2017 End of Term Report -> Reasons not Results

To have a great year racing you need a solid block of consistent training all year long. The above chart tells the story of my efforts to be consistent and roughly speaking, the blue line represents my fitness ebbing and flowing in response to the purple training load. Finally, the yellow line is an expression of fatigue, the more it moves down into negative territory the more fatigued I am getting. So, you can see from the chart that I ticked off the first target, solid fitness ahead of the early February training camp where I started my bike focus. I did the Folksworth 15 miler and got a fast second place and then did the Milton Keynes half marathon and went one better by nailing the win.

My plan was to enter the year with some solid run fitness, maintain that fitness with a slightly lower emphasis on run training and direct my training effort to move the needle on my outright bike power and fitness. My running has always been very competitive but my biking has been short of what is required to be considered a real weapon in the race.

Post training camp I kept my fitness building but by March I was wrestling with Achilles tendinopathy and you can start to see my blue line (fitness) starting to plateau and then move down. At the end of March my running was almost zero but I stuck to my bike plan and completed the Tour of Flanders 250km Spring Classic. A great road trip with good friends creating some lasting memories both navigating the cobbles and the après velo.

One bike ride doesn’t make a summer and you can see my fitness tumble as the tendinopathy just became too painful. My training came to a grinding halt, dropping 20% in April before I got the upper hand and started to string some training together again. You can see it took me until the middle of May to regain the fitness I had built by the end of March; one step forwards and two back. 

Still holding onto the notion of focussing on the bike I did the Fred Whitton Challenge in the middle of May. 100 miles in the Lake District with over 3500m of elevation, great fun and a proper tough ride and for the first time, I completed all the 20%+ climbs.

I was still struggling to achieve any real run consistently so I reluctantly pulled out of the Mallorca 70.3 and the Outlaw Half. I had Ironman Frankfurt coming up in July and I desperately needed to string some consistency together if I wanted to be competitive in the IM European Champs. As part of the build I did a UCI qualifying bike race in early June and it all started to come together as I bagged a spot at the world champs in Albi. You can see the steady rise of the blue fitness line through May and June and then, boom, it falls off a cliff as I fall off my bike. In a low key race I had a bike crash, hitting the tarmac at speed and snapping my collar bone in three. I will spare you the details but essentially I was off games from the middle of June until the middle of August. My fitness plummeted. I couldn’t swim, bike or run as the decision had been made not to pin it but allow it to fuse back naturally as it’s a much better long term fix but short term much more debilitating.

You can see from the graph, the first day back was August 14^th and 11 weeks later I was expecting to be racing the best of the best in Hawaii.! My ‘fitness score’ had dropped from 175 to 65 (63%) and Hawaii required a score close to 200

My first hurdle was the UCI cycling World Champs on the 26^th August in Albi, France. It was a great week of hard bike training culminating in a really fun race with good mates. With two weeks training under my belt it was all about survival… I survived and wasn’t dead last but a mile off being competitive. The challenge was to see how much fitness I could rebuild in the weeks leading up to Kona. Things to note are the consistent training expressed by the almost uninterrupted rise of the blue fitness line. That’s all great but I was ramping up training very hard and the very steep gradient of the line is a function of this. I had no choice but to risk building fitness aggressively as it was the only way I stood a chance of having sufficient fitness to start the race in Hawaii. Under normal circumstances it would take 6 months to take fitness from 65 to 200 in a way that doesn’t risk overuse injuries. I was training by the seat of my spandex and the yellow fatigue line remained in very worry some negative territory week after week.

I was then faced with the spectre that my first triathlon of the year would be the World Champs, so with 6 weeks training under my belt I entered the British Champs at the local Vitruvian. Whilst not performing at my usual level I did come 10^th in a deep field and importantly gave my confidence a boost. I dared to think that I might just be able to hold my body and mind together and make the start line in Kona.

You can read the race report on how that turned out but from the graph you can see I managed to get my fitness score up to 135, woefully short of what is required, but just good enough to finish with a smile.

Next up is cramming for the New York Marathon, a lap of honour around Manhattan.

October 14th 2017 Ironman World Championships, Kona, Hawaii

3.8km Swim 180km Bike 42km Run - Temperature 34oF

Swim 1:10:47 - T1 05:56 - Bike 05:40:25 - T2 06:15 – Run 03:47:18 Total Time 10:50:39

55th 50 - 54 Age Group, 915th Overall

I came into the race pretty relaxed, with no real expectations of getting a result to match previous years. I know what it takes in terms of work and life commitment to get in the right shape to be competitive and my preparation was well short of that standard. The late June bike crash and broken collar bone brought about an enforced 8 week rest and a subsequent 9 week fitness build for the race.

My ambition for the swim was to stay out of the combat zone and just swim within myself right from the gun, no sprinting, no elbows, no punches, just long easy strokes. Boom, off went the cannon and off I went, breathing to both sides and keeping away from the A types gunning for a time. It turned out to be a really relaxing swim and not really much slower than usual. Note to self, saving energy at the gun by not sprinting pays back in the second half.

T1 was a calm affair, taking my time with no anxiety about losing more time to my competition. A good day for me wasn’t to be measured by how high up in the field I placed, it was how much I enjoyed the day and fuelled my love of the sport. For about the only time in my life I was in Zen Roger (ZR) mode !

The first 15k on the bike is through town with lots of hills, riders mashing the pedals to establish an

early advantage, ZR just let them go and started the discipline of self-preservation. I was not going to make it to the finish line if I bent the racing rules I had promised myself. Normally, I suffer from bib number paranoia and consequently if I spot anyone in my age group riding by I have to retake them and then smoke them lest the race disappears up the road! However, the whole ride was pretty uneventful apart from a little venting at the cheaters drafting and it was novel to be able to stay strong right to the end and not start to implode in the blasting hot wind on the return leg.

T2, like T1, was ZR just strolling through the tents and out onto the run. I had a clear plan that I had spent the last 9 weeks practising, run 2k walk 60 seconds which pretty much meant I would walk through each aid station to cool and fuel, it was the only chance in order to last the distance.The yanks don’t do metric or precision so I had to kinda improvise but broadly stick to the plan. I knew I would be in a hole by half way due to the lack of preparation so when it came before half way I accepted the discomfort and stuck to the run/walk plan albeit the run portion was now much slower. More athletes in my age group passed but ZR just let them go.

Prior to the race I had figured what good looked like, under 11 hours, so I was doing the mental gymnastics to tick off the kilometres and know I would beat the glow stick challenge. 

I crossed the finish line just before sunset, sans glow sticks, very chuffed. I am leaving the Big Island hungry to race head to head with the best. I’ll be back.