Kona diary - day 2

Day 2 29 sept

First taste of the Ocean this morning. It’s luuurvely. Very salty, but clear an warm. Swam out to the 3/4mile permanent buoy and back - was ale to swim alongside/just behind Russell which is nice for me as means no need for Steven to keep stopping and waiting …he went up ahead trying to stick with Rachel. There are pacuilar cold jets of water where freshwater streams flow into the bay, making the return a little chilly. For now its not too busy at the pier – that’ll quickly change!

Later we rode the whole bike course. Tough ride – we managed to get headwinds on the way out AND on the way back, with side winds as we rode up to Hawi. Think we were pretty lucky to have a chance to experience this – though I am sure it could be worse – it made it a pretty tough 100miles…and ensured we’d have no illusions about this being an easy race. Was also good to feel how the deeper section front wheel feels under the force of a strong side gust; alarming but controllable.

It’s damn hot, necessitating 3 stops for fluids along the way - the store at Kawaehae has a soda machine with ice dispenser so we were filling half gallon buckets with root beer and filling our bottles! I was leeching a lot of salt -0 much more than anyone else, which is unusual. Maybe I swallowed a lot of sea water this morning!

Kona diary - day 1

Mon 28 September

Up early at 5.30 to get into the right sort of sleep pattern for race day/overcome jet lag. Actually jet lag not that bad since we had a night stop over on our way here – an extra night sleep seems to have helped and though I was awake by 5, I had slept through the night. It was still dark as I left the room for my run, so was looking forward to running along the seafront as the sun rose. But I blinked and missed it! By the time I’d left the building, the sun was up – being so near the equator, dawn and dusk just don’t really exist!

A nice easy run up Alii drive. The day starts early here and I wasn’t alone on the road, with all the cafes setting up for breakfast business by 6am. As soon as the sun was up it really starts to feel hot. Returned to find the most amazingly coloured lizard in our room. So vibrant I thought it was a plastic toy – until I prodded it and got a start as it scuttled up the wall. Not entirely sure how I feel about a lizard running around in our room, beautiful or not, but I don’t think they bite or anything. Reckon as long as we don’t swallow it in our sleep, no harm will come of it.

The main mission of the morning was getting my hands on a rear cassette to replace the one which is still attached to my Powertap rear wheel, in Steven’s sister’s attic. With all the rushing around in London the last few days between Lanzarote and departing for Hawaii and hurried packing, something like this was bound to happen. Fortunately there are a couple of helpful and well stocked bike shops in Kona, and by midday I had a bike that would ride. Glad that I’d recently bought a new chain.

Checked out the aquatic centre for a pool swim . a large open air 50yard pool had been divided by a boom to create two 25y pools, dedicated to lap swimming – and a free facility. Free stuff makes me happy. Felt good swimming – did 3k with 6 x 350y reps on race pace.

Quick spin on the bike tinkered too much with the indexing on the gears. Wished I’d just left it alone – the guy at Pro bike ( La Santa, Lanzarote) had serviced it and had the shifting smoother tan it has ever been, but just not quite meshing perfectly on the new block, so I had to stop and fiddle. Now its far worse. And sure to get on my nerves unil I get it right…which could take several rides.

Rachel arrived this afternoon – She, Russel, Steven and I had dinner in the Canoe Club. Huge salads, brilliant sea-front view (albeit dark by 7!) in bed and falling asleep by 9! (that's jet-lag, jo)

La La La Santa..

We’re nearing the end of our acclimatization/final prep training camp in Lanzarote. It’s been a great couple of weeks and I’m happy to admit that my impressions of club La Santa as an overpriced holiday camp for those who require their training spoon-feed were all wrong. Had it not been for Rachel’ generosity sharing the apartment that (as second placed female in the IM this year) she got a very good deal on, we could not have afforded to stay here in the first place and would never have known. But we’ve found it to be such a perfect environment when its time to just get the head down and fous on training. It really could not be easier – the gym ( excellently equipped and spacious, could do with air con or a few more windows), pool (50m, 8 lane out door), track (newly surfaced and swept clean daily) and the numerous free classes (ranging from highly energetic jumping on and off boxes through dance workshops, yoga, Pilates and stretching) are within 2 minutes of the apartment. We’ve not had time to make use of the free bike, kayak, windsurf or raquet hire of course, but families that do so really get great value for their stay. The apartments are a bit small and scruffy (and that’s comparing them to the get-pissed-quick cheap family aparthotels we’ve sampled in Peurto del Carmen!) and the on-site restaurants and supermarket somewhat overpriced, but we’re not here for luxury and I’ve managed fine alternating between the very good quality all-you-possibly-eat-and-still-move buffet restaurant and self catering from the cheaper supermarket in Tinajo. This is beginning to sound a bit like a travel review..so that’s enough of the pros and cons of La Santa except to say that if you can put up with the constant upbeat cheesy dance tracks pumped from tiny speakers around the complex at all hours of day – and you do get used to it- this is an excellent base to focus on being an athlete in preparation for a big race. If you were on a more casual or cycling focused training holiday, and not requiring specific facilities you might find it a little claustrophobic and be better off in the cheaper and more diverse side of the island. I think in future we will be doing a mix of both.

So, after the Vitruvian I started off with a pretty easy week. That race was a bit of a knock-back for me. Or perhaps a reality call. Either way it had me worried about my form and I’d been advised by a few people that I’d shared these concerns with that I should treat this 2 week period in the sun as a bit of a ‘holiday’. Well – with Steven off all day racking up monster mileage and hours and little else to do around here having sworn off alcohol, caffeine and icecream in prep for Kona, I was finding a bit hard to imagine I was on hols! I hadn’t even brought a book to read – so intentions were pretty clear to anyone bothered enough to read between the lines: get out there and get in shape.

Trouble was: I was tired. So the first days passed in short cycles of feel good, train: sessions go well. Feel a bit tired. Too hot to sleep. Get up, train: session goes ok. Feel more tired. Too hot to sleep, concerned about feeling so tired. Get up, train: session just about ok but really not that good. Worry about not being all that good. Feel very tired. Worry about feeling very tired and not being able to sleep and not being very good. So tired fall asleep anyway. Easy/rest day. More sleep. Wake up- feel better, train: sessions go better. Feel a bit tired……it’s a shame that it was relatively late in the trip that I realized that with the help of a little Valarium ( herbal sleeping remedies) and a 9hr sleep, I could reset to phase 1 of the cycle a lot sooner than my planned training schedule allowed.
Sharing with Rachel has provided a real insight into how a real Pro prepares for a race – the sort of training she’s doing, the effort she puts into recovery and attitude in general is inspiring. Of course she follows the same sort of cycle – has had good days and off days – but manages to retain a positive attitude and deals with it sooner, or just finds another level of motivation and pushes through. Guess that comes from experience and the confidence of some great race results this year. I reckon we’ll see some exciting stuff from her out there in the lava!

In all, things for me picked up in this second week – I have swum and run every day, including 3 track sessions, made good use of the gym and, though less cycling than I’d expected, have done some good quality bike sessions. Eaten well, stayed sober and weaned myself off caffeine. Got my bike serviced in Pro Bike – for 100E new chain, brake blocks fixed up the gears (both derailleurs bent out of line) and gave it a good clean. Runs lovely now! Hope it stays that way after the 2 flights back to London on then on to the Aloha State. Finger’s x’d. I’m now having wheel choice dilemmas and debating with Scott the merits of riding on power over the cost of the heavy32 spoke training wheel that the unit is built into ( and the fact that the bloody thing STILL plays up!) and a deep- ish section on the front versus worrying about being blown off the road……

So much to think about, it seems. I’m going out to ride my bike.

settling - the vitruvian

I was pretty pleased with my swim, having had a good, clear start and made what I felt were sensible moves between the feet that I followed. I was able to get decent draught for most of the way round, swimming at moderate effort for pace that would have been hard to unsustainable under my own efforts alone. The two 950m laps were broken with a land buoy to run around, and this is a nice break from green/brown murk and a chance to survey the spread of the field. 3 of us raced around together – the feet i’d been following and someone from behind (who passed me when, to save my poor feet from the sharp pebbles, I dived back into about 3 inches of water and found myself crawling along the bottom) and there were a half dozen or so red caps already a little way into their second lap.

Running up the exit mat and fumbling cold fingered for my wetsuit zip, I noted my time about 30min, and was pleased with this – a minute ahead of last time. So far on plan.
I met Helen Smith from Thames Turbo on the bike mount line and recalling her speed from racing Olympic distance against her, pushed on up the hill out of transition. It was damn cold and this was good incentive to keep working the pedals hard. I knew that I was going to really have to crank this course if I was going to challenge last year’s winner who would be well up the road ahead of me by now, and keep the pressure on to produce a very fast run – her weaker discipline, if it could be called that!
After an hour I’d passed all but 2 girls who I knew I’d unlikely catch sight of until the run and so it was a case of not loosing too much more time. I rode within a cluster of guys, passing one another back and forth as the terrain varied to suit our relative strengths, thinking that this was helping keep my momentum up. However when my friend Helen came breezily by with a cheerful ‘hi Jo’ I was given a bit of a jolt into reality. Not wishing to take anything from Helen, who is a very good and dedicated long distance triathlete, but she’s not someone that I’d previously considered to be serious competition. And here she was, not only passing but riding away from me up that hill….there didn’t seem to be much that I could do about it either – it seemed that I could not find another level of effort. Was it my legs, or my mind? From that point the mental battles began. I figured that I’d catch Helen on the run for sure…putting me back 3rd place, and that is where it happened: I settled for third. Half way through the bike course, half of me (or more) gave up on the race. The other half of me was then obliged to devote precious energy that could have been used for thinking positive and inspiring thoughts, arguing a case for continued best efforts from the legs and pushing on into severe discomfort regardless of the rest of the race. Late in the second lap I was passed again, by a girl riding at such apparent speed that I assumed she must be part of a relay team. I could not figure how it had taken so long to catch me at that pace, or why her number was out of sequence with the rest of the ladies. I pushed it a little more to keep her in my sights, realizing that it had been a mistake to loose visual contact with Helen, but lost her when I found myself caight behind a large slow moving horse truck.
The Vitruvian bike route, 2 laps of the Dambuster Triathon course follows secondarty roads around Rutland Water. The roads are rolling and potentially fast, but also winding and narrow in places so are marked with double white central lines. The race just happens to be on the same day as a major local horse show…and so by about 8.30am the roads become jammed with cars and trucks unable to pass cyclists, and unpassable as they crawl along at 10 miles an hour. Frustration mounting, and picturing the 4 women ahead steaming away at from me along clear roads, I remind myself that, this surely is happening to everyone else too. Confirmation of this a little further on I spy Helen up the raod, behing the same vehicle who’s backside I’d been cursing 10 in earlier. Either she’d dropped pace as the winds had increased on our second lap, I’d managed to pick it up a bit or she’d been more unlucky that I with the traffic. Whatever, it lifted my spirits a bit and it was quite comical to find ourselves having a bit of a natter as we tailed the horsebox, into T2! Wished each other luck for the run and I just hope that my legs were going to serve me well as I stepped out into what I have come to consider my racing ‘territory’.

I didn’t feel great at all, but that is to be expected and I know its just a case of settling into it. it doesn’t exactly get any better, but you just kind of get used to it! As I’d run through the transition and spectator area I’d heard the commentator mentioning that John Francis from Tri London had just passed the turn around and out onto his second lap ahead of me. Soon he was in sight - -my firsts target. He was a rather fast moving target, impressive having already put 11km behind him, and it took a while to make ground on him. I caught him just at the same moment that we saw Steven coming from the other direction. Walking. He’d had a go, I assumed, and got himself round half of the run before deciding that his foot wasn’t going to hold out. I felt sad that he was pulling out, but proud that he’d made a lap and was looking so happy. He yelled ‘you’re really going to have to push this, Jo’ which I knew meant that the lead was not just a matter of a few minutes ahead! So, since John was running at about 4-4:15 pace, I figured that by sticking on him would help get me on pace until I saw the gaps at the far turn around. A few moments later we passed the possible relay rider (obviously she wasn’t ) and back into 3rd place. John started pulling away from me. I’d settled for 3rd, remember? I wasn’t getting into this run at all, and 4:20’s became 4:30’s and though I knew I wasn’t working had, I just did not seem to have the capacity to go to any harder. The leaders passed me on their way back from the turn around a good km before I’d reached it, Lou was nice enough to say ‘hi’ but I hardly even registerd who it was until Lucy passed me a minute or so later. Wow. They really do have a lead. What would I have to do to make up THAT gap? Run a 1:13 half marathon (1:19 would have got me second). You know what , I didn’t really feel like it. Maybe I should have a gel? No, might as well avoid eating that junk unless I really have to. I know I can carry on at THIS pace for as long as I like. Oooh Jaffa Cakes….well, nothing to loose might as well have one of those.

It was nice to see friends and club mates out on the course including Roger, flying along ahead of his age group who told me off for not smiling. I hate it I told him – it was a joke of course but made me realize how close to the truth that was and I’d better start getting a bit happy! I’m here by my own choice and it’s a nice day and soon I’ll be finished and its still good exercise….and there’s Steven again, RUNNING! I wanted to give him a hug. People are telling him not to do this and that for his foot – it’s still problematic and with Kona, a race that he really wants to finish, only a month away it’ s too risky etc etc. I have to say that though I’d think he was stupid finishing this one out of pride alone, I totally understand and support him wanting to test it out. Obviously it was holding out ok for him to decide to run the second lap!

A little later, I was pleased to be told that I had the nicest smile of the ‘top ladies’. Fourth place was not all that far behind me, which was enough to keep me running at a moderately hard, and increasingly uncomfortable pace (4:40’s now) but not close enough to make it hurt.

Eventually, I was through the last sheep-y bit, over the last damm-y bit, through the woody bit, another sheep-y bit then the boat-y bit and finally the finish-y bit….
4hr 43 (just under)
Around 15 min slower than target, and in the position that I’d settled for 3 hours previously. Of course as soon as the race is over this mistake is obvious, my target was not at all unrealistic but as always on the day the head rules - and the head was not on my side!!!

swim 30:39
t1 2:07
bike 2:35:18
t2 1:07
run 1:33:40
total 4:42:54