Grizzly Report

Well the Met Office website was promising awful weather for the race. Freezing temperatures, huge winds and rain/sleet/hail downpours. Luckily none of that happened, at least not until I'd finished anyway.

I set off at 8am to pick up my clubmate Sally and drive the 90mins to Seaton. We arrived almost dead on 9:30 and followed the queue of cars around the town to find a carpark. Once we were parked up I rummaged through my huge bag of running gear deciding what to wear and take with me. The forecast was BAD but pre race was actually quite mild and after a week of slacking (only 1 run) I felt quite fresh so I opted for a thin long sleeved technical tee and my Tri Club Gillet. I also decided to leave my camera etc in the car to give me a better chance of a decent race.

I headed to the Start line and once there decided that the traditional toilet break was in order, so with less than 5mins to the start I went sprinting off to find the loos which were of course devoid of people because everybody else was waiting to start. A quick pit stop and sprint back had me back 'near' the start line in plenty of time albeit with around 1800 people in front of me. Ah well, nothing new there then.

So as normal I started near the back of the field and took a couple of mins just to reach the start line. The first mile along the prom and beach was a slow walk/jog/walk effort and the second mile wasn't a lot faster but I was gradually getting into things. After the poor start miles I developed a cunning plan. Using the HRM on my Garmin I'd run comfortable mid 140's on the flatter sections of the course and let my HR climb into the 150's on the hills. If I hit 160bpm though I'd back off. That should get me round easily enough while picking people off and then I could hammer the last 2 miles as normal and make up those extra few places. The plan went well enough and I was told I'd got up to 50th place at 16miles when we hit Branscombe beach for the 2nd time, then for some unknown reason I just imploded. I was running along quite happily working my way slowly through the field and then as soon as I hit those damn pebbles it was as if someone shut my motor off. The last 4 miles were tough going, far from making ground I went backwards and lost a bucket load of time, the 'Stairway to Heaven' which is never more than a power walk was more of a casual stroll, my only saving grace was that nobody I knew came past me - phew!
The final beach and road stretch were torturous. My left quad was cramping up and I needed to stop and stretch it, you can't though when you're in the finishing straight. Then 20m from the Finish Line somebody came storming past me, his legs flying everywhere in a full on sprint - I let him go! As he crossed the line he pretty much collapsed as his legs totally locked up with cramp, quads, hamstrings, calfs all together. I crossed the line, leaned against the wall to stretch my quad and walked off, he was lying on the floor in agony surrounded by medics. Worth the sprint finish???? I don't think so!
That's about it really, unless you want to know about how my fingers went white and lost all feeling for the next two hours or how I queued almost 20mins for sausage and chips which were awful. After thawing out and changing I headed back to the finish just in time to catch Sally romping in, looking far better than I had.

Finished eventually in 79th place in 2:57@56.

Back in 2010???? Of course!

Since the race I've had 3 days full of the lurgie which could explain my sudden failings, it's either that or my lack of training and preperation. Either excuse is quite possible ;-)



(I'm writing this in a McD's so I'll edit and add some extra gubbins when I get home).

Impending Grizzly

Well, tomorrow it's time for Grizzly. 20miles of coastal paths, cliffs, bogs and pebble beaches. This year, just to spice it up, it comes with a weather warning. Looks like fun!

Grizzly weather for the Grizzly!
Please be aware that the forecast for Sunday is not the nicest. Rain and perhaps snow, hail and/or sleet flurries, a strong WNW breeze and not that warm (6-8 degrees which with wind chill and rain is going to feel rather cold).
SO DRESS FOR THE CONDITIONS!

I've only missed this race once this century (2007) when the MSC Napoli was grounded and the race was postponed, the replacement date turned out to be just about the only weekend of the year I couldn't get down to Seaton.

Quite often this has been an 'A' race for me, although that doesn't mean I've trained specifically for it (people who know me would laugh at the thought), it just means that I've hoped to have a good race there and maybe justified having a Saturday rest day before it. I've done well here in the past and finished inside the top 10 and I've also had my fair share of shockers in the past.

Tomorrow though I'm going down for fun. If the weather looks as if it might hold I'll take a camera and other electronic goodies round with me , don't hold your breath for spectacular photos though, I took the camera last year and it all went a bit pear shaped.

To go fast at Grizzly you NEED good solid fell running shoes but I'm going round in a pair of off road trainers. They're going out in a blaze of glory because they'll be in a bin after the race. In 2006 I was having one of my best ever races but had to drop out when 'BOTH' of my Walsh PB's fell apart in a bog, since that time I just haven't run off road enough to justify 'proper' off road shoes. My footwear for the day will be perfectly competent on 80% of the course, but it's on those 50% descents/ascents on muddy fields and in the bogs where the real footwear comes into it's own. Just being able to let your legs go on a steep descent can make up masses of time compared to watching your footing and constantly slowing yourself.

The other slight concern for tomorrow is the toes that I ploughed into a wall racing at Taunton 2 weeks ago. They are still quite swollen and causing a bit of grief, but little more than mildly annoying when running normally. Tomorrow's not a 'normal' run though and it'll be interesting to see how they fare with the constant changes of terrain and gradient, any running uphill on my toes could prove to be a painful experience. Nurofen will be at the ready.

That's about it really for a preview. I'll take a bag full of clothes so hopefully I'll be set for any weather. Nutrition??? I'll decide in the morning. I think I've got a gel lying around and I might mix up a bit of Torq energy drink which I'll take with me if I use my camera and need the pockets on my bottle belt to carry it, other than that it'll be fine.

Other bits'n'bobs............... I've done stuff all training on foot or on the bike in the last 2 weeks. I've had a massive (for me) week of swimming though and managed 2 pb's during training. On Sunday I swam a bonus 400m TT after the Tri Club swim session and pb's with 5m13s then at last nights squad session we did an 800m TT and I pb'd with 10m36s which is only 5secs off Sundays 400m pb swum twice...... Nice!!!

Congrats to the Red Nose Day Climbers

who've just made it to the top of Mount Killimanjaro and raised over £1.3million. Yeeeaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!! Go find them and check them out.

Until next time.

Taunton Aquathlon

Taunton was always going to be an odd race, mostly because I’d no idea what sort of shape I was in. The aim of the day was to put in a good solid performance after I totally imploded on the run here last year. The swim was as always a formality, 40 lengths of the 25m Wellington pool where I can normally predict my time within seconds. The run was a new (shorter) course this year with plenty of long dragging hills to work the legs, this was where I was unsure.

(clubmates Steph, Steve and Damian can smile when I'm not around) We drove the 50miles to Wellington and my legs felt like lumps of jelly, the weeks increase in cycling must have been taking its toll. Once at the Leisure Centre I registered, collected my goodies and chatted with a few friends and clubmates. With plenty of time on my hands and my legs still feeling shot I decided to break with 15 years of tradition by putting my trainers on and actually going for a warm up. 10mins later I was back feeling exactly the same, ah well.
So onto the race.
We started the 40 length pool swim with 4 to a lane and setting off at 10min intervals. The expected race winner was in the lane next to me and starting 10secs ahead. My lane was as varied a lane as I’ve ever swum in, there was a one legged man wearing board shorts and there was a super serious swimmer wearing full length speedo swim leggings. Neither of those compared though to the lad who for whatever reason ended up in our lane swimming breaststroke. The start times are decided by the predicted swim times you put on the entry forms, whether this lad had put the wrong time down or taken the place of a faster swimmer I’ve no idea, but I was passing him every three lengths. He blatently shouldn’t have been there but rather than feeling angry about him getting in my way all the time I really felt for him because Mr Serious Swimmer didn’t strike me as the most considerate lane mate, he certainly wasn’t too pleased when I lapped him. Being the fastest swimmer in our lane I lost a bundle of time stuck behind people waiting for an opportunity to pass them. Swim time – 14:14, around 40secs slower than last year.
Mr Race Favourite in the lane next door had the totally opposite experience. He’s faster than me in the pool anyway but we both got smoked by the fastest girl in the water, all he had to do though was let her pass and then sit on her feet taking in the draft. They were almost 4 lengths up on me out of the water, he too was slower than last year though.
Into Transition I threw on my trainers, glass, hat and my number belt before running out of the door fastening up my Garmin. In a serious race the Garmin would have stayed at home and I’d have been a lot quicker, but there was no rush.
Almost as soon as I left the pool I clattered my left foot into a wall, it hurt a lot. My toes took a beating and I dragged my elbow along the brickwork to keep me upright, soon though the pain was forgotten and I was back concentrating on the running. The aim of the Garmin was to slow my early pace down to stop me exploding, so I kept checking it and holding the pace around 6min/mile pace. Throughout the whole run I felt solid, obviously my pace increased and decreased depending on the road gradient, there were plenty of hills. Half way through the run we hit a descent and I heard feet pounding along behind me. Somebody was obviously shifting because I was still on 6min pace, I looked over my shoulder and clocked his blue number, blue numbers meant relay teams, phew all was still good.
That was it really, the run was fine and strong although a little short (5.8miles) but I was solid all the way through and finished having averaged 6:02’s which I’m happy with considering the amount of climbing in it. I posted the fastest individual run of the day (35:05) only beaten by 2 smoking fast relay runners.
So it was a 2nd place finish overall which was nice because I didn’t really want to be lumped in that dreaded 40+ category.
The toe!!!! Ahh the toe!!! It was fine for the entire run and then as soon as I’d finished it was agony and I could hardly walk on it. There was a short visit to the medics just to check it was only bruising (and plenty of it) rather than any breakages, I was given the all clear though. Now after 3 days of rest it’s still bruised and pretty coloured but it’s getting there slowly, I don’t expect it’s going to cause any long term suffering.

Grizzly next, 10 days to get myself sorted.

Season Opener

Well the Tri season is on the horizon. How do I know? Because tomorrow I have my first multisport race of the year, the Taunton Aquathlon, a 1000m/10k swim/run event.
Tomorrows race is also a first for another reason.......... It's my first race in the 40+ category, my first race as a Vet. Only 2 months after my 39th birthday and I'm racing as a flaming 40 year old. Talk about feeling old before your time.
In 2007 I actually won the race, last year I dropped to 3rd, tomorrow.............. who knows?
Last year I blew a gasket on the run after charging out of the pool chasing the eventual winner who'd a one minute lead on me exiting the pool, my excuse being that the day before I'd run a maximal effort treadmill 10k at Exeter University. This year though my training hasn't really got going and although my swimming is always of a similar pace my running is well short of the norm. Hopefully though I'll still be aiming for a quicker time than last years 55:58 so long as I pace myself sensibly.
This week I finally seem to have found some reason to cycle with rides of 75miles, 50miles and todays 30miler doubling my total for the year so far. My swimming is the same as ever with my single weekly squad session, although I feel as though I'm swimming more powerfully of late, so long as I don't get carried away in the early stages I can come on really strong at the end of a long TT. Running is a bit hit and miss with Rosie accompanying me on most of my runs I'm far too prone to hitting 3-4 consecutive days and the having 3-4 consecutive days off. I'm sure that's not the way it works.
Work has been all over the place lately. One week I do almost 70hrs and the next week I struggle to hit 40. I'm sure the lack of a structured week is helping to mess with my training.

Oh well. There's not a great deal to say so I'll leave it there. I'll try to be back tomorrow with an old mans race report. Until then.....................

Snow? In Devon?

Well it's been 2 weeks since I posted and to be honest there's not a lot going on unless you consider all the crap at home that's trying to take me to financial ruin :-(

The week after the Braunton 10 (x2) was pathetic really with just 2 runs and a swim to mark the beginning of the month with. With so much time on my hands due to the lack of training it was hear my financial head went out of the window and Februarys wages got spent before they hit the bank.

First up is the garden, or at least part of it. The grassy sections don't drain well because it's all clay underneath, so after 2 years of Rosie the pup putting muddy footprints over everything as soon as it rains I had 4 tonnes of gravel lifted over the fence to cover it all up with. Now I just need to find the time (and the weather) to get the job done.

Next up was my exploding of the vacuum cleaner, some supposed dog hair special which never did get Rosie's hair up like it was supposed to. This led to the purchase of a f###ing expensive Dyson in a moment of madness. For a house the size of ours, especially one with no carpets I'm sure it's complete overkill but based on the current 3 vacuums every 2 years at least the 5yr warranty should mean it earns it's money (I hope).

Then to top everything off the PC blew a gasket. Stupid me had let the security run out and it picked up what (after plenty of Googling) appeared to be the virus from hell with no real cure other than backing everything up externally and running the start up disc again, presuming of course that the virus wasn't in something I backed up.

After weeks of head scratching I decided that it wouldn't cost much more to simply buy a new base unit than it would to buy external drives and probably get things checked out proffesionally to be on the safe side. So now I'm sitting typing this while going through the tedious process of uploading all my music onto iTunes again while discovering that somewhere along the way I've lost most of my favourite CD's.

Money gone and (supposedly down to a economic 4 day week) I've got a bit more training in this last week.

I didn't start the month well as I spent Sunday on garden (gravel) duties and Monday was a bit of a late one at work. Tuesday was close to being a disaster as a couple of inches of snow fell and the UK ground to a halt. Tuesday is my new (supposed) day off so I'd booking Shell's car into the garage in the afternoon and a doctors appointment in the morning. The plan with the Doctors is that they test me for 'Exercise Induced Asthma' in a bid to cure the annoying constant cough I've had for 10years or more. Unfortunatly this got scrapped when I arrived and the nurse didn't think it was safe for me to go and run for an hour like a lunatic in a bit to wreck my lungs. Re-booked 'yet again' for 2 weeks time. The garage trip was also called off because it's up in the sticks where they'd had a foot or more of snow and I'd little chance of making the 30mile drive in Shell's little car without getting stuck in a drift somewhere. I managed a little jog down the Tarka Trail in the afternoon with Rosie so that I could take some pretty pics of the snow as it's a very rare sight down in Devon.

For the rest of the week training got a bit better. On Wednesday, with all the snow gone, I managed to sneak away from work early enough for an 8mile run with the pup. On Thursday I headed out towards London where many areas were still suffering from a snow slowdown. I managed to lose enough time on my day to justify spending the night in Marlow which meant I could pop out to see my old pals at Marlow Striders and join them for a run. I cracked out 5miles before reaching the club and then joined one of the lads for another 10 before catching up with the recent goings on over a few pints.

On Friday the mad weather returned. When I woke up everywhere was snow free, but an hour later I was driving in a white out. Seeing all the cars abandoned and/or losing it was quite funny as I seemed to have no trouble in my 'slightly' bigger vehicle. It's just a case of keeping it smooth and steady, yet some people seem to think that a heavy right foot will fix everything. They'll get there eventually.

Strangly, after hearing on the radio all day about how Devon and Cornwall had suffered the worst of the weather and how people were trapped in their cars over night I got home on Friday afternoon to find out we'd had nothing at all and it was a beautiful sunny day.
I was later home than normal on Friday so Rosie had to go without her run and I just managed my Squad swim session, but I took her out for 4miles on Saturday morning before setting off on a 33mile wind, rain and hail plagued bike ride and an afternoon spent dossing infront of the TV and computer. The week was finished with a beasty little run session at the track with the Tri Club. 20x400m was the bulk of it, but the run home plus warming up took the whole lot to 7.5miles.

Maybe, just maybe I've turned the training corner and I can start getting my head around it again. Maybe, just maybe we can have a month where nothing else blows up and I can save the credit card getting too much of a bashing. Who knows, but until next time.................................

Braunton 10! Or is it 20?

Well it's been a while but that seems to be the case for most blogs, or at least the blogs of people on my list which seem to be either stagnant, missing or locked.

It's been an odd start to the year and my training seems to be reflecting that. Since New Year my work has been so hectic that weekday training has been almost impossible, this is despite the dreaded letter saying 'Times are hard, we need to tighten our belts and pay you less so overtime has to be cut.'. Since the letter I've been averaging 14hr days from Monday to Thursday so the weeks training hasn't started until a Friday when I get to do a paltry 10-12 hours. There has been another re-jig now though so while I'll still be hitting the clock hard on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday I'll be off work on Tuesdays which means training will be back on - if I can be bothered. Of course all this 'belt tightening' talk from work comes at the same time as our Vacuum and PC all but expire. Typical. It looks as though I might be thinking carefully about the purse strings when I decide where to race this year, a job that should already be done and dusted by now.

Today is the first race of the year and one that I can't really miss out on as the start line is less than 2 miles from my house. It's a 10 mile road race with 2 bad assed climbs in it, there will be no pb's run today that's for sure. I'll be aiming to get round without the excitement of last weekends run where I took a training pal round for a recce and got bit by a farm dog on the first climb. In truth it wasn't much of a bite and looked more like I'd caught the back of my leg on something, but it broke the skin and needed a trip to the quack for a jab just to be on the safe side. One bonus that came out of it was a chat about my everlasting cough and so I'm back in on Tuesday for a couple of tests. Basically I've got to have a spirometry ( if that's how you spell it) test to check how my lungs are working, then I'm off out for a 30-45min run and when I return I'm having another test to see if it's excercise induced asthma. I have my doubts about it, but it's got to be worth a look.

Back to todays race, the question as always is ' Do I run 10 or 20 miles?'

By the time anybody sees this then I'll have decided. It's a bit of a tradition that I run two laps here. As always I've the much bigger Grizzly coming up in March and this is traditionally a training run for it so I do a 10mile warm up lap aiming to get back as close to the race start time as possible, then I do a lap for the race. I'm not really in shape to do 20miles, but then I'm not really in shape to 'race' 10miles either, so do I risk suffering a torturous 2 laps or a disappointing 1 lap? Last year the warm up lap took 1:08:00 and the 'race' lap took 1:06:30, my pb on the course is 1:00:34 but that was from when I could run.

Right, time to get ready I suppose.

I'll edit the post and add my time(s) at the bottom once it's all over, unless of course something interesting happens and it deserves a write up all to itself.

PS - Oi Simeon!! Where's your blog gone?

After the race edit :-

Well it wasn't my finest day of running. I went for the 20, but it wasn't pretty. The first (warm up) lap was just awful. I ran exactly the same was as in 2008 and at exactly the same HR but I never seemed to get going. Finally I got back to the race HQ after 9.6miles (I cut a bit off) I was over 1:10:00 and the race was about to start. The race would have to start without me though (as normal) because I had a toilet appointment. Finally I was off on the race course 2-3mins after everybody else but my legs were actually feeling slightly better than the first lap. The hills killed me but I managed to drag myself round in an official 1:12:45 with a Garmin time of 1:09:40, just sneaking under the 7min/mile mark. It'll do I guess, a lot slower than last years double up and I finished in a lot worse shape. I wasn't expecting to go well but it's still a pig when you don't. Still there was pleasant relief at the finish with a bottle of Devons finest 10% Ale (which has now gone :) ).

I guess this means that race season has started.

Happy New Year

So it's been a while since I posted anything training related, but that's mostly because it's all been a bit quiet. That was until Christmas Day at least when it all kicked off. Training has come back with a bang since then. 8 training days have passed and I've got in 6 runs (3 of them in double figures) and a couple of bike rides. If only it wasn't so damned cold here it would be like proper training. None of this 10% increase rubbish, I just go from lazy git to training machine in one swoop.

Father Christmas was (as always) good to me with plenty of Tri related goodies. Once again I need to thank Mom and Dad for their rediculous offer to pay our flights out to IM Florida. One day I'll get them out there with me, actually that's a lie, getting my Mother on a plane would make the A-Team getting Mr T on a plane seem a walk in the park. Shell also excelled herself by spending far too much on Tri related goodies, 2XU should give her an account.

So it's time now for a year review. I'm not going to talk races because there was only one real target and we all know I screwed that up. There were a few low key wins, some pb's and some decent podium places. I've got a little Excel file that compares my training over the last 4 years and so it's only fair I compare with my last IM season in 2005 at the 2 years inbetween were a lot more low key.

Swim - The swim is neither here nor there really. I'm fast enough to be good without ever tearing the pool up but the ammout of training I'd need to do to get significantly faster is far more than I can justify. On average I train once a week, occasionally I'll miss a week but these hours will be made up by race day swims. I did 55hrs overall which is about average and the fact that I know I can swim a comfortable sub 60min IM swim (55mins in Florida this year) while just ticking over is a great bonus that many people don't have.

Bike - Here I struggled. It's my weakest event and somewhat consequently my least favourite. Also this years Summer was damn awful which put me off a great many of my planned bike rides. That being said I was suprised to see that I was a massive 40hrs (20%) down on my 2005 total, only putting in 167hrs compared to 208hrs in 2005. This may go some way to explaining why my Florida bike ride was the slowest of my 3 attempts despite a pretty new Tri specific bike and aero helmet which in theory should have seem me closing in on the 5hr barrier rather than 5h20m (5h08m was my previous best there).

Run - Just as much a suprise as the bike time was the run training time which was the exact opposite at 173hrs compared to 138hrs in 2005. This means that I actually spent longer running than cycling which is an obvious screw up but easily done when it's so much easier to pull on a pair of trainers than to mess about getting bike ready (especially in the rain). Although this gave me a high when I effectively jogged around Wolves Marathon in 3h08m it all comes to nothing if I still end up putting in 4h33m at my main event. For 2009 the bike/run comparison needs to be much closer to the 2005 percentage split.

Gym - This was the difference maker in my yearly hours as I've never done gym work before. I crammed 33hrs into the first 3.5months of last year which was 33hrs more than 2005, or any other year come to think of it. The result?........ Hmmmmm. Well I was swimming my head off in March/April, no quicker, but with so much more power and stamina that I was bustig 800m+ pb's any time I wanted. Was I any quicker on the bike/run? I've no idea, although I've had far less back problems that previous years, that could be down to the gym core work or it could be down to my lack of cycling I'm not sure. I'm pondering the idea of making once a week appearances again this year, but the accusations that I've suddenly developed 'moobs' in the last 12 months could also be attributed to my slacking off gym work once the weather (sort of) improved, so maybe I'd be best to stay away.

Onto 2009 then.

Today I started the year in a similar way to the end of 2008, with a 12mile run! This morning I ran to Woolacombe Beach (8.5miles) where I met up with my Tri Club for our annual Dash and Splash. You can read about it here
so I won't bore you with the details.

I really need to sit down at some point and work out what events I'm doing this year. I'm a bit of an old skool Triathlete and still believe I can enter races on the day or the week before, this simply doesn't happen any more and if I don't pul my finger out then all the small local races that I like to do every year will be full. Damn!!

Anyway, that'll do for now. If you haven't fallen asleep yet then you can't be far off it.

Happy New Year everyone. Here's hoping you all have a great 2009 and if we ever meet at an event then I'll love to see you finish just one place behind me :-)

Until next time.