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Training for a shorter Tri
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Great report Steady, you were ace.
LMH, I like the term relentless forward motion.
I seem to have volunteered my services at a TT race next weekend, got to be there for 6am, race starts 7am and I am marshalling at a roundabout, oh well I am used to early starts now.
Great report CJ. Lots of grit and determination there, I think, plus a dollop of bravery after all the misfortunes !
steady - read that with tears in my eyes - I know how much it meant to you, and I also know what was going on in our heads as spectators. The chat between cake, DS and myself about who was going to go with you, waiting at the finish line and SA went to find out about the cut off in case there was any suggestion of them not letting you finish (although I did think that if you were out on the run they wouldn't stop you unless you looked like you were about to drop) - SA and cake running down with the ice cream and getting it passed to you. You are amazing, well done
Me too Steady. Another favourite is 'the finish won't come to you'.
woo-hoo..you did good Steady!
Ming the Merciless Duathlon. 13 mile run up a hill and back; 30 mile bike up lots of hills.
This was not a good day. It was hot, the hill beat me on the way up and beat me early on. And on the way down, I missed a sign and ran the wrong way...in the end about 10 of us stopped at a junction and tried to remember what we did last year...I was hurting already and this seemed to be the final straw. I struggled back the last 4 miles, overtaken by nearly everyone trundling along. Even folk on the second race over took me. Only sheer bloody mindedness got me home. 20 minutes longer than last year.
I stopped for a cuppa and to decide if I was even going to do the cycle. In the end I got on the bike and even though I had nothing in the tank headed off. It was really windy and hot and the long long climb to the top was very hard. I turned at the top and discovered the wind was cutting across me for the downhill meant that I had to lean in to it. That wasn't much fun either but I got home, 10 minutes faster than last year.
But I hurt now, my feet hurt, it felt like I'd dislocated a toe at one point. My hips hurt, the tendons behind my knee hurt. I'm supposed to be doing a marathon in september...I wonder if I've been concentrating on swim/bike too much.
On the plus side, I met a real runners world forum person! One of the posters on the Loch Ness marathon thread. But today, that was the only plus.
well done pete! You will need that bloody mindedness for the marathon. You have plenty of time to ramp up the running, but I would advise you start now and plan it out
OH wants to go back to the states next year on holiday, I'm not sure, mainly because of the cost, but said maybe if he can find a race for me to do - he has found the San Francisco marathon, which would be pretty cool!! It starts at 5:30 in the morning too which is my kind of time
Well done Pete, that race sounds really tough.
MC, San Fran marathon sounds cool.
I have now looked up a training plan for this century ride I am doing and will start it on Monday which like Fink has a rest day.
pete - you finished. You didn't have to. You could have found 101 excuses not to get out on that bike. That, to me, is at least a very valuable training day and closer to a victory. Hope you don't feel too bad today.
Nice holiday bargaining MC.
morning
steady - when and where is your century ride?
I nearly choked when I saw how much the SF marathon is to enter! But it would be cool to do it
and with it starting so early in the day I would be finished in time for lunch. But you only live once, and OH does live and work for his holidays!
I am having a bit of breakfast then heading out on the bike for a bit. The kids want to go out on the bikes with me, so it will be a road bike then quick change to MTB!!
oh, my glutes ache after the first lot of squats and lunges for ages. I didn't do that many either
I don't know why I never 'fancy' going out on the bike, but always enjoy it when I do it. So, 22 miles through villages next to the trent, a bit windy but at a nice relaxed pace. I was pleased to see my average cadence was 83 and ave speed 13mph specially after yesterday's sessions. Then quick change of shoes and out with eldest son on MTBs, another 8 miles with bacon butty in the middle
MC, I have a cycle club place on the Prudential Ride London 100, so getting plenty of practice on the Surrey Hills.
Today I decided that as still a bit tired that I would go with the slowest group, we did a new route led by a young lad, he managed to slow down for us and we did 26 miles with a few hills. Max speed down a section of A road was 41mph, but did a numpty thing and had put the Garmin on as run not bike, so no cadence info but averaged 11.2mph.
It made me realise just how flat the Outlaw route is, compared to riding near home.
Slice of Bakewell cake and hot chocolate at the finish. Oh dear this losing weight game is going to be hard if I keep doing things like that, but felt I had earnt it.
nothing wrong with a bit of cake steady!!
The ride London should be fun steady.
I feel really tired now so not sure about going swimming. Will give it till 7:15 and make a decision - swim is 8 till 9. Had a bit of a busy weekend, and hardly sat down today!
Aww Pete! Sounds like bloody hard work in my book and getting on the bike and finishing is definitely a win in my book! Well done!
Great cycling MC and Steady!
I'm still taking it easy so we decided to cycle to Aldershot lido and had a little swim there. Water was 14 degrees which I found very refreshing and lovely but bf found it bit too cool for him. We did less than 400m as my goggles were leaking, not really getting hang of fc and not supposed to do bs.
I must admit the first length my breathing was bit poor because it felt cold but after that easy peasy. 
That was about mile round trip on the bikes and I forgot to take my garmin to measure distance and time!!! 
I did not know that Aldershot had a lido, Guildford yes. 14 degrees is cold, HPP last week was 15 and definitely needed the wetsuit.
Fab report steady, times are immaterial with a gritty performance like yours. Hope when (if) i step up to bigger races i can find a bit of your spirit!
Pete - eek, heat and hills are both horrid but fab biking.
Mathschick - does the change of bike count as cross training!?
Mikasa - well done on the swim, shame goggles were misbehaving. I struggle to put my head in during any open water swim.
only a mile run with the kids earlier but did jump in the river to see what swimming in there was like (prep for chatsworth in a month). Well..... a minute to swim 100m downstream and about 20 mins to swim back upstream!!! Hmmmm i think i may have bitten off more than i can chew?!
camlo - I am just counting it all as cycling
is the river you swam in the same one that is used in the chatsworth tri? Is the tri swim both ways in the river?
Camlo, I reckon you should be alright, at least you have tried swimming in the river, some people will turn up and not have a clue what it is like swimming against or with a current.
Camlo, I've swam in that river before cheekerly there is a current but it's not a bad one just in case. If you want to get some good river swimming in before hand you might like this. link. Might be down for the first one depending on train's just trying to work if doable as got Giant's head that weekend.
Google the gooffy challenge. Know a few folks who have done it and you might like it a lot.
Steady Young Q (silient Assasign) decerves a lot of credit for the ice cream. Was a bit annoying that lady at the ice cream van couldn't quite grasp the consept that it was time critical with you fineshing.
pete nice one.
For MC afraid next year is sold out. http://www.rundisney.com/disneyworld-marathon/
Well done to Pete and Steady and inspired by those great reports and trying to keep up with actually writing some of my own, here’s a report on my second triathlon and first in open water from the weekend.
The event was on Sunday but the registration opened for a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon so in the monsoon conditions I headed down to race HQ to get my registration sorted in the hope that having one less thing to worry about the next morning would make things a bit easier. Registration was no problem at all, VO2 Max Racing really run a tight ship and the process was simple and fast, picked up my race pack (including a timing chip for the first time) and headed out to the lakeside in the rain to check out the course, I’m pleased I did this as it had been changed from the one we’d been sent, not by much but instead of being a triangle it was now more of a rectangle which meant 2 long stretches with a little “bridging” stretch in the middle, in the gloom the marker buoys looked a lot further away than 350m.
The first thing I’ve learnt about triathlon is that it always starts early so the further away the race the sooner you have to be out of bed, with the alarm set for 4:45 and all my kit ready to be packed into the car in the morning I headed to bed nice and early to make sure I was feeling fresh for the event.
Woke up to glorious sunshine, in face it was so hot I added sun block to my kit bag, the change from the day before when we arrived at the lake was amazing, suddenly the buoys didn’t seem that far away and the calm water looked almost inviting, I’m told it was 16 degrees on the day which considering all the rain we’ve had this past week is pretty good.
The down side to all the rain is that transition was a quagmire, and the run between the lake and transition was very boggy but with the sun on my back I got set up and headed over to the start line for the race briefing, good job I did as the sprint I was entered in had been moved forward by 10 minutes to go out ahead of the standard which was running alongside it, this meant a bit of a rush back to the car to wriggle into my wetsuit and get back down to the lake in time for the start.
I’d picked this triathlon for my first open water event as it’s held in the beautiful Druridge Bay Country Park lake where my tri club does it’s open water training so I knew I’d at least feel comfortable in my surroundings, I was wrong, although I felt calm heading down to the start having 200 people around me all bobbing round trying to find the line they wanted was messing with my head so I paddled out to the side to regain my composure, had a chat with a lad also doing his first open water tri and this really helped calm me down knowing I wasn’t the only one having a minor panic, I’d set myself a target of just getting round the swim hoping to do front crawl all the way, as we edged closer to the start I was thinking more about trying not to drown than actually swimming anywhere but when the hooter went and the arms and legs were flying everywhere around me I actually felt totally calm for the first time, head down in into my stroke, bubble, bubble breath, bubble, bubble, breath in no time I was passing people on the swim and even managed some drafting, much to my surprise when I looked up the first turn buoy was in sight, I aimed to take a wide line around it to avoid the fight that seemed to be going on close in and headed toward the second marker, feeling confident I took a closer line around that and although I took one or 2 blows came round the buoy mid pack and actually had some clear water in front of me, head down again and off towards the finish, in no time I felt the first bit of weed touch my hand and new I was close to the end, a few more strokes and a helping hand from one of the super marshals and I was out the water and on my way to transition, feeling elated I’d got through my first open water swim I glanced back to see that probably half the first was still in the water, turns out that wasn’t quite true as a lot of the swimmers I’d seen were the faster ones in the standard which had gone off a few minutes after us, still it felt great at the time.
I had a disaster in transition, as I reached down to pick up my helmet I slipped in the mud and landed on my back, no damage but a bruised ego and the break in my rhythm made for a ridiculously slow 2:45 T1 but once out on the bike I was feeling strong, I’d planned to push hard on what was a fast flat course, I passed several people before we’d even left the park so when I headed out onto the open road and could see some folk on fancy TT bikes in the distance I set myself the goal of catching them, head down and ramping up through the gears I was cruising at 25mph and gradually picking my way through the field catching and remarkably passing the TT bikers I’d been chasing at about 5 miles so I knew I was flying, I’ve not felt that strong on a bike for a long time and really pushed hard for the first 8 miles then eased off a little to fiddle round getting gel in readiness for the run, head down again and back into the park to spin my way to transition in 35:59 for the 20K, over the moon to get my average speed above 21 mph for the first time.
Plodged through the mud to rack my bike and a no other issues in transition this time meant I was out onto the run in good time to beat my 1:28 target, the run was HOT and for some reason despite the fact that I pretty much always run in a cap I’d forgotten to pick it up in transition, I knew all I had to do was get round the 5.2k in under 30 minutes to meet my goal so I went out steadily and as is usual for me when running started to get passed on a fairly regular basis, I might be as quick as the faster folk on the bike but I‘m miles off the pace when it comes to the run, the run itself was 2 laps of the lake which makes it virtually flat other than a little bank at the far end so keeping in a rhythm was pretty easy but by the end of lap one I was feeling the heat, took a drink from the water station and mistakenly picked the energy drink instead of plan water, it’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted and although I was grateful for anything wet it was not a pleasant, I’d done the first lap in 14 minutes so I was on target, glancing at my watch I noticed that although it was showing pace and time it wasn’t tracking an distance, this Garmin 220 might be a great watch but it does on occasion have a few issues, can’t remember too much about the second lap as I was concentrating so hard on maintaining some sort of rhythm and really suffering in the heat, it was 24 degrees and I’d not taken on anywhere near enough water on the bike to prepare me for a hot run but the encouragement from the marshals and other triathletes pushed me on and I crossed the line in 1:27:23 and couldn’t be happier!
Well done BS
that was a stonkingly good bike time 
*slightly jelly* - what tri was it?
Cracking race reports. A lot of gritted teeth all round - no pun intended Steady! Although meant to ask - are the gel flasks worth a purchase?
Great comeback Maths
I spent the weekend at Bala. It was luscious. Amazing scenery, tough course. Top Pirate attendance. Had a great time. Recommended to all! Might go back at some point for a weekend. Camp, swim and bike a bit. Loved it
Wow some great reports coming through, this thread appears to be full of grit and determination well done Pete, Steady and BS.
Spent the last week out riding and slowly building my running up but also putting plans in motion to do an endurance event I've wanted to do for a few years - my motto for 2014 is "stop thinking, start doing" as often I spend a long time pondering things and never actually get round to do it. So I've decided to commit to it but I'll need the next 14 months to prepare.
Also went out with a local cycling group for the first time yesterday - this was unplanned and on top of a hilly ride on Saturday - I didn't wake up early enough to eat enough food and just riding to the meet I knew I had very little in the tank. Consistently dropped off the group but the guys took it in turns to drop back and draft me back up - although it was horribly frustrating it was nice in a way because I got to see how they look after you and encourage you when you're suffering - will happily go out with them again (and eat more!).
Well done BS, great report!
Tell us Eco, what's your event you want to do?
I was thinking on the same line as you this year Eco, stop thinking, start doing but my bloody body is rebelling. Leg niggle is not going away and now a bit of backache as well. So frustrating. Might take this week off and just concentrate on my exercises given by physio/osteopath and do lots of core work.
I found 14 degrees was quite nice on the hot day and could've stayed in the water for ages.
Steady - yes, there is one in Aldershot but think it's more geared for families and kids though they do have a deeper area as well. But it's not like the Guildford lido (had a look at pictures) which is like a proper swimming pool outdoors.
Not sure I'm quite ready to say it out loud Mikasa, you know cause that makes it all real and stuff - I've got a timeline of where I need to be at various points during the next year and have other smaller events in place to measure my progress but I'm just a bit scared that I won't make the progress and will essentially fail!
http://www.openadventure.com/c2c