Another season has gone ...

Hi and Welcome to the start of my training blog. Over the coming months I will be sharing here the training I’m doing in preparation for racing Ironman distance triathlons.
I will also be sharing some ideas and my experiences on training, overtraining and what it takes to be competitive in this difficult sport.

First of all a little bit of background: I’m 37 years old and have been racing triathlons for about 5 years. Since I was young I’ve always been active and competed, mostly in running races. At my best I was a 2:30 marathon runner, 1:10 half marathon and 32 min 10k, but I’ve never really been able to step up to a national level. I have a full time job, but have always been surrounded by some supportive people, especially my girlfriend Alex, and now I’m fortunate to be a part of the successful Trisportnews Racing team.

Today it’s Boxing Day and Alex and I are traveling in South America, so it’s probably a good time to reflect on the last season before looking forward to the next one.
Last season was a bit of a transition season for me, but I’ve had some good results early and I’m happy with the way it went. The previous 3 years of Ironman racing have left me quite tired, so the aim was to take a break from the long distance, have fun in some shorter races and try to do some of the things I don’t get a chance to do during an Ironman season, like bike racing.
I started doing some bike races in December with an aim of getting comfortable racing in a bunch and hopefully getting some BCF points. After 4 races at Hillingdon and finishing 3rd from a breakaway I accumulated enough points for a 3rd cat license, which was much sooner than I expected.
In March I went to Lanzarote with my friend Nick and Jim for a week of training and we had a great time. It was nice not to do my usual high mileage and focus on some shorter sessions and have fun.
In April my teammate Chris and I did the Ronde de Flanders cyclosportive in Belgium and it was a ball. Basically over 5,000 amateur cyclists doing the 260km route (well, 270km for me as naturally I went of the course J) of the professional classic race spiked with short “bergs” and cobbled sections.
Two weeks later I run the London Marathon in a relatively slow time of 2:53, still tired after Flanders, I guess.
After April my focus shifted to time trialling and I achieved both of my goals of sub 60 min 25M TT and a sub 2 hours 50M TT within a space of 3 weeks.
Then came the disappointments of the Wibmleball 70.3 half ironman distance race and the week after the European Long Course Championships in Brasshat, in Belgium.
In Wibmbleball I had a good swim for me and was feeling OK on the hilly bike course until I tried shifting down on one of the steep hills and my chain snapped – finding someone with a toolkit and fixing it took ages and the race was over at that point so I just cruised for the rest of the day enjoying the scenery.
The week after, armed with a new chain (I should have changed it months ago, but I guess I’m just a cheapskate) I went to Belgium with my teammate Chris to race for the British team in the European Championships. It was a frustrating day, as I’ve had a great race, executed very well and couldn’t have done anything differently, yet finished well of the pace in 21st place in my age group. Having finished 7th the previous year I was hoping for a podium spot but it wasn’t to be. As usual I came out of the water with some time to make up, but due to the nature of the narrow and flat course, and the format of the race (this year despite protests from many of the top athletes the distance was shortened to 2xOl: 4/80/20) I was not able to catch big packs of riders that were clearly drafting in front of me. No excuses, though – my swimming has let me down again.
After the European Championships I did some team time trials and a couple of road races with no significant results.
The season finished on a high note with my best ever time in the London Triathlon of 2:07 (with a sub-60min bike split) and a 3rd place overall and an age group win at the South Coast Triathlon in Seaford, which was a great season ending race for Trisportnews with my teammates sweeping many of the prizes in the sprint races.
As I said the previous 3 seasons of Ironman racing have left me quite tired so before building back up to high mileage training I’m taking an extended break to recharge my batteries and get my body ready for another 3 years of training.

All the best for the 2008 season.

Mike.