a powertap when you can do this. I don't know what I averaged but we were both riding together and I have 45 minutes at 312w including a load of dscending where the power was like less then 200, most of the time it was around 350+ while climbing.

The other 2 rides to Uleila involved just me and Hawkins as the others had gone back. We rode steady to the climbs all though you were predominantly climbing so still ring at a good effort level, then once we got to the hill we would ride a solid temp where you could talk a bit but feel you were working, this would take us up to about 68 miles then for the last 30 or so miles back we would ride really hard through and off. This was excellent as you have to be in good shape to be able to ride hard after 4 hours and 9000 feet of climbing.

Running:

I did 2 long rides of 1.45 and 1.50 on the trails which was literally 1 hour up hill and the rest flat on the top of the hills or downhill.

£ effort sessions which included:

5*4 minutes

5*5 minutes

10*500 meters and 4*250 meters

The rest of my runs ranged from around 6-10 miles on the hilly trails at the lodge which was amazing and made the time fly by. It was the first time I had ever run on trails and it was quite addictive as you just wanted to run all the time but you have to reign yourself back.

I just want to say thanks to Olly from Kinetic pb for letting me come and stay and that I will definitely be back it is without doubt the best training venue I have ever been on. Manchester tri club are holding a camp out the during the last week of February which is also open to anyone who want to come. If anyone is interested contact me on joeskipper@hotmail.co.uk as there has been a lot of interest in it already. Prices work out about £140 for return flight with bike with easy jet and accommodation is 25 euros a night which includes use to all the facilities. Me and Paul Hawkins will be out there leading rides and giving advice but don't be put off by this as we have a race four days after the camp so are just tapering and will be guiding the rides and making it as pleasant experience as possible. There is a kitchen on sight which is big and anyone can use but if you fancy eating out it cost me 11 euros for a 3 course meal at a local restaurant including 2 beers. It really is amazing and I hope you will come and experience it for yourselves.

In other news I've got a 5k tt on the track tonight which will be interesting after having the big mileage in my legs from the camp, I've also got a half marathon on Sunday where I want to go sub 75, and I've got my training programme for the next 6 weeks which will take me up to my first big race.