Race Report - Huntly Sprint Tri

This was the first time I have raced Huntly Sprint triathlon. In previous years it has always been held on the same day as the Standard triathlon and I have always chosen to race it instead. As they are normally oversubscribed for both these races they were split onto two separate dates this year. 

I have cycled the course before a couple of years ago and I thought between that and the sections that are on the Standard route I knew it well enough not to recce it. The run is just a single lap of the 2-lap standard route so I knew I was fine with it. In hindsight I should have at least driven the bike route pre-race. 

I got to Huntly fairly early in the morning despite expecting to be in one of the later heats. I got registered and set up transition in a decent space. There were quite a lot of TPT members around so plenty of people to chat to before the race and the usual chat about who felt worst and bike problems and lack of training all went on. I was much more optimistic than normal. I was feeling quite good, the bike is running smooth and I have been training really well. 

I was drawn in heat 4 of 5 and I knew about half of the swimmers in my heat. I recognised a few that should go faster than me, and a couple that I should be close to. In my lane there were only two other swimmers. One 5-secs ahead that I didn't recognise and one 5-secs behind me that I recognised from Forres. I beat him at the swim there, but only by a few seconds and I figured with him drafting me he was probably going to get the better of it. 

As the race started it took me about half a length to catch the guy in front. I let him finish the first length, hoping that he had just gotten a bad start and would settle into a pace that I could draft. Into the second length and he was definitely not going to go quick enough to be useful so I gave him the tap on the feet and he moved aside to let me pass. I pushed on at my own pace and easily dropped him but my shadow from Forres stuck with me. I hadn't adjusted my goggles too well and one side was leaking. It quickly filled up and I was swimming half-blind for most of the race. This was also affecting me spotting for my turns, and even though I was only doing touch turns they weren't anywhere near my best. At the 700m mark my shadow finally decided he had benefitted enough from my draft and gave me the tap to get past. I moved over and let him go and took the opportunity to empty my goggles and got back into his draft for the last two lengths. 

Out of the water in 13:19, beats my 750m swim PB by a single second. I am pretty happy with this as I had to do all the work myself this time while previously I had other swimmers to draft for my fast times. My target for the year is to break 13mins. I am fairly confident that even a bit of a tow from a sub-13 swimmers and I will get under that, regardless of whether I can improve my tumble turns. 

My first transition was one to forget. I forgot to leave a towel so I had to try and put my socks on to wet feet. That was a faff and took twice as long as it should. Then I put my helmet on but caught the straps in it and couldn't do them up, twice. I did remember to grab my garmin this time at least. I also had a couple of friends turn up in transition and heard them shouting support as I messed around with my bike shoes.

Out of transition and I had a bad start on the bike as well. I was instantly overtaken by a guy on a mountain bike. At first I thought maybe it was just because he had selected a better gear to mount on but he then started to open a gap. There are a couple of tight turns at the start and he was able to handle them much better than I was on the TT bike. 

From here there is a crossing under a railway bridge which then turns uphill. As I went under the bridge I noticed it was wet and squeezed the brakes to try and shed some speed to make the turn uphill. Instead everything locked up and I took a massive slide. I was very lucky to keep the bike upright. After the race it turned out that one of the racers in the previous heat had been less lucky and had a big fall at this point. This left me a bit shaken and I continued to struggle on my way uphill and out of town. Then there is a short section on the main road, then a left turn on to a long flat straight. I knew this section from last year was great on the TT bike so I put my head down and started to work properly. I quickly caught the mountain biker and was passing other riders as well. I should have recced the course though, there were several corners that looked dodgy on the way in but were actually fine to take fast, and a couple that looked fine but turned out to be too tight or slippery. Both of those cost me time and speed that I could have smoothed out if I had known what to expect. 

About half way round the course I caught up with a young lad who was going about my speed on a TT bike. I passed him on a downhill but then he came past again on the next climb. On the flats and climbs he was a little bit faster, on the downhills he liked to coast and I was making it back. I knew the finish was downhill onto flat so I just tried to stay with him until we got to a downhill about 3 miles out of town. Then I passed him and put in an extra kick to open a gap. Into town I was going well and despite a couple of tight turns at the end I finished well. 

T2 went a lot smoother and I was out and running. There isn't really much to say about the run. It was steady but not spectacular. I caught a couple of people, as well as passing a few from the previous heat. I kept watching for the young lad catching and a ginger girl who seemed to be running really well but it soon became clear that I was safe from them. 

I did about as much as I could. This was the best I have raced for a while, including Forres. This was a much tougher field and I was pretty much on my limit all the time. There were a few things that could have gone a little better or faster. Having someone to work with on the swim, kicking out of my turns, transitioning better in T1, knowing some of the corners so I didn't shed bike speed when I could have kept it. All in there were maybe a couple of minutes of marginal gains to be had, but nothing more to be found physically in the tank.


My results:

Split times
	Total time	Pos. male	Senior	Split time	Speed split time
Swim(Time: 13:21) - Pos. 24
Swim	13:21	24	14	13:21	1:46 min/100m
Transition 1(Time: 1:36) - Pos. 44
T1	14:57	25	15	1:36	-
Bike(Time: 47:59) - Pos. 20
Cycle	1:02:56	23	11	47:59	31.51 km/h
Transition 2(Time: 28.0) - Pos. 12
T2	1:03:24	23	11	28.0	-
Run(Time: 23:11) - Pos. 22
Run	1:26:35	21	11	23:11	4:22 min/km

Full results are here.

Training Plan - Week 29 - July 14 to 20

No race this weekend, so last chance to grab a longer ride before Knockburn Standard. 

Apart from that it is a fairly calm week. 


Monday - Swim with TPT, cycle both ways. Weights session.

Tuesday - Run reps session. Core session.

Wednesday - TT bike or long run, and swim at Knockburn.

Thursday - Long run or bike. 

Friday - Easy bike.

Saturday - Dolphin hunting?

Sunday - Long ride.


Target totals - Swim > 2.5 miles. Bike > 40 miles. Run > 12 miles. 1 short core, 1 short light weights and 2 short stretching sessions. 10 mins of wii yoga.

Training Review - Week 28 - July 7 to 13

Monday I was struggling at swimming. I got through the session but it was messy and I was flapping about everywhere after my back tightened up during the warm up. Then I did a stretching and yoga session.

Tuesday I did a gentle recovery run. After 3 hard days and with a double session planned on Wednesday I decided to stick to a gentle run just to try and clear my legs out. It was very hot but I ticked along nicely. My legs are still pretty heavy, I am going to need to ease off maybe from Thursday to try and recover enough for racing on Sunday. 

Wednesday I took my TT bike out to Knockburn and went for a couple of laps round the triathlon route. The wind was massively different between laps. This meant some strange Strava comparisons between the two laps. Fairly similar times for the full lap but the sections within each lap vary by between 20-80 seconds a mile depending on the crosswind / headwind / tailwind on the different sections of each lap. One thing that it did show was that I have not spent anything like enough time in my TT position this year and the shoulder and neck muscles involved in that need some serious work before Knockburn Standard in 3 weeks time. 

Then I went in for a swim. The wind still couldn't make up it's mind about which direction to go so there was a bit of chop and some tidal action to deal with. I did my first lap in my wet suit as usual, but the water was so warm I decided to do the next lap in just my tri-suit. it was much more relaxed and enjoyable being out of the rubber suit, but it was also over a minute slower. 

Thursday I decided to clear up some of my miles for the week so that Huntly Sprint will finish them off. I did the reverse of Tuesday's recovery run to get me close enough to my run target. I will either do a short ride on friday or saturday to check out bike tyre pressures and get some time in my TT position again.

Friday I was going to just do an easy pedal round the block to do a few miles and check out my bike for racing. Instead I had an option to do a point to point 10-mile ride in the sunshine so I took that. the plan being to get picked up at the far end. I figured it would take me about 35 minutes (net-uphill, and lumpy and twisty and I wasn't planning to work that hard) and the driver about 25 minutes so I planned for a 10 minute head start and set off. Turns out she only gave me about 5 minutes, but I didn't find that out until the end. As I was cruising along quite comfortably, passing traffic and loving the weather I got a bit carried away and pushing a lot harder than I had planned. For the last couple of miles I spent as much time looking back for the car I was now in a de-facto race with that I did watching the road in front. I rolled in to the car park where we planned to meet on 30 mins 35, coasted round the car park to find a post to lean on, but before I had even unclipped the car arrived. So I maybe won by 25 seconds.

Saturday I had a full-on rest day. Less than 4,500 steps through the whole day. A bit of ironing, a trip to the cinema and a wander round Sainsburys. 

Sunday was Huntly Triathlon, which will get a race report all to itself.

Accidentally quarter of a mile short on running as I didn't do a run warm-up. Great race at Huntly though. 


Target totals - Swim > 2.5 miles. Bike > 35 miles. Run > 12 miles. 1 short core, 1 short light weights and 2 short stretching sessions. 10mins of wii yoga.

Monday - Swim with TPT. 1.3 miles (2,100m) in 55mins.
Yoga stretching session. 

Tuesday - Run 4.2 miles in 33 mins.

Wednesday - Knockburn TT bike 18.7 miles in 1 hour 4 mins.
Swim 2 laps 1,300m, 27 mins.

Thursday -  Run 4.2 miles in 33 mins.

Friday - Ride 10 miles in 32 mins.

Saturday - Rest day.
Cinema - Transformers: Age of Extinction. 6/10.

Sunday -  Huntly Sprint Triathlon.
Swim 750m - 13 mins 21
Bike 15.7 miles - 47 mins 59
Run 3.3 miles - 23mins 11


Actual totals - Swim 2.6 miles (4,200m). Bike 44.4 miles. Run11.7 miles. 0 short core, 0 short light weights and 2 short stretching sessions. 15 mins of wii yoga.

Training Plan - Week 28 - July 7 to 13

Back into race season, with quite a heavy plan of 4 races in the next 5 weeks. 

First up is Huntly Sprint Triathlon. This is a race that I have never done before. In the past it has always been on the same day as the Standard race so I have always opted for the longer version. I have been round the course in the past though. I have ridden the bike route as a recce a couple of years ago, and the run is just one lap of the two lap standard race. 

The rest of the week is built around racing on Sunday. 



Monday - Swim with TPT, cycle both ways. Weights session.

Tuesday - Run reps session. Core session.

Wednesday - TT bike or long run, and swim at Knockburn.

Thursday - Long run or bike. 

Friday - Easy bike.

Saturday - Rest day.

Sunday - Huntly Sprint triathlon


Target totals - Swim > 2.5 miles. Bike > 35 miles. Run > 12 miles. 1 short core, 1 short light weights and 2 short stretching sessions. 10 mins of wii yoga.

Training Review - Week 27 - June 30 to July 6

Started the week feeling totally exhausted. I skipped out of running or biking before swimming but did drag myself to the pool. That turned into a bit of a disaster. The set was working on drafting which meant going a matching pace with someone else. I managed to match myself to a swimmer from the slower lane thinking that I would be able to take it easy but I was having to bury myself just to stay on his feet and between the effort levels and some one-armed drills my back tightened up to the point that I had to quit the session. I did find a space in the adjacent lane and do a bit of breast stroke for the rest of the session to at least get some distance in. 

I am fairly sure the reason I am feeling so bad is just hayfever. If I take anti-histamines at about double the usual dose I can get myself through 8 hours of a work day feeling semi-human with a bit of earache and my balance a bit iffy. But by the time I get home or go outside I am useless. Hopefully this should fade over the next couple of weeks as a lot of the triggers should start to ease off through July. 

Wednesday I upgraded my anti-hayfever plan. I went to my last resort of taking all of the pills and continually coating the inside of my nose with vaseline. This definitely worked better but it is not really a long term solution. It was enough to get me back out for a double session though. I went out to Knockburn where I did a longer run and then three swim laps. 

Thursday I realised that social plans were going to take most of the weekend and I was going to struggle for bike miles again this week, so I took the TT bike out for a spin around Dyce. It was a bit windy but once the wheels were turning I felt quite good so I spun it up into a pretty much flat out time trial. The first half of my route has some lumps and traffic lights that break it up from being a pure time trial but the second half is as clean and flat as I can find locally. I was flying by the second half and took some Strava CR's on the sections around the airport. 

Friday the rain and the World Cup quarter finals were enough to stop me sneaking another bike ride in.

Saturday I had arranged to go dolphin hunting. Not quite as sinister as it sounds. There is an art / environmental thing on where there are 50 painted dolphins at landmarks around town and the plan was to visit each of them and get a photograph. Unfortunately those plans got thrown out at the last minute. So instead I took the bike out to get the rest of this weeks cycling miles.

Sunday I had expected to be trying to make up for not training at all on Saturday so I had planned to go out for a 2 hour run with my ironman friend in her last session before she starts tapering. It was a great day for it, maybe a little bit too warm, but was great to get in my longest run of the year. The only little problem that really occurred was that I got a stone stuck in the sole of my shoe and the scraping noise on the pavement was bugging me so I paused to unstick it. But I did so without engaging my brain so I didn't realise it was actually a sharp piece of glass and I cut a slice out of my thumb in the process. This was at about the half way mark meaning I was leaking blood drips for half the run. But it was a minor irritation on an otherwise lovely run.

I also got some great new training gear for my birthday. Fleece-lined cycling tights probably won't get much use in July but are going to be awesome when winter rolls around.

My single Sunday run would have been more than enough for my whole week plan so once again I have come in well over my running numbers for the week. But this time I have also gone over my bike and swim miles (just) as well. 

Great week all round. Even enjoyed my birthday.


Target totals - Swim > 2 miles. Bike > 40 miles. Run > 12 miles. 1 short core, 1 short light weights and 2 short stretching sessions. 10mins of wii yoga.

Monday - Swim with TPT. 1,500m in 50 mins.

Tuesday - Rest day.
Stretching and rollering.

Wednesday - Run 6.4 miles in 52 mins.
Swim 3 Knockburn laps in 39 mins. 

Thursday - TT bike 10.1 mile 35 mins. 

Friday - Rest Day

Saturday - Bike ride, 30.5 miles in 1hr 58 mins.
Core session, (including plank test - 64 secs)
Stretching and rollering.

Sunday -  Birthday - 38 years old. 
Long run 13.2 miles in 2 hours 06mins
Cinema - How to Train Your Dragon 2 - 7/10


Actual totals - Swim 2.1 miles (3,300m). Bike 40.6 miles. Run 19.6 miles. 1 short core, 1 short light weights and 2 short stretching sessions. 0 mins of wii yoga.

Quarterly Review - Q2

Second of these for 2014.


Targets that this is based on are:  here.

Q1 report is: here.

2014 Annual Targets are:


Swim 78 miles and learn to tumble turn.

Bike 1820 miles.

Run 624 miles.

There are some additional racing targets, that start to appear as relevant a this point. I haven't quite managed to sneak in any of the swim targets yet (Forres was close). But my swim pace is certainly getting closer. And I haven't made any progress on trying to do a TT race on the bike. 
Finish in the Top-10 at Forres, PB time at Knockburn have both passed. PB time at Knockburn and Huntly Standard's are both still to come. 

That means at a half the way through the year I should have done somewhere in the region of:

Swim 39 miles and be doing some turns.

Bike 910 miles.

Run 312 miles.

And the actuals to date are:


Swum 41.0 miles and doing lots of turns (very few of them good though).


Biked 846 miles.


Run 328 miles.


And run a 10k under 44 mins. (43:30 Moray RR 10k).
Finish Top-10 at Forres. (5th)
PB time at Knockburn sprint. (slower by ~2 minutes). 

I mentioned at the end of Q1 that I have some pretty graphs in my training diary that show how this compares to previous years and I have sort-of figured out how to put them in here.
 For the technically minded reader they show cumulative distance by date and are all baselined to January 1st. This does mean some slight fluctuations as some years I start with a weekend and some years start with a Wednesday etc. And every fourth year there is an extra day which took me a while to understand and adapt the sheet for. 2014 in each graph is the pink line, hence the flatline from today to end of year as that data still all contains 0's.

Swimming.

As predicted my addition of outdoor swim sessions has put me up above the target (red) line comfortably. Despite missing my second swim session this last week to go cycling I am still over a week ahead of my swim target. That should continue to stretch over the next few weeks as I effectively move to three swims by racing most weekends. 

Biking.
I am still slightly behind my target for the year, but that is still mainly due to missed rides a the start of the year for weather. From there it has been a bit choppy as I do the odd heavy week or long ride but gradually trending along with the plan. I am way behind last year (by about 50%) but this was always the plan. As of the end of Q2 I am only 54 miles behind my target. I can catch that up on my next flexi-day, or gradually pick it off at 2 miles a week during the second half of the year.

Running.
This is the most difficult graph to read sensibly as there are several more years of data and they are mostly similar. I am slightly ahead of my running target at the minute, but only by about 16 miles. Most years I end up somewhere around the 600 mile mark with the odd bit of up and down through the year. 2011/12 are the obvious exceptions where I was training for a marathon and then was unable to run for the second half of the year and most of 2012. (2007 I was still a sprints athlete until the end of the summer). 

Changes to targets


So what changes to make with 6 months gone?


Swimming is now ahead of target, as planned. I don't think there are any changes needed here. Things might drift a bit when I go back to single sessions later in the year but by that point I may be so far ahead that I need to change the target simply because I am already past it. 

The bike target is also still about right. I am still behind by just less than 2 weeks. With races coming up I am more likely to fall behind than catch up as I lose long weekend rides. With most races falling on Sundays they also take out the option to train on the Saturday. But hopefully with flexi-days giving me an extra day off work each month for long rides I can start to cancel that out.

I am running well and running plenty so I could look at increasing this target slightly. Now that I am able to run on my own and I am managing decent distances on some of those runs I could simply add to this one. However it is only in the last month that I have really gotten ahead of my target for the year so I am still going to leave it alone until the end of Q3 and see where I am by then. If I can get back up closer towards my 2013 numbers than my current target then I might look at a revision there.

I thought again about adding another race target but I am struggling enough with the ones I already have and there are still quite a few of them left. There were some that were written as options originally and I can always go after hitting all of the options for those if I feel like it.

Race Report - Forres Novice Triathlon

Despite missing chunks of training last week I have been too busy to finish writing this one up. So it is a bit delayed, but here it is.

Forres Novice triathlon is on my race targets for the year. Because it is such a small novice race I generally finish a lot higher at it than any of my other races through the year. So I had set a target of improving my previous 14th and 13th places to get into the top-10 this year. 

This was complicated by my mountain bike being stolen and then complicated further by some major changes to the course. The new course was meant to be all tarmac but I only found this out with 4 days to go so I didn't have a chance to recce it. I took a gamble on the course description being accurate and packed my TT bike. 

On the morning of the race I registered and then went for a drive round the bike route. It was wet and looked gravelly in places, had two right turns and a straight-across at a T-junction. Not ideal but it was all road and the TT bike was going to be able to cope with all of it. 

I was drawn in Heat 4 and lane 2. This meant, that on paper at least, only 10 of the other entrants thought they could swim faster than me.

I was off first in my lane. Of the 4 others it was one of my TPT clubmates that was off last. This meant with the 5 second gaps between each starter I would have a 20 second start on him. He is a much smoother swimmer than me and I was fairly confident he would make that gap up, even having to do three other overtakes before he would get to me. I didn't know any of the other 3 swimmers in my lane so I was hoping that they had been accurate with their times for seeding or were willing to sit in behind me for the duration to minimise time lost to overtaking. 

I went off fairly hard and was pleased to see after a few lengths that while I wasn't making any huge gains I was slightly edging away from the other in my lane. At length 10 of 16 my TPT clubmate finally caught me. I tried to draft on him but I only lasted a single length. As soon as he went into a tumble turn he made a body length gap on me and I couldn't get back into his draft. I kept pushing through the swim and was rewarded with yet another swim PB of 6:40. 19 seconds faster than this race last year. The results show actually only 6 people posted quicker swim times than mine. Swimming is definitely not my weak sport these days.

I was quite quick out of the pool but took it steady through to transition as I tried to relax my breathing. Transition was really busy, as expected from such a short race. I decided to sit down and went for socks with my cycling shoes, added my cycling helmet and number belt, grabbed the bike and off. As I crossed the timing mat I went to start my garmin and realise I hadn't picked it up in T1. This was a bit frustrating but I wasn't going back for it. 

I had another clean mount on the move, as usual passing another athlete who had to stop to mount. Why does no-one else practice this?! 

On the bike I was quickly catching some of the swim specialists who had been out of the pool or transition in front of me. I passed about half a dozen of them in the first quarter mile but one passed me. I kept my head down and tried to keep him in sight but he gradually eased away. About half way round the course there is an out and back section where I could see the riders ahead as they turned back towards me. The first to pass me was a young lad. I suspected this was the 2012 winner as he looked ridiculously young and was well ahead. Then just before the turn came into sight the one rider that had passed me. I was surprised, but pleased, to be third on the road as I made the turn. But that slipped away slightly as I spotted the next rider coming up to the turn was my MRR clubmate. I knew he could run better than me so I needed a bigger gap off the bike if I was going to survive in a medal place. I kept pushing on the bike and, with the second half of the bike course suiting the TT bike better, I had hoped that I had something of a gap on him. 

I managed to get out of my shoes prior to dismounting for T2 again. I have not quite perfected that skill but it is getting much better. I am probably still trying it a bit too early to ensure that I can complete it before the dismount line and not get caught with one shoe on.

I had to rack my bike in someone else's slot as mine was already taken by another bike. Slipped into my run shoes, helmet off, grabbed my garmin this time and I was off. I almost went out the wrong way but got waved at by an official. As he turned me back round I noticed that my MRR clubmate was already in T2. I knew I wasn't going to have enough to hold him off but I still had plenty to chase. The cyclist ahead of me was possibly still in range and I figured the young lad who had been leading was still in a different age-group, so I still had an overall podium place and possibly a prize (top-2 in each age-group) to chase. 

I pushed as much as I could but I was suffering a bit from how much I had put into the bike. At a couple of points I looked around to see if I was being caught but I was still aware enough to remember that there might have been weak swimmers in Heat 3 that had made up time on me on the bike or run so I couldn't ease off. 

I ended up finishing fourth on the road. I should have been really pleased but my first thoughts were that I was upset to have just missed a podium spot. It was only once I started chatting with the guys who had finished ahead of me that I realised I might have been second senior. With the overall winner still being a junior and the other guy ahead of me being a veteran that meant the only Senior Male beating me on the road was my MRR clubmate. So now I had to wait nervously for the presentation and hope that there was no-one from an earlier heat who had a superstar bike or run performance to make up the minute or so that they might have lost in the pool.

As it turned out there was one more from Heat 3 that had flown the bike and run legs to beat me, leaving me 5th overall. But he turned out to be a Super-Vet, leaving me as Second Senior Male. This is by far the best result I have had in a triathlon and I was really pleased. I even got a snazzy wee trophy for it. It is one of those laser cut glass ones it doesn't photograph particularly well. 

As with previous year's race I have to say that this is probably the best marshalled event I race at. Despite some potentially dangerous road sections on the bike leg the marshalls were fantastic and made it feel very safe, with plenty of warnings for traffic and dangerous surfaces and clear instructions from the marshalls when they wanted you to stop or where you were clear. If you are looking to do your first triathlon, Forres is definitely the one to choose.


Here are the full results:
http://www.resultsbase.net/Results/IndividualResults.aspx?Id=2176


Here are my results:

Split times
	Total time	Pos. male	Senior	Split time	Speed split time	Pace split time
Swim	6:59	5	2	6:59*	3.44 km/h	17:27 min/km
T1	8:03	7	2	1:04	-	-
Cycle	34:06	4	1	26:03	31.09 km/h	1:55 min/km
T2	34:30	5	2	24.0	-	-
Run	50:19	5	2	15:49	12.14 km/h	4:56 min/km

*includes a run section to transition.