Ironman Mark

I ache big time.  My legs and shoulders.  No idea what I did to my shoulders, it may have been the swim on Friday but I don’t think so. 

The legs are suffering because of last night’s run.  For various reasons, yesterday’s long bike became a long run.  I started some time after 7pm and so it was very dark on the unlit “fit track” when I finished.  I did the same route as last week but changed the pacing.  Last week was a negative split run.  Yesterday was 5 min intervals, with 1 min easy recovery.  I worked much harder and ran quicker overall (5 minutes quicker for the same route).

So this morning, I have to do my long bike.  It has to be a point-to-point ride which means that I can’t just tack a bit on to last week’s ride.  If I took the shortest route to “Point B” on the south coast, it would be about 52k.  However, a five hour ride means that I have to do something like 135k.   So I’ve been playing with maps this morning and have worked out that I am going to take a slight detour and go via Salisbury.

What I think is incredible is that I can only just hobble up the stairs at the moment.  Yet, I am going to ride a loooong way!

This week has been pretty poor in terms of training.  I had a sore calf from Friday last week which stayed sore until Tuesday.  Then on Wednesday I hurt my quad when the chain broke.  Wednesday evening I could hardly walk up the stairs.  Even today, it is still sensitive to the touch.

I did a 3hr ride today, followed by a 20 min run.  It was really windy and I had a 60mm front wheel on so I really noticed the gusts.  I was quite scared a lot of the time for the first hour or so and then I felt more confident.  I still don’t plan to use it in Lanza but I figured that if I could get used to the UK winds with a deep front wheel, I will be confident with a normal wheel in the Lanza wheel.

The run was much easier after 3hrs than 4hrs+.  Not sure why but it was.  Because my quad has been really sore I decided to push the pace up a bit on the way back.  That felt fine so I feel confident that I will start at Reading tomorrow.  However, I am not confident that I will be able to finish.  We’ll see.

I did some 30s sprints this afternoon. Some at high cadence, some at low cadence. I was just starting my sixth sprint at low cadence when my chain snapped. My left quad went straight into the handlebar and is now really sore. In fact, it is painful to walk.

Not sure what happened. I guess something got caught in the chain because I can’t see how I could break the metal. You can see from the photo that it wasn’t just a pin coming out.

Luckily I was at the top of a hill a few k from home so I free wheeled home and only had to walk a few hundred metres. I could have fixed it but thought it would be quicker to free wheel home.

…and feeling really good about myself.

That’s the power of exercise!

I’ve just been to the gym and done an hour on the spin bike. The first 20 mins was a warm up. Then I did 20x 1 min all out intervals with the resistance on the highest settings. After that I got off and did 10 mins on the treadmill at 17kph, with a short cool down.

Saturday’s long run went really well. I did the same route that I did a few times last year and was 6 mins quicker. Fantastic!

Sunday’s long bike didn’t go as well as I would have liked. I guess I as pretty tired going into it but I was slower than I would have liked. Also my neck still aches in the aero position. I think I will have a go at moving my aero bars up a little and see if that helps.

Lanzarote is less than 10 weeks away. It’s getting a bit too close for comfort. I am confident about the swim and the run. But still nervous about the bike and especially about my bike position. Stil, I’ve got a few weeks to crack it.

Yesterday I did nothing.  I got to the gym in the evening to do a run, only to find it just about to close.  So I went home, via the petrol station and the shop and ended up doing nothing.

Today, I did well. 4hr bike ride averaging 28.0 kph.  I got home and then went straight out for a run with one of the dogs.  40 minutes, but I will admit to finding it very hard and that I walked when Tango had to be on the lead.

This is a post I originally wrote in November 2008 about my bike fit.  Since I wrote it, I’ve been getting more and more comfortable on my bike.

When I first got my tri bike I had to set it up myself.  I had a play with it but just couldn’t get comfortable.  After a while I decided to get an expensive bike fit.  I spent an hour and a half with them and they videod me, lasered me, looked at me, adjusted things and I came away having spent a fortune on the fitting and a new adjustable stem.

But my arms still weren’t comfortable so I bought some differently shaped tri bar extensions, cut them to size and played with them and they were a bit more comfortable, but not that comfortable.  So I didn’t ride my tri bike too much.  I did a half on it and did better than expected but I wasn’t comfortable enough to do a full ironman on it.  So IMUK was done on my road bike.

I want to do Lanza on my tri bike.  It’ll be quicker into the wind but I need to be comfortable on it.  So I’ve been riding the bike more and getting more used to it.  My arms hurt less, my neck aches a bit, things are improving.

I decided to get a photo of me on my bike.  When I compared it to the pictures on the web, I found my position looked really bad.  So I went back to the set up info the expensive bike fit place gave me and compared the measurements to my bike.  I found the saddle had slipped 6cm.  And I hadn’t noticed it that much!  I also found that the seat angle was quite shallow on the measurements they gave me (74 degrees) compared with the 79 degrees that some people think is good.

I found an article on Slowtwitch which basically said that:

1. From the top of saddle to the end of aerobars (just before the shifters) should be the same distance as the top of the saddle is to the BB.

2. 79 degrees is good for most people

3. The drop between saddle and arm rests should be calculated by a simple formula (that gave 12cm of drop for me).

So armed with this info, a bit of trig, a spirit level, a long bit of wood and a tape measure I made some changes to my bike.  Saddle went forward, bars went down and forwards.  The result: the bike is comfortable-ish (it really does depend on what bike shorts I wear), there is a bit more pressure on my arms and my neck aches a lot more.  But there is no sign of any drop off in power and (I think) the position is more aero.

The neck ache should hopefully go as I get used to it.  I will be riding my tri bike a lot more than last year (four times a week at the moment).  Wearing the “right” bike shorts all the time will help.  I do need to work a little on my arm position still.

What I do find incredible though is that I can get a “better” bike position very quickly by following a very simple formula.  Obviously I don’t know what it is going to be like in a months time.  I might hate it.  But at the moment, it has potential.  So I am chuffed.

… before Lanzarote.

How do I feel?  Generally pretty good.  I nearly always ache these days though.  Sunday’s and Monday’s are probably the achiest days of the week but then again every day aches.

In terms of swim, bike, run? 

- Swim: no worries.  I am swimming more than ever. 

- Run: I can do it.  I am running more than ever too.  The “average” of my runs is more than an hour (compared with 40 or so minutes last year).  Also, all my running is being done at a much faster pace this year.  However, most of it at the moment is on a treadmill.  But that is getting me stronger in the mind.

- Bike: This is the issue.  I don’t feel I am good enough yet.  My legs just aren’t as strong as my heart and lungs at the moment.  Also, I am not hugely comfortable in the aero position at the end of my long rides.  But there is a lot of time to go yet.

Yesterday I did a 4 hour ride.  I didn’t run straight after but I did a 50 min run later in the afternoon.  This was cross country, in the rain and mud, with the dogs.   They loved it!  They slept a lot afterwards!

I got up a bit later than normal today as I had a breakfast meeting in London and so wasn’t going to do any exercise this morning.  And I looked out and saw more snow.  Another 2 inches or snow.  This will make it hard to get to the main road as I couldn’t get to my house using the normal road yesterday afternoon.   Texted one of the people I was having breakfast with and the meeting is now cancelled.  So, I am working from home.   Schools out as well so working from home’s not going to be as easy as it could be.

I went to the gym yesterday and did 90 mins on one of their spin bikes.  First 45 mins was easy, next 35m was “hard” and the last 10m was a cool down.  I was listening to a podcast on the easy and first part of the “hard” bit.  When I put some fast music on, I realised that the first bit of “hard” was more “uncomfortable” than hard so I really picked up the effort and felt very virtuous in doing so.  A good day exercise wise