Wednesday, 14 October 2009

WorldWide Festival of Races & Wadebridge Tri This weekend just gone was the Worldwide Festival of Races, a free 'virtual' series of races (5k, 10k & half marathon) where you do the race distances at home or at a local race, then register your times online. It's nothing serious, more of a fun thing and a good excuse to go run measured distances. Unfortunatly, because I'm training for Florida I really needed to get some miles in over the weekend so making the trip to Oxford to run the Dream Inspires Run was a non starter. I decided that to help with the training I'd enter all three races and combine them with the rest of my weekends training and racing, with limited training time before the big race there's nothing worth taking too seriously, it's all just training really.

So here's the last weeks training/racing combination.

Monday/Tuesday were (as normal) 'rest days', for no other reason that I'm so trashed after work on these days that training is rarely even an option.

Wednesday I took Rosie out for a steady 10mile run along the Tarka Trail out to Barnstaple's Rock Park.

Thursday I headed out for a 50mile bike ride, I started at a fair pace and kept aero until I met a few folks I knew, then the pace eased as it turned into a group ride. In the afternoon I had a massage, these will now appear weekly until the race.

Friday I had another run with Rosie, just 8miles this time and I really struggled with my tired legs, maybe the after effects of the massage. The run was followed by a solid 3.2km squad swim session, strangly solid considering how tired I'd felt on the run.

On Saturday I popped into my LBS with some minor bike glitches (it's got to go get fixed properly tomorrow) on my way out for a solo 80mile bike ride. Once back off the bike I headed out to complete the 10k leg of the WWFoR, it probably wasn't close enough to the bike ride to be classed as a 'Brick Session' but it was a good tester with tired bike legs and I was happy to get through it in under 40mins. Later that afternoon I went out again with Shelly to complete the WWFoR 5k which she'd entered too.

Sunday was time to double up on the races. Wadebridge Triathlon is traditionally a bit of a disaster area, it would be very harsh to say it's 'badly' organised, but there's so much that could be improved. The first thing that could be sorted is the Start Time situation. Everybody has to turn up and register before the race starts and it's only then that you find out your start time isn't for another 3hrs. Normally this is a nightmare because there's nothing to do but sit around twiddling your thumbs. On this occasion though I was prepared and as the first wave of swimmers were just heading out on their bikes I was heading off on foot to complete the WWFoR Half Marathon. I left the Leisure Centre and headed out along the Camel Trail to Padstow, then after a quick circuit of the town it was back onto the Camel Trail for the run back. Race 3 and the series completed in just under 90mins. All that was left then was Wadebridge Tri which true to form was a complete disaster. My swim was poor, my bike was equally as poor through some awful weather conditions and it was oddly only the run where I seemed ok. I'd love to know how fast I run because I truly felt as though I was flying along but the race results are totally screwed up. I've got no splits for swim, bike or run and I'm not even sure if my final time is right, it's dropped 10mins since they were originally published. The cynic in me will wonder if I'm conveniently just 11secs behind my Age Group winner because had I beaten him (which I have done all season) they'd have got the prizes wrong? To be honest, I don't really care. I'd like to see my times for my own records and to see genuinely how I did but the important thing was that I got a good solid weekend of training in and that was achieved.

I'll make no comment about the fact that I've done no training for 3 days straight now. I'll decide on Sunday whether my laziness has been justified or not. Training starts again TOMORROW!!!

PS - Please feed the fish :-) . Just click away on them.
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