A little behind schedule

But still positive.

This is 14 weeks on from surgery and I'm not running yet.  I can't even run a step; it's almost funny when I try.  My brain says yes and when I go to do it, it doesn't work.  It's hard to explain really, but quite simply nothing happens.

However, I have been doing some exercise.  I started sitting on the bike on the turbo 6 weeks ago, with 4 weeks of 3 spins a week and two of just one in the last two weeks.  And today I actually felt confident enough to go out for a ride on the roads.  50 minutes of glorious, confident, self-powered freedom.  It was fabulous.  Despite being over-optimistic about the temperature and thus under-dressed, I enjoyed the heck out of that little ride.  Despite taking quite a gentle hill and feeling like it was really bloody hard, I really enjoyed it.

The confidence came from hugely improved stability and balance on my left leg.  My physio work has been focussing really well on getting me improved from the quite appalling state of balance I had after the boot came off.   I was unable to stand on that foot at all.  Couldn't get dressed standing up, couldn't do anything on one leg and now I can stand on one foot and bend my knee and touch my toes with the opposite hand.  I can step up on that foot and raise the opposite knee and hold it.  This is *huge* progress.

I'm hopeful now of possibly being able to try jogging in a couple more weeks.  That'll be 4 months after surgery, rather than the predicted 3.  A bit disappointing, but shit happens sometimes.

I have a confession...

I've not been enjoying triathlon at all this year.  Not that I've actually raced any yet, having bashed my knee the day before Mallorca 70.3.  But I'm just not enjoying the training.  It has felt like a dirty secret for a while, but now I've made a choice, it's out now and I feel so much better for it.

Getting to the pool has been getting mentally harder and harder over the last 12 months; partly to do with the current and previous job being nowhere near a pool at all, not even a 17m one (I trained successfully for the bonkers year of Ironman in 2012 in a 17m pool), so I couldn't swim at lunch time.  Part of it is that I've got way out of the habit of swimming (see point 1).  I've also been feeling more and more down about a training plan that I'm not only shuffling around during the week (which is mostly fine to do and I've been doing that for a few years), but I'm missing or short-changing most of the sessions and then feeling bad about that.  And then realising the lack of work put in means that it'd be either very miserable to grind through a hilly 70.3 or perhaps full distance Ironman, or just plain out of the question to complete it.

So I've decided to stop doing triathlons for now.  There's no point in dragging yourself through weekly cycles of rage and blues for something you're supposed to be doing for fun.  I'll see how I feel up until the morning of the UK 70.3 in 2 weeks time; I'll race at Blenheim (it's "only" a sprint and a flat one at that) this weekend, and just train how I feel after that for a while.  But Ironman Wales is off the cards (and I can only get, at most, 25% of the cost of that back now *sigh*)

Commuting by bike and on foot to work is much more accessible now we have lockers and showers at work, so I can get a lot of useful exercise in during the week and really clock up some run miles if I so choose.  And then there's parkrun, the common and the Surrey hills at the weekends where I can just go out and have some fun and even socialise!  I feel a lot better about things now I've made this (fairly temporary) choice and it really opens things up to getting a whole bunch of things more fluidly in the calendar - off-road running races rarely fill up months in advance :o)

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...

So. Boring.

This up and down feeling gets really very tedious.  So goes the cycle:-

• Yay! Enthusiasm for a training programme!
• Following it quite well under controlled circumstances.
• YAY! Feeling really good about it all!
• Following it quite well under controlled circumstances.
• Being convinced you're slower and less fit than $time_period_of_choice.  Boo!
• Feeling really down because you thought you were doing well, but you're not (well, you probably are, but are choosing the wrong metrics at the wrong time). Booo!
• Circumstances changing outside your control.
• Failing to follow the training plan very well. BOO!
• Feeling devastated as everything is clearly doomed. BOOO!
• Shuffling the plan to fit better with new circumstances.
• Feeling a bit better about it all. Yay!
• Failing to follow the modified plan.
• Feeling devastated and convinced everything will be disastrous. Boo!
• Being 2 weeks out from a serious undertaking.
• Frantically trying to find ways to recover any fitness/speed. Booo!
• Knowing it's far too late for that. BOO!
• Feeling like a total failure. BOOO!

...and back to the start again.

I'm at the final two points on the last 13 days into Country to Capital.

yay

*sigh*

It's *such* a *tedious* cycle and it gets *so* *boring*.

2012 weekly training hours

It wasn't like this last year right up until I smashed up my collar bone.  I was averaging 11 hours a week from December 2011 to September 2012.  Since then, I've averaged 5-6 hours a week and it's mostly down to new job in March, then not cycling much in the last few months (which hammers my base fitness something rotten, plus chips away at my cycling handling and hill climbing/descending capability) and being in an awkward and unfamiliar location.  Depressing.  And it'd be nice to say it's on the mend in a week's time when we're properly back home again, but I can't do a whole lot that week as it'll only knacker me out for said Country to Capital and that wouldn't help the state of my brain.  And then I need a good few days easing very gently back into things as I will have toasted my leg muscles and engine a bit.  So it's more like 2-3 weeks before I can really get back into things.

2013 weekly training hours

And there's another new job.  But there could be a great up-side to that in the possibility of commuting by bike opens up (thanks also to Vulpine's marvellous merino and nice, smart clothing for cycling in).  And there's a few months before the first proper triathlon of the season... 130 days to Mallorca 70.3

Mallorca 70.3 bike route & profile

So.

We'll see.

For now, I fight the positivity battle to get me to 11th January and through Country to Capital inside the cut-off time. (which really should be possible, given my Rotherham time for a longer, lumpier course)

Looking ahead to the New Year

I'm looking ahead to next year and it's looking quite dry after Country to Capital at the start.  In fact, there's nothing in the calendar until the spring triathlon training camp in March.  It's probably a good thing as it means I'll actually get some proper blimmin' training in rather than just poncing about between races that just smash up my body so I do nothing in between the races.

Moving back home will make a huge difference.  At the moment, the barrier to getting out on a bike for a decent ride is too high, so there's none of that going on.  And that means I'm missing out on a lot of technical handling maintenance but also on fitness that's not from running.  Running fitness comes at a higher damage cost for sure and the little turbo sessions in the gym, while then proved incredibly good for increasing FTP and sorting out cadence etc. last year, they're not all that great in isolation.  Also, I have a bike that I really want to get out on and get used to and enjoy.

So, between now and moving back home, there's a bit of running and potentially a couple of turbo sessions and then we get to get back into the proper swing of things.  And maybe my currently quite low love for triathlon will start to come back with some quality time out on the bike.  And maybe I'll get to commute by bike to my new job (yay for somewhere safe to keep my bike during the work day!).  I just need to be patient and not stress over taking things easy for a couple more weeks.  I coped with worse last year after my crash and subsequent training restrictions :o)

The power of familiarity

My routine and access to familiar to cycle and run routes is broken at the moment.  This is, to put it bluntly, crap.

I'm naturally a cautious cyclist  (a "what if" worrier) and I've got very used to the routes I've been cycling the last 2 years.  I know them well.  I know which bits are good for what sort of training.  I know the exit points and danger points for mechanicals.  I know where the good refreshment/social stops are.  This means the barrier to getting out there and doing a ride is pretty low.  Take away those familiar routes and the barrier leaps up a long long way.

So I've not ridden a bike in, er, quite a while.  Not since 21st September!  Yes, I've been on the Wattbikes and spin bikes in the gym, but it's not the same thing at all.

Today I have to do that and from and to unfamiliar places.  On an unfamiliar bike.  (to get fitted on that same bike).

*fear*

(it's a gorgeous bike, but still...)

Hard week!

Being quite inexperienced at proper training, I haven't got a good grasp of what a hard week is.  Last week was one of them, though I didn't really notice at the time.

Still quite fatigued from RideLondon 100, I had one normal rest day then back into the swing of things with a peppy hour or running intervals, then a bit of a hiccup with a day when I just couldn't fit anything in.  Thursday had an hour of bike intervals on the gym bike, then another set of intervals on the road to get my bike back home from Mr TOTKat's office after RideLondon.  Friday, more bike intervals, even harder ones this time.  Friday, we packed up the car and headed off into Surrey for a weekend away.  Saturday was a bike trip to Farnborough station to catch the train to Winchester for parkrun then riding all the way back up the A30 (route planning fail early on in the ride) to the hotel, along a fairly rolling terrain and with intent to get back at a reasonable pace.  I was whacked!  We stopped for a tea and some fuel half way back (only 65km ride!) and mashed the rest of the way, giving me a few Strava KOMs on the way.

The plan was to have afternoon tea, a nap, then a swim before dinner.  And we did have a fabulous afternoon tea, but were running late enough that the nap was only 10 minutes long before I had to go for a scary looking swim set that included butterfly in the warm up!

This resulted in a bit of a failed swim... I cut out a chunk as I was supposed to be doing descending sets after a substantial warm up and I was simply knackered.  So I did about 3/4 of the session and called it a day.  Just about enough time to get showered and changed for dinner.

Sunday morning had a hard run set planned.  A really nice warm up and then progressively faster and shorter multiples of 400m laps of the rugby pitch (which was de-turfed and being rotavated at the time).  Through lack of familiarity with using the lap function on my Garmin, I made a bit of a hash of it, but still I managed to mash through the session despite feeling like spewing after the first 1600m interval and not wanting to carry on.  10km warm-up plus intervals later, I was done; a sweaty heaving mess, but done.  Time to get back to the room, shower and have breakfast.  Letting the gorgeous breakfast go down a bit, we packed up and checked out before going to The Spa again for another swim.

50m into the warm up, my arms were saying uncouth things to me about what I was asking of them.  This particular session included 8x25m butterfly in the warm up.  I've not done butterfly since I was about 9 or 10 years old and I wasn't any good at it then.  I wasn't convinced I'd be able to get my arms out of the water and that I'd look like a total idiot.  Turns out I can do it for a couple of lengths at a time!  Anyway, given how tired I was from back-loading the hard training to the tail end of the week and not really recovering much from some pedal mashing at RideLondon for a few hours, I called it a day before really getting into the main set of the swim and we sat beside the outdoor pool in the sun for a bit to dry off and have a drink.

Chatting through the week with my coach on Monday night (rest day!) he did say that this week might look innocuous on paper, but after last week I would still be tired and there are a few tough sessions in there that will really add up.  The whole plan was to tire me out and pile on the fatigue some more this week to get me used to pushing hard while I feel fatigued.  Well, I can say with certainty that it's working 'cause this morning's swim times were terrible!

Onwards!

"withdrawn"

Despite feeling really great (but with an irritated right ITB) after a 50 minute hard turbo session this afternoon, I will not be riding Hell of The Ashdown tomorrow.  My legs will not have recovered enough from the London Ultra last week to be able to tackle the hills; both climbs (not recovered legs) and descents (not practiced enough on the roads since September) would make me too miserable.

And there's no point doing an event if you're only going to be miserable.

So I'm not.

Discretion... valour... etc.

Restdaynowpls?

I'm really very pleased with the technical improvements I've been making on the bike and run over the last 3 weeks.  Now, I can reliably drink on the bike, in the saddle, sometimes even while pedalling, and from either bottle rack.  I can eat too.  This is going to be invaluable for the longer races this year.  Running-wise, I'm starting to get to grips with pacing.  I'm still not anywhere near there yet, but generally more aware of paces and how they feel.  There are doubts in my mind whether I'd be able to stop relying on a GPS enabled watch to really get it right in a race, but we'll see.

This weekend's training has been tough in the heat.  Can it be a bit less hot in 3 weekends time please?

Saturday was a long bike and a brick run.  I intended to do about 03:30 on the bike, pick up some running shoes back at home, then cycle another 30 minutes to Prologue bikes to drop my bike off for a service before next weekend's Bolton familiarisation weekend (and UK 70.3 not long after that).  Then run back home for 40 minutes or so as a brick run.

The ride was my old familiar 3 Surrey hills, 2 of which I formed part of two of the intervals in the main set to hit 65rpm for 10 minutes for some over-gearing work.  It was *HOT* and *WINDY* and for the first time I did the route without stopping at all.  Thankfully, the traffic down to Sheen to the bike shop wasn't as horrible as last time I went that way, but when I got to Prologue, it was shut!  A one-off they say, so I went a few doors down to Pearsons and appealed to them to help.  Come Friday I should have a bike that doesn't creak in random places. 

I started the run home and, in case I'd not already said, it was really very hot.  I struggled to keep pace up at all.  Also, I forgot to turn on my Garmin for the first minute or so - another sign that I'm mentally quite tired as I've been making a lot of mistakes and getting mixed up in the last few complicated training sessions.  Intended that the 1st km was easy, but then I just couldn't increase the pace at all after that. The little undulating hills didn't help for sure.

I stopped running after the planned 40 minutes and walked the next 15 minutes to Paul in the village.  As I was craving "real food" after the bars, sports drinks and gels, I bought and pretty much inhaled a chicken baguette (can't remember the last time I had a baguette!) on the way home from there.

Today was a recovery run with some "pick ups" in there (30s sections of increased pace to get the feel without the fatigue of a fast run).  I went back up to the common to run in the trees to get as much shade as possible.  And yes, I'm definitely quite fatigued in the brain.  As I headed into a trail section from the main gravel/soil track, I tripped over a tree root and didn't realise I was falling until I hit the ground.  Covered in dusty mud and a bit scraped for the rest of the run, I really had to concentrate hard on not letting that happen again.

 Anyway, I really enjoyed the strides/pick ups, which I started to do after 30 minutes of warm up and then roughly every 5 minutes after that for the next hour and 15 minutes or so, then had to knock it on the head coming back down through town as there were a lot of people on the street.  My Camelbak run belt is probably the best running purchase I've made this year (last year was the emergency baseball cap I bought at the Virgin London Triathlon and it meant that I could have a bottle of iced water (fill to 4/5 full of cold water, then top up with an entire tray of ice cubes - OK, they rattle a lot when you're running, but it's well worth it for the chilling effect) with me today and yesterday.  Today I was pretty disciplined with hydration and sipped every km and refilled about 200ml from the public fountain to get me to the end.

I'm glad I've got these sessions in the bank but oh-boy was it a tough end to the week!  (And I hope to tidy up that last core strength session today, so I'm not totally remiss on that front.)

100km and a cheeky tea and bacon buttie

This was a good weekend.  Very pleased with it.

Almost 100km covered under my own power; 74km hillyish cycling on Saturday and 24km running on Sunday - the furthest I've run to date in one session.

Having concentrated on cycling in the South, I turned and looked North on Saturday.  Mr TOTKat and I cycled to my parents' house last year one weekend.  It took a Bloody Long Time, was Hard and Horrible and we stopped lots because I was pretty unfit.  This Saturday, I decided to drop in for a cup of tea, un-announced and just get the train back straight away if my folks weren't in.  74km and 3ish hours after leaving the house I arrived, without a drop of sweat, feeling great, and to the surprise of my parents.

Sunday, Mr TOTKat and I went out for a long, slow run up to Richmond Park, round once and back again. 24km, the furthest I've run in a single run.  It wasn't my most favourite running experience, I felt a bit horrible at times probably because Saturday's ride wasn't all in heart rate zone 1 (the goal was bike handling skills, not Z1 ride, so I did put some effort in up and down the hills).  You really do tend to feel it the couple of days afterwards if you put in some higher effort in a session, and Sunday proved that to me.  There was also an unpleasant moment running down a hill where my right knee twinged all the way down, but then no problems afterwards.  It was a bit of a shock, having had no pains at all for months now, but I think I'll put it down to bad form racing down the hill and see how it goes.  After our run it was home again for some food and a bit of shopping before heading out to the TCR Show.

There were a few show discounts to be hand and some fun watching people swimming (well, splashing about like loons, mostly) in the infinite pools in the Zoggs swimming zone.  We found the Ironman stand and our little moment of fame on their promotional piece about "The Ultimate" and had a good long chat with Dan James and Kevin Stewart of Ironman UK.  Rather over-excited by all of that and a nearly sensible amount of money spent on a few bits of kit, we toddled home in the driving rain.

Hell of The Ashdown - Devil's DeTour

I've had... issues with cycling and hills.  So I decided to get over it and sign up for the silly annual hillfest that Mr TOTKat has done a couple of times before.  Slightly annoyingly, there is a longer and a shorter route.  And being completely lacking in perspective around hills, I decided to do the shorter route just to be safe.

The shorter of the two routes of the Catford Cycling Club annual large-sale sportive is the "Devil's deTour".  I thought I might manage 03:15:00 and did some maths on the 2011 results to see what the mean time for women over that course was and at 03:34:00 I thought top 1/3rd was a reasonable target to aim for.

R/L/SO	'Devil's deTour' Challenge '50K' (53.5K) Route	Route	Kilo	Mile
START	Biggin Hill, Kent - H.Q. Charles Darwin School, Jail Lane		00.0	00.0
L	Leaving HQ - Jail Lane - Bear R - Down Berrys Hill - Climb Church Hill
R	'Cudham Test Hill' (Church Hill) - At Top Dismount - CARE turning R	(M)	2.1	1.3
	Cudham - Cudham Lane - The Nower
R	Onto Hogtrough - DANGER steep descent - CARE hidden side roads		5.6	3.5
L	Brasted - CARE turning L into High St.	(M)	8.3	5.3
1st R	Chart Lane - Brasted Chart - Toys Hill(long/steady ascent)		11.7	7.3
	Toys Hill - DANGER steep descent		12.4	7.7
R	Into Green Lane - CARE at junction	B2042 (M)	14.8	9.2
L	Four Elms X roads L Into Clinton Lane	B2027	15.6	9.7
2nd R	Into How Green Lane	B2027	16.9	10.5
	In How Green Lane bear left at bend and follow road
L	L at Fork (110k route goes R)	(M)	18.7	11.6
L	L at T junction into Hever Rd	(M)	18.7	11.6
R	Bough Beech At T junction CARE turning R onto B2027	B2027(M)	20.3	12.6
1st L	Towards Blore Place - S/O at next junction (NOT to Ide Hill)		22.3	13.9
L	At junction keep bearing L into Bowzell Road		26.8	16.7
R	Bayley's Hill (long/steep ascent) At top of hill turn R into White House Lane		29.4	18.3
1st L	Into ? Gracious Lane		30.0	18.6
L	At B2042 onto Wheatsheaf Hill		32.3	21.1
1st R	At Car Park/ Toilets CHECK / Feed then L towards Ide Hill Village	CHECK	32.7	20.3
R	Ide Hill Village - R at Green/Roundabout		33.1	20.6
R	Fork R towards Sundridge - Church Rd		43.2	21.3
SO	Sundridge Straight over Traffic Lights into Chevening Road	B2211	36.8	22.9
Exit 1	At Roundabout turn L into Star Hill Road		40.6	25.2
	Climb Star Hill (long/steep ascent)		41.9	26.0
1st L	At 'The Harrow'		43.2	26.8
1st L	Knockholt Pound L at the village green into Main Road		43.5	27.0
L	At Scotts Lodge t junction L into Cudham Lane		46.6	29.0
1st R	Into Grays Road		46.8	29.1
R	At Hawley's Corner ('Spinning Wheel') extreme R into Buckhurst Rd		49.6	30.8
1st L	Into Berry's Green Road (care Potholes!)		50.8	31.6
1st L	At T junction then bear left at top of hill into Jail Lane		52.2	32.4
FINISH	HQ - Charles Darwin School on R in Jail Lane	Distance	53.5	33.2

Mr TOTKat was down for an 09:02 start for the 100K route, me 10:22 for the 50K route, so I had over an hour to kill after he and Mupps headed off for some hill-related fun.  Luckily, my overshoe decided to have a zip failure, so I spent a good 20 minutes looking for ways to stop it from flapping about and unravelling.  It was cold enough that not wearing them would have been probably a bad idea.  A cable tie was the first option, but I didn't like the fact that I couldn't get it off in a hurry, so I ended up with two elastic bands knotted together and threaded through the loop on the back of my cycling shoe to help it stay in place.

I ran into a Thames Turbo member and had a bit of a chat before a group of us headed off for the 10:22 start time slot.  Thankfully for me, I was pre-warned about the first hill being utterly ridiculous; "Major Climbs Cudham Test Hill – New in 2009, this literally gives a short sharp shock in the first mile or so. Don’t worry if you have to walk the 1 in 4 stretch at the top because in any case we ask you to dismount to turn right at the T junction."  That and the words of warning from Mr TOTKat prepared me for the silliness that was the first hill.  4 of the others in the same starting group, however, had no idea what was in store for them, so when they rounded the bend and started up the incline, three of them wobbled into the middle of the road, one of those fell sideways and got off, the other two zig-zagged in front of me a bit until I passed them in the first couple of metres and the last one disappeared behind me in a fit of giggles.

I powered up really very slowly, but knowing that was the worst of the steepness over, got to the junction at the top in one piece and only had to unclip at the top briefly before turning right and getting on with the ride.  Very pleased with the steepest bit over with in the first few minutes, I wasn't sure if that hill counted as one of the four main ones on the shorter route nor how the others would compare.

Annoyingly, MapMyRide doesn't consider the whole of Star Hill due to a plateau before the summit...

Long story short, I didn't hold back like I have been on my long rides.  I chased down two guys who were ahead of me and descended better than me, but I caught them on every ascent; the big hills and the rolling rises too.  I gritted my teeth through the big ascents and hung in there, was a bit cautious on the descents due mostly to worrying about oncoming traffic and the narrowness of some of the roads.  Next time I'll know better.  Also, I stopped a bit long at the feed station and ended up chatting to a guy who is to my right in this photo and making me grin like an idiot... (note the elastic band around my left ankle ;o))

I didn't intend to spend long at the feed station, but ended up there for over 5 and a half minutes mostly due to chatting.  If I'd just crammed in the two gels and swigs of water I'd've been out in a minute or two, tops.  And at the end, I really wish I had!

I don't remember this hill/photo point... but it looks pretty steep to me.  Note the guys behind me, out of the saddle.  I still can't do that on hills; fine on the flat though.  More bike skills practice please!

And here I am, giving out to the photographers part-way up Star Hill...  I was pretty chuffed at this point having spent a good few km chasing down a slightly large bloke all in Castelli gear with red pants underneath that were grinning through the black of his tights.  He'd passed me at a point after I'd messed up my gearing and was slower than I should have been, with a cheery "well done!".  I wasn't having any of that, sorted my gears out and proceeded to have him up the next hill.  Then he beat me down the next one.  So I beat him up the next.  Repeat for 3 hills and then I lost him, or he lost me I can't remember which now.

4km from the end, I was pumping down a gentle descent, really picking up speed, passed the first of a pair of cyclists, slowed a bit for a bend and then hit something big in the road.  I didn't see what it was but I yelled out "shiiii-i-i--i-i-iiit!", almost lost the back end of the bike, veered across the road and fought the bike back vertical underneath me.  Poor bugger behind was worried he was going to hit me, the guy in front yelled out to check I was OK.  I quickly made it known I was fine and carried on sawing at the pedals to get my speed back as I was almost at the finish and really wanted to get a decent time.

Round the final few bends, up the tiny little hill to the finish and I stormed over the finish line to the squealing of the timing mat.  Starving hungry at this point, I forgot about the planned recovery meal in the car and headed straight for the cafe for a sausage and bacon baguette and two teas, via picking up my finisher's certificate hot off the press.  02:26:14 - little did I know at that point it was only 00:01:47 behind the first woman!

Once I'd stuffed a ton of food in and cooled down a bit, I nipped back to the car to pick up Mr TOTKat's trainers as he was due to do a 15 minute run at the end of the ride.  There were loads of sociable people chatting away so I ended up talking to two guys who were quite half-decent cyclists with lots of stories. Mr TOTKat and Mupps turned up and Mr TOTKat changed into trainers for a quick trot around the block before coming back to a sausage and bacon baguette.  I scoffed another two teas and a hunk of carrot cake before we packed up to go home.

As we drove home, I thought more and more about last year's results for this event and the fact that the first woman over the line for the short route did it in 02:20:xx.  I thought I was in with a shot of placing top three... and had to wait for hours for the results to go up.  Hitting refresh over and over until I got bored, and was eating dinner when an SMS came in from Mupps that I might want to hit refresh again.

4th place overall for the shorter route and 2nd woman by 1 minute and 47 seconds.  If only I'd yapped less at the feed station!

Well, that went well.

Full race report to follow...

Good route, bad route signage

National cycle routes.  They're a great idea, but ohboy is the signage on the routes a bit pants at times.  So, I got a bit lost today:-

See that lovely bit where I go 'round in almost circles a couple of times between Shepperton and Chertsey?  That's because there's a critical junction where National Route 4 is sign posted in only one direction, but it's a little loop if you're coming in one direction so you cross it when you're going the other way and can end up going the other way and not noticing it.  Especially if you're taking the alternative bit of the route to avoid the bike ferry crossing (which is only 3 quid for 1x adult with 1x bike and runs every 15 minutes on request by ringing a bell).

(I left the HRM on all the time, even when stopped for food/drink/route checks.  But accidentally ended recording about 59 minutes in to the ride when I stopped for a wee at the one of the locks and thus ended up with two sessions recorded for it.)

Anyway, it wasn't the end of the world and the route section I cycled today from Kingston, out West and back again, was a mix of road, on-pavement cycle path, gravel track, dirt track and paved pedestrian/bike shared use paths.  The majority of the surface and traffic conditions meant that I mostly kept to my objective today of staying in heart rate zone 1.  There was one hill which could have ruined it all, but thanks to the advice from Jonny Brownlee last week about getting into an appropriate gear -before- the hill starts rather than my old habit of hitting the base of a hill in a reasonably high gear and then trying to go down through the gears as I slow down (thus losing power quite rapidly), I managed to keep my heart rate much lower than usual on that hill.  The tow path along the side of the river was almost cobbled in places, otherwise dirt/mud tracks with exposed roots, pot-holes and lots of Sunday cyclists, runners and families out with dogs, so I had to keep my speed down to be polite most of the time.  OK, so there were a few times on the way back where I had to keep things in check as I found myself somewhat lamping it as the wind was less right in my face in that direction and the general, gentle, downwards gradient.  And I stopped a few times for drinks and food (yeah, I -still- can't take a drink in the saddle whilst moving but I'm working on it).

All in all, a good ride.  Objectives met despite getting a little bit off course a few times.  Plus, I got a bit of work in on getting out of the saddle and there's a lot of improvement there too.  Not to the point it'll be useful to get up hills, but again I'll get there and there's still a good bit of time before I really need it.

Parkrun Triple - I got lost!

It was always going to be hard... 9am Bushy Park, 10am Nonsuch Park, 11am Riddlesdown Park.  They're 13km and 16.3km apart.  And Riddlesdown is up a hill (the clue is in the name; it's a Down).  We had a 12km ride to get to Bushy and 19.5km to get home as well.  Top it off with 3x 5km runs, one at each Park and that's quite a challenge at this point in the year.

I saved the route as a course to upload to my Garmin 200 so I'd not get lost on the way to each one - I know the way really well to Bushy but no idea about the other two.  Thing is... the Riddlesdown Parkrun course is nowhere near where we rode to on our recce ride the other day.  We checked the additional bit using Google Maps and Streetview and figured out what to change for that bit.  As it turned out, I didn't remember the extra bit so well.

Having had a hearty porridge brekkie (50g oats, 20g raisins, 15g maple syrup), we toddled off just after 8am.  We arrived at Bushy Park nice and early for the first Parkrun and started pretty much on the dot of 9am.  I needed to not thrash it completely during the runs to stand a chance of finishing the whole thing.  26:35 was the result and thankfully as it's a very slick operation at Bushy, barcode scanning had no queueing and I skipped through, changed shoes, put helmet and gloves on, took a swig of carb drink and headed off to Nonsuch.

(cycling only)

Pretty much no traffic meant the cycle sections were much faster than during the recce, but I still didn't make it to Nonsuch by 10am, saw the runners head to the corner where the course meets the path and had to carry on to where I was going to leave my bike, change shoes, lock bike, forget to take off helmet, run back to bike to drop off helmet and then join the run course.  Ohboy it was muddy.  But I reeled in a few runners and made it 'round in officially 32:29, but I started 7ish minutes late, so probably a similar time to Bushy in the end.  As I neared the finish line, I saw a few people trotting back to the car park so asked one of them if they were doing the triple and whether they could tell Riddlesdown I was coming 15 minutes late.  I was worried I'd not find the start as they'd've packed it up by the time I got there (hah, little did I know...).  Finished up, another speedy scan of the bar codes and then I forgot how to get back to my bike, cursed parking it so far from the finish as it added about another km to the run at the end to get back to it.  Changed shoes, unlocked bike, helmet back on and looked at the time... 10:41.  Not Good.  19 minutes to the start of Riddlesdown.  I wasn't realistically going to make it to the start on time but would have been fine to start up to 20 minutes late, in my mind.  39 minutes to Riddlesdown, should be do-able, right?

My legs were quite weak by this point and I was a bit worried that the hill at Riddlesdown might be too much for me, so didn't push it too hard.  I did take as much advantage as I could of the downhill sections to gain some speed, but it just wasn't enough.  I got the junction where the route diverged form the tested route, let the Garmin make the nasty noise it makes when you're off course and carried on down the road, heading to my left hand turn for the park.  It was now 11:10.  I thought there was about 5 minutes cycling to go, so I'd be OK to get to the start a bit late but not too late.  Counted the little stubby left I was due to pass, saw the second left but the road name was wrong.  Cue confusion.  I carried on down the road further losing confidence quite rapidly.  After another 500m or so I decided I'd missed my turn, did a 360 and headed back to that turning with the wrong name, turned up it and it was a horrible gradient that I just couldn't manage so I got off and walked.  As I turned at the top of the road, it became apparent that it really was the wrong turn and I'd joined up with the route we took on the test ride.

So, I decided to carry on that way, got back on my bike and rode up through Riddlesdown Park.  Through the car park, on down the gravel track.  I had to freewheel as it was so rough and I was worried about skidding and my wheels and tyres.  The track went on and on and came to a gate.  On the other side of the gate the track got rougher, muddier and steeper so I got off, changed my shoes and trotted along, wheeling my bike down the track.  It went on and on some more and popped out at a timber merchant.  Argh!  I had to work out where the hell I was as it was Just Wrong.  A quick Google Maps check on my iPhone told me I was still not far enough down the original road and had another few km to go to the left hand turn I needed At The Roundabout!  Dammit!  The roundabout that I'd forgotten we talked about when we checked Streetview.  If I'd only remembered there was a roundabout I wouldn't have messed up, turned around and turned up the left that was waaay too early!

Carrying on to the roundabout, turning left, I was faced with That Damned Hill AGAIN.  I just couldn't.  I had to get off and walk again.  There was no way on earth I was going to be running Riddlesdown now.  It was all about just finding the damned thing now.  I was tired, demoralised, angry I'd forgotten the one bit of the route the Garmin didn't know about and really quite hungry.  At the top of the hill, the road kept going and I saw a sign opposite a school "run start this way" and I knew I was there.  6km further cycling than on the recce run, to the start of the race.  I turned in and found a load of people crowding around a gazebo in a field.  They were Parkrunners, picking up their gear after the run.  It was about 11:50 and faaar too late.  So I admitted defeat, changed my shoes, laid down my bike and stuffed a Soreen bar into my mouth.

(not including getting home)

Next year...

(We went to the pub, drank tea, ate chips and cake and cycled home slowly in the pouring rain.  Sports gear straight into the washing machine.  Us straight into the bath.)

I Have A Mad Husband, But...

Mr TOTKat can be a bit mental sometimes.  This particular time was the announcement that not only did he want to run the Parkrun triple on New Year's Day (9am Bushy Park, 10am Nonsuch Park, 11am Riddlesdown Park), but he wanted to cycle there, between and home again.  3 Parkruns in 3 hours, not so bad.  Cycling around 8-10 miles in between each is going to be tough.  (It's all urban cycling and subject to lots of traffic lights, traffic, people etc.  The potential saver is that it will be New Year's Day morning so no shops open and not a lot going on.)

So he needed to do a recce run to see what the ride might be like and I kinda needed to get out on my bike so we went together.  Boxing Day traffic was horrific.  Hideous.  Really.  Having to go through Kinsgton town centre in both directions was some kind of purgatory and the ride back through the outskirts of Croydon to get home after Riddlesdown was bordering on suicidal with some spectacular idiocy from some drivers.

That's the mental bit.

The good bit was on the way to Riddlesdown from Nonsuch.  We were coming up to a junction where we'd been before to pick up the kitties when we first got them.  There's a nasty old hill that we drove up on the day we got the cats and as we rounded a gentle bend towards the junction, Mr TOTKat yelled over his shoulder, "I hope we don't have to go up _that_ hill!".  Hah.  Hah hah hah.  Hah.  We did have to go up that hill.  A 1.26km long hill that was rather steep.  Mr TOTKat stopped at a bend to check we were going the right way (we were) and I almost cursed a lot having lost any momentum (which I get a bit hung up on sometimes).  On the way back down, it seemed a lot longer and steeper than on the way up by quite a bit.  Anyhoo...  having checked out the Hell Of The Ashdown course, there's only one hill that's rated harder than that one so I've got something of a confidence boost that I might be able to do it now with bugger all long rides to date, with or without hills, and 8.5 weeks to go.

 The interesting bit is that I'm pretty sure he'll manage it but only if I'm not trying to keep up.  So I think I'll cycle to Bushy, run Bushy, then skip Nonsuch and cycle straight to Riddlesdown, run Riddlesdown then have coffee and cake.  We'll see.

Learning the hard way - Part I

Some lessons I seem to learn only if I learn the hard way.  This is one of them.  Or, in fact, three of them.

Having undertaken very very low levels of training all year, in fact ever, I raced a few races and didn't do terribly badly.  Fared well in my age category, improved a little and then the season ended.  My pathetic levels of training dropped off to pretty much nothing at all.  I went on holiday and got a bit tubby.  I came back.

With no races to keep me interested, no goals in place, no plans or thoughts other than the distant mountains next year, I was in a wilderness.  So I forgot how little I'd been doing before, forgot that I'd been doing almost nothing for a couple of months and threw myself into an ill-considered 'base training' plan.  I forgot that my endurance levels were never really that great and that my power wasn't ever that great and my technique is nowhere (though improving significantly in swimming over the last couple of months).  For example, I worked out that I'd run six times in August, the last month of the racing season for me; then twice in September - and one of those was a half marathon; and once in October.  This is really bad.

Last week, I did 2x runs, 2x swims, 2x strength sessions and a cross-training session with Jez.  I had one rest day.  6 hours training from pretty much nothing.

This week, I started back cycling to work again... Monday 30km, Tuesday 30km and a planned swimming session with Jez.  Wednesday strength session, Thursday cycle and swim.  Friday strength session.  Saturday rest/Parkrun/  Sunday long slow run.

Monday felt great.   Tuesday morning was a less pleasant ride to work and then I got to my session with Jez.  I was mentally already not feeling very up for it and, thinking about it, I was already about 1200kcals in deficit for the day (how I got there I'll explain later) and with a hormonally abnormal state (for me) due to trying out being on the pill again (another post for another day).  And I did a few lengths to warm up before the session.  Felt OKish, a bit more whacked after each pair of lengths than usual but nothing to make me really worried.  Then we started training.  And I was increasingly getting wound up about how out of breath(!) and prickly (you know that hot, prickling sensation you get in your muscles when you do a lot of low weight repetitions for a while... that) I was feeling after each drill.  Eventually Jez stopped the session and we chatted a bit.  He basically said 'Stop getting so wound up about going so hard with cardio now.  It's wrecking your training and it's achieving nothing.  Now is not the time for this stuff, now is the time for strength and conditioning.  Rest at the weekend.  Stay in Zone 1 otherwise.  Now it the time for catching Zs as much as you can."  So I ate my banana and cycled home.  I tried to keep it trundly, but I got angry a couple of times as car drivers tried to kill me and/or got stroppy that a bicycle dared be on the road and that ended up with a bit of high heart rate towards the end.  I got in to the house and fell apart a bit.

We were supposed to be having cottage pie for dinner, but ohgod I didn't feel like it by the time I got in, plus MrTOTKat was working late and not back yet.  So I got pizza in.  *ding* once the potato wedges had hit my stomach, I started to feel a whole lot better.  Slowing down to munch through the pizza, I did the calorie calculations for the day and it turned out that by the time I hit my swimming session, I had about 1200kcals to take in to maintain the activity I'd already done that day.  The banana I had afterwards just about put back what I'd taken out during the swim and by the time I got home on my bike, I was another 400 under where I should be for the day.  1600kcals in deficit by the time I got home and -of course- I was going to be feeling awful!  I don't deal with deficit very well (cranky, tired, wobbly and if I don't make up most of the deficit I start to lay down fat and put on weight!).

So there we are.  Three enormous mistakes.   Three lessons to learn, not just one.

A - too much too soon from nothing is BAD
B - underfuelling within a day is BAD (physically AND MENTALLY)
C - now is the time for long, boring, gentle cardio, not thrashing it on the commute to work

A and B are quite easy to deal with, C... less so if I want to cycle to work.

That wasn't so bad

I've not been cycling on the road more than up to the common for Parkrun in... around 2.5 months.  I lost the love.  That and the miserable state of the traffic on the route to work; so many other bikes, so many of them being assholes (running red lights, cutting people up, being wobbly etc.), it just meant I really didn't want to get to work that way.

I finally found enough love to get back on the commuter bike and do it this morning.  And it was great!  Because we're getting up early anyway at the moment, leaving the house at 06:45 wasn't hard.  The traffic on CS7 is not too bad at all at that time and, more importantly, there are far fewer cyclists and those that are out are the more confident and experienced ones (easy way to determine that is to do a cleat count at traffic lights, 4/16 at the last set were not wearing clips of some sort).  45 minutes in, which is pretty zippy for a first time in ages and not putting in masses of effort, and no rage at all.  Score one!

(the down side was that my wash bag as work was 1/2 full of shampoo where the bottle cap had been leaking for weeks...)

Brick this!

I think I might get 'round next weekend.  If I can work out how to get the k-tape to stay on through the swim, it's going to work.

T2 brick test today; 31km bike followed immediately by a 7.8km run.  The secondary tests were, some race fuel (High5 EnergySource) to see if my stomach is OK with it, and drinking on the bike.

Apart from being yelled at by a twat in a Chelsea Tractor at Wimbledon Common (dude, if you had a less stupid car and a bit less of a vein sticking out on your forehead, you'll probably live longer), the bike was good.  I'm still completely useless at using a bottle on the bike - seriously, if you've never tried it, it's a lot harder than it looks.  I can get the bottle out of the rack relatively OK as long as I'm free-wheeling, but drinking is really difficult and getting it back in the rack again is pretty stressful.  I ended up with sticky drink on my hands, handlebars and down my leg a bit and some of it in my mouth.  My heart rate monitor hadn't worked for the cycle, so fuelling was really going to be a bit off as I'd got no idea of the amount I'd burned through.

31.16km in 01:11:04 including slowing down for traffic lights, being a total useless goit with the drinks bottle several times etc., so I'm hoping that will translate to 01:32 - 01:35 next weekend over the 40km race route.

I chugged the remainder of the fuel drink and the run started off pretty nicely.  As usual between bike and run, my legs felt a bit heavy at the start but I went off at a reasonable pace and the route was a loop of around 2.5km which allowed for stuff going wrong and being not too far from home if it did. 

Pace-wise, that's around my usual fastest 10km pace -without- having cycled 31km first.  So I'm quite encouraged by that.  That sort of pace should give me a 10km run time of around 55:00 - 56:00, hopefully.   My knee stayed quiet throughout and the only indication of anything not being perfectly fine was a tight hamstring into the back of the knee and that was it.

So, I'm pretty sure I'll get 'round next weekend.  No idea what transition times will look like, but with a 30:00 swim, a 01:35 bike and a 56:00 run I'm looking at an overall race time of 03:01:00 plus transition, so a target of 03:10:00 seems reasonable.

Ohyay! L2B photo!

We had a couple of photos taken at the end of London to Brighton on Sunday and they didn't appear on the photo site earlier in the week, so we thought they hadn't made it.  I had a quick check for our individual ones just now and, yay, the ones of both of us were there :o)  (Tell you what, that pink cycling top Mr TOTKat has on was really useful for finding him in crowds of other cyclists!)

London to Brighton

I've wanted to do this for a while; ride London to Brighton on the event day itself, on the official route, with 27,000 other cyclists.  Much as I've feared cycling in large groups and hills and stuff, overall it was a resounding success for me.

The start was 06:30 and we only just got there in time, after a mahousive bowl of porridge (50g organic jumbo oats, 20g organic raisins, 1/2 banana, 10g coconut oil, splash of cream, squirt of agave nectar and water - nuked for 3 minutes in the microwave) to kick-start the fuelling.  With me, I had a large bap filled with ham, chorizo, houmous and lettuce, two 500ml bottles of Powerade and a bag of Ride Shots.  This was also going to be a test of fuelling for a long distance (long time period) event; the estimated ride time from me being 4.5 hours or so.   Calculations would say that I'd need at least 60g x 4 for 4.5 hours of carbohydrate available to fuel through and with what I'd packed, I was quite under, but it wasn't going to be a all-out ride due to the sheer numbers of people and I'm not practised in using bottle cages, drinking or eating on the move.

One thing I think I got quite wrong was the hydration.  I was well, well hydrated which meant that we had to stop for me to wee 5 times!  A total of an hour stopped time for all of that, allowing for wrestling in and out of cycling gear to wee and back into it all again each time and take a good slug of drink.

The first slight hill was a bit of a shock.  For me, it was a little undulation and I was pretty unimpressed by the fact that there were so many people for whom it was quite a challenge that everything ground to a halt and I almost had to get off and walk because things were moving so slowly I could barely pedal slowly enough and stay upright, clinging to the edge of the road in the horrifically potholed bit of tarmac.  Still.  I learned a lot from that first hill and things thinned out quite a bit on hills after that one and none were ever quite so horrid again.

Up and down the rolling undulations mostly overtaking most people up the hills in between wee stops.  No stopping for food at any of the refreshment stations.  We kept on trucking all the way through.  Turners Hill came and went and then the lower slope upwards towards The Hill.  The chattiness died down quite a bit amongst the riders and then there was The Hill.  I wasn't feeling sparkling, a bit tired and probably under-fuelled at the time so I thought I was going to have to cut my losses, get off and walk.

But.  I decided to just give it a go.

People were really good.  Those who chose right from the start kept to the left, did so really nicely.  Those who had to get off part way up were really good at getting clear to allow for those cycling up to continue.  It was all quiet.  So very very quiet.  All I could hear was my own heavy breathing.  At one point, about 1/4 way up I loudly complained "the road surface REALLY isn't helping here" and got a grunt of agreement from my left.  Every time I rounded a corner after the first three of them I thought it was the last one.  No.  Not for very many more.  Each time, thankfully, the slope levelled off a bit so I could let my thighs off a little bit and nearing the top, someone walking shouted "well done, you're almost there!" at me which was absolutely great at the time and I responded with "thanks, could do with more cowbell!" and I reached the top with burning thighs - looking back at my heart rate profile, it was an under-fuelling thing for sure, my heart rate would have gone higher 'cause I would have been able to put more into the muscles, drawing on my cardio capacity more - wondered where Mr TOTKat might have pulled over to wait for me and saw him really quite quickly.  I was about 90s behind him up a hill that'd taken about 10 minutes to climb.  Not too shabby at all!

More undulations and rolling into Brighton itself, with one particularly brown-trousers descent given how tired I was (mentally as well as physically), I hung onto the brakes all the way down and cursed people flying past me at over 45mph.  We rounded the final corner and down the chute into the finish line.  The chute was great; lined with a huge crowd of people cheering and clapping and even a hand bell; a fantastic finish to it all.
 
Finding a place to lean our bikes, find a seat, beer and burgers/hotdogs we had a good old sit down for an hour or so, bike spotting and counting the Specialized (by far the most common bike make on the day) before walking back down the sea front to the organised transport home (and yet another wee!).

Wins of the day:- my lovely bike (Fuji Team Pro Special Edition with Mavic Ksyrium Elite wheels), Powerade, rest stop toilets, Mr TOTKat for deciding to stay with me through the ride, and meeee for getting up Ditchling Beacon without walking!