Ironman Muskoka - 365 days, 140.6m

[jimmyoc87]

Monthly Weigh-in: 26th June 2016

Weight: 88.4kg (-4.6kg*)

Body fat: 10.4% (-3.9%*)

*vs. September weigh-in

[jimmyoc87]

Final 11 weeks!

We’re getting towards crunch time now, with a little over 10 weeks - that’s 72 days of training - until the race!

So, how’s the training going and what’s the plan for the next few weeks?

A week in Ireland....

Last week we had a break in sunny West Cork. Despite best intentions, there wasn’t a great deal of training, which was really rather nice! Jess and I did lots of nice cycle rides around the lanes at a leisurely pace and I threw in a few sea swims. 

I did start to get a bit worried towards the end that my training will have taken a knock, so I threw in a 2 hour run to try and get the legs going. I did start to feel that lethargy you get when you stop training.

On returning to the UK, I thought I’d get out on the bike (right after a 14 hour journey via car, ferry and car again!), expecting it to be terrible....I SMASHED IT! New PB on the Hindhead loop, new PB on the segment to parent’s house and a whole load more segment PBs!

Time to hit the 12 week plan with 110% commitment!

[jimmyoc87]

ITU Olympic Triathlon, Hyde Park - 31st May 2015

Distance: Olympic Triathlon (1500m-40km-10km)

Time: 02:25:40

Position: 269th/1,452

-----

In summary: a brilliantly organised event and a surprisingly good result!

A few weeks ago I spotted a post on the FTC Facebook group about some free places in the ITU London Triathlon in Hyde Park. I figured that even if I didn’t race it, it’d be a good opportunity for a proper brick session so I got in touch and secured my space, choosing the Olympic distance...obviously (huge thanks to Nick from FTC!)

My race time was 08:10 on the Sunday, which meant an early night and a 4am wake-up. Thankfully, I’d sorted the tow-bar bike rack so I didn’t have to faff around taking wheels off and putting seats down in the dark. 

I figured I’d save some money and park for free in Kennington and then cycle to the start...

So, the day started off pretty wet. A wet ride through central London to Hyde Park. A wet hour of waiting to rack my bike. A wet wait in transition before heading to the start. Funnily enough, the rain stopped in time for the swim; the only time when it didn’t matter.

My wave was quite a big one, with around 70 people all lined up on the pontoon with white swim caps. A few minutes before our start time we were told to get into the lake and hold on until the klaxon sounded. 

I decided at this point that I was going to swim hard for at least 100m of the 1500m swim to see if I could avoid the usual ‘washing machine’ at the start of a triathlon swim so as soon as I heard the klaxon I pushed off hard and kept my head down for some strong strokes. My tactic seemed to work and I could see I was out in front with a couple of other swimmers to my side and the rest trailing behind. By the first buoy this really paid off as I was able to swim tight around it and onto the next. Not only that, but the feeling adrenaline from getting such a good start gave me a real boost for the rest of the swim, settling into a good rhythm and enjoying my first swim in the Serpentine.

Swim time: 00:26:47 Swim position: 142

Transition 1 went smoothly and I was out on the bike for a 40km, 5 lap ride around the park.

The roads were pretty wet following all the rain, and there were a few downpours during the ride thrown in for good measure. Aside from narrowly missing a collision with a competitor who took a corner too quick and flew through the air with his bike, the ride went without any issues. It did make me realise that my bike speed isn’t great currently and could use some work, as there were a lot of people shooting past me seemingly putting in far less effort. 

Bike time: 01:08:29 Bike position: 513

In Transition 2 I took on a salt cap and some fluids before whipping on my trainers and heading out for a 4 lap, 10km run. Surprisingly at this point, my legs felt quite open to some running - potentially a sign that the tri-bike position helps spread the work on different muscles - but my chest was a slightly different matter and I had a stitch for the first 2.5km. 

I did however make a concerted effort to keep pushing the pace despite the pain, spurred on by the number of people I was going past. It wasn’t until the first mile alert on my watch that I realised I’d been travelling at such a rapid pace.

The miles seemed to fly by and it wasn’t long until I was on the final lap, so I upped the pace and tried to pick off a few more runners before making a final sprint for the finish.

Run time: 00:42:34 Run position: 253

Crossing the finish line in front of the grandstand was pretty good (especially when I watched the elite racers doing the same later that day!) and was presented with a medal and a pint of beer...perfect!

What surprised me the most was that, based on my positions for each discipline, my event seems to be swimming. This was not expected at all and gives me some reassurance for the Ironman, since I thought the swim alone would break me. Just shows, all these long swims and CSS sessions must be paying off!

[jimmyoc87]

13 weeks to go!

I’ve made it to the last 13 weeks of my Ironman year.

What does that mean? It means the start of a proper, official, 12 week Ironman training plan (I know...12 week plan and 13 weeks to go....but I have to build in a week for getting ill / injured right!)

http://mos.triradar.com/Training_Plans/Conquer_Ironman.pdf

Let’s hope I’ve built up a sufficient base fitness so this plan doesn’t kill me - it looks darn tough!

[jimmyoc87]

Driven bananas!

As I was cycling along yesterday, over-taking loads of cars on my commute home, I got to wondering quite how efficient a bike is. On the face of it, it would seem pretty good, since I’d only eaten a normal breakfast and lunch and was able to cycle over 125km.

Having done a bit of digging online, I found out exactly how a car and bike compare in terms of calories and it’s fair to say that a bike is pretty darn efficient.

I thought a good way to illustrate this would be to compare the number of bananas you’d have to eat (or your car would need to eat) to travel the 35 mile commute I do every day.

Cycling 35 miles - 1,300 calories or 15 bananas

Driving 35 miles - 29,368 calories or 330 bananas

I think it’s safe to say, cycling wins (unless it’s a banana eating contest!)

[jimmyoc87]

Hit Datchet lake pretty hard this week.

Wearing a brand new wetsuit (Ironman Racer) I managed 5 laps of the lake, totalling 4,000m.

Swimming is certainly coming along nicely!

Time - 01:12:05

[jimmyoc87]

Big week

Last week was a milestone week for training volume, in which I [almost] hit the 15 hour mark. This saw me placing in the top 4 of the Ironman Muskoka Strava group...

Certainly seeing some big improvements in all three disciplines.

Swimming

I’m now doing 2 key swimming sessions each week:

1. Endurance swim in Datchet lake 2. Threshold swim with FTC on Sundays

The combination of the two seems to be paying off, with 3.2km in the lake now feeling fairly comfortable, and some good speed endurance in the pool during the CSS sets, maintaining a 2-3 second advantage over our planned lane speed (whilst leading, I should add, so no drafting for me!)

Cycling

A couple of long rides in the past couple of weeks, and while this week was slightly shorter than the previous week (I thought two consecutive 100 milers would be asking for trouble!), I did spend the majority of a 4 hour ride in the aero bars and was feeling pretty comfortable by the end, so I think it’s a case of sticking with it. Tempted to get a bike fit, but with all the money I’m spending at the moment this may be a luxury I don’t need!

Running

Running has taken a bit of a back-seat recently, but I’m still getting in the long run - this week’s was 2 hours cross-country - and the odd shorter run too. The new trainers have fixed the weird pain in the arch of my foot too. I think for the next long ride I need to add in another brick run as they seem to be quite an important part of this Ironman training malarkey.

[jimmyoc87]

How tired is too tired?

Stolen somewhat from a blog on Ironman.com, but here are a few of my own examples of...”You know you’re tired when…” 

1. You get excited when the traffic looks like it’s going to stop and debate whether you’ll be stationary for long enough to have a quick snooze.

2. You wake-up and think - “Right, tonight I’m going to get home and go straight to bed” - but then get home and go for a run, eat dinner, watch TV and get to bed late.

3. You trip over your feet whilst walking because you forget to lift them up off the floor.

4. You start thinking that heelys would be a great idea for getting around with minimal effort - the flashing lights are just a bonus!

5. You drink so much coffee that you never really lose the taste from your mouth, no matter what you eat or drink.

[jimmyoc87]

Century ride #2 - All the big hills

Took a day off work this Friday to make up for being ill over the Bank Holiday and decided to use it for some long distance cycling. 

Having fitted my extra bottle cages (the things I get excited about!), I set off....and then returned 5 minutes later when I realised that in my excitement I’d forgotten my helmet. Doh.

Take 2.

This was to be my first attempt at cycling 100 miles non-stop with all my drinks and gels onboard to give myself a sense of what it’ll be like come race day. With that in mind, I kept the pace nice and easy and headed up onto the Hog’s Back and down into Guildford before heading off towards Dorking and the first of the big hills.

In all, there were 6 tough climbs:

1. Newland’s Corner 2. Box Hill 3. Leith Hill 4. Climb out of Midhurst 5. Climb out of Fernhurst 6. Climb up to Hindhead

This made up a total of 1,974m of ascent, which I thought was pretty serious. Turns out, the Ironman we’ve chosen (thinking it’d be flat) has almost 2,500m of ascent over the 112 mile ride. Uh oh.

There was one unplanned stop at mile 85 to buy a chocolate bar, which tells me I should definitely have some form of solid food with me for the bike leg - the gels, salt caps and carb drink all definitely worked really well, but I craved some real food near the end. That being said, I didn’t get cramp at all, so the new salt caps definitely feel like they could be a massive help to me. Even managed a fairly quick 4km run afterwards! 

A great route for a long ride - now just need to plan my next 100 mile route!

[jimmyoc87]

Long ride prep

Currently waiting in for a delivery from Wiggle, consisting of some new trainers and, more importantly for today, some water bottles and bottle cages for my XLAB Super Wing.

The plan - head off as soon as the delivery lorry arrives, with 2 bottles of my new SIS Isotonic energy powder and a bottle of plain old water, as well as some salt caps and gels, and hit the roads for a mammoth bike ride around Surrey and West Sussex.

The last time (and first time) I rode 100 miles, I had a couple of stops along the way to stock up on food and eat my jaffa cake supply. This time, I intend to try and cover the distance with no planned stops to effectively mimic the Ironman bike leg.

The [planned] route involves cycling to Box Hill via Guildford, up over Leith Hill into Cranleigh and then across to Petworth and Midhurst via Bartholomew Barn (adding an element of wedding-ness into the ride), before heading back to Farnham and then home.

That’s the plan at least. 

It involves some fairly significant hills so not planning to ride it very hard, but roughly breaking it into:

2 hours - Easy 2 hours - Steady with some intervals 2 hours - Steady (probably hanging!)

Anyway, now just to wait for the delivery lorry or it’s a long ride with only one bottle!

[jimmyoc87]

“…I’ll get ill now I’ve said that!”

Hmmm...

That’s what I call tempting fate.

Two days later and I’m blocked up, in bed and suffering from sinus headaches. Just in time for the bank holiday weekend.

[jimmyoc87]

Back to Datchet!

Made the most of the unexpected sunshine yesterday and headed to Datchet Lake (Liquid Leisure) straight from work for a long swim.

The lakeside area has undergone a series of improvements, now offering a glass-fronted sauna overlooking the lake, a jacuzzi, table tennis and a roped-off beach area complete with sand and deck-chairs!

The water was a balmy 14 degrees and clear as anything - even caught a glimpse of a big fish swimming around below me, so the water must be clean enough for things to survive in it, which is good enough for me!

Surprised myself and managed to get in 4 laps of the 750m circuit - 3000m and still felt pretty fresh. Going to make this a weekly event, potentially adding another lap to make it up to Ironman distance.

[jimmyoc87]

Post-marathon training

It’s been a couple of weeks now since the Paris Marathon and training is starting to ramp up.

Based on how I felt immediately after the race, I expected to have at least a couple of weeks of low volume, low intensity training. Practically everything I read online says that you need to do a serious reverse taper or risk injuring yourself or getting ill due to a weakened immune system.

Take this article titled “When to return to running after a marathon” - it suggests that you need up to 7 days off entirely, followed by a further 3 weeks of low intensity training.

My personal view is it’s completely different for every person and whilst this rule will cater for runners of all abilities, it doesn't mean that everyone has to take quite so much time off training. For me, I thought it was important to use my fatigued legs to my advantage. 

In fairness, I didn’t do any running or cycling for the first 5 days because my calf felt tight, but instead I got some open water swimming in Frensham pond. The cold water (or, according to recent TV myth-busting, just time in water in general) may have added to my speedy recovery. In fact, I think doing non-weight bearing exercise had a significant impact on my recovery time and by the time I got round to doing an easy run on the Friday evening my legs were almost completely recovered from the whole marathon experience!

Since then, I’ve gotten straight back into Ironman training, with an emphasis on swimming in the pond - up to 2 laps now! - and cycling mid-to-long distances on the bike. Certainly don’t feel like my fitness / recovery is suffering from the marathon so it’s all looking good....

...I’ll get ill now I’ve said that!

[jimmyoc87]

Monthly Weigh-in: 28th April 2015

Weight: 88.1kg (-4.9kg*)

Body fat: ------

*vs. September weigh-in

[jimmyoc87]

Paris Marathon - 12 April 2015

Distance: Marathon

Time: 03:59:51

Position: 16,748th/40,173

—-

Having had a few days to recover and reflect on the Paris Marathon, here’s my thoughts on how it went (preparation, race-day and recovery) and what to expect if you ever run this race.

Preparation

In terms of general fitness, I’d say I’m pretty close to the fittest I’ve been in training for a long time, if not ever; my swimming is improving, I’m spending more time on the bike and doing intense running workouts and this has resulted in me being the lightest I’ve been in a good few years.

On the flip-side, in terms of marathon prep I wasn’t really focusing on the long, slow runs that are traditionally the cornerstone of a marathon training plan and knew my legs would start to suffer late in the race. I knew I could do a fast half marathon (Fleet half in 01:30:00), but previous experience has shown that my half marathon times don’t equate to my marathon times.

Paris Marathon experience

We’d booked a Eurostar train from London St.Pancras on the Saturday with a return booked for the Sunday evening. Our logic: arrive on Saturday evening, get a good night’s sleep and then have the afternoon after the race to recover in [hopefully] a warm Paris. 

Error number 1 - our train arrived into Paris Gare du Nord at 7:59pm and the registration closed at 8pm, on the other side of Paris. Cost - £65 each to re-book an earlier train. Big OOPS.

Despite all this we got off on time on the Saturday with a midday Eurostar...

Turns out the Eurostar that I remember from when I last visited Paris in 1995 (!) hasn’t changed one bit. In so much as the seats and decor don’t appear to be have been updated, so it’s looking quite 'tired’. Not the luxury we thought we’d get having spent a small fortune on tickets!

We arrived in Paris on time and headed for our hotel, the Novotel in Montparnasse, before wandering down the road to the ‘Le Salon du Running’ to collect our race numbers. This was just the usual opportunity for the marathon organisers to force all 57,000 entrants into a big expo space providing the many sponsors with an opportunity to sell you everything running related you’ve ever ‘wanted’. Thankfully our less than honest medical certificates [read: forged] received the ‘Certificat Medical Valide’ stamp that meant we were indeed allowed to run. Let’s hope Dr.Stokes and Dr.Harris from the fictional Rushmoor Medical Practice don’t get a letter asking for further validation....

After a HUGE pizza (and a glass of vin rouge) for dinner we set our alarms for 6am - well, I did and Rich thought he did - and got some much needed sleep.

The journey to the start and registration was fairly stress-free, without the queues and extremely cramped trains I’ve experienced at the London Marathon.

We’d very optimistically put our target time down as 3 hours 15 minutes, which in hindsight was a RIDICULOUS thing to do. However, it did mean we were set off 10 minutes before the really busy group and had loads of space on the course, in contrast to the usual squeeze you get for the first couple of miles. 

The start took place with the amazing backdrop of the Arc de Triomphe - 40,000+ runners all lined up with their own goals, ready to take on 26.2 miles around the streets of Paris.

We decided to stick rigidly to a pace of 8:30mins/mile, which we hoped would get us to the finish in a little under 3 hours 45 minutes.

The route took us out to the South West of the city along shaded streets lined with support, out past Bastille and towards the city zoo and the Château de Vincennes. Not a great deal of the famous landmarks to be spotted in the first 13 miles, but we stuck to our plan, if slightly quicker than planned.

As the course headed back towards the city centre we were running along the banks of the Seine with fantastic views of all the sights - Notre-Dame, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and the Trocadero fountains. 

It was in this section that we also experienced the crazy Disco Tunnels. Now, I’ve done a fair few marathons, including Brighton a few times, but I’ve never found myself in a tunnel full of lasers and a DJ booth with electro music blasting out. MENTAL.

After 17 miles I started to feel the dreaded cramp come on.

Error number 2 - not preparing for the heat. I only had one bottle of Powered and most of the water I picked up on the way round was thrown over my body to cool me down. This punished me later.

After struggling with a niggling cramp for about 6 miles - enough to slow us down a bit, but not too bad - my legs finally seized up and I had to stop to stretch at about mile 23. At this point Rich carried on to avoid having the same problem. From here on in, it was a case of run 500m, get cramp, stretch, walk a bit, repeat.

On the plus side, they had a red wine station [unofficial] at mile 24, and since I was walking at the time, I felt it was only right to partake. Discussing this after the race with a French colleague I said “Only in France would you have red wine offered during a marathon” to which she replied “Only a Brit would take some!” - TRUE.

The last few miles were a struggle but I made it and crossed the finish line by the Arc de Triomphe in a fairly respectable time of 3 hours 59 minutes, 11 minutes behind Rich.

The post-race experience was a mix of emotions. Feeling fine we decided to stroll to the Eiffel Tower, but within a matter of minutes I was spread out on the floor while Rich went to find me a bottle of coke. Having done some reading online since the race, the cramp and shitty feeling post-race were both down to a lack of sodium, potassium and calcium lost through sweat. We did however make it to the Eiffel Tower eventually and spent an afternoon eating pasta and drinking Corona in the 22 degrees heat.

A fantastic race experience and all-in-all a really good couple of days in Paris!

Recovery

A 6 hour journey home and a lack of sleep before back to work on the Monday. Legs pretty sore, but the only lasting pain so far is a very tight calf muscle, but this seems to be easing now :)

Now it’s back to the Ironman training!

[jimmyoc87]

Still a fatty!

[jimmyoc87]

Back in the pond

This weekend I braved the cold water and did a couple of swims in Frensham Great Pond...brrr!It's cold enough that I had to wear a wetsuit, but not cold enough to make the swim unpleasant once I was in. Apparently it's free of fishermen until July so I'll be making the most of this idyllic swim spot on our doorstep until then! 

Popped down to the ponds on Sunday to do the DIY sprint distance triathlon that I started doing last year. Brick training is supposed to be a key component to triathlon training, so having such a great spot to do all three disciplines should be a real bonus!

Went back for more cold water torture on Monday and again on Tuesday, and decided to do the longer swim across the pond. Glorious weather for it!

Going for 7 pond swims in a row this week, hoping it’ll help my legs for the marathon...somehow....