Post 170 - Scottish duathlon championships 2019

It was a quick turnaround after the Grangemouth 10K, with a week before the Scottish duathlon championships in Stirling. Grangemouth had been a tough, fast run, and my legs were sore for a few days. I had one complete day of rest on Monday, then did bike intervals on Tuesday. On my old friend, the turbo trainer. I was pleased enough with the consistency of this session, with my 8 sets of 3 minutes hard and 2 minutes easy getting progressively tougher from 301 watts up to 326 watts, on tired legs. Looking back at this, I needed to be starting off at 320 watts and finishing at 350-360 watts. It was too easy to use the excuse of tired legs. I did a fartlek run the next day and my legs were still fatigued.

That would be all my tough training before Stirling, I didn’t have the legs for anything more anyway… I swam 4300 yards the next evening (3932m) at 1:43.9/100m (i.e. a 65 minute pool ironman swim, which is decent given that it was just an easy swim). With a wetsuit that would be a few minutes quicker, and because it was just an easy swim, my heart rate was only around 130bpm at the end.

The next couple of days were almost “wasted” days, resting up, taking hot baths, stretching, trying to free up my sore left hip, treating the callouses on my feet, and doing just enough easy training to keep things ticking over, and then it was early to bed on Saturday night.

And so it was a 5am alarm on race day. I do not enjoy these early starts for multi-sport races. Porridge down the hatch. Car loaded. Off to Stirling university – the race venue for the Scottish national duathlon championships. It was to be a nice day – sunny and warm, but I should be finished by 10:30am, before it gets too hot. Registration, bike racked, change into race gear, warm up. Legs feeling neither brilliant nor terrible.

To the start line. Could I win this? I was third last year, a bit of a shock result for me, the first time I’d ever ridden my “new” second-hand bike. I outran an elite and a pro last year. Neither of those two who’d beaten me were starting this year. Could I win this? I hoped to at least challenge.

The race started. One guy went off like a 100m sprinter. I let him go. If that was his pace, he’d either win it or blow up. One other guy went with this pace then dropped back. I was in third. My first mile was too quick, but I knew some of the guys behind me, who may make time up on the bike, I wanted to get a gap. I thought I would be unlikely to lose any positions when I finished the bike, given that my running in multi-sport events is generally strong.

My pace settled to around 5:30 per mile on the undulating, trail-type course (maybe equivalent to 5:20-5:25 on tarmac). I started to catch the guy in second, and was almost on his tail into transition. I beat him through transition, and was second off on the bike. The leader was long gone. The win wasn’t on. A podium was on though and it would be good to go one better than last year.

I initially felt decent on the bike. But I was a little concerned that my power was slightly down. I didn’t want to push any harder, and told myself that the warmer temperatures weren’t helping. I made sure to hydrate well, and to keep nice and tucked and tight and aero on the fast course. It was the same as last year – second place on the first lap of the bike. And so passed the first lap. Coming through the grounds of Stirling university wasn’t a lot of fun – speed bumps, twists, turns, undulations – none of which were enjoyable on a time trial bike.

Exiting the university, being overtaken. Just like last year. A glance back told me that there was a bit of a peloton of maybe 6 or 7, hunting for the podium. No-one pulled away from me though, and on the second lap of the bike it looked like anyone’s chance. I thought that if I could keep pace with this group and finish the bike with them, I should be strong enough on the run to challenge for a podium place.

My bike legs started to fade in the final quarter of the bike. I somehow forced myself to keep pace with the leaders until the final uphill kick before the university, when my lack of power started to show and people pulled away. They were merciless/brave/crazy going through the university, over all the speed bumps, round the twists and down the hills. I lost nearly a minute in the final few miles. Bummer. I came into transition alone. Ran down to rack my bike. Unclipped my helmet. Still plenty to run for, as the final run is usually my strongest point. Bent over to undo my shoes. Stood up. To final a marshal in my face…

Oh noooooo… What had I done? “Do you know why I’m stopping you?” I had no idea. I’d kept all the rules. Had kept out of all the draft zones. Had been fair. Hadn’t crossed any white lines or broken the highway code. I hoped a motorbike official hadn’t seen anything at the wrong moment, such as me going into someone’s draft zone to overtake them – wrong time, wrong moment. Something like this was possible but a penalty in such circumstances would be really harsh as you’re allowed 20 seconds in the draft zone to make a pass, but a motorbike official might only have a few seconds of a glance. Plus a whole peloton had hunted me down – even if you’re not drafting in a peloton, you still get benefits by being in a group.

I had no idea. I just gaped at her. “You undid your helmet clip before you racked your bike…” I was gobsmacked. I couldn’t argue, if that’s what she had seen me do. I thought it a bit of a petty rule. There are quite a few such rules in triathlon. Oh well, that’ll be a 2 or a 4 minute penalty then. Bang goes my race. “Carry on,” she said. Eh?! Carry on?! She wasn’t penalising me, and I legged it out of transition.

Within the first few hundred metres I knew my running legs just weren’t there. The heat? Maybe? Overcooking the bike? Maybe? Overcooking the first run, leading to a bad bike fade? Yes. Simply not doing enough bike training? Yes also. Oh well. Run like mad and see what happens. I could see the boys ahead. They weren’t coming back as quick as they usually do. I was suffering. It was getting warm. The mind was willing the body to run strongly. The body wasn’t complying.

Illustrating why I get painful callouses under my little toes -
look at where and how my foot is landing and impacting

I managed to pass a couple of guys but knew the podium was gone. And in the end I came in fifth. I might have come in fourth without the chat with the marshal in transition (there was only a 6-second gap to fourth). The gap to second was just over a minute. I would say I had it in me to be second on the day with what I had. The win definitely wasn’t on. But had I ran more conservatively in the first 10K run, I’d have finished the run with the group who then caught me after 20K on the bike, and I could then have biked with this group (legally of course, not drafting), probably finished the bike with this group, and had better legs for the final run.

I couldn’t help but compare it with last year, where I’d gotten the absolute maximum out of myself on the day. The pace of the first run last year was quite conservative, I had done more bike training and was able to hold a higher bike power, and had much better legs for the second run. Or so it felt. Looking back at the data, the first run this year was significantly faster, the bike power was down by around 15-20 watts, with a big fade in the final 5 miles, bizarrely my average bike speed was slightly higher this year, and even though my second run felt terrible, it was actually a little bit faster than last year.

Still, no disguising the fact that my bike, and my race overall, were disappointing. I hadn’t respected the race enough. I hadn’t done the work on the bike. I’d maybe been a bit too arrogant. An hour on the bike is very different to a sprint distance’s half-hour and I think I am better at the sprint distances.

I went for a warm-down with two of the girls from the club and they dropped me, left me for dead. I had nothing in my legs. By the time I got back after the warm-down, it was hot, and a rumour was circulating that the winner had been disqualified for taking the racing line round the S-bends at the far end of the course, and cutting across the central white line. We had been strongly told that doing this would “at best result in disqualification and at worst would result in death…” This would bump me up to fourth, and if anyone ahead of me wasn’t a formal member of the British/Scottish Triathlon federation, I’d be up to third. I’d win a few quid, a national medal, and a “big bobble hat” – I was really keen on these – Big Bobble Hats were sponsoring hats for all the podium finishers and sometimes for me it’s the little things that motivate.

No such luck though, the winner was announced as the winner “after an emotional morning” (whatever that meant) and I was left a bit disappointed, demoralised and demotivated by a poor performance and a lack of direction going forwards. The duathlon was the final target race before the “ironman summer.” I passed up on the chance to compete at the World Duathlon Championships in Spain next week – it was in a remote corner of north-west Spain and I decided it was too costly a trip and too awkward a trip, and wouldn’t leave enough time before the ironman. Hopefully my performance in this year’s Scottish duathlon championships will qualify me for next year’s world duathlon championships in Amsterdam/Almere – a much easier trip.

Part of my demotivation is that I don’t really know what I’m going to do next. Every decision I’ve made has been for the ironman. I haven’t entered it yet. A huge part of me doesn’t want to do it. The terrible, suffering training. The awfulness of the race, and the race venue. The expense. The likelihood of getting nothing to show for another ruined summer. And yet I feel I have to do it, to apply everything I’ve learned, to give it one more crack, roll the dice one more time – there’s nothing more I can learn after this one. It won’t be happening again. Oh well. Hopefully by the time I next write a blog post, I’ll have entered the race and be committed to it and a bit more upbeat about it.

Training done was as follows: 

Post 169 - End of my running season...

Following the Scottish Road Relays, I had a bit of a shock at the hospital. I dislocated my shoulder and broke my hand nearly 2 years ago in a bike crash, and I have been rehabilitating both consistently (and tediously) ever since. I was lucky to have a good physio who understood the sporting side of things, and I’d been pushing both my physio and my consultant, saying that “good enough for average daily life of going to work and being able to sleep without pain” wasn’t really good enough for me, with my aspirations to compete at world championship level in triathlon and duathlon.

I’d had an invasive MRI arthrogram, injecting stuff into my shoulder to show up the interior in a scan. My physio had seen the results, maybe hadn’t interpreted them totally correctly, and assured me that when I went to discuss them with the consultant, he would simply say “there is no more we can do,” and that would be the end of the two-year process. My physio had even gone so far as to say I could dial the rehab right back.

So I was surprised when the consultant said “I can offer you surgery…” He was pretty neutral about this, said it was up to me, explained the possible risks versus the possible rewards. I kept questioning him. He explained there was humerus bone head damage and cartilage damage, which could be operated on. I kept questioning and questioning and he eventually said “it’s up to you, if you want it here’s my number, call any time in the next year.” And that was that. Food for thought. I don’t know what I’ll do, but if I do anything it will be in the off-season winter months when I don’t need to be riding bikes and swimming.

I looked ahead to the next running target, a 3K on Glasgow Green – a flat, fast out and back course along the Clyde. I really wanted to break 9 minutes. I started running the Aberdeen Proms 3K races way back in 2003, starting off at 10:30 or so, and over a few years saw this time decrease to 9:06, set in around 2005. I hadn’t run a 3k since. I hoped I could break 9. If I had ambitions to run the Grangemouth 10K in mid-April under 32 minutes, I’d need to be breaking 9 for the 3k.

So I turned up to Glasgow. It was windy. I was never going to be so comfortably under 3k that the conditions wouldn’t matter. So I was doubtful. It was fast running – I don’t usually race such short distances, and don’t really train for them either. I got into a race with a couple of others, letting the lead two go in the first half, reeling them in by the turn, pulling away from them after the turn, feeling reasonable, then having this bubble burst a bit with the Garmin beeping for the mile split. I knew what it needed to say, and it was just under 10 seconds down on this. I’d never make that up in the final 4 minutes. But I’d go as hard as I could.

The big yin on a big wall in Glasgow

I ended up fading a bit in the final quarter as the lack of speed training took its toll and the two overtook me. I just couldn’t stick it. I wasn’t quite sure where the finish was – it was quite an informal race with no big finish gantry or banner, so I couldn’t really time a sprint finish. The leader ran 9:03, I was third in 9:08. A bit disappointing, but there we go. A sub-9 is something to be achieved and worked for, so if I want to do it, I will have to work for it rather than just turning up without having trained specifically for it.

I was disappointed with the implications for the Grangemouth 10k in a couple of weeks. I’ve beaten sub-32 10k runners all winter in cross-country but now it didn’t look like I’d do it. I was also a bit disappointed that I won’t get another chance to do a 3k this year, if I am moving back to triathlon over the summer. I've started experimenting with running in tri shorts rather than the more traditional, baggier running shorts, and a tighter vest - this came from the ParkRun I did a month or so ago on Bere island in windy conditions, where the wind caused my shorts and vest to act like parachutes, with a definite slowing effect. I figure if I'm running at 10-11 mph, into a similar speed of wind, that's 22mph against me (comparable to cycling speeds), and you wouldn't dream of wearing baggy bike gear as it would slow you down so much.

Anyway – I looked ahead to the next target. The Grangemouth 10k, in 16 days. Time enough to get a decent training block in, and taper down for this one, as it was a big target for me. The day after the 3k was a nice day, I didn’t want to run too hard to let the legs recover, I planned a turbo but the weather was too nice so I took the bike over to Arthur’s seat and did 6 hill repeats (I suppose with half an eye on the Scottish duathlon championships, the week after Grangemouth). The session went reasonably well, with each repeat taking around 3:45, and averaging up to 360 watts. Not bad. I did a strong fartlek the following day, then my legs were really feeling it. I had to talk to myself about not getting carried away – I took the next day off, and the day after that very easily.

I got a last-minute sports massage too, in an effort to get the legs as good as possible. This was quite a big deal for me, as the last sports massage I had in summer 2014 literally nearly killed me, with both my legs turning septic – it also ruined that entire year’s work, trashed what I thought was a very good chance of qualifying for Kona and left me with a huge fear of any sort of sports massage. I survived this one, which was a big plus. I’ve no idea what happened the last time – dirty massage oil? Dirty hands? Me being on the edge? Who knows…

I didn’t want to stress the legs too much after the massage so rather than a hard run, I did a turbo tempo, again with an eye on the duathlon. 1 hour at 252 watts and 144bpm was a reasonable session (versus 1:06 at 286 watts in the duathlon last year, after a 10k run…) The next evening I went down to do three repeats of the full lap at the meadows (about 1.42 miles). The first two were good (7:15, 7:17). The third one was terrible (7:37). A bad lap and a dark mood. My feet were on fire and my legs had nothing.

I’ve got massive callouses on both of my feet, under my little toes. I have unusual (terrible) biomechanics that mean I land on a very small part of my foot right under my little toes, and huge callouses have built up, which get very painful when I run. I mean excruciating. On fire. Especially when I run fast in training, or race. I needed to sort this or I would be DNFing in Grangemouth (Did Not Finish). Cue emergency phone calls to podiatrists… I got an appointment and got the callouses pared back and got some foot cream and callous files. Hopefully this would help.

I did a cruisy swim, 4000 yards at 1:44/100m pace, with a pleasingly low heart rate at the end – replicating an ironman – if I go ahead with the ironman I am willing to sacrifice a few minutes in the swim for a lower heart rate starting the bike, which also means the pool training I do won’t be as intense, which means I’ll be fresher. I followed this with a better hill session, which gave me a boost, getting stronger throughout, with no foot pain. But I was only running hard for a minute at a time, with 2 minutes of recovery. I didn’t know how my scalped feet would react to a continuous hard run…

I did a great long slow run in the hills in the Scottish Borders the next day, running up and up and up, into the mist, into the snow, into the forest. It was a brilliant 80 minutes of running, with no speed or time pressures, up in the snow and mist. Unreal. Then it was “taper week”. A key session for taper week has become 4 x half a mile on Tuesday. My times for this were good, my feet were still sore but not as bad as they were, but I’d noticed now my hip was sore. It didn’t seem to be restricting my running, but I couldn’t bend over down my left side. Hopefully it will resolve itself. I did so much stretching and mobility work and self-massaging and tennis-balling (painful), so I tried to give it every chance.

I went out the following evening for an easy bike ride (the benefits of summer approaching, and brighter evenings), did a mini fartlek the next day, then Deirdre arrived. We did a Saturday ParkRun at Loch Ore (a really great location, blue skies, blue loch, nice easy running, fantastic) and a bit of a drive round Fife. My hip was playing up and my legs were a bit sore. I just started feeling like Grangemouth was slipping away, which was a shame – I’d been targeting this race all winter, I’d had the fitness to break 32, and now it was slipping away. Much like the 3K, Grangemouth would be my only chance at a 10K this year. Breaking 32 has been a 16-year target…

Nice place to run

Race day was windy. Another negative. I started going through scenarios. I’d start anyway, and I knew it was a 2-lap course, so if at 5K my hip was sore, my feet were sore, my time was down, I’d just bail out. I thought it wouldn’t be worth trashing my legs with the duathlon only a week away. I feel I can have a good crack at the duathlon – the running won’t be as flat-out (and therefore damaging) in the duathlon as in a standalone 10K. I was third last year in the Scottish duathlon championships, having never ridden my (“new” second-hand) bike on the road and having not done a great deal of bike training over that winter. This year, my running fitness is probably slightly better, and I’ve got a year of biking behind me, so I fancy a good crack at it.

I knew I needed 5:08 pace to break 32. It was break 32 or bust for me. The first two miles were perfect, tucked into a group, sheltering as much as possible from the wind, 5:09 and 5:07. My feet started to feel sore, but not agonisingly so. I got to halfway not quite on course for sub-32 but well on course for a PB (i.e. sub-32:52). I thought I’d rattle on as hard as I could and see what happened.

The group started to break up. One guy ran away – bravely into the wind. I couldn’t follow him, with a 5:19 slowest mile into the wind, and 5:12 and 5:14 either side of that. I was starting to catch a couple of runners who had started too fast. This was a good spur for me to keep going, and a sub-group of three formed as we passed the stadium with 3k to go. With 2k to go, one was dropping away, one was pulling away, and I was in the middle – being kept honest – with a guy ahead to focus on and keep as close as possible, and a guy behind to keep behind.

With hindsight, I had over-eaten the previous day and I started feeling that horrible urge. I hoped I could hold it, and hold my pace too. It didn’t give me any excuses as mile 6 was 5:05 and I ran strongly down the home straight inside the athletics stadium to post 32:17, a 35-second PB. I was really surprised, with an immediate trip to the toilet giving me time to reflect. Sub-32 would have been on if there had been no wind. I’m just about in shape to do it. But I’ll have to be content with 32:17, a new PB, finally bringing my 10K PB “into line” with my other PBs – for years my 10K PB had been my worst PB. And hopefully next year I will finally do it. Deirdre also ran a PB, 2 weeks before she will do the London marathon – good going.

And with that, my out-and-out running season ends. I will recover as well as I can for the Scottish duathlon championships, where I hope to have a good race. I keep talking about the ironman. Every decision I’ve made in the last 18 months has been with the ironman in mind.

And yet I can’t bring myself to enter it. It’s so much money, so high risk, all the eggs in one basket, it will be my sixth Ironman UK race and tenth ironman start, they aren’t all that exciting any more, Ironman UK in Bolton is not a great venue, logistics are a pain, they’ve changed the bike course this year to something the previous course record holder has described as awful/dangerous/terrible/shocking, it will “ruin” my summer (indeed the rest of 2019), it will hamper my performance at the world sprint and standard triathlon championships in September 2019, it will ruin my running (I could crack on with running and get those sub-9 and sub-32 times), but yet I feel that it’s now or never with the ironman. The timing will never again be as good as it is now.

Maybe one day soon I was actually bite the bullet and enter it…

Training done was as follows:

Post 168 - End of winter 2018-2019 cross country season

My last blog post was about a successful Ulster cross-country championships, at which I had a decent run. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, followed by getting sick. I had trained hard and peaked well for the Ulsters, ran really hard, and this depletion ended up making me ill. I wasn’t really surprised. Silly as it may sound, but getting a tight haircut just before the race didn’t help as my head was cold all the time, and my body said “enough” and forced me into submission by getting sick.

So I had to write off a planned trip to Aberdeen to run a 3K. There aren’t many opportunities to run 3K road races. My PB was 9:06 from years ago (I’d say 13-14 years ago), and I’d always wanted to run sub-9. Oh well. The wait goes on…

I managed to recover quickly enough for the UK inter-county cross-country championships in Loughborough. I’d be running for Scotland East. I knew a strong Northern Ireland squad was traveling over and I wondered if I might have made that squad had I expressed an intention. In the end Scotland East were only able to field 3 senior male runners, which was a bit disappointing when it’s 6 runners minimum to make up a team).

No matter, it would be a good run out and a good weekend. A long bus journey to Loughborough meant everyone was dying to get off the bus and into the canteen as soon as possible. We were staying in the Elite Athlete Centre at the university. It was pretty cool. Bedrooms where you can control the levels of oxygen in the air to mimic sleeping at altitude, stimulating oxygen-carrying red blood cell production. Amazing food. Great rest and relaxation facilities. A running track named after Paula Radcliffe right next door. Amazing food. I was sorry we were only staying one night…

I made the most of the amazing food (probably made too much of it and over-ate), and was happy to see the course was nowhere near as muddy as last year. There was a very strong wind blowing. Being the last race, I had a bit of time to kill. I found a jerry-can behind a burger van, and sat sheltered from the wind in the sun, sorting out my spikes.

It’s a very high-quality race and I said I’d be happy placing in the top half of the field. I managed to do this, but didn’t feel I’d had a brilliant run. I had peaked two weeks earlier for the Ulsters, processed an illness and just never quite felt 100% in Loughborough. I gave it my best though, but was nowhere near one of the guys in the Northern Ireland squad who I would usually be really close to. Such was the strength of the field, the Northern Ireland squad didn’t manage to finish in the medals – knowing the quality of that squad, this was surprising but goes to show the quality of the athletes on show.

It was quite a highlight running through “West End Corner” where Deirdre and some of her clubmates were marshalling/shouting at me/taking photographs. I didn’t have to endure the bus back to Scotland as we were heading off to Ireland for a week, hopefully culminating in another attempt at the Bere Island ParkRun record We had a good week touring the south of Ireland, getting a few runs in, eating plenty of nice food, a few drinks. The weather was stormy though. The Bere Island record was looking safe…

Wild scenery, wild weather

One run of note during the week was my first track session since 2008. I wanted to make it to 14 x 400, but didn’t want to trash my legs, so thought 10 might be a good compromise. At my fittest at university, when I was training on the track once a week, I did 14 x 400m all under 70 seconds, with 50 seconds of recovery. I wondered how far off I’d be. This time round, it was blowing a gale, raining, with sleet and hail showers. My first one was sub-70. They dropped to around 72. Then halfway through, a hailstorm hit. The hurlers on the adjacent field bailed out of their training session. I’m halfway through, I’m not quitting. It was agony. Horizontal hail smashing me. Times dropped to almost 80 seconds. After 10 minutes, the storm subsided. It was still windy. The times came down again to around 72. I did 14. And jumped straight in the car and drove straight to the supermarket and bought protein-enhanced milk and crossed my fingers that the session wouldn’t do any damage…

Down to Bere Island then and waking up on ParkRun morning on what I hoped would be a glorious warm sunny calm blue-sky day, I ended up disappointed. The Wild Atlantic Way was living up to its billing, Storm Gareth was in full swing, it was lashing rain and howling wind. No records today. Would I just cruise around then, or would I run it hard and see what happened? I was there to run hard. I’d run hard. The ferry over was uneventful, everyone huddled in the small cabin at the back. The minibus was the usual rollercoaster on the little hilly country roads on the island. The weather was fierce. I decided not to wear a waterproof. And ran as hard as I could.

Mile one was quick, with the wind behind. At the turn, the wind caught my long-sleeved top and shorts like parachutes, they were billowing crazily, adding a huge amount more drag. It was grit your teeth stuff. Really slow running. What could I do? I just kept going. 16:45 or something in the end. 40 seconds off the record. I dare say I had the fitness to do it, I just need to go there on a good day! Any disappointment disappeared in the BakeHouse with a scone, cake and banoffee pie for breakfast… great success. With it being the end of the winter season, the end of the cross-country season, and having carried things through the Bere Island ParkRun, I decided the rest of the day would be a bit of an end-of-season blow-out and duly spent time in the pub consuming Guinness and eating tremendous food...

I came back off the week and a half in Ireland, probably the longest time that I have been “lax” with my eating and drinking (I say “lax”, it’s not like I ate pure rubbish all week, I ate pretty healthily but it’s weeks like this that make me realise how tight and ridiculously clean and healthy my normal diet has become). I wondered would I have put on much weight, and how would training go? I’d maybe put on a kilo, which I’d soon shift, and training seemed to be fairly unaffected: I thought I’d maybe need a week to get back up to speed but my first hill session on the Tuesday evening went well, followed by a good turbo session (3 x 10 minutes hard, with 5 minutes recovery, each interval averaging 300W. I looked at last year’s log and in May/June 2018 I was able to do 4 sets of 10 minutes at 300W, so to be doing 3 in March is OK). I had a decent fartlek run on Thursday evening, and then had to think about how to play it for the next few days…

The Scottish National Road Relay championships were on the Sunday. I was picked on the A team, with an outside chance of a medal. Would I do a mini-taper? Or train straight through? In the end I decided a long (80 minutes, long for me) slow run on grass on Friday would do no harm, nor would a swim on Saturday. I did an ironman-distance swim, nice and easy, in 67 minutes. My heart rate was pleasingly low at the end when I checked. This was the first time I’d swam in 31 days, and only the second time in 44 days. I haven’t been swimming much recently. When fit and pushing, I’d do an ironman-distance pool swim in 63-64 minutes. So my swimming is still surprisingly good. If I do the Ironman again, my swim strategy will be to swim nice and easy, accept losing a couple of minutes if it means coming out of the water feeling great, with a low heart rate, having not exerted myself too hard. It seems like I’ll be able to achieve this off one swim per week, instead of the 2-3 swims per week I was doing in London. One swim per week will allow more recovery time, and I will hopefully be much fresher.

The relays were another windy day. I did them a few times in 2004-2007, and again 2 years ago. Last year they clashed with the Scottish Duathlon championships. I was a bit apprehensive about racing hard on the road again. My body doesn’t like the road. I had a good consistent cross-country season because the soft surfaces take less out of the body. The road is unforgiving for injury-prone people like me. I know I’m not far off the shape needed for a sub-32 10K – a huge goal for mid-April. I don’t want to jeopardise this. But at the same time, I need to do the training and racing that will allow me to improve and get to mid-April in good shape. I felt all sorts of niggles going into the relays – right foot, left knee, both Achilles. I hoped I’d survive in one piece. The course was once described to me as “a cross-country course on tarmac”, which isn’t far away – all underpasses, overpasses, bridges, twists, turns, footpaths, the odd trail, tight blind turns. A tough course.

In the end, I survived, and I ran reasonably well, given that I hadn’t tapered and had a fairly big week of training beforehand. The first half was uphill and twisty into a strong wind. I ended up being the windbreak for two athletes who were sheltering behind me. One dropped off. I kept weaving to try to shake him from my slipstream. Kept looking round as if to say “come on, share the work”. Pointedly slowed very briefly twice to see if he’d come through. Not a bit of it. At the top turn, the highest point of the course where we turned out of the wind, he came through and started pulling away. Well he had played that one well. He got about 5 seconds. I hated the first half. Hated the hills. Hated the wind. But as the course started back gradually downhill with the wind behind, I was able to open up. A 4:45 mile saw me catch and pass the slipstreamer.

I seemed to be going well and hoped I’d keep it going. It was good to have someone ahead (a green vest) to chase, and someone behind (the slipstreamer) who I had motivation to keep behind. I caught the green vest. Approached the final tight left hander. Knew it was leading onto a 600m uphill of pain to the finish. I really wanted to keep green vest and slipstreamer behind. I fought so hard and pipped them. A decent run. Just shy of 10K. Had it been 10k, I’d have equalled my PB (just sub-33). I had a chat with slipstreamer. We laughed. “That was the race.” Fair enough, race how you see fit, no hard feelings.

In the end our A team was fifth overall. It was a strong team, which shows the strength in depth in Scottish running. It’s always a good day out at the relays, being able to support clubmates on course and meeting up with people. Some of our veteran teams got medals.

Importantly, I seem to have gotten away with the relays without injuring myself, which is great. I ran at 10K PB-equalling pace on a very windy day, on a slow course. Could I be a minute quicker on a flatter, faster course, on a more favourable day? I hope so… My legs were a little sore the day after, but hopefully this will pass. I’ll hopefully see nice weather on Friday when I hope to run a road 3K in Glasgow (I’d love to break 9 minutes, and not wreck myself in the process). Then I will have 2 more weeks to train prior to the Grangemouth 10K, which will be my only tilt at a 10K this year (multisports are looming). I want so much to break 32. I’ve wanted to do this since I was 18. I am probably just about good enough to do it if I am really fit, lucky with injury, lucky with the weather and have a very good day. I’ve never managed it to date.

I will have to balance my training with a bit of bike work as well, because the Scottish duathlon (10k run, 40K bike, 5K run) is the week after the 10K (assuming the 10K doesn’t destroy me and leave me injured). This is also a big target. I was third overall there last year and would love to be similarly competitive this year. If I can make it there in one piece, my running should be strong. Probably I won’t have done quite so much on the bike as I would like, but my overall fitness should certainly be good.

My winter 2018-2019

So, some exciting races coming up, but it’s high-risk stuff for me – I find racing hard on the roads very difficult and injury-inducing, so I am hoping I make it through April in once piece. Then, in one form or the other, I will be into multisports again, reliving some of the pressure of avoiding injury I associate with pure road running. My dilemmas are still the same: one last tilt at ironman, or full focus on short-course triathlon? Or indeed, full-time focus on running?

A previous post (post 164) outlined this dilemma in more detail! I still haven’t made a call but I need to hurry up and do so.

Training done was as follows:

Post 167 - Ulster cross-country championships 2019

Ulster cross-country championship week. This would be my ninth running of the Ulsters for City of Derry Spartans AC. The club has been really good to me over the years. I first ran the North-West cross-country in Derry in December 2005 as an unattached runner (unattached in that I didn’t have a “home” club, but I was running for Metro Aberdeen in between stints at university in England). Not long after the 2005 North West cross-country race I had a phone call from Gerry Lynch, Spartans club stalwart and a man who has become an absolute hero of mine.

The result of this phone call was that I was on a flight home a few weeks later in January 2006 for the Ulster Junior cross-country championships, followed by 9 Ulster senior championships over the years. I’ve been lucky enough that I’ve always managed to be in the scoring 6 for the club, and have picked up one junior team gold medal, six senior team gold medals, a silver and two bronzes. Some great days in Ulster, at various venues: Bangor, Coleraine, Antrim, Greenmount, and more recently Lurgan where the event has made a home for itself over the past few years.

I had a hot bath on Monday night to help my legs recover after the fast 5K in Armagh. I often get itchy legs in winter – whether it’s the cold, or the going from warm to cold to warm etc when training and commuting on the bike, whether it’s the dry air in the flat when the heating is on, whether my skin is just susceptible to itching, whether it doesn’t like washing powder or whatever it is, it’s annoying at best and sleep-depriving at worst. After the hot bath my legs were so bad I had to resort to taking anti-histamines so I could sleep. Not ideal.

It was a moderate week of training in the lead-up to the Ulsters: a rest day on Monday, then 4 x half -mile reps on Tuesday. Apparently the first half-mile was 2:18 but I can’t believe this was correct. Far too fast… The final three were more “normal” at just under 2:30. A swim on Wednesday night, a fartlek run on Thursday, a short easy turbo/bike on Friday, then off to catch a flight.

The flight was 3 hours late. Sitting in the airport for nearly 5 hours wasn’t ideal. If I’ve learned anything from running/sport, it’s that I’m fragile, especially when fit. Breathing stale manky airport air wasn’t ideal. Anyway. I got home late, got a late dinner, got to bed late.

Then it was off to Lurgan. I met the squad, did a warm-up, chatted and caught up with people. I felt decent in the warm-up, unlike Armagh. It was a nice day. I like the course, as much as it’s possible to like 6 laps and 12km of cross-country running. I really hoped the team would win the title again and that I could make a contribution on the scoring six again.

 Both the ladies’ and the men’s fields seemed bigger this year with good numbers turning out. Our ladies took bronze with Breege winning the overall title. Great stuff. The men lined up. We were off. Within a couple of hundred metres, a lead group of about 10 had formed. I was just off this lead group. In no-man’s land. Decision time. Go with the lead group, or hang back…? I was never going to win this race today and I figured that a few of the lead group would be strong throughout, and a few would probably drop off. I decided to run my own race and hang back. It was definitely the right decision. The race stabilised after a lap, then each lap that followed, I was picking people off, one by one, slowly but surely.

There were a couple of dramas. I almost rolled my ankle on a section running over some tree roots. A fraction more of a roll and I’d have been out of the race, and probably out of action for months. I was lucky. I felt decent. Kept going. Kept making progress through the field, working my way up from about 11th to 6th.

When passing one of the runners on a tight section, there was a bit of an issue. He moved off his line, maybe to avoid a tree root or uneven ground or something. I was blocked, I was almost into the back of him, I almost stumbled. I had to tell myself to calm down. Losing a few seconds was OK. Treat it as a mini-recovery. I gathered myself again. I was moving faster than he was. Wanted to get past. It was such an awkward section to pass on, particularly as we were lapping other runners. There was a bit of room to the left, and I made the pass. Kept going. I don’t know what happened or how it happened, but I felt the smallest touch on my right leg. Very minor contact. I looked back. He was down. “Shiiiiiiit”, what to do? Wait? Help him up? It was totally accidental. I looked back again. He was getting to his feet. Seemed OK. I felt terrible that it had happened, if I’d thought I was at fault I’d put my hands up and admit responsibility but it was just one of those things.

The race went on. By the start of the final lap I had made it up to 6th place. The strength of our squad meant that I was our fourth scorer. Up to this point I felt great. We had great support on the sidelines, roaring us on. It really makes such a difference. All the Spartans girls’ team were cheering from the sidelines, along with a good few other guys fro the club who had come along to support, and my mum was there too. I’m sure there’s all sorts of psychology around support and positive messages. It all seemed to come together, I knew I was running fairly well and was later told that I looked like a ballerina running round, light on my feet and looking decent. I’ll take that compliment!

Wouldn't call this anything like a ballerina

After a couple of laps I heard “come on Portstewart” from the sidelines. It must have been directed at me. Who was it? Who knows that? I kept hearing it every lap. I recognised the voice. I was sure I’d heard it before. But where…? South Africa! It was Stephen, husband of June, two I’d met in South Africa at the half Ironman world championships in September last year. I’d heard Stephen shouting at me in the run in South Africa and it was the “come on Portstewart” shout from the massed crowds that meant I knew it was them. June must have been running in the ladies’ race before we started. It was nice to catch up with them afterwards.

The final lap was slightly tougher. The guy I had just passed had obviously saved a bit for the last lap and as soon as we started the lap, he upped it and ran away from me. I just tried to maintain my pace. Up the long, long drag at the start of the lap. Round to the left, then keep right for the best line, through a bit of muck and slop, batter up the hill, left and left again, then a downhill, over the wood chippings, along a short straight, keep wide for the best ground or keep tight for the shortest line, into the trees and trying to watch your footing, gradually round to the left, up the hill, off-camber, up to the top, stay strong, out the other side, down the hill, round the far end of the course, flat now, turn into the home straight, finish strong. Seventh overall. My highest ever placing in the Ulsters. Another team title, with our runners scoring 2, 3, 5, 7, 12 and 15. Fantastic.

The first person I waited to talk to at the finish was the young runner who had gone down after our contact. I apologised that it had happened, said I wished it hadn’t, said I felt bad for him that it had, but also said there wasn’t anything I could have done, that it was purely accidental. Very graciously, he was completely fine with it. We shook hands. “That’s racing”, he said. And that’s indeed what it was.

I really am very lucky and privileged to run for such a great squad of runners. The club and the people have been really good to me over the years. They really took me under their wings in the early years of my running career, and over 13 years later continue to inspire and motivate me. I only wish I could be more involved more often. Running for City of Derry Spartans in the Ulsters is probably my favourite race of the entire year.

I started out as a runner, kept getting injured, and drifted to triathlon because I got injured less doing it. My training nowadays isn’t really full-on running training, it’s complemented with bike and swim training. I’ve had a tough winter of racing where I’ve often had to curtail my training due to the frequency of upcoming races, to keep myself fresh. I wonder if I really gave the running a proper crack, focused on a couple of key races, did some really good blocks of training, complemented by sports massage to keep myself fresh, how much further up the Ulster finishing order could I be…? Another minute would have put me in the mix for a podium. I need to knock the triathlon habit first of all, I’ll try to do that this year but there are just so many things I want to try and do that just don’t go that well together. For now I’ll be happy with what was a decent run in the Ulsters. I couldn’t help but have a look at the Scottish National cross-country results, held the same day, wondering where I might have placed there. But for me, it’ll always be the Ulsters.

I’m going to be getting back into triathlon and duathlon in some form this summer (whether long course or short course is still to be decided). But I want to use this running form to run some PBs. I had hoped to travel to Aberdeen the week after the Ulsters for the winter monthly 3K race. I’d love to break 9 minutes. I’m probably in shape to do it.

But unfortunately, in the days after the Ulsters, I’ve been feeling worse and worse, to the point where I now have to admit I am sick, and I’ve bailed on Aberdeen. A huge disappointment. I wonder what I did wrong. Not putting on a tracksuit soon enough after finishing? Too long travelling (2 weekends in a row)? Sitting beside the wrong person? Who knows.

I’d love to run some PB times that I can say “those times are the best I could achieve” – I’ve never yet done that in all my years of running. What times would satisfy that? Sub-9 for 3K, close to sub-15 for 5K, sub-32 for 10K, 53 (or better 52) for 10 miles, and sub-70 for a half marathon. And eventually I’d like to run sub 2:36 (or better sub 2:30) for a marathon. In addition to my triathlon ambitions. I wish I was 15 years younger…

So I’ve bailed on Aberdeen, but I hope to shake this sickness off to have a good run at the UK inter-county cross-country championships in Loughborough next week (selection confirmation came through a couple of days after the Ulsters), then have a crack at breaking the Bere Island ParkRun course record in Ireland the week after that. I’d have said I’d have a decent enough chance of that a week ago, but now, I’ve had a horribly lethargic, sniffly, snotty, frustrating week. I wonder how much fitness I’ll lose…

Training done was as follows: