Triathlon Training - Part 1

Since the start of March I've been training for the Wattisham Triathlon (12/05/2012).  It's considered to be a sprint Triathlon and the distances involved are a 300m swim, a 20km bike ride and a 5km run.  Although I've done quite a few bike races and events before, this is something new to me and I'm a tad nervous...

A few weeks of illness from mid-March to early April set my fitness back quite a way but I've been getting back into it over the last week or so.  I planned on starting back gently but a few wrong turns and some friendly competitiveness on my 1st ride back led to me doing a fairly quick 50miler (oops).  The next ride back was similarly competitive but nearer the 35mile mark.  Last week I did a few 10mile rides and a couple of 3mile runs mixed with some rest days.

Yesterday I opted to try a full distance ride followed by a full distance run, but cramps (due to eating a stupid lunch) a short distance into the run section meant I cut it short.  This had knocked my confidence quite a bit so I decided to replicate the event this morning just to see how I'd cope!

One of the elements of the tri that I'm most unsure of is the transitions from one discipline to the next so I also wanted to try out a couple of things to see how I got on.  The main one being, do I want to ride in wet trunks and just pull running shorts over them after the swim or do I swim in cycling shorts and have the cushioning act like a sponge!?!  Today I opted for the former...

I started the swim at 8:24 and 12 lengths of the 25yard pool took 6mins 10secs.  This is a little under the actual distance as the competition will use a 25m pool instead.
Due to it being a public pool this first transition was a bit more faffy than the one on race day should be.  Following a quick towel down I pulled on a cycling shirt and my running shorts over my still wet trunks (lovely image there).  I then had to faff around with bike locks etc so, all in, the transition took me about as long as the swim itself!

Riding in the wet wasn't too bad and I dried out fairly quickly.  As cycling is my strongest discipline it's the section I'm most confident about and the ride went ok, I ended up doing 21.8km in 44mins 05secs.
This next transition was much easier and just involved putting my bike away, changing my shoes and grabbing a fresh water bottle, this time I took about 2-3mins.

The run was a bit slower than I usually am (I usually average a little quicker than 8mins/mile but this was nearer 9) but fortunately the cramps/stitches from yesterday didn't appear and I ran 5.21km in 28mins 06secs.

End-to-end this session took around 1hr 26mins, so I now have a target for the actual event and my confidence has been restored a bit :)

Now for a lie down!

Thetford Winter Series 2011-12

Originally posted on the TROG Forum: rounds 1 and 2 round 3 & round 4.

Round 1
Ground, dry.
Company, good.
Position, happy with.

What more can you ask for?

I've just answered the "What more can you ask for?" question by signing up for round 2

Finished in 39th place.

Round 2
I ache!

I queued at the start line for 20mins or so with Jules and Danny to try and get a good position in the pack. We all set off and almost immediately the pack came to a full stop again, unfortunately I noticed too late and ended up flying over the bars and throwing my bike in the air. Fortunately both me and the bike came away unharmed and I managed to get going again but knew I'd lost quite a lot of places

I managed to claw back quite a few places on lap one, but on the 2nd lap a slippery root in the first section of single-track caught me out causing me to ram my fork crown adjuster into my upper thigh being the double 'ard northerner that I am )probably...) I managed to shrug off the pain and carried on.

To me the traffic jams didn't seem quite so bad on this round and even in the single-track sections there seemed to be more opportunities than there were last time to pass other riders.

Beforehand I definitely felt better prepared for this round and despite the fall at the start I still managed to finish 3 places better than the last round so I'm not too bothered about it, but it'd be interesting to know how much time I lost because of it.
That fall at the start seems to have knocked my bones about a bit so I'm walking like a pensioner this morning and my thigh's a bit swollen and bruised, but all in all I enjoyed myself and it was great to see so many familiar faces and shirts about

Finished in 36th place.

Round 3

I thought that was a good challenging course. My only grumble with it would be that there weren't enough passing opportunities in some of the longer sections of singletrack, but that's maybe just me not being confident/aggressive/cheeky enough.
I'm amazed how well the course had held together after last week's deluges! Tyre-wise I opted for a Nic and a Ralph, and to be honest the Nic was overkill for 90% of the course.

I had hoped to break the top 30 this time so was slightly disappointed to miss out on it by 8seconds, but I'm 8 places up from ws1 and 5 up from ws2 so can't complain too much

My excuses are;
- I didn't get to the grid early enough; I ended up battling through quite a large pack so suffered with traffic jams in the single-track for laps 1&2.
- My gears suffered from the mud, so after a couple of laps I couldn't stay in the big ring. I ended up spinning in the middle one for the last lap and a half rather than pushing in the big one which caused me to cramp pretty badly towards the end.

Many thanks once again to Blondie for bottling and to everyone else who was there for shouting encouragement/banter/etc

Finished in 31st place.

Round 4

It's fair to say I'm a wee bit chuffed with my result yesterday

For my first full Winter Series I've found it a hard competition with some very good riders out there, but I have really enjoyed it. In the previous 3 rounds I've been trying and failing to move up from the 30-somethings into the 20s, so to jump 10 places from last time to reach 21st has made me very happy
I know I'm not about to find myself on the podium or anything, but from a personal improvement point of view I'm really pleased with how it's going.

Thanks once again to the TROGettes The help and support is hugely appreciated.

Also thanks to Andy and Ady for bits and bobs of advice which I think have helped me on my way (although I suspect cursing rather than thanking someone for teaching you about "interval training" is more appropriate).

It's great to see the results from others out there too! Pats on backs all round Lewis is going be a force to be reckoned with when he reaches the 18-39s!!!

Random thoughts on Race Training technique

Originally posted on the TROG Forum.

Others have probably already said it better than me, but I'd suggest that to begin with you should just sign up and aim to enjoy yourself and see how you do

The mix of abilities at MSG and WS is huge, and once you get a couple of races under your belt you get a feel for where you 'belong' in the pack and then you can set your own goals for where you want to be next time.

As for training, I don't tend to have any real structure to it... To begin with I was entering 2 hour races, so all I did was ensure I was comfortable riding for that amount of time. I then rode with people who were quicker than me which helped me to up my pace and gradually I've worked up the pack.
Ultimately though I have to fit in riding around 'real' life so I tend to nip out for 30min blasts before work when I can (much easier on warm, light summer mornings than cold wet winter ones!) and try to do a longer mid-week ride and a longer weekend ride (again with people who are quicker than me - although sometimes it's good to back off a bit and just get some miles in rather than speed).

Lately I've had some challenges with mates on Endomondo which has been great for motivating me to get out of the house when I'd rather be tucked up in a nice warm bed.

For what it's worth, I've never been on the race training rides so I've no idea how well I'd be able to keep up with them.

Mud, Sweat & Gears 2011 Round 6 - Langdon Hills

That was great! Hard work but great

I wasn't at all sure about my fitness levels before the start, as I've struggled to find the time to do any long rides for a few weeks (just little and often). So was expecting to be around the same place as previous rounds or maybe a place or two down. Coming in and finding I was 18th was brilliant as that was 7 places higher than I've been this series and 6 places higher than my previous personal best, then finding out it was actually 17th was the icing on the cake

For the last 3 laps I had a bit of a running battle with Mike, I'd get past him then he'd pass me again, we continued like that right up until the end and that really helped to spur me on.

Huge well done to Dan, a much deserved 1st place And well done to the others who've fought their way onto the race/series podium

Finally thanks to the TROGettes It'd be much harder work without the support!

Mud, Sweat & Gears 2011 Round 5 – Codham Park

This was a race of two halves...

There was an off on the start line, a couple of places in front of me, which I managed to dodge. The start was interesting in that it had a shortish gravelly climb to a 90deg left hand bend which was pretty sketchy, then not much further on the course narrowed into a single-file ditch crossing! Fun with a few hundred riders hitting it at once!
I did 6 laps, the rain came about 1/2 way round lap 5 and in an instant the grass and dirt sections changed from fast and grippy to slippery and unpredictable!

That's two races in a row I've finished 25th... At least I'm consistent...

Got home and discovered that the claggy, clay-like mess wouldn't shift! Even with Fenwicks' finest and with the hose on full power!

Finally got through it though and then off to the pub for a few recovery drinks...

Mud, Sweat & Gears 2011 Round 4 - Danbury Forest

No write up.  Finished 25th.

Mud, Sweat & Gears 2011 Round 3 – Tunstall Forest

Technically this isn't my write up (I didn't do one for this event), I've copied it from the TROG website.

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On Sunday 5th June 2011, MSG in partnership with TROG hosted the third round of the Mud, Sweat and Gears mountain bike racing series, and what a fantastic days racing it was.

Anyone who has ever raced knows that you turn up at the event, pedal as fast as you can around a marked out course, try to stay on the bike and then go home with tired legs and a good sense of achievement.  To make this happen there is a lot of work that goes on beforehand.

Preparation

Tunstall is a public forest managed by the Forestry Commission.  Whilst the FC supports TROG, to run a race we still have to get permission and the race loop approved. 

The TROG chairman, Mike Moore, and club member / MTB stalwart Graham Elliott (G) planned out a prospective course, unduly complicated by the fact that the harvesters were due back in the forest so all the harvesting areas had to be avoided.  The initial plan was to run last year’s course backwards but “you may have a course come race day, or you may not” from Nigel @ the FC re harvesting put paid to that.

Thanks to half term Mike was able to spend somewhere in the region of 20 hours riding the forest over and over again, looking for lines, pits and some elevation. He eventually pulled together the course as it was raced and put it to Nigel to approve. Some nail biting four days later they came back and said Simon (the head of the FC) wasn’t happy about it running through some sensitive bird nesting areas. However he was willing to let it go as ‘they were in use by walkers and riders already’. Thank God, we finally had a course!

Once the loop was approved by the FC, the strimming, raking, digging and general bracken bashing began.  This was no small task as part of the loop and two of the bomb holes were not normally ridden and were under six feet of bracken and nettles.  Over a number of weeks and dedicated weekends, TROG members got stuck in to ensure that the loop and arena area was ready for race day, with a special mention to G for giving up huge swathes of his own time and money to strim almost the entire course.

The day before the race arrived and a number of TROG members turned up to help set up the arena and get the course marked out with the help of Mike & Debbie from Thetford MTB - we started at 11am and finished marking it out at around 7pm.  Another challenge was then thrown in as a local farmer had put a whacking great irrigation pipe across the course and so a ramp was built to get over it – an interesting TTF.

Race Day

7am start, putting signs up so everyone knew where to go, then on arriving on site we were told there was a lady somewhere on the course pulling down tape and poles saying that “We couldn’t close the forest; you’re not allowed to advertise”. Mike headed off on a pre-ride to try and find her but thankfully she seemed to have disappeared and everything else seemed to be running ok. 

To perform car parking and marshalling duties, the Air Cadets came to help and along with some dedicated TROGs did a fantastic job.

The Race!!

IT DIDN’T RAIN!!!!!


Proof that it didn’t rain

The TROG presence in the race was unrivalled, with 21 racers across the different categories – everywhere you looked there was a TROG.


The course held up really well and had a good mix of tough climbs, technical singletrack and fun bomb holes.  It was a bit sandy, but that just adds to the fun, and to the face war paint!

To cheer on the racers, the TROG support team was out in force and could be heard across the forest.


The TROG Support Team

All in all, TROG had 7 racers in the top 10 and 3 podiums.

Mike’s Race Report (11th Place Senior Racer):

I wasn’t sure I was going to be any good during the race because of all the hours I’d put in the day before, so I started reasonably steady and found myself keeping pace with Paul Thomas and Andy Sampson. After crashing in Junk Pit due to letting the wheel drift (which I’m now paying for!), I got back on and decided to push a bit harder. I overtook Paul Thomas and started working my way up through the ranks. A bit of back and forth with a guy from Chelmer Cycles and a rider from Pedal Revolution and towards the end of the race I found I’d shaken them off. I picked off Callum Riley (KTM) towards the end too (hurray!). My thighs started twanging on the 7th time up Token Hill, but I managed to keep going til the end where I found out I’d finished in 11th place. What a result!


Mike coming out of the sandy “Junk Pit”.


Jodie’s Race Report (3rd Place Female Racer)

Lap one and 2 where tough, it took me ages to settle into a rhythm on this race. Although from the outset it seemed like fairly easy terrain, it was, for me anyway, quite a physically demanding course - the two hills, one after the other was the worst, however the long great bit of single track at the end of the circuit more than made up for it!

As ever the support from the side lines was amazing and it was great that a few people ventured out along the course to cheer in the places you'd least expect - just what you need when you're feeling really tired!

I managed to complete all 6 laps but it felt that I hadn't performed at my best on this race - so to find out later that I had a podium position was brilliant - and great for the TROG's as a whole too.


Some much need fluid courtesy of “The Claw”!

The big clear up

Whilst the rest of the racers headed for home, a number of TROGs were left to clear the site and pick up all those lovely sticky gel packs that had been thrown around the course.  Lots of weary faces, but an excellent team effort was put in to get it all done as quickly as possible.

Thanks Role Call

Mike, Lizzie, G, Libtech, Blondie, Horndogrob, Geordie, Human, Kim, JoJo, Jodie, Andrew, Ady, Geordie, Andy, Martha Lampkin, Wingnut, Troy, Ecnarfi, Screwy and Mrs Screwy, JohnE and Mrs E, JohnnyD, Smithy,  Mark A, vumad, Julian, Lewis, Leanlanky, Ecnarfi,  Big Chris, Mark, IanW, Mike & Debbie Mallett and the cadets.


Video of the day - Provided by John E