Monday 30 January 2017

First race of the year

It turned out that the first 3 weeks of training were geared up to the duathlon I had entered on 22nd Jan at Dorney Lake.

My coach told me i needed to get some race practice in, so I booked two duathlons - both 5k run, 20k bike, 5k run.

Didn't think much of it really, and considered both to be practice races and additions to my usual training plan.

Until the morning of 22/1/17 when the alarm went at 0615 and the frost was thick on the ground (as expected - I'd been checking the weather all week and hoping the race would be cancelled due to icy conditions!)

 But no such luck. I arrived, well prepared and slept at 0730 to rack my bike, do a warm up run, listen to the race briefing, and go.

There are a few things that -6'C does to a race that you just don't expect (possibly naively). One, is that the portaloos freeze and cannot flush - at all. Not good when there are 230 nervous tummies waiting to race! Second my water/energy fluid in my bike bottle froze, meaning I had maybe 5 sips of liquid for the entire 1:28 of racing. Thirldy, your hands are so cold after the bike you can't undo your helmet and can't get your hands back into the gloves you have just taken off to take your helmet off!

Wow, it was soooo cold.... Beautiful, but cold!!!

I set off at the back of the pack, with hat/gloves, lightweight running shoes, leggings, long sleeved top with a short sleeved over the top, and an arceteryx gilet over the top. I had no idea if i would be warm enough.

As I ran, I realised i was midway in the field and although I had mentally prepared myself for running like Mo Farah and possibly taking a trophy, all such thoughts were dashed when I came into transition after the run to find not many bikes left....always a demotivator.

I was surprisingly warm at that point and ditched the plan of putting on a warm cycle jacket, heading off with just my running kit on. I could survive for 40 minutes and was at that point too hot to add more layers.

The bike was 4 laps of what is normally a very dull course. But this morning, with the hall frost on the grass & trees it was really quite lovely. I knuckled down for 20k, only feeling the cold in the last 5k lap. For the most of it I was leapfrogging a chap, and we managed to get a couple of words in along the way. He took me on the last stretch but I nailed him on the second run!!!

Onto the second run and my hands were cold (no gloves) and my legs were like lead. They didn't feel powerful at all. The run was two laps, so once the first lap was endured, it was home stretch, mind over matter, just crack on with it.

Turns out my second run was faster than my first and my last Km faster than them all. well done me!

Back at transition I downed my glass of full fat milk and packed up my stuff to go. I heard the tannoy mention they were about to award the prizes and under no doubt I wasn't in the league for one, I headed off, stopping on the far side of the lake to take some lovely pictures...

At which point my coach calls me to tell me I came second in my age group of Veteran Women 40+.

I was well chuffed- went back to the tent to collect my trophy, to find they hadn't ordered enough so would have to post it to me:(

All in all though it was a really eye opener, I had no idea how I'd done, but had just gone as hard as I could. and I had faith that I could do that -whatever the outcome. I had secretly hoped for a prize, and had mentally pictured and planned my race. For once I felt very prepared, even though I really didnt want to do it in the freezing cold.



Saturday 28 January 2017

4 weeks in

So, I'm coming to the end of my first 4 weeks with my coach, which also means I'm coming to the end of my recovery week which has been lovely!

I feel like I have hardly done anything this week, but its guilt-free as I know I have put the work in in the previous 3 weeks and more hard work is coming....

"What have the first 4 weeks been like?" I hear you ask....

The first week hit me hard. It was a real wake up call in terms of what I thought I should be doing and what I really should be doing. The 2 hour bike/run/bike/run/bike/run in the first week nearly killed me!

I have trained pretty hard for the last 10 years, but on my own terms and following my own programme (or something cobbled from the internet), and don't get me wrong, this has worked pretty well, I've got fairly decent positions in the triathlons I have competed in over the years, so something has worked "OK".

But I thought it was time I did it properly. With proper guidance, direction and accountability. So on 1st January I started following a set programme. The first week or so was very much about my coach understanding my abilities, which meant I had to do lots of tests.....

The first week looked something like this:

Monday 50 min run with hill intervals
Tuesday 60 min swim to include a timed 200m and 400m piece plus 45 mins strength & conditioning (S&C)
Wednesday10k bike followed by 10min run x 3 (best part of two hours)
Thursday REST - yay!
Friday Pool technique session + S&C session
Saturday cycle 40mins to do a parkrun, and cycle back
Sunday 70 min easy run....

Having done soooooo much less than that in the weeks beforehand I was totally knackered at the end of the first week - also fighting a sore throat passed on from a lovely client, I wondered how I would survive!!! I needed food and sleep - a lot of both!!

Wednesday 25 January 2017

First post

I've revitalised this blog and changed the focus of it to be solely on my triathlon training quest for success.

I wanted to take it away from my business blog on my website, but also to link it remotely. I'm not sure that will make sense to many of you but it makes sense to me!

So firstly, I wanted to write about my goal for the next year or two....or three, and then continue writing on my journey, sharing the highs, lows, challenges and hopefully successes.

My goal, which has been a thought in my head for probably 10 years, but pushed to the background as a pointless exercise in the early years, is to qualify to represent GB in my age group in either olympic or sprint triathlon.

I don't know what year this will be. I had originally thought it would be in my 50th year, but having found out that its incredibly competitive in that year, my goal may be brought a little early, to be either 2017 or 2018. I'm now 48.

For the last 10 years or so I have 'played' at triathlon and never really considered myself to be a triathlete. I've done OK and come fairly high in my age group in the events I have competed in, but what that means in the REAL competitive triathlete world I have no idea...... are the events I have competed in really representative of the triathlon world as a whole, or have I chosen easy events that show no correlation at all? Perhaps its fluke and all the proper fast athletes weren't at the same event as me....

Not one to compete on a regular basis, for fear of failure, I have had no measure.

Is my training the right training? am I doing too little, too much? could I get faster? How do i get faster?

Also, as someone said to me....'you are a triathlon coach, surely you know what to do?'

I realised, that when it came to myself,  I didn't know what to do. I thought I did, and probably had a rough idea, but I came to the conclusion at some point in 2016 that I needed help. Yes, I'm self-motivated, yes I can cobble together a training plan or download one from the internet, but how effective is it?

I needed direction, I needed someone to push me, and I needed to be accountable to someone. So I found a triathon coach to take me to where I wanted to go.

This blog is now about that journey, which started on 1 Jan 2017.