Monday, May 30, 2005

2 wins this weekend.

Raced the Crystal Palace triathlon on Sat, what a great venue for a triathlon, swim was in the 50m pool then 9 laps of the perimeter circuit(all closed roads) then 2 laps similar to the bike lap finishing with 700m on the track. I thought it was great. Lovely weather as well.

On Monday, today I did Thames Turbo race 3, I love this race. Today I had my fastest swim bike and run and broke the course record, I felt better today than yesterday which is a good sign. What is also good is that I have recovered really well from Lanzarote last Sat. I actually trained pretty normally from Tuesday, I have layed of the bike a bit though this week just a bit of Strength(big gear) work(maybe one day I'll have big legs!!).

Bala Middle Dist next Sunday, pretty strong field so we'll have to see how it goes, another great course, although I'm expecting the lake to be a bit nippy.

oh and to anybody reading this who I saw this weekend and said well done for Lanzarote, thanks so much, I do appreciate it.

Monday, May 23, 2005

2 days after Ironman Lanzarote..

Well an Ironman certainly gives you plenty to think about. There is plenty of time for things to happen I suppose.

Straight to the point then; I was 14th, which I'm happy with.

Here's how things unfolded; Woke up in the morning at 1am for a wee, but unlike last year without nausea and diarrhea(food poisoning in 2004)!! So a good start, went back to bed for a few more hrs of z's.

Up at 4am to eat and get ready for the 7am start at sunrise. I went off like a rocket running off the beach into the sea and into the lead at the first buoy then got overtaken and tried to follow the feet(I really need to get better at following feet as I just seemed to slowly drift off from them and so swam most of the 3.8k on my own and came out in 5th, still a good start.

Onto the bike and felt ok, the first guy to come past was the eventual 2nd place Steffen Libetrau who looked super strong. Apart from him I caught a couple of guys and got caught by a couple more and so at half distance I was in 7th place and feeling quite good then at about 100k my back started to really ache and at the top of the last climb it was killing me. The next 60k were a bit uncomfortable especially on the aerobars so I lost a fair bit of time but thought maybe it would save my legs a little for the run.

Onto the run and I was in 9th place, another super quick transition ( note: I had the fastest transitions both T1 & T2(so was quickest in at least 1 of the triathlon disciplines).

I moved up to 8th on the first lap of the run(10k) and was on target for 3hr marathon,...

But I was worried about completely falling apart and having to really slow and so I took it at a comfortable pace I was passed by a few more guys in the intervening laps but I felt I was running at the right pace so stuck to it, I managed to pick up the pace in the last 5k and this is where my frustration starts...............

I only really examined the results the next day to see if I had any chance of a Hawaii spot, on the Hawaii list I was listed as 10th "Pro" because 1 had said no already to a spot and 3 ahead of me were age group winners. So with 7 spots available I had a slim chance it might roll down, well 1 pro didn't take his spot so they read out the next guys name on the list and he was there ready and extremely happy to get the spot, oh well I will get my chance and this being my first Ironman maybe this isn't the time to be racing Hawaii.

Also after studying the results I was only 6min 21secs off of qualifying out right in 7th, such a small margin over Ironman distance!! Infact between me and 5th was only 18min 53 secs! not huge amount. I would of only had to run 3hr 7min marathon, (little voices in my head are saying well if that's all you had to do then why didn't you), I suppose on the day you either run that fast or you don't.

Plenty of positives to take from the race, we move onwards and upwards, I know with more hard work I will keep improving and will gradually get closer to the top which is where i'm aiming.

If you have followed my progress towards Ironman Lanzarote then Thankyou.

Peace out and thanks for reading.

Next Major Target is the ITU World Long Dist Champs on 7th Aug.

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

3 days to go.

Yep nearly there, I leave tomorrow afternoon for the extremely hot and windy Lanzarote. It's always at this point that your supposed to think of all the hard work and long hard training sessions you've put in, but all I can usually think is I don't know if I've done enough (thats really bad mentally, I must practice my posite mental imagery more).

Anyhow the race of truth is on Saturday so we will all know how I compare to some of the best tiathletes in the world come Saturday afternoon. You should be able to keep up with the results on www.ironmanlive.com if anybody wants to see the race in progress.

Got to finish packing now so,

Ciao for now.

Thanks for reading
Stephen

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

I haven't blogged for a while.

I wasn't keen on writing all my excuses for a rubbish run at the London marathon, so all I'll say is I ran rubbish and I hope it is just a small blip in my preparation for Ironman Lanzarote 16days away now.

Apart from the marathon, training seems to be going well, I won the 2nd of the Thames Turbo sprint races and broke my own course record, all I have to do is keep that pace going for 8x the distance and I'm bound to win Lanzarote;)

I have had my new Quintana Roo Lucero for a few weeks now and have been riding it constantly to get completely comfortable on it, it feels good I have a 10mileTT on Saturday and a 50mileTT on Sunday these will be my last races pre Ironman, just some good quality training to do.

Out for a 90mile ride now down to Ditchling, we will have a cup of tea and a tea cake in the middle I think.