Wednesday 27 February 2008

Ironman South Africa for SIA

Have now setup a Just-Giving page to raise funds for the Spinal Injuries Association by completing Ironman South Africa and had my first donation. Cheers Trev.

Experienced an Earth Quake

Tuesday 26 February 2008

Ironman Week 17

Managed to fit in over 20 hours worth of training this week just gone. That involved 260miles worth of training and 13,255kcal. It was the third 220 bike mile week on the trot. The 35miles worth of running during the week included a 20mile run on the Sunday.

Wednesday 20 February 2008

Longest Swim for while

Today's swim schedule involved 800m warm up, 3x(300m + 6x100m) then 800m warm down. A total of 4,300m that I managed to get through in 75.5 minutes. Fairly pleased with that. Deltoids knew about it towards the end.
Been able to get the bike miles in as well so far this week. Upto 86 miles so far since Monday. A good turbo session last night (as mentioned previously) and a 20mile ride with Dean Grady today, plus a longer than normal commute.

Tuesday 19 February 2008

Turbo Session and T-Run

Set a new personal record on the turbo this evening. Averaged 234watts for 94minutes following ironman wk 17 turbo session with my groupies (ssssh - it's supposed to be a secret).
I then went for a 35minute t-run through the cathedral grounds. It was really nice running through that ancient part of the city with just street light. On the way back along river side I caught a chap who was running to Riverside pool for a late evening swim. Turns out that he'd also bagged a 6minute PB at the Great East Run and was training for Waveney Triathlon. Didn't catch his name, but he was thinking of joining Tri-Anglia. Not sure if our conversation swayed him - hope I didn't put him off.

Sunday 17 February 2008

Bagged a PB today

On tired legs and in the freezing cold I cycled down to Bungay today with Mark Philo, Will Hall, Jonathan Tyrrell and Penny Edwards for the 2008 Great East Run. It was intending on treating it as a training run - nice and steady. Got the first kilometre done in under 4.5 mins which would be the pace for an aspirational 90minute 20k. So, tried to keep the pace going, and did and finished in a time of 1:29:22. A personal best of just over 7minutes.
The guys didn't seem very sympathetic towards my tired legs on the ride home.
I ran in my Tri-Anglia gillet and leggings. In doing so I had a couple of other Tri-Anglia members introduce themselves to me, which I really enjoyed. They were Rory Beaths and Paul Yallop.
Ironman Wk16 round up - this week involved 23.5miles running, just one swim session of 2.6km and 214miles of cycling.

New Readers

In the last couple of weeks I've had a couple of people tell me that they now read my blog. The fast was Mike Auger. The second Penny Edwards. I hold both these people in high esteme. Mike won the Norwich Tri in 2007. Penny is European Duathlon Champion and won 2007 London Marathon, both in her age group.

Sunday 10 February 2008

Longer than planned long run

Had a 19mile run on the schedule today and heading out with legs tired from yesterday's 140mile bike ride it wasn't easy. Struggled to get going at the start, but with a new route on little known roads I was keen to explore and Sally was providing cycle support.
Despite writing out route notes we managed to deviate from the planed route. We got lost looking for turning that didn't exist and missed the one we should have taken. Ended up altering the route to ensure we got home rather than risk getting even more lost.
Eventual distance was exactly 21miles. Managed to run the whole way and despite getting lost and running on tired legs I got round in 3 hours. That would have been a target pace for fresh legs. So very pleased with that.
That takes the weeks total to 32 miles ran, 221 miles cycled and 4.3 miles swam. This week has seen me through the first 1,000 accumulative miles of training for 2008.
Next week is week 16 of the 24 week Ironman training schedule and I have my second running race of the year. The 20km Great East Run. They give out a bottle of beer to all finishers at that one. :-)

Saturday 9 February 2008

Longest ride today

Today I did the Old Squit 200k Audax from Colney. Allow the organisers to make the course a little over distance, cycle to the start and home again and then add in an impromptu detour (i.e. I got lost) and you have a nice 140mile day out on the bike.
At 72miles the average was 17.3mph and was still over 17mph well over the 100mile point, but by the time I'd got back home it had dropped to 16.57.
Interesting figure of 8 course. A good little Cafe in Harlesworth. Plenty of cheap/free food at event HQ and a really pretty second loop upto Fakenham. I dare say we'll be doing those loops again - though not necessarily on the same day.
The weather was great. Couldn't have wished for a better Spring riding day. Clear sky, dry roads and little wind (doesn't matter that it picked up towards the end).

Wednesday 6 February 2008

Swimming Progress

Swam at UEA as per a normal wednesday evening. It was a bit busier than usual. That or I was a bit earlier. Started out with a lane to myself but kept being joined by others - particularly two blokes that wanted to do breaststroke and backcrawl slowly and didn't like being overtaken.
Despite this I managed to get the 3,500m session completed in 57:30 and it included a 1,500m (which might have been 1550m) in 22mins. So I'm content with that. If I could just maintain that pace for the ironman swim then I'll get under the hour and might even get close to the club record.

Progress :-)

Averaged 17.1mph on a solo lunchtime ride today despite 19mph winds and having to carry a ruck sack with me. I'm pleased with that. Need to say thank you to Trevor Crane - he took my laptop for me, so that saved 4kg of weight from my back.
Also went above 17mph on yesterdays ride with Jonathan Tyrrell.

Sunday 3 February 2008

Changing Fortunes

Perhaps I was a little premature on Wednesday evening. The fine few days weather and good training was hindered rather drastically Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Thursday lunchtime saw 38mph winds and driving rain and sleat. Friday morning was nice, though cold, for a 30min run at Fritton lake. Friday afternoon it snowed. Saturday was way too icy to go out on a bike ride, and I had way too much of a hangover from Edgy's "Off to Australia" celebrations of Friday night.
Today was good though. Helped Russell Clarke complete the 40 mile Tring2Town ultra marathon.