Friday, June 24, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
RTTC National 50 - 31st - 1:54:20
As this was a 50, it was obviously time for me to head down to Bentley - for some reason, the three I have now done have all been on the same course. It is not even a course I particularly like, especially as it always seems to be coupled with a fierce wind. Sunday was no exception with the wind blowing in the same way as it had for the last 50 I had done on that course - I think it may have actually be harder this time though. This made for a miserable out leg and a pretty quick return.
On lap one, things seemed to be going okay. I had started well and seemed to keeping a good speed going in to the wind. I tried to keep things under control as much as possible as I knew that the last 15 miles would be grim. At the first turn, I could see that I had lost time to certain people in front and behind me. I tried to ignore what was going on and just continued to keep my HR where it was (165-170) and just see what happens.
As expected, the second lap was pretty horrible, what with battling with the wind and the gradual departure of power from the legs. Funnily enough, I had ridden behind a couple of chaps on my way to the start, they must have been on their last lap. At the time, I thought these guys are going slow. Low and behold, when it was my turn on those last two laps, I think I must have been doing the same speed, if not slower. Over the course of the last lap, I went through some phases where I thought I would just pack it all in as the legs felt empty. My only light at the end of the windy tunnel was that once I hit the slingshot of the last roundabout, I would be homeward bound with the wind behind me. I think that the imminent finish, coupled with the sight of a mate of mine coming on to the roundabout as I was leaving, were enough to give me the strength to push on a bit and get it over and done with.
Crossed the line with 1:54:20 and 31st which was okay I think. It has become clear to me, both here and on the 25, that if you want to ride your bike at over 40kph, you really need to be on the turbo doing intervals which have you riding at power levels which would take you above the 40kph mark. I'm certainly missing that little bit of speed and power at the top end. I have tried to console myself with the assumption that this is just a byproduct of the IM training. I would like to think that I am getting better at doing long rides at a good average speed, just not so good at going fast for shorter periods of time.
On lap one, things seemed to be going okay. I had started well and seemed to keeping a good speed going in to the wind. I tried to keep things under control as much as possible as I knew that the last 15 miles would be grim. At the first turn, I could see that I had lost time to certain people in front and behind me. I tried to ignore what was going on and just continued to keep my HR where it was (165-170) and just see what happens.
As expected, the second lap was pretty horrible, what with battling with the wind and the gradual departure of power from the legs. Funnily enough, I had ridden behind a couple of chaps on my way to the start, they must have been on their last lap. At the time, I thought these guys are going slow. Low and behold, when it was my turn on those last two laps, I think I must have been doing the same speed, if not slower. Over the course of the last lap, I went through some phases where I thought I would just pack it all in as the legs felt empty. My only light at the end of the windy tunnel was that once I hit the slingshot of the last roundabout, I would be homeward bound with the wind behind me. I think that the imminent finish, coupled with the sight of a mate of mine coming on to the roundabout as I was leaving, were enough to give me the strength to push on a bit and get it over and done with.
Crossed the line with 1:54:20 and 31st which was okay I think. It has become clear to me, both here and on the 25, that if you want to ride your bike at over 40kph, you really need to be on the turbo doing intervals which have you riding at power levels which would take you above the 40kph mark. I'm certainly missing that little bit of speed and power at the top end. I have tried to console myself with the assumption that this is just a byproduct of the IM training. I would like to think that I am getting better at doing long rides at a good average speed, just not so good at going fast for shorter periods of time.
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
RTTC National 25 - 42nd - 59:46
I think it is fair to say, I don't think I will ever do a harder 25 miles in the rest of my cycling career. I always knew that the course this year was not exactly going to be my dream course, i.e. flat dual carriageway, but there was always a hope that it would not be that bad. After arriving on Saturday, we all took a quick recce of the course to see what we had in store - it was not nice. The start involved a short ramp a la Tour de France style but there was certainly no need for this as the next few hundred meters were down a 15% descent in to a corner. I am not one for risking my life either, so I knew the start would not be that quick. Round the corner and it was straight in to a steep hill which kicked up and then dragged on for a few more miles at a gentle incline. This was the theme for the rest of the recce really, you were either going up or down - at least the road surface was good I thought.
Come race day, we managed to get a glimpse of how tough it was out there with seeing the ladies' times - only one of them had gone under the hour. I started to worry that I would not be able to sneak under the hour myself, especially as the only one who had gone under had beaten me the year before. In light of this, I set the Garmin's virtual partner to effectively ride a 59:59 as this seemed, at the time, to be the best case scenario.
The start ramp and the town centre start were quite nice in the end, almost felt professional for the 5 seconds before the fear set in on the descent...I was a bit of a wimp really, braked too hard and then gave myself more work than was needed on the ascent. All the bravado beforehand of climbing this in the big ring soon vapourised as I found myself working hard....I was in bottom gear though. My new plan was just to try and spin the hills and work the flatter sections. I figured any big ring work on the hills would only come back to haunt my quads later on in the day.
On the way out, this plan seemed to work and I was able to keep a pretty decent speed up. I hit the halfway point in about the right time and the tailwind home was now a gentle hand to help you up some of the hills. With about 5 miles to go I realised that the sub 60 was in fact on the cards and the thought of just missing it did not bear thinking about. Thankfully, my pacing seemed to pay off and I actually did not feel too bad for the last few miles, I was able to up the speed a bit and finally...across the line...59:46...phew.
I was actually really pleased with my slowest ever time in a 25. The course was far from ideal for a big guy like me and I had managed to pace it quite well. 42nd was nothing to write home about, but top 40 was my aim going down there and with the lack of turbos this year and the fact that I am happy with my running and swimming in the lead up to Copenhagen were good comfort.
The Garmin Output for the ride can be seen HERE
Come race day, we managed to get a glimpse of how tough it was out there with seeing the ladies' times - only one of them had gone under the hour. I started to worry that I would not be able to sneak under the hour myself, especially as the only one who had gone under had beaten me the year before. In light of this, I set the Garmin's virtual partner to effectively ride a 59:59 as this seemed, at the time, to be the best case scenario.
The start ramp and the town centre start were quite nice in the end, almost felt professional for the 5 seconds before the fear set in on the descent...I was a bit of a wimp really, braked too hard and then gave myself more work than was needed on the ascent. All the bravado beforehand of climbing this in the big ring soon vapourised as I found myself working hard....I was in bottom gear though. My new plan was just to try and spin the hills and work the flatter sections. I figured any big ring work on the hills would only come back to haunt my quads later on in the day.
On the way out, this plan seemed to work and I was able to keep a pretty decent speed up. I hit the halfway point in about the right time and the tailwind home was now a gentle hand to help you up some of the hills. With about 5 miles to go I realised that the sub 60 was in fact on the cards and the thought of just missing it did not bear thinking about. Thankfully, my pacing seemed to pay off and I actually did not feel too bad for the last few miles, I was able to up the speed a bit and finally...across the line...59:46...phew.
I was actually really pleased with my slowest ever time in a 25. The course was far from ideal for a big guy like me and I had managed to pace it quite well. 42nd was nothing to write home about, but top 40 was my aim going down there and with the lack of turbos this year and the fact that I am happy with my running and swimming in the lead up to Copenhagen were good comfort.
The Garmin Output for the ride can be seen HERE
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
TTTC Race 3 - 1st - 59:11
Well, after 5 years of turning up for the Thames Turbo Sprint races, I have finally managed to break the habit, taking a win for the first time! The more bizarre aspect is the nature of the win itself.
In all honesty, my preparation had not been ideal, come Saturday and not wanting to waste the whole bank holiday training wise, I decided to set off on a long run. It initially felt quite easy so I decided to just settle in to the pace and see what happened. In the end, the idea of a negative split run came over and I managed for the first time to actually have a good long run, as in, I never felt like I was about to fall to bits at the end - for a rubbish runner like me, this came as quite a shock. So, 30k's later at 3:05 marathon pace meant that the next day was not going to be much fun. I had a wedding in the afternoon on Saturday as well, so that wasn't going to help with the recovery much either. As it transpires, the wedding ended up involving more drink that is commonly recommended, so much in fact, Sunday was a total sofa day.
So, come race day, although the legs didn't feel that good, my head didn't seem to be in the right place. At the back of mind, and having scanned the start sheet, I thought that I was about to blow my best chance of ever winning one. A lot of the normal fast people were mysteriously missing the chance was there....and as they say, you only need to beat the people who turn up.
The swim was the same as always, to the second, 6:02. Out on the bike though and I could feel the run in the legs now, I was just missing a bit of power. I decided to just try and get a bigger than normal gear turning, but all in all, it was not a star performance - coming to the finish, I knew that I was close to the 32's. At this point I knew I would be close to losing out, especially with the run to go.
The run was where I really struggled to get in to a good rhythm. I was not running much slower than normal, but again, it was by no means a speedy run. I eventually made it round in 20:14 which may well be one of my slowest times.
There did seem to be a general assumption that I had won on the day, but I was not sure. I knew that my time was only just under the hour and there are typically a couple of others who managed to break the 60 minute mark. In the end, I managed to take the win by 1 second. Was really pleased though, after first racing here in 2005 and finishing 13th on that day, finally in 2011, I was able to win....thanks mainly to the best executed preparation.
Turbo News: http://www.thamesturbo.com/archives/1233
In all honesty, my preparation had not been ideal, come Saturday and not wanting to waste the whole bank holiday training wise, I decided to set off on a long run. It initially felt quite easy so I decided to just settle in to the pace and see what happened. In the end, the idea of a negative split run came over and I managed for the first time to actually have a good long run, as in, I never felt like I was about to fall to bits at the end - for a rubbish runner like me, this came as quite a shock. So, 30k's later at 3:05 marathon pace meant that the next day was not going to be much fun. I had a wedding in the afternoon on Saturday as well, so that wasn't going to help with the recovery much either. As it transpires, the wedding ended up involving more drink that is commonly recommended, so much in fact, Sunday was a total sofa day.
So, come race day, although the legs didn't feel that good, my head didn't seem to be in the right place. At the back of mind, and having scanned the start sheet, I thought that I was about to blow my best chance of ever winning one. A lot of the normal fast people were mysteriously missing the chance was there....and as they say, you only need to beat the people who turn up.
The swim was the same as always, to the second, 6:02. Out on the bike though and I could feel the run in the legs now, I was just missing a bit of power. I decided to just try and get a bigger than normal gear turning, but all in all, it was not a star performance - coming to the finish, I knew that I was close to the 32's. At this point I knew I would be close to losing out, especially with the run to go.
The run was where I really struggled to get in to a good rhythm. I was not running much slower than normal, but again, it was by no means a speedy run. I eventually made it round in 20:14 which may well be one of my slowest times.
There did seem to be a general assumption that I had won on the day, but I was not sure. I knew that my time was only just under the hour and there are typically a couple of others who managed to break the 60 minute mark. In the end, I managed to take the win by 1 second. Was really pleased though, after first racing here in 2005 and finishing 13th on that day, finally in 2011, I was able to win....thanks mainly to the best executed preparation.
Turbo News: http://www.thamesturbo.com/archives/1233
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