A Bit of Fun

Check out the Poll about bike splits at the Vitruvian. The way Daz has been racing this season he should be light years ahead of me. But I can try!

Had a bad session this morning. Did An hour spinning on the turbo followed by a 10 mile run. Felt like I had someone elses legs; someone with bad untrained legs! It was early morning though and I often feel like that in the early hours. But then again, the Vitrvian starts very early! Hope I have not peaked and am now on the way back down!

Be Afraid. . . . .

. . . . . . be very afraid! It is not often, if ever, that I resort to fighting talk prior to a race. I am normally quite relaxed and save my energy for the physical exertion during the race itself. However, a recent pool swim PB over 1500m of 22:44.9 (yes, the 0.9 is important!) has really got me fired up for the Vitruvian Triathlon taking place on 4 September. This sort of swim speed is light years ahead of anything that I have achieved previously. It has certainly enthused me to go for an Age Group placing at the Vit, and hopefully a race PB if the conditions are decent.

The issue remaining is can I reproduce this swim speed in open water? Historically, the answer would be no! My open water swimming is normally slower than my pool swimming. I put this down to navigation. Recently I tried a different brand of swim goggles, on the recommendation of the ever improving Paul Fullalove! What a difference! I used the Blue Seventy Vision goggles at Cambridge tri and was at the head of the pack for the entire swim. Now, of course, the Vitruvian swim waves will be bigger and likely contain faster swimmers than those at Cambridge. But my confidence is up and I aim to attack the race from the off.

History also tells me that my swimming yoyos between good (for me) and not good (for me)! So will the yoyo be on the up or down come the 4 September?

Cambridge Triathlon

Result: 10th Overall in 2:10:06. 1st in Age Group I (Old Cronies!)

A decent race really, especially as I didn't ease down from a pretty big training week.

The swim went well for me! I was 6th out of the water in my wave of 70 swimmers. All I can assume is that there were plenty of slow swimmers! I kept expecting to be swum over but it just didn't happen! Check out the smile as I exited the water - most unusual for me!

My T1 was poor and I just messed around really! However, the bike went ok. The wind was strong this year and that kept the bike splits down. I was recorded at 1:04:33. That includes T2 tough. This was ranked 10th fastest bike, which was ok.

As soon s I started running I felt good and despite the rather soft going under foot (farm tracks)I was 2 mins quicker than my last Cambridge Tri run and 4th fastest of the day.

Overal, very content! All seems to be going well for the Vitruvian on 4th Sep. I have carried on training straight through following the race at Cambridge, with some big days. Swimming was going really well today and I really hope I can get a decent swim at Rutland water. I have yet to swim well there - only been competing there for 5 years too!!

Tri Time

My last Triathlon race was 19 June at the Dambuster. So it's been a while! Tomorrow I race Cambridge Triathlon and I am really looking forward to it. I would have preferred to race at Bedford as it is the National Age Group Champs. However, Cambridge fits better into famiy stuff. I raced Cambridge back in 2007 and did ok, finishing 5th overall. But I was younger back then! I just hope the weather holds!

I did another 25 mile TT last weekend on th F1 course. I clocked 57:56. This was actually a better ride for me, although the time was nly 1 sec quicker than my previous attempt. The wind this time was far stronger. Hopefully i will be far stronger tomorrow!

TT Course PB - How?

Well, I did the 25 mile TT on the N1 course at Sawtry on saturday. I had been ill since the 25 TT on the A1 the previous Sunday and it was touch and go whether I would ride at Sawtry. I started off really steady, with the plan to stop if I started to feel bad. As it turned out, I felt ok and so went for it. The result was a course PB of 58:16. Weird how things work?

I went for a run early Sunday morning and felt dire! I was really plodding. But then I often feel really bad early in the morning. If I assess where I am fitness wise for the Vitruvian, I would say that I am swimming as well as ever and biking as good as last year. I am just unsure about running. There is no time to gain any real run fitness so it will be jump in and run off memory!

It's always the same with the Tri season; we spend ages in the dark depths of winter wishing for some sun and day light to commence racing. Then, in a flash, it's season over for another year! I need to remember that I could not do any Tri races last year. So, I already tick 2010 off as a success, even though I have not raced that much.

Some awesome results from Bloggers doing various Ironman events last weekend! Check Frank Whittle and his 10:33 at IM Regensburg! That is a great race from Frank. Andy Fisher finished 9th at IMUK! It's a shame that we are losing him from the RAF next year. Jase Walkley also had a great race. I reckon his 11:23 was well below his capabilities. He confirmed this as he was cruising for the experience after being quite ill the preceeding couple of weeks. Nevertheless, he can now call himself an Ironman and go and get his Tattoo! Well done Jase. Same goes for Jamie elliot at regensburg. Perhaps not as fast as he is capable of but he was nursing a really bad injury to his ankle. get the Tat mate - you know you want to!