April update – racing has begun :D

Hello again! Time to get caught up on the last month or so of what I’ve been up to in the sporting world. Firstly, I’ll pick up from where my last blog ended – Clumber Duathlon on 18th March.

This was my first race of this year and first since the European Middle Distance Champs many moons ago in September. I’d spectated last year as Emily was racing, but decided to give it a go this year so I entered myself into the standard distance race. Emily was again racing the sprint distance event which was starting an hour or so before my wave.

An early start and big bowl of porridge each started our day before getting the bikes and kit packed into the car and setting off to Clumber. Once there, we registered, racked our bikes and reminded ourselves what we needed to put in transition having not done a duathlon for nearly a year! It was then time for Emily’s start so I went to the start line with her and took a few photos as she raced off into the distance before going back to transition to check everything was fine, do some stretching, have my usual pre-race High5 Isogel X-Treme and get ready to start.

Before I knew it we were being called to the start line and the gun went. Cue everyone sprinting as per usual – although it was necessary on this course as the road soon narrows and it gets difficult to pass others. The run was an out and back rolling course which we took on twice for the first 10km. I went out hard(ish) but not too hard as we haven’t done too much speed work in training yet – we have bigger targets later in the season! I soon settled the pace down and came into T1 with a first run time of around 40 mins – slower than usual but this was a training race after all!

I was soon out onto the two lap bike course and passing people ahead of me who were slightly faster runners. The bike was pretty uneventful, overtaking lots of people and only being overtaken by one person so not too bad! I came back into T2 with a bike time of around 59mins, not too bad even if the course was a tiny bit short.

Finally onto the second 5km run and my legs were definitely a bit confused now as they haven’t done this for a while! “We’ve already ran 10km, do we really have to keep going?”. I managed to pull them round the out and back run and over the finish line with a run time of around 20mins and an overall race time of  2hrs 1min exactly – a standard distance duathlon PB (my second one…) and a good enough for 5th M20-24 and 20th overall. Not a bad start to the season and something to build on coming into tri season over the next few months.

Emily also had a great race finishing 6th F20-24 and also getting a duathlon PB in the process. From these results we have both qualified for the 2018 ETU European Duathlon Championships next spring – hopefully it doesn’t clash with Uni exams for us both!!

After Clumber I had decided to enter some local cycling road races so joined a local club (Beeston CC) and had my first race on 9th April at Sutton Bonnington – a 40mile cat 3/4. It was a baking hot day and I wasn’t quite ready for the chaos for the first few laps and ended up getting dropped and held up behind a crash after a lap and a half… not ideal! I did however manage to work with a couple of other athletes to get back into the main bunch and finished in 20th place – no points but a pretty good first race and I knew I had more to give.

The following Thursday I was racing again at the Mallory Park cat 4 circuit race. I had a good race, chasing down moves and trying to get away on a couple of occasions but not being able to make anything stick. This meant it came down to a bunch sprint and I finished 5th and got my first BC points – yeeha!

Easter Monday (17th April) was my next race at Yarborough 3/4 crit in Lincoln. This was a tricky circuit with 6 90 degree bends every lap and a chicane thrown in for good measure! The tarmac was a bit damp and mossy and I could feel my wheels sliding a tiny bit on the warm up laps. Sure enough, 3 laps into the race and there was a crash on the tightest corner which most of the field got held up behind including myself. This meant the next 4 laps or so were spent riding hard to chase back on to those who had got away as a result of the crash. I spent the rest of the race keeping in the first 5/6 wheels to try and avoid any further crashes (luckily there weren’t any) and with 1.5 laps to go I made my move around the chicane. I got a gap of about 10m but my legs just didn’t have enough to keep it up for the last lap and I was caught going onto the last lap. I kept close to the front and managed 9th in the final sprint, claiming another BC point – 6 down 6 to get to get to 3rd cat.

I raced again the following Thursday at Mallory again but I was a bit naive and spent the first 40mins at/on the front of the group chasing down moves and also trying to get away myself. This meant come the last few laps my legs didn’t have much left in them and I tried to force them to sprint off the final bend but it was no use. I sat up about 100m from the line and rolled across to finish ~20th. Not the result I had hoped for so I was pretty annoyed at the time. Looking back on it it’s all experience and I’m learning all the time having only just started racing – there’s more to come!

I also raced at Mallory on Thursday 27th April (Thursday just gone) where I sat in the pack a bit more but found myself out of position coming onto the climb to the finish line and although I was catching people in the sprint I just ran out of road and ended up 13th. Again, a little bit annoyed but some more lessons learnt! 

I’m enjoying the bike racing quite a lot and hope to carry on fitting races in around my multisport racing when possible. I feel that it’s benefitting my bike strength a lot and should ensure I can put down some good bike splits at my triathlons this year! I am also hoping to get up to 3rd cat pretty soon and if I can fit enough races in, possibly try and get my 2nd cat license this year. Who knows what might happen!

3 days after the bike race at Mallory, Emily and I were taking on our first tri of the season at OSB Events’ Southwell Sprint – fairly local to us and an 11.26am start for emily and 11.48am for me meant the race morning didn’t have to begin as early as most. We had the usual porridge, packed everything up and got to Southwell with a couple of hours to spare before Emily’s start. Like with the duathlon, we had to remind ourselves what we needed to do in transition and what kit we would need – it’s been a while! Once we were both set up we went for a little walk around the event area and relaxed for a bit.

It was soon time for Emily’s start so we headed to the pool and I saw her off and cheered her on after her swim before I got my race kit on, had my gel and went to start myself. The race was a 400m pool swim, 17.5km bike and 4.6km run, so it should be a fast time for a sprint if all goes well. I was in the second last wave, and came out of the swim 3rd in the wave (out of 5) but close behind those in front. I think I swam around 5.15, although the long run to transition is included in the swim time which was 6.08 on the results.

Through transition and I was onto the bike where I hoped to make up some time and try and give myself a buffer on other athletes going onto the run. The course is out and back with the turn point around a roundabout on a fairly busy road. I managed to catch and pass the two athletes ahead of me from my wave within a couple of kms and wanted to push on and put as much time into them as possible as I knew one of the was a faster runner than me. Come the turnaround I had ~20/25 seconds on him and couldn’t see the other athlete which was good news. However, I got stuck at the roundabout as there was loads of cars coming from the right, so had to stop and wait. When I got going again and round the roundabout the athlete had caught me up again and was right behind me. Now I knew I had to do even more work on the way back to T2 in order to get a gap on him. I managed to do this but I didn’t think I’d managed to get enough – we’d have to wait and see on the run. My bike time was 26.09 (including the stop) which was good enough for 4th fastest split of the day.

Back into transition and I was soon onto the run – a 2 lap out and back with a nasty little hill at the start of each lap. I’d soon get to see how much of a gap I had to those in my wave. I managed to hold the lead in my wave until the second time up the hill when I was overtaken by the faster runner – I hadn’t managed to take enough time out of him on the bike 😦 I tried to pick my legs up but they were having none of it so I pulled them round and managed a small sprint across the line. My run time was 16.41 for the 4.6km (equivalent to ~18.10 5km) and I was pleased enough with that given the lack of run speed training so far this season. My overall finish time was 50.09, 2nd M20-24 and 4th overall – a good result for the first tri of the season.

Emily also raced well and also came 2nd F20-24 in just over an hour but with some positive splits for our first tri this year. Definitely a good race to build on for us both with a busy schedule over the next few months and uni exams to think of as well!

My race plans for May are as follows:

May 3rd – 35 mile cycling 3/4 road race

May 7th – 40 mile cycling 3/4 road race

May 12th – Lincoln Criterium 1hr 3/4 cycling race

May 20th – Nottingham Sprint Triathlon

May 21st – UON GP Crit cycling race

May 24th – 35 mile cycling 3/4 road race

May 27th – British Sprint Triathlon Championships – Strathclyde, Glasgow.

May 29th – GT Ellingworth 50mile cycling 3/4 road race

So it’s going to be a busy month of racing and training! You’ll be able to keep up with my progress through the month on Twitter/Instagram and I’ll post a roundup of all the results in about a month’s time! Please get in contact with me through twitter etc if you have any feedback on my blogs or anything that you’d like advice on, I’d love to hear from you.

Emily and I love training together – It’s amazing to be able to do what you love with the person that you love and it’s something that we’ll always be able to do together. It’s how we met, we got engaged at Holme Pierrepont (location of the Nottingham Triathlon), it’s a massive part of our lives and we enjoy (nearly) every minute that we get to train together.  We’ve been putting some hard training in over the last few months and here’s a few photos from along the way 🙂

Thank you for reading and for your support and a final thank you to all of my amazing sponsors – I wouldn’t be able to afford to do all that I do without your kind support, so thank you very much.

Until next time, happy racing & training 😀

 

April Review

April has come and gone and the Easter holidays went by in a flash. The race season is well underway and following a good race at East Leake at the end of March I was looking to build on that going into April.

It began well with a 12.5hour week off the back of my first race, followed by another taper week for the Desford Sprint on the 13th. This was where it started to go slightly off plan, as I picked up a bit of man flu on the Wednesday before the race which made breathing whilst training particularly difficult, so the volume I would do for the next 2 weeks was drastically reduced. I came 5th overall and 1st in the AG at Desford which was a good result, but it was a race where I was hoping to do better. More about this race can be found in my race report at http://wp.me/p44X24-3F.

As racing made the cold/sore throat even worse the week following Desford was a write off with only 4 hours of training completed, not ideal but its better it happened at this early stage of the season rather than later! I was then back on the training and returned to Loughborough on the 27th April to start the last 8 weeks of my first year at uni, how quick that has gone! Overall figures for the month are below.

 

Swimming – 13 sessions – 11hrs 55min – 33.25 Km

Cycling – 15 sessions – 17hrs 34min  – 584.4 Km

Running – 13 sessions – 11hrs 55min – 72.75 Km

S&C – 6 sessions – 5hrs 45min

Total – 47 sessions – 40 hours 34mins- 690.4 Km

 

The week of basically no training and the fact were now into race season has meant the figures this month are down on March, but some good quality sessions were done and I still made some big improvements in the pool and on the bike. In the last week I was home for Easter I swam new 400m and 200m PB’s of 5.28 and 2.41, and I’ve been getting stronger still on the bike.

I had my first BUCS Triathlon for Loughborough Uni yesterday (4th May) and there will be a race report up on here in the next couple of days, keep an eye out! I’m now building towards the Nottingham Sprint and Deva Standard triathlons on the 31st May and 8th June respectively, both of which are world qualifiers and are my first ‘A’ races of the season. Only 2 weeks after those is what will my biggest race so far, at the European Age Group Sprint Championships in Kitzbuhel, Austria. Exciting stuff!

That’s all for now, thanks to Blair Davies for coaching me and continuing the improvement!

 

Thanks for reading and happy training 🙂

Desford Sprint – Race Report

My second triathlon of the year took place last weekend on the 13th April at Desford, near Leicester, and was run by the well known Racetime Events team.

An early wakeup call at 6am followed by a nice big bowl of porridge with apples and cranberries and I was set for the day. Well, almost. A couple of teaspoons of cough medicine and a strepsil later and I was ready to start finding my kit and packing it up.

I’ve been battling a nasty cold for the last week and was hoping that I would wake up on Sunday and my throat would be clear, but unfortunately this was not the case and I woke up coughing once again. I’d already had to miss a couple of days of training in the last week as a result of the sore throat making breathing difficult, but I wasn’t going to let it stop me racing, even if I wouldn’t be in my best shape.

I set off from home just before 9am and, following driving round the bike course to reacquaint myself with it, arrived at the Bosworth College in Desford just before the first participants had started their swims. Plenty of time to spare.

I registered, set up my transition spot and started preparing for the race.

I was originally supposed to start at 11.07 but due to a mix up with a life guard they were running about 10 minutes late, but as there was a cold breeze outside I still went into the pool at 10.55 and did my warm up in there, out of the cold.

The starter counted down and we were off in the nice wide lanes of the pool, good for overtaking in my super speedy Huub SKN-1. I was feeling ok swimming but my throat was definitely affecting my breathing, so I was a bit slower than I’d hoped for. I climbed out of the pool and ran round the corner into transition to get out on the 17k rolling bike course as soon as possible.

I felt good in the first few kilometres on the bike, overtaking a few competitors from the waves before me and settling into a good rhythm into the headwind for the first half of the course. The last third of the course was fastest, as this was where there was a slight tailwind up and it was relatively flat, so I pushed on on this section to get back to transition as soon as possible.

A 21s transition later and I was out onto the 3 lap grass run course. The ground was a bit soft for some of the course and a nasty short but steep hill halfway round each lap really drained the energy from your legs. This, coupled with my breathing problems meant I knew I wasn’t going to be pushing for a PB, so I settled in and held as constant a pace as possible to close out the race. A 200m sprint at the end to gain those vital seconds (See my race report from East Leake, why couldn’t I have pulled off this sprint there!) and I was across the line and finally had a chance to clear my throat and get my breath back.

Straight on with the Compressport calf guards and a bit of cool down stretching done, I swallowed down a banana and mango Torq recovery drink and munched down the JackOatbar that I was given when finished the race. We then stayed around for the presentations and having been given a spot prize I also found out that I’d won the male under 20’s age group and was 5th overall, an exact replica of my last race at East Leake!

Final splits were: Swim – 5.58, Bike – 27.47, Run – 19.01. Overall time – 53.51.

Overall I was pleased with the result given that I was a bit under the weather and couldn’t train properly the week leading up to the race. My transition times have also gone down from last race and back to where they were at the end of last year, so thats a bonus too.

 

Thanks to Racetime Events for another well organised race and Blair Davies Coaching for getting me as ready for the race as possible given the conditions, lets hope this cold disappears soon! Thanks also to Torq Fitness, Huub Design and Compressport for your continued support of our race team and for providing us with some great products.

Following a couple of days rest to try and get rid of this cold, I’m back into 3 weeks of solid training before my next race at the BUCS Sprint on the 4th May.

 

Thanks for reading and happy training 🙂