RJL

Monday, May 19, 2008

European Age Group Triathlon Champs - Lisbon

Last year's 4th place at the Europeans in Copenhagen and the subsequent realisation that I had only lost out on a medal by 20 or so seconds, my main aim was to go back to the Europeans and get myself a medal. This year they took place in Lisbon and the course seemed to be quite well suited to my style of racing. I arrived in Lisbon on the back of a few good results this season, so I knew that I was fit, I just hoped that the distance of the race would not come as too much of a shock - I had only really done some shorter distance stuff this season.

Anyway, my 30-34 age group was much bigger than last year, with over 120 athletes racing, so I knew from the start that I was going to need to push hard, especially against the large contingent of local Portugese athletes who probably had more experience of the course.

When we eventually got underway, I was instantly reminded of how tough the swim starts can be. With 120 athletes all swimming at pretty much the same pace, you can't help but get the odd mouthful of salty water and the odd kick etc. The turns at each of the buoys were also pretty frantic with arms and legs going everywhere. For the last 500m, I managed to find a pack who I could have swam faster than, but I decided to hang in behind them to get the draft and then hopefully save some energy for the bike and run. I was out the water in 20:44 and was pretty pleased with that as I think that I was pretty much in the second pack, albeit, I had lost over 2 minutes to the leaders.

Before I had left the UK, I had done some research on the bike course for this race and I was pleased to have seen that the course was pretty much flat the whole way round. However, having now done the course, I can confirm that is not the case. Yes, a lot of the course is pretty flat, but I never realised that there would be an energy sapping long climb at the turn point for each of the two laps. Going up, I was struggling in a small gear...the upside though was that I was able to come back down the other side doing over 75kph...quite scary on the wet roads. Overall, the course was good and I did enjoy the bike section. I worked damn hard to reel in all of my wave and eventually caught last year's gold medal winner after about 20k. He held on for about 10k and then on the last stretch, I managed to pull away. This now meant that I came back into T2 in the gold medal position, with the fastest bike split for everyone who raced that day, including all the other age groups. (1:06:42 for the 45k course).

The problem, and the lesson that I will never learn, with going all out on the bike is that your legs tend to feel a bit worse for wear when you start the run. This is pretty much the tale of my triathlon career, but, in my defense, it has worked quite well at times. But, in Lisbon, it was pretty bad, probably made worse by the small number of brick sessions that I had done this season. I started off slow, got a bit faster and then slowed back down again to come home in a bit under 39 minutes for the 10k. The eventual winner had come past me at 3k and from then on, it was just a case of trying to hold on and hoping that no one else in my age group came past me. Alas, at the end of the day it all went well and I managed to hold on to second by the skin of my teeth...a mere 4 seconds I think.

At the time, you are never sure if you have actually done it as there is no one at the finish to confirm where you have come. So, what followed the finish was a long ol wait to see if I had finished where I thought I had. Finally, just before the awards ceremony, I managed to get my hands on a set of results and it was true, I had the silver!

Monday, April 28, 2008

New PB - 25 Mile TT

Am pleased to report that the new bike performed rather well on its first outing. I did a 25M TT yesterday morning and came 3rd with a 54:10, that's averaging about 44.7kph.

Results are here

...and, thanks to my new watch, you can check out how I did around the course by clicking here

Saturday, April 26, 2008

New Bike!

A couple of weeks ago, on the way home from a 10 mile time trial in the evening, I had a bit of an accident on the old TT bike. Funny enough, the crash, spectacular as it seemed, resulted in nothing more than a small scar on my ankle. However, my bike did not come off as well as me...the handlebars must have whipped round as I now had a new hole in one of the tubes. I dusted myself off though and then (slowly) made my way home on the bike, just watching as the crack in the tube slowly crept around the whole tube. Thankfully, we made it home without any further problems. It was obvious right from the start though that this would be a tearful fairwell to the bike that had done me so proud in a number of races, and been the subect of a lot of pain in others - what with the punctures of last season and the crash at the same time last year. Still, this was the end...so it is bye bye Planet X.

As the saying goes though, every cloud and all that. I had to make a decision now and I had to make one rather quick as the European Champs are due to take place in the second week of May, so I needed a new bike, and I needed one fast. Thankfully, all of the bits on the Planet X had survived the crash, so I had the option of just being able to purchase a frame and then transfer it all across....and that is what I did.

Here she is...

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Thames Turbo - Race 1 - 2008

Well, the 2008 season is now underway as we had the first in the Thames Turbo race series over the bank holiday weekend. Due to the lunacy of the timing of Easter, this year the race was due to take place at the earliest time ever and this could only mean one thing...a very cold day. However, I would imagine that, had anyone known just how cold it would be, they would not have signed up for this one. Over the course of the week there was a lot of weather checking on a number of websites to see if there was any chance of improvement. At the end of the day though, we were on our way to the race in sub zero temperatures for what was no doubt the coldest triathlon that I will ever do. The most hotly talked about subject on the poolside as we waited for the start was soley focused on exactly what to wear for the race, I don't think that there were many people in the end who opted for just their trisuits anyway.

As for the actual racing, I was not really sure what would happen. I had no idea how my cycling was coming along and although I was running well, this was only really when I was running alone, i.e. with no cycling beforehand to hurt the legs. I was hoping to go under the hour, but as I started last season with a 58:39, I was secretly hoping to get close to that time.

Eventually the race got underway and we all got undressed (freezing) and got over to the swim start, eager to get into the heated pool, if only to warm up a bit. You can see from the steam on the pool, just how great the temperature differential was!

My swim was not too bad though, being out the water in just under 6 minutes means that I am pretty close to my best last season, and that is on half as much swim training as last year, so that was good.

T1 took a bit longer than normal though as had to contend with the long sleeve top I was going to wear...trust me, putting on clothes when you are wet is never a good idea. Still, eventually I got it on though and I headed out for the bike.

The bike felt good though and knowing that I had a whole bunch of the fastest guys up the road provided all the incentive I needed to put the hammer down and try to catch them. It took me a while, but eventually I caught one chap who had a chance of winning and then I just missed catching my mate at the end, albeit, I had taken a chunk out of the time that he started in front of me (complex timing system at these races) so it was only going to be a case of not letting him run away from me to allow me to beat him.

The run was never going to be that much fun as, by the time I had spent that time on the bike, my feet were pretty much just frozen little blocks, totally devoid of any feeling. At the start of the run, my calves were hurting and my feet were not feeling that much. The race winner came past me pretty early on and then proceeded to run off into the distance. I kept pace with my club mate and we managed to run round in a steady time, albeit not as fast as I had hoped. At the end of the day, I think that my time of 1:00:21 was not that bad considering the conditions. The next race takes place in May so we'll have to wait until then to see how things have really progressed over the winter months.

Write up can be found here and the full results can be found here

Thames Turbo/Sigma Sport

This season, I have managed to make it into the Thames Turbo/Sigma Sport Team which is basically a group of Turbos who are looking to do well this season and also to hopefully win the London League of races.

A few weeks ago we did a quick photo shoot for Sigma Sports, some of the photos can be seen below. These were all taken by David Spencer from us2design

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Lanzarote 2008

This year, I once again went out to Lanzarote for some training with my running club, the Serpentines. It just seems to all make perfect sense when you are stuck here in the UK, trying to up the training a bit and the weather just always seems to get in the way. A week in Lanzarote was therefore much needed and it didn't fail to disappoint, what with 7 whole days of sunshine.

It is hard to adjust coming back to the humdrum life of being in work at the moment. Even now, almost a week after getting back, I am still missing the LaSanta routine of waking up, going for a swim, having some food, riding your bike for countless hours, having a swim, doing a run and then going out for dinner....part of thinks it is the perfect life, although I suppose it does not really pay the bills.

Anyway, the week all went well and I managed to get some good training in while I was there. The first day, we had a little TT of about 20k that hurt more than I was expecting. If there is one thing that you can be guaranteed of during any ride in Lanzarote, it is that there will be some hills. The TT didn't fail to disappoint, although, it has to be said that the hills on this course were tiny compared to what else you have on this island.

Over the next few days, we all settled into the LaSanta life and I had some good rides taking in most of the sites of the island. I was pretty pleased that, this year, I had opted to take my carbon bike as I think that hulking that Ribble up the hills last year was by no means a good thing - I don't care if it makes you fitter.

About half way through the week, a large bunch of the Serpies headed to Playa Blanca where we all donned our wetsuits for a bit of a sea swim. This year, I was again a demonstrator here, showing some of the beginners how to start, how to sight in the water and how to turn etc - pretty similar to the stuff that I do for Swim for Tri during the summer months anyway. It was good to have a swim in the wetsuit anyway, the last time was probably my last race last season.

During the week we also did another TT which was basically a climb lasting about 30 mins. This was pretty tough and even though I broke something on my bike on the way up, I still managed to maintain a relatively decent pace, I would like to have a go again however as I do think that I could have gone a fair bit quicker. The route up there is by no means nice, it is almost 2000ft of climbing and in a pretty relentless fashion, as can be seen from this this

On the last day of we are on the island, the Serpies hold their very own triathlon and this is pretty much the highlight of the week for people like me. Last year, I had a bit of an awful race, after coming first out of the water, I eventually finished in 4th after some bad riding and some even worse running. This year, I was keen to make some amends on that performance. I did manage to start well and eventually get first out of the water again...

Out on the bike though, one person went past me but I was determined to make sure that no one else managed to come past me this year. Thanks to having broken my front derailleur the day before, I was stuck in the big chainring (hard gear) for the whole ride, which is basically 7km of climbing and 7km of descending. The big ring worked okay though and I managed to get back into T2 still in 2nd place, albeit, I had lost a couple of minutes to the eventual winner over the course of the bike.

The run was going to be the most interesting section for me, as I wanted to see just how much I had improved. Before I went to Lanza I had taken a week off running as I had hurt my knee and I had hardly run all week while I was there, so I was not expecting too much. The run was a lot better than last year however and I eventually managed to come in 2nd place in a time that was 3 minutes quicker than last year.

So, all in all, it was a good trip...as always, I think that I should have done some more running, but that is just what always happens. At the end of the day, it is pretty hard to resist going riding on this..

When the alternative back here is...