Today it’s two weeks to go to the big day at Ironman Austria in Klagenfurt. The last few weeks of training have been a bit of a mixed bag. A week after posting the last blog entry I did a 100 mile time trial. Despite not feeling great, the rain and cold weather I did 4:23:29 on 198W average power, which turned out to be good enough for 8th place overall. I was a lithe bit surprised and quite happy with that.
The week after Chris and I did the Dorking 10M road running race. My running has been very consistent recently and despite being tired after hard ride the day before I did 1:02:45 on an undulating course.
The weekend after I joined my friend James for four days of big training in Lanzarote. Somehow I’ve managed to squeeze 24 hours of training in four days including a 10km race and a mini duathlon.
Needles to say I returned feeling a little bit tired, which was not a good sign a week before the first serious race of the season – the 70.3 UK Half Ironman in Wimbleball. Despite that I was quite positive before the race and was hoping for a reasonable result.
The race day did not start well. When we arrived at the lake start venue the temperature was about 4C and the fog over the lake surface created a really eerie sight. When I got into transition upon close inspection I discovered that my rear tire blew overnight and I had a flat no track pump with me and only one spare inner tube on my bike. Having fixed the puncture I suddenly realised that I was the only person left in transition and everybody else has already been lead out to the swim start. I downed my wetsuit and sprinted down to the lake as a warm up. The swim didn’t actually go too bad – I started wide on the outside in the first row and after a couple of fast guys coming from behind swam over the top of me I actually managed to find some clear water and get into a nice rhythm. The rest of the swim was fairly uneventful and I exited the water in about 34 min. Thanks to some good tips from Chris how to strategically place my gear in transition I had a very quick change and must have passed at least a couple of hundred people in T1. Unfortunately when I got to the bike I discovered that the spear inner tube and tire leavers Alex bought for me while I was swimming have been strategically wedged into my saddle by some genius official and I though cycling with tire leavers stuck into my backside would be fairly uncomfortable, so I decided to stop and carefully remove all offending objects from my saddle. The bike at Wimbleball is quite tough with 52 hill on course and I was working quite hard, but actually moving quite well through the field. It was getting colder and colder and before the first lap was over it started lashing down with rain. All the grit was being washed onto the road and you could see many people fixing punctures at the side of the road, including me – twice. Having used all the spares and CO2 cartridges I finally decided that it wasn’t going to be my day and rolled back to transition on a flat tire. Disappointing as it was it’s a lesson for the future to be better prepared, change the tires before the race, carry more spares etc.
Since Wimbleball I’ve been feeling pretty flat, with sore legs and not able to complete my usual bike interval sessions. I has a reasonable long run – 20 miles in 2:14, which was encouraging, but it seems to have left me with a lot of residual fatigue and soreness.
This weekend I did another 3rd Cat road race at Chertsey and this time I felt much better. Comfortable for most of the race I was trying to be fairly active, moving up and down the bunch with ease an getting into a couple of short-lived breaks. None of the breaks came to any fruition and when everybody realised that I was going to end up in another bunch sprint with 90 riders the last lap was very nervous with pushing and showing and riders on the gravel. The final sprint was always going to be dicey and unfortunately the crash happened just in front of me with bikes and riders flying up in the air. Luckily somehow I’ve managed to avoid most of the carnage, stayed upright and only been hit by a flying bike in the knee. Amazingly nobody was seriously hurt. In the end I averaged 219W (248NP) for the 40M race, 20W up on last time.
Today I did my last long ride with some good tempo efforts and now all I can do is just to look forward to the race in two weeks time. I’ve done some reasonably consistent training in the last few weeks, but have had a mild cold in the last few days - a clear sign of pushing it a bit too far, so I’m glad the training is done now. In Klagenfurt I’m just going to enjoy the race experience and see what happens. I don’t have any targets, other than finishing, and I know it’s going to be hard racing on 12 weeks of training so I have no expectations. We’ll see how it goes.
Next update probably after the race.
Mike.
The week after Chris and I did the Dorking 10M road running race. My running has been very consistent recently and despite being tired after hard ride the day before I did 1:02:45 on an undulating course.
The weekend after I joined my friend James for four days of big training in Lanzarote. Somehow I’ve managed to squeeze 24 hours of training in four days including a 10km race and a mini duathlon.
Needles to say I returned feeling a little bit tired, which was not a good sign a week before the first serious race of the season – the 70.3 UK Half Ironman in Wimbleball. Despite that I was quite positive before the race and was hoping for a reasonable result.
The race day did not start well. When we arrived at the lake start venue the temperature was about 4C and the fog over the lake surface created a really eerie sight. When I got into transition upon close inspection I discovered that my rear tire blew overnight and I had a flat no track pump with me and only one spare inner tube on my bike. Having fixed the puncture I suddenly realised that I was the only person left in transition and everybody else has already been lead out to the swim start. I downed my wetsuit and sprinted down to the lake as a warm up. The swim didn’t actually go too bad – I started wide on the outside in the first row and after a couple of fast guys coming from behind swam over the top of me I actually managed to find some clear water and get into a nice rhythm. The rest of the swim was fairly uneventful and I exited the water in about 34 min. Thanks to some good tips from Chris how to strategically place my gear in transition I had a very quick change and must have passed at least a couple of hundred people in T1. Unfortunately when I got to the bike I discovered that the spear inner tube and tire leavers Alex bought for me while I was swimming have been strategically wedged into my saddle by some genius official and I though cycling with tire leavers stuck into my backside would be fairly uncomfortable, so I decided to stop and carefully remove all offending objects from my saddle. The bike at Wimbleball is quite tough with 52 hill on course and I was working quite hard, but actually moving quite well through the field. It was getting colder and colder and before the first lap was over it started lashing down with rain. All the grit was being washed onto the road and you could see many people fixing punctures at the side of the road, including me – twice. Having used all the spares and CO2 cartridges I finally decided that it wasn’t going to be my day and rolled back to transition on a flat tire. Disappointing as it was it’s a lesson for the future to be better prepared, change the tires before the race, carry more spares etc.
Since Wimbleball I’ve been feeling pretty flat, with sore legs and not able to complete my usual bike interval sessions. I has a reasonable long run – 20 miles in 2:14, which was encouraging, but it seems to have left me with a lot of residual fatigue and soreness.
This weekend I did another 3rd Cat road race at Chertsey and this time I felt much better. Comfortable for most of the race I was trying to be fairly active, moving up and down the bunch with ease an getting into a couple of short-lived breaks. None of the breaks came to any fruition and when everybody realised that I was going to end up in another bunch sprint with 90 riders the last lap was very nervous with pushing and showing and riders on the gravel. The final sprint was always going to be dicey and unfortunately the crash happened just in front of me with bikes and riders flying up in the air. Luckily somehow I’ve managed to avoid most of the carnage, stayed upright and only been hit by a flying bike in the knee. Amazingly nobody was seriously hurt. In the end I averaged 219W (248NP) for the 40M race, 20W up on last time.
Today I did my last long ride with some good tempo efforts and now all I can do is just to look forward to the race in two weeks time. I’ve done some reasonably consistent training in the last few weeks, but have had a mild cold in the last few days - a clear sign of pushing it a bit too far, so I’m glad the training is done now. In Klagenfurt I’m just going to enjoy the race experience and see what happens. I don’t have any targets, other than finishing, and I know it’s going to be hard racing on 12 weeks of training so I have no expectations. We’ll see how it goes.
Next update probably after the race.
Mike.
