Beaver Pics and Stats

A few pics courtesy of Marc Preece (borrowed from his blog!) and a couple of stats.

Swim 33rd (happy with that as I claim not to be a swimmer) swim time was 32 mins which included the huge run to T1. (Only one person in the top 10 went sub 30!)

Bike 8th (only passed by 1 person so finally finding form)

Run 9th (took a lap to warm up but picked up for the last 3 laps)

Beaver Fest

It's the day after the Beaver Middle Distance. Legs not as bad as I thought!! So how was it?

This would be my first proper test of the fitness building up to the long course in August in Finland, and I am happy with the current fitness level.

The weather didn't look to friendly when I got up Saturday morning, I could hear the rain on the back door and could see it was windy too. When I got down to Belvoir Castle I met up with Pete and we went up and racked the bikes. Transition set I went back to the car and got changed into my superb XTERRA wetsuit (love it, its amazing to swim in) and we walked down to the lake, this turned into a brisk walk/jog as we were being called into the water for our wave to start. It was very crowded and when the klaxon sounded the first stretch up to the turn point was a bit of a battle. It settled down a bit after that and I got into a bit more of a rhythm. I felt good on the swim and the second lap picked up the pace. I exited the swim on 30 min 15 seconds by my watch which I was happy with as the course was technical with a lot of hairpin turns. For those that have done the course you'll know all about the run to transition but for those that don't it's about 3-400 meters up the field. I opted to strip the suit at the waterside and run with it and on arrival at T1 I popped the socks on to save doing it later for the run.

The start of the bike is hard on that course, it doesn't appear to be much of a hill but it's enough to stop you getting up to speed. You quickly hit the first decent but the cross wind made it interesting and then at the bottom you started the 3-4 mile straight which was into a hell of a headwind. I took a good 7 or 8 miles of the first lap to get going on the bike but then felt strong as I was passing lots of people. I continued to pass loads of people as there had been a wave in front of us made up of women and I think some of the young age groups. During the bike I only got passed once which boosted my confidence and it seems I'm finally getting the bike back to where it normally is for me. On arrival back in T2 I was very pleased to see just 9 bikes on the racks, I had a good transition and set off on the start of the 4 lap run.

The first lap I was beginning to think that I hadn't brought my running legs to the party, especially going up the hill as cramp kicked in to the front of the quads. Once up the hill I tried to get into a rhythm but was thinking it could be a long half marathon. Coming back down the hill seemed just as hard on the first lap but when I got onto the field to start lap 2 the runners legs arrived and I felt great. The next 3 laps up the hill were fine, after the first lap it was hard to tell where the 9 runners ahead of me were but I could see Pete each lap and he was holding his lead he had over me. By the 3rd lap I was almost sprinting down the hill and on the 4th lap I could see I'd made some time on Pete but not much. With about 500 meters to go I passed a guy I recognised from the first lap (he was leading on the first lap) and he offered no resistance, by the finish he was some 25+ seconds behind but he was later Dq'd anyway for a biking offence.

I finished 9th overall and 3rd in my age group. Pete managed 4th overall and was 6 minutes clear of me. I'm pleased with my race I feel it all went well and can't really pick fault with any of it, not very often that I'm happy with everything but the overall package is coming together nicely. No pictures yet but I think Marc Preece might have some so will post them when I get hold of them.

Lack of internet access = lack of blogging

Well the reason I haven't blogged for a while was the 2 week course i've been on and I had no internet as well as no tv, mobile signal etc. The course wasn't a difficult one and infact I had a lot of spare time and as a result probably over trained!!! Since getting back I've been a bit busy so today I finally get to update the blog.

Whilst at Collingwood I managed to swim (a lot) 12k on the first week and 10 on the second week. OK it might not be a lot to some people but for me that's a lot of swimming. I was in a bit of a catch 22 situation on the first week. Do I take advantage of the spare time and do a big week or keep things steady so as not to be to tired for the inter-service time trials at the weekend. I did train quite hard but felt OK for the 10 on the Saturday and the 25 on the Sunday.

The 10 was probably the most windy day I've ever raced, as a result the time was poor at 24:02 but then everybody was off the pace. I got back to Collingwood feeling very disappointed with the time. The 25 looked promising on arrival as there was no wind but about 10 minutes before the first rider the wind whipped up again. I did a 1:01 which again I was disappointed with but when I got back to the car I stuck the trainers on and ran a strong 10.5k and this cheered me up again. That afternoon back at Collingwood I popped out on the road bike for a steady 25 mile spin so a good days training.

I probably didn't ride anywhere near the miles I wanted to during the 2 weeks down there but felt very uninspired by the local terrain. It was just so busy all the time, even the morning I set off out at 0600 there was already tailbacks!!

On Saturday I met up with Pete Norris to check out the Beaver race route, we did 3 laps in practice for the race this weekend and then did a couple of laps of the run. I was reduced to walking the last mile due to fatigue but not from the morning alone but the fact I had ran Thursday late evening for 10 miles at sub 6 min miles for 9 of them only slowing down for the 10th mile to start cooling down, in fact mile 8 - 9 was ran at 5:40! as a result I would say that's why I was a little tired on the Saturday morning. Pete is in superb form and I predict a podium for him this weekend, as for me? who knows, its all just part of the game plan and a long build up towards the European champs in August.

Quick update

Wow I've been really rubbish at updating the blog lately. After a week in Germany with no Internet access and then a week of being too lazy I've just not been fussed about doing it. I've only just today got round to reading everyone Else's blogs too. So anyway just to update, while in Germany I did no biking and little running and that may have contributed to my poor performance at the IS duathlon. I had an OK first run but felt lifeless on the bike, I was going OK but lacking something and just had no pace. The second run was pants too, and I had cramp in both calves, I've never had this problem before and couldn't understand why. Was my performance due to lack of training? was I tired from the 10 hour drive back from Germany the day before? Who knows but something just wasn't right. Anyway I did manage 3 open water swims in the Mosel River in the new XTERRA wetsuit. Now I'm not just saying this due to sponsorship but it is awesome. I love it, it's just so much more flexible than my old suit. I did another ride at the weekend on the TT bike and still wasn't happy with the bike and on closer inspection noticed the seat post was set on number 6 instead of number 5 so was in fact 1cm lower than I normally have it. I must have set it up wrong after I got back from Lanzarote earlier this year, i've done 3 rides on it this week at the proper height and it feels much better. Hopefully that will not cause any more problems. I've joined Lincoln Tri Club now and did my first open water swim with them on Monday at Hykeham, its a good lake with an 800m circuit marked out so I just did 3 laps for my first week. I'm off to Portsmouth on a course on Sunday night so hoping to hook up with Turbo Man for a couple of rides. I was going to do the Isle of Wight next weekend while down there but I've now opted to do the Interservice time trials instead. On Saturday the 14th I will do the 10 mile TT and on Sunday the 15th its the 25 mile TT. I've not done any TT's for a long time especially the 25, my last one would have been 2004 in Cyprus. Be interesting to see how it goes.