Minicollett's Mini Athletic Adventures

Run, run, run, with Barking Road Runners.Training for my first sprint triathlons: Blenheim Palace 28 May & London 6 August. Running London Marathon again 2 October

[miniathlete]

Rookie Cyclist 101

I bought a new bike two weeks before my first Tri! When I say new, I obviously mean, new to me. Claudia is a second hand Cannondale SuperSix Evo (2016) and I am very excited to have her!

Day 1: - Purchase bike, realise they have MTB cleat style pedals and your pedal plates you've been training with, won't fit. - Time to graduate to cleats. - Order new cleats from Amazon.

Day 2: - New cleats arrive. - Swap them over on your bike shoes. - Practice clipping in & out in the safety of your own home. - Feel satisfied they're easier to escape from than regular road bike cleats!

Day 3: - Take bike to the park cycling in trainers. - Swap trainers for bike shoes, right first, then changing the left as well. - Practice stopping & starting/clipping and unclipping. - Only one or two minor falls when you forgot to unclip. - Feel satisfied you can do it, but call it a day before you get too cocky!

Day 4: - Wake up really tired because you did a Splash+Dash the night before and have had three bad night's sleep in a row. - Insist you need to go out and practice anyway, so tell yourself just to do 1/2 hour. - Go out on local, quiet roads, probably out for about 45mins but manage just under 30 of cycling. - You're tired and anxiety is always worse when you're tired. At least you did something.

Day 5: - Take the bike to the VeloPark, a mix of cycle/walk/tube and a mix of trainers then cleats. - An inevitable fall as soon as you switch to cleats on the Greenway! - Get on well at the VeloPark, manage to start and stop/start a few times - Get a bit carried away, especially when your friend Joe arrives and end up doing a bit further than you meant to. - Realise the saddle on the new bike needs changing! Ha, ha. - Realise it's after 4:30pm & you won't be able to take the bike on the tube, you'll have to cycle all the way home! - Change into trainers (you've had enough cleat excitement for one day) & walk with Joe to Stratford. - Eventually taking it easy, you cycle home.

Day 6: - Rest day. No time for bike skills today. Also, so knackered and so (saddle) sore!

Day 7: - Stay at boyfriends in Walthamstow. - Take the bike out to a quiet road near his house. - Can't get started. - Have no idea why, but you keep starting and getting in your head. - Start to feel shaky, take bike back to the flat, cry and have panic attack. - OH SHIT, you cannot be having a panic attack this time next week. - Calm down and know you have to get back on the bike, so walk it to the park to start again. - Manage to start, stop/start a few times and decide to call it a day and quit while you're ahead. - Feel kinda weird for the rest of the day.

Day 8: - You've signed up for a short Duathlon at the VeloPark, to get use to racing. - You still have yesterday's fear/panic attack in your head, but know you need to keep trying. - Start/stop a few times in front of the VeloPark until you're allowed in. - Do half a lap of the VeloPark when you get in - stalling three times before you get started... oh shit! - Duathlon starts, run is fine. Transition is fine. You get on the bike... one false start, but you get going on the second one. - Realise you've forgotten to hit transition on your watch, but decide now is not the time to test out the one-handed cycling! Ha, ha! - Finish the cycling no probs, cycling faster and harder than you have before - it feels great! - Over anticipate the stop and go down the gears too early! - Finish the duathlon with a better run than the first lap. - Still feel shitty for the rest of the day... not quite the warm-up/whet your appetite event you were hoping it would be!

Day 9: - No time for bike skills today because of a temp job, but mange 30mins of a Sprint work out... that's something right!? Ha, ha!

Day 10: - Wake up early to go for bike practice and then a run. - Bloody miserable weather. - Torrential rain makes you head back to bed. - You're in a funk today.

Day 11: - Wake up early to practice starting in cleats again. - Manage to start once, but keep getting stuck inside your head and you know today is not the day, so you go back inside. - Have a lovely chat/cry-chat with Coach Cooper (Cristina, my fellow adult learner who completely understands the fear!). We talked it through and tomorrow is another day. - Panic by pedal plates for my MTB pedals, so I can cycle in trainers if I need to - Go for a relaxing swim. Something I'm good at! Ha, ha.

Day 12: - Testing out my new mantra "Push and Glide" - after realising I needed to visualise how to start on the bike. - Manage to get going first time, two or three times in a row. - Stumble. Start again. Stumble and fall. Start again. - Eventually get to Cristina's a few mins late! - Have a great cycle around the park, starting and stopping. Trying to lift one hand off the handle bars and then the other... - Decide to quit while I'm ahead. Walk the bike over the road. Can't get started again! Ha, ha! - Fall a couple of times & decide to change into trainers and walk most of the way home, with a little cycle... just to prove I can still do it! - Generally feel positive and happy that I will be able to do it in cleats. - Pedal plates arrive - good to have as back up!

Day 13: - Uhm and ahh about going out to practice... - Decide you don't really have anything to gain this close to the race and don't want to jink it by having a bad run. - The next time you ride your bike, will be in the triathlon!!!!

Day 14: - RACE DAY!!! - I will cover this is more detail in another post... there were a few false starts and some lessons learnt! - BUT, I did it! I did my first triathlon on a road bike, in cleats! - I've been cycling for less than 2 years, on a road bike for about 2 months and in cleats for just under 2 weeks!

[miniathlete]

Spash+Dash

On Tuesday I took part in a Splash (750m OWS) + Dash (5km run) as part of my training for Blenheim Palace.

The event was at Royal Victoria Docks and was very well organised! Very friendly and non-competitive (well, I was, of course! Ha, ha!). It was great to try the swim with lots of people starting (although by the sounds of it, Blenheim Palace will be one at a time, not a mass start) and to check out my race pace!

I have to say, I was pleased with my swim time, as I expected slower. I hope that I can achieve this at BP - c16 mins. It always takes me one or two hundred meters to get my breath and get into my stroke. I think I need to warm up and get my heart rate up before the swim.

It was also good to see how quick I can get the wetsuit off, what it feels like to be in a wet tri-suit and how it feels to run with no socks. I have to say, I'm feeling that bit more prepared for my first Tri now.

[miniathlete]

Cut-Back Week

I'm really pleased with how my training is building. As you can see from the lovely data graphs taken from Strava below, each discipline has been generally rising.

But now, it's time for a cut back week, so all of that hard work can be absorbed into my body. The downtime/easy weeks are when your body recovers and the adaptations are made.

[miniathlete]

Still training like a runner

Did a 10k race today, to try to find out where my fitness levels are. My weekly mileage made a plummet recently after a niggly hip and then Covid. I’m slowly building it back up and have a half marathon in a couple of weeks to see how that goes! 🤞🏽😬

The thing is, I don’t really need to be doing all this running for the triathlons. But at the back of my mind I’m just thinking about London Marathon in October & wanting to be in great shape for that!!

Well, open water swimming tomorrow and hopefully cycling too 🏊🏼‍♀️🚴🏼‍♀️ so that will complete the triad!

Cycling is easily my weakest sport so I really do need to be working on that the most. But running is easy to fit in and I love it!! Ha, ha!!

[miniathlete]

My First Brick

As you will have gathered, triathlon training is all new to me! I recently read about a concept called "Brick Training", where you do back-to-back training sessions of two (maybe all three sometimes?) of the disciplines.

The idea is to get yourself use to going from one to the other. You're training for a triathlon, not three individual sports.

Once I read this, I was very keen to implement it into my training schedule. So on Tuesday I did a 30-odd min RPM workout, then hopped on my bike, cycled to track and did a hard run session (and obviously cycled home, ha, ha!)

I don't know if it technically counts, I don't know if you're literally supposed to jump off the bike and into the run (or outta the wetsuit and onto the bike). Whereas I had a bit of faff time in-between.

However, I definitely felt the fatigue in my legs during track. And that was just a short cycle, I think in reality, it's going to be twice as long. It really has opened my eyes to the reality of Swim-Bike-Run!!!

[miniathlete]

Running!

And last, but my no means least, the third section of a triathlon: RUNNING!

I didn't always love running, in fact, I use to skive off cross-country at school and I was always made to do the 1500m because I too slow for the sprint distances.

And to be fair, I am still better suited to longer distances than shorter quicker ones. (I'm pretty sure 5k is the hardest distance and I've done 4 marathons... although no ultras... yet!)

I now run with Barking Road Runners and as well as the two triathlons coming up, I also have London Marathon this October, which I'm aiming to BQ at (Boston Qualify, need a 3:35 or below which is knocking 6 mins off last year's time)

Look at my happy face! I am stoked that over 11 years after I ran my first marathon (London 2010), I got to run it again, and absolutely smash any previous marathon times (3:41 compared to Berlin 2012 at 4:25)

I was always a very casual jogger until late 2009 when I was trying to get fitter coming off the back of glandular fever. I entered a 10k race in October and then another in November... and then a 10 mile the following January and a 1/2 marathon that February!

Every time I told myself to run a bit further, I did! I surprised myself I could actually do it. So naturally the next thing was a FULL marathon. Luckily, or unluckily, my friend had to pull out due to injury, so I took her place. But really it was too much too soon and I was a real rookie about the whole thing. (What idiot goes out in 4-inch heels the night of an LSR?)

I got hamstring tendinitis which scuppered my training, but I decided to run it anyway. And I am so glad I did. Sure, it was pretty painful from about Mile 18 and yes, I had to run/walk for a few miles between 20 and 25. But I finished it! And what an incredible feeling that was.

I have done plenty more races in between, with varying degrees of consistency in my running and naturally varying results.

But at the moment, I am the most consistent I have ever been and have high hopes for the future... if I can just keep those niggles and injuries at bay!

[miniathlete]

Cycling

Confession time! I did't learn to ride a bike as a kid! This was something that tormented me for years as an adult, it was my embarrassing secret that only a few people new about... "It's just like riding a bike!" People would say... and I would just think... "well, I'm screwed!"

I kind of own it now. I openly admit that I didn't learn until I was in my early 20s and even then I didn't really know how to ride a bike until I bought my own bike at the end of the summer in 2020.

Determined to be able to cycle in order to do my first triathlon, I practiced on my cheap Argos mountain bike and got fairly confident on it.

Confident enough to sign up to two triathlons for 2022. Blenheim Palace at the end of May and then London at the beginning of August.

But now, I'm feeling my confidence was misplaced, as I try to get to grips with a road bike!! It feels like learning to cycle all over again.

Watch me with interest as I see if I can conquer the fear and get through this sprint tri unscathed!

[miniathlete]

Swimming

A common theme in my life... I was a little late to the party with swimming (although not as late as cycling... but we'll get on to that!) and I didn't learn until I did a crash course, over two consecutive weeks in the school holidays when I was probably about 10.

But once I'd learnt, you couldn't get me out of the water!

When I was 15 I once swam 16km in the pool. I did. Mental, I know. But I have the certificate to prove it. (I'll post it here someday).

Then about 8 years ago I signed up for Swim Serpentine & started training outdoors - WHAT a difference that makes!

I'm now signed up to two triathlons this year so I'll be getting back into open water swimming, can't wait!

I did try in January but it was bloody freezing and I lasted 10 minutes! Ha, ha. Even with full wetsuit, neoprene gloves and socks... but never mind... hopefully soon!

[miniathlete]

Swimming