Getting the balance right

There appears to be a general rule about the amount of training time required to be “successful” at triathlon; I am not quite sure what “successful” means though. Naturally the amount of training time required depends upon the length of the event with Ironman events needing the most training. Last year I trained for l’etape du tour which was a 180Km (or Ironman distance) ride, this entailed a good deal of endurance riding to be in a position to get round the route in a respectable time. The Triathletes Training Bible by Joe Friel suggests the following training hours:



I reviewed may last 12 month’s training diary and I calculated that put in around 350-400 hours training which is below bottom end of the range for half iron-distance events. I believe that I was racing at a relatively “High Performance” in my events if I look at my Age Group finishing positions: 6th at Eton, 8th in the New Forest and 27th in the National Sprint Championships. I was better than a “finisher” although “High Performance” is difficult to evaluate. Certainly I could have gone better with more training and an investment in “gear” would have made a difference. Just looking around during the events, I was top (or close to top) finisher in those events on a normal racing bike as opposed to an expensive Tri-Bike.

When it comes to 2010 I shall not be “going long” so I can reduce my training time and spend more time at home. With that in mind I have been planning my goals for the year! I have an event plan in mind which shall be refined over the next few weeks. The main event for me shall be partially social and partially competitive. The Alpe D’Huez Triathlon is rapidly becoming the triathlon to do in Europe and I have entered for next year. I suspect that it will soon become an event that is so over-subscribed that it will require qualification so it is good to get it done sooner rather than later. The Alpe D’Huez Tri takes place at the end of July and I have discussed with the family and “the men” plan to make a small holiday of it and go for a few days mountain biking in the Alps afterwards so it will be a combined Triathlon/Holiday, Jane may join depending upon how we organise it.

Other events for the summer are looking like the Vitruvian in September and The Cowman in June. I would love to do a Big Cow sprint again next year and also a New Forest event so I need to get my calendar out.

2009 Review

I have just had a look at the season targets I had set back in December last year to see how well I did:



Although I missed two out of three I think I did OK. I was very close on one and I suspect I would have beaten it if the weather had been kinder. The real reason for setting targets is to have something to act as motivation during training. That is the main reason I started Triathlon in the first place to give me a reason to keep relatively fit. Clearly triathlon is addictive because “being fit” soon becomes “being quick” or more accurately: “being quicker” :-) It is a vicious circle whereby there is always someone ahead of you at the finish line.

I am pretty happy with my results this year especially as I dropped off the training quite a bit after l’etape so the result for the NFMD which is known as a “slow” race was pretty good. I shall try and train a little less this year and train a little smarter (note to self: look that up on the interweb to see what it actually means). The reality is that enjoying triathlon is very much about getting the balance right and in my case that means being competitive whilst still enjoying family time and going out with friends. Hopefully the two are not mutually exclusive.

Hiatus

Wow – no blog posts for weeks and no real training either, my mind and body have been elsewhere with family and work which has been fab. The New Forest Middle Distance triathlon was a blast. It was a tough one to pick as a first half iron-distance race but the atmosphere was grand and the scenery stunning. My times were acceptable (with the usual exception of the swim) and I am keen to do a few more events of that distance. Here is a brief summary:

Swim: 50mins. I had deluded myself into thinking that 4 swims between June and September would be adequate preparation for a 1900m OW swim and hence I quite rightly had a poor start to the event. There were many positive things about the swim that I can look back on; I was still in a pack after 1K and was flitting left and right to grab a tow off someone. In my Sprint Triathlons I am usually dropped after 300m so I was feeling good. At the end of the first lap my left calf cramped up rapidly followed by my right calf. Having suffered this before and the subsequent muscular pain I struggled with for 2 weeks afterwards I was more concerned with finishing the Tri than getting a good time and hence I concentrated on clearing the cramp and not on swimming. So for the second 1000m I focussed on holding my feet in a position that eased the pain which meant I was quite slow and I emerged 36th out of 43 in my age group. T1 was very slow with a lot of time spent trying to get compression socks on over sand covered feet. I managed that in just under 5 minutes and got out on the bike.

Bike: 3:01. I had targeted a 3:15 bike in order to hit my 3:45 goal but as I had such a poor swim I decided to hit it slightly harder. The first 75Km were great as I overtook people. I calculated that I overtook around 150 people on the bike or around half the field. I passed a few people I knew on the bike leg and we had a brief chat which was great. The last 3-4Km involved a slight downhill into T2 and knowing I had pushed harder than planned I took it easy for this section. I caught Leo on that drag and we came into T2 pretty much together. Whilst changing from bike to run gear I overheard Leo telling the race marshall that he had hit a cow at 60Kmh and was in pretty bad shape. He looked OK to me so I didn’t feel too bad when I had a little giggle.

Run: 1:52. I had originally planned a 1:40 run but re-evaluated that when I heard about the run profile: “add ten minutes to your normal time” was the general advice. The first and last 1Km was on road then it was “on safari”. Through woods and plains the run was tough but very pretty. Some of the climbs were steep and up sand and I adopted a run walk strategy where I walked the hills and ran the rest. I caught around 30 people on the run and ran the 5th fastest in my age group to come in 8th out of 43 and 92nd of 330 total entries in a total time of 5:52.

I was shattered at the end and the event convinced me that I have no desire to enter a full Ironman race. It would take too much training and would hurt too much! After a bit of a rest a bunch of old friends came down and we stayed over in Poole for the night and went out on the town. The following day we went for a walk along the Dorset coast which was spectacular and ended up being around ten miles! Not an ideal warm down but great fun all the same.

Full stats for the New Forest Middle: