6 posts tagged “triathlon”

This will be a really short post. I have nothing to tell you of injuries, difficulties and pain; the whole thing was really enjoyable and fun. If you asked me to do it next weekend; I would.

The swim (1.5k) was in clear, mill pond water. The bike (40k) was through some really pretty countryside and the run (10k) was fiendish but bearable.

My training regime made me fit enough to complete the course (that's all) and although 3hrs 10mins isn't fab (slow bike), I wasn't a casualty or near-death.

I am about to embark upon a two week holiday consisting of steak, wine and rest ... and it will feel strange.

Some thanks go to:

Lance - for hauling me around on a mountain bike and Ian for being my tri-buddy and fellow Swanage Triathlon competitior.
To Orca and dhb for some decent kit
and to my scales for telling me I'd lost about 14 lbs over 18 weeks.

Off season training is my next hurdle, one swim, bike and run a week should do it.

Most people's misgivings when it comes to taking part in triathlons focus on the swimming leg.

I've used an ebook on swimming and a real book on a particular swimming style called 'total immersion'. I had/have a basic freestyle stroke but I found the TI book particularly useful. And ...

... go to the swimming pool.

I was lucky enough to borrow one of these from a friend the other day and took it for a run. What is it? - do I hear you say. It's a Garmin Forerunner 305 - top of the range, don't cha know. In the UK it goes for about £159 but in the US it sells for about $219, which is much better if you have a friend in the States who can bring one over!!

Well it's like a GPS for the body rather than the car. Strap it to your wrist and it tells you your heart rate, pace, altitude and route plus all the usual timing stuff. You can also use it when you are out on the bike.

Then once it starts to build up a picture of your state of health and performance it gives you training and pacing recommendations.

A cool bit at the beginning, when you turn it on, is the watch has to aquire all of the satellites that it needs and you can see them all zipping about on the screen. When they get 'grabbed' they change from white to black.

Once you've done your training you bring it home and dock it into the station connected to your PC and it charges back up as well as downloading all of the data.

The software reveals even more about the routes and performance. Two downers are that it doesn't work on Mac and export functions are limited - I'd liked to have seen an 'export to CSV' function.

Desired.

I did something in yesterday's swim that gave me cramp in my foot which then turned into a bl**dy painful big toe all day today. Out with the ibuprofen again. I have to do bricks training (bike and run) tomorrow morning and I won't be able to if it still hurts like this.

I been using some sports drink from High5 through the latter stages of training. You mix it from dust but it tastes ok and the only reason I went for this one is that it has no artificial sweeteners - just glucose, sugar and salts. It's the isotonic one and it's pretty good.

Yesterday's swim was a bilateral breathing session where you breathe on every three strokes rather than every two. Sounds easy but the oxygen deficit soon builds up and you quickly end up out of breath.

Just back from an hour's bike and I did a fast 20 minute run earlier. The bike was only spinning* so it wasn't going to kill me.

I've been lucky on injuries over the whole time of my training. I had a case of Delhi belhi around week 11 and a cold in week 12. I tried a short run after both of those and felt like a new-born. Still, I was on holiday in Cornwall at the time and did two walk/runs on Bodmin Moor and I felt much better after that.

I've had a niggling ache on the front of my hip which I cured with ibuprofen and less swimming. It's down to a poor swim technique, I'm sure. Gone now.

*  the definition of spinning in this sense is cycling at a high cadence in a lower gear then normal. About 90 rpm on the pedals is ok. I know 'spinning' is a class down the gym but it's not that.

I'm competing in the Swanage Classic Triathlon on Sunday week and I have just begun my second to last week of training. This is week 17 out of a total of 18 weeks. The final week (next week) is a taper where you don't train so hard so that you aren't knackered on the day.

Yesterday evening (Monday) I did a twenty mile bike in about 1hr 15mins and today I've done 2,000 meters in the pool in about 1 hour.

The event is Olympic distance which means a sea swim over 1,500 meters, then a 40k bike leg followed by a 10k run. This will be my sixth tri but my first over this distance.

If I remember then I'll keep this site updated with info about my run in up to the big day. Also, if you have any questions or comments then I would love to hear from you via this blog.