Broken spoke creates resistance training!

So another week has gone by already, still not feeling 100% but still managed to get some training done. The highlight of the week has been today clocking 85 miles on a solo bike ride. I heard an awful sounding crack at 40 miles and on looking down seen a huge amount of play in the front wheel. I knew what it was straight away. The spoke had broke at the hub and was flapping around so I tried to bend it round another spoke until I got home. This wasn't happening so I bent the spoke enough to loosen it off and unscrew it from the nipple. Success! the spoke was out but the nipple was now rattling around freely within the wheel and of course the wheel was badly buckled. I loosened the brake off as much as I could but it was still creating resistance as it rolled. I initially thought of heading straight home which would still be 30 or so miles direct but as I cycled along I realised that I would be able to continue on the planned route. I finished the ride clocking 85 miles, I felt very strong at the end and would have liked to do another 10 miles but I had ran out of time and had to get home. This has been a big boost in my confidence and feel if I carry on at this rate I will be fine to do Ironman South Africa. I have had an easier week this week due to illness but still managed a 15 mile run earlier in the week and was very pleased to clock 59 minutes for a 3.5k swim. Confidence is growing with the fitness and I just hope to remain healthy and injury free. The problem I have now is that I am on Monday - Friday days for the next 5 weeks which I haven't done for a few years now. This means a total re-think of my training. Not sure how it will work out but time will tell I guess?

Colitis - Flare up

Well my body has decided to remind me that I suffer from Colitis this week. I felt ok at the start of last week and did a 17 mile run. That evening after entering the Ironman I had a not so good feeling deep in by bowel. Its hard to describe how it feels but its very uncomfortable, and a feeling I have come to know as the start of a "flare up". I thought I would try and ride it out without the use of the extra medication and just continue with the 3 doses a day of the standard medicine. Things seemed to be settling down again but then Saturday came and I just felt totally rubbish. I have given up holding out as I don't want things to get worse and have decided to take the extra medication. Hopefully this will settle things down quite quickly as I haven't got time to waste with the impending Ironman. The next concern is the extra medication kills off my immune system so I know that a cold/flu is on the way. Not ideal really but hopefully with it being now I will have time to get over it and get on with training. Another sad time in the life of Daz :-(

Ironman South Africa

OK, so now the secrets out my first and main event of the year will be Ironman South Africa. Both myself and Mat Stephenson have entered. Also Pete Norris from Cyprus has entered and for those who have served in Cyprus Haldane has also entered. Mat and I were planning to do Ironman Brazil but it filled up over the Christmas period. It would have been ideal as it was a month after the London Marathon and would have given us 5 months to train for it. We were disappointed when it filled up but we had a chat and decided it would have to be either South Africa or France. Mat didn't want to do France due to the amount of hills on the bike course, which left South Africa. The only down side I could point out was that it was on the 5th April and I thought it wouldn't leave enough time to train for it. So the day came and I decided to go for it, I entered with 84 days til race day. So the race is on now to be Ironman fit by April, the other concern is I will only have 3 weeks exactly to recover in time for the London Marathon. I will either be totally wasted for the marathon or it will feel easy without having to swim 2.4 miles and cycle 112 miles as a warm up! Other key races for 2009 will include the Dambuster, Inter-Services standard distance and middle distance, the Cleveland Steelman and Wensleydale Big Cheese which are middle distance, and a few sprints and olympics spread over the summer. All of these plans are subject to remaining healthy and injury free. This week has been another good week for training, highlights include a 60 mile ride and a 17 mile run plus all the other hours i've put in. I've been using the turbo quite a bit which surprises me and when using it i've been on the new time trial bike. I'm getting used to it and its feeling comfortable but i've not yet used it on the road. I haven't decided if I will use it for the Ironman or the sponsored bike from www.hilderthorpecycles.co.uk I will have to do some tests during training to see which I feel can offer the best balance of speed and comfort. Time will tell.

A quality week

Well this week has been a good week of training. No swimming though as the pool has been closed. The swimming starts again on Monday the 5th. I hope I can remember how to do it as I was never great at it in the first place!
Anyway on to the week just finished. I started on Saturday and did a 3 day stint, rested Tuesday and then trained another 3 days. I managed to get 9 hours 20 mins of biking and 40 miles of running in. This was broken down as follows,
Saturday 7.5 mile run A.M - 1 hour 40 turbo P.M
Sunday 10.8 mile run A.M - 1 hour 10 road ride P.M
Monday 3 hour road ride A.M - 4 mile run P.M
Tuesday Rest
Wednesday 7 mile run A.M - 1 hour turbo P.M
Thursday 6.2 mile run A.M
Friday 2 1/2 hour road ride A.M - 4.5 mile run P.M
This has been a good week and I hope I continue to get weeks like this through January and February. I now have a new plan for my "A" race this year after the disappointment of not getting an entry to the Brazil IM. I will know more in the next week or so, until then the "A" race is a secret. All will be revealed soon. I do have a couple of contingency plans should this not work out. Once I know I will post my season plans. The photo I will put on this blog later shows the bike after Fridays ride. I hate winter!! It was gleaming and oiled about half an hour later. I also decided that I would order some decent quality winter gloves as I am now fed up of cold fingers! the Aldi cheap gloves just don't cut the mustard. Some nice new Seal Skins are in the post now!

Christmas Bling

Just a quick post with a photo of the Christmas presents. Lovely blingy silver Specialized shoes and a Silver Met Pac aero helmet which Anthea bought as a surprise. I chose the shoes myself. They will match the bikes perfectly.

On another note the plans for IM Brazil have gone out of the window after they filled the last 430 slots over Christmas. I'm a bit pi$$ed off about it to be honest. I will need to have a re-think about next season now and come up with a new plan.

The highs and lows of 2008

Well as 2008 draws to an end it seems appropriate to reflect on the highs and lows of the year. The year started with a flier having ran a P.B at the Fleet Half Marathon of 1hr 16min 44secs. I thought this was the start of great things to come and was looking forward to the London Marathon. Unfortunately the end of March was to bring the of a rather serious bout of illness. By the time I got to London for the marathon (despite the doctors advice not to run) I had already been seriously ill with internal bleeding and severe diarrhea. I decided I would run anyway and just planned for toilet stops. The race did not go to plan and went from bad to worse and I ended up walking most of the last 6 miles. I was very ill afterwards and just a few days later was in hospital for some rather unpleasant internal examinations. By the end of April I had been diagnosed with Colitis and was on a huge amount of medication (22 tablets per day). I was fortunate in some respects that they managed to correctly diagnose the illness and also that I seemed to respond quite quickly to the medication. I would say this was the lowest time of the year but in a weird way the highest as this problem had been rearing its ugly head for many years and now seemed to be under control. By the second week in May I was firing on most of the cylinders and raced my first triathlon of the year at Driffield. It was a sprint and I seemed to fly. I finished in 4th but the top 4 were only separated by 13 seconds so all in a very close race. Next stop was the Dambuster and again I was in quite good form but struggled with the cold on the bike. The day after I did a sprint in Yorkshire and finished 2nd to a GB Elite under 23 team bloke. Things seemed to be getting better every time I raced. Next on the calendar was the Cleveland Steelman middle distance race. I had a great race here in horrendous conditions finishing 7th and a new P.B over the distance. This was followed a couple of days later by the Cranwell sprint champs. It was a good and a bad day. I had a good result finishing 3rd but a bad result as I threw the chance of 2nd away by forgetting where I was racked in transition and wasted about 2 mins looking for my stuff. The next event was the Inter-Service race at Tallington. Again I had a good race although I didn't enjoy it due to the road works having to stop at the traffic lights whilst watching the cheating Army team go straight through the red lights. I had an ok result though so can't complain too much. I followed this with another middle distance event, the Wensleydale Big Cheese. This was the hardest race of the year and I challenge anyone to take on this monster next year if they think they are up to a challenge. Yet again it was a top 10 finish for me. The final triathlon for me this year was the World Championships in Almere, Holland. This was over the 03 distance. The week before I had had some stomach problems which worried me, however things settled down with some medication but then I caught a bad cold. By race day and after boxes of paracetamol I was in good shape for the race. I had a great race and despite the extremely over long swim managed to P.B at this distance as well. I finished 10th in my age group but was more pleased with the 37th place overall. I have done a couple of running events since but have not really managed to get any decent training done since. I seem to have been so busy that training is very much here and there. I have had a couple of ok weeks the last 2 or so weeks and am starting to feel good again. Apart from the racing this year has also produced some great results in other areas. I have managed to pick up a great sponsor in the bike department with a fantastic bike from Paul at www.hilderthorpecycles.co.uk and some fantastic back up support and discounts with him also. I have also been fortunate enough to have been selected to be one of the recipients of the For Goodness Shakes sponsorship deal which was negotiated through the RAF Triathlon Team. So to sum up the year, I would say a very good one in most respects and not so good in others. I am on medication for the rest of my life as the Colitis will never go away, but it seems to now be under control (touch wood) and I am looking forward to next year. I hope everyone who has followed my blog this year has a great Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Daz

Bikes for sale

Both bikes are top of the range Giant TCR Advanced ISP (Integrated Seat Post). Both are full Dura-Ace 20 speed group sets, the T Mobile one has Dura-Ace wheels and the other comes with Mavic K-Syrium SL's not the carbons in the picture. The T Mobile is a size large and the other is a Medium/Large. Both are in excellent condition, the T Mobile has only covered about 500 miles and the other was new in July and has been used by me for the second half of the triathlon season including the World Champs. Contact me on 07771900778 for more info.