Training Review - Week 32 - Aug 4 to 10

Monday I went for my usual swim session with TPT. I was expecting to be suffering after Knockburn Standard on the Sunday but actually as soon as I was warmed up I was fine. I was up in lane 4 again but this week I was sitting comfortably in second place and when the leader cramped up I still had plenty left to push on and finish the session ahead of everyone. There was a new guy who was doing only his second week ever in lane 1 just breast stroking and trying to get through as much of the session as he could. I remember being there about 4 years ago. 

Tuesday I went for a jog round the block to see how my legs were after the weekend. Not as bad as I expected but still not good. Hip and ITB are still a mess after the weekend. Not completely convinced that I can clear it up by the weekend if I keep my whole plan for the week. I am going to switch out Knockburn for a pool swim to work on my turns. 

Wednesday I couldn't make up my mind about the weather. I eventually decided to drag myself out and run enough miles so that Westhill will finish my miles for the week. My hip was really bugging me. Much worse than Tuesday. When I got home I checked my weight (slightly down since last week, but still too high at 79kg) and did a bit of stretching and rollering to try and ease off my hip and ITB.

Thursday I went for another swim. I had purposefully switched Knockburn for a pool swim to work on my turns. I decided to do 6 x 200m with tumble turns on the odd reps and touch turns on the even ones. If I take out the first one as being slow because I wasn't warmed up then the touch turns come out about 1sec /100m faster. That was with my touch turns as clean as I can possibly get them but still some variability in the tumbles. Was a really good confidence boost before trying them in anger at Westhill on Sunday. 

Friday and Saturday I tried to rest as much as I could with a bit of stretching and rollering. Saturday we went to see Inbetweeners 2, big let down from the previous one.

Sunday was Westhill sprint triathlon, which will get a race report even though I didn't finish.

After a good 6 weeks on the bike this week was a bit of a let down. And Westhill was a disaster I could have done without. 


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 2,250m in 53 mins. 

Tuesday - Easy run 3.7 miles in 30 mins.

Wednesday - Easy run 5.4 miles in 47 mins.
Stretching and rollering.

Thursday - Swim 1200m in 25 mins.
Stretching and rollering.

Friday - Rest day
Stretching and rollering.

Saturday - Rest day.

Sunday -  Westhill Sprint Triathlon
Swim 750m in < 12:55.
Bike 12.6 miles DNF. Bike 8.4 miles in 32mins.


Actual totals - Swim 2.7 miles (4,200m). Bike 8.4 miles. Run 9.1 miles. 0 short core, 0 short light weights and 3 short stretching sessions.  mins of wii yoga.

Training Plan - Week 33 - Aug 11 to 17

No plan for this week. Pretty sure the disaster at Westhill was from fatigue so just going to take each day as it comes. 

Race Preview - Westhill Triathlon

This is a similar vein to Inverurie. Since I didn't race it last year it is difficult to set targets against myself. And as I learned from Inverurie, setting targets against my times from a few years back is pretty much a pointless exercise. So I am going to try a new trick and try and set my targets against other peoples 2013 performances.  

Just for completeness (and so I can find them in future) here are my 2012 numbers:

Split Name	Race Time	Leg Time	Time of Day	Pos	Cat Pos	Gen Pos
Swim	00:14:30	00:14:30	12:39:30	42	23	37
T1	00:16:16	00:01:45	12:41:16	50	25	40
Cycle	01:02:07	00:45:50	13:27:07	48	28	44
T2	01:03:31	00:01:23	13:28:31	73	32	56
Run	01:24:19	00:20:48	13:49:19	38	24	33

But I should swim 2 minutes under that, and run a minute under. The bike time is set on my road bike from a time when I note in my training diary that I did a 29.5 mile training ride and it was my longest EVER ride and the race time was set on a day when I remember being nervous on the descents. So the bike time is especially meaningless. So I could do what I have done the last couple of weeks and guess at the chunks I might take off, or I can look at times from last year for people I think I should be racing and try and set targets from that. 

Here are the full 2013 results.

OK, so the swim I can ignore other people's results. I know I am swimming well and I know I should be somewhere under 13 minutes. I am going to purposefully try to stick with tumble turns for as long as possible as a test of my turns against my time from Inverurie. So the target is 13 mins, and hopefully the turns will get me in under that, but if I am out towards 13:30 I won't be upset. It will just give me a guide that my turns need more work.

On the bike there are a cluster of 2013 times from people I would like to be racing between 39 and 42 minutes. I am going to give myself a bit more of a chance than I did last week and take the outside of those and set my target as 42 minutes. This is a 4 minute improvement on my own time from 2 years ago but the new bike and the amount of cycling I am doing these days I should be able to make that.

The run is a bit of a strange one. The times for people I want to be racing are all in the 18-20 minute range, and I have done 19:34 on this course back in 2011. I am going to set my target as 20 minutes, and the reason for being soft on it is that it would still be a minute faster than 2012 but gives me leeway if I work too hard on the bike or my hip isn't properly recovered.

So this puts me somewhere around 1hr 15 plus transitions. The people I want to be competing against are between 1hr 11 and 1hr 16, so here is where I am going to get into the optimistic range and say that I am going to make more back against my targets than I am going to spend in transitions, so the total target is 1 hour 15mins.

Now here come the caveats. The turns could be a lot slower than I expect. They are very inconsistent and they do affect my breathing for the next 2-4 strokes, and that accumulates quite badly at high intensity. The weather forecast looks nasty again, but last week that turned out to be rubbish so hopefully it will be the same again. My hip is still in a bad way. I am struggling a bit with my depression this week for no obvious reason (a sore hip doesn’t count as a reason for feeling this low). It may be a follow-up reaction to the panic attack I had at Knockburn last week. If it continues into the weekend it is likely to significantly dent my performance. The times total out to a 9 minute PB (that seems unrealistic even though each piece looks ok on its own).  So there are plenty of reasons to think that I have been too tough with the targets again but we will see how things go on Sunday.

Training Review - Week 31 - Jul 28 to Aug 3

Monday was my normal swim with TPT. Having raced on Sunday and with my first ever bike TT race on Tuesday I didn't plan on working too hard at this session. That plan went out the window as it was 100m reps with increasing speed and decreasing recovery. 

Time Trialling is hard. Going to give Tuesday's race a post to itself as well.

Wednesday I went to Knockburn. one of my team-mates wanted to recce the run course for Sunday and I offered to run round it with him. Didn't expect it to be quite as hard as it turned out. I still wanted to do a couple of laps in the loch as well, but I was much too hot and sweaty to get into my wet suit. The water was warm enough so I decided to just wear shorts. For the first 20 seconds this seemed like a bad idea, but once I was moving it was comfortable enough. 

Four heavy days in a row is right on my limit so Thursday I decided to shuffle my rest days a little. 

Then Friday I got home from work and fell asleep on the sofa, so I decided to shuffle my rest days a lot. I knew I had to try and clear out some of my two races from my legs before Sunday so I did go through a full yoga session and did some stretching and rollering whilst watching the Commonwealth athletics. 

Saturday was about as lazy as I could have hoped for pre-race. Went to the cinema to catch the latest Marvel movie. Very funny, some little niggles with the story but overall one of the best films I have seen so far this year. 

Sunday was Knockburn Standard Triathlon which will be my third race blog in 8 days.  

Shouldn't really complain about a week where I do two races and set PBs for both but I am actually disappointed. I should still have gone quicker at Knockburn for everything.


Target totals - Swim > 3 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 2,000m in 52 mins. 

Tuesday - DTCC Time Trial 9 miles in 26 mins.
Warm up and down 1.3 miles.

Wednesday - Run at Knockburn 6 miles in 47 mins.
Swim at Knockburn 2 laps in 26 mins. 

Thursday - Rest day.

Friday - Rest day.
Yoga, stretching and rollering.

Saturday - Rest day.
Stretching and Rollering.
Guardians of the Galaxy 8/10.

Sunday -  Knockburn Standard Triathlon
Swim 1500m in 28 mins.
Bike 25.9 miles in 1 hr 22 mins.
Run 6 miles 54 mins. 


Actual totals - Swim 3.0 miles (4,760m). Bike 36.2 miles. Run 12.0 miles. 0 short core, 0 short light weights and 2 short stretching sessions. 30 mins of wii yoga.

Training Plan - Week 32 - Aug 4 to 10

Another race this weekend. Another plan built around the race. 



Monday - Swim with TPT. 
Stretching session.

Tuesday - Easy bike.
Yoga session.

Wednesday - Run, and swim at Knockburn. 
Core session.

Thursday - Easy bike session. 
Weights session.

Friday - Easy run.

Saturday - Rest day.

Sunday - Westhill Sprint Triathlon


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

Race Preview - Knockburn Standard Triathlon

Here is my race review from 2013. And here is 2012.

Last year I set some very tough targets but I did very well against them. This year I am going to set some tough targets again. The weather forecast for Sunday is not good though. 

I am swimming well, I have enough experience in the open water, I don't have to worry about sighting as I could pretty much swim the outer Knockburn lap blindfold. The water was warm this week, but then it has rained a lot since I was in on Wednesday evening and the forecast is for showers and lightning. The length of the lap changes a bit every year and the water temperature makes a huge difference so setting a precise time to hit is maybe a bit meaningless, but I am going to do it anyway and say that I want to be out of the water in under 28 minutes. 

The cycle is another tough event to set a specific time on. Previous years were 1hr 28 and 1hr 22. The weather is a massive factor again. Last year there was a bit of a wind, but the direction meant that it didn't really hurt the overall time for the bike route. It was also very dry so it was flat out effort. I am biking faster and smoother, but even a slight breeze makes a massive difference to the times. If the road surface is wet it is going to be a completely different ride so no idea what to expect. I have ridden it once this year in the rain, on my TT bike and it took nearly twice as long and still felt dangerously fast. Ideally on a good weather day I would like to get somewhere under 1hr 20.
This week I ran the course in 47 minutes. Race times have been 58 and 54 minutes the last couple of years. I really want to be under 50mins on race day. Whatever the weather does there is no reason I can't run at that speed. It is still outside 8 min/mile. Even with the hilly route I should be able to run 8 minute miles. 

Transitions tend to add up to about 3 minutes with the wet suit. So this should sum up to something like 2hrs 41. With a PB of 2hrs 48 for the Knockburn course this is a huge ask. I am going to take a bite of realism and admit that it would take a perfect weather day to get everything as quick as I want. And then another nibble by remembering that I have geared my training to doing Sprint distance events this year so a Standard race could feel like a very long way to go. So I am going to ease my overall target to 2hrs 45 overall. 

So targets:
Swim < 28
Bike < 1:20
Run< 50
Overall < 2:45    

Race Report - DTCC Time Trial

This was my first ever Time Trial. And also my first ever bike-only race.

I didn't really have it on my plan but one of the organisers posted a message on Facebook at the weekend saying there were spaces available so I figured I would take the opportunity to turn my planned bike ride into just a shorter and faster bike ride. This also gets one of the targets off my list for the year.

I turned up in plenty of time, had some food and got signed in, and checked my bike out. I realised at this point that I had left my orthotics in my triathlon cycling shoes at the weekend rather than the cycling shoes I had taken with me. This was a minor problem, and I decided I would just move the set out of my work shoes. They fit but they are slightly thicker and more canted and even just walking around I could feel the angles weren't quite right. I tried the shoes without them and that was worse, so I put them back in and decided to live with it. (More of that later).

I headed down to the start in time to watch the first few riders leave so that I could get an idea for how it would work. This actually meant standing there for about 25 minutes until my turn came, whilst watching everyone else warm up properly. So my turn came and I rolled up to the line. 

Being clipped in and not moving is a weird feeling. Having to trust the 'pusher-off' to stop you from falling in the traffic is an uncomfortable experience. But saying that he did a fantastic job of keeping me steady despite me feeling like I was going over both ways at the same time. 

And the count came. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. Go. And I was off, I pushed about 4 or 5 turns then tucked into TT position and gradually ticked through the gears as I poured on the pace, and then started my garmin (D'oh, should have done that when she said 5!). The first mile is dead straight on a slight downhill so I was going pretty fast. As I was already struggling for breath as I went in to the first turn I wondered if maybe I had gone off too fast but I had to stop thinking about that to start working up the hill. From there for the next 4 miles are a bit of a blank, it was just head down in my TT position trying to keep working as hard as I could. 

At the half way turn there is a gravelly 90 degree and the first of the cyclists from behind managed to catch me as I slowed to make the corner. For the next mile and a half I watched him gradually ease away. At the next turn I had to do an almost dead stop to make the tight left turn. This was the first real sign that I had worked too much too early. Trying to get back up to speed was tough, and there was a gravelly twisty section that I didn't like much. I managed to get back into my tuck and push on but a second full disc rider coasted past me. 

I knew the climb was coming at mile 7 but I didn't have anything left for it. I had to come out of the big ring for the first time and just try and spin my legs to keep moving. About half way up the hill a third full disc speed merchant swooshed past, still in his tuck position on the climb. 

The last half mile is a fast downhill sweep to the finish. I tucked back in and tried to close the gap to the last guy that had passed me. I thought I was making progress as I took the last left hander on a slightly better line as he had to be more cautious with his disc. With about 50m to go I had a massive pulse of cramp in my right calf. (I told you the orthotics would get another mention). The slight angle I had been pushing for the last 25 minutes finally caught up with me as the muscles being worked slightly out of line from my normal position cramped up really badly. I managed to coast over the line but I had to find a soft spot to land and jump off the bike to stretch it and I took the opportunity to have a little spew as well. 

I had to take a couple of minutes before I could get back on the bike and pedal round the loop to the car. 

Garmin / Strava calculate that this was my first ever ride with an over 20mph average (20.9 according to Garmin) and my first ride with an over 200 Watts power average (208W according to Strava). 


They call time trial the race of truth. And the truth is, it fucking hurts!