A Run, A Swim, and a swim nemesis?

Today I went back to two training sessions in a day; an 8K run before lunch, and a 3K swim sesion before dinner.  The run was nice, but not exactly pleasant as it had started to rain.  The Garmin had a few gremlins to start with too, the initial GPS lock was a couple of hundred metres from where I started, I managed to glance at it whilst it was correcting itself, and apparently I was running at 86 km/h.  Even Usain Bolt would be impressed with that.  Other than the cold and the rain the run was pretty uneventful, the ground has hardened up a bit though.  I think I prefered the mud.

I made some soup this afternoon as well.  Whilst not strictly triathlon related, it is a nice healthly & tasty recipe ideal for triathletes.  The recipe is also available on the BBC website (ital carrot and sweet potato).  It filled a nice hole post swim training this evening.

The swim session was pretty reasonable too. 200m warm up, then some backstroke kick sets (3x66m) and a main set.  Given I had to pay for the public pool I thought I'd get my money's worth with this and made a 13 x 200m on 4:00 set out of it.  Then a tough (by that stage) 200m backstroke cool down.  Swimming in a 'new' pool though did bring with it the opportunity for a nemesis or two to appear.  First off there was the yobbish guy in the general swim area plodding up and down.  Then all of a sudden he started swimming crawl. It wasn't good crawl, but the sheer speed with which he was moving his arms and legs meant he was just as fast as me. I only just saved face becasue he could only keep it up for one and half lengths.  Then there was the lady in the medium lane, whose breast stroke I can only assume was a slow warm up, because her crawl was almost as fast as mine.  I think some more speed based training is in order.

A new love of running?

So I've started getting slack with the blog already, well it was going to happen.  The past couple of days have brought another couple of runs, one of 10k and a 9.25K this morning.  It's much more fun now the snow and ice has has melted.  The Inov-8 's are really good shoes, they just eat up the muddy ground, although I came close to losing traction on a patch of clay/mud this morning.

I seem to be really enjoying running at the moment.  Now normally I hate the idea of going off to plod around the common on the paths, it's just soooo boring, but it needs to be done.  Running off road however just seems so much fun.  It might just be because it's new and different, but it might be the fresh air, isolation and the challenge in running off road.  Running through the muddy ground is taxing on the mind as well as the body.  I think I like the challenge of looking for my next foot placement, something you can forget about on tarmac, but will quickly lead to a sprained ankle if you miss a fallen branch or a patch of ice off road.  With the current desire for building houses everywhere I'm fast losing options of trails to run on around my parents though, and it is going to take a trip to the New Forest to get the same thing in Southampton.  So the magic may be maintained.  It is feeling good on my joints though, after 27K in three days I have no ankle, knee or hip pain, but my calves are burning a bit.

On another note the Garmin is doing nicely.  I barely notice it on my wrist, the new design heart rate strap is really comfortable, one of the features I liked about my old Polar RS200 was the strap.  It's nice to be able to look at my routes and see where I could have gone if I had made a different turn without having to map it all manually.

Santa's Gift of Garmin

So today brought presents from the overweight, unshaven man in a red suit.  And chief among the gifts was a Garmin forerunner 310XT.  Well first impressions are it is a lovely piece of kit.  Having charged it up and fetched my grandparents I was allowed off into the fields to try it out along with my new shoes which have been eagerly waiting by the front door for the snow to melt.

I managed a pretty quick 8km run (43:40, off road in mud, ice and snow) as a 4km out and back.  I can't do the Garmin justice yet as I haven't had a proper chance to test it but it is certainly comfortable on the wrist, the vibration on the 1km autolaps was pretty neat too.  I shall update on this as I try it out more.

The Inov-8 terrocs were pretty amazing as well. the only spot where I slipped was on some ice on the driveway, the rest of the mud and snow were no match for the grip on the soles of them.  They dug in incredibly well and I always felt secure.  The amount of mud and ice they flicked behind me is testament to this.  They were very comfortable as well off road, they are definately not meant for tarmac though as the lack of cushioning was apparent.  They are definately recommended by me and I would happily pay £70 for another pair, the saving a Wiggle is and added bonus.

I hope Santa brought you all the Gadegets and Carbon Fibre you desired.

An interesting swim

So, I've returned home for Xmas and went off to the local pool with my Dad for an evening swim.  Now this pool is a 33m one, so I was planning on sets of 6 lengths for a nice 200m set.  That wasn't to be.  They were re-grouting to sides of the pool so you couldn't swim lengths.  The pool is about 12m wide with a diving pit approx. 12x12m on the side.  So the swim was from the side of the diving pit, through to a lane rope 1 lane from the side of the pool.  About 22m in all.  Not having a wall to push off at the other end made it quite amusing, having to stop in 2m deep water and start again proved different training.  My water starts will now be much better come next open water season having done 45 of them.  A couple of other positive, my dolphin kick is getting reasonable now and I don't lose any speed doing it.  For my last set I also managed to squeeze a few "tumble" turns in, although judging distance from the wall was quite tricky.

Hopefully the ice will have melted tomorrow and it will be safe to try out my new Innov-8 Terroc's.  Look out for the review soon.

More Titanic Turns, retail therapy, oh and a run

So, more Titanic turns on Thursday and Friday, I may be starting to get there however. I came close to a complete turn on Friday.  And then proceeded to go back to my 90 degree, swim to the pool bottom turns.  I now need to start moving closer in to the wall and actually try to push off.  But progress, in some shape or form.

On Saturday it was time for some retail therapy.  Having been woken up early I set off to find some off-road running shoes.  I went to the local running shop, described what I wanted and was presented with 2 options, neither of which really were what I wanted, but I tried them.  Neither felt right anyway.  Then I tried some Innov-8 Terrocs.  They were more the style I wanted.  Unfortunately they only had them in 11.5 so when I tried running in them it felt a bit tight in the right foot, but the left was good.  No matter though, Wiggle to the rescue.  And a hefty discount too.  RRP £70, wiggle price including discounts  £48.50. Not bad  So Santa should be bringing me a present on Tuesday, just in time for some running in the fields to burn off the Turkey and Pies.  The rest of the day was one of rest, well more shopping anyway.

Then today, although I wasn't feeling in the zone I headed out for a run.  Which turned out to be quite treacherous.  It seems the recent cold weather mixed in with a bit of rain has turned all the pavements around The Avenue/Southampton Common into ice rinks.  Once out though, I felt good, and managed just over 13km.

Not a wonderful week for training, but I think it is time for a few low volume weeks.
Weekly totals: Swim 6750m, Run 13.1km.

Next week it will be time to get back on the turbo.

Titanic Turns

The goal for today's swim session was to improve my "tumble" turns.  Well I failed.  Having read  Gary Van der Meulen's article on tumble turns (http://www.pullbuoy.co.uk/freestyleturns.html) I had a better idea of what I should be attempting to do.  So after 8x200m of front crawl I moved over to the deep end of the now empty 'general swimming' half of the pool. At this point I hold my left arm by my side, pull with the right, push and try to somersault.  Failure. I tried a lot of times, but each and every time I ended up destined for the bottom of the pool. Heading down much like the titanic.  Oh well there is always tomorrow.

Distance swum: ~2000m
Goal for tomorrow: more of the same.

A slow return to training

Having been unable to move without severve discomfort yesterday (it seems almost very muscle group decided my half marathon attempt was unfair and wanted me to know it) I decided a gentle swim was in order today. Well I wasn't going to push myself anyway.

Well the session started alright and was actually faster than it felt.  A warm up, some kick drills, swim drill, more kick drills and then a few sets of 200m to practice tumble turns.  Now I'm not very good at tumble turns anyaway, but somehow I've got worse.  I either spun round on the surface, or ended up deep in the water, it was no doubt quite amusing to watch.  I'm hoping it is just being physically tired.  On the plus side my dolphin kick off the wall is getting better; I can now get 5-6m from the wall comfortably with it. The breathe on every third is also coming on, I almost managed not to get a mouthful of water today.

Total for the day 1750m swum.
Goal for tomorrow, get back up to 2000m and practice turns again.

My first half marthon

So, my proper road to middle distance begins with a half marathon. I entered this 6 weeks ago, on the basis that since I'm doing it in a tri I ought to do it alone.  My training for this hasn't exactly been standard, or of high quality.  The first long run (over 10km) I've done in 2.5 months was 2 weeks ago, a rather slow 15 km effort taking nearly 2 hours, last weekend I managed 13 km equally slowly, but more painful.  Then after training on Tuesday I realised I had a cold. A break from training was required and mostly recovered, but no training for 4 days before the event.

So the day of the race dawns. Up 3 hours before the start for the standard bowl of cereal. Luckily my Dad gave me a lift to near the start line an hour before the start. Timing chip collected, portaloo used, bag with warm clothes dropped off. Now time for some warm up drills.  All was going well, until running through a crowded bit, with my eyes forward to avoid people I wasn't paying attention to the road.  SPLOSH!  Seems I found the pothole in the car park and now had soaking wet feet.  Distinctly unpleasant on a cold morning.  As my toes turned to blocks of ice it was time to stand still and get in line, just what I wanted to do.

McMillan Running calculator reckoned I should be able to do this in 1:47:13. Given my cold I would have been happy with anything under 2 hours.  So I stood at the 1:50:00 mark.  There was some announcement at this point I couldn't hear then we were allowed to walk onto the road for the start.  The start came and I crossed the line 30s after the gun.  The first couple of miles were largely uneventful. With the exception of some idiot in a van trying to reverse out of his drive into 2000 runners, even after a number of people slapped the back doors he kept reversing. Around mile 2 my heart rate belt slipped down off my chest.  Note to self don't bother running with this again, it annoyed me for the next 11 miles and naturally didn't work.  The first water station was fine, then the first short, sharp hill, I tackled it really well making up loads of places.  Coming into the second water station I took my gel, took some water then spilt almost all of it as some idiot stopped to drink her water 0.5m in front of me, needless to say I ran into the back of her spilling my ice cold water all down her back, at least there is some justice.

After 5 minutes the stomach cramp came.  OK, push through it, it's probably just not enough water with that gel.  Then it was time for the mentally draining hills.  They just seemed to go on and on. The leap frogging began here, people would overtake me, then 2 minutes later I would surge back, and so on.  Time for the third water station, take gel, take water, 5 mins later get cramp. D'Oh! seems whilst High5 gels agree in training the don't in races. Duly noted.  The race just went on and on at this point, till I reached the 12 mile mark and saw the church, thank god nearly over.  One final push.

As I come in towards the finish chute I spot my Dad with the camera, I try to smile.  One final push for the finish.  Over the line in 1:47:03 by my watch.  At this point my legs stop working.  My timing chip gets cut off, I walk towards the water. Have to keep stopping as my legs start shaking. At this point a marshal asks if I'm OK. Well what do you think? I've just 13.1. miles, 30% more than I've ever run. I'm hardly going to be dancing about am I.

So a great result, but a hard one. Now the demon on my shoulder is asking whether I can do this after swimming 1.2 miles and biking 56 miles? He may have a point, but I have 160 days to prepare to prove him wrong.

The start of my blogging journey

So I've decided to start a blog. I only ever seem to do triathlon, so that seems as good a place as any to start. I've seen it written in a number of places that starting a training blog is supposed to be good for you, it allows you to record what you've done, which should help focus your training. I need a bit of that. What follows (should anyone else actually read this) is intended to be a record of my journey to the start of the Half-Challenge Barcelona-Maresme, my first half-iron distance triathlon, in 162 days. If you don't know what that is, well it is a 1.2 mile swim then a 56 mile bike ride, and if your not feeling too tired at this point, a half marathon to finish it all off. 70.3 miles of pain and sweat, lots of sweat. I shall attempt to keep this a light hearted look at the life of an amateur triathlete. It may work, it may not.