Friday, 28 June 2013

Um... 186BPM *swimming*!?

That was one hard swim set.

Seriously hard.  Hardest set I've done to date.  And I missed out 8 of the 100s 'cause it was proving a bit much.  I think I was doing 1:41 100s a few times, which is mental for me, but I wasn't really paying attention that well other than the time I had before I had to start up again.  Max heart rate 186!

Absolutely shattered after that and devoured a big lamb steak and puréed cauliflower for dinner.  Inhaled it in minutes.


It's been almost 2 weeks since IM 70.3 UK and I've been doing really well.  Training consistently and getting some strength sessions slotted in, which I'd really been missing.  As a result, I'm quite tired.  Work, chores, training, commuting, sleeping - balancing those is a fine art at the best of times and when some of those are unpredictable, you have to get clever around scheduling and making provision for opportunistic dealing with chores or training.

I missed one run and added in 2 strength sessions - pretty pleased with that

I've found a way to make the shorter, working day training sessions work.  I do spin/bike and strength sessions in the morning before work, unless I'm in the rural office when I do runs instead.  Swims happen on the way home from work and runs can happen as part of my commute home from work (when I'm in London).  Longer bikes and runs happen at the weekend with options on an added swim or strength session.  It's working pretty well!

The red sessions are today's ones I've not yet done - swim will go green later!

The Virgin Active London Triathlon is 4 weeks away and I'm feeling pretty darned good for it.  As long as nothing catastrophic happens, I'm very much on track for a great race on a really lovely course.  It's an Olympic distance race and almost completely flat with just a few roundabouts for fun in it, so I'm looking at using my TT bike with my spanky HED Jets for extra go-faster (well, they -look- cool, so it'll make me -feel- faster and that makes me actually put in more effort :o)) vroominess.  Last time I did London, I didn't do too badly given I had no training plan, just ran a bit, biked 15km every now and then to my old work and back (each way) and swam when I rememebred to:- 02:45 and I think my run at the end was just over an hour!  I think we can do better than that this year :oD

So, I'll be getting out on my TT bike when I can; I find it a bit tricky to get familiar with the handling of it where we live and last year I ended up doing most of my familiarisation on it in races (closed roads, no traffic to worry about).  And doing my best to keep on top of training sessions and fitting them in where I can when work goes off piste (keeping gym and swimming kit in my desk drawer really really helps!) and not get stressy if I end up having to miss a session that I can't fit in, or doesn't logically fit in, at another point in the week.

Now... I just need the results of the Team Freespeed Virgin Active competition to be announced (oh please, oh please!) so I can stop having un-resolved stuff hanging over me and job's a good 'un!

Thursday, 20 June 2013

UK Ironman 70.3 2013

UK Ironman 70.3 2013 - or "you live and learn"























Monday, 17 June 2013

Review:- Purition; surprise nice emergency breakfast!

Occasionally, I'm asked to try samples of new products and these days it's usually things I prefer not to eat these days; high carbohydrate breakfast cereals, bars etc.  But I was recently asked to try something quite new; Purition, a range of food supplement products (mainly shakes) aimed at the more natural food/clean eating preference market.  And when I read the literature on the product I was pleasantly surprised.

Having worked on a very low carb diet for 4 months, I did my first ultra marathon in February this year, fuelled on a breakfast of bacon, eggs and cream cheese and took in nothing but water for the whole 50km run.  With no specific training for the distance and having been out of action for 10 of the preceding 16 weeks due to a smashed collarbone, coming half way down the field of runners, finishing very much in good spirits and passing half of the field of runners in the last 6-7km of the course, very much proved the point that for endurance sports (and short races too) that you don't need to stuff yourself with refined carbohydrates and, worse, sugars in order to perform well.  So, I look for products that aren't full of carbohydrates and it's not easy to find that in the "sports nutrition" or "convenience nutrition" market places.  OK, so you often see "100% natural" and "healthy" slapped all over products of this genre, but what's rarer is the lack of any added sugars, starches, dried fruit or other stuff that's supposed to be good for you but usually actually isn't.

 Looking at the nutritional profile made me even happier...

 So I said "yes please" to some samples and two of them arrived in the post shortly afterwards.

 Little foil sachets with an individual portion in each.

And instructions on how to make it up into a shake-style drink.  A touch cutesy, but given the market they're in, you can easily forgive that.

Thankfully I had a tricky morning the next day and a quick, easy brekkie when I got in to work after the gym was exactly what was needed, so I took my sachets and a shaker/mixer with me.

Tipping the powder in over milk, like the instructions said, and it looks gritty and bitty due to the seeds in it - that's where all the fibre comes from.  I gave it a good old shake and tipped it out into a glass.

What I didn't do was actually read the full instructions properly that said to give it another shake after standing for a while, so this happened...

 No biggie, but it meant that I had to use a teaspoon to finish the shake.

The taste... I loved it.  Lots.  Nowhere -near- as sweet as any whey proteins I've had and not tasting of strong artificial flavours - just very very faintly sweet, nutty and a little of the coconut that was in it.  Really blimmin' lovely!  (The chocolate one I had the next day was just as yummy and delicately flavoured too.)

4 hours later and having had around half the normal breakfast kcal intake I still wasn't hungry.  This was a good thing given how work is and the fact that I had nothing around for lunch.

In short, I was so impressed with the ingredients, nutritional profile, taste and end results that I jumped onto their web site and bought 3 pouches of the stuff; Bodypro, Bodysculpt, and Superseed Smoothie

It's going to be rather useful to have around on the mornings during the week where I get up, go to the gym and in to the office, saving time around not having a cooked breakfast but still getting good quality nutrition in that isn't high carb and has a lot of fibre in it too.  It's also going to be useful for those days when I'm mad busy and need to get some quality, quick nutrition in before or after a hard training session at the gym - it's difficult for me to predict when I'll get those done so I can't easily have real food on hand.  Also goes nicely over Greek yogurt as a snack (and we have Greek yogurt in the office, as well as milk, which is handy.)

Really impressed with the products, love the company's thinking, love that it's British and wish I'd found it sooner!

Thursday, 13 June 2013

Another one comes around quickly - Ironman UK 70.3

3 days to go and I'm well and truly tapering - from what it's hard to tell as apart from a week in Almeria earlier in the year, my training never really took off.  But still... I feel pretty OK, if a bit heavier than this time last year.  As I said before Blenheim last week, a lot has happened in the last 12 months...

Last year we drove to Exmoor on the Thursday and had all of Friday and Saturday to take things easy, this year we've cut it shorter and will be travelling over at silly o'clock on Friday morning to avoid the traffic and straight to registration.

I'm so glad I blogged about last year as it gives me some comfort and information to use for this year.  My goodness me, I was fierce in the run (probably due to being really very fit at the time and pacing the bike very conservatively), especially given the course profile.  This year, I'll have a few changes to the plan and I'll be taking it a lot harder in the swim and the run, and on the flat and uphills of the bike but still risk-managing in the descents on the bike.  I know I can hurt more than I did last year and I know I can handle mental difficulties, I've done it and I know how to make it work.  I also know that I made some corking mistakes, like the one where I didn't realise my quick release brakes were undone the whole way around...

So.  I went through the packing list and packed last night as I'm late home tonight; a last loosening sports massage at 6pm and then a visit from our builder before an early-as-possible bed so we can get going early on Friday morning.  The bike is still set up from last week's aborted race, so not much to do there other than take it to bits to pack it in the car.  The course doesn't work for a TT bike for me, I'd be up on the hoods too much at the moment, so the road bike with HED Jets it is.

There's going to be a massive line-up in the pro field and the age-group list doesn't look shabby either.  I've not had a chat with coach yet on what the race strategy will be, but I'm hoping I'll be "allowed" to actually race rather than be conservative.  I'd like to come in under 7 hours on this course, but I have no idea what I'm capable of at my current fitness and training point.  I find out on Sunday!

Expect a proper race report at some point, but if you want to follow on the athlete tracker on the day, I'll be race number 1048.  Not quite the good ol' 104 of last year, but no such special treatment this year.

Saturday, 8 June 2013

Oh great!


I'm not racing tomorrow after all.

Very unimpressed.

The tickboxes for the race were being able to have a good crack at going quickly and have a go a beating last year's time, while managing risk on the bike leg.  Not sure I can tick either box after an incident on Friday on the course where a bus went under the main pedestrian bridge from the outer palace grounds into the main athlete transition area, that was over-height and damaged the bridge.  It's the only route through to transition from outside the race and is unusable.
So the race director has implemented a marshalled mandatory dismount zone on part of the bike course where the bridge crosses the bike course and pedestrians/spectators need to cross the bike course.  All athletes have to slow down, stop, get off their bikes, walk 10m, get back on and carry on around the bike route... 3 times each in the race.  I've seen race footage and it looks bloody awful.  At any given time there could be a good 400 athletes on the bike loop which is about 6.6km long and as the race is started in waves there are cyclists on the course who are on any of the 3 laps... so at any time at the dismount or re-mount line there are 10-15 cyclists in the least stable state of getting on/off/tottering about in cycling shoes.  That, plus the fact that the race attracts a high proportion of first-timers there's a good 75% of the field have never raced before or have certainly never raced where there are a lot of other athletes in close proximity.  I'm not sure what other option the race director had, but there are going to be a lot of athletes turning up to today's and tomorrow's race waves who won't know until they get to the swim briefing.  There's going to be a lot of cross people and perhaps offering to allow people to withdraw and get at least a partial refund would have been a good gesture.
Basically, sod that.  I'm not having someone ride up my backside or stop/wobble/fall off right in front of me and cause me to crash; it's bad enough having that risk at the start and end of the bike leg, but adding in 6 instances of it during the race?  Also, slowing down, stopping, getting off, walking, getting back on and then starting up again on one of the quicker parts of the bike course not once, or twice, but three times during the race will add up to minutes to the overall race time.  Where personal best times are often measured in parts of minutes, that's just no fun any more.  Most people aren't racing the rest of the field, they're racing themselves.  I'd've been doing both.
Someone has taken short videos of the area from today's racing...


It came around a bit quickly

It's time for Blenheim sprint triathlon again.  My god that came around quickly, but my god so much has happened since last year.

I've become an Ironman, smashed my collar-bone, been made redundant, fundamentally changed my diet, run my first Ultra Marathon, started a new job, struggled with time prioritisation and motivation... and yet I'm here again, 24 hours before Blenheim, and it's going to be great!

 Having remembered the zoomy bit through the forest and the gently undulating bike course a little with rose-tinted glasses, I thought I might race tomorrow on my TT bike.  Then I remembered A. the more than a couple of tight, narrow bends; and B. the high volume of "fun", slower and new-to-the-sport athletes you get a Blenheim.  With my less than perfect handling skills, there'd be no point being on a TT bike as I'd be up on the hoods 95% of the time to cover the brakes.  So... the Jets go onto my lovely, tried-and-trusted Fuji Team Pro Special Edition road bike (2010) and some clip-on tri-bars in case I get to have some fun through the woods.

And the wheels sound -yummy- :o)

I'm heavier and less endurance fit than this time last year and in some ways a lot less stressed than I was on the day of Blenheim last year (I was on a conference call for a critical incident at work for 4 hours and right up until I'd finished racking my bike etc. and then back on it again 15 minutes after I'd finished. The preceding weeks and months at work had not been fun at all.)  But my running has come a long way in terms of technical skills and I'm oddly a lot more comfortable on the bike at the moment, even after months off it and the comfort has happened only in the last 3 weeks really.  That said, with the Jets on the Fuji it's really quite... fiesty compared with having the Mavics on.  Who'da thunk it that wheels made such a difference on a pretty average road bike?

I'm in two minds about how tomorrow might pan out.  The swim isn't going to be spectacular as I'm, sure the lake is hellishly cold and I can't say I've spent a huge amount of time in the pool in the last 10 months so I'm not expecting a stellar performance there.  My transition skills are somewhat rusty, but hey all I have to do is rip off a wet-suit, pop on bike shoes, race belt, helmet and glasses in T1; swap bike shoes for trainers, take off helmet and turn around race belt in T2... how hard can that be?  The bike will be fun as I'm sure the course profile will come flooding back once I'm on it and with 3 laps the 2nd and 3rd will be faster through familiarity.  And the run is all about starting off high cadence and wanting to do well.  I know I can hurt a lot more than I used to be able to and I know that I can push a lot harder than I have in the past, but the important thing is to want to.  If I want to do well, I can push oh so hard and hurt quite a lot.  The thing is, it's UK 70.3 next weekend and I don't want to crash or break myself in some way this close to that.  So it's risk management on the bike and then mash it on the run.

See you on the other side!