I want to be a rugby referee.

Why?

I am not entirely sure but I do.

I have also been doing some things about it. I’ve been to a couple of  Rugby Referee Society meetings where I have met other referees, I have had a go at learning the rules.  Well laws, mentioning rules is a bad thing for rugby folk.  I’ve also booked myself on an Entry Level Refereeing Award course later this month.  Not only that but I have spent quite a lot of time watching games.  I find it very hard to understand what exactly is happening on the pitch, but I am getting better.

I also find that I am sticking up for the referee a lot more in the games.

I have also found a rugby refs forum, a site with 449 questions on the laws and even played a bit of touch rugby.

So what’s up with triathlon?  I’ve lost motivation over the last couple of years and so the plan is to spend more time running, swimming and rowing (and refereeing rugby) and less time on the bike.  I’ll still do triathlons but I am going to be taken in much less seriously than I did in, for example, 2009.

The picture above is at Ellingham and Ringwood rugby club.  It’s kind of worrying that signs like that are needed.

- Swim: 3:18

- Bike: 26:40 (actual time moving)

- Run: 2:00

- Total: 31:58

Swim wise: Got stung by a few purple jellyfish.  Was surprisingly fast in a swim race – probably the waviest sea swim I have ever done.

Bike wise: I was way too slow compared with what I used to be.  I finished that IM course well, pushing the last hour. But my FTP has fallen hugely.

Run wise: This week wasn’t about the run.  I ran off a bike ride and my feet started to go numb after 27 minutes (left) and 32 minutes (right).  I did notice that my right achilles burnt when I stretched my foot part way through the run.

Tomorrow morning I go to Lanzarote for a week of sunshine, wind, sea and exercise.

My goal is to take my time and enjoy it.

My times are going down though.  The plan has been to use paddles and pull buoys to do lots of 100m’s.  The rest intervals for the session is a planned 10 seconds but sometimes it is a bit longer as I need to tie in with other people in the pool.

My average times have got quicker over the three weeks, but why?

1. I have got better!  I hope so.

2. My tumble turns are more consistent.

3. I am trying harder (i.e. putting in more effort).  Perhaps.  More likely it feels easier to put the effort in.

4. I am drafting more.  Perhaps.  There were two quick-ish people in the lane today and I couldn’t help drafting a bit.

5. I have “gamed” my watch.  The software hasn’t been updated but I notice that I glide in the last little bit so as to touch with my watch hand first.

Here’s a graph of my times.  Most of the sessions are at least 3k long (one is just 900m averaging 1:44 as I wasn’t feeling well).  Even if the whole of the 11s per 100m is not all me getting quicker, I think it is still quite good in three weeks.  But I do need to start doing more on my bike…

- Paulo Sousa: Practice makes perfect (and a few days before, one of his tweets: “Technique goes a long way in swimming, but it’s nothing without fitness. Working on your fitness works on technique. The opposite is not true”)

- Joel Filliol’s blog: The Top 20 Rules for Faster Triathlon Swimming

Paulo’s tweet and Joel’s blog really rang a bell for me.  In particular:

- Swim more often
- Do longer main sets
- Use paddles with awareness of engaging lats (which ties in with what I was doing before my first Lanzarote Ironman)
- Do many short repetitions for stroke quality
- Repetition is your friend

So, on Sunday I did 30x100m (first 1k-ish without paddles, the rest with) with 10s rest at the end of each 100m.  I then did the same every day over the rest of the week but this time with paddles on all the time.  The number of intervals also increased on the days when I had more time.  A few times I did 150m when I should have done 100m.  A couple of times I stopped to talk to someone in the lane but in general I was very “honest” about the 10s-ish rest.  All of the sessions were recorded automatically on my watch without me pressing any buttons.  This morning I added a few more laps to get to exactly 20,000m (roughly 12.4 miles).

Average pace per 100m:

- Sunday: 1:48

- Monday: 1:48

- Tuesday: 1:43

- Wednesday: 1:44

- Thursday: 1:44

- Friday: 1:44

The aim in terms of pace was (i) to be consistent so that I would not slow down significantly at the end (ii) but at a level that meant that it was my arms that ached rather than my lungs.  I think I achieved that.

Tomorrow I will give swimming a rest but the plan for next week is similar but a bit different.  Work will stop me swimming on a couple of days and so it won’t be as frequent.  Also, I plan to include some groups of 3x in the hundreds where I will go a bit faster but have a 30s rest at the end of the third interval.

The summary of what I have done is:

Swim: 5:23

Bike: 10:12

Run: 7:54

Row: 2:50

Rugby: 1:00

Total: 27:19

So, that is an average of 2 hours 16 mins over the 12 days (and 2 hours 43 mins over 10 days).

In the afternoon I did 21,097m on the rowing machine in 1 hour 29 mins 37s.  That was hard and I spent quite a bit of time shaking once I had finished.  Weird.  I did well for the first 63 minutes.  Then I ran out of music and I didn’t want to get off to put something else on.  After that the pace slowed a little more than a fraction.

My previous personal best (before triathlon) was in April 2004 when I did 1:39:44.  So, in nearly eight years, I have improved by just over 10 minutes.  Not bad.

All-in-all I did 3 hours 56 mins (plus puncture stops).  The power that I put out was pretty poor though.

The afternoon was spent walking the dog in the pouring rain.  I quite enjoyed that.

So, my goal is to be less than 70kg by 23 March 2012.  But to avoid me going on a crash diet the week before, I’ll set myself two way points:

Now: 75.7kg

31 January 2012 target: 73.6kg

29 February 2012 target: 71.5kg

23 March 2012 target: 69.9kg

The plan is to give £100 to this (anti-) charity if I don’t hit each of the targets.  The money will roll forward so that if I meet the first two but don’t get to under 70kg then they will get the whole of the £300.

5.8kg is around 12.8 pounds.  So that is roughly a pound per week.  Very achievable.  And if I don’t achieve it, very embarrassing paying the money to my anti-charity.