The call of the next season...

Galway has been a pivotal race for more reasons than stopping me from completing the Ultimate Challenge.

I thought I'd be devastated not to finish the challenge but I'm just disappointed.  I deserved to have finished all 4 races, I'd put in the work, I had the fitness and the determination.  I have no doubt I would have finished Wales to complete the set had I not broken my collar bone.  Yes, it means I don't get to tick that box, yes it means I don't get the cool special jacket, medal and t-shirt and I don't get to tell people I did it.  But, I did deserve to and that's pretty darned good.  I'll always know that even if other people won't and won't understand it.

The other reason for it being a pivotal race is what it showed me about what I could possibly achieve.  Given the close proximity to the final race of the challenge, with Wales only 2 weeks afterwards, my coach and I agreed I needed to conserve my body and limit damage as far as possible to allow for a comfortable day in Tenby.  This meant I could have a bit of a go in the swim and bike but, as Rich said, "doss the run".

Bear that and the crash in mind and look at the performance differences between Wimbleball and Galway.  Yes, Wimbleball is a tougher course, but look at the improvement vs the rest of the field (rank by that stage of the race) and my age category (cat rank for that leg of the race)...

 

 A minor improvement vs the field in the swim and a bit of learning in T1.  Then I've jumped almost 34% up my age category and almost 25% up the whole field in the bike *including a crash*!  Not completely going balls-out and then 5 minutes on my back/arse at the side of the road and then the last 9km at a gentler pace overall (I think) and still I moved from 60% down the age category to the top 25%. That's really very very encouraging.  Yes, the run was not as good as Wimbleball (quicker, but lower down the field - the courses have quite different profiles), but I had two pee stops of about a minute each ('s hard to get your shorts on and off with one hand) and I was trying not to jar my shoulder too much the rest of the time.  I also had an extra 11 minutes in T2 being seen to by the medics which wouldn't be normal.

The race itself felt great and had I not crashed so badly, I think I might have been fighting for 3rd place in my age category.  Not quite enough for a 70.3 World Championships slot without a lucky roll down - I'd need 2nd place for that - but I have to think it might be possible if that had been an A race.  So, in any case, 70.3 might just be my Goldilocks distance.

Right now, next year looks like the year of 70.3 and trying to qualify for the World Championships at Lake Las Vegas either in 2013 or 2014, depending on what races look possible to make A races in 2013.  Current thinking is Wimbleball, Galway and Lanzarote for a nice spread through the season and finishing somewhere warm in November.  It also means I can do some sprints (hello Blenheim! :o)) and maybe olympics as well through the year as it won't interfere with my overall training, so I can have a lot more fun with that.

@ironman_uk familiarisation with @thetrilife

Because we're new to all this long course craziness, we thought it would be a good idea to get some familiarisation of the first two courses, Wimbleball/Exmoor and Bolton.  So, we signed up for the organised days run by @thetrilife - one at Wimbleball lake for the 70.3 race and one in Bolton for UK IM.

We'd arranged to do the Saturday for Bolton familiarisation but as it was going to impinge far too much on MrTOTKat's birthday so much he wouldn't have had much of a day, so thanks to the flexibility of the @thetrilife team, we switched to the Sunday one.

The weekend came and it rained.  Lots.  Friday was raining, Saturday was raining and the forecast for Sunday was even more rain.  So we drove on up to Bolton in the rain on Saturday afternoon (after my longest scheduled run on Saturday of 2.5 hours at my IM race pace, which was a great run despite managing to throw myself on the ground and badly bruise the heel of my right hand as well as some grazes) and had a rather too large dinner before crashing to bed, listening to the rain.

Sunday morning we met up with the @thetrilife team and the other course delegates - a couple of older gentlemen, another lady and a few of the usual 30-40something guys.  Duncan, one of the coaches, led the presentations and Liz explained that they'd learned from the day before that the conditions of the weather were really not conducive to a safe and useful day, so the agenda was changed.  We were intending to ride 1 lap of the bike course, run a bit to think about pacing, take a look at the swim area and transition and then back for Q&A.  As it was so wet and cold, we had a look at the lake and T1 area, drove 1 lap of the course and then rode 3 repetitions of the one significant hill (Sheephouse Lane) - the guys from the day before said that was the most significant part of the ride so it made sense to take a good look at that - then ran off the bike to feel the starting pace.  It was still really very cold and as I was woefully under-dressed (I'd expected to have put some effort in and got quite warm riding), one of the coaches lent me an extra long-sleeved jersey which was very welcome and took the edge of the cold for the first ride up the hill until I'd warmed up.

The hill.  It's not -too- bad the first time and descending over some slightly lumpy road surface on the way back down to the start (which won't happen in the race as it's the wrong way 'round) wasn't so scary.  Second time up the hill, the second phase of it was a bugger as it was so windy that the little dip after the first phase gave no advantage up into the second phase that it was hard to make progress against the wind.  Second time back down I was alone, the coaches split between the front group (with MrTOTKat) and the back group who were taking the hill very steady.  Braking on the rough surface in the early part of the descent, I skidded a little to one side and braked a little harder in fear of going over, such that I ended up fish-tailing and wobbling really very badly for around 20 seconds or so before recovering to stable again.  That was pretty damned scary as the bike swung rapidly from one side to the other a good few times, each time feeling like it was going to slide out from underneath me and I'd go over.  But.  I did recover it and once the adrenaline had gone, I felt quite good that I'd managed to keep it under control - I think that riding in the ice over winter helped give me a bit of experience with skidding/sliding.

Third time up the hill wasn't funny.  Still very very windy I wanted to swear a lot and loudly as a lot of the effort I was putting in was being defeated by the wind.  One of the coaches was riding up with me again, a different one than the second time (I think 2nd time it was Dan and 3rd time it was definitely Rich) and we were going up in silence, my bike creaking lightly and his a lot more (thanks for that, it makes me far less worried about my frame!).  I crested the hill around the left band bend, turned around and headed back down for the third time... even faster than the second time :o)  I really enjoyed the descent until I caught up with another of the delegates - the other lady - and had to be encouraged to pass her.  I had thought there wasn't much point passing as we were near the end and we'd need to re-group soon anyway, but got on with it, really enjoyed a couple of swooping bends, and we then rode back to where the cars were parked to get going for a bit of a run.

Ended up going quite quickly in the end - 57.6kph/35.8mph

We set off running and the pace awareness work that Rich has had me doing really paid off.  One group shot off with everyone in it except me, and then MrTOTKat and one of the other guys dropped back with me.  Rich was cycling along beside us as we trotted, and explained that the front group was running at 3hr 30 marathon pace - way too fast for us!  Dan dropped back to run with us, leaving Sam with the front group and we carried on at around 06:15/km - pretty much my IM pace.  A little 5km trot, then back to the car and the hotel for the Q&A session.

After a sarnie and a chat, we launched into the afternoon session where Liz went through some really useful mental preparation work, Dan talked nutrition and Rich explained about the final few weeks training and tapering and the team answered lots of questions about the course, logistics, worries and niggles people had and we wrapped up the day just before 5pm.

Overall the day was very productive.  Initially it had been quite disappointing that we weren't going to get to ride the whole bike course and that meant only 1 hour of riding instead of the 4 we'd been expecting, but it was better to be safe, see the whole course from the safety and comfort of the car and experience the one real hill of it.  We both came out of it feeling pretty positive and MrTOTKat was particularly pleased that some of the mental/logistics preparation work he'd already been thinking about was spot on.  Good day.  Well worth it.  And I'd recommend it to anyone signed up for an Ironman race to attend a familiarisation camp before the race.

Raaaaar!

I have a new coach.  And I think the chemistry/cultural fit is a hell of a lot better.  Where coachJez did a great job with my swim technique, the rest was very much lacking and not working.  So, having really got on with the guys from TheTrilife.com at the Wimbleball (UK 70.3) familiarisation weekend, I decided to take the plunge and move to being coached by one of their coaches.  I was lucky enough to be able to get a place working with Richard Jones, head coach at TheTriLife.com and not only a very well qualified coach, but a very experienced and talented triathlete himself.

The first few weeks of training programme look pretty intimidating, to be honest, but there's a lot of work to do and not very long to do it in.  A lot of the initial sessions are about getting me to understand pacing at all and setting some good habits and basics in place that are simply missing at the moment.  The first swim session on the programme looked horribly complicated but ohgod was it so much fun to do!  I really enjoyed it and it wasn't as complicated as it looked.  The run and bike sessions have been similarly fun and mentally stimulating as well as helping to get a good base muscular feel for cadence and pace.

Noisy graph, but it shows a nice average of around 92rpm.  Good start!

Today's bike ride was a very positive and confidence boosting.  I managed to keep to the cadence target set and got myself into a great position with some bike handling skills that I've been worried about so far - I can now actually take a drink in the saddle almost easily!  I managed it 9 times over the ride as well as getting on and off the clip-on tri-bars in the sections less busy with traffic.  It sounds silly and trivial, but I've struggled with it to date and I think a combination of a huge confidence boost plus a steady cadence has tipped me over the sticking point from where I couldn't manage to do it to being a lot more comfortable with it.

After today's ride, I feel absolutely fabulous.  Full of confidence and the joys of spring.  I guess the sunshine helped as well as the successful ride.  Raaaar!