Roe Valley Sprint Triathlon
This is just another one of those events that I really look forward to each year. It's superbly organised and generally marks the start of the Tri season. Last year was a nightmare as I had been injured and hardly swam for 2 months, so a time of 1.33 was not great.
This year was a different story and I was out to put down a bit of a marker and show that I'm not always the slow guy in the Club.
Plus, there was a fantastic amount of friendly smack-talk with my Club mate Ian and good friend Donald. We were all in the same heat and it promised to be a good tussle.
The Swim
I have been doing pretty well in swimming recently in training and wanted this to translate to a decent swim of around 15 minutes at the event.
As the race started, the pace felt pretty steady and I felt really comfortable. The only problem was that I was clearly the slowest person in my lane and this would cost me a bit of time ironically as I had to stop a few times at the end of the lane to let them past me.
However, it turned out to be a good swim and I got out of the water in 15min and 02 secs. Mission accomplished.
T1
The next big challenge, and arguably my toughest challenge is T1. I am dreadful at this and I hoped to improve on my glacial time. This wasn't brilliant but it was slightly better than before.
The Bike
To some extent this was a bit of an unknown for me as the last couple of efforts up here have not been great but this time I was feeling good.
The course here is an honest one. Generally it is an uphill outbound section and down on the way back.
I worked pretty hard on the bike and managed to pass a few people and in turn was passed by a couple of faster riders.
My goal time was about 41 minutes so I was absolutely delighted to come in at under 48 minutes. That was 20 MPH average speed. bloody hell, was that me?
Saw Donald about a minute ahead of me on the bike and Ian was a couple of minutes behind me, so I knew that I needed to push hard to catch Donald, but equally to ensure I stayed ahead of Ian.
T2
That's a bit more like it. No socks and a few seconds saved as I headed out on the run.
The Run
The first thing I noticed was that I was heading out of T2 and on to the run and I was running fast. I felt fantastic and was holding myself back a bit as I didn't want to be over confident and blow to pieces later on.
the feeling didn't go away and at as I neared the turnaround point at half way on the run I was about 200M behind Donald. I tried hard to catch him but to no avail. I did manage though to put a minute in to him over the 5K. Ian was a couple of minutes down but also had a very solid run and managed to almost paralyse my hand with a rather energetic High 5 as we passed on the run course.
To say that I'm pleased with the run is an understatement. Mile splits of 7.09 / 7.08 / 6.57 per mile showed the strength coming through. I ended with an average pace of 21.54 and a PB over the 5k distance. Brilliant.
Overall
I am delighted with the way everything went. Looking back I probably could have made a bit of a time saving in T1 but then again there's not a surprise there.
All 3 components went at least as well as I hoped and in the case of the bike and run I exceeded my expectations.
This is a great start to the season and a signal that the training is going well.
Now I need to consolidate this and get some good quality out of the next 8 weeks training.
Sunday 25th May 2014
Cycling (101.44 Miles / 6:13:47 / 16.3MPH / HR Zone 2 / Cadence 75) Elevation 907M
Long Solo Ride
The long solo ride is a fundamental part of Ironman training. Ironman is very much a solo sport and to get ready for it I think it's necessary to get out and crank out a long ride with nothing for company apart from the inside of my own head, which can be an odd companion at times.
As usual for going long the weather was dreadful. It rained for probably about 75% of the ride and I won't pretend that it didn't bother me. It bothered me a lot. Especially when I was about 30 miles away from home knowing that I was realistically about 2Hrs from home even if I wanted to turn back.
So I banished the negativity from my head and just got on with it. I did a mental checklist to lift the mood:
Am I tired - NO
Am I cold - NO
Am I wet - YES
Did anyone force me to do this -NO
Will it do me good - YES
GET ON WITH IT!
I worked hard on keeping my head right, keeping the cadence up and maintaining a steady effort and focusing on refuelling at the right times.
These focus points are important because if you think too hard about the distance and the bad weather it's easy to get in to a funk.
By the time I got through to Hillsborough at about 60 miles I was seriously thinking of heading for home and I made the decision to quit. Instead of turning off and following my planned route for the 100 miles I headed straight on.
I immediately regretted it and made a quick turnaround after a couple of hundred metres and got back on course.
The next 20 miles or so went really well and I reached my turnaround point in Portadown in decent shape and the legs felt fine.
Heading for home I was riding in to a headwind. Not particularly strong but enough to make the legs suddenly feel more tired than they did 5 miles before.
I'll be honest, from Moira back to home was a slog and that 8 miles felt like 20. My average speed slowed down a bit and the leg turnover was not as sprightly as it was before.
I eventually made it home and was glad to get in to the shower and wash away the road grime and ease the tired muscles.
I am delighted at how it went. The bike went really well, although 100 miles on the TT bike made my neck and shoulder muscles pretty sore but that was to be expected I suppose. I am chuffed at my mental approach and the toughness that I had to exhibit when digging deep and challenging the inner demons. In some ways that was tougher mentally than physically and I'm happy that he average pace stayed up over 16MPH and that it was only in the really late stages of the ride that fatigue set in.
On the whole a really great weekend and decent performances.
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