Consistency => showing signs of coming together

This morning's recovery run was a breakthrough in recent times.  Odd really, recovery runs aren't supposed to be "breakthrough session"s, but it was because of the way I ran it.  For the first run in a while, I actually ran properly easy.  Heart rate well under my first fuel change point from 100% fat to small amounts of carb.  So I'm really happy about that.  Having struggled to run gently enough for a little while, due to lack of practice, this is a very positive sign.  The other positive sign is that I'm starting to feel a bit stronger.  And, having managed to lay off the wine pretty well, my excess flab is starting to shift too.

All run sessions complete.  All gym sessions done.  No "giving in" to easy higher-carb food.  One, sensible couple of glasses of wine on one night only.

Consistency is paying off!

Still here. Still low-carbing.

In case the last couple of posts confused y'all; I'm still working on the low carb stuff.  Despite a couple of days over Christmas/New Year when I went as high as 65g a day and Christmas Day itself with 120g(!) I've been at it hard, so to speak.

The interesting part still is that I'm exercising as much and as hard as before the diet change and I'm not seeing any ill effects.  Particularly working on my running at the moment, my speed:effort is improving and my top speed increasing.

This weekend, I'll be taking a look at that low-carb cheesecake recipe and adapting it to being a coffee cake.  The good thing from my point of view is that rather than substituting a whole lot of fake sugar for real sugar, I'm using very small quantities of fake sugars (Stevia and Splenda, and no more than 7g total in an 8 portion cake) and relying on the natural flavours and combinations of flavours in the ingredients to provide really good texture and taste - e.g. cinnamon and nuts give a naturally sweet flavoured combination, double cream is naturally quite sweet so doesn't need any sugary additive etc.

A difficult, but good sprint

Blenheim last year was a mixed race, but a wonderful experience overall.  I always think back to what happened at the swim exit and run to T1 with fondness.  I was pretty early out of the water in my wave and despite the horrid 400m uphill run to T1, the reception of the supporters was absolutely amazing as I rounded the final corner into T1.  I was greeted by a huge wave of applause and cheering and it lifted me up higher than I've ever felt in a race before or since.  OK, so due to my knee troubles at the time, I had to stop racing after the bike leg and as a result did not complete the race, but the experience of T1 far far outweighed that on the day and ever since.

I needed this race in order to put in some of the final building blocks to get me through the Ironman Ultimate Challenge.  If I didn't do this race, I wouldn't be in good stead for the first Ironman (UK 70.3) on the schedule next weekend.  For me, these Ironman races are not only a significant financial commitment, but they come together to form a major life event for me.  Almost every waking moment when I'm not at work, I'm training or preparing for or planning for or thinking about these races.

So, I raced.  Some of you will know what a really hard decision to carry on and do that was under the circumstances of the 24 hours before and that I now need to be up all night to support something important.  And it was a good race, despite the mental turmoil.

The water was cold and very churned up and silty.  I got a good mouthful at one point when someone with a phenomenally sploshy kick was alongside me.  I got a kick in the jaw near the end of the swim too and the whole thing felt terrible, which usually means that it's quick.  And it was quick. A whole minute faster than last year.

The bike was windy as all hell, but again quicker than last year, this time by 3 minutes and 5 seconds.  Lots of people don't learn about the beginning of the bike course.  There's a short downhill run into a short rise.  People free-wheel down the downwards bit and then end up cursing and sawing at the pedals to get up the rise, instead of powering down the hill then using the momentum to swing up the rise.  There are a few sections of the bike course like that and with 3 laps, it's really something people should learn and take advantage of.  Anyway, I had some fun over-taking a good few people in the first couple of km and then over-taking and re-overtaking a guy in orange-soled shoes who was very distinctive.  Yes, there were a few people on squishy bikes with whooshy wheels that over-took me, but today wasn't about really slamming it - especially after yesterday's hour of spin bike work.

Oops, I left my bike computer on after the bike leg, so the last split includes all of the time for my last 5km of the bike, T2, the run, getting back from the finish line and then realising it was still on.  Still, very nice average and top speeds for not trying very hard on the bike leg.

The run... meh!  Turns out I could have give it a heck of a lot more, but again that wasn't the aim today.  The aim was to ease into the run and then see how I felt.  I felt OK, if a little warm and the rises weren't half as horrible as I thought they would be.  I got overtaken by a little blonde girl about 750m from the end, which made me kick up two gears and then curse the fact that I'd had those two gears and not used them - and there was plenty left to hold that pace -and- put in a sprint finish.  I got overtaken again by two more girls, who I hung on to, hoping they were only on their first lap of the run.  When they peeled off left to do their second lap when I was finishing my second, I laughed out loud because I hadn't been racing them, had a huge grin and sprinted to the finish.

Overall quite pleased, 7% faster swim, 7% faster bike and no idea about the run as I DNFed last year.  The results are screwed up online and there are loads of people who clearly didn't do 3 laps of the bike course, but I'm provisionally 9th in my age category and that is only likely to go up if the results are properly and fully scrutinised for finalisation.  So, for a race where I wasn't really racing, I had a great result.

Happy.

Now back to work.

Winding up to Wimbleball

Less than 60 days to go to the first Half Ironman and some things are going really rather well.  This weekend,  I started trying nose breathing for my longer runs.  There are all sorts of views on nose breathing, and there's naff all proper studies on it but I'm going with the general idea that seems to work for people with asthma who have been known to get better use of the more limited breathing (lung capacity, throughput, whatever it is) they can have by working with tools like Power Breathers.  Whether it results in "stronger" lungs, better use of the oxygen that does get through, I don't really care why it works only that it might do.

Today was my second go with nose breathing.  The rough theory is that there is an aerobic threshold above which nose breathing is not possible and that level is below the lactate and functional threshold, so you can guarantee that you are in that golden Zone 1 where the endurance benefits really come.  The fantastic piece for me was that I ran 14km in an hour and 25 minutes whilst nose breathing only.  Including a first km at 07:01 due to twatting about with my GPS and some fun traffic.  That's an average pace of 05:57 per km, a whole 45s per km faster than my old Zone 1 runs.  And it felt -easy-.  I'm going to carry on with nose breathing for the long weekend runs, longish midweek runs and T2 bricks.  Basically anything low intensity.

This weekend is the Wimbleball familiarisation day.  Sunday sees a splosh in the lake, a spin around a lap of the bike course and a bit of a trot around a lap of the run course.  It'll be cold as all hell in the water for sure, but I'm looking forward to finding out what these 53 hills in 56 miles are really about.  I've ridden Hell, it can't be all that bad!

Consistent training... early results

Consistent training.  That's the key.  And the last 3 weeks have been really quite good (I was ill 4 weeks ago, so missed a few sessions).  If you look at the sessions success, you'll see a few red ones in there, but trust me it's a lot more consistent than it used to be and I don't really have a proper training plan so I'm just trying to get more base stuff in there than I had before.

And the results are really starting to show in my performance charts (the blue line is overall fitness, pink is fatigue levels, yellow is "freshness").  You can see clearly an improvement in fitness, though the significance of the scale eludes me at the moment, upwards seems good to me.

What really caught my interest was the small dip in fitness where I didn't do much while I was sick - the big drop in the pink line - really was quite small in the grand scheme of things.  My fatigue level dropped significantly, which helped me recover from being ill and conversely the freshness level goes up and I'm back on my feet again not much lost over that 2.5 week period of two illnesses back to back (one chest infection and a gastric thing).  Onwards and upwards now and I'm looking forward to see how things shape over the coming weeks and months.

*grin*

PBed every. Single. Discipline.

*beam*

01:20:26 with a gyppy knee, wind, roadworks and a sub-optimal meal the night before.   00:04:11 and 5.2% overall faster than my fastest TTT, 2.2% faster than my fastest swim, 2.4% faster than my fastest bike, 1.2% faster than my fastest run.  An overall improvement of 00:14:36 (18.2%) on my first one, 00:08:46 in the swim (28.2%), 00:08:46 in the bike (20.6%), 00:03:03 (10.6%) in the run.

You can clearly see where the HRM didn't work at the start of the swim (always happens); T1 (the dip shortly after 15 minutes); the non-compete zone (the gap between the end of the bike course and T2) and T2 (around the 52 minute mark) and the fact that I took it relatively easy in the run (my heart rate was -lower- than during the cycle) and turned up the heat twice (once around 1hr 7, and again at 1hr 17ish), then a sprint finish (the tiny squeak of a peak near the end) before forgetting to stop my watch for a little bit after the finish.

Very very pleased.

Last year's races

Thames Turbo Triathlon (TTT) sprint races were the ones I did last year.  I missed the first one due to the skiing incident and completed the other 3/4:-

• Race 2 - 347/411 (top 84.5%) overall, 39/54 (top 72.2%) in my category - 01:35:02
• Race 3 - 268/341 (top 78.5%) overall, 31/49 (top 63.3%) in my category - 01:28:32
• Race 4 - 219/369 (top 59.0%) overall, 22/61 (top 36.0%) in my category - 01:24:37

(category by TTT rules is F30-39, not BTF F35-39)

Oddly, I was convinced that my final race was slower than the one before it but, blow me, it was a good 'un!  Need to think about what times I want to be aiming for this year.  The goals at the moment are:-

• Improve times through the 4 TTTs
• Improve times through the Clapham Common 10Ks

• Get around the Sheffield Half Marathon
• Get through the London Triathlon (Olympic distance)
• Set a benchmark time for the Blenheim sprint triathlon (different swim distance to the TTTs)
• (beat the Blenheim time at the Windsor sprint triathlon if places come available)
• Either; beat last year's 5km Swimathon time, or set a time for a fast Swimathon distance

Obviously these will refine as the year unfolds.

03:55 and no training

Well, not any proper training really.  I haven't swum since the Thames swim and I've run once since the last triathlon.  But I've cycled quite a bit.  Not formal, targetted training, but a lot more cycling than before.  And it's functional cycling, so not like I have to make time for it either.  And I've done very little weights training over the last few weeks, so I've not even been doing well on that front either.  But still... 03:55 faster this time is better than a poke in the eye and it's 10 minutes and 25 seconds faster than the first one.  Not bad for 3 races, I'd say :o)

Race 2 - 347/411 overall, 39/54 in my category 01:35:02
Race 3 - 268/341 overall, 31/49 in my category 01:28:32
Race 4 - 219/369 overall, 22/61 in my category 01:24:37

And here I am swimming...  (just look at that low, early morning sunlight!)

cycling... (hm, I really -do- need to raise my seat a bit more, but then I can't touch the floor; dilemma!)

and running... (shame there's no photos of my sprint finish; apparently it didn't even look like me)

Achey knee and a bit delicate

Feeling a tiny bit delicate after Mr TOTKat's birthday celebrations last night.  A couple more beers than I'm used to so rubbish quality sleep and quite tired today.  Gentle day today, day off work and I should be right as rain tomorrow.

Yesterday.  The race!

5am start was a bit harder than last time.  No idea why but it just felt ickier.  Thus followed a catalogue of small errors that could have made lots of dents in my race performance...

First off, last time I had fruity malt loaf with peanut butter for breakfast which worked really well; this time I had yogurt with fruit compote, muesli and chopped banana.  I had real trouble eating it and it didn't feel nice in my stomach at all.  Error number two was, er, number twos related.  I suddenly needed to go with less than 10 minutes to go before the start of the race and we were in the first wave of swimmers so I didn't have long.  Queue of 7 people for 2 loos!  Argh!  Got all flustered trying to get my tri-suit back on again so it took ages (the zip is up the back and goes through the "ladies support" section elastication so it's really hard to do up) and I ended up trotting back to where Mr TOTKat was waiting for the start of the race with only about 30s to spare before ditching our warm clothes for the swim.

The swim felt vile again; I think I just don't fare well swimming from cold and first thing in the morning.  I got overtaken once which was really downheartening especially given that I had to wait at the side of the pool for a good 20s for the overtaker to actually do the overtake and then she didn't whizz off ahead of me, so I just ended up with a bit of a draft for the last 4 lengths.

A little trot to transition and my bike where Mr TOTKat was almost ready to go off (he was race #16 and I was #17 so we were very close together) and I made errors number #3 and #4; I put my running/cycling top with my race numbers pinned to it on backwards so had to tear it off again, lost two pins from the front number by doing that, and jam it back on the right way around after finding one of the pins that had pinged off and pinning both back in place.  I lost a good minute or so there.  *sigh*  Then I put on my helmet and did it up, decided not to bother with socks, jammed my trainers on and grabbed my cycling gloves to put on whilst running out to the cycle start.  Mistake #5 there.  Of course you can't put gloves on whilst wheeling a bike and trying to run a bit!  So I ended up with them wedged under my palms against the handlebars which meant that gear changes and braking were impeded and tricky.

I then spent the next few minutes of the cycling deciding to try to stuff them down my top (mistake #6).  Hah.  My tri-suit goes quite high and I'm not stable enough on the bike to take hands off the bars (so yes, I can't signal at the moment).  So the next few minutes were spent mostly thinking about what to do with my damned gloves rather than concentrating on cycling quickly.  I eventually decided to lose them.  Left hand, easy, just lift it up a bit and let the glove drop.  Right hand... well, less easy as I didn't want the glove to drop into my chain or wheel and foul it up so I had to get my hand down to the middle of the handlebars whilst not losing the glove, get the other hand close on the bars, pass the glove to my left hand, move my right one back to where it should be, similarly the left and then drop the glove somewhere safe.  Faff!  Wasted thinking and effort and speed!  Still, once they were gone I could actually concentrate on cycling.

The rest of the cycle was pretty sore-butt-making as the roads aren't in great condition and this new bike is a lot stiffer and less forgiving.  And the last 6km it got quite windy, which dropped my average speed from 28km/h down to 23km/h.  So, overall a very disappointing cycle.  But the run...

...started as usual with legs made of puffed lead, or so it feels.  It took a few minutes for them to loosen up and feel normal(ish).  As I rounded a corner where you can see the start of the run join up with the circuits, I saw Mr TOTKat heading for the half-way mark of the run.  Disheartening as all hell as it meant he was 15 minutes ahead of me and I was expecting to be only 10 minutes behind.  Still, the kids helping out the marshalls were really encouraging and spurred me on a bit and I even managed a sprint finish right at the end :o)  Watch time 01:34:21 so with up to 7 minutes to cut off that time for the non-racing portion I was well in for hitting or even beating my target time of 01:30 for the race.

Official results: 01:28:32 beating my last race time by exactly 6 minutes and 30 seconds!  I did improve on the swim+transition by 1 minute and 13 seconds, despite the faffery with the backwards top and re-pinning my number.  I improved on the bike time by less than I'd hoped (2 minutes 26 seconds) but the really pleasing part was the run+transition improvement of 2 minutes 51 seconds!  Very very pleased with that improvement indeed; a whole 9% :oD  Overall 7% improvement in the race time and exactly 1000kcals burned.