Vitruvian 2009

Posted on September 6, 2009 by lord_lordy 
Time: 4:52:19
Swim (1.9k): 24:31
T1: 2:30
Bike (85k): 2:18:45
T2: 1:33
Run (21km): 2:04:57

Race Analysis here.

I felt very relaxed for this race. My foot had been really playing up recently and I hadn’t managed to run for a week so my intention was not to do the run. Well… I was in two minds. Either not start the run or start, test the foot out and stop if it felt painful. I’d been getting lots of egging on to throttle the swim and bike knowing I wouldn’t run but to be honest I felt more that I shouldn’t do that as I didn’t want to have to have any recovery time following the race. So … I felt very relaxed heading in to this.

The swim start was incredibly civilised – no battling for the front line. I’d planned to set off steady, no massive sprint and thats what I did, there really was no need for anything else. I felt one guy on my feet for about a minute but he was soon dropped. For two laps I had a good smooth controlled swim spending the whole time passing people from previous waves. I came out first in my wave and thus leading my age group. Felt pretty good when I heard it announced as I went in to T1. Turns out I had the 3rd fastest swim split overall !

Out onto the bike I intentionally set off very controlled. I kept my effort levels under control for the first few KMs. This course is both great and frustrating. It’s lovely rolling roads giving nice variety but there is a lot of traffic. The first time going over the Rutland Ripples I got stuck behind an oversized load that couldn’t get past a slow riding from the previous wave. I spent about 10 minutes just sat up with hands on the hoods going steady. I think this combined with my early control served me well since once past this hold up I got in to my top gear and just felt like a could hammer. I did the whole thing on feel, didn’t check average speed or elapsed time. It was an awesome feeling, any incline or headwind and I felt I had reserves of power to push through. I was pleased to get this evidence that my bike training has really produced some results. Absolutely no one passed me on the bike so I came into and out of T2 leading my age group.

Yes I decided to run. I felt that I couldn’t drop out as long as I was leading my age group. About a mile in to the run I started to feel my foot but still being in the lead I kept going. I ran on the grass beside the path and that helped a lot. Decided to get to the turn around (5km) where my family should be and get a lift from them. They weren’t there ! so I turned back. A couple of KM from the end of the first lap the foot felt too bad so I stopped and started walking. I did this for about 15 minutes with this battle going on in my head. The logic and sense part saying stop but some other part saying you can’t quit, don’t use the foot as an excuse. Once you quit once it’ll be easier to do it again in the future. I learnt something about myself …. I just couldn’t not complete. I started running again and managed to stay on the grass alot, adjust my foot fall a little and hobbled round the run. I finished 22nd in my age group despite this. Turns out a 1:39 would have got me third and a 1:23 would have won me my age group. I’m so pleased I finished and very satisfied with how the swim and bike went. Just need to learn how to run again.

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The Media

Posted on September 4, 2009 by lord_lordy

TheMedia.jpgThere are a few things recently that have got me thinking or more precisely got me ranting.

Here in the UK the other week there was a blatant dive in a football match which produced an awful lot of media coverage. It was cheating plain and simple and though footballers like to talk about being “Professional” their conduct on the pitch seems on the whole to be far from that. Then we come to the pundits on TV … they’re even less professional. I’ve heard many say things along the lines of “It’s his job to get in the box and get something” – this is not helping. That is not their job, their job is to score goals not cheat. The media and the managers should say it how it is and not glorify it.

Then there’s the great British medal in the 4 x100m relay at the Athletics world championships. Rather than applauding it you hear how it has less meaning because the USA wasn’t in the final. No it doesn’t… they weren’t in the final because they weren’t good enough. They may have the fastest runners but if they can’t execute a race within the rules then it makes them worse than everyone who managed to. Next we’ll have a Triathletes win belittled because someone further down the field was faster in all disciplines but had crap transitions.

Enough ranting but continuing in a similar theme there are a lot of things out there that are just taken for granted. Either because on the face of them they make sense or because there’s such consistency in what we hear we assume it’s based on sound evidence and we never question it. Over the past few years there have been sufficient instances where I’ve done enough research thats made me realise what I’d taken for granted was actually completely wrong. For instance:

  • low fat is good
  • capitalism is good
  • supportive running shoes are a good idea
  • high cholesterol is necessarily bad thing and can / should be corrected via diet
  • grains are good for you

Also, if you’ve ever read an article in a newspaper where you have particular knowledge you soon realise that whats written is not necessarily based on expertise. Only this weekend I read about Alaistair Brownlee in a major UK paper which stated he won the London Triathlon but in fact they meant the Hyde Park race on the London Olympics course.

Anyway, all this makes me question stuff so much more.

So here’s one for you:

Riding the Ironman bike at a constant power is the ideal way to produce your optimum bike split. I’ve chatted with training buddies about this one as I’m starting to be a little less convinced about it. Especially as I can’t recall ever hearing of any study that’s produced evidence to back it up.

Now, I can believe that for a Pro and some age groupers who get out there and train to maintain a steady state power for 5 hours then perhaps this is the best approach. However, my experience is that most people find it far easier to vary their effort levels, almost like a mini interval session. Run / walk in the marathon is gaining credence so why not something similar for the bike. With my foot the way it is I’ve been thinking through the idea of run / walk at Kona. As I visualize it I realise that mentally I find it far easier to imagine doing 26 x (0.95 mile with 0.05 mile recovery) than doing 26 straight hard rides. What about on the bike taking it easy for a few minutes after each aid station to down you fuel ? I’ve certainly found the more varied Ironman Bikes easier since they provide more variety in effort levels.

Perhaps I will try it at Vitruvian this weekend. My heart really isn’t in this race as I currently can’t run so I’m unlikely to be able to compete so perhaps it’s the ideal time to experiment. We will see…

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Buttertubs

Posted on August 31, 2009 by lord_lordy

Buttertubs.jpgWell thats cheered me up no end. Decided to get out and do a monster ride. No particular training goals (though I achieved some!) just get out and enjoy a cracking route. It had everything. Threatening weather, rain, sun, gales, steep climbs, thrilling decents, tack ons and just the pleasure of riding made even better by being out on my Roberts tourer for the first time in ages. It’s such a comfortable ride though on the flats it doesn’t move so nicely with it’s thick tyres and extra weight but for today the mudguards and triple chainset were a godsend.

I set off at 7am having had a breakfast of 4 eggs and 5 rashers of bacon. Loaded the bike with 1.5l of water and set off west to the Yorkshire Dales. It’s a pretty long ride up Swaledale to the first main climb : Buttertubs (the picture above), a 25%er into a stiff headwind which added several % to it. Even with my triple it was all I could do to get over it. Next up was Oughtershaw a single track road and you can see the whole climb. I think parts are 30% and coming down the other way I’ve hit some awesome speeds in the past. The local bike shop owner told me a story the other year about this old fella who each year wanted to do his age in MPH. So age 60 he wanted to do 60 mph etc… he used Ougthershaw for one of his attempts … apparently riding to the top with panniers and loading them with stones !

Down from here to Kettlewell and then left to go over in to Coverdale. This is such a tiny road that there’s no signage for the steepness of the climb but it must be one of the steepest in the area. It’s a brute. The descent down the other side was awesome. I stopped in Middleham for some snap after 6h20 of non stop riding fueled only by my breakfast and water. I was really pleased… so pleased 40 minutes later I celebrated with a large Cappuccino.

Now the tailwind and heading home. I was aiming for 10 hours of riding and I’d made too good progress so a tack on was required. With 8.5 hours on the clock I headed Carlton bank a very tough local climb. Was pleased with how well I rode up it. I turned into Stokesley (home)  with my computer approaching 9:59:59…. it’s  not that often you get to watch the computer clock over and I didn’t miss this opportunity to see it.

Mum and I both felt pretty tired (she’d played golf) so we decided not to cook and went to the pub. What a great finish – big steak and a pint of Jennings.

So why did I need cheering up ? This damn foot. I just don’t know what to do for the best. This it’s what so frustrating the not knowing what to do. if only someone could say – do this or that and it will be ok. Since this ain’t going to happen I’m having to try things out and discover the fix for myself. Having found myself getting the capulitis running in my nike frees and five fingers I got out my favourite racing flats, ones I did lots of running in before the injury and thought I’d go back to them and remove a variable. Running went great but again after a period of getting about 15 miles per week I starting feeling my foot and had to ease back. Having seen the consultant and the pediatrist it seems clear it;s nothing to do with my shoes,  as a result of the surgery I have some gait problems that need fixing.

It felt alot better running in the vibrams and with them I’m much more oware of how I’m landing and pushing off so I went back to them but alternated runs with them and the flats. Running in the flats felt great having done a fair bit of running in the vibram fivefingers. I think it’s the increased foot strength. I ran the national relays in the vibrams and it felt great. For a week or so running was going awesomely. I was running really well and fast in both the fivefingers and the flats and found myself visualising running strong not just at Kona but at Vitruvian. It felt like I’d sussed it out. Perhaps I got too confident and pushed too much … I don’t know but last Wednesday I ran really well to swimming (in flats) and planned to run back but as soon as I started running I felt severe pain in my foot about halfway between my big toe and my ankle. I got the tube home. Over the next few days it got worse despite doing no running, very bad to walk on. So…. this weekend I did nothing thinking perhaps a break from cycling as well as running would help. We are talking minimal use of the foot. I spent most of the weekend in front of the telly watching sport ! Perhaps it did work as my foot feels pretty good following the ride. We will see tomorrow as I plan to try to run the mile to the pool.

Fingers crossed.

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Athletic Development

Posted on August 29, 2009 by lord_lordy

AthleticDevelopmentI’m having a relaxing morning up in North Yorkshire watching Soccer AM due to my foot flaring up (perhaps more on this later) and deciding to have a slightly easier weekend to try and let it settle down. It got me thinking about something Russell and I discussed on our rides this week.  Alan Couzens posted a blog about the hours done by people posting certain Ironman Times. This prompted a discussion on Tri Talk which Russell had contributed to. With stuff like this you get a lot of people arguing that you can do it on less. This clearly misses the point, yes you can but on average people do more. I think often there’s this clinging to the hope or believing what people want to believe – ie there is an easier way. Well you may be darn lucky but if you want to maximise your chance of being lucky you need to put the work in.

So I got thinking about my complete athletic history. I’ve used estimates in the above and have tried to be conservative. Remarkably I sit pretty  much with the results Alan posted. I got under 10 hours in my first season with around 11,000 hours and less than 2,500 of Tri Specific. I got below 9:30 having clocked about 12,000.

Another point Alan makes is that you have to back yourself despite the fact you may get poorer results for a while. This is me for the past few years. I’ve not raced as well as I did in 2006/7. I am backing myself and practising patience. This is something Scott said to me after Epic Italy. I asked him whether there was any advice he’d given on my training and changes I should make. He said that I was probably doing the right thing I just had to be patient.

I took a look at my Tri Training over the years:

AthleticDev1

The top line is number of number of weeks clocking certain hours – blue 0 – 10, red 10-20, yellow 20-30, green 30-40, purple 40-50, orange 50-60 and rather optimistically there as a column for over 60 hrs. I’ve managed that the odd time for 7 consecutive days but never for a Monday to Sunday.

The ride length is number of rides of certain length. It’s in miles and in case it’s not that clear it goes 0-40, 40-80, 80-120, 120-160, 160-200, 200-240.

There’s a pretty rapid progression mainly on the riding which was my weakest discipline. The amount of work put in clearly drops off in 2008 and mirrors a slight slump in my performances. Now with the chance to reflect and having had a good long break I wouldn’t be surprised if I was run down, over trained (whatever you want to call it). In 2006/7 there’s real consistency in my weekly training. In 2008 there are more big weeks (50+) but the bulk of the weeks sit in the 10-20 hour range. A real sign of fluctuating motivation and energy levels. This year the motivation is back massively I despite several months out I’m heading to complete a better year of training than last year. Should set me up for next year.

I remember in 2004 riding 147 miles and not being able to face an extra 3 miles to get to 150. I’ve moved on since then and to me shows how you reap the benefits of putting the work in over a period of years. Now, even after a big break, completing that extra 3 miles would be a no brainer ;o)

Some of you may have read Triathlete Europe magazine which has just been released. Like the American version it’s a great magazine. However,there was on article that really annoyed me  and in fact stopped me dropping off to sleep as I thought about it. It was written by some Dr. and thus had the air of being scientific. Early in the article he said that 60-70% of your potential is genetic. Well apart from the fact thats thats seriously demotivating it’s also got to be bullshit.

  1. What research did he quote to back it up ? none
  2. How would said research ever be performed ? I’ve no idea
  3. What the hell does it means 60-70% of what ? He says potential ? Hows that measured. Just think about the phrase and try and reword it. 60-70% of my potential best performance is genetic ? Surely all my “potential” is down to my genetics ?

I could go on. Lets face it there may be the odd star athlete out there that does exceptionally little work (compared to his peers) but in my experience the people I meet that do well work hard for it. At the Tri club we’ve a new(ish) member thats getting good performances in his first couple of years of Triathlon. I’m sure some people look at him and say he’s got natural talent etc… Well he may have but what I see is a guy that never leaves the pool early, never doesn’t complete a set, will stay a little longer to get just two extra lengths. If he has a spare hour he’ll nip out on his bike or do an extra run. Yes he looks a “natural talent’, yes he gets good results and yes he works hard for it, these things are not unrelated. Perhaps it is genetic – it’s down to his make up that means his first thought is to put the extra work in.

It’s commonly touted that sporting excellence comes down to genetics and natural talent. I would hazard a guess that very few people achieve their sporting potential sitting on their arses. So whatever your genes get our there and put the work in and see what you can achieve.

Foot niggles will wait for a later post.

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Getting Fit

Posted on August 20, 2009 by lord_lordy

GettingFitHaving no fixed abode makes for some interesting logistics. Bikes in different places, moving between locations by different means has meant that for this weekends National Relays I’m racing my Indie. Here’s a piccie of it converted for racing. It has Oval under only tri bars, deep section front, disc rear, forward pointing seatpost and a compact chainset meaning my biggest gear is 50 x 12 – could be spinning that out this weekend.

Just finished our Rutland training camp and I’ve achieved most of what I wanted. Firstly was consistency. In the 4 weeks we’ve been there I’ve ridden over 2,200 miles only not riding on two days. I swum 90km and spent 21 hours in the gym. Running has not been quite what I’d hoped.

GettingFit1

There are a couple of graphs showing swim and bike volume, load and strain for the year. The past couple of months have seen me training much much better than the same period last year. It’s not just volume but the actual pace I’ve been training at is much better. I’m feeling very fit and strong when out on the bike or in the pool. My schedule for the period to heading out to Kona (and after in fact) is sorted and I puts me in a great environment to push these two on further. I have a week longer in London, then a week in North Yorkshire, followed by 2 weeks at La Santa before a brief period in London and then off to Kona ! I can foresee good consistent swim volume which I know always improves my swimming plus the opportunity for solid hill work on the bike.

As for running.GettingFit2

That makes poor reading. Green is last year. At this point Wisconsin was imminent and I ran really well there. This years running couldn’t be much worse ! It is proving very frustrating and  it’s certainly a good job I enjoy training so much. Must admit I’ve been wondering whether I should just switch to bike TTing … only a passing thought. Whats happening is I get to about 15 miles a week, it feels good and lasts a few weeks then my toes start to hurt and I have to ease off. I’m at the end of the second cycle of this. Luckily my consultant has squeezed me in and I’m seeing it tomorrow. I’m currently just at the end of another off period and ran really well last night in my racing flats that I’ve used for the past couple of years. Quite happy running 5 miles through London in 39 minutes. I felt really strong. The problem is I can’t imagine my legs are conditioned enough to not fall apart in the marathon. With just over 7 weeks to go even if my foot has no problems going forward it’s going to be tight. I feel my focus should be to increase the length I can run one go as thats going to be the real limiter not my run speed. Whether that is practical we will see over the coming weeks.

In a bizarre twist I actually feel quite excited about the unknownness about it. What will happen when I try to run a marathon completely unprepared ??

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European Champion

Posted on August 12, 2009 by lord_lordy

EuropeanChampion.jpgNot me unfortunately but Jo. Read about it here. I am so pleased. She went and won the ETU Long Course in Prague this last weekend and was the first age grouper home. It was a funny weekend for me not being out there as it had been our plan at the start of the year to both head out there aiming to get medals. Instead I was here in Rutland, on my own, working hard to get back to fitness. I did a hard ride at the time of the race kind of in sympathy. After a gentle hour or so I started to push hard with long intervals above IM effort. Got through the 100 mile point in 5:15. Been doing a lot of good quality riding whilst here with a decent level of hard riding. Came a bit of a cropper yesterday when I decided to ride to the coast by The Wash. I not only underestimated the distance but didn’t check the weather forecast and I had strong headwinds all the way back across the Fens. No longer did I feel like a strong rider hobbling back home 2 hours later than I’d hoped. I was wasted and spent a lot of the ride wondering how many people ever feel that level of fatigue, not only that but feel it whilst still knowing you have an hour of effort that you have to complete. It kept me going and I felt great back home completely zonked. I slept so well last night and felt great this morning.

Ironman UK was the other weekend and great news for a couple of friends (and readers). Russel Cox raced superbly and got his Kona slot. He’d been getting some stick on the odd forum about racing so much (6 IMs this year) but I think he’s proved that it can work. He had a couple of poor races early in the year but has now produced two awesome performances in 3 weeks. He ended Roth with a 3:11 marathon and then at UK ran 3:09. That is truly impressive. I have no doubts that he can get under 3 hours one day. To have 4 shots at qualification and get it at the last one shows real persistence. There’s a lot of “advice” out there that you can’t do more than one maybe two Ironman races in the year. Like so much ‘common wisdom’ it gets the perception of truth because it’s repeated so often but the repetition it just from loads of uninformed sources (ie they’re just repeating what they’ve “heard”). Try not to be limited by such ‘sense’, try things out for yourself. Russell has shown that racing lots can be done (admittedly he’s full time) as long as you’re sensible in your approach to recovery and listen to your body.

The second qualifier is Nick Rose. We met him at IM Wisconsin last year. He took the photo above whilst we watched 4 people finish in the last 5 minutes, one within the last 10 seconds! It’s taken this long to get the photo ! Anyway, Jo and I qualified in Wisconsin almost a year a go. Nick tried but was just outside the slots, now a year on he’s got his slot. AWESOME. Again, great persistence.

Roger had commented to me that we may need two tables in Splashers each morning in Kona for breakfast after our morning swim. He may well be right. Not sure how many readers are Kona bound this year but come say hi if you are. I’ll be swimming (probably) every morning at 7am from the pier for the two weeks before the race and most mornings will be found in Splashers afterwards drinking coffee, eating omelette, nattering and people watching. I can’t wait.

Our stay up here in Rutland is nearing it’s end. It’s proved even better than I’d hoped, especially the swimming. My aim was consistency, some hard riding and getting back in to running. In the 3 weeks and 2 days we’ve been here I’ve managed:

➡71.4km swimming

➡1,655 miles riding

➡37 miles running :O(

➡16 hours in the gym

The swimming has been mostly long steady state swimming. It’s included several 4 or 5km TTs plus the odd set of 400s. This evening I did a continuous 6k open water swim. In the past a few weeks of this sort of training has served me well. I’ll get to find out next week when I’m back in a squad.

The riding has included quite a lot of IM and above IM effort riding. I’ve ridden most days with a good mix of distances, terrain, effort and weather ;o).

Been to the gym twice each week and can feel myself getting stronger.

We’re eating healthily, helped a lot but Rogers excellent vegetable garden, green houses and orchard, and I’m getting leaner without trying. The next step is to start getting back serious on Paleo to really lean up.

Finally running. Sticks out doesn’t it. This is proving to require a lot of patience. It’s getting particularly frustrating as I feel super good when running but it seems if I get above 15 miles in a week I start ‘feeling’ my foot. I’m sure it’s a strength / gait thing and requires slow incremental increases. Part of me feels I’m being hyper sensitive but it will probably pay off to be cautious. It feels good when running but I feel aching after and the odd time get slight discomfort. This is not in the FHL tendon but in the joints of the middle three toes. When I feel this I back off. The trouble is that it’s looking unlikely that I’ll have done a decent long run ahead of Kona which means the Queen K could be interesting. I’m still visualising running low 3 hours but realistically I’m considering a run / walk approach. Viewing it as 26 mile reps with a walk through each aid station.

I must be feeling a little more positive about it as I’ve just entered Ironman Western Australia. This had been the plan at the start of the year hoping to have a shot at sub 9 hours, I feel the running is unlikely to be in that sort of form but it will still be fun to do and nice that my mum is able to come out and scream at me. The big focus is being in tip top shape for IM New Zealand in March and of course being super duper cycling fit for the length of New Zealand Epic Camp starting on Jan 1st !

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Rutland Training Camp

Posted on July 29, 2009 by lord_lordy

RutlandTrainingCampAt the moment I’m faffing. The weather is terrible. It’s 3pm, I have a 3 hour ride scheduled and it’s meant to be at pace. Not sure it’s particularly safe in the current conditions so I’m holding off but much beyond 4pm and I’ll just have to knock it on the head. For now … it’s blogging.

Jo and I are currently staying in Rutland house sitting for my friend Roger. We’ve got a great set up here for training. There are loads of quiet, good surfaced roads round here to ride on. Apparently there’s good running though I’ve yet to try it out. We can open water swim each Wednesday night and a new 50m pool has opened at Corby. Been going there this week which is the first week it’s been opened and as expected there are some teething problems which frustratingly has resulted in the lifeguards clearing the pool 30 minutes early 2 out of 3 days cutting my swim short. It’s a great facility just a shame they don’t set these things up to provide decent pool time for serious swimmers. As usual in modern society it’s dumbed down to the average. I’m not saying things shouldn’t be provided for all just don’t neglect the keen. It means that the originally planned 3 hour ‘laned swim” on sunday afternoon has now changed to a family swim so you can only train in a 50m pool from 7 till 8:30am two mornings and given the speed of access it means in practise you get at most 80 minutes. It also means the gym doesn’t have assisted dip / pull up machine – even the gym instructors felt the gym could do with just a few additions to allow it to cater for the serious gym jock.

It’s fun living the good life here. There is a large vegetable patch, orchard and numerous green houses. Loads of stuff coming into season so we get lovely fresh produce everyday. Jo is in her element and the number of cooking apples has meant we’re having baked apples regularly. She’s also made rubarb pie and even a carrot and beetroot cake which was delicious. Our duties included feeding the dog, cats, peacocks and chickens. The latter produce several eggs a week and they are noticeably better than anything you can go out and buy.

My big goal here is consistent volume, introducing some bike intervals and finally getting running again. Last wednesday Roger and I joined Jo for her intervals. We did pretty steady riding either side of 8 lots of 8 minutes hard 4 minutes recovery. I hit the first four hard. On the 4th Roger was hanging on my wheel pushing 300 watts ! I faded a little from there. I’ve also had numerous rides at really good effort levels. I’m feeling good with my cycling. My foot has settled down so I’ve tried some short runs. There’s a nice 4k loop here. I tried running it hard and managed it in 21 minutes. Finding that Jo cruises round it in 20 minutes really hits home how far off the mark my running is. Not surprising given I’ve run maybe 50  miles in 5 months. Where I can get for Kona will be interesting to find out.  Swimming is proving better here than I’d expected and should get some decent steady volume. I’m not great at doing sessions on my own in a public session but given how I’ve felt on steady efforts I think long swims will do me good. I managed 4k (including warmup) in 58 minutes and then yesterday cruised 4k in 61 minutes. Feeling good but noticing my arms tiring in the second half. More of this should help me before I get back to London for hard squad sessions in the final weeks before heading to Kona.

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Setback

Posted on July 14, 2009 by lord_lordy

Setback09I really must get  a proper camera as my phone just doesn’t get nice sharp photos. The picture today is of my aero bar setup on my road bike. I’d put Oval stems on both my road and TT bike so I could use their modula approach to get quite a neat set up. Above you can see I’ve got aero bars without losing any of the nice hand positions on my road bars. I’ve used pipe lagging wrapped in bar tape for arm rests directly on the bar. These are super comfortable when riding sat up with hands on the bars as it gives a nice big padded grip for my large hands. It’s also AOK when down and aero. One of the reasons it’s so comfy when riding aero is that the elbow pads are more or less the exact same height as the end of the aero bars. I’m very tempted to try this out on my TT bike but unfortunately despite my choosing oval on both bikes allow easy switching of setup I went and got standard bars on one and oversize on the other. A real over sight on my part. Can’t decide whether to just switch the TT to oversize and sell the bars, stem and faceplate… This lack of consistency really niggles me.

On to the title of the post. Unfortunately I’ve had my first set back. I’m not running again. This was to be expected trying to rehab from such an injury but despite expecting something like this it’s gutting when it happens. I’ve got suspected capsulitis of the 3rd metatarso phalyngeal joints. Funny how getting an injury improves your medical vocabulary. This is inflammation of the joint between my middle toe and the metatarsal bone. It means I feel discomfort as I push off walking and running. It’s probably brought about by trying to avoid pushing off with my big toe. I can tell I’m doing this because when i put my foot on the floor I’m automatically trying to hold the big toe off the ground.

Last week I didn’t do any biking or running for a couple of days to let it die down. No running for a further day but when i tried running after that it was not great at all. So for now I’m not running at all. It’s settling down but is not better. The good thing is that cycling doesn’t seem to present a problem. I’m getting referred back to my consultant so he can take a look. The chances are I will need to work with a podiatrist to get my gait correct again before I start running.

With only 12 weeks to Kona I am adjusting my thoughts for this season. I will view anything I achieve as a bonus but the real target has to be next year. The important thing is not to apply any pressure to rehab this too quickly. It needs to get fixed properly.

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Zonked

Posted on July 2, 2009 by lord_lordy

ZonkedPretty pleased with myself. Managed to get myself so exhausted that this morning at Regents Park I was purely going through the motions in order to have a catch up with Gabriel over breakfast before he heads off for Ironman Switzerland. I was on my fixed which in one sense was wise (it forced me to pedal) but mainly it was a bad choice as it was pretty painful forcing my legs round. I feel like I’m getting back in to it when I’ve managed to get myself this dog tired !

I’ve managed a couple of solid days in the saddle. On Tuesday I cycled out and met Russell for late morning coffee. Ended up with a steady paced ride of 124 miles in 7 hours. Then yesterday I’d  agreed to meet Roger at 9:30 for breakfast. Pretty sociable hour you’d think but not when it’s 67 miles away. Alarm off at 4:30am on bike by just after 5am going through London pre traffic. Very nice. At about 50 miles I just had to stop for a bacon sarnie and coffee. Then I got a puncture and had to hammer the last 15 miles. Pleased I was only a couple of minutes late. We chatted and I felt I’d rather bigged myself up about how my riding was going so felt obliged not to be the one slowing the pace when we set off. It was a fair old crack at 90 minutes when Roger had to turn back I was pleased to be able to ease up. Ended up with 140 miles in just over 8 hours.

Unfortunately that wasn’t the end of my day. I had to run to swimming, bringing my run mileage for the week so far to 15 ! Then had a 90 minute swim session before heading to the pub for drinks. I was home in bed by about 12:30 so when my alarm went off at 5am this morning I wasn’t in the best position to ride my fixed. All in all pretty pleased that I’ve handled it and am taking it easy today and pretty light training tomorrow to give myself a chance.

Doing all my running now in my vibram FiveFingers and love it. At the moment I find it difficult to imagine running in anything else. We will see.

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Mid Summer Madness

Posted on June 26, 2009 by lord_lordy

TMidSummerMadness09.jpghis Thursday morning we did another Regents Park 100 miler. This is the fourth time but the last time was a bit of an Epic . The memory of that morning brings a smile to my face and I love telling the story… the day I completely detonated) which made me slightly nervous entering this one as Gabriel had even more ambitious targets: start at 1:30am and ride it continuously at an average of 20 mph. We kicked off bang on time with Gabriel putting in a fine effort for the first 2 to 3 hours. He did more or less all the pulling on the front with me doing at most a lap here and there. Our average was slowly creeping up above 20 and I was feeling pretty good. Certainly felt I should conserve my energies sitting in so I could do my bit later on. Jo was hanging in for a load of laps and then taking an easy one, this certainly helped relieve the monotony. As we closed in on the 100 miles I did more and more pulling on the front, it got ever more painful but I was able to push hard for the last 10 miles or so and we got finished in 4:46. We were chuffed to bits, it was made even better that we’d done it none stop and all in the same direction. I’d had a pretty upset tummy for the first 3.5 hours and during the whole ride had one gel and a swig of water. I must admit I felt pretty ill and it took time and effort to force down my full English I’d been so looking forward to.

My feet were very sore following that effort but it certainly showed that my bike fitness is getting right back there. Especially as this was after a 146 mile ride on Tuesday.

I’ve just finished reading “Bad Science” by Ben Goldacre. A really good thought provoking book and quite an eye opener about some other books I’ve read. It got me hooked early on when discussing science teaching in schools and how he has hope by the trickle of emails he gets from kids about poor teaching. I’ve never been one for this drink regular small amounts of water or drink before you’re thirsty as by then it’s too late theory. This just didn’t make sense to me. How could our thirst and our natural instincts be so wrong. I must admit when I’m at race venues in the run up to races and I see nearly all the athletes permanently with a water bottle taking small sips regularly I can’t help wondering whether any think this through for themselves. Well, it didn’t make sense to me but an email from a kid articulated it even better. This is a quote from page 20 of the above book:

“I’d like to submit to Bad Science my teacher who gave us a handout which says that ‘Water is best absorbed by the body when provided in frequent small amounts’. What I want to know is this. If I drink too much in one go, will it leak out of my arsehole instead?   ‘Anton’, 2006”

Jo has seen me go for hours riding and not drink a thing and then knock back a couple of litres in one go to no ill effects yet she is someone that always has a water bottle and hardly seems to go 5 minutes without a sip so I asked her why. She didn’t because she felt uncomfortably if she drank a lot in one go. So perhaps I’m doing all those ‘sippers’ at race briefings a disservice in my mind …. though to be honest it always helps my state of preparation to see it. I guess, most of us like to be different in our own little ways. Also, quenching a raging thirst has to be one of lifes great pleasures.

Earlier this week I did a couple of talks to school kids at their “Celebration of Achievement” evenings. I talked about Ironman and what it takes to achieve in that field and how that relates to any goal you’re setting yourself. I started with a description of a training day and must admit looking out at the audience I felt a lot of parents thought I was a nutcase. It seemed well received and I thoroughly enjoyed it. There was some amazing talent on show as kids sang, danced, played piano and read their poetry. I also had to present certificates and shake everyones hand at least once. Jo had commented about some athletes not liking to shake  hands for fear of infection. Well… in just over 24 hours I must have shaken over 200 hands and now I have a bad enough cold to take today off from training. Now there’s some bad science. Having shook every students hand I was fascinated to find out which won the various “best” and “most improved” awards so I can only imagine how good it most make the teachers feel that spend so many years with them.

Jo is doing similar talks next week. She’s becoming an expert on the mental aspect of training having done a few talks at various places and written an excellent little piece on her Tri247 Column. I hope she touches on the aspects of goal setting and mental preparation for those goals in her talks.

Going to finish of this mish mash entry with my running. Yes I’m running, outdoors now. I ran to swimming on Monday morning. My usual 40 minute route took me 54 minutes and it felt absolutely terrible. It was made slightly better by managing a 5:07 400m TT in the session. Otherwise though it made me feel like there is a tonne of work ahead to get my running back. Then I ran on Wednesday and it was like Monday had re-awakened memories in my legs. It wasn’t that I was quicker, I wasn’t, it was just I felt 100 times more comfortable. Really taking it steady though and have not run since then and won’t till Sunday at the earliest.

By the way, the photo above has no relevance to the entry but I’m in the habit of including a photo. Recently I’ve been wearing Hawaii cycle jerseys almost exclusively as it reminds me why I want to battle though this training now. The above photo is an Hawaii sunset and is included for the same reason.

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