That Wasn’t So Bad

It is the time of year when you sit down and write your review of the previous 12 months and then look to the next year with hope and skip in your step!

When I started to think about the year, my initial thoughts were it was a failure, the one thing I wanted to do in the year I didn’t achieve, so a failure.

However, the reality is somewhat different. Whilst it is certainly true I didn’t achieve the triathlon I set my mind on, after getting back into swimming on further reflection the earlier and later parts of the year were actually quite successful.

The early part of the year, was once again dominated by duathlons and I beat my pb twice this year, certainly a decent feat as they never seem to get any easier.

After that I beat my fastest park run times a few times, for anyone who ever does park runs you will know how that going faster is never that easy as for some reason your performance can vary a reasonable amount week on week, well mine does!

Then in the last part of the year, I did better in the cyclocross races I completed, I finished further up the field and also did more laps, again another success.

So, whilst my initial thoughts were that 2017 wasn’t great, it was intact a good year, I achieved more in reflection than I thought.

Finally a couple of thank you’s for those that have helped this year, firstly “Iron” Mike Shaw for the coaching, somehow he keeps the session interesting and also doesn’t mind, well at least doesn’t say anything to me!, when I change my mind about what my focus for the year is! Secondly, as ever to my wife, who not only puts up with me training etc but always comes and watch and supports me at races, as we all know there isn’t anything better than having a friendly face whilst you are suffering!

Farewell to 2017, and lets hope 2018 is at least as good if not better.

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Bits Keep Falling Off!

The last few weeks have really turned into a time of frustration, I seem to be slowly coming apart at the seems.

It started with the shoulder problem, now this at the time seemed like a small set back as I was pretty sure it would be easy to get it back to normal with some simple exercises and not doing anything to really antagonise it. The reality on the other hand has been a little different.

I started on the exercises, and initially it felt like it was progressing, then for what appears to be no reason it regressed, and currently it feels worse than when I started feeling the issue.

Add to that, this week I developed a problem in one of my hips, it simply felt like it was locked up and left me limping around like old man who was in need of a hip replacement.

Once more I have no idea what caused this problem, the only good side is that as I type this it has finally relented and isn’t giving any pain, although it doesn’t feel quite as flexible as the other one.

As you can imagine this has left me feeling somewhat hacked off, I just don’t seem to be able to get fully back to fitness,

When you get in these scenarios it leads to start thinking, “is it time to stop?” or “do I need to focus on one sport only?” and to be honest I have considered both questions but don’t feel able to answer them. I know there are still things I want to do and that they involve multi-sport, yes I could just go back to cycling and I would certainly enjoy it, but the multi-sport part adds some interest to the racing and variety to the training as well as additional load on the body.

I am sure this is just a phase and in a few weeks all will be back to normal and I will wonder why I bothered about it, but on the other hand if it doesn’t what then?

Side Project – PowerBar Energize Bar – Chocolate Flavour

I have finally reached and finished the last bar, I have no idea why it took so long to finish the last bar but at least I have now done it.

I have to say this was not my favourite bar, I didn’t mind the texture but the chocolate flavour just tasted a little odd to me.

The wrapper was easy to open, as it seems are all the PowerBar bars and the initial taste is ok but the flavour soon becomes a little sickly for me. If I had been asked before I started I would have said that a caramel flavour would have been worse, but it turned out to be the humble chocolate one.

Did it work, now that is the real question, well I have to say it did. In the absence of any scientific testing, I ate this bar before a run having not eaten anything else since breakfast having missed lunch due to a combination of reasons, and I never felt hungry during the run or a lack of energy, it was only a 45 minute trail run but  it had some hills to test the legs.

As I said initially this was not my favourite bar and that is because of the flavour, I simply didn’t enjoy it, it had a cheap easter egg sort of chocolate flavour, not something I enjoy.

In conclusion, this bar did seem to work but I didn’t like the flavour so probably won’t buy it again in the future.

Charting Progress

As we go through training into races it is very easy to forget to think about how you are progressing not just about individual race performances. Progress is really the important factor as if you are progressing it is a key to keeping motivation high and that desire to keep training and to try and race harder.

For me I have been looking at my duathlon times from last year and this, and thanks to the excellent data provided to F3 Events by Stuweb their timing partners I am able to compare my performances to the field averages for my race.

I know that at this point some yawning will be going on as looking a data is not everyone’s idea of fun but it does give you a way of seeing how you are doing.

The chart below shows me against the field averages for each race:

From the chart the obvious things that stand out are that I am well under the field average for the bike leg and that I am slower than average for  the runs, apart from in one race where there must have been some slower runners to push the averages out.

Now the averages are very much dependant on who turns up to race but they do provide a handy indicator of progress, which in my case shows that I need to improve on run 2 significantly and on run 1 by a bit less.

If you are not sure how you are progressing then spend some time either putting your data in Excel or try and use the inbuilt reports available in the various sites used for training metrics and see if you can see an obvious pattern which you can use to direct your training to so you can progress further.

It looks like some running improvement is required so I can look forward to that!

 

To Do Or Not To Do

The question of whether to do something for not is one that we all face every single day in some form or another, be it shall I have cake with my coffee or buy that new pair of wheels.

In my world I am currently trying to work out what is my sporting targets for this year, in the past I have usually found something easily but for whatever reason this year I just can’t find something that really inspires me.

I will do some duathlons again, as I enjoy them but as they are done by the end of spring it does leave a large hole in my summer schedule.

I have tried to ask myself a few questions to try and help, and whilst these have helped to the point where I know they have to involve bikes and also running is welcome. I could do some long off road mountain biking events or try some time trialling but whilst these appeal they just don’t fill the gap.

For anyone who has read my ramblings before will know there is an elephant in the room, and that is swimming, if I added swimming to cycling and running then i would have the chance to do more triathlons. Now, I have done a couple of these in the past but I have issues with swimming and that I find it stressful, and thats not just on the race day it includes the training as well. I did think about going to the pool to try to and see how swimming was, but the mere thought of it just meant I couldn’t bring myself to go and do it.

Could there be a “cure” for my issues with swimming, well I am sure there is but I am not sure if I really want to go through the struggle of trying to overcome it, as it is not the physical side but the mental side, perhaps I am just too weak.

So, currently I am in a bit of a state of flux regarding what to do and I will continue to look for something and hopefully inspiration will strike.

Side Project – High 5 Energy Bar – Berry Flavour

Another energy bar and once again one I enjoyed. This bar is a flapjack style bar which gives a really good texture and also makes it chewy so it feels like real food as opposed to some sort of sticky mess.

I really liked the berry flavour, it is a strong taste and certainly to me tasted like it was supposed to.

I used the bar whilst out on a very muddy mountain bike ride, and ate it whilst fixing a puncture! The packaging was easy to open with gloves on and the initial bite was actually very satisfying. At the tim I ate it was was just starting to think about food I hadn’t reached the point of being hungry and I found eating this bar removed that feeling.

I did find that I didn’t need to eat anything else for the rest of the ride, approx about another hour and a quarter and didn’t feel hungry again so I would have to say that in terms of does it work that it did.

As I said above I enjoyed both the flavour and the texture of the bar and as it is like a flapjack it was visually pleasing to.

I am now getting down to the last couple of bars and so shortly I should have some sort of conclusion although I doubt it will be earth shattering!

Side Project – Power Bar Ride Energy Bar – Peanut Caramel Flavour

Another Power Bar and another one that scores highly in terms of both texture and flavour.

Like one of the earlier bars this is again a chewy bar and one that leaves you feeling that you have just eaten something solid.

I used one these bars before a cyclo cross race and found it stopped me feeling hungry mid-race which has happened in the past, it’s hard to say if it gave any extra energy but as the course was super muddy and I kept going it might have.

The second of the bars was eaten mid mountain bike ride and again it was satisfying to eat and certainly filled a hole at that time.

The flavour is as advertised and I really like the taste, as I said before these bars are chewy with a solid feel to them and so you do have to be careful not to take too big a bite ealse it can be tricky to chew and cycle!

I think that so far the Power Bar ride bars have bene my favourites as they have really good flavours, are solid and have a texture that I really like.

The only downside is that if you are are in the cold then the bars can become a bit hard if you keep them in your bag and when hard become like the old fashioned Texan bar which has been kept in the fridge, i.e. very hard!

All in all another good bar which I liked.

Farewell 2016

So its that time of the year where we all write about 2016 and try and make some sort of sense of whether it was a good year or not.

For me this last year was decent sportingly, I completed the Ballbuster duathlon, several other duathlons and did my first set of cyclocross races, all of this adds up to a reasonable amount.

I have written about most of the above and above all enjoyed doing them, for example cx racing is one of the most friendly things I have ever done, people offer so much free advice and at the end of the race every one chats and shares experiences.

There were things in the year that didn’t go to plan, the occasional cold, the times when you don’t hit the training numbers or even fancy going out training and the race where I blew up! But, overall all these experiences added to my enjoyment and meant I learnt more.

For 2017 I still haven’t decided what races to do, probably some more cx races, perhaps some time trials and possibly some form of endurance bike racing

Anyhow, thanks to Mike Shaw for the coaching and to my wife for the ongoing support without them most of these would be an awful lot harder,

Enjoy the rest of 2016 and hopefully 2017 will be good.

The Ballbuster Duathlon

The Ballbuster Duathlon one of the UK’s most iconic duathlons held at Boxhill in Surrey and is said to be one of the most epic events on the calendar.

The event is made up of 8 mile laps, each which finish with a climb up Boxhill, remembered by many for it’s appearance in the 2012 Olympic cycling road race, Each competitor completes a run lap, 3 bike laps and finishes with a run lap giving a total of 40 miles and 5 ascents of the hill.

For an event held in November there is an added ingredient which nobody has control of (unless the organisers have a special hotline!), and that is the weather, there are stories of gales, snow fog and probably plagues of locusts all impacting the race. This year the weather decided it would give us heavy rain, strong winds and cold which when you think that the day before was bright blue sky and sunshine as was the day after seems like someone was really having a laugh.

I have never done this event before, and like many others wanted to tick it off the list and get my hands on one of the limited edition hoodies, which I have to say really are good.

Unfortunately for Boxhill is not just round the corner so after a very early 4:30 alarm call it was time to eat, pack the car and hit the road. The journey down was uneventful and I was soon parked up and signed on. With the weather being so horrible and the fact that they give you the hoodie when you sign on did make me wonder if I should just wait in the car and pretend I did it!

The rain decided it was time to fall harder once the first run got under way just to make it a bit more difficult. As i don’t know the area of the race it was interesting to run along and see the sights, although the main road section was a little dodgy with cars not really being bothered if they gave you any room to run or not. Luckily other than that section the rest of the route was ok and if you did meet traffic is was more than happy to give you room to run.

My main aim on the first run was to ensure I didn’t go off too fast else there was a good chance of blowing up before the end. I seemed to be being passed by a lot of runners but I kept to my plan and eventually arrived at the foot of Boxhill for the first climb, I went steady and was soon at the top and off into transition.

For the bike I leg I swapped gloves and put on a waterproof jacket to try and keep some of the rain out. The cold was starting to have an impact on the bike as once I was up to speed I really noticed how cold it was especially on my legs muscles, as my leg warmers were soaked.

The other problem the weather gave was that it had washed loads of leaves onto the road and these seemed to always form piles on exactly the line you wanted to take especially on the downhill sections. I did back off a bit on the descents on the first lap  as I didn’t want to crash. Once I got to the first climb of Boxhill, I just cruised up it, with several gears left to go and was able to pass people and so it was out onto lap 2.

Lap 2 was where I decided I would take a few chances on the downhills in oder to try and gain some more time, it seemed to work and despite being very wet I was moving ok, the second climb up the hill was again uneventful, gears to spare and passing people.

The final lap and I decided after lap 2 that I could keep pushing on a bit on the descents, however,this is where it very nearly all went wrong. On one downhill left hander the pile of leaves had moved out from where they were on the previous lap and as I came round the bend I was on top of them in a two wheel slide heading towards the other side of the road and the oncoming traffic. I managed to run out to the white line off the leaves and then re-tip the bike into the bend thus avoiding the accident. I have to say the marshall on the other side of the road looked worried for a while, I’m just glad I didn’t panic and grab a big handful of brakes or else that would have been it, instead I just trusted my bike handling ability and it saw me through, just!

Final climb of the hill on the bike and still had gears to use if needed and I was still passing people, back into transition and off on the final run.

I have to say I was dreading the last run a bit, another 8 miles in the rain and cold after having worked hard so far, it was never going to be easy. I started off and realised I couldn’t really feel my feet due to them being cold and wet, this lasted for about the first 10 minutes or so until they were warmed up and then felt normal again. For the final run I ditched any sort of jacket just put my running gloves back on as I was now soaked and a jacket would just have given me that boil in a bag feeling.

The run itself went ok, I got passed by runners along the way but unusually for me I also passed some. Coming into the last climb of the hill I was still feeling reasonable and said to myself that I wasn’t going to walk on the hill no matter what. I got into a rhythm and found that I was catching some people and moving past them, especially those that were walking.

Before you came round the final bend you could hear the people by the finish cheering all the finishers and that gave a little boost, on crossing the line and stopping I realised just how tired I was and how much of a hard time it had been.

I was a little disappointed in my time of 4 hours 1 minute and 20 seconds as I wanted to go sub 4 but I don’t think on the day in those conditions I could have gone any faster. I only dropped 2 minutes between my two runs which I think showed that my initial pacing was pretty good, and the conditions on the bike meant that I couldn’t make up as much time on the downhills as I would have normally.

Did I enjoy it? I think I did, I think it is an achievement to finish it as it certainly is no easy event. Would I do it again? Probably not as at the moment I don’t see a reason to do it again, but that might change.

Finally a couple of thank you’s, firstly to “iron” Mike Shaw at Triperformance.co.uk for the coaching to get me through this, as ever the plan was spot on. Also to my wife,Suzanne, who got out of bed at a stupidly early time on a Saturday to come and stand in the lashing rain to watch me flog myself, I know any one who races will appreciate how much it helps having someone there to support you and how much it helps when you are hurting and you go by them and hear them encouraging you.

A special mention should be made to all the marshall’s out on the course and those volunteers who run the event as they did a great job. I did thank all the marshall’s on my final run as I think that is the least you can do when they give up their time so you can do something you want to.

If you have never done the Ballbuster then I would say try it, you will see that it is an epic event and you get the chance to properly test yourself.

Side Project – Power Bar Ride Energy Bar – Chocolate Caramel Flavour

This another bar made by Power Bar, and it is slightly different to the last one I tested/ate. A bat which promised a more solid feel and flavour, and it certainly is a chunky little number.

I tested this bar by using it on the Ballbuster duathlon, a slightly risky strategy but I didn’t have much choice as I am finally out of my old favourite bars and so all I have is the bars I am going to test.

The first thing I noticed with this bar when I took a big bite, is that when it is cold it is solid and is actually quite hard to chew big mouthfuls of, with hindsight I should have taken a smaller bite but I didn’t. The initial bite took me quite a while to chew my way through due to the size of it, but the taste was good and the flavour was as described on the packet. Once you got into the bar the taste and texture were both good, it felt like you were eating something substantial and it also didn’t have one of those artificial after tastes.

On the second bite, i took a much smaller bite, I learnt from the first one, and it was much more manageable to chew and more enjoyable to eat. I started the bar on the first lap of the bike course and finished it coming into transition 2, so it lasted the entire bike course by just biting off manageable chunks.

As ever, the most important question is did it work, well I never ran out of energy on the bike or the second run and didn’t feel hungry on either, so I can only assume it did it’s job in  lack of scientific testing.

Overall I liked this bar, and I think it would be interesting to try some other flavours as this one was tasty and I think currently it has been my favourite bar to test, but there are still a few to go so we will see.