Thursday 26 March 2009

Pleasing Hill Efforts

Found myself on my own at lunchtime today. No colleagues to shelter from the wind behind. No strong riders to latch onto the wheel of. Instead I had tired legs, blustering winds and a couple of showers to contend with.
Made it round a variant of the Shotesham figure 8 route that took in all the hills including Skeets twice. 21.7miles that I averaged 18.3mph on. I'm pleased with that.
Click here to see the route

Wednesday 25 March 2009

Ironman Week 11

Weather forecast for this week isn't as favourable, but so far all has gone well.
Swam at 7:10am monday morning. 3.6km
Rode twice yesterday, getting a little wet at lunchtime. Stayed dry on the turbo last night (obviously). All time best on the turbo last night in fact. Averaged 233watts for 79minute session. Best previous session was 221watts. The session was from the 24 week Ironman schedule in the book "Ironman start to finish". When I did this session on 8th Jan 2008 I covered 41.4km, last night it was 47km. That was followed by a 3mile out and back transition run (t-run).
At the pool for 7am when it opened. Dived in at 7:03. Got out at 8:11 having done 3.7k, Wk 11 wed session.
Oh, and I'm now registered on www.iamtri.com

Ironman France week 10

Days getting longer and starting earlier.
High pressure sitting over the country
Warm dry conditions.
A weeks rest last week.
All these things helped with the training this week. Was riding strong on the newly rebuilt Giant. Got a good run in on the Sunday from Mum's back to Norwich.
169miles ridden, 29 run. Only one swim of 2.6km

Thursday 19 March 2009

A little birdie....


... was sat on the handlebars of one of the bikes when I came to depart from the works bike shed this evening. It didn't move until the guy who owner of the bike got it out to ride home.

Training for Ironman France 2009

My training for Ironman France 2009 has arrived and was chritened on a run with Lynn Emmett and Tim Topper yesterday. Whilst I'm now into week 10 of 24 it only now seems real. the run was hard work. The legs kept screaming at me to walk but we managed 7:30mpm at 80%HRM for 6 miles. If it wasn't for the legs hurting I'd be pleased with that.

Lunchtime today we were joined by Chris Guy who was nursing a broken hand. He is still seriously quick even when injured. Pleased to say I performed a whole lot better than I did when I last rode with him 3 weeks ago. Back then I was on the single speed and was feeling warn out. Today was a whole lot different, kept up all the way round the ride and even managed to get the better (slightly) on one of the hills.

Part of the success is due to a good rest week last week. Part of it is down to the training over the winter months on the single speed and part of it is due to the bike I was riding. My good old Giant OCR2 has had a major facelift. I spent ages stripping it right down and cleaning it. After 5 years and 16,000 miles it needed it. I then put on a second hand 105 groupset replacing the orginial Tiagra Triple, plus new pedals, new bars, new stem, new tyres, new cables. Feels like a completely different bike and to most intents and purposes it is.

Friday 13 March 2009

Sat 14th March Ride


This is Simon's route for tomorrow's saturday ride. 9:30am from Sportspark. It's a proposed Broadsman middle distance triathlon route.

Sunday 8 March 2009

Wymondham 20

Could only do 12 miles this morning at marathon good for age pace, dropping 10 minutes on the next 8 miles. Legs hurt now.

First 12 miles done in 90 minutes. All 20 took 2:40. Was too far too soon for me.

Was in Spain all week on a cycle training camp.