Ironman Mark

This chart shows how poor my bike training has been.

I did a 181k ride today.  Ride time was 6:45:33.  I did almost the same route in 2009 at the exact same stage of training.  Weather was similar, bike was the same, I did have an aero front wheel in 2009 though.  The course was slightly different (2k longer in 2009 where I got lost a couple of times in the New Forest).

The main difference between 2009 and  2013 was that in 2009 I had ridden my bike lots and I was highly motivated.  This year we have had quite a bad winter, I’ve been working long hours and family commitments (rugby, pole vaulting, etc) have taken up a lot of time that I could have been riding.

Adjusting for the distance, I was 9:27 slower this year. That’s actually better than I hoped. Power wise, I am 13 Watts down (154W v 167W).  I can handle that though. Not that I have much choice.    But my average HR was 141bpm v 136bpm.  So it is costing me a lot more effort to get less power.

The big difference is that my power dropped big time over the 2013 ride.  And my HR went up over the ride.

More importantly, at the end of the 2009 ride I could have run a marathon.  I am not convinced I could have done the same today.

The graph shows:

- Blue line: my average 10 minute power.  It’s all over the place because I chose a hilly route.

- A dotted blue line: This is the line of best fit of my power.  In an ideal world it would be flat.  But its not an ideal world.

- A red line: my average HR over 10 minutes.

- a dotted red line: This is the line of best fit of my average HR.  Normally, you’d expect it to go up a bit over time with constant power.

There is a metric called power:HR decoupling.  In 2009, it was 4.4%.  The lower the more endurance fit I am.  And 4.4% showed I was fit.

Today, it was 11.5%.  That’s pretty poor.  So why so poor?  I could argue I didn’t eat as much (I had 5 power bars (and some chocolate when I got water) v the equivalent of 10 in 2009) but the effect of that is probably pretty close to nil.  My guess at the real reason is the lack of long bike rides.  I did 16 rides over 3 hours between January and the IM in May 2009.  So far, this year I have done 7.  Oops….

The picture is of Famara in Lanzarote.  The bike course comes in from the middle left (near white building), turns right in Famara and then heads towards the camera before forking right away from the beach.  It’s probably the lowest part of the course.  The course then goes uphill, and uphill, and uphill – with the highest bit about 1k away from where the photo was taken.

So let’s pretend I have decided what my ironman pace is.  I haven’t yet, but let’s pretend that I then ride a lap at that pace in 61:25.  Just to check that I have got the pace right, I then ride the same lap in 61:13 (so 12 seconds quicker, or one-third of one percent).  I might then check my power and find that the second lap’s average power is 1 watt less, and normalised power is 1 watt more.  HR was the same at 138bpm.  So, basically the same. Perhaps that is my ironman pace then?

So what happens if I decide to go quite a bit harder?  So the third lap is a lot higher intensity at the start and then builds gradually to “pretty hard” at the end. Not all out.  In terms of average HR, it was up from 138bpm to 155bpm (so 17bpm up) with 164bpm reached over the last bit.  Average power was up by 40 watts, normalised power by 43 watts.  The ride was the same, although a caravan did pull out in front of me while I was doing 37 kph and had to brake hard, which was a little … annoying.  Time wise though, those 40 watts saved me 5:15.  That’s 8.4% quicker.  Great.  But my watts were 25% higher to achieve that.    Doesn’t sound like a good return on my investment.

The really sad bit for me is that my normalised power was 22 watts less than I did at Ironman Lanzarote in 2009 (with an average HR of 139bpm).  And my weight is probably 3kg heavier.  Putting some numbers into a calculator suggests I’d be lucky to make 7 hours.  And that assumes I can stay comfortable on my bike.

On Friday evening a friend told me about this as I was leaving work.  At 8pm I had spoken to the race organiser and got a place.  Beat that triathlon organisers.

I did a long bike on Saturday and then on Sunday I did a tough-ish 4k swim (including 3 fast 400m in 5:40, 5:46 and 5:55) and so am around 20 seconds per 400m slower than in 2009.  After running a few k watching the rugby I skipped off early to Overton to register (very easy) and get a coach to the start.  Getting to the coach was easy.  For the coach (with police escort) getting to the race start was a bit more of a challenge.  Some of the roads were very narrow and one of the hairpins meant all three of the coaches had to do three point turns (or more than three in the case of the first).

The coach was hot but Combe Gibbet was cold and windy.  After a short wait we started and it was a quick race down hill along a hard rutted track.

Then I worked hard going up the hill opposite.  Overtaking some people, some overtaking me.  The paths were very compacted and lots of ruts, lose stones, etc.  Sometimes there was the odd puddle.  Sometimes a bit of grass.

After the first few minutes people seemed to stop or only gradually overtake me.  Then my feet got sore on the rocks and I twisted my ankle a little and so eased off a fraction.  People then started to overtake me gradually from mile 5 as I slowed with my feet hurting.  My shoes seemed to have shrunk as the big toe on my right foot was feeling uncomfortable.  The ball of my left foot hurt too where I landed badly on a rock.

This is around mile 5

We went under the A34 and climbed up to Watership Down. Between the drink station at mile 8 to mile 12 no one overtook me (and I over took two people just before/after the 12 mile drink station) but then things started to go badly wrong.  My feet hurt big time.  Most steps hurt a lot and I was twisting my ankle every now and then.  Up a slight-ish hill on a road bit I walked.  Ten seconds later I was running again.  But it was soreness rather than tiredness.

1km from the end I twisted my ankle again and started walking up the last uphill.  This was for a long minute before the final downhill to the finish.  That last downhill hurt.  I caught one person who had overtaken me on my walk but every step hurt my feet.

So how did the race go?  Not well.  My feet hurt.  I have quite a few blisters on the toes of my feet.  And I think I will lose the nail on my right big toe.  That’s never happened to me before.  And I am still not sure what has caused that.  Perhaps my feet were swollen from the running around beforehand at the rugby, or the warm bus, or something.  Perhaps my feet have grown.  Or my shoes have shrunk.  I’ve worn the same shoes for 81 miles over three days and a 50 mile run.  I don’t think my laces were too loose.  In hindsight I wish I had worn my road shoes but I didn’t know how hard the ground was going to be and I hadn’t any time to recce the route beforehand.

I finished in 2:13.  As it was quite hilly, I was expecting just over two hours.  But I was disappointed about my pace over the last forty minutes or so of the run. The pain in my feet was the problem.  After an hour or so I would have phoned someone to give me a lift home – but I didn’t have a phone and no one would have found me anyway.

Looking at the photos of the people who were running with me at about mile 5, I lost between two minutes and eleven minutes (average six minutes).

In terms of the race organisation – fantastic! There were lots of helpful marshals, aid station staff and people with jelly babies.  Lots of signs and marks on the path for the way to go.  At the end they had home made cakes. Brilliant.

And I feel like I have not been out on my bike too much.  A few longer rides, but not as many as I would like.  And I’ve missed quite a few sessions (and ate really badly).

So the plan is to do every planned session over the next couple of weeks leading up to the Reading half marathon two weeks today.  And also eat properly.

The highlight of this week has been:

- to ride on my tri bars for an hour on my rollers without falling over,

- to run 20k in 1:43 on Friday morning before breakfast, and

- to run 10k on the track in 42:01 (not a PB but that’s my fastest run not in a race).

And with just under 11 weeks to go, I need more highlights.

Plan for the coming week is:

Monday:

am: 2,000m swim in wetsuit (to make sure that it is still in one piece)

Done: 30:06 for the 2k at what I think is my Ironman pace (faster at the start, then steady) plus 3 x 400m easy.  Wish I could swim that quickly without the wetsuit!  That swim has made me feel much more confident.  It’s 57:19 for 3.8k.  If I allow for a bit of slowing down then that’s still sub-60 mins.  There was little drafting in the swim as well so I think I am back on target for a good swim.
Wetsuit did has a 2cm horizontal tear a few cm below bottom of zip but should be glue-able.

pm: 7k run home

Tuesday:

am: 45 min on rollers (force)
pm: 60 min run / 12k (negative split)

Wednesday:

am: 50 min run (intervals, so tough)

Thursday:

am: 3.2k swim (400s & 800s with little rest)
pm: 60 min run / 11.5k (easier than Tuesday)

Friday:

am: 16k long run (a bit shorter than usual)

Saturday:

am: 10k run (and watching lots of rugby 7s games)

Sunday:

am: 8k run (and watching a full rugby game)

pm: 2:30 ride (with tempo thrown in)

Weight loss: 1.5kg

To find out, I went to Dorney Lake and did the VOTWO event.  It was two laps around “return” lake rather than the main lake.  At the start, they apologised for having to change the course, apparently something somewhere was flooded.  They did promise that it was still an accurately measured course.

It was quite cold, a bit sunny and most of first 2.5k with running with a strong tail wind.  The next 2k or so has a strong headwind, and had a slight up hill in places.  The last bit had a side wind.

For each 1k segment, my times were:

1k: 3:41, HR=168bpm (last 2 mins)
2k: 3:49, HR=169bpm
3k: 3:53, HR=171bpm
4k: 4:20, HR=174bpm
5k: 4:09, HR=173bpm
6k: 4:04, HR=170bpm (23s slower than first lap, HR shows I eased off a bit)
7k: 3:55, HR=172bpm (6s slower than first lap)
8k: 3:57, HR=173bpm (4s slower than first lap)
9k: 4:12, HR=175bpm (8s quicker than first lap)
10k: 3:59, HR=175bpm (10s quicker than first lap)

I thought that my pacing was quite good.  The first 100m involved dancing around some of the slower runners, including running on the grass a bit.  The rest of the first 1k did feel a bit easy.  I knew I was going quicker than the 4:06 per k I was aiming for but I knew I had the wind with me.  Looking at my times/HR, I did ease off a bit at the start of the second lap.

Another thing about pacing is to see how I compared to others.  Ignoring the 1st k, two people overtook me at around 2.5k, and one person overtook me at 8k. Two other people tried to overtake me at 8k but they didn’t manage it and fell back quite quickly.  I did catch one person at about 8.5k and I made that stick quite easily. So that again suggests that my pacing was quite good.

Actual time was 40:01.  Oh, for those two seconds.  In terms of VDot, it’s just about 52.

Update 3 Feb 2013: Official results are now out.  I did 40:06 per the chip.  But I started back from the front and the chip was one of those finger dab-ing ones that was after the finish line.  Ignoring the lady who smashed the world record for 10k (or just did one lap), I came 12th out of 211 people.  I was also first vet.  If I had known that, I would have stayed and got my prize.

How many times have I said that since September?  More than I can count.  Most of the time, like yesterday, it lasted for a few hours.  Twice it lasted a couple of days.

Anyway, I still need to get rid of a few more pounds so here goes again.

Ride 1: 25 November 2012

Tri bike.  Strong head wind, by myself, out and back route.

80.7k, 26.3kph, Average power 166W, Normalised power 178W, No HR data (left the strap at work) but if I had to guess, I’d say 142bpm, work 1837kJ

Described the ride: “1st hour felt fine, next 30 mins, felt like power was all over the place, settled down after that. Increased effort a bit towards the end”

Ride 2: 9 December 2012

Tri bike.  Strong head wind, by myself, almost the same out and back route.  With Ashley but with almost no drafting.

79.1k, 25.2kph, Average power 168W, Normalised power 181W, Av HR=148bpm , work 1895kJ.  Average speed down a bit as stopped a bit longer part way through.

Description of ride: “With Ashley, so I went harder than wanted. Felt more pressure to push. He was much quicker on the hills but I had my tri bike so was much quicker on flats and downhills. I suffered a lot towards the end. I did pushed hard too often.”

So in summary:

- Ride 1: really good
- Ride 2: went harder but suffered at end, for a couple of extra watts.

So what was the real difference?  Let’s have a look at the numbers…

On the out bit, there was a 1 hour stretch where there were no strops, rolling hills and mostly into the wind.  I was roughly 17 seconds different between the two rides

Ride 1: AP=170W, NP=179W
Ride 2: AP=179W, NP=185W

Ride 2, I was a little bit more confident on a couple of downhills (up to 6.5kph extra).  I think I also pushed a bit harder on the downhills as well.  Another difference is that I didn’t push some of the uphills as hard as I did when I was buy myself.  For example, after I gained quite a lot of ground, I eased back on the uphills (on the way out).  So, I think on the way out of ride 2 I was more constant power, whereas with ride 1 I pushed the uphills a bit more and the downhills/flats a bit less.

On the way back, over that same 1 hour section (which actually took 53 mins on Ride 1, 56 mins on Ride 2), Ride 1: AP=167W, NP=180W and Ride 2: AP=176W, NP=185W.  So, again, I rode at a higher average power on the second ride and more evenly on the second ride.  The reason I was quicker on Ride 1 on the way back because I rode with a stronger wind pushing me along.  But those extra 9 watts or so made quite a difference between how I felt.

The attached picture shows the difference in speed between the two ride.  The blue line is Ride 1, the orange is Ride 2.  Click on the picture and enlarge it to see it in more detail.  You’ll see that some speeds do not tie up and that’s where the route was different.

So, what would you choose? If I had of gone for one, it would have been the malteaser one.

While I didn’t have a milkshake, I did do some exercise in October. Some of it was really good (like the Basingstoke Half Marathon). My swimming has also come back a bit. But it’s still not there. And my biking has a long way to go. But there is another six and a bit months to go so I am not worried. Yet.

While the swimming is only just down on before, the sessions are a bit longer but I missed one because of work.

Biking is a lot down because of various bits and pieces: late back from work, torrential rain and not being able to fit some of the weekend because of rugby and stuff.

Running is again down: I missed a couple of sessions and also took it easy after the Basingstoke Half Marathon.

Eddington Number wise:

Getting better.  The swim numbers are lower than I’d like at this stage.  And it is going to get harder to increase them, but still very possible.

By the end of November, I’d like the swim distance to be at least 23 and mins to be 32.  Bike mins to be 56, bike km will only get to 34k as that’s the normal distance to work.  Run distance will hopefully get to 15k, time to 37 mins.

I got up early this morning and went for a ride to somewhere called Red Rice, then went a bit further turned around and took a slightly longer route back. It wasn’t deliberately a negative split ride but it did turn into one. With the sun low, the contrast between the beautiful sunshine and dark shadows meant that I powered up the hills and then soft pedaled down them. I was nervous about the branches, pot holes, stones, puddles and leaves. The leaves also worried me on the sharper corners, especially around Longparish where there was frost and a bit of fog. The ride out was mostly in to the wind. The ride back with the wind. Lovely. Oh, and I was also warmer on the way back and so I put more effort in.

So I got home, locked the bike away and changed out of my winter kit and into some running kit. I then walked to my normal “start running” point and started my watch.  ”T1″ included a bit of stair climbing and took less than eight minutes. Running wise, I was aiming to run “steady” but I gradually let myself get quicker and thought, why not? I didn’t push the pace but I didn’t slow it. When I looked at my watch at 2k, it said 8:46. Wow! Concentrate on form. 3k. I decided to easy off a bit. But I was on a hill and so didn’t. Concentrate on form. 4k was 17:43. Not bad.

But I was constantly expecting to get the start of pins-and-needles in my left foot. My left Achilles tendon started to ache. Not a good sign. Concentrate on form. A few minutes later, my right Achilles tendon felt the same. Concentrate on form. But no pins-and-needles came. I got home. 34 mins, 7.2k. Loads quicker than ironman pace. But no pins-and-needles.

I punched the air when I finished. Well, no I didn’t. I just smiled.

So the question now is whether the pins-and-needles would have appeared I had run one minute, two minutes, ten minutes more. Let’s hope not. I am happy, but not content. I need a few more longer bricks to find out.

I went for a run the other day and tried to read my watch while I was running.  It took me a few seconds to focus on the numbers I was interested in as my arm was moving around a bit.  Fine.  Today I was doing an easy run on a treadmill with a mirror in front of me.  Behind me was a TV with sub-titles that I could read backwards.  I couldn’t read the words quickly because of the mirroring.  But my eyes stayed focused while running at 12 kph.  Evolution is a weird thing.  Perhaps we evolved to run while focusing on something in the distance.  Or maybe we evolved to watch TV in the gym.  Who knows?