Today I did
3:59:39 for the Icknield 100 mile time trial. That's 15 minutes better than
last year, in very similar conditions. And I'd have said that the 4:14 I did
last year wasn't bad. This year, I was on for 3:56 after 75 miles, but the
final 25 miles were tough. It nearly slipped away, but I squeaked under the 4
hour mark. A massive improvement.
AM, not PM...
Just before the start, fully loaded
Working up a hill
Aero... looking cool...?
Result
Tapping it out
More to
follow - I need to get to sleep!
UPDATE: More
below...
UPDATED: I’ve now got a Twitter account:
“The calm before the storm” would be a good description of
Saturday. The “calm” being the few hours between getting up and getting
everything ready for the Icknield 100 mile time trial “storm” on Sunday
morning. So, I used this time to set up a Twitter account…
This week was geared towards tapering for the Icknield 100
mile time trial. I did it last year, and was fairly satisfied with my 4:14:15
clocking in what were perfect conditions. I went through half distance last
year in 2:04, so I lost 10 minutes in the second half. It’s as fast a 100 as
you can get, being up and down the A1 dual carriageway: flat and smooth. It’s a
tougher second half, with the last 15 miles being off the A1 and on more
undulating roads. My 4:14 clocking last year translated into a 5:30 Ironman
bike at Ironman UK, and I got off the bike feeling strong. It wasn’t a ruinous
5:30, I still had plenty left.
I had hoped that this time around at Icknield, I would
improve on last year’s 4:14. I certainly hoped to get under 4:10, and thought
realistically I would do something like 4:07. I honestly felt that a sub-4 time
was maybe a little out of reach, and that if I wanted to do a sub-4, I would
have to commit to another year of training.
I thought about renting a disc wheel for Icknield, but there
were none available. I wasn’t too sorry, because not having a disc wheel gave
me a good opportunity to have a like-for-like comparison with last year. Plus,
I’m unlikely to race a disc at Ironman UK – the course is too twisty and hilly
to justify a disc. Discs are also prohibited at Kona for safety reasons, because
of the infamous crosswinds. However, at Icknield, a disc would be worth
something like ten minutes, so I thought that with a disc, a sub-4 clocking
might have been feasible.
Anyway, I felt I had trained well, I’d made some aero tweaks
to the bike and to my clothing, I’d got a Garmin with heart rate monitor, and I’d
learned some lessons from Norfolk two weeks ago. My plan was to cross my fingers
for good conditions and no bike-related problems, to get to the race
headquarters in good time, to do a good warm-up, and to arrive on the start
line well before my start time of 6:11am. I planned to ride conservatively for
the first half, keep an eye on my heart rate and cadence (I planned to keep my
cadence at around 90rpm and heart rate at around 150 beats per minute), and
leave a bit in the tank for the tough final 15 miles. I hoped not to lose too
much time in the second half of the race, compared with the ten minutes I lost
last year. I didn’t have a target average speed, I just planned to keep to the numbers
mentioned above, and let the average speed be whatever it would be – hopefully it
would be higher than last year’s 23.6mph.
The weather kept its side of the bargain – conditions were perfect,
if a little chilly in the early hours. Riders were starting at one-minute
intervals from 5:15am. I was off at 6:11am. I got to the start line with no
stress, having eaten well, prepared well and warmed up well. The guy who
started a minute in front of me went off like a man possessed, I told myself to
keep it nice and easy for the first hour. There’s plenty of time for it to get
tough. As I started, my heart rate was 85bpm – almost half of what it was when
I started Norfolk. A big difference.
And so I rode. During the first hour, my average speed built
from 23mph, then to 24, and as I went through 25 miles, I was just under the
hour. My heart rate was averaging around 153bpm and everything felt good. In
the second 25 miles, my overall average climbed higher still, to 25.4mph. My
heart rate was still under 160bpm. I went through half distance in 1:58, 6
minutes up on last year. But I knew all the hard work was still to come. I kept
telling myself to back off, kept eating, kept drinking, kept pedalling, kept standing
up every ten minutes, and kept going. The third 25 miles was still steady and
my overall average stayed at 25.4mph. My heart rate was climbing to over
160bpm, but I still felt reasonable. If I’d stopped at 75 miles, I wouldn’t
have been in the slightest bit fatigued.
Occasionally I would pass someone who started in front of me,
and occasionally, some of the real heavy hitters would pass me. These guys have
got amazing bikes, disc wheels, full skin-suits, power meters, uncompromising
aero positions, and they have the power and strength and endurance to match.
They probably don’t do Ironman triathlons though, but they do ride 100 miles in
3:30 or 3:40 or something.
After 75 miles I knew that I was going to be close to sub-4.
Sub-4 for the ton is a big barrier in itself, never mind that going under 4
hours would show that I was in great shape, and I remember saying to myself, “Now
we’ll see what you’re made of…” I knew how hard the last quarter of the ride
was from last year…
Every roundabout became a nightmare, hoping that no traffic
would break my rhythm. The traffic was building as the morning wore on. A flat
tyre at this stage would have been a tough thing to take. Eating and drinking
became tough. The heart rate crept up. The legs started to protest. After the
final left turn off the A1, the last 10 or so miles are on smaller, more
undulating roads. There are two “mini laps” of about 5 miles each to finish. My
average speed was creeping in the wrong direction: 25.4mph, 25.3mph, 25.2mph,
please don’t go to 25.1mph, come on legs, give me more speed, but they don’t,
you can’t, you are fading, grit the teeth, keep pumping those pedals, stay in
the aero position.
With 5 miles to go there is a horrible, horrible hill, maybe
only 30 seconds to get up it, but it feels like forever, crawling up at 12mph
or something. Usually I’m good at getting back up to speed after a hill, but
the speed didn’t want to come. The legs weren’t sharp. Another mini lap of this
torture, come on, 5 to go. 4 to go. Come on legs. Come on. Average drops to
25.1mph. No more margin left, 3 miles to ride. Heart rate pushing 170bpm. It’s
not every day you have a chance to get under 4 hours for the ton. Come on. 2
miles to go. Up the slip road. Another hill. The Garmin reads 3:58:something. 180bpm.
The finish is close. But so far. I’m still at 25.1mph average, but my current
speed is just over 20mph. This is going to be close. Scowl. Grit teeth. Push. Come
on. There it is. 3:59:something. Another 15 seconds and I’m there. I cross the
line. Sub 4! 3:59:39. Awesome! But damn, that last 15 miles were tough going.
In Flanders earlier this year I spent ten euros on a pair of
aero shoe covers. I wore them at Icknield, and it’s feasible that they could
have made the difference between my 3:59:39 time, and a slower-than-4 time. Ten
euros well spent!
It’s a 4 mile “warm down” to the race HQ. I don’t have much
left. I’m in pain. I’m making funny grunting noises. But I’ve done sub 4! I “only”
lost 3 minutes on the second half, so it was well paced and far better than
last year. I cruise very slowly back to the race HQ and recover on the way. I
get the bike into the car and get away for a run. I hope to do about 30 minutes.
The first mile passes OK, heart rate at 140 and pace at 7:30/mile. A perfect
replication of how I want my Ironman marathon to start. Then I feel a twinge in
my gut. And now comes some toilet talk… I need the toilet, and it’s not a pee… I
learned the hard way in Bolton last year at Ironman UK that these toilet urges
can become disastrous in a very, very short space of time. So I do a U-turn and
start to head back to the race HQ. The toilet is maybe 8 minutes away. Nope, I’m
not going to make it. So I resort to the bushes, and jog/walk back.
I wasn’t too worried about this for reasons that are
described using more toilet talk. The “pre-race dump” is a term that’s often
used and indeed discussed amongst cyclists, runners and triathletes, and I’m
sure among other sportspeople too. Normally, I would make sure in the week(s)
before a big event that my pre-race dumps are properly timed so that my guts
are totally emptied about an hour before a race start. My pre-race dump this
time hadn’t been properly timed for 5am, like it will be for the Ironman. That,
combined with the tough sub-4 effort (a much tougher effort than I will do on
the Ironman bike) made me need to go pretty soon after getting off the bike. But
no worries, I can manage it better at Ironman UK. I still did sub-4… nothing
was taking the shine off that. 15 minutes faster than last year in what was as
accurate a like-for-like comparison as it could have been.
I hung around the race headquarters until they posted the
results on a big board, and I took a photo of it. Then it was back home to a
quick round of applause from my housemate Steve, I dropped the gear off, left
the rental car back, made dinner, did my washing, ironing, had a shower, and
got to bed as early as possible. I got to bed at 9pm, and was absolutely and
totally zonked until the alarm went off at 6:22am for work the next day.
I’ve since had a bit of time to digest this sub-4 and consider
the implications. I’m not easily pleased, but I’m pleased with sub-4. It was
better than I was expecting. It’s a sign that the training is paying off,
along with all the other things too – the strict diet, sacrifices, osteopathy,
equipment tweaking, core strength work, stretching and everything else.
If I did another 100 next year in similar conditions with a
disc wheel and with the advantage of some power meter data to work with, and with
an out-an-out aerodynamic time-trial bike position rather than a compromised
Ironman bike position (to allow me to run well off the bike), there’s no reason
why I couldn’t do 3:45 or better for 100 miles.
At Icknield last year, I did 4:14 which translated into a 5:30
bike at Ironman UK, and I felt great getting off the bike and starting the run.
A 3:59 clocking at Icknield this year, with a similar translation to the Ironman
UK bike time, would see me biking something like 5:10. The pro that finished 5th
overall at Ironman UK in 2013 biked 5:10.
Last year at Bolton, I swam 55 minutes, biked 5:30 and was on
target for a 3:15 marathon at 16 miles before I had to pull out with sudden
vomiting and diarrhoea. Adding a conservative ten minutes for transitions, and
assuming that in the final ten miles my marathon pace would have stayed
constant (perhaps a false assumption), then I would have finished in 9:50. My
age group (25-29) last year was won in 9:47, so I have reason to believe that I
could have won my age group last year. 10:10 would have qualified for Kona in
my age group last year at Ironman UK. In Wales 5 weeks later, I missed out on
qualifying by one position.
In my current shape, if I had done Bolton last year with a
swim of 55 minutes, a bike of 5:10 and a run of 3:15, I would have finished
somewhere between 9:30 and 9:35. This would have won the 30-34 age group (the
age group which I will compete in this year), and I think it would have been the
first of the non-pro finishers.
So, I know I am in shape and I know I have a good chance of
getting that elusive Kona slot. It’s frustrating that the Ironman UK bike
course has changed this year, at fairly short notice. Some of it is the same,
but it’s now a 2-lap course, so I can’t do a like-for-like comparison with last
year and base this year’s target bike time on last year’s. The two-lap bike
course has facilitated an extra 400 competitors, but there are no extra Kona
slots. And I can’t control the weather, or getting a flat tyre. Neither can I
control who turns up to race – it could be that my age group turns out to be
really competitive, and even if I execute as good a race as I possibly can, it
may not be good enough.
But at least I know I am in good shape, Icknield confirmed
that. If I’d done 4:08 in Icknield, I’d still have been thinking I have a
chance, but not a great chance. A 3:59 means I’m entitled to think I have a
good chance. If I was still competing in the 25-29 age group, I would have a
really, really good chance, but the fact that I turn 30 (what?!??!?!) at the
end of the year puts me in the 30-34 age group and reduces my chances a bit.
I just need to get through the next 6-and-a-bit weeks, have a
few more tough training weeks, keep everything together, not get injured or
sick, hopefully not go on any trips, not lift anything heavy and keep my
fingers crossed. I got through it last year, so I know I can do it. It’s tough
though, so near and yet so far. So much effort put in. So much to lose. High stakes.
Pressure. The sub-4 was a good boost and a reward for the effort. I hope the
next 6-and-a-bit weeks goes well, and that the Ironman goes well. If they do,
and if it does, I reckon I’ve got a good chance of qualifying. So near and yet
so far…
I haven’t yet found any photos from Icknield, but they will
follow.
Training this week was as follows:
Monday 26th May 2014: 2:10 turbo, 30 min run
Tuesday 27th May 2014: Rest
Wed 28th May 2014: Rest
Thursday 29th May 2014: 30 min turbo, 20 min run
Friday 30th May 2014: Swim 3km, 40 min bike
Saturday 31st May 2014: Rest
Sunday 1st June 2014: Icknield 100 mile time trial (3:59:39) plus warm up/down, 2 mile run
Tuesday 27th May 2014: Rest
Wed 28th May 2014: Rest
Thursday 29th May 2014: 30 min turbo, 20 min run
Friday 30th May 2014: Swim 3km, 40 min bike
Saturday 31st May 2014: Rest
Sunday 1st June 2014: Icknield 100 mile time trial (3:59:39) plus warm up/down, 2 mile run
Totals: Swim 3km, Bike 170 miles, Run 10 miles
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