I guess the highlight of this week’s training sessions was the Monster Middle Triathlon, I had anticipated improving on my performance in Geraardsbergen in June – “5hrs’ish” i thought to myself. But the events of the day soon developed to prove me wrong.
We got to Ely, Cambridgeshire the evening before so we didn’t have to get up at even more of a ridiculous o’clock than we were already. The hotel was not that impressive, the title “Castle Hotel” seemed to give a regal image – it couldn’t be further from the truth. Nonetheless, it was our digs for the night before we had to be up at 4:15am. We walked down to the waterside and had a burger & a beer and soaked up the evening’s atmosphere. I was worried as even the walk down from the hotel was hurting my hip, I went quiet full of self-thought and Suzy was concerned but I (we) were here now so time to race.
Up at the crack of dawn, before that actually! We rode down to Jubilee Gardens where transition was, we were onbe of the first competitors to be there, we registered and set up our bikes & kit in transition. Time to wait for the start…
With a couple of minutes to go over 200 of us jumped into the River Ouse, the water was quite cold at that time of the morning so if anything that woke me up! And we were off. We were told in the race brief we were to go to the 2nd buoy as the first was the (1500m) standard turn. The (1900m) middle distance buoy was some 200m on. Unfortunatley that wasn’t the case as the buoy had somehow drifted further down the river with the current and we ended up doing 2900m before we got out of the water. I was pretty knackered to be fair. Looking at my watch and seeing “1hr” was telling me that today was going to be a long day! Suzy was already in transion and she shouted at me that the swim was long.
A quick transition and onto the bike, some of the standard competitors were already with us due to the drifting buoy and I was competing with some who were on their 1-hr pace instead of 2.5hr pace. I caught Suzy after about 3 miles and started to make my way through the field. The standard competitors didn’t trouble me as I was on the power zones 100% and nailed the whole leg with no-one coming past me. The road conditions were really bad with potholes and sunken road surfaces (into the marshes) everywhere. Plus the Fenland winds picked up and alot of the bike sections were a slog into the wind.
Onto the run and 8-laps of a small circuit up the Ely Cathedral Hill each time to collect our rubber bands. As Marcus had said all of a sudden i started getting “band envy”! I was looking at all runners I passed or who passed me and was looking at the number of bands on their wrists and getting motivated or angry depending on who had what!
The first half went pretty quick but then the 2nd half really slowed down, there was no gels or bars at the fuel stations and I ran most of the run on just water – this must’ve had a serious effect on my performance.
I saw Suzy ahead on my 3rd lap and I caught up with her on lap 4. she wasn’t having a good day either and although she’s very positive about any triathlon she’s competed in, today was not the case. We were both in difficult places for the last part of the race.
I finished with a time of just over 5hrs and 47 minutes – some 3 minutes slower than Geraardsbergen. I had to tell myself about the 1000m extra on the swim and the windy/bumpy conditions so I couldn’t really compare…but still disappointing to not improve my time. Suzy finished with a course PB despite the long swim, her bike & run being considerably faster than two years ago.
One more box ticked!
The rest of the week was avoiding running due to my hip injury getting worse after the Great Yarmouth Half Marathon. In fairness I couldn’t walk without limping or in pain so I was worried about Barcelona being only 7 weeks away. Ice, The Foam Roller, Paracetamol and Ibuprofen were in hand…
Monday was a rest day – it had to be!
Tuesday was an endurance ride just after work. I had planned on about 3hrs, with Sundays race being between 2.5 – 3hrs long I really needed to get around 5-6hrs in over the week. I ended up doing 90km to simulate the same distance as Sunday, albeit at a steadier pace. In the end it was 2:55 with moderate effort – all looking good for Sunday with all the aero kit on…I thought.
Wednesday was a strengthening session at the gym on my hip and glute muscles, a old cycling friend had contacted me and suggested Gluteal Tendinopathy and all the symptoms matched. A few searches on google and I had listed several exercises for me to do. To my amazement it was my opposite hip that was weak and that meant the other hip was overworking to compensate the load – it started to make sense now.
That was followed by a sea swim with some of the Beccles Triathlon Club. The tide was so strong we swam for 23 minutes only to travel 150 metres down the beach. We turned and got back in under 2 minutes!
Thursday saw a session with my Sports Therapist – Kirstie. I had contacted her immediately after the Yarmouth Half indicating I was broken and she came to the rescue with this vital appointment she squeezed in between clients – thank you 🙂
No training after that session.
Friday was a hard hour’s turbo session with efforts just under threshold, just to remind my legs as to what was expected on Sunday.
Saturday was a soft Park Run with my son. I kept him going at times he wanted to stop and he came away with a 13 second Personal Best. It helped having Lowestoft Road Runners out with numbers on their backs indicating their finishing time – so we followed number 31 ensuring his improvement.
Later in the afternoon I sat on the turbo with Suzy for a quick 30-minute pre-race tune just to keep us supple for the following day’s race and we set off for Ely soon after.
Training Peaks Geeks Section….
Fitness – 113. Fatigue – 132. Form – +18.
Cycling 240km. Running 26km. Swimming 3400m.
11.5hrs total. 729TSS.
Onto the next week, looking at the schedule there’s alot of volume and it finishes with a standard triathlon in Mildenhall on Sunday….just for fun. No rest day today….it’s river swimming tonight as I need to get in another 2000m!