Beaver TriFest

This weekend sees the Beaver TriFest splashing along at Belvoir Castle, near Grantham. There are heaps of RAF Triathletes racing and there are 3 distances to choose from: Middle Distance on the Saturday, Standard Distance and Sprint Distance on the Sunday. The Sprint Distance race is doubling as the national Age Group Champs. So there will be some top notch competition.



The weather forecast is not so great but maybe better than last year when it rained for the entire bike leg when I did the middle distance race.

This year, for 2 reasons, I am doing the sprint race. Firstly, it’s the National Champs and that will be fun. Secondly, I just cannot recover quickly from a middle distance race and I do not want to miss out on some essential long distance training during the early weeks of June. The sprint distance is really too short for me and my bike form is not that great over a short blast. So it is a good training race, although the race does coincide with the end of an easy week for me – who knows, maybe the fast guys in my age group will stay away!!

Unlike Regular Marathons . . . .

. . . . . Ironman marathons usually don’t turn ugly at 20 miles. They start ugly.’

I like this quote and it reminds me that whatever I imagine an IM marathon to feel like, the reality will be worse! As I continue to research IM training and nutrition a session that caught my eye was the IM Metric Bike Run. This consists of a 112k bike followed by a 26k run – both completed at IM perceived effort (not IM projected speed!). I tried this out on a smaller scale this weekend and completed a 73 mile bike followed by an 8 mile run ran as alternating IM pace with half IM pace.

In the end, the session went well and I was strong on the run. However, it didn’t start so well. I had planned to join the local bike club for their Sunday ride, after completing a 17 mile loop prior to the club meeting time. The pesky wind slowed me down and at 12 miles into my lonesome loop I hit a mad headwind. I was going to miss the meet up so I had to red line it for 5 miles, which was not the idea of the session. I just made it, pitching up as the first group was leaving. As the ride progressed, it was plain to me that I was finding it tough to stay with the group. I was tired from a big week’s training and having a cold (that’s my excuse!). This further added to the bike part of my planned session being way too hard. It screwed my feeding up also, as I barely had time to eat and drink as we tanked along. This was ok for the others as they were stopping half way for tea and cake! I was not stopping in order to make my session IM specific (do IM racers stop for tea and cake?).


I hung on and as the group peeled off into the café, I eased up and tried to get some nutrition strategy going for the last 28 miles. This helped a lot but every hill had my legs turning to jelly. So it was very surprising when I started my run and actually felt ok. The IM pace runs felt very relaxed at 8:00 miling. Increasing the pace for the half IM pace was ok too (around 6:50 per mile). All in, a good session but I will build on this by doing a proper IM effort on the bike and increasing the run. I suspect that I will have to completed future sessions like this alone. Bike club rides are too full of accelerations, sprints up hills and bursts of red lining the effort.

I received my Swim Smooth Master Catch DVD this weekend. Some great stuff on there and I hope to focus on some swim improvements over the next few weeks.

This Sunday I race at the Speedy Beaver. It’s a bit short for the training I have been doing but as it is the National Age Group Sprint Champs I though I would give it a go. I notice that the run course has been changed to exactly the same run route that we plan to use at the inter-Services Triathlon on 27 July. So the race will be a good tester for that.

Stay healthy out there.

The Things We Do to Ride . . . .

. . . our bike! (see TT blurb below).

Hello blogland. Since the Brize Norton Triathlon I have been trying to up my endurance training – see previous post! Actually, I was upping the endurance training the week prior to Brize. Hence I have managed to string together some big training weeks and also throw in some longer effort sessions. I did an Open 50 Mile TT last Sunday and grabbed a PB by 4 seconds! I was expecting nearer to 2:10 because of the accumulated fatigue so I was pleased with this. I managed a 20 min run off the bike at close 7:00 mile pace and it actually felt ok. I wanted to run for longer but with no feeding on the bike, I think I would have been nearing bonk land! The ride itself was sub-maximal. This was partly due to the fact that I was carrying a lot of fatigue and partly due to the fact that I wanted to negative split. I achieved the negative split with a first 25 of 1:01:34 and a second 25 of 1:00:31 (by my Garmin so slightly out with official timing). I only really went 100% over the last 4 miles and that made the ride quite enjoyable.

I carried on the week with some long endurance stuff, with 50+ miles on the bike and a swim on Monday. Then a long run Tuesday and a hard swim and evening 10 TT on Wed. I was quite flat on the Wed TT but that was to be expected. I was pleased enough to still average over 25mph. Yesterday was 25+ miles bike and a fast finish run of around an hour. Bring on Saturday for a rest day!

Here’s the weird thing about the TT on Wed evening. I was rushing to get to the start because I have to travel from work at Cambridge. When I got to the HQ I realised that I had forgotten my skinsuit! Doh! I had bike shoes and helmet but nothing to put on inbetween! In the end I blagged my daughters nice M&Co leggings and I found a gillet in my bag. The leggings had to be the most uncomfortable thing that I have ever worn on a bike. And they had nice frilly lacy bits on the bottom. The training value was there but I looked a right plonker! Never mind, I consider myself to have zero street cred anyway!

Next race for me – Speedy Beaver! Best I get my transitions sorted for this spring race! But it is only a training race . . . . . honest!

Going Looonnnggggggg!

Well, as the season is kicking off, my plan to have a 'fun' race at the Ironman Distance race (now termed PIM - psuedo ironman - by Frank)has developed into something more serious. When I say serious, I mean that I have a time target in mind. I will keep that target to myself! But the point is, the shorter fast training that I like - and normally do in abundance - has all but dried up. Now, races are my speed work. Everything else seems to have changed to building some endurance. This means counting minutes instead of miles and not being bothered about the pace.

My run training has been limited due to injury. However, now that I am healthy(ish), I have started to build a long slow run into my training. Add to that a tempo long run of an hour plus off a tempo longish bike and I have 2 core run and bike sessions that I complete.

i will use longer TTs also. In fact myself and Jase did a 50 mile TT on Sunday and I managed a 20 min run at tempo pace (7:00 min miling). The TT was completed at submaximal pace (but still hard!)with the aim of a negative split. this was achieved with a 1:01:08 first 25 miles and a 1:00:35 second 25 miles. Great training for Ironman? maybe - who knows!

my short-term focus is the Cowman Middle Distance race on 3 July. This should tell me what sort of shape I am in for a speedy effort. All other races will be training races until 27 August when i will start the PIM. Jase is doing the same PIM so it should be a great day out - though I don't think I will see him as he will be gone after the swim!

Let's Hop

There were quite a few Bloggers out racing at the RAF Brize Norton Sprint Tri yesterday. So no doubt there will be tales of individual race experiences. In short, it was a great event. The organisation was really slick and there were over 132 participants. Add to that the fact that RAF tri may well have discovered a super star in the making, happy days! Yes, the event was won overall by Nick Harris. There were quite a few guys saying ‘Nick who?’ Well Nick is an RAF swimmer that can bike very well and run even better!

My tip of mal Rose doing well turned out to be accurate. Mal took second place, again running very well off the bike. Brad continues to get somewhere close to his best, as he grabbed third place. Close behind was the now civilian JC! His full time training obviously agrees with him. I bagged 5th place and was happy enough with that. However, I did have a bunny hop moment that was induced by a car pulling out smack in front of me. I thought it was going to be smashed bone time at first but self preservation took over. Here’s the tale:


Mal and JC were out of the swim before me so it was chase time on the bike. I had a shoddy transition (again) and really need to sort this out for sprint races! I was within sight of JC and mal after about 10 mins. Then as I was about to catch them we entered a village. A car pull out from the right, obviously seeing Mal and JC. . . . . but not me! I naturally attempted a bunny hop onto the pavement as there was no chance of stopping in time. Now if you have attempted a bunny hop, doing this at a narrow angle onto a curb can be very bad. If you don’t go high enough you are eating concrete. Fortunately, I made it but had no where to go but into a drive way and screech to a stop in front of someone’s garage. By the time I had got sorted and back on the road, mal and JC were gone. So it was chase again. I just about caught them as we entered T2. Another shoddy transition saw them both out well before me but within sight. Fair doos, though, both of them ran really well and, despite running well by my standards, I was never in with a chance of catching them.

The good thing is, I was as fast overall as I have ever been and I feel ok today – no sore calves! My swim was mediocre at best but isn’t it always!

Bring on the longer races!

Next Race

A week on from the Inter-Services Duathlon and recovery has been far better than the previous two races. I managed to complete a 4 hour easy bike on ‘The Wedding day’ 29 April and a hard brick as 30 mile bike/1 hour run on Sunday. I missed the evening club 10 mile TT yesterday but managed to throw in some TT style efforts during my ride home from work. Add to that a couple of swim sessions that were distinctly average, it has not been a bad week. Today was a swim and a long run.

On Sunday I have a 30 mile TT on the F1 course (that’s the A1 between Biggleswade North roundabout and Buckden roundabout). So if you are on the A1 from 0745 on Sunday, give me a wave. Alternatively, ride just in front of me at about 28mph – much appreciated!

This Wed sees the first of the RAF Triathlon Sprint Tri Events. This will be a 400m swim, 18k(ish) bike, 5k(ish) run. These are good events for a full on training session. Unlike last year, I will be letting loose on the run leg. My tip to do well here is Mal Rose.

Below are some vintage pictures from 2008. These pictures are of our former RAF Triathlon President, Chris Moran, who sadly died at last years’ event. I am sure that one year on, we will all have Chris and his family in our thoughts – gone but not forgotten.




The next pic is vintage Inter-Services Team from 2005. Where are some of these guys now?!