Racing

So it is nearly raceday and time to commit to my goals. When you are feeling good in the run up to IM in my experience this is no guarantee of a good race... which leaves me with mixed feelings since I know that my bike is the strongest ever and that my run training has been solid if not spectacular.

I would like to feel that I can post a solid bike to put me in the zone for an AG place to Kona if I run a pb (and then some) in the marathon. Sometimes the 40-44 AG can be unforgiving.. they often seem to race faster than the younger AGers, see the results at yesterdays ITU European longcourse champs where the top4 AGers were 40-44!

So back to my goal which to work means I need to keep every run split at 5min/km or better and that is where the racing comes in. Hitherto I have only ever really aimed to meet a certain target or even just to complete. Will the concept of "racing" help or will it just mean I pace my race more poorly than normal and have a really bad split somewhere in the marathon. Well I believe I am fit enough to reach my target and have done (enough?) work to put me in the frame. So it will be time to use up the mental resource to push through that vital third quarter of the marathon and know that come the last 10km I will be racing for the finish and not just for the clock.

I'm Spartacus

Well not really but I am the midnight centurion. Midsummer is soon upon us and a Tri London tradition of celebrating with a century ride around Regents Park is bout to be reenacted. This will be my fourth 100 mile outing (that will be 38 laps as you ask) with the record currently standing at 4hrs 45ish mins as fastest and 7hrs something as slowest (the Nadir in both time and light as it was done on the darkest and coldest night in December 2007).


Last year was done as a TT and we will repeat the effort this year, but hopefuly as a 2 or 3 up TT team, with full aerokit to boot. This fulfils a whole range of things. Firstly it is clearly atypical behaviour and therefore a good thing! Secondly it is a good test of aero position and bike kit prior to an A race and third, I had my best IM race ever last year after doing it so clearly I need to do it again.

The enjoyment I get from this sort of activity is not appreciated by most but reading stories of endurance runners doing the Grand Union Canal Race or the run across America suggests that this is merely the tip of the iceberg. Part of me is long since acclimatised to working long nocturnal hours since as a junior doctor I used to go to work on Saturday at 8 am and return from work on Monday at about 7 pm and could sometimes go the whole 60 hrs on 4-6 hrs sleep. I know some countries (USA for instance) still work their juniors this hard but thanks to the European Working Time Directive this is now illegal. I think on balance this is a good thing but still feel that the self awareness and discipline that I learnt through working in theses conditions are not easily replicated elsewhere.. and when I engage in these activities I find my self saying "well at least I have a choice over this and it is not work!"

I know for instance that by about 0800 tomorrow after a night with minimal sleep I will still feel pretty lively, that I will start to dip around lunchtime and that unless there is something I have to concentrate on sleep will beckon. I have learnt that a shower and shave is worth about an hours sleep (you'll have to trust me on that one) and that a good breakfast will help offset the fatigue (especially a high protein and fat fry up) and finally that a 20-30 min powernap can leave me ready for a further 4-6 hr stint. Finally I have also learnt that If I am not asleep by 10 pm I may find my body tired nut unable to switch off due some strange affect of the fatigue. This was all supported by research in which I was a guinea pig but I seem to remember it also involved drinking, something else that also seems to no longer be quite such a part of the junior doctor curriculum.

Tired!

The last few weeks have been tiring. Blending a few flights with a couple of weekend races and trying to keep the training rhythm has proved challenging. In the last 17 days I have not slept in past 6.30 on a single day, and while you can go to bed early it is not always easy. Not that I am moaning, this is my choice and something I find invigorating, it is just some days at a bout 4 ish I get the urge to have a nap (and occasionally do).

The tour of Wessex was a fantastic. Although I only did 2 days it is an event that a wholly recommend to anyone who likes cycling and especially those IMers looking to dig a bit of a fatigue hole/build a foundation in their training. The routes are great the organisation is just so, and the cakes provided at the end are great. I am already planning next year.

About this tiredness, the question is, as you make that final push to peak fitness, is exactly where the limit lies and what the most benefit to be had is in these last few weeks. Sure I understand "you can easily lose a race through overtraining in the last few weeks" sort of thing and have had my own troubles in the past, but knowing that there are only three more Thursday morning sessions does incline me to be a bit more reckless with my efforts. For instance even tho' today I felt inert at as i set out to do my early morning ride planned set of a few hill repeats followed by 4 x 20 mins HIM pace... I felt less inert by 6.30 as I raced around Regents Park in a paceline that was averaging over 25mph (thanks to the bike boys Damian Tim and the man in yellow who today was strangely wearing black)... for sure it was not the session I had set but the fatigue and weakness were overcome by the company of friends, and the set was broadly similar to what I set out to do. Currently I am favouring the lots of hours and careful as I run approach there is a lot of Achilles trouble about and I have had my fill of this before and before and another time too! That said with running as my key limiter the temptation is always there to do that bit more. The next two weeks will define whether I have achieved my goals since I aim to do2 x 7 hr running weeks.

Finally the summer solstice approaches and I fancy another 100 miler. And fancy a go at the 4hr 42 odd we managed last time, I am hoping for a bit of help with this one!

Marshman

Marshman results
Time 4.42.03

16th overall 3rd V40+

Swim 29.16
T1 2.37
Bike 2.31.29 (2.29)
T2 2.15
Run 1.36.23


Finally managed to commit to enter and complete an event for 2010. I have failed to reach the start line for 5 running events this year, for various reasons not only due to injury, and thought I was going to have to pull out of this one after I succumbed to some viral gastroenteritis on thurs night that had lead to 3 ward closures at my hospital!

The Marshman is a niche event (I guess) that fills the need for a HIM or HIM+ distance about 6-8 weeks out from an Ironman. It is billed as being efficient but with no frills which again I guess it sort of does. The race takes place on and around Romney Marsh in the shadows of the Dungeoness Nuclear Power Station! This is an area I know well since we often come down for weekends had ridden extensively FLAT course. First impressions were good with a high ration of smart toilets to competitors, always a good thing.

The swim start was nice and relaxed, we all got into some cold water, a gravel lake type affair usually used by waterskiers et al, and then he called us together and blew the hooter. Water was cold but I had a clear run up the lake to the first buoy. Tried drafting a bit but my technique either leaves me constantly touching the draftee's toes, or if I draft off the hip, banging into them! (I guess I need to work on swimming straight). Soon was catching the early burners who went off to fast and settle into a rhythm. It was cold and my fingers went numb, 29 mins and a bit later I got out of the water.

T1 was quite time consuming as I put on arm warmers, HR strap and watch, gloves (my hands are my career), hat socks shoes, shades.... Try to adjust arm warmers.... give up and head out. The ride was fast and flat. Went out trying to keep to what I felt like IM pace when 2 guys went past me, so I went a bit faster. Felt comfortable until about 30 miles when my position felt funny and I thought my legs had grown. Realised my seat was dipping down at the front (on my lovely new bike). I had adjusted the seat position on Saturday and clearly not tightened up the single bolt enough. I stopped to try and tighten it but already knew I would need 2 allen keys to affect this properly and only had 1. This worked for a bit but then I got that sinking feeling again as the saddle loosened up once more. With 20 miles to go I made a decision to try and balance myself a bit more and was pulling the nose of the saddle up intermittently. By about 48 miles the saddle was generally loose and I had to balance on the fulcrum to stop it tilting either forwards or backwards. Did the last 8 miles in a big gear since this meant I was bearing more weight on the pedals and less on my now tender perineum! Was pleased to get to T2 in a ride time of 2hrs 29 mins (but the split time was slightly longer due to stopping twice for the saddle). I felt that I had plenty in reserve and could have gone longer and or faster if I had not had the seat problems or was doing an IM.

Set out on the run and was surprised to bump into TriLondons star triathlete Adam Chadburn who asked me how many laps the run was going to be. "One big one I said" Adam looked perplexed. It transpired that one of the marshalls had misdirected him onto the mini marshman course and he had done an "extra 4 km lap" which put him alongside me. After running alongside me for about 500m I suggested he best get on and see what he could retrieve of the race (and as you can see he still did well). I also felt good and settled into a good rhythm. In spite of this I still soon had that familiar sound flap flap flap of someones trainers coming up on me, this happened about 6 times meaning I had dropped 6 places but caught one. The run was pretty tough including a section across a field, and then a long beat up along by the sea, where I chased some very slow tourists who were cycling in the same direction. Stuck to my plans of trying to run at IM ish pace. About 1 hr in I realised I was catching a couple of runners, they were still a long way off but definitely getting nearer. I ditched the race plan and started counting 20s (20 right footfalls) and pushing my self a bit. Sure enough they got closer. I passed them with about 2 miles to go and then saw another racer a bit further up. He was too far away to be caught running at the pace he was going but you never know. There was one last feed station at 19.5km, he stopped for a break and then saw me coming and set off again, but now he was close. Feeling good I sat in behind him fora few hundred metres then pushed on past. I felt good and still had more to give but arrived at the finish sooner than I thought, again across a dodgy pitted field which could have turned an ankle or two!

Very pleased with performance, learnt about the dangers of not tightening things properly and now know where to focus my energies for the next 5 weeks with an emphasis on more running endurance and perhaps some bigger swims as well as a few Open water sessions.

Today I am a bit sore where the saddle was pressing!

The three evils of Ironman

This week I gave a talk at my hospital about some aspects of Medicine and Ironman. Whilst doing this I camE up with what I have decided to call the 3 evils of ironman. Sure they are nothing new but I thought they might perhaps shed a bit of light on the issues facing some of us as we race. So what are these three evils?

Hypoglyceamia, Hyperthermia and Dehydration. Or in other words bad nutrition strategy, overheating and not replacing your fluids enough. What is interesting is how these are all linked and related to one other thing, your race strategy.

Hypoglycaemia (aka Bonking, the wall etc) occurs when you have used up most of your energy stores. Plenty has been written on nutrition and IM racing. The key factor being that without eating you cannot sustain a high enough power output to RACE your race. You may have all the fitness you like but if you race too hard to soon and dont feed you will become energy depleted. Your race then starts to fall apart because, as your blood sugar starts to drop, you become less efficient meaning that to sustain the same energy output your heart rate will rise more than it would with an effective nutrition strategy In addition your "central governor", the little voice in your left ear, will start telling your body to slow down for fear of your exercise causing your body long term damage. So the key is to find the optimum race speed/power output/HR that you can sustain and effectively digest your food. This takes practice but surprisingly few of my fellow IMers do religious nutrition training in the same way as we simulate the swimming, biking and running. Having done a few IMs most of us kind of think we know what it takes, but in practice a lot of people eat less in the race than they need or equally find they have to "review" there eating strategy on the side of the road.

The next factor to consider is how hot you get when racing. At above 25C most of us Brits who have not yet acclimatised will find the heat they generate challenging. If you do not dissipate the heat one of the first things that will happen is that you will lose your appetite.. a fatal mistake if this happens in the first few hours of your bike leg as you will not eat nor probably drink as much as you should. Since you have done all this training it will probably not be until the last third of the ride that this starts to become a factor, if you were not gonna run after it then this would not be an issue... how many of us get to the end of a long bike and then need a few long cold drinks to refresh.. perhaps we should practice getting home at the same weight we left (a good measure of successful hydration).

Clearly the more dehydrated we get the less efficient we get at losing heat since this is largely dependent on sweating. In addition dehydration pushes you heart rate up making us less efficient (so using more energy) and making us hotter still! This might explain in part the huge dropout rate from IM China of around 30%. Admittedly it was really hot (?38C+) and windy, but these extremes of temperature need specific adjustments in your race plan. Being less dense e.g having a low BMI and by just being smaller you have a huge advantage in the heat, and to some degree with hydration too since you need too drink less volume.

So I am now going to try doing a few rides where the objective is too come off the bike after 5 hours weighing within 0.5 kg of the weight when I left the house, and not feeling I so hungry I could eat a 17 egg omelette, chips beans and all the rest!

Slow?

Its a funny thing but the more I train the slower I seem to get! Actually this seems quite a common theme when I start hitting the training a bit more. I guess it is just the cumulative fatigue that takes the edge of the training... I certainly see this most with my swimming which seems to almost regress as I increase the amount of running and cycling I do. Perhaps this is not so surprising as I tend to do all my swimming alone and the motivation to chase someone is not usually there... and it is probably my least favourite discipline.

The other factor is the improvements I seek come hard as all those training for IM know. Cycling form seems to creep forwards almost imperceptibly and yet I know with application I can suddenly find myself doing stuff that a few months ago was just not possible. The big question is whether I can resist the temptation to push just that bit too hard usually a bit of running speedwork (which turns into a monster session) which seems to always lead to a calf strain and then patchy further run training. I know what the consequences are likely to be and I know that some speed sessions is unlikely to benefit my 3.40 marathon time and yet I still get the overwhelming desire to do it! Rereading Friels bible the skill is to hold back and obey the 10% rule for increasing you training load. So why do I feel the need to do this session.

Probably it is all ego: the desire to show myself I can run fast(er) and the sneaking suspicion that if I just butch up a bit my running will magically come together..

Experience of 5 IMs suggests that I am not going to dramatically increase my speed without a radical change in my training.. but this time around I am going to try and see if I can get to the start line without any significant running injuries which must surely help.

Everything else is up for grabs tho' and somehow I am gonna turn into a fish! Oh and a new bike is clearly gonna make me 10 minutes faster (I wish).

Club Le Santa

Spent the last week in CLS. What a great break from the endless winter we have had.

Summary of training

Thursday 2 hr bike
Friday 9km hilly run 3km swim 2hr bike
Saturday 5hr bike ride 2.5km swim 1hr ballroom dancing
Sunday 2.5km swim 10 km run
Monday 2km swim 1hr 5 a side soccer 2.5 hr bike
Tuesday 3km swim 10 km run
Wednesday 2.5km swim 1hr ballroom dancing 3 hr bike
Thursday 3 x 15 min turbo then 4km treadmill run @ 4min/km


'bout 25 hours training and learnt how to dance the tango!