A couple of races with decent results at last

Last week was the RAF Sprint Championships at RAF Cranwell. For me it meant finishing a night shift, driving for 2 1/2 hours to Cranwell, racing and then driving home for a shower, shave, and then driving back to work for another night shift. A bit of a tiring day!
So the race, I found out I was in wave 22 of 23 waves along with Mat, Brad and JC. Its the first triathlon that JC has been at with me since our trek down to Ironman France. I had a terrible swim, including T1 (which was slick) I was 7:19 which I'm not happy about. This left me a large gap to close on the bike which fortunately I managed to do. I thought it was Mat I was catching on the bike but couldn't be sure until I got close enough to recognise the M dot tattoo on his calf. I thought it best to make sure I passed him as fast as I could and to look smooth as well (its all about mind games) so he would think he couldn't catch me and pass me back. At the same time the same plan was being used on JC as well. I got to the turn and seen I had a gap on them so pushed hard back too. I arrived back at T2 surprised that I hadn't caught Brad. I had another good transition and set off on the run to get Brad. It took a while and when I passed him I had about 1500m to go so worked at a comfortable rate all the way back. The result was 4th overall which was a good result for me especially after doing the night shift.

This weekend was the Ripon Triathlon (Black Sheep) run by the NYP Tri club. I had a faff getting there and only just made it on time to register. After setting up I went through my kit to double check everything. The race was split into three waves based on your swim time, the fastest swimmers were in wave 1, then wave 2 and 3 all 5 mins apart. I was in wave 1 and when we started I struggled through the weeds, when I got into clearer water I settled into a good pace but got caught up in weeds again at the top of the course. I exited the swim on 24:54 which I wasn't impressed with. Leaving T1 I heard the race commentator through the loud speaker, I was in 106th place. I worked hard on the bike passing lots of people but inevitably there were people trying to draft off my wheel. I told them where to get off but they still tried it on. I made great progress through the field and on hitting T2 I heard the loud speakers say I was in 16th (that means I passed 90 people on the bike!!!). I did a 1:07:01 for the 44km rolling bike course. I tried to run hard but couldn't lift my pace although I wasn't going slow! I made up a couple of places and finished 11th overall. I ran a 41:15 for the 10k (I know it was long so not worried) as the winner only did a 37:43 and he normally runs a 32 min 10k. Pleased with the finish but disappointed with my swimming at the moment. I am looking forward to the Inter-Service race as the bike is 50k which will make up for my poor swimming!

Off to swim across the river Humber on Sunday afternoon, it should be a good experience swimming near to the Humber bridge, it will provide a quite unique view of the bridge.

Finally got a couple of things lined up this month

I've now got a couple of things to do this month to keep me going. Next week I am going to attempt to get to Cranwell for the sprint champs, this is provisional as I am on nights the night before and will have to drive down straight off the night shift, do the race and drive straight back to do another night shift. A couple of days later I have the Black Sheep triathlon at Ripon race course. The week after that I am taking part in a swim across the river Humber. This is not a race its a group swim as we will be escorted across the river by the life boat due to the health and safety issues with the swim as the river is very busy and has an extremely strong current. I can't wait to do this as its a very rare opportunity. A week later I have a 100 mile sportive ride that I did last year and a few days later its the Inter-services at Sherbourne. All in a busy few weeks. Can't wait for the weekend for the tour to start as well :-)

Oh dear a month with no posts, sorry.

Wow it really has been a full month with no posts? I don't really know why but I've just lost my way lately and not been focused on much to do with triathlon or anything else for that matter. After Driffield I did train for a couple of weeks, and then went on holiday to Lanzarote with Anthea to celebrate her birthday so I was under strict instructions that the bikes were to stay at home!! I was very happy to see that our hotel http://www.princesayaiza.com/ had a very large pool (my guess is 35 meters) so that was great for training, I did swim training 4 times during the holiday. I also found a great run which involved a climb to the top of a volcano which had a track around the top, this was approximately a 10k run but with lots of climbing as you can see in the pics taken from the top. We hired a bike on 1 of the days we were there and Anthea and I did an 80km ride taking in some of the Ironman route. Anthea had a Giant TCR and I had a Trek. By the last day of the holiday I was starting to get stomach cramps and the day we flew home I felt quite ill. This was the start of another 10 day period of Colitis problems. I have worked out that I have probably been ill in total for at least 5 of the last 12 months. This has been the main contributing factor to my lack of drive and motivation of late. The other contributing factors have been that I got totally screwed over by the promotion board (again) due to the wan**r techies getting all the slots thanks to the ridiculous joint trade I now work in. Also the next race on my calender got cancelled which didn't help, and the following event I was planning to do (The Cleveland Steelman) I can't race as the organisers are ****** (you fill in the blanks). I emailed them over 3 weeks ago to ask if I could have someone Else's slot as he wouldn't be going. I had no reply so I emailed again this week and they replied this time saying you can't have someone Else's slot and the event is now full! great!! So whats next, well unless I get some races sorted out its the Vitruvian in September?

I do have some positives from the last 10 days, I ran 10.1 miles from Fylingdales to Whitby over the very hilly roads on the Yorkshire moors in a charity event for Help for Heroes and clocked 58 minutes. I also ran a 9.8k training run at home in 34:14. I have done a couple of club time trials on the bike too and seem to be going well in those.

The photos are me in the pool on holiday, a view from the top of the volcano I was running up, the trainers now pink due to the dust from the run up the volcano, me at the top and the bike I hired for the day.

Driffield Sprint Tri

Having completed the London Marathon I started running on the Wednesday (3 days after the race) and the thighs were still tight but moving OK so I ran on the Thursday as well. I felt OK and just did 4 miles. On Friday I woke with severe pain in my right foot. I walked the dog and had to keep stopping to take the weight off the foot. It was very painful and very worrying. I got to the Tuesday and it was still giving me lots of problems so I went up to the hospital to get it checked out. I was told it was a damaged tendon. I rested it for a week and then it seemed better. I did a couple of 3 mile runs and it was holding up so tried 10k which went well for 5 miles but the last mile it was sore. I rested it a couple more days and tried again and it seemed OK. This took me up to the Driffield triathlon with little running since the marathon. I arrived at Driffield in a confident mood as I was sure I could swim sub 6 mins for the 400m and I was biking well in the cycle clubs TT's but was unsure how the run would go. I started in wave 10 of 12 as last year I had to slow down a couple of times to let faster swimmers past and didn't want to do that again so put a slower swim time on the registration form. This turned out to be a mistake as I was first out of the water in my wave. I didn't check my time but i'm sure it was sub 6 as including the quite long run to T1 I was 6:27. I had a great transition but new the bike was going to be hard as I had no one to chase being first out the water. The roundabout was the only place I had competition as I had to stop for traffic and a rider behind managed to get past as I set off again. No problem as we then started the climb and I soon passed him and left him behind. As we got back to the roundabout on the return leg I had chance to see how far behind others were but couldn't see anyone behind. I got back to T2 and had another fast one. I set off on the run and felt strong but knew I wasn't as fast as I should be. I think looking at the times the run was long as all of the top 5 ran 19:50 and over. I finished in 5th overall and 3rd in my age group. The 4 who beat me were in the last wave of the day. Maybe if I was in that wave I could have caught them and finished higher, but then maybe not? I will never know. I'm pleased with the result as I havn't really done the short fast stuff after preparing for an early season Ironman and then the London Marathon. Next event is the Allerthorpe sprint, this is open water so a mass start and a chance to chase the leaders knowing that anyone in front has to be caught!

I love the smell of rapeseed in the morning!

I managed my first long ride since IM SA this morning. It was warm but overcast and quite windy but a great day for cycling. I did a rolling route with quite a few hills in it. I cycled for 3 hours and loved it, a great soundtrack was playing with a selection of tunes on the ipod. I love this time of year because every few miles you get the lovely smell of rapeseed growing in the fields and the view is always great with the bright yellow fields. Pictured is the fantastic TCR Advanced supplied by Paul at http://www.hilderthorpecycles.co.uk/

Cycling club 10 mile hilly time trial

Well just back from the Bridlington cycle clubs first event of the year. A ten mile hilly time trial. It was a great night for it, pi$$ing down with rain and very cold. I opted for the standard time trial bike, so no deep carbon wheels and no pointy aero helmet, and I also opted for the extra baggy waterproof coat to be as aero as possible! I was off number 10 and the legs somehow managed to do an ok job really. I clocked a 26:34 (winner was 24:20). I was speaking to one of the local lads about how the course compares to a flat 10 for time and he reckons about 3 mins off the times clocked tonight. Happy with that, lots of room for improvement, warmer weather, all the aero gear on and not doing a marathon 2 days before, I reckon I could have a good race on the 17th May at the Driffield Sprint Tri.

London Marathon

I went to London with an open mind and playing my cards close to my chest. I decided not to tell anyone my target time as it only leads to questions if you don't make your predicted time. I can now tell you I had gone with two targets in mind. I had hoped for a 2 hour 55 min race time as the first target, and secondly I was aiming just to be able to run the whole race without any stops and no walking. So for those that know already I didn't hit the target time and ended up with 3 hours 3 mins but I did achieve the other objective and managed to run the whole way with no stopping. This might sound like a silly objective but given the results at the Fleet half and Ironman South Africa I was under pressure (only from myself) to get a good result. I was a bit ill after the race, I had tingling up both arms and legs and even my face was tingling, I lay down at the meet up point but half an hour later I was told I looked very ill and was pale with blue lips. I sat up and felt sick, I had to run behind a bush and was sick 3 times. I felt rotten for a couple of hours but slowly got better and by 8:30 that night I enjoyed a nice take away curry and a beer. I am happy with the way the race went really given that it was only 3 weeks since the Ironman. At the end of the day I suppose 3hrs 3 min is not a bad time anyway but I now need to get over the marathon and focus on the next race, the Driffield sprint triathlon. It will be a bit strange doing such a short event after the start I've had to the year and I'm looking forward to it.