Post 151 - Selkirk Olympic triathlon

Following the Hawick sprint triathlon, I allowed myself two whole days off to rest and recover. It’s quite nice mentally to switch off from it all for a day or two. Then, with less than 2 weeks until the next race (the Selkirk Olympic distance triathlon), it was back into training.

I was on the turbo trainer again doing intervals on the Wednesday evening, but the issue now is that the weather is warming up, and my flat is warming up – it gets the sun all day so by evening it is roasting hot. So for this reason, my outputs on the turbo are probably down a bit on where they would be if it was a bit cooler. Anyway, with a fan going full blast in my face and every window wide open, I battered out 4 x 10 minutes of hard riding, at over 300 watts per interval. I was pleased to maintain power and strength right to the end of the session, but probably would have got more out of myself had it been a bit cooler. I’ll have to get out more now!

This turbo session was tough, and so the running club’s 10 hill repeats the following evening were even tougher. They were into a headwind as well, which didn’t help. My times dropped away from 92 seconds to 98 seconds, it was like running through quicksand. My legs were pretty cooked before I had even started the session, and well and truly goosed afterwards.

I forced myself out of bed at 6am the next morning to do an easier single-leg turbo trainer session followed by a swim interval session, all before work. Usually I’d train after work but I had visitors staying the weekend, so 6am it was.

At the weekend I did a 13.5 mile hilly run on the Edinburgh half Ironman course. I need to do more of these as I faded a bit in the final few miles, but in mitigation I knew my legs were tired. The Sunday long ride was even worse. I wanted to get out on the road but with time being limited I jumped on the turbo and did a 3-hour tempo ride. It was really hot, I got very dehydrated and from the first hour my legs were flooded with lactic. I couldn’t get over 220 watts for any length of time, which is pretty rubbish (for context, in the past I’ve held 260+ watts for 4 hours). Oh well, at least it was practice training on tired legs.

Monday was a long, continuous swim followed by a sauna, Tuesday was an easier, shorter bike interval session, and Wednesday was an easier fartlek run as by now I was in taper mode for the Selkirk Olympic triathlon. I had a day off on Thursday, and did some easy training on Friday and Saturday. Then got ready for the race.

I’d be using the time trial bike. How much faster would it be? Would using a disc wheel and deep-rimmed front wheel be wise on a very windy day, on a hilly course? Would I risk stripping it to its minimum weight, removing my frame storage box and not carrying any spares and tools? I’d take the risks…

Bike in transition

As soon as I saw the pool, I knew the swim wouldn’t suit me. Being unable to tumble turn, it helps me if there is a railing at either end of the pool which I can grab onto and use to push down on to help me with my turns. This pool just had a flat wall, with the poolside floor being about a foot above the water line. You can’t grab or push down on a flat wall. So my turns would be very slow. I was in the same lane as the fast swimmers, including the guy who has beaten me in both previous races in Galashiels and Hawick.

Motivational poolside quotes...

Didn't help me to tumble turn though!

I spent the whole swim cursing my inability to tumble turn, and resolving to learn as quickly as possible. The fast swimmers didn’t actually seem to be massively faster than me at swimming, but their turns were so quick – they were halfway down the pool in the blink of an eye while I was fumbling about at the wall. After I had done only 48 lengths the two leaders were done, out and away on their bikes. I still had 12 lengths to do. Nearly 5 minutes after the leaders had finished their swims, I was finally done.

Out onto the bike and away. It was grey and windy. The first half of the course was twisty, hilly and blustery. In parts I was just hanging on as the wind blew my disc and deep rimmed front wheel all over the place. I got away with it though, and on the big climb (called the Swire) I started to pull away from a couple of bikes that were around me. I squirted away half my water bottle, I wouldn't need it and the less weight I carried up the climb, the better...! I went up the hill well, even with a disc wheel. Me being nice and light (64kg at 6 foot 1) helps, and I held over 300 watts for what must have been a few miles of narrow mountain road.

Cresting the top, I said “please let me get down safely off this,” and seconds later I was doing 50-60kph, eyes streaming in the wind (even behind my sunglasses), hands working the brakes, trying to watch for grit and traffic and corners, and pick out clean lines to take. It was nerve-wracking, and I had no real idea how the bike would handle as I’ve never had it on a descent and never taken it to the limit under braking and cornering. There’s nothing funny about being full on the brakes, on the point of locking up wheels, with a corner coming up, knowing you are going in too fast…

I made it down, took a few deep breaths, and knew it was a fairly flat final 10 or so miles. So it was down into the aero position and pedal like mad. I caught a couple more out by the turn, saw the leader ahead, I guessed he was maybe 3-4 minutes ahead, thought it wasn’t impossible that I could catch him by the finish, I was fairly confident I could out-run him, so I went for it as fast as I could on the bike. It was a quick blast in to the finish at 30mph+, with one section of awful road surface making it feel like I was holding onto a pneumatic drill. I was hoping so much that I wouldn’t get a flat tyre at this stage as I was biking strongly.

Coming into transition, shaking the legs out

I made it back to transition. I had decided to wear socks for the 10K run, but my hands weren’t working too well and my co-ordination wasn’t great as I tried to balance on one leg to pull them on, nearly falling over, and also struggling to have the dexterity and grip strength with cold and battered hands to pull on my shoes too. It took longer than it should. Then it was away on the run. It was a flat run, I hoped to be able to run 35-36 minutes, and depending on how much I would be able to outrun the leader by, I might have a shout at winning…

I had a decent run out to the turning point with mile splits well under 6 minutes per mile. Approaching the turn, I saw the leader, looking fairly strong, maybe 3 minutes ahead. A lot to make up in the final 5K. After the turn it was evident that the homeward 5K would be into a strong wind. It was tough.

My feet started to hurt. Obviously feet will hurt in a triathlon, but this was bad, bad hurt, right on the outside of both feet, just beneath my little toe, right where I land with each stride. Looking at the soles of my running shoes after the race, they are totally worn out in this very small area, and there’s not any sign of even one-tenth of a millimetre of wear on any other part of the soles. It’s frustrating that my biomechanics mean I go through running shoes so quickly. I’d have hated to be doing a half-ironman 13.1 mile run or an ironman marathon in this kind of pain – I couldn’t have held the pace. But knowing I only had 15 minutes left to run, I gritted my teeth and got on with it.

Worn down to the white stuff on the left hand side...

I've only had these a couple of months!

Completely worn out on one side... (green cushioning gone)

Zero wear on the inside... green cushioning totally untouched

I never saw the leader on the run in, and finished second. Again. It turned out I’d had the fastest bike, by nearly a minute and a half. I’d been losing 30-60 seconds in the previous two races on the bike (and those bikes were half the distance), so this was a good confidence boost that my bike training is working, and that my time trial bike is fast! And also that I can ride a disc wheel on such a windy day on such a hilly technical course. I also had the fastest run, but not by as much as I expected. This is maybe because as the swimming and bike training has ramped up, I’ve been able to devote less time to running. And also maybe because I had biked harder for longer in the race, leaving my legs more tired for the run. Who knows? I ran 34:45 but the run course was a bit short so I’d probably have run 35-36 minutes as I thought, if it had been the full 10K.

The finish

Results are here: https://www.stuweb.co.uk/race/1Rz

What wasn’t good was that I had given away almost 5 minutes in the water. I am reasonably confident that if I could tumble turn, I would have had a good chance to win this race, and beat a world and European champion in the process. So that is what I need to work on! There’s no excuse. If I swim 200 lengths a week, that’s 200 tumble turns per week I can be practicing. But there’s no way my swimming is 5 minutes worse that the fast guys. When they were lapping me, I seemed able to stay on their feet when swimming lengths, they just turned so quickly. So it’s mostly on the turns, and possibly some on the fact that my two-piece tri suit doesn’t go through the water very well, so I will look at getting a decent tri-suit (could cost £150 - expensive sport) and hopefully that will give me a bit more time too. I look forward to the European sprint triathlon championships in August – an open water swim, with no tumble turns needed! Plus my wetsuit is top-notch, really fast…

By the time I had cooled down and been to prizegiving, I had turned white and crusty with salty sweat. Nice. I was a lot more tired after this longer race compared with the shorter sprint distances, so it was a huge effort to make it home, have a shower and unpack everything. It was early to bed.

Next up is the Stirling sprint triathlon in 2 weeks, on a course I know – the same bike and run routes as the Stirling duathlon I did earlier in the season. Unfortunately it’s a pool swim and I don’t think I will have my tumble turning to a high enough level by then to be confident to do them in the race, but we will see…

Training done was as follows:

Mon 7 May: Rest
Tue 8 May: Rest
Wed 9 May: 1:20 turbo (4x10mins/5min rec: 301W/152bpm, 301W/162bpm, 302W/165bpm, 303W/172bpm
Thu 10 May: Run 10 x hill reps (97, 92, 94, 93, 94, 96, 98, 97, 97, 98)
Fri 11 May: 35 min turbo (single leg drills: 2x5mins R/L/B), Swim 2.5k (2x20x50y: 37-39, 40-43 off 1min)
Sat 12 May: 85 min hilly run
Sun 13 May: 3:05 turbo (3hrs at 208W/128bpm)

Totals: Swim 2.5km, Bike 100 miles, Run 23 miles

Mon 14 May: Swim 3.25k
Tue 15 May: 40 min turbo (5x2mins hard/easy)
Wed 16 May: 30 minute fartlek run
Thu 17 May: Rest
Fri 18 May: 35 min turbo (single leg drills, 2 x 5mins R/L/B)
Sat 19 May: 1 hour turbo, 15 min run
Sun 20 May: Selkirk Olympic Triathlon (24:26 1500m pool swim, 0:46 T1, 1:06:48 hilly <40k bike, 0:43 T2, 34:45 <10k run: 2:07:30, 2^nd overall)

Totals: Swim 4.75km, Bike 65 miles, Run 13 miles

Post 150 - Hawick sprint triathlon

Training continued, with 3 weeks between races meaning a full 2-week training block. With its ups and downs.

One bike session of 2 x 20 minutes of effort on the turbo with 5 minutes of recovery was slightly disappointing. I averaged 303 watts and then only 297 watts. If I remember right, back in London, I was doing both sets well over 300 watts. Had I been 3-4% better in the second set, I'd have been happy. With only 297 watts for the final 20 minutes, I was a little disappointed. But it's still early days on the triathlon comeback trail...

I had a decent club running session on Thursday night, a reasonably decent swim on Friday, working with the hand paddles. I volunteered at a club 5k on Saturday morning (spectating/marshalling is always a different and enjoyable perspective) and then ran a 40 minute hard tempo run of my own. On Sunday I planned to drive down to the Borders area and cycle the Selkirk triathlon and Hawick triathlon bike courses. Course familiarisation is worth a lot, it helps to know the roads and inform a decision on whether to use the road bike (light, nimble, good handling, good acceleration and deceleration, better on hilly, twisty courses, but poor high-speed aerodynamics) or the triathlon/time trial bike (with its polar opposite characteristics - good at high speed and fairly poor at climbing, descending, cornering, accelerating and braking).

Sunday was mixed weather-wise. It wasn't great when I was driving down and I thought I might end up just driving the courses and coming home and doing a turbo session. But I wanted to ride and the weather improved. I parked at Selkirk swimming pool and set off. The Selkirk Olympic triathlon route was reasonably open and flat, on reasonably wide roads. Along the Ettrick river valley, and then over a mountain (a Scottish "col" or Bealach) and down a hairy, gravelly descent, and along the Yarrow river valley. Not a bad course, apart from the descent. It was definitely a triathlon bike course, not a road bike course, apart from the mountain pass and the descent... I got soaked by a heavy rain shower on the road back into Selkirk. Bah.

Borders scenery and the narrow mountain road
which will feature in the Selkirk triathlon in a few weeks' time

Then I rode down to Hawick to ride the sprint triathlon route down there. The road surfaces were smooth, but it was quite a narrow, twisty, undulating course. Not a clear-cut decision, but with a few “dead-turns” (hairpins which meant slowing to a stop and accelerating up to speed again) I decided it was a road bike course. 70-odd miles later, I was done, and I drove to the nearest shop and ate a fortune’s worth of food. I was disappointed that the hand I broke in the bike crash last year was really sore after this ride – it was my first long outdoor ride since the crash, with road vibrations and a long time holding handlebars, braking and changing gear). In spite of all the rehabilitation work I’ve done, I guess I might end up having to accept that the hand may never be as good again.

The following week – the week before the triathlon – I had a rest day on Monday. I felt terrible on Monday, as if I was coming down with a cold. The soaking on the bike the previous day hadn’t helped. I survived though, and shook it off with the help of plenty of oranges, kiwi fruits, chillis, and a very early night. I trained moderately hard but not too intense nor too long on Tuesday/Wednesday, had another day off on Thursday, then some easy pedalling and jogging on Friday and Saturday. The weather on Sunday was brilliant. I was optimistic for the race. I had stripped the bike bare of all extra weight - no frame pouches, no saddle bag, no spares, no tools, only one small aero bottle, I even removed the tube valve caps. If I punctured, I'd be walking back. I'd take the chance. I knew I’d have a better swim. I had new shorts, they wouldn’t be coming down in the water like they did in the Galashiels triathlon. I had another good block of training banked. It was a nice day. Bring it on. I set off for Hawick in the Scottish Borders early on Sunday morning and got everything set up in transition.

It was a warm day... I like warm racing...

Spot my bike...

As it turned out, I had a rubbish swim, and I don’t really know why. I expected to be 40-60 seconds quicker than last time out. This time my shorts had a drawstring and they stayed up. I had a clean swim. But I didn’t feel strong in the water and ended up only 5 seconds quicker, in 11:35 for the 750m. Giving away nearly 2 and a half minutes to my rivals so early in the race is not good. I’ve got a lot of work to do. I need to learn to tumble turn. A good tri-suit would help my speed in the water. And simply, more swim training is needed. Also, possibly, in the Galashiels triathlon, there were 4 others in my lane, all swimming in close proximity, so maybe I got towed along. In Hawick, this time out, there was one other girl in my lane and she was way faster than me, so I didn’t get any sort of a tow at all.

I came out of the water, almost retched (maybe the pre-race cereal bar) and had it all to do. All my rivals’ bikes were already gone. My transition was far faster this time – no messing about with gloves or socks. Onto the bike and away. I had a fairly clean and strong bike, reeling people in. I say “fairly” clean: it took me a bit of fiddling about to get properly clipped in at the start. Then as I was catching a slower rider, a car overtook me but couldn’t get past the slower rider. So I got stuck for a minute or two behind the slower rider and car. And then a massive 4x4 towing a massive trailer came at me head-on, on a narrow road with not enough space. There was just enough room. One millimetre to the right and I’d have hit the vehicle. One millimetre to the left and my wheels would have gone into the verge and I’d probably have crashed. One loud curse of relief later and I was clear.

Struggling to get feet clipped in at the start of the bike course

On safety grounds, they had eliminated two of the dead turns on the course, shortening the course slightly – had I known this, I might have gone with the time trial bike. But there we go, I couldn’t change it now. I got into transition and less than 30 seconds later I was away and running. And again reeling people in. My running seems to be strong. But like the last race, the question was how many people could I reel in…? There was a flat section along a river, then a left turn and up a long steep hill, then a run along a road and path to the finish. Every time I passed someone, another runner would appear in the distance, another target... I remember thinking that there was nothing I could do only run as fast as I could. I couldn’t run any faster and so if I was fast enough to catch them, so be it. And if I wasn’t, so be it too.

Full flight

With maybe a mile left, I was catching another runner. A marshal said the leader was a minute and a half ahead. I doubted I’d make that up in a mile. But I’d run as hard as I could to the finish. I reeled another couple in and finished. A clubmate had turned out to spectate, and said I was second. Beaten by the same guy who beat me in Galashiels 3 weeks previously. He is turning into a bit of a rival/target/inspiration/nemesis. He was a lot faster than me in the swim, our transitions were about the same, he was only marginally faster than me on the bike (I wonder how much closer I’d have been if I’d been on my time trial bike instead of my road bike), and I was faster than him in the run. So I need to work on my swimming… I was a bit disappointed with how slow my swim was this time out.

Results are here:

https://www.stuweb.co.uk/race/1Ri

I also heard during the week that I’ve been selected for Ireland for the European Sprint Triathlon Championships in August this year (conveniently for me held in Strathclyde Park outside Glasgow – I know it well). It will be an open water wetsuit swim, which will be to my advantage – I have a really good wetsuit and there will be no tumble turning. The guy who beat me in Galashiels and Hawick is the European and World sprint triathlon champion from 2017 (in the male 30-34 age group). He will be defending his title at Strathclyde. I’m not too far away from him, and hopefully with a good summer of training I won’t be too far away from him at the Europeans.

Next up will be another block of training before the Selkirk standard/Olympic distance triathlon (1500m swim, 40km bike, 10km run).

Training done:

Mon 23 Apr: Rest
Tue 24 Apr: 1:15 turbo (2x20mins, 5min rec: 303W/158bpm, 297W/168bpm)
Wed 25 Apr: 1:30 turbo
Thu 26 Apr: 10 mile run (6 x 3min hard/1min easy/30sec sprint/1min easy)
Fri 27 Apr: Swim 2.1km (paddle drills)
Sat 28 Apr: 50 min run (40 min tempo)
Sun 29 Apr: 70 mile bike (Selkirk/Hawick)

Totals: Swim 2.1km, Bike 130 miles, Run 18 miles

Mon 30 Apr: Rest
Tue 1 May: 50 min turbo (10x1min hard/1min easy)
Wed 2 May: 30 min fartlek run
Thu 3 May: Rest
Fri 4 May: 1 hour turbo
Sat 5 May: 30 min turbo, 10 min run
Sun 6 May: Selkirk sprint triathlon: 11:35, 31, 32:56, 27, 17:48 (1:03:19), 2nd overall

Totals: Swim 0.85km, Bike 60 miles, Run 10 miles