Busy Few Weeks

The last few weeks have been busy with races, a lot of travel and also that thing we have to do to pay the bills - work.

The week after the 7Oaks tri was a good week, legs took a few days to actually feel like doing hard training again, I guess recovery from hard running is still not quite there yet. It did mean ending up with a slightly easier week, though this also meant training load going down again which is not ideal when I should be building it up in reality. That is the downside of trying to be fresh enough to do well in the CTT TT Series as well as try and put some training load in so I can be race fit for the longer distance tris.

CTT TT SERIES

Round 4 of the CTT Series was up in the Lake District on one of my favourite courses, the Circuit of Bassenthwaite Lake, near Keswick. As this was also a Bank Holiday weekend it was a nice chance to take the family away for a little bit of camping, we know a great campsite just half a mile from the HQ so it was going to be a nice relaxing morning of the TT for me. It meant a very early start on Saturday to get to the lakes and then once the tent was up I had a little spin around the course, the roads had got worse from last year, but still compared to Kent roads not too bad.

The race went pretty well, though with a stiff headwind for the last exposed 5-6 miles it made for a very tough finish, and slower times from 12 months previous. I put together a solid ride, much better than the Buxton CC MTT, but still not quick enough to beat Julian Ramsbottom. 2nd place wasn't too bad though as the lack of pure cycling training is starting to show when it comes to racing the best TTer's. It means I have 1 win, 2 second places and 4th place, I think if I can win Round 5 it means I would have held onto my Series title, but I do need to make sure I win this weekend coming, and that is no guarantee.

The rest of the weekend was a nice relaxing family time, though no hills this year. I did manage to get a nice 2 hour run around Derwent Water on Monday morning whilst the family slept, it is truly magical running in a lovely place with no traffic and just the sounds of the wildlife. It makes a nice change from my normal running routes around where I live.

EAST GRINSTEAD TRIATHLON

The following weekend saw me do my 2nd tri, I entered the East Grinstead Triathlon as it was the team champs and it was going to be great meeting up with a lot more of the Tri Spirit Team. Ruth had mentioned that perhaps I might not do the race in order to be in tip top shape for Round 5 of the TT Series, but I was confident I could recover in time. I also wanted to see how I would fair against one of the top AG triathletes - Charlie Pennington. It would really give me an idea of what I need to work on, though to be honest I know that already.

The day wasn't forecast to be that great, windy and showery, but as with the 7Oaks Tri the rain held off, and although it was a cold and windy day, it remained a dry day which was good. The East Grinstead Tri was a 500m pool swim, a 26km ride and then 5km run. I had looked at previous times and thought about what was possible from myself. I knew my swim was the weakest link, and hopefully the run being short I could minimise any time loss here. I set a target of 1:10 for the whole event, but it would mean biking very well to achieve that.

The swim actually went better than I expected, though still too slow to really challenge the top guys, but again with only really swimming since October last year a 9:01 wasn't too shabby. The actual swim was a few seconds quicker as that is the time including climbing out of the pool and running across the timing mat. It was then a run to the bike, I got to the bike and couldn't see my helmet or race belt, I looked around and they were on the ground a few metres away, not ideal. I am not sure if they were knocked off, or the wind blew them off the bike, but something to work on. Due to the shoes I have, they are not easy to get on when attached to the bike, so I spent time hopping about getting them on in transition, again something to work on here, and perhaps I need to buy some proper tri specific shoes.

On the bike leg, my legs didn't want to work at first, they were cold and stiff, though once I got going they did get better throughout the bike leg, and power wasn't too bad. I had decided again not to hold back on the bike and just take it as a 26km TT. It is a great course and with a couple of challenging kick ups it certainly keeps you on your toes. I did have a time in mind before the day, but with the wind in your face for the last 6 miles I never managed to get enough time back after the real lumpy bits. I was fairly happy with a 38:38 bike split which was a minute faster than anyone else. Again thank god I am a pretty good cyclists LOL.

Through transition and onto the run, my legs were feeling the bike effort at first, and I tried to take the first km steady and build on that. I was happy with the effort though the pace just didn't seem to be there. I haven't really done any short distance speed work, and again I think I held back a little too much as I am pretty sure I could have pushed harder with a bit more confidence and experience. I ran solidly throughout though and crossed the line with 1:09 showing on my Garmin. I wasn't sure of the seconds, but I was happy that I had beaten my target.

It was now just a wait for the tops guys to start and finish, Charlie did a cracking race to finish in 1:04:48, just 44 secs quicker than 2nd place. I was amazed to actually finish 4th overall ( and won my AG) in 1:09:31, so less than 5 mins behind Charlie. I think that is a very solid performance in only my 2nd triathlon. I did lose far too much time in the swim however, and I think this is where I need to have a bit more focus, it has been getting better and I am happy with 1:48 per 100m splits for the race, but this ideally needs to be nearer the 1:30 mark so I will get some more coaching here I think.

My race splits were as follows

Swim 9:01
T1 1:43
Bike 38:38
T2 1:12
Run 18:52

The focus now is for this weekend which is my last race in the CTT TT Series, it really is a win or nothing scenario for me, but I look forward to getting it done and dusted. My confidence has been boosted by a mid week 10m TT. As it was a nice evening and I couldn't face being stuck on the turbo doing intervals I thought it would be good to get a full on effort in. I did much better than I expected and even with getting held up by a tractor and a queue of cars, I managed to do something I have tried for a few years now, getting a sub 21 min on the Q10/22. I managed this just on Wednesday night with a 20:59 so that has boosted my confidence a little going into the weekend. Lets hope the weekend is just as good.