Triathlon Europe

The Thrill of the Chase

My improvement continues with faster average speeds, an 8th place overall in the Hyde Park Sprint Triathlon on Saturday 24th July and a 3rd overall (yes, 3rd overall!) in the London Triathlon Sprint Distance on Saturday August 7th. 

Dextro Energy ITU Sprint Triathlon – Hyde Park

Hyde Park was a quite civilized affair – a nice sunny day, only 40 or so people in the wave (all neatly lined up against a pontoon for the swim start) and even a carpet to run along from the swim to T1. 

I think Coach Fi’s last bit of advice before the race was “nail the bike”… so I did. It ended up being the first time my bike split has ranked higher than my run split. I ended up pretty evenly ranked across the board and with a solid swim I managed to lead my wave, bag an 8th overall and a 2nd in my Age Group (only 6s behind the AG winner too) [Results]. A good day’s work and spectacular progress from the same race a year before – the course changed so I couldn’t compare total times but my 2010 avg. speeds on the 2009 course would have given a 4 minute improvement. I just had one question over my performance – why did I wait 5 years to get a coach?

The London Triathlon – Male Sprint

 London wasn’t in the original plan but, with the offer of a free place and the opportunity to race on the only August weekend not involving a wedding, it was too good a chance to pass up. There is something special about the London tri too. When you walk into the Excel centre and see the size of transition and feel the buzz of a few thousand competitors it is hard not to get excited and nervous just like your first tri. 

I was in the first wave of the Male Sprint, apparently the biggest London Tri wave ever with 540+ athletes – it probably wouldn’t be quite as polite as the swim start at Hyde Park then. I hatched a cunning plan: find as much room as possible at the front (preferably not right in front of someone in very small goggles); be ready at the claxon; and really hammer it… so I did, until after about 50m I realised I had clear water –  time to think if may be this time I could get the hang of drafting… Nope, but I did manage to gain on the leaders in the second half of the swim when I’m normally drifting back after going off too hard – good start. 

I think I exited the water in 3rd but with a massive T1 I managed to run into the lead and headed out on the bike; wobbling along trying to rethread the Velcro loop that had come out of the buckle on my shoe. And this is where the wheels normally come off (metaphorically) – yep, a Thames Turbo guy only yards behind me at the first dead turn – prepare to be overtaken – the chase is on… Still there at there second dead turn – remember the intervals and push the pace for the second lap… Still not overtaken – Hang on a minute, I might just hold him off until the run. 

Out of T2 and I’d normally be thinking about how many places that I’d lost on the bike could I make back on the run. But now I realise there is a downside to improving my bike speed: I’m up with better guys off the bike and they can run fast too! As my Thames Turbo chaser shows me at the first turn on the run – he’s closing fast and I’m getting worried. Time to think of the intervals again and Iwan Thomas (ex GB 400m runner) as a hare (as he starts his first lap a few hundred metres ahead of my turn onto lap 2). I pick up the pace as the adrenalin kicks in and the gap is still closing. I go past Iwan Thomas thinking: “it would be nice if my overtaking manoeuvre will make it onto the Channel 4 highlights” as the gap is still closing. Down the finishing chute and I need to hold on… so I did… to narrowly win the wave by 5 seconds… which was nice. 

I ended up getting 3rd overall and can’t quite believe it. I keep looking at the results online to check that it is still the same. It’s a strange new feeling being near the front but I like it. I want to get faster – over to you Coach Fi.

 

All the gear... no idea?

I was very close to parting with a fair amount of money for the new Planet X TT frame back in early June this year… then I wondered if my times would improve more if I spent the money on a coach for a year.  It turns out I didn’t need a year… even in sprint distance races I have already improved by a couple of minutes just in the last 5 weeks.

This is my 5th year racing triathlons (list of results).  I have always done some form of sport: at school it was football and swimming; at uni it was rowing; and after uni it was running and the gym before finally getting into triathlons.  Being reasonably fit and knowing how to swim, I had a very good start with a 2:15 in the London Tri at the end of my first season in 2006.  It must have been beginner’s luck as since then I have only managed to improve that time by 4 minutes – 1 minute on the bike and 3 on the run (and I spent a lot on bike kit!).  In pretty much every race I do now, there is no one ahead of me with a slower bike split.  If I could get my bike times on a par with my swim and run, I might get into the top 5 in my age group in the bigger races and could even have a chance at a prize in smaller races.  That would be a nice place to be… new bike or coach?

I approached Fiona in early June and asked her if she could sort out my bike performance.  I had just scraped a place in my Age Group for the ITU World Champs Sprint Tri in Budapest in Sept and I wanted to use that as a motivation.  Straightaway Fiona suggested that I reduce the amount of running in favour of some hard bike intervals and overall go for a better balance in training.  We then agreed a weekly schedule around work and my club sessions and set a target of the ITU race – 12 weeks to improve as much as possible. 

My approach to training before has been mainly running or cycling to work with longer sessions at the weekend and a weekly masters club swimming session.  Running always took precedence in training and I just tried to fit in as many hours as possible with no real structure.  The story for the last 3 years has been a small improvement during the season, as the volume picks up, then I get injured and have to rest up for a couple of months.

After just a few weeks of the new regular and balanced training routine, there has already been a noticeable step up in my speed.  I wanted to improve my bike splits but all three disciplines have got better (probably 30s off my 750m swim, 1min off 20k bike leg and 30s-1min off 5k run leg).  I even managed to win my first ever race last week – the SLSC Evening Aquathlon (only a small one but it still felt goooood!).  I was 1:45 slower when I did the same race a month earlier and I thought I was on my limit then.  That improvement has got to be down to the training.

…and no signs of an aches or pains or strains even as the training has started picking up.  So far, so good.  I hope the improvement continues until Sept.  Good job I didn’t choose the new bike frame.