Time to tri something else, du something different

In between qualifying and training for the World Champs I will be doing the occasional Tri. After a period of rest, time to let the glass feet sort themselves out and re-aquaint myself with the world of swimming it's time to up the ante.

Despite doing only a small amount of swim training during the Du season, my swimming isn't too bad...... for me. But the proof in the pudding will be the 750 meters against the current at Windsor Tri (June 15th).

It's now time to book flights and accomodation for Rimini so it's time I got my finger out and started training again. I'm one week into the plan and my calves are struggling to remember what running is and my bike legs keep asking when the next cafe stop will be. A Wednesday night test in the rain at the Triangle told me that the legs weren't in too bad shape ......... or maybe just a case of the wind being kind. Either way it feels good to get back into the routine and discipline of it all. It's not just me either, Mrs H is gearing up for Ripon Tri so the roads around Beckwithshaw are now her stomping ground. Good job she has her "bike bitch" to keep her on the road.

Wedding Season 2008: Part I

Du Season over, let the wedding season begin. I've written this as part one as I'm sure there's bound to be a sequel.

Weddings are an endurance sport. With seven wedding invites this year, going down the aisle is clearly a marathon and not a sprint.
Carbohydrate drinks are out the window. Alcohol is the new drink of choice but re-hydration also plays a vital role.
We're already three weddings in. By the end of May we'll have attended 4 weddings in 2008 and three alone in the month of May.

As for wedding invites.......
After sitting by the wedding cake at a wedding (cake consisted of numerous "cup cakes" - We called'em buns in my day) the bride wanders over with a tray of "cup cakes" and informs me that "I've noticed that you've been eyeing them up all day. Do you fancy one". That's what I call a wedding invitation. The buns were very good too.

The following day Mrs H dragged me out onto the bike for a few miles. If you were riding the Etape du Dales, I was the bloke riding towards you unable to plot a steady course emitting odours of last nights beer. I've never been drunk in charge of a bicycle before although I think maybe the bike was in charge.

Ashbourne: The final fling

Final Du of the (British) season. The last of the National Ranking counting events.

Ashbourne, "the home of the biker" or at least that's how I like to think of it.

12Km run around the resevoir - If only it was flat. I lost count of the times I said to myself "this is the last climb". The HR alarm was sounding most of the way round. The strategy today? Run far too bloody hard and see what happens. Old school stylee. "Old school, better than no school."

38Km bike around the rolling hills of Derbyshire. Spot the flat bit? Ride hard, use every gear and don't get cramp. That's the plan, nothing you can do about cramp. The god of cramp wasn't smiling on me. The Watts were looking good and I knew taht this was an oportunity to steal some National Ranking points on the other guys.

4Km run along the damn. If you can get your run shoes on without your calves cramping, you'll be just fine. Relatively speaking.

The race went well. I had a bit of a ding-dong with a team mate. His diminutive size worked well for him when climbing up Middletop Top on his bike but he ain't the best at going downhill so I stole the lead again and held him off for the rest of the race. Neither of us at our best but I beleive we brought out the best in each other on the day.

On the start line someone proclaimed that "This is why we do it". On reflection he's right.

When you race you feel
When you feel you are alive
Maybe it's the burn or the pain you feel
but you feel all the same and you know you are alive

Ashbourne Results

Milton Keynes: National Champs or National Disaster?

I'd opt for the latter.

All the way to Milton Keynes with my Ma & Pa playing at gypsies for the weekend. The caravan was out in force but would I be?

After a very cold start to the morning things warmed up. Having tarmacced a few drives and sold some lucky heather, it was time to get down to business. I had now sorted the heart rate monitor alarm issue of Swindon and was running under the desired heart rate. Unfortunately it was so slow that I got stopped for curb crawling by the MK Feds.

The bike wasn't too bad but I was so far behind the superfast runners that I caught them so late in the race that they passed me on the final run. The bike wasn't all "honeymoon between my legs" as I once heard it described. The power readings were low the heart rate was high and the performance was average.

All in all, a long way to go (again) for a below par performance. Had I won some cash we could have bought a transit van had some chromium plating fitted to the caravan.

MK Results

Swindon: Du the Maths

Swindon is a long way away. In order to break up the Journey I stayed at my brother-in-laws in London. The 90 minute drive up the M4 in near Arctic conditions was not the ideal preparation for a race but then neither was the Chicken Balti and 2 pints of Cobra. Hey, I'd already qualified, yeah?

And there lays the problem. I was suffering from a post-qualification hangover. Nothing left to aim at, motivation had dried up and I'd picked up a ligament niggle in my ankle.

I arrived at the race, snow on the ground dressed to impress. Dressed to race in the cold anyway.

I was armed with a plan to run below a specific heart rate and had set alarms on my HRM top trigger if I ran too hard. The best laid plans ......... the visual alarm was on but the audible alarm was off.

The bike was the same old. Flying past many of the fast runners and then some lapped competitors. It was a 5 lap course ....... or was it 4? After coming out of T2 in first place I bid a quick retreat, put the bike shoes back on and headed out for the final lap. My complexion must have matched my race kit due to embarrassment rather than exertion.

The final run wasn't much fun as I couldn't raise my heart rate or my game. I had started to skip many of the run sessions in training to try and let my ankle recover.

Time to head home and rest the glass feet for next weeks National Championships at Milton Keynes.

Swindon Results