Ironman New Zealand - now building

Today is the first day of week 7 of the 24 week Ironman training schedule that I'm following for Ironman New Zealand.
Importantly it's the first day of the second 6 week phase of the schedule. The first 6 weeks were about aclimatising to training. These next 6 weeks are about 'building'.
How's the progress coming along? Well the biking seems reasonable. The running is probably the best it's ever been, certainly over longer distances. The swimming is off the boil, but with some technique tips and a swim routine I'm sure that it will come back.

Amsterdam Half

Had a good trip out to Amsterdam with the Norwich Road Runners trip over the weekend. Got a good time on the half marathon, a personal best (PB) by 8.5minutes with a time of 1:33:47. That works out to 13.5kmph and 7.10mpm (minutes per mile).
Quite a nice way to round up week 5 of the 24 week Ironman schedule. Shame we had to spend so much time in a coach.

A most exciting game of rugby ...

... there was no shame in finishin second in this evenings world cup semi final. As it happens, England got the advantage over France, but with 10 minutes to go the game could easily have gone either way.

Now watching Ironman Hawaii online - come on Karl, come on Penny, come on Leanda.

Running in the Dark

Rob Kilbourn and I went for our Friday evening run this evening. Fancied something new, so went from the George and Dragon in Thurton. Intended on a 7.5miler but it was dark and ended up doing 7miles. Was really nice running in the dark. Please I took a print out of the route and the headlight off my bike.

Have been busy...

... with two extracuricular activites of late:
Tri-Anglia Club kit - more details here.
Tri-Anglia Web2.0 - work in progress here.

Doesn't happen often....

... but it happened earlier this evening (Monday 8th Oct). In fact it's only the second time I can recall it happening since I was about 16 years old, so nearly almost quarter of a century. What was the occurance? Well, it was of swimming in a public session and having someone there faster than me. This evening it was Mike Auger, winner of this years Norwich Triathlon, that was dominating the pool.
(Obviously I get beaten by loads of people when the swimming clubs are in, but they don't count as public sessions.)

Sympathies...

.. to the Bradley family. On Friday last week, along with my brother Dave, I attended the funeral of a family friend. I'd known who Michelle Bradley was I was 5, although at the time she was better known as Michelle Wiseman. She was the big sister of Linda Wiseman who was in my class. Michelle married John Bradley who had been in the same year at the same middle school and both been taught maths by my Mum, though they weren't to meet until much later. John used to sing in the church choir with my Dad and the family's became much closer from 1997.
Michelle's life was claimed by Cancer a year after being diagnosed with the illness. She will be missed and most dearly by Emma (14), Luke (12) and John.
At the wake I chanced upon another old school chum - Michelle Casey - though I'm sure her surname has changed in the 23 years since we last spoke. I ascertained that she had a couple of boys the oldest being 17. She politely asked me, what I'm doing now and what I've been up to since school. I'm afraid I didn't give her a very comprehensive answer. Just how can you summarise 23 years of your life into the answer of a single question?

Ironman New Zealand week 3

Following a couple of lethargic weeks and a wedding I feel I actually got in a sensible amount of training this week. After three weeks of 50-60 miles on the bike I managed to log 162 and ran 24.3 although still only 1 swim of 3k. Not bad, things generally going in the right direction.

Griffon 5k

Took part in the inaugural Griffon run in North Walsham. The race was described as a fast flat course, yet I found the course going down hill within the first mile and as it was a circular route, that meant that at some point it was going to have to come back up a hill. So the description was wrong. Kilometer markers were in the wrong places which buggered my pacing a bit. Found the first marker at 5m50s. The second a further 6m22 down the road. Started to wonder if it was a 5miler that had been incorrectly advertised as 5k, so rained my pace in abit just in case. Another 6m20s and the 3k appeared as we returned towards North Walsham. 1m40s later and the 4k mark was to be found and only 1m15s to get to the finish. Total time 21:30, a seasons worst by nearly a minute and nearly two minutes off my PB - still my legs were tired before the start.
An interesting route though, well marshalled with a few points for improvement. The winners still got round in 17mins and my training buddy Rob Kilbourn got a PB of 19:13 (officially though he made it 19:10) and finished 10th. I was 20th. There were over 100 entrants.

900miles Run Exactly

Last nights 7.1 mile run with Robert Kilbourn on a loop of Easthill Lane has taken me to exactly 900miles run so far this year. At the beginning of the year I set myself a target of 1,000miles for the year. I've never managed 950 in a year previously.
Rob and I were joined at the start of the run by Tim Pendle (European Junior Champion) and Louis Allen, both of Norwich Canoe Club.
My bike ride to Mundseley this morning with the guys from Tri-Anglia has taken my bike mileage to 5,502 for the year todate.

Bike Encounters

One of the appeals of cycling is the interesting events that can occur when you embark on an adventure outside of your front door. For me today that was an encounter with a herd of Fresian cows as I chanced upon whilst on a detour home from work.
They were crossing a country lane from field to farm yard, I was wending my way between Long Stratton and Morningthrope. They seemed quite un-perplexed by the Tesco delivery van coming the other way that they were holiday up. Myself, however seemed to be of far more noteriety and I received quite a bit of attention. My meer presence seemed to hold up their procession as I paused to view and consider this strange ape in coloured lycra upon a light weight contraption. One seemed to consider me a threat and almost drenched me with saliver as tossed her head in my direction. Another seemed to be pondering the edibility of my handlebars as she licked my brake leavers, but generally they were just curious and wanted to take a moment to take in the unusal, novel addition to their presumably daily routine.
As for me - I too thought it was an interesting and varied interlude. The thought that went through my mind though at the next t-junction was "it might have been an idea to wipe your brake lever before setting off".

Effort Session this Evening

Tonights effort session was one taken from Runners World. It involved efforts from 100m to 200m increasing in 10m increments. The aim was to run the 100m effort at 1mile race pace, recover whilst walking back to the start then run 110m in only 1second longer, and increase the distance by 10m and the time by 1second up to 200m with the aim being to run 200m in time only 10second slower than the 100m effort.
I figured my 1mile race pace would be 6mins which would lead to 100m in 22seconds which meant that the 200m effort should be done in 32seconds. That would work out to 4:20mins per mile pace.
Perhaps set off for the 100m opening effort a bit fast as I did it in 18seconds - oops.
Spilts were 100m - 18.8s, 110m - 18.5s, 120m - 19.4s, 130m - 20.6s, 140m - 22.3s, 150m - 24.0s, 160m - 25.6s, 170m - 27.2s, 180m - 29.1s, 190m - 31.6s, 200m 31.3s.

5400 miles ridden this year

Have now ridden 5,400 miles since the 1st Jan 2007.