Sunday, July 02, 2006
Some of my pics
These are from the first group of athletes heading out for the day. Gregg is in there somewhere.
Bye Eck..it is grim up Norf!
This weekend was always going to be a strange one, what with not knowing whether my knee would hold out for the run between the swim and T1, let alone the 10k at the end and also how the whole things would be like - this being my first National Champ event.
Things did not start off in the best form though with a four and a half hour drive up north with my mate Gregg. The temperature in the car seemed to be just about bearable as temperatures outside soared to something like 31 degrees. Still, we made up with just enough time to get our bikes racked and the head off to watch our footballing hereos perform yet another quarter final exit and, low and behold, on penalties again.
Still, all seemed to be going well though until we got to the hotel - que massive wedding reception and the prospect of a disco that was going to be going on until 1 in the morning. Things got worse when we realised that we should have had the foresight to realise that we should have made our own breakfast as theirs was not going to open until gone half eight - unfortunately, the hotel was not on the bike route..so no quick fueling stops. The night did not go too badly in the end - was only woken up a few times, mainly because the road outside seemed to be the preferred route for the emergency services. Plus, the room was boiling...no air con in £45 a night room should have been expected I suppose!
Come race day I loaded up on energy drinks as my make shift breakfast and Gregg and I headed over to the event. Gregg was off at 6:30 so this gave me some time to mill around and set things up...although not as one should - as we will see later.
My event set off at 7:15 and the field all looked pretty lean and a lot more serious than any of the other events I had been to. I recognised a few faces in the water and started to think about trying to stay with them in the swim - I knew that they would normally just beat me. Anyway, the horn went off and off we went out to the first buoy...normal tussle in the water accompanied by the feeling of panic and breathlessness and the whole "why on earth do I do this rubbish?". Finally got into what felt like a good pace after about 400m and continued at about this pace until the swim exit. Swam on my own for most of the time so have decided to push myself harder next time to stay with a group to get the benefits of them sighting and the slipstreaming - I found it hard at times to sight the buoys and was not taking the racing line all the time. Got out in about 24 minutes which was a whole 2 minutes slower than Windsor so something had gone wrong....with only the swim done, I was already in a bad mood.
The run to the bike seemed okay and the knee did not give me any trouble so I thought that this must be a good sign. Found my bike straight away and headed out of transition where I jumped on and quickly realised that I had put my shoes in the wrong pedals - what an absolute idiot. I had to stop and change everything round and must have lost a good 30s doing this. If I was annoyed with the swim, I was seething now. The bike started with a long slog up a 2 mile hill. I was quickly on the small ring and kept on thinking that this is not what I wanted one bit. Was not long before 2 E category (my age group) riders came storming past me. At this point I had to have a little talk with myself - I was not going to be passed on the bike, no way. I have not been in one race yet and this one was not going to be the first. I eventually caught them again and then had a passing and overtaking battle with one chap all the way round. He was pretty small so flew up the hills...my weight advantage would help massively on the downhills after that where I would fly past again..topped out at 72.5kph today. After getting over some of the nasty hills, it was time to head for the finish line...just I appeared to have lost any knowledge of where that was. I missed a signpost on one roundabout and headed left when I should have gone straight on...noticed there was no one in front of me so turned round and then took the next left. Again, did not see anyone up ahead...turned round to see a disc wheel in the distance taking the third exit. After a bit of off-road over a central reservation and finally getting the right turn I was back on track...must have lost a good 2 minutes faffing around. As you can imagine, the annoyance levels were sky high - this was just destined not to be my day, and I still had a run to get through and I was not even sure if I could manage 5mins of that.
Finally got back to T2 in 1:10 which seems like it would have been a good time for the day. Would have been a lot better if 3 minutes were not on there though for silly mistakes that proved to cost me dearly. Still, I got the runners on and headed out. As usual the movement between bike and run was hard work, couple this with the fact I had not run on the road for about 3 weeks - which ever way I looked at this, this was not going to be an enjoyable run. After about 1k the knee started to hurt a bit and I slowed down massively to contemplate continuing in the race. During this slow period, it started to feel a bit better though so I thought that I would carry on. The heat was really blazing down now and after the 2nd lap of 4 I could feel the lack of running in the legs. Still, 2 to go and I would not be a DNF. The last lap seemed to go on for ages and I finally came under the Finish Banner in 2:19:03 a time that I instantly thought would place we no where in terms of qualifying for Lausanne - I thought my swim was 2 min too slow and the run the same.
Well, the results are now out and it would seem that after removing those people that have already qualified and those that do not wish to go, my 18th place in my age category meant that I missed a place by about 90s. This pretty much means that my mistakes today cost me a place at Lausanne. I have not taken it too badly though, this is only my first year and I knew I had not had a good race. I have learnt my lessons and am now more determined to qualify in style when the events come round next year.
Things did not start off in the best form though with a four and a half hour drive up north with my mate Gregg. The temperature in the car seemed to be just about bearable as temperatures outside soared to something like 31 degrees. Still, we made up with just enough time to get our bikes racked and the head off to watch our footballing hereos perform yet another quarter final exit and, low and behold, on penalties again.
Still, all seemed to be going well though until we got to the hotel - que massive wedding reception and the prospect of a disco that was going to be going on until 1 in the morning. Things got worse when we realised that we should have had the foresight to realise that we should have made our own breakfast as theirs was not going to open until gone half eight - unfortunately, the hotel was not on the bike route..so no quick fueling stops. The night did not go too badly in the end - was only woken up a few times, mainly because the road outside seemed to be the preferred route for the emergency services. Plus, the room was boiling...no air con in £45 a night room should have been expected I suppose!
Come race day I loaded up on energy drinks as my make shift breakfast and Gregg and I headed over to the event. Gregg was off at 6:30 so this gave me some time to mill around and set things up...although not as one should - as we will see later.
My event set off at 7:15 and the field all looked pretty lean and a lot more serious than any of the other events I had been to. I recognised a few faces in the water and started to think about trying to stay with them in the swim - I knew that they would normally just beat me. Anyway, the horn went off and off we went out to the first buoy...normal tussle in the water accompanied by the feeling of panic and breathlessness and the whole "why on earth do I do this rubbish?". Finally got into what felt like a good pace after about 400m and continued at about this pace until the swim exit. Swam on my own for most of the time so have decided to push myself harder next time to stay with a group to get the benefits of them sighting and the slipstreaming - I found it hard at times to sight the buoys and was not taking the racing line all the time. Got out in about 24 minutes which was a whole 2 minutes slower than Windsor so something had gone wrong....with only the swim done, I was already in a bad mood.
The run to the bike seemed okay and the knee did not give me any trouble so I thought that this must be a good sign. Found my bike straight away and headed out of transition where I jumped on and quickly realised that I had put my shoes in the wrong pedals - what an absolute idiot. I had to stop and change everything round and must have lost a good 30s doing this. If I was annoyed with the swim, I was seething now. The bike started with a long slog up a 2 mile hill. I was quickly on the small ring and kept on thinking that this is not what I wanted one bit. Was not long before 2 E category (my age group) riders came storming past me. At this point I had to have a little talk with myself - I was not going to be passed on the bike, no way. I have not been in one race yet and this one was not going to be the first. I eventually caught them again and then had a passing and overtaking battle with one chap all the way round. He was pretty small so flew up the hills...my weight advantage would help massively on the downhills after that where I would fly past again..topped out at 72.5kph today. After getting over some of the nasty hills, it was time to head for the finish line...just I appeared to have lost any knowledge of where that was. I missed a signpost on one roundabout and headed left when I should have gone straight on...noticed there was no one in front of me so turned round and then took the next left. Again, did not see anyone up ahead...turned round to see a disc wheel in the distance taking the third exit. After a bit of off-road over a central reservation and finally getting the right turn I was back on track...must have lost a good 2 minutes faffing around. As you can imagine, the annoyance levels were sky high - this was just destined not to be my day, and I still had a run to get through and I was not even sure if I could manage 5mins of that.
Finally got back to T2 in 1:10 which seems like it would have been a good time for the day. Would have been a lot better if 3 minutes were not on there though for silly mistakes that proved to cost me dearly. Still, I got the runners on and headed out. As usual the movement between bike and run was hard work, couple this with the fact I had not run on the road for about 3 weeks - which ever way I looked at this, this was not going to be an enjoyable run. After about 1k the knee started to hurt a bit and I slowed down massively to contemplate continuing in the race. During this slow period, it started to feel a bit better though so I thought that I would carry on. The heat was really blazing down now and after the 2nd lap of 4 I could feel the lack of running in the legs. Still, 2 to go and I would not be a DNF. The last lap seemed to go on for ages and I finally came under the Finish Banner in 2:19:03 a time that I instantly thought would place we no where in terms of qualifying for Lausanne - I thought my swim was 2 min too slow and the run the same.
Well, the results are now out and it would seem that after removing those people that have already qualified and those that do not wish to go, my 18th place in my age category meant that I missed a place by about 90s. This pretty much means that my mistakes today cost me a place at Lausanne. I have not taken it too badly though, this is only my first year and I knew I had not had a good race. I have learnt my lessons and am now more determined to qualify in style when the events come round next year.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Get well soon Rich..
Late last week I felt pretty down so decided I needed a pick me up....kind of a get well soon Richard present :-)
Get your shades on for these ones...
Get your shades on for these ones...
04-2.jpg)
Grim up North? It's been pretty dire down here as well...
The National Age Group Champs are now less than 4 days away and I am still, as I sit here typing this, not sure whether I will be joining Gregg, my swimming buddy, on the journey up the M1 to Wakefield on Saturday.
The ingenious plan to get me into the GBR squad in my first year of triathlon all started to unravel over a week ago while I was doing a running session at Hampstead Heath track. The session included 6 x 1mile efforts at 39min/10k pace. I had completed five of these and as these had all been under the desired time so when it came to the last one and my knee started hurting after about 300m I made the foolish decision to keep on running so that I could finish the set - I assumed it was nothing serious and it would go away after a couple of hours. This was also on the back of another strange incident which occurred during a brick session a couple of days ago where I had to pull up all of a sudden because it felt like I had trapped a nerve in the top of my foot. On that I also did some more running when I would have perhaps been much better off just going home and resting the foot, albeit it felt okay a few minutes after it started to hurt.
What has followed on from this week of running hell has been an ongoing battle between my inability to rest, my desire to 'fix' these ailments and the continued pressure of what is coming on the horizon and how I need to be in A1 shape when, and more importantly if I jump in Pugney Lake on Sunday morning. My coach has been very helpful in terms of giving me other activities to do to keep my fitness levels as high as possible but these exercises, although very low impact, probably do slightly hinder the resolution on the knee (what I believe is some damage to the anterior ligament). However, this week things have started to improve quite rapidly and walking around no longer seems to be a problem. At times it has been horrible to walk as I needed to reduce the pain on the knee, and at the same time, twist my foot to accommodate the trapped nerve feeling in my foot. As you can quite imagine - this meant the use of some new muscles that started to hurt as well...all in all, it has been a very depressing week and a bit.
At the start of this week, I decided that, if things continued to improve, I would try and have a short run on Thursday and then on Friday I would make my decision as to whether I would make the journey or not. I did go out after the bike home yesterday and did about 100m to see how things were and, at that point it seemed that I may as well throw the towel in - it just seemed there would be no way that I would be able to race. Today was 'run day' though and I have been down to the gym for a go on the treadmill where I assumed that the impact would be lower than that of the road. It was pretty never racking standing on the treadmill waiting to press start...what happened in the next 20 minutes will ultimately decide whether or not I have any chance at all of being able to go to Wakefield. To prolong the discomfort I seemed to spend ages trying to find a good song on the iPod...I think that at this time I was still feeling pretty negative and all the way in on the tube I had been pretty sure that things would fall apart on the treadmill, even though I had to run for the bus and that felt okay.
I started off at a gentle pace and was quickly able to get it into the 12kph range which not too much trouble, albeit a couple of niggles that would quickly go away. Still, 12kph will not be getting me near the GBR squad. I had set the machine to to go for 20 minutes and I reckoned that if I could go for this amount of time without too much trouble then this would be a big step in the right direction. In the end I managed to get through the 20 minutes and during this time I even increased the speed to race pace (~15/16kph) for a couple of minutes to see how it felt and it was not too bad - whether or not 40 minutes at that pace would be achievable is another matter altogether. Still, I finished the session and after getting off the knee still felt okay and as I sit here at my desk there still does not appear to be any resultant pain from the morning's run. I may put some ice on for a while though just to make sure. The funny thing was how much like hard work it seemed to be when I went into the race pace zone...a couple of weeks ago, running at 15/16kph would not be too much bother at all but today it seemed pretty fast and the rate at which I tired seemed to have gone up quite a bit. Still, I suppose you can not expect to come back after a couple of weeks off and just get straight back into it!
Tomorrow I will try a very short run on the road to see if it holds up on the harder surface and then later on the decision will be made. This is all I have been thinking about for the last couple of months and have been putting in a lot time and energy to getting myself ready for this.
Still, if Friday rolls on and things are not looking good....the top 10 finish for the AG'ers at London is still the 2nd goal for the season and would be something to be pretty proud of, especially in my first season.
Got photographed at Hampstead Heath lido the other day as well...part of some art project that a lady does every year. The photos are below anyway..
The ingenious plan to get me into the GBR squad in my first year of triathlon all started to unravel over a week ago while I was doing a running session at Hampstead Heath track. The session included 6 x 1mile efforts at 39min/10k pace. I had completed five of these and as these had all been under the desired time so when it came to the last one and my knee started hurting after about 300m I made the foolish decision to keep on running so that I could finish the set - I assumed it was nothing serious and it would go away after a couple of hours. This was also on the back of another strange incident which occurred during a brick session a couple of days ago where I had to pull up all of a sudden because it felt like I had trapped a nerve in the top of my foot. On that I also did some more running when I would have perhaps been much better off just going home and resting the foot, albeit it felt okay a few minutes after it started to hurt.
What has followed on from this week of running hell has been an ongoing battle between my inability to rest, my desire to 'fix' these ailments and the continued pressure of what is coming on the horizon and how I need to be in A1 shape when, and more importantly if I jump in Pugney Lake on Sunday morning. My coach has been very helpful in terms of giving me other activities to do to keep my fitness levels as high as possible but these exercises, although very low impact, probably do slightly hinder the resolution on the knee (what I believe is some damage to the anterior ligament). However, this week things have started to improve quite rapidly and walking around no longer seems to be a problem. At times it has been horrible to walk as I needed to reduce the pain on the knee, and at the same time, twist my foot to accommodate the trapped nerve feeling in my foot. As you can quite imagine - this meant the use of some new muscles that started to hurt as well...all in all, it has been a very depressing week and a bit.
At the start of this week, I decided that, if things continued to improve, I would try and have a short run on Thursday and then on Friday I would make my decision as to whether I would make the journey or not. I did go out after the bike home yesterday and did about 100m to see how things were and, at that point it seemed that I may as well throw the towel in - it just seemed there would be no way that I would be able to race. Today was 'run day' though and I have been down to the gym for a go on the treadmill where I assumed that the impact would be lower than that of the road. It was pretty never racking standing on the treadmill waiting to press start...what happened in the next 20 minutes will ultimately decide whether or not I have any chance at all of being able to go to Wakefield. To prolong the discomfort I seemed to spend ages trying to find a good song on the iPod...I think that at this time I was still feeling pretty negative and all the way in on the tube I had been pretty sure that things would fall apart on the treadmill, even though I had to run for the bus and that felt okay.
I started off at a gentle pace and was quickly able to get it into the 12kph range which not too much trouble, albeit a couple of niggles that would quickly go away. Still, 12kph will not be getting me near the GBR squad. I had set the machine to to go for 20 minutes and I reckoned that if I could go for this amount of time without too much trouble then this would be a big step in the right direction. In the end I managed to get through the 20 minutes and during this time I even increased the speed to race pace (~15/16kph) for a couple of minutes to see how it felt and it was not too bad - whether or not 40 minutes at that pace would be achievable is another matter altogether. Still, I finished the session and after getting off the knee still felt okay and as I sit here at my desk there still does not appear to be any resultant pain from the morning's run. I may put some ice on for a while though just to make sure. The funny thing was how much like hard work it seemed to be when I went into the race pace zone...a couple of weeks ago, running at 15/16kph would not be too much bother at all but today it seemed pretty fast and the rate at which I tired seemed to have gone up quite a bit. Still, I suppose you can not expect to come back after a couple of weeks off and just get straight back into it!
Tomorrow I will try a very short run on the road to see if it holds up on the harder surface and then later on the decision will be made. This is all I have been thinking about for the last couple of months and have been putting in a lot time and energy to getting myself ready for this.
Still, if Friday rolls on and things are not looking good....the top 10 finish for the AG'ers at London is still the 2nd goal for the season and would be something to be pretty proud of, especially in my first season.
Got photographed at Hampstead Heath lido the other day as well...part of some art project that a lady does every year. The photos are below anyway..
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Monday, June 12, 2006
Windsor Triathlon - First Full Distance
Swim went really well and I think I got out the water in just under 22 minutes which is as close to my PB as I think I could have hoped for - those chaps helping you get out were a great help though - my legs needed some encouragement to start working, especially as I had not done the final 100 kick thing cause the turn to come in came quicker than I thought..well, to be honest, I missed it slightly
Got on the bike and felt really strong so thought that I would just hammer it as hard as I could and see how I got on. Was able to overtake a fair few and the best thing about these bigger races seems to be that there is always someone in front to focus on. After a few km's of feeling good, I made a pact with myself not to get passed once on the bike leg. One chap did try it, but I had to overtake him again...it became a big thing to do really well on the bike. Made it back to the complicated finish in about 1:02 which is much better than I expected...the computer topped out at 70kph going down through Windsor Park!
Now, the run...after momentarily losing my racking spot I set out on 43 minutes of pretty grueling pain, coupled with a nice bit of cramp on the second lap. My legs just don't seem to want to operate after the bike,always feels like I am shuffling along. Still, coach had set me a best case scenario time of 2:10 for the whole thing and I knew I was on track for that thanks to the faster swim and bike section...was close in the end though - I got it as 2:09:54
Next stop...Wakefield, I have seen horrible rumours of 24km of climbing in the bike leg
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