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…?