London XC Champs - Just one part of a hard weekend

Way back at the start of the XC season, I signed up for the London XC Champs which were to take place right on my doorstep on Hampstead Heath. The London XC Champs brings together most of the top running clubs in London so you end up with a pretty decent field at the start - not one that I had any chance of finishing anywhere near the front of anyway. I had finished in 12th place out of about 400 runners in one of the Regent's Park 10k race the week before, but the main aim here was to beat some fellow Serpies who I know would normally run the same sort of time as me.

Like any major championship race, I prepared meticulously for this event to ensure that when I got to the start line my legs would be primed for the 10k run consisting of 4 pretty muddy laps - at some points resulting in feet being completely submerged in the goo. To get myself ready for this, I set out at 8 in the morning for a 4 hour bike ride round the Surrey country lanes taking in a number of the big hills down that way. Although the ride was not too bad, I road the hills quite hard to get some climbing in the legs. After I left the bunch of people that I ride with, I had to push it a fair bit to get back home to have enough time to change the spikes on my XC shoes and to also get to the race.

I finally made it to the start line with about ten minutes to spare and subsequently set out on what can only be described as one of the hardest 10k races I have ever done. As with all XC events, I went out really hard and then paid the price for what seemed an eternity. Still, I managed to get round in 42 minutes which, come to think about it, was about the sort of times I was doing for 10k's about one year ago and here I was with 110k's in the legs and having run on a course which seemed to be a constant uphill with one short sharp fast descent. We all hit the pub after the run and the 6 pints definitely helped ease the pain. Thankfully I also met a chap who lives in Bristol so I am trying to get him to do the Bristol Half Marathon route with me over the Christmas holiday...I have a score to settle with that course. He's a bit faster than me, so we should be able to pace it round in a 1:23-24 I think.



Anyway, the XC was obviously not going to be the end of the weekend. A couple of mates had arranged to do a long run along the Thames in the morning and the more I thought about it on Saturday night, the more I was leaning towards having a run with them as well. A cold Sunday morning came round and there I was, ready for the long run. In the end I somehow managed to run a 1:28 half marathon along the Thames and then, still not satisfied I had done enough, I did the swim session with Wandsworth - albeit the cramp started to set in towards the end and I had to get out.

At the end of all that, I think it was quite simply the hardest weekend that I have ever had in terms of training. Still, I can feel that my endurance levels are going up all the time which should stand me in god stead for next season where it was definitely a factor which let me down towards the end of races. Then again, I think my total count for long rides before last year's race season was about 2.

Bits and Bobs

Well, I thought it must be time for a bit of an update as to how things are going over the winter. The winter time is traditionally supposed to be just spent doing the miles and building up the endurance so that, come early next year, you can start working on the speed side of things again and spend less time on endurance type stuff.

Thankfully, a small group of us triathletes have started to get together at the weekend and we are doing a long ride on the Saturday (~100k) followed by a 10k run when we get back - this can be quite painful as the legs are just so used to spinning around. Then, come Sunday, the plan is to do a longish run (10-20k) followed by a 4k swim set. Things are goinbg pretty well with this, although I have not been running too much, but the group seems to have been formed so we should be all setup for a nice winter long effort.

Other than this, I am in the process of changing a lot of things about where I train and who I race for. I am no longer going to be swimming with Swim for Tri on Thursdays as I have joined Wandsorth Swimming Club where I am trying to get to 3 times a week. They are a proper swim club though and they have a really good coach who seems to have a clear goal for how we should be training to work up to a good performace come race season starting in April. It may also mean that I actually compete in some galas...the last time I attended a gala, I think I must have been about 10 or 11.

I have also decided to join a triathlon specific club as well. The Thames Turbos are a pretty well renowned club in the triathlon world. They have had a whole host of champions who have been through the club, including the current world champ, Tim Don. I am still going to be racing for the Serpentines though, but I am only going to be running for them now...it is hard to beat the support you can get as a Serpentine runner when you do a running race..the biggest club in the UK pretty much always ensures that you have good level of support along the route.

The final thing is that I am currently in the process of trying to secure some form of sponsoship for the coming race season. I have written to a couple of companies already and am pleased to say that I am now sponsored by a company which makes recovery milkshakes. I first came into contact with For Goodness Shakes as they were given out after a race..they are pretty good though so I thought it would be worth writing to them.
I am also due to have a meeting with another company before Christmas - they are in the physio and massage business so it could be a winner if I can get them to do some kind of deal.

Winter Training - Cold and Muddy

Well, winter training is now in full swing, pretty much all of the injuries that plagued me after the World Champs have all cleared up so it is back to training now. A couple of weeks ago I had a chat with my coach and we went through some of the aspects of my training that needed to be addressed and also how to keep me fit over the winter months. The winter has already set in the UK...I am pretty much riding to work and home in the dark now so the lights are on and the bike is covered in dirt from what seems to have been the wettest couple of weeks in a while.

The main areas that I am going to be focusing on over the winter include my running and swimming, and to a much lesser extent, my cycling. In a bid to increase my running strength, I have taken on the x country season which runs all over the winter - the Metropolitan League has races every couple of weekends. So far I have done one Metropolitan league race and yesterday I competed in the North London X Country Championships. The first of these races was one massive shock to the system. I can't really remember the last time that I did a x country race, but I had no idea what to expect for the 5 miles of racing ahead. After lap 1, my legs felt like they were made of lead and my lungs felt like they had taken a right battering...I still had another 2 laps of this agony to get through as well. On the second lap I think I managed to find some sort of rhythm (slow) which seemed to be okay and I managed to get round. However, on the last lap, a club mate started to breathe down my neck and I knew we were in for a race. I tried to drop him on the downhill section, knowing that he had shorter legs than me, but he managed to stay there and eventually outsprint me for the finish - I was gutted. To give you some idea of the level of competition, I finished 147th in this race and there would have been about 300 competitors - this x country lark does not bring out the fun runners in any shape or form. I was also a massive 10 minutes behind the winner! Anyway, the 37 minutes for one race is probably represents the fastest way that you can ruin a pair of new shoes. I started in my shiny new shoes and finished with some brown blobs attached to my feet...and to think, this was not even a really bad day for the mud!

Yesterday's race was a much more civilised affair at a park in North London. The ground was good all the way round and it was a bit easier to maintain a good pace. There was one rather long hill along the back of the park, but all in all it was a lot better. I did get overtaken by an grey haired gent on the last lap and I initially thought he had me, but I had a quick word with myself and subsequently managed to get on his tail. I followed him all the back to the finish and then finally managed to outsprint the chap to the finish..a heartless effort..thanks for the toe through the hard bit mate, but I'll still beat you...racing is racing though and places mean points here :-)

Today I have been back to Regent's Park for one of the 10k races that Mornington Chasers put on, Regent's Park was the first place that I went under 40 minutes way back in February so today I really wanted to do it again. Although I have since been a lot faster than 40 minutes, I had a 15 mile run from Thursday still lurking in my legs and then I had done x country the day before. The aim was to try and get into the 38 minute mark but low and behold it was not to happen. I came home in 39:25 which I don't think is too bad considering that yesterday's offroad effort was close to sub 4min km as well.

I am also gonna be off swimming tonight with a new club. Barnet Copthall are pretty well known in swimming circles so it will be interesting to see what sort of things they do during their sets. Having looked at the schedule for tonight, it looks like it is a 2 hour session in the pool so it could end up being a real long set, possibly into the 5k region depending on what sort of thing we do. If the sets are good though it could be really good for me as they are only just up the road and they swim pretty much every night of the week so I could pick and choose when to go.

Season Review - 2006

Seeing as the triathlon season for 2006 has now drawn to a close I thought it would be worthwhile to ponder over what has happened this year and start thinking about the 2007 season.

Back in January of this year, I only really had a few ambitions, to run a sub 20 5k, a sub 40 10k and a sub 90 half marathon. Back then these were pretty much the only ambitions I had in terms of sporting activities for the year, the idea of competing in a triathlon had not even crossed my mind at this point as I had only really had a bike for about 3 months at this time and cycling to work and back seemed to be enough for me.

Anyway, the running milestones pretty much all got achieved by the end of February with a sub 20 5k in a Nike organised event and then a narrow escape with a 39:56 at the Regents Park 10k. The half marathon time was achieved at Wokingham in the middle of February but the offical result had me down as a 1:30:11 or something...hence I entered the Milton Keynes half marathon and flew round in a 1:26 on a nice flat course. So, come the end of March I had achieved all of my running goals for the year. However, what obviously happens during this is that each goal simply moves slightly, the next aims were sub 19 5k, sub 39 10k etc.

It was only round about March time that I started to enquire about triathlons - I had been swimming pretty much every day when I was in the gym and with the cycling to work and back, I figured I had all the angles covered to try an event out. Thankfully, there was someone in my office who was doing the odd triathlon and I had also met someone who had raced all the way to Ironman distance. Both of these chaps gave me a lot of good advice etc and so I started on the most expensive hobby that man can have.

My first event was the Thames Turbo Sprint triathlon which is a pool based triathlon (hence there is no washing machine starting nonsense). Before starting this event, I really did have no idea how things would go...in my mind I I had a fair idea of the times I could do at each of the seperate events, but no understanding of how I would do when all of these are mixed together. At the end of the race I was totally amazed...I had finished 13th in a field of about 300. It just seemed too good to be true. I had also recorded a pretty good bike split it all good news really. Was also nice to know that I still had a fair bit left in me.

The triathlon calendar rolled on throughout the summer months and at the end of July I had the best news ever, my disaster of a race at Wakefield had managed to sneak me into the GB squad to head out to Lausanne for the World Champs which, as you all know, was a pretty good blast.

The full results for my triathlon season are covered here including the splits and speeds where it seemed okay to work them out. There are some big gaps in certain places, but that could be because I don't have those splits, or like at Wakefield, the timing chip came off my leg!

The highlights for me for 2006 were:

• 1. Racing in Lausanne
• 2. Winning Age Group (25-29) at the London Triathlon
• 3. Winning Age Group (25-29) for the Thames Turbo Triathlon Series
• 4. 2nd Place in Age Group (25-29) and 12th place overall in my first Olympic Triathlon (Windsor)
• 5. Current holder of the cycle leg record for the Thames Turbo Triathlon

So....roll on 2007. I am finally working my way back into training at the moment. I have pretty much done a full week of work so far which has been good to get back into. I am not running properly yet as the injury is still not ready for any long distance stuff. I did do my first run outside last night and it was not too bad...not totally healed but definitely well on the way - should be back to full swim/bike/run training next week.

The Waiting Game

For those of you wondering what has happened to me and why I have not been updating the blog, there are a couple of reasons for this.

Firstly, the triathlon season is now over until about Apirl next year when the whole process starts off again. I have already been entering a couple of the bigger races, mainly because I wanted to absorb the financial burden now rather than next year some time - just entering London and Windsor again has set me back about £150.

The other reason however is that I am injured and it is not much fun at all. A couple of weeks ago I crashed my bike into the back of a pickup type truck after it stopped suddenly on a big junction and I did not stop quick enough. I smashed my chest into the back of the car and also left two big dents. Still, upon leaving the scene I noticed that my chest was pretty sore but by the end of the day, I was back in the pool just making sure that I could still swim etc with no real issues. Everything seemed okay at this point and all seemed okay to run the half marathon at the weekend.

After doing the half marathon where I hurt my calf, I also seemed to damage some tissue in my chest which was obviously weakened from the accident. Initially I thought that I had fractured a rib or something but after chatting to my coach and to some medical peeps it appears that it is more likely to be some muscle between the sternum and pecs.
As some of you joke about the addiction side of things, and knowing how I am, you can imagine that it was pretty hard to just stop exercising. I discoverd that I could still cycle quite happily, but running and swimming (properly) were out of the equation. I did work out that I could do some drill based stuff in the pool, but not for long though. Anyway, things were starting to heal until I raced home on the bike one day and it seemed to put everything back to square one! Only then did I decide that I would have a total rest for a few days and see how things went.

So, here I am actually doing sod all. I did do a turbo session last night (no real chest movement) but other than that I have done sod all for about 3 days now. It is a pretty miserable existence though, albeit the chest does seem to be getting better. The most annoying thing though is actually having to watch what I eat, I think that I have some inbuilt propensity to pile on the pounds.

I am supposed to be running a Regent's Park 10k race this Sunday but as it stands I think I will be giving it a miss. I have the Nike 10k the weekend after and I would much rather do that race. The problem is, I was aiming for a sub 37 at the Nike and the way my fitness was going until I smashed into the car would have probably meant that I would have been able to do it. As for now, I am just not sure. if I can get close to my PB of 37:30, I think I will be pretty happy.

The Bristol Half Marathon

After a few weeks of setting PB after PB, the Bristol Half was supposed to the last in the series, giving me a 5k, 10k and half marathon PB all in the space of seven days. Alas, this was simply not going to be.

On the day before the race, I went out for a little run around my mum's house, just doing some interval stuff and generally just giving the legs a warm up. About half way round I realised I felt a little sore in my left calf. Still, I carried on and made it home, hoping tha it would not be too much to worry about.

When I woke up on the day of the race, the twinge was still there, but I had raced with these litle things before and managed to make it through. I just hoped this would be one of little pains that you could deal with.

Anyway, the race got underway about half nine on a warm day in Bristol and it all looked good for a day's running. I had decided to take the first couple of miles at quite an easy pace, mainly because I wanted to see how things felt and I also did not want to start to fast. I was happily letting people overtake me because in the back of mind, I had this plan to start reeling them all in after about 6 miles.

After about 3 miles the calf had started to let me know that it was not too pleased, but I was still running about 6.30 miles which I was happy with. However, by the time I got on to the Portway, things had started to be a lot more painful and I started to come to the realisation that this was not going to to be my day for a new PB. Just after 5 miles, I finally stopped for the first time and immediately started to think that I would be best to just turn round and head back to the finish. As I turned round though to look at the road back to the finish, it seemed like something that would be too hard to do - think I would have been too ashamed to walk past all the crowds in all honesty. Hence, I turned back round and started to jog at a much slower pace, eventually finding a speed I could run at which did not cause too much discomfort.

Running at a pace below your race pace in a race is quite a strange thing. I started to actually look around and was trying to find one my mates on the other side of the Portway. The run back into Bristol was actually quite enjoyable, running under the suspension bridge and then along Anchor Road back to the finish. The crowds along this section were really good, the best I have ever experienced anyway.

I finally made it home in 1.31 which is only a minute slower than my time from Wokingham at the start of the year. That's pretty pleasing for a race where I actually only ran properly for 5 miles.

I may try and find another half to do before the year is out now. Really do want to see if I can average sub 4min km's for this distance.

Anyway, here's a video and some pics from the day..

Endless Pool Session - Compare and Contrast

Me, back in May:



Me, now:

World Champs - Photos

New PB's and Breaking the 71%

Yesterday I competed in the Middlesex Open 10k race which doubled up as my club's 10k championship race. The race was a three lapper in Victoria Park in East London...the weather was also a scorcher - not exactly an Autumn day anyway!

As some of you will know, I have been taking part in a few Nike organised 5k races recently have been slowly trying to get my 5k time down as low as possible at the moment. I am feeling pretty fit at the moment so now is a good time to be hammering out the PB's for the running. Since the last 5k update, I have managed to get round the Regent's Park course in 17:40 which saw me take about 12 seconds of the previous PB. This is also the fastest that I have ever run 5k, inside or outside. My heart rate on this run averaged 182 and topped out at 191 on the finishing straight - I think that is a personal high on the heart rate. Still, the times are all moving in the right direction in preperation for the Nike 10k in October where I am going to try and do a sub 37min 10k.


Anyway, back to yesterday's run, based on my 5k times, I knew that I should be on track to beat my previous PB of 38:03. I would have also been massively dissapointed had I not gone under 38 on this occasion. The running calculator that I use had predicted me a 36:50 time based on my 5k time which I did think was a bit optimistic. At least it did give me some km splits to try and achieve though.

One of the biggest problems that most people suffer from in running races is the inabilty to pace themselves from the off. I have recently tried to stop going off too fast but low and behold, on the day I hit the first km in about 3:15 which was about 25s too fast. The second one came in at about 3:22 but I felt comfortable so just tried to hang on to that pace as much as possible. By the fifth though I had slipped back to about 3:45's so the steady state running was out the window. Still, I figured I only really needed to keep up a similar pace and I should be able to go a bit under 38. When I got to 8k though I realised it was gonna be close so I had to up the pace a bit - I had also just seen a South African chap from my club behind me. We had been chatting at the start and it was clear we going for a similar time - I had to stay ahead of him anyway so I upped the speed and just thought I would have to endure the pain now until the finish.

Anyway, finally came home in 37:30 (officially recorded as 37:33) which is 43 seconds quicker than the previous PB.

The Serpies website which records a lot of our runs makes use of a Age Graded Tables to calculate a percentage score for all of our runs. The aim of these tables is to create a level playing field between the sexes and the across the age spectrum as all of these factors are used to calculate the percentages. I had previously just about broken through the 70% mark but have now managed to almost hit 72%. As you can see from the pic below, things have come on a bit from when I started doing running races less than a year ago. The table unfortunately does not include the new Nike 5k times though as they are not "official" races.

World Champs on TV

There will be coverage of the World Champs on BBC1 at 1pm on Saturday (09/09/2006). Someone I know had a chat with the BBC presenter while we were there and he did say that there would be very little age group racing....still, should give you a good idea of the place etc.

The ITU World Championships - Lausanne

Well, I am now back in the UK, having competed in the ITU World Age Group Champs in Lausanne Siwtzerland. The whole weekend there has been an absolute amazing experience and one that I am not likely to forget for a long time. Thanks must also go to all those that supported me and sent their good luck wishes, they were all truly appreciated.

Before I start though, it needs to be said that Lausanne is an amazingly beautiful place. It rests right on Lake Geneva which you can look out across to a lovely montain backdrop, which include Mont Blanc.



Here are some more photos of the location as well - the triathlon champs had closed down the city for a whole week.

Looking out over the lake

Looking back at the village

And out over the lake again..

Anyway, back to the story about why I was in Switzerland. After leaving plenty of time on Friday to get through the airport security etc, my plane ended up being delayed by about 45 minutes. This meant that I was going to miss registration and that it would not be very likely that I would be able to have my bike built by the GB mechanic. In the end we made it through the rush hour traffic in Lausanne for the tour operator to get me there just in time to make the official team photos...this is probably the first place it hit me and I realised how good this was going to be. Thankfully I quickly spotted a few of my buddies and we all headed over to the team briefing. During the speech they asked that all of the people who were representing for the first time to stand up and we all got a nice clap from the 'vets'....it started to feel like it was all one big happy family.

After the briefing I went for some dinner with some mates and then headed back to the hotel - I had an earlier start than all the other 25-29'ers because I had a bike to build and rack in the morning. Luckily this was all sorted by about 7am, the only problem now was that I had a massive amount of time to kill before anyone would be getting there and I would be allowed back in to transition to do my final bits and pieces before setting off. Still, this gave me some time to watch the junior races that kicked off really early. By this time, there was a definite a buzz in the air and things were starting to get pretty exciting, if not a tad nervy. Lake Geneva was also starting to look more menacing with waves that were bigger than I had ever raced in coming ashore.

With an hour to go all of us were allowed in to transition to do all of our last bits and pieces. All of the GB boys were thankfully together so I think that this took the edge of things a bit because we could all have a little chat etc. I decided at this point to take a run to see just how long this transition was going to be. Last night's briefing had mentioned an extra 3km of running in this tri...pretty much all on tarmac and all barefoot - not nice. Anyway, as you can see from this shot, transition was a nightmare - this photo does not even go to the end. My bike was about another 150m round the corner out of sight.

This would all be full with bikes on race day...all 1600 of them.

Luckily, up one side, we had some carpet to protect our delicate feet.

The swim was always going to be a nasty affair at this race, world medals are at stake so it was obviously going to be a bit rough when we set out on the swim. The waves that were coming in were not gonna make things any better either, especially as I naturally choose to breathe during a race on the right - the direction the waves were coming in from. The BTA got some shots of the start of our swim. You can see me in the first shot with the gold goggles - unfortunately they didn't mimic the Michael Johnson gold shoes scenario.

My swim went pretty badly in the end. I was expecting to go sub 22 but one of my goggles filled up with water in the first 100m after getting hit by someone so I had to swim the whole day with only one eye really. The waves also knocked me about worse that I thought they would and I would occasionally take a nice deep breath of water...lovely. I had to stop at one point just to have a little coughing fit to clear the airways again. I did manage to draft someone on the way back into T1 though so that was quite helpful.

T1 was as bad as it looks in those photos I just could not believe how long I seemed to be running for. I think it was evetually timed at 6:32..that is about the longest transition I think anyone will ever encouter.

Still, it was time for the bike now and I could see that I was already ahead of a few GB boys who were running to get their bikes but on the other side. I started out quite cautiously though because I kept on thinking of that hill. It hits you pretty quick as well...it was not as bad as it looked in the video, but still not my bag. The rest of the course was also not to my liking, not for a time trial like effort anyway. The changes in speed and some of the long drags definitely took it out of your legs and by the time I was getting round to the third and fourth lap I knew that my quads were having a bad time on the hills. Still, they would be with everyone else so there was nothing I could do about it. I did almost stack the bike into the bails on the first lap though. Coming down one of the sharp descents, perhap touching about 60kph, two guys slid off in front of me and their bikes now led directly in the path that I had to take. I skidded a bit and then squeezed the bike through the narrowest of gaps between straw bail, cyclist and two bikes. It was pretty scary I must admit.

The run was a bit strange really, I had been passed by a couple of GB boys early on and my legs were killing now and they just seemed to have nothing left in them. Secretly, I had hoped to do a blinder of a run but today was just not gonna be the day. A winter of brick sessions is on the cards I feel... The run was a four lapper though and it was pretty amazing running around. I knew I was doing about 41/42 pace so on the last lap I just soaked up the atmosphere as much as possible, I was not going for a medal or anything so it was nice to just run and hear all the GB crowd cheering you on. They all had name sheets as well so they all knew your name - those last couple of k's were pretty good. The legs were sore but it was just so cool to look out over the lake to see the mountains whilst hearing all the GB support crew cheer you on. We had been asked to get a flag on the way into the finish, which I did but I can not find my finishing shot anywhere. For those of you that saw it on the web, I probably looked like some kind of fairy.

Crossing the line was a really good feeling, a lot of the GB boys were all there slouched on the floor looking pretty knackered. Stories were shared and everyone was in good spirits really. Wil and I headed over to the village and made good use of the free massage afterwards - reckon it sorted my legs right out. The afternoon was gonna be a hard one - we had all the ladies to cheer on!

the next day we watched how it should be done with all the pros bombing it around the course. The GB team had an amazing day as well, winning the U23 and Elite races for the men.

After all this we had a big "banquet" to attend. All the elites came down to this as well and it was good to chat to a lot of them. Here is me with the World Champion, Tim Don, in the middle.



Here is Dion and I with Vanessa Raw...arguably the best thing to happen to triathlon for a long time..I am sure you can see what I mean.



My official splits can all be found HERE

You can see that the swim is about a minute slower than I wanted and the run about 3 mins too slow. I think that the bike section was about right. It is hard to guage how hard to push on a course like that because you need to look after your muscles as much as possible to stop them dying in the run (which mine did do).

Thames Turbo Photos

Exiting the water in 6 minutes dead - objective 1 achieved.

Photographer was in the wrong place for the bike section...this is during the "non-compete zone" where you can just cruise for a few minutes and get back to T2 safely - hence the lack of urgency in the expression.

Just stretching the legs ready for the run.

Just cruising along..

The sprint finish - Although he won the sprint, I beat Tom in the end..he started a bit in front of me on the day.

Thames Turbo - Race 4 (Series Final)

For those of you who have been reading the blog for a while, you will recall that way back on a cold, supposedly spring morning I ventured into the world of triathlon for the first time. Back then, doing the triathlons was just going to be a bit of fun with no real ambition to see myself anywhere near the front. However, in this first race I surprised even myself by finishing in 13th place, with a time which was way faster than I had been thinking I would have been able to achieve. Pretty much from this point, things got a bit more serious as I realised that I had some talent to compete - the bank balance on the other hand wishes that I had just been a mediocre competitor with no real lofty ambitions where you feel the need to spend a hell of a lot of cash to shave seconds off your time.

Over the course of this season there were another 3 of these Thames Turbo events, each falling on the bank holidays over the summer. After doing some serious training between events 1 and 2, I was able to shave another 2 minutes off my time and this occasion I finished in 5th place - a marked improvement and everything seemed to be heading in the right direction. Event 3 saw me finish 6th but this time I recorded the fastest split for the bike and also managed to shave another 90s or so off the last time.

When the last in the series came round yesterday I was determined to do one thing, and one thing only - that was to break the hour in this event. I think that in this season it had only been done by less than 10 people so it was going to be a balls out affair to see if I could finally do it.

My biggest concern from the last event was that, even after all of my swimming training, my times for the swim were the same in the second and the third event. I knew from my training in the pool that I should be able to go a bit faster and in a dream scenario I hoped for a 6min swim, followed by a good bike section and a sub 20min run.

Getting to the race proved to be an absolute nightmare on the day. I had to make my own way down to Hampton and figured that it would be good to do this on the bike - a 30k ride in the morning would be a nice little warm up for the legs. However, 5k's from home I got my first puncture with a tub....for the non-cyclists out there, tubs are not the best things to change - they are glued on to the rim and this makes them decidedly hard to get the things off. I basically spent about 15 minutes on the side of the road trying to budge this tub and it just seemed to be going nowhere. Finally, I did get the thing off though and put my spare on...only to realise that the CO2 cannister that I was intending to use to pump the tyre up had obviously been bumped and as a result had no compressed air in. As you can imagine, this was a pretty low point - I was 5k's from home, I had a flat and I was staring at the prospect of missing the last in the series...compounded by the knowledge that I knew there were series prizes up for grabs. I started the long walk home though and eventually saw a taxi firm whom I thought I better ask to see how much it would be to get down to Hampton. £40 later I was at the start line and my tyre was good to go, thanks to the loan of a pump from a mate.

The swim went really well and I timed myself getting out the water in about 6 minutes dead...from this point on, I felt confident that I was on for a good race. I darted through T1 and passed a couple of people who had started a minute or so ahead of me in the swim...I had also managed to catch my 15s man in the swim.

As soon as I got on the bike though I realised that my computer was not working, it had obviously been knocked in the cab or something so I quickly realised that I was going to need to do this one on feel, rather than using the computer to monitor my speed. I had strapped on the HR monitor for this race though because I was convinced that I had started to slack in the runs of recent so I had set myself the target of slowly building it up to 180+ once I got to the run. Back on the bike though, I felt strong after the first turn, although I could not see anyone ahead who had started in front of me in the swim. I knew I had passed a couple in T1, but I was expecting to see a few more on the horizon. About 10k's in, I finally I saw one of the Thames Turbo chaps ahead of me and I knew that it was Roger, a chap who had beaten me on all the previous occasions. I pushed hard to catch him and eventually overtook him - knowing that I would need to put some time into him because I was aware that he was a much better runner than me.

In the end the bike leg felt pretty good all the way round and in hindsight, I kind of think that I could have pushed it a bit harder. By the time I was finished though I was up with a few people who I knew had started a few minutes ahead of me so I was quite confident that, even without the computer, I had posted a good bike split for the day. Now it was time for some running and on all the previous occasions, my legs have felt pretty dire off the bike on this course.

T2 went really well and I headed out on the run ahead of the eventual series winner..I had already put about 90s into him, so it was just a case of how fast he could run now and whether he would be able to claw back some of the bike time he had lost. Low and behold, he came flying past me in the first km and I tried to stick with him for a while but he seemed way to pacy for me. I did feel good on the run though and my km splits were about what I was hoping for..the two that I recorded properly were a 3:45 and 3:47, which should have given me a sub 20 run quite easily.

In the end I made it inside the hour by a whole 8 seconds. I recored the fastest bike split for the second time on the trot, and 20s quicker this time. The run was not spectacular though, coming in just over 20 minutes - albeit that includes the T2 time.

In the end I managed to pick up a couple of awards today. I was the Age Group Winner for the series in the 20-29 category and I also managed to finish 5th overall in the series of 4 races where they take the best three out of the four results. All in all, not a bad day in the office. Even managed a comment on TriTalk by the race organiser " Totally impressed by Richard's performance this year. Talk about natural ability! Then add in some serious training and you have yourself the holder of the record on the bike course"

The Killer Section

Well, I know full well it is going to really hurt the legs anyway..to prepare us as much as possible, the organisers allow us to see the bike route for the big day to give us an idea of how hard it is going to be.

For someone like me, flat courses are the best because I am slightly on the heavy side for hilly bike routes. If you can sit through this, you'll instantly see, especially as the route goes up through the park, that this is a bike route for the lighter chaps. Still, I have been doing some hard hills on the fixed bike for a while now so will have to hope that the extra weight just means more power compared to these 60/70kg waifs. Unfortunately, most of the downhill sections seem short and steep so no real time to build up the chub advantage.

Bike Course

Here's the elevation map...

One for the Fan Club

I got an email today from the GB team manager and it contained some very good news for those of you that will be interested to see what is actually happening while I am racing in the Worlds. This year, the ITU are in full control of media rights to both the age group and elite racing on the weekend of the World Championships. To this end, they are going to be giving the age groupers the same media backing that is normally the sole reserve of the elite athletes.

This will include some pretty good features for those of you that want to follow the big race. As you may or not be aware, as triathletes we are always giving an electronic ankle band that contains a transponder to send out a signal so that when we cross through certain points of a race our times can be recorded. For us triathletes this normally results in us getting a swim time, T1 (the transition between swimming and the bike), the bike split (including lap splits if it is a lap race), T2 (the transition between the bike and run) and then the run split with any lap information. The good news is that the Worlds is a multilap race in as many ways as possible pretty much. The swim will only give out a start and finish time, but the bike, being a 4 lap race, will give off 4 times and then the run is another 4 lap affair. The net result is that our times will be reported a large number of times throughout the course of the race.

On the day, you should be able to go to the ITU website and there should be a link on there which will eventually hopefully give you a player which looks something like this.


I am not sure exactly how it all works, but on the day you may just want to have a play around. You do need to download Macromedia Shockwave Player 8 though - a link for this is on the ITU website as well. The cast is going live at the following times:

Lausanne: 10:00
Denver: 02:00
London: 09:00
New York: 04:00
Tokyo: 17:00
Sydney: 18:00
LA: 01:00

My race starts at 10:10am Swiss time, so that will be 9:10 in the UK.

Not wanting to set myself up for too much expectation, but I am hoping to do the seperate bits in about the following times:

Swim - 21:00 - 22:00

Bike - 1:05:00 - 1:08:00 (about 15/16 min laps)

Run - 38:00 - 40:00 (about 10 minute laps)

For those of you that are lazy, and just want to watch me cross the line - which they are apparently showing for everyone, I would imagine that I would be doing that at about 11:15 - 11:25 UK time.

This is all assuming that I get there on time...the UK airports are not exactly in the best state at the moment....and I have a bike...hmmm. I will not be happy until my bike is racked on the Friday night.

There is less than nine days to go now...

Progress...

I have entered the Nike 10k which was the second event that I ran in last year. Last year's event took place after I had been in my exercise regime for about 9 months and, at the time, I was extremely chuffed with my 41.00 minutes for the 10k. I think that it placed me about 500th out of the 35,000 people that actually took part in the event.

The whole thing was a good day though so I have yet again enetered what is probably one of the most expensive 10k races in the UK. The best way to stomach the cost is through the knowledge that you do at least get a good running shirt out of it.

This year I am going to take part in a lot of the training runs that they put on, these being held all over London in various parks. Last night was the first of these so I went down to Hyde Park for a nice "flatter than Holland" 5k. My previous best for an outside 5k was 19:40 (treadmill PB is 17:43), but I knew I should go faster than the outside PB as I had since lowered my 10k PB down to 38:03...although not exactly in the 17's because the treadmill is a bit easier to run on and I did that PB with no incline whatsoever. I had also cycled about 50k during the day and swam about 2k in the morning - not really the best preperation for a new PB.

I set off on the run and got to the first km board, quick look at the watch revealed that I had done that one in 3:55..I thought that was way to slow, so started to up the tempo a bit and work on turning the legs over faster. Got to the second km board and the split was a sturdy 3:14, this was more like it. Carried on going at the same pace and soon came up to the 3km board to see that I had just done a 3:04. I was starting to get pretty worried at this point that one of the last km's was going to be really long. As luck would have it, I did not see the 4km board and it was possible to see the finish from quite a way out so I started to hammer it a bit more - a quick look at the watch made me realise I was on for a quick one here.

I eventually sprinted through the finish line in 17:52...I am pretty sure my watch said 17:31 at the time, but it is hard to argue with the electronic timing chips. Still, under 18 minutes outside and only 9s off the PB. I felt that I still had some juice in the tank as well so the aim now is to see how close to the 16's I can get in the run up to the race in October.

The nice thing about the timing chips is that all your runs will be registered when you do these training runs...as you can see below - this includes two times from last year as well.

The New Commuter

You may recall from a couple of weeks ago that my commuting bike completely snapped on the rear chain stay which warranted a completely new frame - thankfully this did not cost me a penny.


Apparently, Specialized were not able to track down a 2006 model of the frame that I had and could only source a 2007 model which I was initially pretty pleased about. However, having picked it up, I was not keen - it just felt all wrong and no where near as fast as the old one. Anyway, I got straight on to trying to resolve this when I got home by completely lowering the handlebars to the lowest point that they would go. Whilst on my two hour ride today I finally started to get to grips with the bike and actually started to enjoy riding it. The thing that was getting on my nerves now though was the colour scheme...I mean, who ever thought to make a bike in the colour scheme "rust"?! Not wanting to spend any money I thought long and hard about how I could change what had become a cyclist's worst nightmare - the uncoordinated bike - into something respectable again.


In the end I managed to change this mess



For those non-cyclists out there..there are a number of issues here. The tires are not the same colour as a section of the frame and the handlebar tape is just not matched to anything!

Into this...the new colour scheme...reckon it is the best you can get out of a bad colour frame.



Total expense: £9.99 for the new bar tape. The tires are from the original bike when I first got it. They're slicks though so perfect for the winter ahead..the gear on this one is also higher than the last one. I am now on a 39x13 which is pretty high in the fixed world - still, need to beef up the legs in prep for Lausanne. Going to be doing some hill work over the next couple of weeks as well so pushing up them in a bigger gear should help with the strength.

WOOOooooHOOOooooo

My mum thankfully went to the results page last night and it would seem that the previous winner has been DQ'd or something, You know what that means...I am now the official winner for the 25-29 age group!! That's more like it!

Results

Some Official Shots

Taken 10s after finishing - they kept on asking me to smile...couldn't muster it here...

or here really...




Out on the run course..

Doing the damage..

..and some more..