Monday 21 April 2014

Fuel bar recipe re-post

This is my most popular post - with over 16,5K views... I think it's worth raising it again as there's clearly interest in making this sort of thing.

Before I went low carb, I decided to lay off the processed fuel/sports bars and make my own on-the-go fuel food.  I've refined this over 10 iterations now and reckon this is the perfect one.  I'm thinking even now, with the honey and chocolate in this recipe that it's still valid fuel for during long, hard rides/runs.

Fruit and nut and seed bars - X

Makes 16 portions

Calories (kcal)247
Carbohydrate (g)29.6
Protein (g)6.2
Fat (g)11.7
Fibre (g)3.2
Fruit & Veg0.1

Ingredients

  • 150g clear or runny honey
  • 135g crunchy peanut butter (preferably with no added salt)
  • 80g Chocolate Hazelnut Spread (Nutella) 
  • 40g plain puffed rice (Kallo make a good range)
  • 260g Fantastically Fruity, Roasted & Toasted, Dorset Cereals Muesli
  • 120g Tasty Toasted Spelt, Barley & Oat Flakes, Dorset Cereals Muesli
  • 60g raisins
  • 25g mixed seeds (sesame, pumpkin, linseed, sunflower etc.)
  • 20g walnuts
  • 20g pecan nuts

Method

Pre-heat oven to 140-150C and line a baking tin with greaseproof paper.

Weigh cereals into a bowl.  Add raisins and chopped nuts.

Weigh peanut butter and honey into a separate bowl. Microwave for 60s, stir, add the Nutella and microwave for a further 30s or until smooth and easy to stir.

Add the chocolate, honey and peanut butter mix to the dry ingredients.  Mix all of it together thoroughly and dollop into the baking tin. Press down firmly (use the back of a spoon or a bit of greaseproof paper and your hands, or another tin of the same size that nests inside which I find easier).

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden.  Leave to cool until hard, preferably with something heavy on top so that the puffed up fruit don't make the cake break up as they shrink back down.  Then turn out and chop with a sharp knife into 16 portions.

Thursday 17 April 2014

Race report:- Rotterdam Marathon 2014

I'm still not sure why I did this race.  I think it was because I didn't want to be left out while Mr TOTKat ran it, plus I didn't want a wasted weekend with no training (er, that's really stupid if you think about it.)

Mr TOTKat had been following Pftizinger & Douglas marathon training plan and religiously going to The Athletic Edge strength & conditioning specialists in Hampton Wick in order to rehabilitate and prevent further occurrence of a knee problem.  I, however, had been recovering from ill-advised proximate Ultra marathons and general training malaise around Half Ironman and Ironman races later this year.

With that in mind, we flew out in Friday night from City Airport to Rotterdam for the marathon on Sunday.  Race registration was planned for Saturday, followed by some sitting around and then Mr TOTKat was doing the "mini marathon" (a 4.2km race to sharpen up for some, and for others an introduction to running races at all).  I planned to do a 20 minute leg turn-over while he was racing.

The race expo was quite nice really, the sub-title sponsor was New Balance and they had some pretty nice kit for sale on the day as well as a really nice race t-shirt for all of the marathon runners.  We both ended up buying some kit and I even ended up with some really bloody lovely shorts and tops that were endorsed by some model or other... shame it wasn't Nell McAndrew who's actually a pretty fierce runner with some damned sharp PBs right up to marathon distance.


Race day came and I still wasn't really sure what I wanted to do as a race strategy.  My predicted time I set in Training Peaks a while ago was 4 hours 20 minutes.  I can't remember why I picked that time, but I then decided on the day that I'd run at 6 minutes per km from start to finish, which would give me a 4 hour 13 minutes and change overall time.

Yeah.

Right.

I went off too fast.


The thing that is often said about appreciable distance races is to start off feeling easy, even too easy.  And I thought I had.  I felt good at 05:30/05:45 per km and I put it down to it being the flattest run imaginable and on tarmac rather than off-road and on uneven surface.  This was phenomenally smooth tarmac.  So I thought I was OK.  5km came and went and I felt fine.  I was high-fiving all the kids who had their hands out (it's the Done Thing!), waving for every camera I saw, dancing at every band along the route.  10km came and I had a hot spot in one shoe, so I pulled over to one side to adjust my sock to see if it was related to a bit of bunched up material.  And it went down-hill from there.  I noticed it was difficult to start back up again and then I couldn't get back to that 05:30 to 05:45/km pace.  I was hitting 05:55 - 06:05/km and even that didn't feel as easy as the faster pace had before.


I don't remember much between 10km and 18km but a key point was at 18km when it felt like my mind gave up.  I knew I'd screwed up.  I wanted to find a short-cut back to the start/finish and sack it all in.  I'd just done exactly what you're not supposed to do.  I'd gone off too hard and was starting to pay for it.  This has never happened before.  Every time I've done an Ultra marathon or even the shorter races, like the Malmesbury Half or the Clapham Common 15km races I've been praised for my evenness of pacing and very frequently put in negative splits.  So this hit me like a brick in the brain and that on top of this race being fairly meaningless to me in the scheme of this year (just a "fun run" really), it meant I had no purpose and nothing to prove, so...


Well, what was the point?  The only thing that kept me going from 18km onwards was the fact I was unable to work out how to short-cut back to the start and pull out.  And I was not going to wait for the bonk wagon as we had a plane to catch at 7.30pm!

Well, OK, time to man up and get on with it.  I tried to keep my heart rate up at a reasonable level as I figured the quicker I ran, the quicker I'd get to the end and it all be over.  Then I just ran out of everything and at 30km thought about run/walk.  My quads and calves were vociferous.  Seriously chatty about their state of unhappiness.  And from about 35km to 39km I made a deal with myself that I'd walk for 30 seconds at each kilometer marker and then run until the next one.   This is a strategy I used at both Country to Capital and Pilgrim's Way when Louise ran on ahead at our parting point.

Looks like the wheels really fell off around 25km in
And then I wasn't allowed to walk any more.  I had just started walking at the 39km marker and another runner grabbed my hand and pulled me along to run again.  Argh!  I so do NOT want to be running, I craved my little walking break and I'd been robbed!  But I kept running, with quads, calves and hamstrings now joining in the cacophony of pain signals to my brain.  I wanted to cry.


The supporters lining the route would not let people walk.  I think they thought it was supportive, but I found it oppressive.  Watching poor buggers, who really wanted to be walking, being pretty much emotionally blackmailed into running again even for a few steps.  I couldn't cry because the crowds were now so close in the final kilometer, all I could do was hyperventilate crossed with wheezing like a dying donkey (like I used to get in some kind of panic attack when I used to freak out about really steep hills on the bike).  It took quite a lot of energy to calm that down enough to breathe more normally and get through those last 1000m.

And I did.


And the finish came.


And all I wanted to do was cry.

I felt terrible.  There was no medals and no water.

Where were the medals?

Where was the water?

Why were people trying to give me a stupid, cheap rose in a plastic tube?


Then I was confused by the first guys with medals as they were for the business relay teams and were handing people 4 medals at a time for the whole team, but I couldn't find the "normal" medals.

It was confusing and stressful and difficult.  But then the individual medals turned up and I got mine, but there was nothing to drink and I so wanted water I was shuddering with tears.  I found people handing out cups of sports drink, but I wanted water.  This post-finish line chute was so long!  It looked like it veered off to the right, but I was vaguely aware I wanted to go off to the left to get back to Mr TOTKat and the hotel and I did find an exit route in the fencing; but still no water!  (it turns out there was a load off on that right hand bit I didn't walk through)  I stumbled back to the hotel, crying and angry with everything.

I hit the time I'd predicted for the race, whenever I'd predicted that many weeks ago, but I'd done it the wrong way.  The final time wasn't important and I must say that everyone asking me about it since has irritated me, I know they mean well, but the time really really was irrelevant to me, despite the fact I was accurate to within 3 minutes with my prediction.  But I felt horrible.  Truly broken in the head, upset, in a dark place and in pain.  But we had a plane to catch in about 90 minutes.

We didn't catch that plane.  We postponed to the next morning and got an extra night in the hotel.  I was just so convinced that the food choices in the airport, for our first food since breakfast that day, would be just upsetting.

I'm sure the Rotterdam marathon is a nice race, but it wasn't for me in so many ways.

Friday 11 April 2014

Rotterdam Marathon - this feels odd

This really does feel odd.  I'm running a marathon on Sunday; my first marathon.  Despite the fact I've run the distance 6 times already; 1x Ironman & 5x Ultra Marathons.

I'm told this isn't unusual for people who have done Ironman triathlons, not to have run a standalone marathon, nor ever to run one.  But it's probably not all that normal for people who have run an Ultra marathon.

26 miles is a weird distance, to me.  Too short to be a nice run.  Too short to be something I can run easy.  Too short to use my usual method of pacing and dealing with the moods and thoughts that I experience when running.  I'll have to run it hard and that's a long time to run hard for.

Let's see what happens.

Saturday 5 April 2014

Getting stronger by being Bloody Minded

New bike - road chain ring rather than compact. Get out and up those hills...


2 weekends ago I wussed out on my usual 3 hills route.  Hill 1 - Staple Lane; long and tough.  Hill 2 - Crocknorth; sharp and short.  Hill 3 - Box Hill; long, easy and a bit boring.  I wussed out up Crocknorth the first time I hit it.  My new Cervelo S5 has a road chain set rather than a compact one, which means my gearing is higher than I'm used to, so it's harder to get up steep hills as you run out of gears to help you.  There's a pull-in about 1/5 up Crocknorth where you can give up, get off and walk (which I did the weekend I got hypothermia).  I pulled in there and then had a talking to myself, got back on my bike and went back down to the bottom to do it again!  Drawing level with the optional bail-out point again I was thinking about how to bail until I ran out of time to make the choice, it was too late and I had to keep on trucking up the hill.  Powering up as best I could I was full of negative thoughts; the problem was not in the legs but in the head.  I'd got up Staple Lane, up the second rise after the false summit in 2nd gear (usually I do it in 1st on a lower gearing), so of course there was nothing wrong with my legs.



The following weekend I went out on my old bike, the Fuji and there I was, getting up Wimbledon hill in the big ring; twice in 15 minutes.  My legs are definitely gaining in power.

Today... out on the hills route again and I decided to mash it up the hills as best I could on the Cervelo with the tougher gearing.



And oh *boy* did I mash it!  PBs on all the hills, PBs on big sections of the route and 20 minutes quicker than the last time I rode the route.


Very happy with that.


Definitely getting stronger.

Better than a poke in the eye...