countdown

it seems as if i'm spend half my life fixing punctures at the moment.
fixing punctures or cleaning inches of grot of my bikes. its no time of year to be riding, really, is it? .. but, what can u do ( please dont say 'turbo') other than Despite my 'all weather' attitude, though i'm struggling to maintain the bike milegage that i'd really like to be - there are just so many distractions around. obviously the festive season is one, but this year it's rather overshadowed by the move from my home of 6 years in north london to a life of temporary abode in new zealand and beyond.

The 'beyond' aspect is a recent development since having been made redundant from the engineering consultancy that i work for. a very sad time - a small firm of 7 of us, having worked hard together over the last couple of years unable to continue without a sustainable amount of activity in the industry for an outfit of our size. So, its good-bye's all round and i'm counting my blessings for having planned up to 6 months without income. perhaps things here will be moving again by the summer and i'l be able to return to Akera's - but on the other hand this really does free me up to explore any oppurtunity which present themselves over the next few months.

its a bit of a driver to really give the racing my best shot and see where that can get me. this might mean adjusting my targets a little higher as the year goes on, i'll assess that after the race in new zealand. for now, progress is satisafctory - swimming is coming along ok. i have more than doubled my swim volume to date compared with this phase last year, and seen some small progress. i remain optimistic that continuing to work at it and maintain a volume of 16-18k/week of focused swimming will eventually bring results.
My running is back on track after a slightly worrying period of trouble with my ITB and knees, and again i'm averaging about 50% more mileage each week than at this point last year - which was a good year for running with my first sub 3 marathon and a 3:20 IM run at Germany. the thought of either of those at present fills me with a cold dread, but i am certain that it did then too! that sort of thing hurts - but a year on with decent and consistent training, it should hurt that bit less. or rather - it should hurt for that bit less time ;o)

as for teh bike - well, i'm doing what i can, but for now just riding. i had some testing done on saturday - (a Vo2 max test, if you like though for various reasons we didn't go 'to the max' this time) which provide me with data that i will start using for my bike training once we get out of the bleak midwinter and onto kiwi turf. Steven has fitted the powertap to the Obi - my race bike - which i will be riding full time when we are over there. Prepartion starts in ernest in janurary - and i'm itching to get on with it - but for now i just need to keep my fitness up with at least one long ride each week, supplimented by regents park intervals and a fixed ride if possible.

i'll write more detaisl about the testing that i mentioned in my next post ( and try to do it soon ) - right now it is bed time.

plans

2009 is looking to be some year for me now. having paid entry for ironman new zealand and deposits for epic camp new zealand a month earlier, an extended training trip to the southern hemisphere was certainly going to feature in the early part of the year. it got us thinking, and last week my boss agreed to my request for a 6 month sabbatical leave. flights are booked for 5th janurary!

we'll hit christchurch exactly at the start of the first race preparation phase of my training for the ironman, and be in ideal environment, summer weather and without time constraints or stresses of a day-job ;o)

taking this time off work will also enable me to spend time on lanzarote prior to racing there in may too. the cost of accomodation, half board, in the resort hotels is cheaper than paying rent and living in london!

i have signed over my flat and am currently going through the process of whittling down and selling, donating, throwing or giving away my possesions - everything that cannot be distributed amongst friends and family for safe keeping, stuffed into mum's attic or a rucksack. this part is a little unnerving, as is the scrutiny of my saving accounts and sketching out budgets for the period, which don't quite exactly square up. but the time seems to be right with work, with my current triathlon performances and goals and for steven too, for a change and taking a chance - and having a bloody great time seeing a bit more of the world!

who knows, i might even knock out some decent performances next year

dorset coastal marathon

http://www.endurancelife.com/results/trail/dorset/2008/split_timesV05.htm

well, fair play to the legs this weekend - not only did they manage to support me for almost 4 and a half hours of sliding around on slick Dorset coastal slimy mud, but they felt remarkably reasonable the following day....

Dorset Coastal Marathon report.
The view in the picture was presented to us around 20 minutes into the run, by which time the tone for the day had been well and truly set as we'd made our way from the beer garden race HQ, through water logged footpaths towards the coast. The weather had been appalling for the entire drive down from London, and i was fully dressed up for it with leggings, shorts, long sleeves under my running vest - topped off with my featherlight shower proof and buff on the head. I had been shivering on the start line but within minutes of starting to run i was overheating. The rain had stopped and as we left the wooded section of foot path and broke into the open, were treated to the sight of hopeful patches of blue sky. I had no intention of rushing this race, so i stopped to remove a couple of layers of clothing. It was apparent that my lack of experience of running this terrain would be the greatest challenge for me today, as i seemed to be sliding 1 foot back, or sideways, for every 2 that i put forward! It was seriously hard going and required me to adjust from my usual race mind set to avoid the frustration. Today I had to forget about being a fast runner and enjoy the experience, the challenge, the scenery and the company. So, for the first time in a long time, i was in a race but not in a race - doing it for the fun and the giggles - chatting to people around me as we ran along, fell on our arses, grabbed handfuls of mud and brambles trying to regain some sort of traction underfoot...and were presented with a number of climbs similar to the one pictured!

Actually - getting up something like this is pretty easy once you forget about running, then forget about walking, then forget about using only half of your available limbs and realise that those clumps of grass poking out of the mud are strong enough to prevent you from sliding back to where you came from, as you don't stay still for too long. Getting down them is a trickier matter, unless you are prepared to go arse first in a manner similar to described above, or are pretty good ski-er. neither of which applies to me, so it was a case of spotting the most solid piece of ground, with the least slippery mud on it,and using it only briefly to support your weight. This requires a lot of concentration and rhythm, but i found that i became quite proficient at this during the time that we were out there.

The course route was a figure of eight loop from Worth Matravers, first heading west along the coast path before turning inland to Kimmerage and back 6 miles over fields to meet the same stretch of coast path that we started that loop on. As well as the marathon distance there was also a half marathon and 10km event with staggered start times, and it was at this point that we met the half marathoners on their way out on the loop. We had a laugh crossing on those paths, and i did feel for them having to follow our rout after it had been all churned up by our feet(and hands, and arses)..but not that much because the lucky buggers didn't have another 13 miles to run out to the Swanage peninsular and back. The second part of this figure of 8 loop was easier going; still plenty of hills and fairly slidey, and by now the paths were populated with walkers too, but there were reasonable length runnable stretches, fortunatley including the final section of inland footpaths back from Swanage to Worth Matraver.

Having been running, albeit at an easy pace, for 4 hours by this point those last miles were pretty tough. My Garmin ws telling me that i'd covered 19 miles at the last feed stop, which had been advertised as the 20 mile point - i found that a bit disheartening, but had some food and set myself psychologically for a 7 more miles knowing that this would take a further hour at the very least. I could see the runners ahead ad around me dropping pace too, and focused on remaining steady and stronger than them. I passed Jamie, a club mate, who was having a hard time too. he asked me if that was the village ahead. i told him dont get your hopes up - we have 4 miles to go yet. at the next turn our route met the 10k runners (actually most of them walkers y that time) and over heard on of them saying 'about 2km more' The guy next to me agreed that sounded very optimistic! But as the route clearly WAS approaching this village, and it was the only one for miles around, it became clear that the finish was in sight - about 4 miles sooner than i'd expected. Hilariously, the very final 300m stretch of ground was an absolute mud slick churned up by all 3 races finishing over it ...and so my sprint finish was a very subdued sprint teeter on the verge of face full of mad cow infected mud in front of a the biggest gathering of people that Worth Matraver has seen in a long while! whilst i felt pretty bad for delivering false doleful news in his moments of despair, i am sure that he didn't believe me anyway, and if he had, would have been as pleased at the surprise early finish as i was.

ITB or not 2 be...

uh oh... the illio tibio is twanging ! the first signs of an old problem made themselves known this weekend with pain on the front of my knee-cap which i know from experience would precede swelling and pain beneath the kneecap due to tension in the itb moving it of it's tracking if left unchecked.
bad news for 57 runs in 57 days.
so i today i've thrown everything in my repetoire at it - rest, foam roller, ice, yoga, protein, massage, and possibly some more rest.
with luck and this sort of attention over the next few days i'll have nipped any further knee problems in the bud.

this has given me cause to pause and ask what it was that's brought it on - i have taken training pain-free for so long that the idea of enforced diversion from my weekly schedule is pretty frustrating. however, flexibility is critical and the designed training plan was not written in stone, or by an expert - and here is an oppurtunity to reveiw and improve it.
writing my own year plan and schedule was largely an exercise in numbers; i have no training in sports science or physiology and only my own epxerieces to draw on. it followed a logic along the lines of - "if i want to improve my running by 5%, then i should do 5% more run training". of course i know that it aint THAT simple, so i read around - find some priniples and theroy that appeals to me, and intergrate that into the schedule, along side swim and bike sessions which are obtained in much the same way. so, with a basic volume derived from data from my own previous years' training log and the session progression and details taken from various resources to which i'm currently subscribing, and have proven results for others. getting it all to fit together is really a case of trial and error though- and the only way of knowing if it WORKED is by better results at the end of the day. and i'll never know whether it might have worked better another way.

one thing for certain though - if i'm getting injured, sick or too fatigued to enjoy it, then it is NOT working, and needs a reveiw. it's a bit of a strange time to be making changes, since i am just approachin the end of my initial 6 weeks 'getting back into it' phase, but here's the list for consideration:

*111 hours of training since a complete rest day -perhaps 100 hours should be the most that i allow myself to go without taking a total 24 hour break

*my diet has been pretty poor during the last 5 weeks of training; i've been deliberatly relaxed about this, which i do believe was a good idea, but perhaps now its time to switch the focus towards more nurishing food as treats

*long run friday night followed by long ride saturday morning - i really do enjoy heading out of the office at the end of the week and running for 2 and a half hours around the park and sights of the city on my way home, but on each occaision that i've organsed to ride on saturday because of a sunday race, my quads have been absolutly shot to bits by monday! that's a lost day of training and, as i'm seeing now, potentially longer if it generates an injury. so - i think that'll be the end of that paticular combo for me.

*complete absence of core and strength work in my schedule. rather - it is in the schedule but i have not been doiong it. it's boring and easy to dismiss it as less important than a run , or rest, or cleaning up, or writing a blog post. its just a matter of getting into the habit, which i have been very sucessful at before once over the initial inertia.

it's quite pleasing to have identified 4 things that i can modify with fairly litte effort and believe that each of them will help keep me on track

E_P_I_C

today was a great day for swimming, exciting plans and cake. unfortunatly it was not a great day for getting design infomation issued or knees, but you really cant have everything.

swimming - feeling so low on energy and motivation on wednesday, which i put down to onset of a cold that i skipped the evening swim session. an evening spent queitly whatchig tv seemed to have done me good as i felt 100% the next day and determined to make up the lost workout. reckon that they'd filled the pool with fast water that evening as i was feeling comfortable at a considerably quicker pace than target, even whilst doing the set on my own in a public pool. this morning's swim session was similar - usually my friday swim is a sleepy and half-hearted 90 min effort to maintain a steady pace...but this morning i was again shaving seconds off my target rep times throughout the session. it could be that i am just a little less fatigued this week, which i have found really impacts my swimming - and if so its worth my while monitoring this as my pool motivation improves dramatically when i can see improvements like this.

exciting plans - this is the best part - we've just confirmed our places for EPIC camp New Zealand!! http://www.epiccamp.com/newzealand09/index.html it was such an insane training experince in Italy last year, and being the home turf of Scott and John, the guys behind the Camp I get the sense of real familiarity with people coming back year on year. some real stars too, going by tales that we heard whilst out in italy - i also think its a larger group with a harder hard-core. it'll be great to see a few of the guys who we met out in italy as well as meet a couple of professional iron-girls who i gather are signed up. and with the ironman 4 weeks after the end of camp, we are looking at a pretty long trip to the other side of the world now too.....which will certainly make winter training a bit more palatable!!

cake - we said farewell to Ola, the architect from Poland, today. she baked a cake - which we all agreed was the most delicious cake ( a sort of unbelievably light chocolaty almondy tarty cake) that anyone had ever tasted. we felt rather sorry that she had witheld this talent untill her final day....but it was probably for our better health. so thank you Ola, and good luck with your ventures in Poland and if you ever come back to visit, bring cake.

home

Mum loves the coast, my sister loves the forest, but for me its got to be the rolling expanse of moorlands. here's one of my favourite veiws, taken on one of my favourite rides from the top of Dunkery Beacon (one of my favourite beacons!.

It's great to get back to somerset for the weekend. After an early start I arrive in time for breakfast at my mum's before heading out onto Exmoor on the bike. This Saturday i'd planned a 3 or 4 hour ride, to be back in time for a nice leisurly afternoon with mum; a spot of shopping in town and resting up after a tiring week. But the sun was out and the sky perfectly clear and I could not resist the temptaion to explore a couple of new routes up an over the Beacon. I only just made it back to Taunton before dark, and in time for the carnival.

It was a hard ride - almost 7 hours in the saddle, covering 95 miles over the tough Exmoor terrain (I ride much of the route of 70.3UK and the "Exmoor Beast" cyclosportif) with only a couple of breif stops to check map, take a pitcure and pick up some flap jack at Whedden Cross - and I was glad to be able to set my own pace. I felt strong, but not powerful. It is interesting that it's bike form that I seem to loose the fastest and then find hardest to re-gain. Last year, despite plenty of long rides, it was summertime before I really began to feel strong on teh bike. So, I will be looking to start my campaign of power-specific bike training (which did the trick last year, in the end) much sooner in my season's schedule next year, with the hope of being ready for IM new zealand, in march.

That' s my justification of missing quality tiem on the high street with mum anyway - i need to make the most of this period of leisurly endurance rides admiring the views!

up, and running

Having eased myself back into training for the winter, the last couple of weeks have seen some very enjoyable training. Feeling refreshed, focused and.... basically not totally physically wasted, I’m finding renewed enthusiasm and energy. This could prove to be double edged sword – whilst I’ll continue to enjoy training when it is going well keeping my motivation high, the enthusiasm and energy that I have for harder sessions is hardly appropriate for the time of year – certainly contradicts my own training plan which should consist of 8 weeks building aerobic base - and will no doubt take it’s toll before too long. But just as long as I keep this in mind, and remember not to let the hours run away with me (18 last week, 25 this week) and recover effectively, I have a great winter’s training to look forward to with some interesting events lined up to keep me on my toes...

Winter racing is all about running really. The cross country season started yesterday with the first of the Met League races. A gorgeous day, certainly not the weather I’d associate with XC, but with the usual, totally disproportionate amount of fear of the hard 6km cousre we were about to run far too fast for out own good. Without much expectations in this scene, or with my current state of fitness, I started a few rows back and took my time working through the runners ahead. The lead girls as ever were way out of sight very quickly but in these events your score is based on position, not time so those unable to make the pace, don’t chase. I worked my way through the field , breathing hard but steady (unlike some of the wheezing and sobbing that you get to hear on these intense events), started the second lap in 20th position (which is my benchmark for cross country races), and finished 13th. There were a lot of drop-outs due to either the heat or just early season lack of fitness, but I was pleased with this position, and to score for my club.

We’ve also got the Regents Park 10k series http://www.chaser.me.uk/series_results.php?a_seriesid=3 to keep us going – the first being last Sunday. A day of torrential rain and mucho reluctance after a fairly solid 70 mile ride the day before, which itself was off the back of a Friday night long run of 15 miles. To be honest I turned up only in order to set a benchmark for the rest of the series, to be sociable with the good turn out of Tri London that these races attract and familiar faces from previous seasons. Despite my being really quite late, ,I was relieved that the start ad been delayed…and the morning took a further turn for the better when I was handed not only a prize of Runners Need vouchers but also my entry fees back! Apparetly I won last year’s series – having only raced 3out of 6 races and only actually won 2 of those. So if nothing else it was certainly getting out of bed and soaking wet for. I also had a very enjoyable race spending the entire 3 laps chasing the lead woman. She got a start on me, with a couple of other girls. But having Gabriel on the start line with an unspoken challenge helped me with my early speed and I soon dropped the other female contenders and had the one in front within sight. Kevin came by me (we have very similar race results and a little competition there too) so I tried to pick up pace, passing Gabriel in the process. I was unable to stick with Kev though and watched his back disappear. My focus then was to chase the lead, around 15 seconds behind her I felt that I had the psychological advantage as well as superior endurance, and didn’t try to close it until the final 2mile lap. Oh, and then did I push. I pushed and pushed until my lungs nearly came out my arse, but despite this, and all the encouragement from spectating friends, I could not reel her in. Of course she had known I was there and had something in reserve too. The best I could do was put a little squeeze on in the finishing 400m, and settle for second knowing that I could NOT have worked that race any harder. I was rather surprised, given the effort that I’d put in, that my time was 40:41. It’s not a fast course but I managed under 40 at the end of the last series. But – I really could not have run harder and it’s a benchmark.

Still on the running theme -Monday saw the start of 40 runs in 40 days. Last year we spotted this link: http://mdotdoc.blogspot.com/2007/10/30-runs-in-30-days.html
and thought it was an excellent idea for kick starting the running without overdoing it on speed. Several club members found their running much improved after the end of the period, and I continued the theme expanding from 30 in 30 to 40 of 40 in 40 and finally, leading into IM Germany, 50 of 50 in 50. I’m currenty7 days and 6 runs into this one. Not having run today, I ‘owe’ run, which means that tomorrow I’ll need to run twice for at least 40 minutes each time. This means that instead of riding to the pool, I’ll run - it won’t cost me too much extra time. In fact, tat’s the great thing about the challenge – suddenly you’re running everywhere! And being time, not distance, based you very quickly learn how long it takes to get from your regular As to Bs at a easy pace. The ability to bank runs or o into debit, makes the challenge a little easier to manage than simple running everyday – not only from a time point of view but it does allow a little recovery if the legs are feeling the strain, or if my ride turned out to be a lot longer or harder than intended.

The hope is that with these regular 40-60 min runs, plus a long run and a short race each weekend I’ll be in decent shape for the coastal marathons http://www.endurancelife.co.uk/event.asp?series=1 that I’ve signed up for in Dorset in November and December!