Post 107 - 2015 review, 2016 preview

2015 was ultimately not a great year. Same as the past few years. I wanted to qualify for Kona and I didn’t manage to do it. That’s the long and short of it.

High points from this season included:

• A sub-18 minute beach run back at home in January following a couple of disappointing Christmas races (meaningless to most people but the second-fastest time I've ever ran the beach, and I've ran it hundreds of times)
• A good run at the Northern Ireland and Ulster cross-country championships, I placed twelfth overall and my club won the team prize.
• A good run at the Garioch 10K in Aberdeenshire.
• Convincing myself I was in 32-minute 10K shape in late April, and realising that I can get my running back to the level it was at in 2006 (but to do this will require a lot less Ironman training and a lot more specific running training).
• A decent showing at the Bristol triathlon (Olympic distance).

Low points were obvious:

• Ironman UK
• Ironman Wales

Both were terrible. I’m not a cold/wet weather athlete as I am naturally very lean, and I was extremely lean going into Ironman UK. I froze in the monsoon conditions at Ironman UK and couldn’t perform. Hands frozen, core frozen, feet frozen, head frozen. I found it almost impossible to control my bike, and to feed myself on the bike. Then the run was a complete nightmare. The only reason I bothered to finish it at all was because I had 9 people who came to support me, and as bad a day as it was for me, it was probably just as bad for them. 

Then, I wasn’t well in the run-up to Ironman Wales (I think because my body was just completely ruined after 9 months of really intense effort) and I ended up puking horribly in the swim (literally full body convulsive vomiting, literally almost puking my entire digestive system up), getting really cold, and got brought ashore in a lifeguard boat. Not fun.

I’ve had a bad winter in terms of training. I have been lacking motivation, there is a huge amount of uncertainty about my job, and honestly I am not sure how long I can continue to live the lifestyle that trying to qualify for Kona demands. I’d like to succeed at life in general. For me, a big goal was to try and qualify, and doing so would have been succeeding at life. But as the years have passed, I’ve had to sacrifice a lot for Ironman and the “succeeding at life” idea has become a bit overshadowed by the “succeeding at qualifying” idea. I’m not sure how much longer I want to put the other aspects of “succeeding at life” on hold.

I’ve argued it through with myself and I will be giving it another crack at Ironman UK in 2016. I thought about going out to do the Ironman in South Africa in March 2016, where there are more qualifying slots available (75 slots at South Africa versus 40 at UK, which means top 7 or 8 versus top 3), but decided against this due to the expense. I would be going to South Africa assuming I would then also have to pay for a big trip to Hawaii. I haven’t got a limitless budget. 

Email received after entering Ironman UK.
It may as well say "Congratulations, you have paid to sign another year of your life away..."
Hopefully I'll get the end result and it will all be worth it.

I thought about taking a year off Ironman racing, getting some stability in my personal and professional life and then coming back to it in 2017, but I ruled this out because I want to do it while I’m still in the groove and while I’m still living in such a great house for training. I think it would be a difficult thing to leave and come back to. I thought about packing it in completely, but then I thought to myself, “Is that how I want to leave it, puking my guts up over a lifeguard canoe with a big dirty DNF at Ironman Wales 2015?” I have the ability to execute a good Ironman race. I want to do it and fulfil whatever Ironman potential I tell myself that I have.

I recently read Chris Hadfield's book. He's an astronaut and has been very focused and dedicated to achieving his astronaut goals. He wrote the following in his book:

He could have been a triathlete

So, Ironman UK 2016. I know I can continue to learn and improve and implement new strategies for 2016.

Some lessons I would learn from 2015 (and 2014 and 2013 etc), and some changes I would make to my training and racing strategy for a future Ironman race are as follows:

• Do not overtrain.
• Have one extra rest day per week, because recovery is so important. 
• Stay fresh.
• Do not build up for 7-8 months at high intensity level and expect to be fresh going into a race. 4-5 months is plenty.
• Try to be a couple of kilos heavier going into a race. Be strong and fuelled, not bare bones. 67kg is bad. 70kg is good.
• Widen the aero bar arm pads on my bike to open up the chest when in the aero position on the bike, to help with better breathing and to help to keep the heart rate low.
• Keep warm on the bike, wear two tops and gloves if necessary.
• If it’s raining, make sure I start the bike dry, and make sure I keep my core and hands warm and dry during the bike. This also applies to the start of the run.
• Make sure I am not cold before the start and when getting into the water to start the swim.
• Get a horizontally mounted front aero bottle instead of a vertically mounted one, to improve aerodynamics.
• Prepare properly for bad weather.
• Train outdoors on the bike at least some of the time, don’t do most/all of my bike training indoors on the turbo trainer.

During a good training week in the past, I’d have done the following:

• 2 hard swims, 3 hard bikes, 1 easier bike, 2 hard runs, 2 easier runs. Plus weights and core work and stretching several times per week, with one day of complete rest per week. 

I would now change this to:

• 1 hard swim, 1 easy swim, 2 hard bikes, 1 easier bike, 1 hard run, 1-2 easier runs. Plus weights and core work and stretching.

This would give me two full rest days per week, and would remove 3 hard sessions per week, giving me far more opportunity to recover and stay fresh.

So a week in previous years, and a week next year, looks like this, with the weekly session number in brackets:

Day	Session in previous years	Session next year
Monday	Rest (0)	Rest (0)
Tuesday	60-80 minute hard turbo bike (1) AND Short easy run (2)	60-80 minute hard bike (1) OR 60-80 minute bike intervals (1) (both with some single leg drills)
Wednesday	30-50 minute fartlek run (3)	30-40 minute fartlek run (2) OR 1 hour tempo run (2)
Thursday	70-90 minute turbo bike intervals (4)	Rest (2)
Friday	Swim 3000-4000m (sprints) (5) AND 60 minute turbo bike (single leg drills) (6)	Swim 3000-4000m (sprints) (3)
Saturday	3-6 hour turbo bike (7) AND Short easy run (8)	3-4 hour turbo bike (4) OR 3-5 hour outdoor bike (4) AND Short easy run (5)
Sunday	Swim 3000-4000m (continuous/drills) (9) AND Long run (2+ hours) (10)	Swim 2000m easy (6) AND Long run (2+ hours) (7) OR Run interval session (7)

Ignoring the weights and core work sessions, in previous years I did 10 swim/bike/run sessions per week, with one day of rest. Next year I’d plan to do 7 swim/bike/run sessions per week, with two days of rest per week. This will hopefully help to keep me fresh, strong, non-depleted and should still be enough to get me to the level I need to get to.

In the past couple of years, the start of January saw the start of intense focused training for summer Ironman races. This has been a 7 month build up to Ironman UK and a 9 month build up to Ironman Wales. Far too much. I’ve felt that I’ve peaked in May or June, and after that I have just fought my way through to the big important races in a state of chronic fatigue. It has been said that you are better to be 10% undercooked than 1% overcooked going into an Ironman. I can see the truth in this, and I’d say I was a lot more than 1% overcooked on previous occasions.

Athletic targets for 2016 are:

• Do a good Ironman 
• Qualify for Kona.
• Compete well at Kona.
• Try to go sub-2 hours at an Olympic distance triathlon.
• Try to run a sub-33 minute 10K.
• Run well at the Northern Ireland and Ulster Cross Country championships (although this will require some thought as to how to fit it into my training plan).

Hopefully circumstances (mainly employment circumstances), and a sensible training plan, will allow these goals to become reality.

Post 106 - Yadda yadda yadda

It seems the body (my body) works best when it is working, consistently. Getting the blood circulating, getting things moving, being active, making myself tired. Stagnation is not good. In relative terms, the last couple of months have been pretty stagnant. I’ve still been training, just not with much focus.

I went out one night recently to do hill repeats. I’m trying to bring my running fitness back up again. A few weeks ago I did 6 hill repeats, then a week or two later I did 8, then 10, and then I was up to 12. It was a dirty, wet, cold, windy night. The ground was a bit slippery. I had to layer up. But I went out and forced myself through it. The times weren’t very fast, but anyway, it was about just getting through it than trying to be fast on a night like that. Earlier in the year, I did 14 of these hills, averaging about 68 seconds. I was averaging about 74 seconds on this occasion.

I got through it, jogged back to the house, had dinner, and went to bed. And the next day, I was sniffly and sneezy. The body didn’t like the previous night’s training and conditions one bit. And now it was telling me so. Urgh.

I turned down the flu jab at work. I had it one year a few years back, and it knocked me for six. I felt terrible for days afterwards. I’m not convinced about it when they have to ask you if you are allergic to hens, feathers and eggs before they give it to you. I wonder what is in it… shredded feathers and blended eggs? So I’ll go without and hope for the best, but as usual I sit on the train twice a day and hate every sneeze, every sniff, every cough, every minute in fact. I’ve tried to use my train time well and have written most of this blog on the train, as well as getting through a good few books.

Another evening I went out for work drinks. Usually I just flat turn this type of thing down. But this time I went. A noisy, packed pub. A nightmare. The sort of place where to communicate you have to stand 6 inches from whoever you are talking to, and shout in their face, while trying not to spit in their face. And for them to communicate back, they have to do the same, shout in your face, spit in your face, and spit in your drink. And of course, the next day I had a horrible sore throat, sore head and felt terrible. This ruined the rest of the week. I’d been hoping to run in a cross-country race that weekend, but I bailed out of this – no point in running round a cold, windy field in a vest, when feeling under the weather and ending up even worse.

This did however free up some weekend time, so I played a lot of keyboard. I bought a keyboard after the Ironman season last year, and it has basically been gathering dust for a year, but I’ve been messing about with it quite a lot in recent weeks.

Other stuff that has been going on: The Highbury Fields ParkRun had its fourth birthday. I was a regular there in the early days. So I went back for the anniversary run, having been asked to be a pacer. The race director had organised pacers for every minute between 19 and 30 or 35. I was pacing 19 minutes. I got there early to run a lap or two and try to get a feel for what 19 minute pace felt like the actual 5K is 5-and-a-bit laps). I ran a lap in about 17-minute pace. Whoops. I tried again. 18 minute pace. Whoops. Then I ran out of time and took to the start line, telling myself to run slow. I tried my best but in the end I ran 18:20. Whoops. I did manage to tow a guy to a PB though which he was pleased about. After the run we all hit the pub. I had a couple of pints of Guinness and a fried breakfast. Hmmm.

Appeared from somewhere

Then we went to watch/run in a cross country race at Hampstead Heath. I watched. Some people ran. Some had already ran at Highbury earlier in the day and were running again. The day had taken a bad turn weather wise, so the spectating was freezing. All the time I was there spectating, I just wanted to be running. Cross country is great. The pictures below illustrate a process of sorts...

I did some ParkRun tourism. One of the ex-Highbury regulars now goes to Beckton Park Run away out in the east of London. So a few of us made the trip there to meet up. This meant a 6am start on Saturday morning. Beckton was a small, friendly run (I guess every Park Run could likely be described as friendly). It was a very different course from Highbury. A lot of it was on grass, and at this time of year it was pretty mucky – spikes wouldn’t have gone amiss but then spikes wouldn’t have gone too well on the tarmac paths. It certainly wasn’t a fast course, with the varying terrain and sharp turns, but it was a fun course. And it was good to catch up with people. I got back to the house by midday, thinking that if I hadn’t bothered getting up at 6am and going, then I’d likely have still been in bed… Some shoe-cleaning followed before the muck hardened.

Among other nights out, I had a night out at the velodrome at the Olympic Park in London. I really really need to see about actually getting onto a velodrome and actually riding on it – this would be awesome. This night out was part of a 6-day series, with all sorts of events. I can’t pretend to have a clue about the intricacies of the different types of velodrome racing, but it was fun to have a few beers and enjoy some cycling.  

I don’t usually buy triathlon magazines, but I bought one recently because it had a picture of Jan Frodeno in full cry on the bike at Kona, and I thought it would have a decent Kona race report. I small article caught my eye discussing how much weight gain is “acceptable” for the off season. There was a colour coded scale. A 2% winter increase was “green”, a 3-4% gain was “amber” and a 5% gain was “red”. I’m now 4-5kg up on my “racing” weight, so I’m way beyond red. Not that I’m particularly bothered, and I take these articles with a pinch of salt.

To be honest though, I haven’t had a great winter. I haven’t had much motivation, mainly due to the lack of certainly with regards to my work situation for next year. This lack of stability has meant that I’m finding it difficult to commit to Ironman racing in 2016. I don’t want to commit and then find out at Easter that I’m out of work. Trying to find a new job in the middle of Ironman training would not be good. And also, year on year, it has become more and more difficult to think of putting myself through what I have to put myself through to get to the level required to be competitive in an Ironman. I need to have a few serious discussions and thinks.

I’ve also been taking a few more photographs and continuing to wish I had a better camera:

Swan attack

Harvest moon , wires and streetlight

Post 105 - Twin turbos

I recently did a joint turbo session with Steve (housemate). When I first wrote to Steve and Natalie via the internet about moving into their house, I wrote a massive spiel about training, and bikes, and keeping the bikes indoors under lock and key, and turbo training indoors. These are issues that very few people have to worry about, and issues that probably don’t come up very often in landlord-world. Steve and Natalie, being who they are and doing what they do, understood all this bike and turbo trainer stuff perfectly, and basically their reply to my original message was “welcome to our world, we turbo train in the kitchen, when can you move in?!”

I’ve been almost two years in their house now (time flies) and in those two years, I have seen Steve turbo training only a few times in the kitchen. I have never seen Natalie turbo training in the kitchen. And I have never turbo trained in the kitchen. I’ve always turbo trained in my room.

Anyway, one particular evening after work I said to Steve, “Let’s do a turbo session together.” After a bit of persuasion and goading, he agreed and we got the turbo trainers and bikes set up, side by side, in front of the TV in the kitchen. No small job, with having to delicately manoeuvre my triathlon bike and turbo trainer out of my room, across the landing, down the stairs, through the hall and into the kitchen without so much as touching a wall. This could be a Crystal Maze game…

I suggested we do a 30-minute double burn-off. Short and sweet. I’ve done this session quite a few times in my room. You start off in the lowest gear, spinning at about 120 watts (very easy). Then every minute, you change into a higher gear, so it gets gradually and progressively tougher. After ten minutes you are going at maybe 300 watts (hard enough). Then you drop into an easier gear again for 5 minutes to allow yourself to recover. Then you go onto the big front chainring, and go through the 10-minute cycle again, except this time the ten-minute cycle starts at 200+ watts and ends at well over 400 watts (extremely hard, and even worse on a turbo trainer than out on the road). I’ve never been able to do the final minute of this session. I’ve always had to have an easier minute before I hammer the final minute. It is a tough, tough session, especially the last 5 minutes.

Twin turbos, ready to rock

I did a few stretches. We got changed into our cycling gear (in our separate rooms, we're not that close!) and I threw on a t-shirt to keep me warm before I started. We remembered to put a fan in front of the bikes to try to keep us cool when pedalling hard. Then, just before we were about to start, in walked Ian and his girlfriend Lorraine. Ian moved into the house a couple of months ago. A young guy like us, chilled out, everything you could want in a housemate. I had only met his girlfriend briefly on a couple of occasions so can’t claim to know her too well, and she probably wouldn’t claim to know us too well either.

Anyway, Ian and Lorraine were planning on making dinner (in the kitchen, where the bikes were ready to go) and then obviously eating dinner (in the kitchen, where the bikes were ready to go). Ian knows we train, and he’s heard me on the bike in my room. I don’t know what he’d told Lorraine about the house and housemates…

We just put the fan on full blast, jumped onto the bikes and got going, and Lorraine was probably thinking, “What the heck sort of crackpot house is this?!” Poor girl. I usually take my t-shirt off on the turbo but decided maybe I’d keep it on this time around. And within a few minutes we were hammering quite hard, breathing heavily, the turbos were humming away and I was shouting out every minute to go up a level. Towels were on hand to periodically mop up sweat. We got through the first ten minutes, and then eased off as planned. Ian and Lorraine were by now sitting at the table, eating dinner. Maybe they’d thought that they’d have a nice quiet dinner while watching Masterchef or something. Instead they had a fine view of our two sweaty arses and jackhammering legs.

The second ten minutes started. The tough ten minutes. After 5 or 6 minutes of gradually cranking it up, I was hitting my limit. There wasn’t as much cooling as usual. In my room, the fan is right in my face and the window is open. Here in the kitchen we were sharing a fan, there was no open window, and I had a t-shirt on. Talk about hot and sweaty. Talk about a nice quiet dinner in front of the TV. Talk about a bloody hard last couple of minutes. I got 9 minutes into the final 10, and had to ease off again. By “ease off”, I mean pretty much collapse gasping over the bike at 184 heartbeats per minute with lactate burning my legs. Recovery…

60 seconds passed in what seemed like about 5 seconds (it’s incomprehensible how time distorts when on the turbo trainer) and then I really went for it for the final minute, absolutely maximal. Everything sounded like it was just going to melt down, lift off, explode, or go on fire. The turbo trainer was churning away, I was grunting and growling like a crazed animal, and a nice quiet dinner was in progress literally just behind.

Session over. 5 or 10 minutes later I had cooled down and calmed down enough to jump off the bike. So had Steve. “Hi Lorraine” we said, with a sort of sheepishly satisfied post-exercise half-grin. Steve and I had some water and bananas while standing dripping with sweat in our flattering little lycra shorties, and we all had a bit of a chat as if this was the most normal thing in the world. And to us, it is the most normal thing in the world.

I went and showered, and then got dinner. A day or two later I got chatting to Ian. “I literally… could… not… believe… that the first time you have Lorraine over for dinner is the first time Steve and I decide to turbo train in the kitchen!” He just laughed. “We never turbo train in the kitchen, I’ve been in this house nearly two years and I’ve never turbo trained in the kitchen, and Steve has hardly ever turbo trained in the kitchen either, Natalie has definitely never turbo trained in the kitchen…” He laughed again, and said “No, no, no, don’t worry, really it wasn’t a problem…” I said, “Yeah, I know, but the timing of it, she must have been wondering what the hell goes on in this house!”

I said to Ian that if they had been back 20 or 30 minutes earlier, we probably wouldn’t even have bothered with the joint kitchen turbo session. I would have trained in my room and Steve wouldn’t have been too disappointed either, given the persuasion that was necessary. But as it was, we were all set up and ready to go. “No, no, of course you should have done it, we didn’t mind in the slightest.” Steve and I knew deep down that they wouldn’t have minded, but it was just a funny sort of situation.

Twin turbo-ing, with spectators dining 6 feet away. Surely this doesn’t happen very often…? 

Post 104 - NI

I went back to Northern Ireland last weekend, for a long weekend. Packing takes time and effort and careful planning when you’ve got three sports to cater for, when everything has to fit into a hand-luggage bag. Fortunately I’ve got a bike, helmet, multi-tool, mini-pump and spare tubes at home but I brought the following: swimming shorts, goggles, hat, earplugs, flip flops, rubber band, cycling shorts, cycling tights, a couple of cycling tops, a waterproof, gloves, a hat, eyewear, 3 bike frame bags, bike computer, bike computer mount, water bottles, bike shoes, waterproof shoe covers, bike socks, running shoes, running socks, running shorts, running tights, a couple of running tops, club vest and tracksuit top, tracksuit bottoms, cross-country spikes. Plus whatever else I might need – I suppose I could walk around the house in bike shoes, swimming shorts and a lycra top, but it wouldn’t be very comfortable…

I planned to do a cross-country race on the Saturday – the McConnell shield, held in Ballyclare. I ran it last year. I’ve never planned this to be a race where I’d be at a good level of fitness – I haven’t been doing much hard training since September, but I need to start somewhere on the road back to fitness, and this cross-country race would at least give me a decent run-out with the club. I had planned to do a short bike ride on the Friday, race on Saturday, another longer bike ride on the Sunday and a swim on the Monday.

Friday’s bike ride probably didn’t do me any good for the run on Saturday. Even though I only took it easy, it was still 2 hours of effort in the legs, and sometimes I just can’t help myself and I go hard. I chased a learner driver along the coast road for a few miles at 30mph. I hammered a few hills. I also took some photos of nice scenery. The day got better as the day wore on, the sky got bluer and the sea got bluer and the rivers got bluer too.

Really, I should have sat at home with my feet up to prepare for the race the following day, but I knew my level at the race was going to be bad, so why not go out and enjoy a bike ride the day before…

I know that this winter has been a lot worse than last winter for training. I’ve put on more weight. Last winter, I never had to wear my winter trousers (i.e. trousers with a bigger waist). This winter, it wasn’t long after the triathlon season that I had to dig them out of the wardrobe. I haven’t done as much training this winter compared with last winter. I know I am not fit. But saying that, I haven’t done nothing, so I should be able to get round a cross-country race.

It was good to catch up with people from the club at the race. The route was 5 laps of a park, totalling 5 miles. It was quite a warm day, underfoot conditions weren’t bad. I had a shocker of a run. Nothing there whatsoever. My first lap was 5:40 and after that I went backwards. Guys streaming past. Nothing in the legs. No strength. Not a good feeling. Plodding, basically. But I’ve been on a break from tough training, so I didn’t really expect any better. Runners who race regularly usually know their level and who they should be running alongside, who they should be targeting in a race. Last year at this race, I was 70 seconds behind a clubmate. This year I was 2 minutes 30 seconds away behind him. We finished a few seconds apart at the Northern Ireland/Ulster cross-country championships in February this year. Hmmm. Work to do. In the end, the club won the McConnell shield, with the top 4 finishers in each club contributing to the points total - the club with the lowest total wins they day. Needless to say, I wasn't in the top 4 finishers for the club. Hmmmm. Work to do.

Not for the first time I wondered what level I might be running at if I had given all my time and effort in the last 3 years to running rather than to Ironman. I still have aspirations in running, but I’m not getting any younger and I hope that when I call time on my Ironman career (sooner rather than later) I will still have the speed and motivation to meet and exceed my running aspirations.

For now, I hope to get to a half-decent level of fitness for a couple of Christmas races, and then to crack on and get to a good level of fitness for the Northern Ireland/Ulster cross country championships in February next year.

The forecast for the rest of the weekend was terrible. Sunday saw a very wet and windy bike ride and a major clean-up operation of the bike, bike shoes and cross-country spikes. Monday saw a short swim. I ate anything and everything. Massive dinners, burgers, desserts, a couple of pints. Same as the past 2 months really. It’s not like my diet has been especially bad, but it has definitely slipped compared to how good it was for the first 9 months of the year. There’s a saying: crap in, crap out. It’s true: low training and a mediocre diet = inability to run to potential. Need to sort this out…

Post 103 - Group riding

I’m not a regular group rider. I do most of my bike training on the turbo trainer, and very occasionally go out around Kent or Northern Ireland by myself or with one other. Drafting or slipstreaming is banned in triathlon races so I don’t have a lot of experience with riding in a tightly-packed bunch. Saying this, I watch a lot of cycling, and would like to think I’m a fairly considerate person, so I thought group riding would come easily. Recently I did my first serious group ride, in a group of 4, all of whom are good, strong cyclists, and with the exception of myself, all of whom ride in groups regularly.

Group riding in a tightly-packed peloton.
No view of the road ahead, travelling at 30mph, need trust in people ahead.
One wrong move, one twitch, one overlapped wheel and everyone goes down...

The first thing I learned is that it’s very easy to look like, or come across as, a complete plonker. It’s somewhat hair-raising to be zooming along a country road at 26mph with 3 others in very close proximity, with only a view of someone’s arse right over your front wheel, the arse blocking the view of the road ahead, while literally rubbing elbows with someone beside you at the same time. All while trying to avoid stones, grit, twigs, branches, and general crap on the road, while trying to maintain a constant speed and a distance of, well, less than 6 inches to the wheel in front. Trying to maintain your exact line on the road, even if you have a guy right beside you. As in, his shoulder is one inch from your shoulder. And trying not to p!ss the group off. One guy in the group was an ex-elite continental European racer. "Le boss". And me, a clueless triathlete...

Different hand signals need to be learned and understood to warn of aforementioned general road crap, road furniture, cars, obstructions, signs to indicate to come through and take the lead, to drop back, to slow down, to speed up. Cycling sign language. It’s a language I don’t yet understand and can’t yet use. Don’t surge, ride at the pace of the group, take turns on the front, don’t deviate, don’t cross wheels, don’t attack. Warn of obstructions in the road, or potholes, or anything that could cause a crash. Don't crash. Don’t blast off up a hill as if you have something to prove. Fortunately I was in a sympathetic group who tried to keep me right.

When it goes wrong... a chain reaction domino effect.
No time to react, down everyone goes. Not nice.

What if I need to stop and pee? Is there a hand signal for this? My imagination ran riot. Do I wiggle my finger at the group? No, I’ll look like I’m telling them off. Do I wiggle my finger at the ground in view of everyone? No, I’ll look like I’m telling off the road. Do I point? No, they’ll think I’ve got problems. Do I say “excuse me, may I go to the toilet please?” No, this isn’t school. Do I just stop and catch up? No, I don’t know the roads and they’ll think I’m lost. Do I just go, on the go? No, I’ll spray someone and we’ll all be wet and manky. Do I just hold on for dear life? No, my bladder will burst. Do I stop drinking and hope for the best? No, then I’ll get dehydrated and run out of energy. Is there some coded shout I can give to the group? Why does no-one else need to stop and go?! What if I needed more than a pee?

In the end, I decided to sprint up a hill ahead of everyone, jump into the trees, do the business, and jump back on the bike. The group caught me up as I was looking a little bit pleased with myself and a little bit relieved, and the group probably thought “what a show off. Plonker!” No wonder roadies don’t like triathletes, as generally triathletes are terrible at riding in a tight group and haven’t got a clue about the intricacies and unwritten rules of close-quarter riding.

For a few miles on the way back, we got into a fairly effective pace line, all taking very short turns on the front and then dropping to the back before ending up on the front again. The turns on the front were so short. As the road narrowed and went down an incline, it was all getting a bit nervous so I was very relieved when one of the group go a flat tyre. And that was the end of the group’s pace line as we just cruised back.  It was good fun, in a kind of not-fun sort of way… I guess I’ll learn…

Says it all really...

Post 102 - Post-Ironman

All the bad things being with P: pints, pies, pizza, p!ssing about, putting on weight, and, erm, psleeping late, pstaying up late, not training, not blogging either. It has been great, but it has also been bad. I’ve enjoyed the break. For the first three weeks after Debacle Wales, I didn’t do a single heartbeat of exercise other than about 50 minutes of walking per day getting to and from work. And my diet slipped a bit too. Then it all got boring, and I started to feel terrible. I like to be healthy and fit, so I was always going to want to start eating well again and getting back into doing some sort of training.

I also had a bit of a think about what I am going to do next. It became pretty clear to me that I want/need to do another Ironman. I want/need to at least deliver a good performance, one that justifies the time and effort and sacrifice and expense that has gone into this. I may or may not qualify for Kona but I at least want to finish an Ironman and say “that was a damn good showing”.

I’d still like to qualify for Kona, and so I’ve been trying to work out a way that would maximise my chances. There are a number of different things at play here. One being that I have zero job security and could lose my job in January, or February, or March, or April, or any time in the new year. Or I could be relocated at short notice. Or, I could be OK through until racing season next summer. A few months ago, I thought I was going to be out of work in September. I chose to be staff rather than contract for the “job security” it is supposed to provide. So much for that. The project I have been working on for the past 3 years now looks like it is coming to an end at Christmas, and it looks like my company has no more work coming in.

I had been eyeing up a couple of other jobs earlier in the year when I thought the project would end in September. Then I stopped pursuing the other jobs, as I was told the project would be extended until March next year. Then I was told that the extension was only until December. I don’t know what will happen after December. Project extension, project ending, relocation, out of work, new job? Place your bets. None of this does my 2016 Ironman aspirations any good. I want to do another one quickly (i.e. early 2016 if possible), I don’t want to wait another year until 2017. If I’m still in London in 2017 I will be extremely unhappy with myself. I want to get Ironman done and get the hell out of London, hopefully as a retired competitive Ironman, sometime in 2016.

I’ve said I want to give it another crack, yes, but I also have other ambitions I’d like to fulfil, ambitions that I can’t really consider while training for Ironman. I’d like to do a sub-9 3K, a sub-15 5K, a sub-32 10K, a sub-70 half marathon and a sub-2:36 marathon (why sub-2:36? That would mean an average speed quicker than 6 minutes per mile). I’d also like to buy a house and other grown up stuff, but to do this, I need to be somewhere where I can see myself living for years on end. London certainly doesn’t fit this criteria. There are other things too. But as it stands, at the minute, unless I do a good Ironman, I will find it very difficult to let it go.

Kona qualification isn’t getting any easier. The Ironman corporation is adding lots of new Ironman races around the world. But there are still roughly the same number of total Kona slots available per year: something like 2200. 10 (or even 5) years ago, there were far fewer Ironman races being held, so each race had more slots to distribute. Now, there are more Ironman races but no more Kona slots, so each race has fewer slots to allocate. Most races next year will have 40 slots. In previous years they would have had 50 slots. That means I need to be in the top 3 in my age group, rather than top 5 or 6. This is a big difference. I would still like to think that top 3 is still possible, but imagine how you’d feel if you came fourth, and in previous years sixth would have been good enough…

Another UK-based Ironman was announced in the last week or so: Ironman Weymouth. It seems they have taken over or bought out Challenge Weymouth – “Challenge” is Ironman’s “rival” race brand – Challenge races are still Iron distance, but you can’t qualify for Kona at a Challenge event. Ironman Weymouth will have just 30 qualifying slots. So few that instead of having age groups that are 5 years apart, they have had to combine all the over-50s (or over 55s, I can’t remember) into a single age group. It also has a fairly paltry US$15,000 prize fund to cover all the professionals who race. It’s not a lucrative sport…

However, Ironman also has regional/continental championships. In 2015, I think Ironman Texas was the North American championship. Ironman Melbourne was the Asia-Pacific championship. Ironman Frankfurt was the European championship. Ironman South Africa (in Port Elizabeth), as the only Ironman on the African continent, was the African championships. Each of these regional championship events gets more qualifying slots than a standard Ironman. In 2016, these races will have 75 slots, rather than 40. So I have been seriously weighing up going to South Africa for the race at the start of April. The only reasonable alternative is Ironman UK, and if something went wrong then Wales would always be in the background.

That’s as far as I’ve got with “next year”. Answers on a postcard…

In terms of training, I did nothing for 3 weeks after Ironman Wales. I put on about 5kg pretty quickly. Then I started doing little bits. Short swims once a week. One short weeknight bike ride (turbo) per week. One slightly longer weekend bike/turbo ride. I’ve even been out cycling in Kent a couple of times. The odd run here and there. Which turned into a weekly hill repeat session. I might not yet be sure about exactly how I am going to train for an Ironman next year, but I want to do a couple of running races over Christmas, and I want to do the Northern Ireland and Ulster cross-country in February next year. To do this, I need to do some fast running.

A few things I’ve learned when taking a break and then “training” after my Ironman season finished:

1. My legs feel amazing as they are not fatigued. I can bound up the escalator at work now, but when I was in full training earlier in the year I barely had the energy to even consider walking up it, I just stood and let it take me up. When I’m walking about now, I don’t trudge, I literally bounce. I think I overtrained this year. 7-8 months is a long time to overtrain. Chronic fatigue is not good. This would be a big lesson for next year (I’ll blog about lessons learned soon).

2. A short recovery is worth a lot. In a 30-minute turbo, with intensity ramping up every minute until I can no longer hack it (usually after about 20 minutes having reached something like 380 watts), if I then take a minute to recover, I can then do another minute quite easily at something like 430 watts.

I have kept good leg strength although I have lost fitness. I’ve kept up the squatting and single leg jumping. My speed and power is good, but my endurance is way down. That’s OK though, it’s the off-season.

3. Once you get into the habit of eating rubbish, it’s very difficult to break the habit. I went to the shop one night after work to buy some dinner. I saw a pack of two chocolate mousse yogurts on sale at half price for 65p. I bought them and had them both eaten before I even got home. Then I had my dinner. I did this for an entire week. Then I had a sharp word with myself. I still want the chocolate mousses.

Pub dinners, had far too many of these recently, 

they even put them in a box so you can take them away 

and catch the last train home after having pints

4. Hangovers get worse with age. Much worse. A big dirty bacon roll helps a little.

5. Eating pie and mash for lunch makes for a very drowsy afternoon at work.

6. The lead singer of the Hothouse Flowers is a hell of a showman.

7. Rugby is a savage sport, I wouldn’t stand a chance on a rugby field.

8. Kona is awesome. I sat/lay/slobbed out watching the Ironman world championships on 10th October from 5pm until 2:30am, and then again from 9am until 11:30pm. Well done Jan Frodeno and Daniela Ryf on winning, and well done to everyone else for qualifying and finishing.

Swim start, and lava fields on the Queen K highway

9. Kent shepherds must be bored if this sign is anything to go by:

The sign above was seen when out on a group ride in Kent. Riding in a group. I’ve never cycled with more than one other person. Riding in a group will soon have a blog post by itself. Riding in a group with experienced, good cyclists is a risky business, a minefield, fraught with social/cycling pitfalls, with lots of etiquette and unwritten rules to learn. Riding in a group is a good way to make yourself look like a complete plonker. More on this at a later date.

Tremendous learning and wisdom there: Kent shepherds, looking like a plonker, amazing legs, junk food and hangovers. The “I am an athlete first and everything else is secondary” mentality well and truly went out the window over the past few weeks. And even with that, my lifestyle and diet is likely far better than most. Some of the stuff I’ve seen: 5 empty cans of Pepsi on someone’s desk to show for a day’s work, repeated every day. 10 pints a night. Paying £15 to take a taxi twice a day for a trip of less than 2 miles to the station. Why? How?

Normally around this time of year I would head to Tenerife with my soon-to-be-Ironman friend Matt for a week of swimming, cycling and running. He’s now got a real job rather than doing a PhD, and so his time off is limited. So no Tenerife this November. But we have talked about going over Easter next year, which would tie in well with training for a summer Ironman.

I’ve got a long weekend back in Northern Ireland coming up, so hopefully I’ll do some scenic biking and running. I hope to do one or two of the London cross-country series races before Christmas, as well as go back to the Highbury Park Run. I’ll do a couple of races over Christmas and then hopefully be in a position to know what’s happening next year with regards to work, and to get cracking with Ironman training again.

Post 101 - Poetry and songs

Another blog post consisting of copying and pasting and minimal input from myself...

Some people ask me about triathlons and Ironman, and how things are going. My Ironman career certainly hasn't gone to plan. It's a bit of a disaster story really. One bad race? Fair enough, you have bad races. Two bad races in a row? Well, OK, things don't always go to plan. Three bad races in a row? Four? Five? Six in a row? Really? You couldn't make this stuff up... 

Below is an email I sent to someone at work. Not great reading really...

To qualify for a “slot” at the worlds, you need to be in the top few percent of your age group in a regional race. Qualifying slots at each regional race are allocated to age groups depending on the number in the age group relative to the total number of entrants in the race. You never know where you need to finish to get a slot, but you can make an estimate based on previous years. Top 6 is a good guide, although in 2016 they are reducing the number of slots available per race, so I guess top 3 would be a good guide for 2016. There’s a big difference between top 6 and top 3…

Ironman UK 2011 (pre-London) – done on  crap, cheap bike, didn’t have a clue, 11^th in age group, good enough to plant the seed but ran out of money and couldn’t afford to try again.

Ironman UK 2013 – now working in London, got a new expensive bike, was winning my age group with 10 miles left to run, started explosive vomiting and diarrhoea with no warning. Likely food poisoning from the hotel. Collapsed, game over, ambulance etc. 

Ironman Wales 2013 – a few weeks later, not fully recovered, finished 5^th in age group. 5^th had been good enough at Ironman UK a few weeks previously. But slots only went to 4^th in Wales. Some slots “roll down”, because some people decline their slots for whatever reason – already qualified, for example. Usually a handful of slots roll down. Went to the roll down ceremony. No slots rolled down. Gutted.

Ironman UK 2014 – I moved up to a tougher age group. I trained hard and was very fit, far better than in 2013, was looking to mix it with the pros. 2 weeks before the race, had a sports massage. Ended up in hospital for 3 days with horrendous leg infections. Went to the race anyway. Had nothing. DNF (Did Not Finish).

Ironman Wales 2014 – not fully recovered, went in desperation more than anything, the wheels came off halfway through the marathon when I was in 6^th. 6^th would have done it. I couldn’t hang on. I don’t know where I finished.

Ironman UK 2015 – went through the 7-month build-up again, was optimistic going into the race. Monsoon conditions, freezing cold, windy. I was frozen, and my power output was terrible. Bad circulation in my frozen hands meant I couldn’t feed myself nor drink (both essential…) This sounds like excuses, I’m not making excuses, it wasn’t my day, but I’m skinny and don’t go well in the cold. I train indoors in 25-30 degree heat, I go well in warm conditions, not in cold.

Ironman Wales 2015 – trying to salvage my season, didn’t feel well the week before the race, ending up vomiting in the swim hanging off a lifeguard canoe, got frozen, got brought ashore, game over.

Unforgiving sport…?!

The guy I sent this email to is a very good guy - honest, sincere, hardworking, pride in what he does. No pretences. I've been having a few pints in the past few weeks. One night after work we were walking to the station after a few pints. Talking about whatever random stuff came into our heads. He asked me if I liked poetry. Actual written poetry, as opposed to "poetry in motion". I'm a big fan of poetry in motion - a top cyclist in full flight. A top marathon runner hammering the last mile. A snooker player making a 147. A tennis player whipping a forehand right across the court. Whatever it is - seeing a sportsperson (or indeed a tradesperson or craftsperson) at the top of their game. It looks effortless but a lifetime of work has gone into it. Brilliant.

But actual written poetry? I'm not a frequent reader of poetry, but I do play the guitar and sing. I'm not going to pretend I'm any good, but I can play a few Irish songs, folk songs, and crowd pleasers (e.g. Brown Eyed Girl). These traditional classics are poetry. One of my favourite bands is an Irish folk-rock band called the Saw Doctors. One of their frontmen said the way they go about writing songs is that they first write a few lines of poetry, then try to put a few chords to it, then give it a tune, then write more of the poem, then tweak and add and edit and so on, until at the end of the process, there's a song.

So I gave him some half-drunk answer about songs and poetry and blah blah blah. I wondered why he had asked. Turns out he writes poetry, inspired by whatever he sees or experiences in daily life. He handed me his phone, on which was one of his poems. I did my best to read it while tottering towards the station and trying not to crash into anyone else. Or any lamp-posts. It was really good. I asked him if he publishes his stuff. He doesn't. He should. 

Next morning, I had the following email:

John,

You have done what many never dream of doing,

You have tested what many of man may never try.

It is these drops of blood, sweat and tears,

That puts you ahead of others.

It differentiates you from the non-tryers,

From the non-doers,

You my friend have faced the unforgiving nature that is the ironman,

This you have pursued whilst earning a living,

And having in life a goal and a plan,

Instead of watching things fizzle at the bottom of a coke can.

Someone doing in excess to balance out some of the zero shits given,

To a job that is just as unforgiving.

It’s no sob story that I have read,

It’s a story of a fighter born and bred.

You give your heart and soul to everything that you do and that’s what matters the most, win or fail you gave it your all and nothing less. In my opinion for what it’s worth that’s what counts.

Not that I have any sort of an ego (I hope I don't), nor that I was looking for sympathy or anything, but the words were good. Maybe I (or he) should send this to the Ironman corporation. I remembered the conversation we'd had about poetry the previous evening. I replied to his email with the words of a Saw Doctors song entitled "To Win Just Once". Pure poetry:

To win just once would be enough
For those who've lost in life and love
For those who've lost their guile and nerve
Their innocence, their drive and verve
For those who feel they've been mistreated
Discriminated, robbed or cheated
To claim one victory inspired
To win just once is their desire

To win just once, to win just once, to win just once, that would be enough

To win just once against the odds
And once be smiled on by the Gods
To race with speed along the track
Break the tape and not look back
To never have considered losing
As if to win is by your choosing
Bare you soul for all to find
An honest heart and an open mindTo win just once, to win just once, to win just once, that would be enough

So come all ye fulltime smalltown heroes
Cast away your inbred fears of
Standing out from all the rest
The cynics and the pessimists
The self-indulgent almost rich
The blatant hurlers on the ditch
Time is passing so come on
And face the ball, the game is on

To win just once, to win just once, to win just once, that would be

It's a great song. The second verse in particular. To win just once against the odds. Once be smiled on by the Gods. And so on. I don't even have to win just once. I only need to be in the top 3 (or top 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 depending on what race I enter and depending on luck). It's a very good live song, here's one of the best versions - St Patrick's Day, Sydney, Australia, 2010. I was at the gig. Back in the glory days...