Post 186 - World sprint/standard triathlon championships preparation

There was a bit of a comedown after Ironman UK. Recovery took longer than I thought. The tops of my feet/ankles were sore, and my knees were sore. They took a while to feel normal again. It was exactly a month later before I felt like I could run hard with no pain or discomfort. But if that’s the non-monetary price to pay for Kona qualification, I’ll take it… It’s maybe a bit self-indulgent because it’s old news now, but I kept looking back at the photos. Ironman UK was unreal. Kona is coming up!

I’m probably better at shorter distance triathlons compared with Ironmans. I am due to compete in the world sprint distance triathlon championships (750m swim, 20km bike, 5km run) in Lausanne (Switzerland) on Saturday 31st August, and then the world standard distance triathlon championships (1500m swim, 40km bike, 10km run) at the same venue less than 24 hours later.

In my first season of short course triathlon last year, I did reasonably well, probably surprised myself a bit, won a couple of races, got a few more podiums, competed on a par with some of the best athletes in the country, and finished 8th in my category at the European sprint triathlon championships in Glasgow last year (I was disappointed with this as an injury meant I was unable to do any running training. I had thought a podium might have been possible).

Anyway, I thought a bit about whether I would take up my qualification places in Switzerland, with Kona coming so soon afterwards. My year has been dominated by long-course training and racing, with not much specific high-intensity speedwork having been done, and with the recovery having taken so long after Ironman UK.

But I thought I would take the opportunities while they are there – who knows what I will or won’t be doing next year, and the year after… and the world championship venues in future years might not be as “convenient” and “close” as Switzerland…

I managed to get a fairly reasonable 3-4 week block of fairly focussed training done, which has just finished. I’ll now taper down for a week. There hasn’t been a great deal of focus on the longer distance training in this most recent training block, but I will get through the short-course championships and then I will have a three-week block to train for Kona, with the long-distance training being a big focus again. I will also have to include heat adaption training.

Anyway, the training done over the last 3 weeks included some turbo intervals at the start of the block, where my power numbers were definitely down. Ironman recovery takes time. I will say that repeatedly. Then the next evening I didn’t feel my legs and knees were recovered enough to go out and run, so I did an hour of hard turbo pedalling to simulate a standard triathlon distance. My heart rate was high and my power was still down. Ironman recovery takes time… But it was still early in the training block. I had to stick with it.

The next day, Friday, I swam 20 x 100 yards in the pool, having hoped to make it to 16 x 100. So to hit 20 was good, and my times were actually decent. 1:20 for the 100 yards, which was well under 1:30/100m pace. That was positive. It’s also positive to have such a quiet pool where I can swim hard and fast without anyone getting in my way, and it’s positive that I have the flexibility at work to be able to go swimming at 1pm for an hour and a half or whatever.

Buoyed by this I hit the weekend and I went out on the bike intending to do 3 hours hard. The first hour was great, the second hour still wasn’t bad, I was feeling good, feeling like the Ironman had finally left my legs. The final hour and a half were a rude awakening. I felt awful. “Brain to engine room, more power please…” “Sorry, we are done, shutting down…!” There was nothing left, the power was ebbing away quickly, the legs weren’t playing ball, and it was a sobering slog back home.

The following day’s 10k run was also a bit disappointing. Hmmm. I had thought I might enter the Kelso sprint triathlon the following weekend, partly as training, partly as race practice. I decided against it, as it would interrupt focused training. I needed to train, not to have a mini taper and mini recovery from a race.

It was not looking great for Switzerland at this point, and I wondered (and keep wondering) how I would do in Switzerland if it had been my prime focus for the year. But if this had been the case, I wouldn’t be going to Kona. And with trying to do the two races in two days in Switzerland, they are both going to be a bit compromised anyway. The sprint race is first. I would normally say I would be stronger at the sprint race than the standard race. However, the sprint race is draft-legal (slipstreaming is allowed, which is a bit worrying as I don’t have a lot of experience of riding at speed at close quarters with packs of riders, it will be jittery and nervous and I really don’t want to crash with Kona coming up).

This means I have to use my road bike in the sprint race, because time trial bikes are not allowed in draft-legal races, which means I have to bring two bikes because the standard race is draft-illegal. I can bike and run with the best of them, but my swimming is a little bit down, so the fast swimmers in the sprint will get away on the bike and ride together as a pack, and I will never be able to catch them up. That’s not negativity, that’s realistic. I might swim 11 minutes flat, the fast guys will be sub-10, and in a draft-legal race it’s very difficult to make up 80-90 seconds in 30 minutes on the bike.

Anyway, I will do what I can! Also, the lake is so “warm” that wetsuits might not be allowed. I really feel the cold, so this could be an issue. The water at Ironman UK was 21 degrees, and with my thermal wetsuit on, it was brilliant. A perfect temperature, with the wetsuit. I believe if the water is over 22.5 degrees in Switzerland, they won’t allow wetsuits. Over the past couple of weeks, the water temperature has been fluctuating between 21 and 23.5…

Then I will no doubt be tired for the standard race less than 24 hours later. I will have to do everything possible after the first race to ensure I recover as well as possible. But again I will do my best! It’s just not optimal. Nor is all the travelling. I have already been looking at bike box rental and borrowing, and making plans for the trip and how it will all work: travelling by car to Liverpool airport, meeting Deirdre, flying out together to Geneva, getting a train to Lausanne and then somehow getting across town with all the gear to the accommodation… sounds like fun, living the dream… hmmm…

I still had two to three weeks left to try to knock myself into shape. I went for a massage, the first one since the Ironman, and that helped a bit. I got back into a routine and a training mindset again. Got back to doing all the stretching and core work and weights and everything else that’s needed.

I did a pyramid interval session (of sorts) on the bike. I started intending to do 1 minute hard/1 minute easy, 2/2, 3/3, 4/4, 6/6, 8/8, 10/10 and back down again but I went too hard in the first two intervals to feel I could do the longer intervals, so I maintained repeats of 1/1 and 2/2, and maintained power output of over 300 watts, which was better than last week’s interval session and more getting towards “normal” levels again. I did a fartlek run, making it almost like an interval session. It felt OK. Two tough sessions which had been reasonable. Then an easy bike session to recover for a weekend of hard work.

I again got lucky with a quiet swimming pool and did 8 x 200 yards. A previous best similar session was 6 x 200m, all in less than 3 minutes. I did my 8 x 200 yards in less than 2:45, which was just about less than 3 minute pace for 200m. I was pleased to hold onto the pace and not have the times drop. So I wasn’t far away. I did some single leg turbo drills that evening. My parents and Deirdre were over this weekend so it was good to relive the Ironman again and show them the photos and videos. We fitted in a ParkRun, and I got my heart screened via the CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young) charity. I’ve had my heart screened quite a few times and was pleased to see everything was still normal…!

Hooked up for scanning

But I had business to take care of over the weekend so they headed off to the Edinburgh festival while I jumped on the turbo trainer. I did over 3 hours in the heat on the turbo, building every ten minutes for an hour, from 130 to 300+ watts, repeated 3 times. The third build was so tough and I needed a couple of caffeine gels to give me a final kick to get through it. It wasn’t bad. Then I met everyone else in town for a show and a bite to eat.

I'm famously anti-coffee, never liked it. 

I did get onto espresso martinis once.

The best I can say about this gel is that
it wasn't as disgusting as I thought it

was going to be, and it gave a good kick

On Sunday I battered out a 65-minute tempo run taking in 10 hills, by now I was feeling better with every day that passed. I knew the following week would be into a third straight week of training. I usually train in blocks/cycles of two weeks, followed by an easy week. With timings and recoveries and tapers, there wasn’t much choice but to launch into a third week of tough training, but I’d be very mindful of how the body felt. I can’t afford to overdo things and have problems, as there is too much riding on the next couple of months, and too much invested.

I needed to really test myself out and see where my levels were at. It seemed my swimming was at a reasonable (for me) level – it won’t be quite as good as the best of them at the world sprint/standard races, but in terms of my own level, it’s there or thereabouts relative to how good I can make it with the time I have available to spend on it. The bike and the run, if I’m fit, should be pretty close to the best of them in Switzerland. They key thing is “if I’m fit”. Fitness is all relative to what you’re doing. Ironman fitness is different to short-course fitness. If I’d had 4 months specifically to prepare for one short-course race, I could be very fit for that. I haven’t had that, so I am making the best of it.

Tuesday’s test was 8 x 3 minutes hard on the turbo, with 2 minutes of recovery. I’ve done this session a few times and had usually been able to get over 300 watts. I ground out the session and built from 280-320 watts. Not bad. I’d take it.

Wednesday’s test was a run. 6 x half a mile. I’ve done this session a few times. 2:30 or better per half-mile is good. 2:28 fading to 2:34 is not good. This was also a big test for my knees, exactly one month after the Ironman. My knees felt fine, finally. I did 2:34, 2:30, 2:29, 2:28, 2:26 and 2:32. Not bad. The first one was slow, but I wanted to make sure I was bossing the session rather than the session bossing me, as would have happened if I’d ran 2:27 for the first one. The last one was a little disappointing but not a disaster, and the middle 4 were decent. I’d take it.

I did an easy recovery cycle on Thursday night, out by the airport. Then another tough swim on Friday. 6 sets of 50 yards, 100 yards, 150 yards. I held the pace well, at 40 seconds for 50 yards, 1:20 for 100, and 2 minutes (or even slightly quicker) for the 150. Another good session, followed by single leg turbo drills. Then it was into the weekend, and I did exactly the same turbo session as I’d done last Saturday: 3:10 on the turbo, building every 10 minutes from 130 up to 300+ watts. My overall average power was 5 watts up, and my heart rate was 7 beats per minute down, so that was positive. On Sunday I did a tempo run on tired legs.

Spin out to the airport

By this stage I was feeling a bit more positive for Switzerland. The world championships in short course triathlon! It has been overshadowed massively for me by Ironman UK and Kona qualification, but Switzerland is huge in its own right. The best in the world. A great venue, on the shores of Lake Geneva. They speak French there (I like speaking French). I’ve been there before. The Olympic city. I started reading up on the athlete guide, the schedule of events, the course, the logistics, and yes, past results. There could be 60-90 of the best athletes in the world in my category. I’m not going to win it, but top 20 is certainly do-able, with top 10 a possibility. Give me 6 uninterrupted, focused months and a podium wouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility…

I was now into a fourth week of training. Feeling decent. I hadn’t done any long runs or long bike rides, which I think helped me to feel good into a fourth week. I had another massage. My Tuesday test was 2 x 20 minutes as hard as possible on the turbo, with a 5-minute recovery (and of course a good warm up and cool down). I’ve done this session in the past. It’s probably the second-toughest session I do. I don’t look forward to it… (well, I do, it has to be done to improve and I choose to do it and want to do it, but it’s tough). A previous best for this session a few years ago I believe saw me hold averages of 301 and 303 watts (but I can’t remember in which order). How far off that would I be…?

The first 20 minutes was 300 watts. Probably 5-10 watts higher than I expected, but this first 20 is meaningless unless you can back it up with a good second 20. I blitzed myself into holding 297 watts for the second 20 minutes. Not bad at all. Obviously I wish I’d had 5-10 (or 30, or 50) watts more, but 300 and 297 was more than I was expecting so soon after an Ironman. I’d take that. I wanted and needed to follow a hard bike with a run, so I went straight out the door and ran 3km fairly hard at faster than 6 minutes per mile pace. This was about the pace I’d hope to run in the standard triathlon, and slightly slower than what I’d hope to run in the sprint.

I did a fartlek run on Wednesday, an easy turbo on Thursday, and a swim time-trial on Wednesday. 48 lengths hard (1200 yards/1100 metres), in 16:57, which worked out at just under 1:33 per 100m. That’s 11:35 for 750m, but I’d hope if it had been only 750m I’d have been a bit faster, so I might hope for a sub-11 swim in the sprint race, and a sub-23 swim in the standard race. I did 20 minutes of single leg drills that evening. Then it was the weekend. An “easy” two and a half hours out in East Lothian with Dermot turned out to be a lot less easy than I hoped, but it was a nice ride on some roads I’d never been on, in nice weather. Then I had the bikes serviced and started to pack them. An absolute pain. An easy run followed on Sunday, and then it’s into a tapering and travelling week.

A bigger, better, wider box than the one I took to South Africa.
And this one has clips that work too...!

I’m looking forward to Switzerland. It’s certainly no holiday, it will be hard work with all the travel and logistics, but I am in the best shape that circumstances have allowed me to be in, I am carrying no injuries or niggles, and I hope to compete well. I was going to say it’s a miracle I have no injuries, but I do so much work in the background to try to ensure I give myself the best chance of being injury-free.

If I can be close to sub-11 in the sprint swim, and then have a bike and a run on par with everyone else, then top 10-20 should be do-able. If it’s a wetsuit swim, it will suit me a lot better. A non-wetsuit swim will be slower and colder. The question is, how aggressive should I be in the swim, how hard should I push, to try to stick with the leaders so that I can try to be in the lead bike pack? The risk is overdoing the swim and blowing up later in the race. A tough balance. It’s more difficult to predict how the standard race, as I have no idea how I will recover in 21 hours. But again, if I can swim my swim in under 23 minutes, and then bike and run comparably with the best of them, again top 10-20 should be do-able. Time will tell.

Then I will take an easy week to recover, get a massage, get the bikes built up again, and try to get myself as fresh and recovered as possible for a tough 3-week block of endurance and heat training before Kona.

Training done in the 4-week training block was as follows (mileages are much lower than full iron distance training):

Week 1: Swim 2.1km, Bike 130 miles, Run 7 miles 

Week 2: Swim 1.9km, Bike 140 miles, Run 22 miles

Week 3: Swim 2.1km, Bike 135 miles, Run 16 miles

Week 4: Swim 1.4km, Bike 110 miles, Run 14 miles