http://www.trainstravels.co.uk/about/
I really like Russ' no nonsense approach. Once he delivered his first couple of weeks of training I knew that it was the start of something very good in my quest to be the best endurance athlete that I can be. The most notable changes were scaling down on my run volume, increasing my weekly transition run frequency to two sessions and increasing the intensity on two mid-week bike sessions. With two races done in the last 6 weeks, training was quite focussed on threshold, strength and endurance sessions.
Before I started doing any kind of serious bike riding you would have had a hard time convincing me that bike riding increases run fitness. I am now converted as I have some pretty satisfying training and racing results to prove the theory. The first race on my calendar was the Bupa London 10000. I did not really know what to expect as the bulk of my running consisted of steady 30min run sessions after one threshold and the longer ride of the week. I would have been happy with anything sub 40, but I ambitiously set off at sub 38 minute pace. The first 5k came up in just under 19 minutes, and the second 5k was a different story and much harder. Not being the strongest of runners, I lost a bit of form but still managed to hang on for a 38:24, a new PB with very little run training. That is quite promising for things to come and points to something very close to a sub 40 for an Olympic tri run.
The second race on my calendar was the Cotswold 113. The 113 is supposed to represent the sum of the distance of the three events - 1.9km swim, 90km bike and 21.1km run. My wife and I booked into a spa hotel a couple of miles from the venue, and registration was on the Saturday afternoon. After registration I took an easy spin and run session to settle some of the nerves as this was my first triathlon since doing any proper training. After doing a lot of planning I was confident that I had all of the items needed to get me from start through the transitions to the recovery drinks afterwards.
The plan was simple, complete the race in under 5 hours. My planned splits were something along the lines of 35 minutes swim, 2h40 for the bike and a sub 1:35 run with about 10 minutes for transitions and a small buffer.
The morning before the race started with being sick interrupting my 2 hours of sleep because of a bad dinner choice. Lesson learnt, but no harm done. Breakfast consisted of oats, a banana and a Herbalife shake with a coffee and some energy drink.
Before the swim start I took a gel and sipped energy drink up to 10 minutes to go. With a short warm-up I placed myself towards the front of the pack. I am not a strong swimmer, nor am I comfortable swimming in groups, so the only reason for my placement was experimentation and trying my luck in maybe catching the back of a fast group. It was misty and cool at 6am when the gun went off. The first couple of minutes were spent trying to keep away from other swimmers as things were quite manic. I quickly found some open water, unfortunately that meant I swam off course, and had to change direction to get back with the other racers. This turned out to be a reoccurring pattern and I even swam past one of the buoys so I had to turn around to stay legal. I came out of the water in just over 34 minutes, so all thing considering I swam a lot better than I could have hoped for even though my goggles fogged up within a minute from the start.
T1 was quick with my shoes clipped into the bike and in minutes I was passing people on the flat course. The aim was to keep my heart rate about 10-15 beats below my threshold, so the target was 130bpm.
The whole bike section felt relatively controlled and I managed to average around 35km/h. I struggled to keep my heart rate below 135bpm and as a result I also did not manage to take in as much nutrition as I would have liked. In the end I went through 2 bottles of energy drink and 4 gels. Avoiding the packs and relaxing through the last 10km I came off the bike feeling tired, but ready to tackle the (mostly) off road half marathon. The only slight mishap on the bike was on the end of the first lap where I missed a turn and cycled 300m down the road before a spectator screamed and made me realise that I was off course.
Bike split 2:27 (85km ....5km short) ave around 35km/h.
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| Notice the clipped in shoes! |
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| Transition 2 |
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| End of the first run lap of 3 |
T2 went in under a minute and I was off feeling very happy to be out of the aero position. I was advised to keep it really easy for the first 10km but the excitement of passing people got the better of me. I was averaging under 4:20 min/km for the first half and 10km came up in just under 43 minutes. The second part of the run was really hot, and I managed to force the third gel down with about 40 minutes to go. I passed about 18 people during the run and came 17th overall with a total time of 4:35 and a run time of just over 1h31. If the bike course was 90km the time would have been 4h42 so I came in 18 minutes under target.
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| Bad spelling should have read - Nico van der Westhuizen |
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| Finish chute |
Things look good for Ironman Cozumel at the end of the year, and the plan is to slowly start building my weekly long ride and long run whilst keeping things simple and manageable. Next week I will try and register for Ironman Austria 2012, so fingers crossed as I would really like to do that race. It might be my first chance to have a go at a sub 10 hour Ironman! Cozumel at the end of the year might be a bit tough as it is a very hot race, and having trained for less than a year I would put unnecessary pressure on myself to aim for such a steep target in Mexico. The swim is non-wetsuit, and the heat + winds make it one of the toughest Ironman courses, not dissimilar to Kona from what I have read.
Hope you enjoyed the report, until the next post.
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| Post race massage |
