So, the time has finally come. As I write this, I am sat on flight BA0804 from London Heathrow to Billund, ready to take on the best of Europe at the ETU Middle Distance Championships at Challenge Herning. I thought I’d take the opportunity to reflect back over the journey that’s got me here, and lay out what I’m expecting from the day itself…hopefully that extra accountability of it being out in the public domain will spur me on that extra couple of percent during the race!
Ever since posting my best ever time over the 70.3 distance at Ironman 70.3 Vichy in August 2016, this has been in my sights, with my training becoming increasingly focussed towards it from the moment that I found out that I had made the team in November. Without doubt, this is my A race for the year. At work, our CEO often recites the phrase (which I’m pretty sure he’s borrowed from a leader of a tech firm) that ‘what got us here won’t get us there’, and that’s very much the approach I took with my training over winter. Through the whole of my triathlon ‘career’ so far, I have been self-coached; making sure that I managed to fit in a few sessions of each discipline each week, and trying to make sure I mixed it up between low and high intensity, but with no real plan or structure to it. Having qualified for the European Championships, I didn’t want to just be there to make up the numbers. I wanted to be in a position to be toeing the line knowing that I was in with a chance of competing at the sharp end. I knew that carrying on in the same routine wasn’t going to cut the mustard, so I decided that this was the time to take on a coach. I did a bit of research around different coaches, their styles, and the formats in which they deliver their coaching, and had a few Skype calls to try and suss out the personal interaction side of things. I ultimately opted for Streamline Coaching, and Steve Mott. Whilst Steve’s is a fledgling coaching career, this was one of the attractions for me; I wasn’t just going to be another number, and as he is based local to me, the face to face interaction I felt would be valuable to me. Very quickly, I enjoyed the specificity of the sessions, particularly on the bike. It was a lot of time spent on the turbo over winter (which I grew to tolerate), but rather than just doing intervals of ‘hard’ or ‘moderate’ effort, I was working to specific numbers, and was getting used to interpreting both my heart rate and power numbers. As a result, I found my bike strength coming on a lot more than in previous years, where I’ve always been an average cyclist. I also tried to make sure that I was focussing a lot more on my swimming, trying to make sure that I was getting at least two sessions a week in, but three or four where at all possible. Steve is from a swimming background, and it was particularly helpful to get a few sessions with him poolside in early on. That and my regular coached sessions with Tri2O have really helped with my technique, and I’m now swimming in much faster lanes at the sessions that 12 months ago. I managed to take myself away for a training week to Mallorca towards the end of March, which I was able to focus on nothing but eating, sleeping, and training. Cycling over there is obviously fantastic, and the hotel that I stayed at had a lovely 25m outdoor pool, and is right on the bay in between Alcudia and Port de Pollensa, so there’s a nice, flat (if windy) loop to run. That week continued to build my bike strength in the ‘real world’ especially. A slight set back came my way immediately after Mallorca, though. I’m still not entirely sure how, but I managed to tweak something in my ankle whilst travelling back, and over the first couple of days back in the UK, it was really sore walking, let alone running. I backed off a bit, but was worried that I’d lose all of the progress that I’d made. To start with, even cycling was sore, but soon that came back, and it was just running that was off the cards. Another couple of weeks of no running seemed to sort the worst of it. It’s still not 100%, but it is pretty much there, and definitely manageable. The final 5 or 6 weeks leading to now have been about testing where I am, and making sure that I’m as set as I can be, and that has gone really well. It started off with the Beale Beastie on 7th May, where I came 2nd (and possibly/probably should have won - see my last post!) and continued with some key brick sessions and race simulations. The brick sessions especially have given me a huge amount of confidence; I have been able to hold good power on the bike (typically 250-270W for 90 minutes) followed by running at solid pace - able to hold my standalone half marathon pace (5:40/mile) for up to 6 miles pretty comfortably, despite not fuelling/hydrating quite to the same level I will on race day. So, I’m heading to Herning feeling pretty confident. I’m aiming to shave a considerable chunk off my time from Vichy (which was 4:35), and would love to be hitting 4:15, which I think is achievable if I can hold 250-260W on the bike, and run a 1:20 HM. Vichy was incredibly hot, which is something that I won’t have to contend with here, and I’m also in much better shape, especially on the swim and bike. I’m really gunning for a top 5 in my AG, and possibly a podium position. I’ll be laying everything on the line to get it.
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Well, my 2016 season is now well and truly done and dusted. I have had my feet up for close to a week now - but more on that in a moment. I've been a bit crap in updating the blog and site in general this year, but I was so wrapped up in giving everything to my training, that I always struggled to find / make the time. That is definitely something that I aim to address over the winter, especially, and heading in to 2017. My main race for the year was Vichy 70.3 at the end of August, and I was pretty pleased with my result there, albeit here was still some pretty large room for improvement; I'll aim to get a full race report up at some point soon, so keep your eyes on my Events page for that! I'm hoping that my result will be good enough for an AG slot for the ETU championships in Denmark, but I've got an agonising wait of another few weeks before I find out if I've made the cut. I thought that my final race of the year at Challenge Peguera would have been a good opportunity to enhance my chances, as - having done it last year - I know that the field isn't quite as large nor strong as Vichy. Unfortunately it wasn't to be, though, and this was the first part of 'ending on a downer'. Peguera was to be my first ever DNF. In any event. Ever. I was absolutely gutted. I picked up a puncture about 37 miles in to the bike, and (stupidly, with hindsight) wasn't carrying any spares, leaving me with a frustrating 3-4 mile walk to get to a point where a marshal could arrange for me to be picked up. My frustration was made all the worse when I looked at the results, and saw that I could well have been in the mix in my AG, if I'd held my power on the bike, and run as well as I have been recently. Frustration with a poor result was quickly put in to context / perspective just two days later, though. I had hired a road bike, and planned on a fairly epic ride around Mallorca; starting off in Port de Sollér, climbing Puig Major, down to Sa Calobra and back up, then looping back via Col de sa Batalla and Orient. I set off really early, to make sure that I beat the worst of the traffic on Sa Calobra in particular, and everything was going really well - roads were quiet, my legs were feeling pretty good up Puig Major (albeit I wasn't going full gas, knowing that I had a long day in the saddle planned, and wanted to keep it relatively leisurely), and the weather was perfect. My girlfriend got me a GoPro for my birthday this year, and I'd been wanting to film some epic descents on it ever since. Sa Calobra was my first real opportunity to do this, so I stopped at the very top of Col de Reis, set the camera going, and then testosterone and ego kicked in, and I started absolutely gunning it down the descent - which is probably my favourite piece of road that I've ever cycled on. I told myself I was going to get down as quickly as I could; wanting to been my PR on Strava, and make a video that did the speed of the descent justice. I was out of the saddle going round every bend, getting back up to speed as quickly as possible, and taking the racing lines as best I could. Then disaster struck. As I turned in to the second of the switchbacks, my front wheel just went from underneath me. I hit the ground hard, and the first thing that went through my mind was "shit; I hope I haven't broken anything", knowing that I was a long way from my car and any substantial civilisation, quickly followed by "I can hear the engine of a large vehicle coming up - I need to get out of the road" - so I very quickly jumped up, and got myself and my bike to the outside of the road, out of harms way. I inspected the bike, and the front tyre was absolutely flat as a pancake, so I'm assuming that it was caused me to lose all grip and crash. Having watched the video back a million times, there's a part a couple of corners before the one that I crashed where there's a bit of a jolt of the camera, and I think I may have clipped a rock that had fallen from the cliff face, which I'm assuming is what caused the puncture. I tried fixing it straight away (I was carrying spares this time!), but was shaking too much from the adrenaline, so I sat down on the floor for a couple of minutes to get my breath back, and check that I didn't have anything seriously wrong with me. I had ripped a huge hole in my shorts, which exposed a very nasty bit of road rash on my hip, and had other smaller parts on my forearm and elbow, but thankfully nothing broken etc. After those few minutes had passed, I got up and fixed the puncture, then turned around and made my way back up to the top. I had contemplated continuing down, but I wasn't sure how my leg would cope with climbing all that way, and I knew that in any event I still had the best part of 20 miles to get back to Port de Sollér - I'd already resigned myself to not being able to complete the full route that I had planned. That would definitely have been foolhardy. Thankfully, most of the 20 miles or so back were downhill - back down Puig Major - but suffice to say, I took that descent considerably steadier than I had down Sa Calobra! I made it back without further incident, and consumed copious amounts of coffee, cake and ice cream to make myself feel better. That was 5 days ago now, and my wounds are starting to heal, though my hip especially is still pretty swollen and sore; hence why I've had my feet up ever since. Given my season has finished - and it's been a long, hard one - I figured it's probably the best thing to do, to let it heal properly, and also to let my muscles fully recover. So, not really the way that I wanted to sign off on my 2016 season, but overall it's been a good one, and I'm definitely heading in to winter knowing that a decent training block will set me up really well for an even better 2017 - particularly as I'm just starting to consider taking on a coach to really push me on. If you want to see the video and consequences of my crash, see below - it's not for the faint hearted though! |