Category: challenge weymouth

The big one, Challenge Weymouth 2015

On By 00snookIn challenge weymouth, Chestnut Tree House, ironmanLeave a comment


It’s 04:30am on Sunday 13th September and my alarm has just gone off.  Must be time for Challenge Weymouth!

Warning – this blog post is quite lengthy.  You might want to get a cuppa before reading!

Bushy, Mike, Curry and I had traveled down to Weymouth on the Friday to register and collect our gear for the Sunday.  Bushy, Mike and I were competing in the full event, with Curry competing in the half distance event.  By way of a reminder, the full event was a 2.4 mile swim, 112 miles on the bike then at 26.2 mile run.  An Ironman triathlon that very few attempt.  In Weymouth there would be 500 full distance athletes, and 700 taking part in the half.

Registration

Arriving at the Weymouth Pavilion to register on Friday Bushy and I were asked our first question of the weekend “are you doing the full or the half?”  “Full”, we replied in unison.  The guy smiled, said well done and advised us to go upstairs to register.  I couldn’t help but notice that his smile was a rather wry one.  Did he know something I didn’t?




Weymouth bay from Pavilion balcony

We soon had out timing chips, transition bags and complimentary Challenge Weymouth backpack and we were out on the balcony where we caught our first glimpse of the finish line.  I must admit there was a lump in my throat. It was becoming very apparent that at this point there was no going back.  I was going to compete in the ultimate endurance events. I had never felt less ready.



I was staying in a nearby village (massive thanks to Giles’ folks for the house) so I said goodbye to the others and went off to find the house I was staying in. We met up again later that evening for the pasta party.  Put on by the organisers, this was an opportunity to eat as much pasta as you can stuff in, check out some of the other competitors and be introduced to a few of the pros who would also be competing.  

Pasta Party selfie


In 2015, Challenge Weymouth was also doubling as the ETU Long Distance Championships, meaning that there would be athletes representing their countries at various age groups.  There were also the usual elite amateurs and professional athletes competing at this Challenge event.

The pasta party was again in the Pavilion, and I think it is fair to say that the building could do with a bit of an update. I described the inside decor as being like “the worst wedding you have even been to.”  You can see for yourself what you think from my lovely selfie I took.   

Following some brief interviews with some of the better known pros, we stayed for a bit to listen to the strangest band I have every heard, eventually parting ways and agreeing to meet up again in the morning to rack our bikes and drop off our transition bags.

This was new territory to me.  On Saturday we had to leave our bikes in transition, along with 2 bags.  These are the bag to take you from swim to bike, then another bag for bike to run.  My usual style is to do all of my preparation at the eleventh hour; however on this occasion I was forced to be organised and have all my stuff prepared to rack on Saturday.

Bike racked

Meeting up with the others on Saturday I had packed my bags and was confident everything was in place as I had double and triple checked.  The bike was popped onto the rack, the bags put in place and then the rest of the afternoon was free to meet up with some of my gang of supporters and relax as much as possible ahead of the race on Sunday.

Relaxing with my wife in our accommodation the night before the race I was feeling good.  As usual, I was convinced I had done nowhere near enough training.  I am fairly sure that 99% of triathletes feel exactly the same way, especially before an Ironman race.  Other than this niggling doubts about my training, I was extremely excited for the race and genuinely looking forward to it.  My wife Cat had clearly gotten all the nerves that I should have had, as she was very worried about the race and mostly my welfare during the race.  An Ironman is not to be taken lightly.

Waking up at 04:30am I felt sick.  This was nerves and I knew it.  Forcing down a cup of tea and a bagel we gathered the final bits and bobs I would need and headed down into Weymouth.  Arriving in transition it was dark.  I checked my bike to make sure the tyres hadn’t mysteriously deflated in the night, added some rice cakes into my transition bag for eating on the ride and then met up with Bushy, Mike and Curry.  Soon it was time to put my wetsuit on and join the other athletes in the “holding pens”.  

Before I did that I wanted to make sure I said hello to Rooke, Louise, Mr Palmer, Nicola and my Mum and Dad who had all come down to support.  Dashing around at the last minute I managed to see them all and get a big hug from everybody.  My wife had been with me all morning and she gave me a final hug and I was off with Bushy and Mike to await our turn to swim.  Curry would go later on in the half distance race.

For some bizarre reason they were playing extremely ominous music at the start.  The sort of music you would get if you were waiting for a ride at Alton Towers.  It did little to calm my nerves, but luckily I was not really feeling that nervous.  All the hard work was behind me.  The 100’s of hours of training was done.  All I had left to do now was 140.6 miles in less than 16 hours and I would be an official finisher.  I would also be an Ironman.  Just writing these words brings a grin to my face.  Little did I know at the time what sort of journey I would have over the remainder of the day.  At this point I was still unsure I would even finish.  So much can go wrong and up to 10% of Ironman entrants can fail to finish on a bad day.

As usual with my triathlon races that have open water starts, I chose to keep to the back and the side during the first part of the swim.  Positioning myself alongside Bushy and Mike I turned to both of them and had a final hug and words of good luck. The starting horn sounded and I waded into Weymouth Bay to start my swim.

When you are my level of fitness, the name of the game in Ironman is to take things nice and slow.  I settled into my swimming beautifully and was glad I spent so much time training in the Solent over the summer.  I got one elbow the ribs and kicked in the face as the bunch thinned out, but this was nothing to worry about and I felt relaxed and was swimming well.  Overtaking quite a few people I was constantly telling myself to slow down; however I was not swimming particularly quickly and felt great as I slowly moved my way up through the pack.  The swim was out for 700 metres, along the coast for 500 metres and then back to the beach to complete the first lap.  There would be two laps to total 3.8km (2.4 miles). Rounding the first buoy I was swimming strong and feeling great.  Round the second buoy I was on my first trip back towards the beach.  1200 metres swum, only 2600 metres to go.  

Arriving at the beach I stumbled out of the water only to hear a shout of “Snooky!”  Bushy has swum his first lap at almost exactly the same speed as me and as we made our way along the beach to start the second lap we exchanged some words.  We were both so pleased to be one lap done and started on our Ironman journey.  Into the water for the second lap, I was presented with considerably larger waves on the way out.  The weather was closing in and the swimming was becoming much more challenging.  Never the less I swam on.  Round the first buoy, underneath me I saw an absolute whopper of a jellyfish.  It was about 10 feet below me, but the crystal clear water of Weymouth Bay meant I could see it in all its glory.  Hoping not to bump into one of these beauties, I swam on through the choppy conditions.  

Round the final buoy and back towards the shore I felt my left calf start to cramp.  This is standard for me during long swims.  I almost always get calf cramp.  I tried my best to keep breathing and not to tense up and managed (by swimming more slowly) to get to the shore without the calf properly cramping.  As I climbed onto the stony beach I saw my wife and the support crew shouting and hollering at me.  It was great to see them and I gave them my biggest smile as I made my way up the beach and across the road into transition.

Into transition, I grabbed my T1 bag and made my way into the changing tent.  Presented with all manor or semi naked men, I spotted a clear changing bench near the exit of the tent and made my way towards it.  Once again I head a shout of “Snooky”.  Turning in the direction of the shout I saw Bushy, one leg raised onto the bench towelling himself dry, as naked as the day he was born.  Now Bushy is called Bushy because of his extremely hairy nature.  Not a single inch of his body is hair free.  Seeing him in all his hairy glory was hardly what I needed; however I took a spot on the next bench and started chatting to him about what was to come.  112 miles of cycling.  I couldn’t wait. 

Past my support crew

Changing into my cycling gear we were on our way to grab our bikes.  Bikes collected we were soon out of transition and off on the bike leg.  

There are strict “anti-drafting” rules in place at most triathlons, so I settled into my riding with Bushy about 15 metres in front of me so I could not be accused of any cheating.  Once again, the name of the game was to take it very very slowly.  There was a long way to ride and Ironman competitions are full of stories of people going too fast on the first part of the bike leg and suffering for it later on.  All I had to do was eat and drink on schedule and keep the pedals turning round.  At some point into the first lap (around 20km in I think) I overtook Bushy going up a hill.  He hates hills so this was not a surprise.  

Onwards on the first lap of the bike course every time I needed to stop for a wee, or went through an aide station to top up my drink Bushy was behind me.  I later found out that his entire tactic on the bike leg was just to keep me in view and he knew he would be doing OK.  We had a target time for the bike leg of less than 8 hours.  Having completed the swim in 1.5 hours, this would leave us 6 hours for the marathon (when you allow time for transiton).

Awesome banner my wife had made

100’s of speedier riders were flying past me but I didn’t care.  This was my race and I was racing it on my terms.  It was not a case of finishing fast, just a case of finishing.  Ironman is tough and must be respected.  There was nothing to be gained by riding quickly and then being unable to finish the race.  At the end of the first lap (90km, or 56 miles if you prefer) I was feeling strong and gave a huge smile to my wife and others as I turned the cone near transition to start the second lap.

There were a lot fewer riders on the second lap.  Most of the full distance athletes were ahead of me.  Also all athletes who were competing in the half Ironman had gotten off their bikes after one lap to start their running, so the course was nice and empty.  Soon after starting our second lap Bushy rode up alongside me and we started chatting.  There was no risk of being in trouble for drafting with us riding side-by-side, plus I don’t think that anybody really cared about us as we were so far towards the back.  As we rode on chatting I was loving my Ironman bike ride.  I was riding in beautiful scenery with one of my best mates by my side and best of all, I was competing in an Ironman.  I felt superb.

Mostly this was down to me getting my eating and drinking regime just right.  I knew how much food I could tolerate from all my practice rides and just meant sure to keep on eating on schedule.  A rice cake ever 30 minutes, followed by a gel every other 30 minutes.  1 bottle of drink per hour to wash it all down.  Plus we both had our secret weapon, a couple of brioche each.  These are delicious when you get fed up of gels and rice cakes.

Bushy and I also started to overtake a few people as we approached the 80 mile mark.  Clearly our “slow at the start” tactic was working and some of our fellow athletes were struggling.  On and on we cycled.  We discussed that at the pace we were going at we were looking at around 7.5 hours on the bike.  Not bad at all.  At around the 100 mile mark I could sense that Bushy was starting to struggle.  We had been cycling for over 6.5 hours and had a long uphill drag to go before a quick descent into Weymouth.  Keeping my pace going, I knew he would stick behind me and not let me get too far into the distance.  He is a competitive sod and wouldn’t let me get away that easily.

I too was starting to struggle a bit, but I knew that I was almost there on the bike.  100 miles done.  12 to go.  Seems amazing even writing this now, but I was really feeling OK.  Up the final drag and then a quick downhill into Weymouth we were then riding the final straight along the bay into transition.  We could see all the runners plodding along the seafront and would soon be joining them.  Little did I know how tough this run would be.

Into transition we grabbed our T2 bags and then back into the changing tent.  Unfortunately it had been raining a bit and when I got my running gear out of my bag it was all soaking wet.  Putting on wet gear is never the nicest.  I must admit I was not happy with the organisers for leaving everybody’s gear outside in the rain to just get wet.  Surely they would have a contingency planned for rain.  We were competing in England after all.

These were well earned

Anyway despite me grumbling about this, Bushy and I were soon out of transition and running together on our first of 4 laps.  The plan was to collect an armband at the start of lap 1.  Once you had collected all 4 armbands you only had that remaining lap and you were done and would forever be an Ironman.  This sounds simple enough, except that the distance we had to cover was a full marathon and we had both already been exercising for over 9 hours.  Marathons are hard when you are fresh.  They are even harder when you have just finished a 2.4 mile swim and an 112 mile bike ride.

Needing to be factored into this was the weather.  It was incredibly overcast, very very windy and only looked like getting worse.  As the wind whipped up it blew sand into our faces as we ran down the shore.  At this point we hadn’t even collected our first armband.  How ever were we going to get this run done?

The support was excellent as we slowly jogged on, stopping at each feed station for a drink, some crisps, flat coke (nectar to a triathlete) or an energy gel.  I was struggling to stomach anything but knew how important it was to stay hydrated.  The marathon stage of an Ironman is where I was most likely to fail. Running is not my strength.  I had suffered crippling cramp when I ran at Brighton Marathon in April and that wasn’t that long ago.  What was going to happen?

I think we have one armband on here.
Must be end of lap 2

We managed our first couple of laps with no major incidents and soon had two armbands.  We were approximately half way done and then the weather turned on us.  Severely turned on us.  The wind remained, but it started to rain…….HARD.  Quickly I was soaked through, having put on only a running vest to run in.  The running conditions were awful and we had at least 2 hours of running still to do, if not more.  Pushing ourselves through we got our third armband and were back along the shore into a hurricane on our next lap.

At this point Bushy really started to struggle.  His head was down and his pace slowed hugely.  We had been running non stop, so I suggested we started to adopt a walk/run strategy, walking for a bit to help recover and feel a bit better.  This was working OK, but Bushy was still in big trouble.  Remarkably I felt OK and he told me to push on so he could chase me.  Once again his competitive nature meant he would not let me go so I pushed on, regularly calling back to him to make sure he was still with me.  We had been side-by-side since the second lap of the bike race and there was no way I was going to leave him behind now.  It was dark, raining like a monsoon, windy as you can imagine and we needed each other more than ever.  

Between lap 3 and 4.
Bushy starting to struggle at this point

As is the way with endurance racing, Bushy had hit “the wall”.  This is notorious amongst distance athletes and all you need to do is push through it.  Once you get to the other side you start to feel better and get a “second wind”.  I knew if Bushy just kept going he would be OK, and sure enough he was.  It was around this point that we worked out we had 10km to go and more than 2.5 hours left before the race cut off.  I knew that we could run 10k in 2.5 hours.  I just knew it.  A huge rush of euphoria hit me as I started to genuinely believe I would complete the race.  

Sadly it was not much longer until I no longer felt this way.  My main issue was that I was freezing.  The wind and rain had not let up for hours and I was in a running vest and shorts.  Luckily we were on our final lap with only 6km to go; however I felt absolutely awful.  I couldn’t stop shaking and I was more cold than I had ever felt before.  Chatting to Bushy, I said to him how I had read stories of people getting this close on and Ironman and then failing.  Being unable to make the final few kilometres no matter how hard they pushed.  I was terrified this would be me.

Start of the final lap

Luckily for me, Bushy was there to spur me on.  He reminded me of how far I had come and why I was there.  Thinking about my supporters and all of the families that Chestnut Tree House support I gave myself a good talking to, sucked it up and started running again.  I had come too far, trained too hard.  No way was I quitting.

I owed it to my wife, my family, Steve and Lou and every single person who had sponsored me to get this race done.  Even if I had to crawl I would get through this next 6km and finish.

We plodded on, walking for a bit then running for a bit.  With about 3km left we just ran.  Not fast, but we kept running.  As we rounded the final point and had only 400 metres to the finish, we started to get a bit emotional.  We had done it.  We would finish.  Bushy and I both had a tear in our eye but as he quite rightly said “man up Snooky, we can’t go over the line crying, we are Ironmen”.  

I couldn’t have done it without him and told him so.  He felt exactly the same way.  We were so lucky to be similarly matched in fitness so we could bike the second lap and run the whole marathon together.  Who knows what might have happened if we had to go it alone.

And across the line we go.

Through into the finishing chute and the music started blaring.  I was going mental, shouting at the top of my lungs, hands in the air.  We had done it.  140.6 miles (or 226km) of effort.  15 hours and 15 minutes.  We were, and will always be known as Ironmen.  


The best hug EVER
L-R Mike, Bushy, Me, Curry

Collecting our medals it was straight over to say hello to and most importantly give massive hugs to our family and friends.  I saw my wife and simply said to her “What a thing” as I leant forward for the best hug of my entire life.  The emotion I felt was like nothing I had ever experienced before or since.  Utter relief combined with a huge sense of accomplishment.  I was so pleased to see her, my parents and my friends.  Our friend Mike had already finished quite a bit before (he is a fit old chap) and we posed for a group photo along with Curry who had done the half earlier that day too.  


Challenge Weymouth was complete.  Soon I was to be told that I had also hit my fundraising target.  I was overjoyed.  Not only was I an Ironman, but I had raised enough money to pay for a days care at Chestnut Tree House.  Phenomenal.  

As this blog post has become rather lengthy, I will spare you all the details of how I felt afterwards and how long it took me to warm up (but it was quite a while).  What I would like to do is say huge thanks to some very special people who came down on the day to support.

To my Grazing Saddles buddies, their relevant WAGs, Palmer and Nicola, huge thanks for being there on the day to support me.  It meant so much.

To my parents, thank you for braving the freezing cold conditions to support your son. Next time I will make sure to compete somewhere a bit warmer!

To Louise and Steve.  From the bottom of my heart thank you for letting me compete in honour of your lovely daughter Amber.  I hope that what I achieved in her memory lives long in yours.  She may be gone but never forgotten.  I shall continue to fundraise for her until I can no longer do so.

Bushy, what can I say to you.  We trained together, spent endless hours debating eating strategies and racing strategies.  It was an absolute pleasure to have you by my side during the event and I really do hope that perhaps we can do it again one day.

Finally, the biggest thanks and eternal love to my beautiful wife Cat.  You suffered through my endless training, looking after our two girls on your own whilst I was cycling or swimming or running for hours on end.  You put up with me talking incessantly about triathlon.  You didn’t complain when I spent a fortune on triathlon gear.  You were there to reassure me when I felt low and didn’t think I would ever be fit enough to become an Ironman.  The biggest thing of all, you suffered emotionally more than I can imagine whilst I was out there on the course.  The race was harder for you than it was for me.  I am eternally grateful for the support that you gave me, for you allowing me to complete this huge challenge.  I love you millions and trillions.

That’s it folks, the story of Challenge Weymouth.  Sorry it has taken me so long to post this.  Hope you have enjoyed the read.

Many people have asked me what’s next.  Well keep your eyes on the blog for my future plans.

Finally there is a video on YouTube of Bushy and I crossing the line.  The look on my face when I hug my wife perfectly sums up what becoming an Ironman is all about.  If you are reading this and thinking of doing it yourself, my advice would be to get one booked and get out training.  It was one of the greatest experiences of my life.  Never to be forgotten.

Click play to see us crossing the line. Thanks to Neil for the video.

TTFN

Snooky























16 days to go – now to get rid of my cold!

On By 00snookIn bike, biking, challenge weymouth, Chestnut Tree House, competition, cycling, fundraising, ironman, Middle distance Triathlon, motivation, sponsorship, swimming, trainingLeave a comment

I have a cold.  I have had a cold for over a week now .  It just doesn’t seem to be going away.  I caught this cold off of my kids and we have a whole household of coughing, spluttering, snotty people.  Nobody has escaped.

All logic says that when you have a cold you shouldn’t train.  You should give your body time to recover from it’s illness and then resume training once you feel better.  Quality, after all, is better than quantity.

Ignoring my own advice, on Sunday 24th August Bushy and I went down to Weymouth to ride the Ironman bike course, all 112 miles of it.  I felt less than brilliant when he picked me up just before 6am on the Sunday.  My cold was in full effect, energy levels were very low and I had slept appallingly.  Usually Bushy and I will banter away with each other constantly when we meet up, but on this morning he commented that I seemed to have nothing to say for myself.  Clearly I wasn’t firing on all cylinders.

Arriving at Weymouth

The weather forecast for Sunday morning in Weymouth was bad.  Not light rain, but heavy rain and wind.  Regular blog readers will know how much I love riding in the wind.  Unperturbed, Bushy and I trundled along down the south coast towards Weymouth.  As we got closer and closer the weather closed in and by the time we arrived it was like a monsoon.  We parked in the car park that will be the transition area on the day of the race.  As you can see from the picture, the weather was not the best.

Following a brief discussion, mostly consisting of “are we really going to do this” we got out of the car and started to get ready.  The plan was to create an aid station in the boot of Bushy’s car.  We would carry enough food and water to get us round one lap of the 56 mile course, stopping halfway to resupply and then go around again.  Neither of us are particularly quick on the bike, so we were aiming for 4 hours for each lap. This is an average speed of 14mph, which is by no means fast but about right for our Ironman bike pace.  Remember that we have to run a marathon after cycling 112 miles so we need to leave something in the tank!

You can just make out our
new friend and his bike

Getting ready to ride at the same time was a very nice chap who told us he was there to ride the bike course in preparation for his first ever Ironman.  He was older than us, but whippet thin and one of those people who just looked fit.  Tall and lean with a very nice beard, he clearly knew he was a better triathlete than us and we clearly knew it too.  I remarked to Bushy that I often wonder what other triathletes think of us when we meet them.  We looked like two blokes who woke up one day and said “lets do an Ironman”.  He looked like a seasoned and well prepared campaigner.  It is funny how accurate looks can be at times.

Chatting further with our new friend, it turned out he was going for one lap round the course as he was in his “taper”.  A taper is when you reduce your training load to allow your body to maximise its strength and endurance ahead of your race. Made popular by top flight endurance athletes who train really hard and then back down to allow their body to reach peak fitness, it has slipped into the amateur ranks and many triathletes spend as much time talking about tapering as they do talking about how light their bikes are.  Anyway, he was tapering 3 weeks out from the event, which is a fairly long taper.  Each to their own I suppose, plus only an Ironman triathlete would consider a 56 mile bike ride to be “reducing their training”.  Soon we finished chatting and he was off into the gloom and rain on his very nice looking bike.  

Not long after this, after a considerable bit of messing about (I am the master of messing about), we headed off into the gloom ourselves.  It was raining…….hard.  The first part of the bike course is a climb up onto the “Ridgeway” and then you have about 35 miles of rolling Dorset countryside before another long gentle climb and then a drop back down into Weymouth.

One lap of the bike course

We made sure to stick to our nutrition plan (something to eat every 30 minutes) and cycled along, sticking fairly closely to our target average speed.  It was very very wet and we rode through numerous puddles and areas of standing water.  Within about 20 minutes we were both soaked…….and we stayed that way.

In nice weather I imagine the bike course would be absolutely beautiful, but in the rain and gloom it was hard to see where you were going, let alone any sort of view.

Cool map showing the topography of the course

Towards the end of the ride I started to feel bad.  Just lacking in energy.  Slow and lethargic. It was obvious that my cold had caught up to me.  I was pleased to have gotten as far as I had before feeling poor. Bushy whizzed off into the distance and I was playing catch up.  I had very little in the tank, was freezing cold and my wet clothing had rubbed my skin in a few places that you don’t want rubbed. Approaching the end of the first lap there was no way I was going out for a second. Competing in weather like this is fair enough. Riding for “fun” in awful conditions is something quite different.  

When we got back to the car for the end of lap one I told Bushy that I was done.  When it came to calling it a day, he didn’t take much convincing and soon we were into our dry clothes and on the way home to Pompey.

Despite not making the full 112 miles, 56 miles had been ridden in awful conditions.  The best part about it is that we had completed one lap of the course in just over 3hrs 35mins, which was 25 minutes faster than planned.  We had also averaged 15mph, 1mph faster than planned and allowing for the awful weather this was a great result.

On the day, in decent weather and when I do not have a cold (hopefully) then I think the bike course will be great.  112 miles is a very different beast than 56; however as soon as I start lap 2 of my bike ride on the 13th September I will know that all I have left is 56 miles of cycling and a marathon.

Whilst to most this sounds like a lot, to me I am half way done and only have half way to go. I will be half way to being an Ironman!

Before I go, a very quick update on my fundraising. I am absolutely delighted to say that I am 60% of my way towards my fundraising target of paying for a day’s care at Chestnut Tree House.  The generosity that people have shown towards my endeavour is astounding, with well over £4000 raised so far.  A brilliant total, so to those of you reading this who have donated thank you from the bottom of my heart.  You have been with me every step of the way during my training.  Every time I go for a swim, ride or run I think about those kids at Chestnut and all of the kind people who have donated to my cause.

It sounds like a cliche, but at some of my lowest points during training the kind words and donations that my supporters have given me have picked me back up again.  I cannot lie about it, training for this Ironman has been tough, but it has also been the greatest journey of my life so far.  In 16 days time that journey comes to its end.  I will have covered 10’s of 1000’s of miles in training.  I will have only 140.6 miles to go.  Nothing to it……………….right?

TTFN

Snooky









Sometimes you have to look backwards to go forwards

On By 00snookIn challenge weymouth, Chestnut Tree House, cycling, ironman, motivation, running, swimming, triathlonLeave a comment

As a triathlete, or any sort of endurance sport enthusiast you are almost constantly looking forwards.  You strive to beat previous times, run quicker, swim faster, cycle better.  This is fueled by websites such as Strava or Garmin Connect, which allow you to record your workouts and then compare them to previous efforts or to other athletes.

It is very easy to become obsessed with this.  “Last time I rode up Portsdown hill in 5min 11 seconds and today it has taken me 6 minutes……..I must be getting slower” or “I am the 112th fastest person who has run along that section of road, but only 116 have ever run it.  I am shockingly bad at running”.


Click on the link to the right of this post
to follow me on Strava

Thoughts like these will often pass through my mind as I am reviewing my workouts.  Of course I tell myself that this sort of analysis is essentially pointless.  The only way you can really compare two workouts is if the conditions during those workouts are exactly identical.  Same weather, same time of day, same amount of sleep the night before, same nutrition, same gear worn, same everything.  Naturally some days you feel faster and some slower, depending on training load, nutrition and sleep.  I know all of this, but never the less I still pour over the data and run myself down for not being quicker.

Every once in a while somebody reminds me of where I have come from and why I should feel hugely proud of myself.  Usually this is one of my mates who I regularly exercise with.  I will moan and groan about how I am still slow or unfit, and the guys retort by reminding me of just how far I have come. 

In the constant pursuit of becoming fitter, leaner, more muscly or whatever else you might be training for it is only too easy to lose sight of where you came from. In August 2013 I couldn’t run to the end of my road.  I would get out of breath walking up the stairs. In August 2015 I can cycle over 100 miles with relative ease, have completed a marathon and can swim for pretty much as long as I like.  To be honest I am barely recognisable from the man I was two years ago.  Broadly speaking I look the same on the outside (other than being bit thinner) but inside beats the heart of a proper endurance athlete.  OK I’m not the fastest.  Agreed, I may consistently finish in the bottom 3rd of my races, but who cares.  

It is an interesting feeling being only 29 days away from the Ironman, what will be without a doubt the biggest challenge of my life so far.  I am hugely excited to be racing and massively proud to be representing and raising money for Chestnut Tree House.  Coupled with that is the fear of what I have signed myself up for (as mentioned in the previous blog post).  Fear of the unknown.  

One thing that I know for certain is the man I was in 2013 would have had absolutely no chance at all of finishing an Ironman.  As for the man I am today, well I guess in 29 days we will find out.

TTFN

Snooky






Fundraising and abject terror (not necessarily in that order)

On By 00snookIn challenge weymouth, Chestnut Tree House, cycling, fundraising, running, swimmingLeave a comment
As my wife posted on Facebook this morning, today marks one month until my Ironman race.

30 days to be precise.  I have reacted to this information with abject terror.  A chill ran down my spine when I read her post.  It really actually is 30 days.  There is no way around it.  30 days from now at 6.30am I will be dressed in a wetsuit, swim hat and goggles.  Along with my friends Mike and Bushy I will run into the sea at Weymouth to start 16 hours of non stop exercising. I am genuinely shaking at the thought.

Yesterday I felt fine.  My training has been going OK, I managed the Half Ironman reasonably well and my confidence was fairly high.  Today I am panicking.  I think that self doubt is inevitable when it comes to undertaking such a huge challenge; however I have never felt as nervous as this before.  God only knows what I am going to be like in 30 days time.

Anyway enough of me being a Nervous Nigel.  I have a some people to thank.  

4 weeks ago now a group of people got together for a party.  The party was a garden games party, hosted by Jean and Vince who are soon to become my sister’s in-laws.  They have held summer games parties for a while; however this year they decided to raise some money for Chestnut Tree House.

Fantastic Gardens
They were inspired by the same thing I was, the story of Louise, Steve, their daughter Amber and the amazing support that Chestnut Tree House provided to them.  If it hadn’t been for my sister telling Jean and Vince about the Ironman and Chestnut this fundraising event would not have happened, but boy am I glad it did.

It was an amazing sunny day in the simply beautiful gardens of Jean and Vince’s Sussex home.  Their friends had come to play games and raffle off some amazingly generous prizes that had been donated.  All proceeds to go to Chestnut Tree House.

Ball flinging game.
Jean and Vince were amazing hosts.  Vince had done an amazing job building all the games and Jean was on simply superb form entertaining everybody.  My parents were also on hand to help with the games, make a few sandwiches etc.  Louise and Steve came along with their son Owen and Steve gave a simply beautiful speech about Amber, Chestnut Tree House and the wonderful work that they do.  It brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it.  If I can harness 1% of the strength that Steve and Louise have shown since the loss of their little daughter I will have no trouble at the Ironman at all.  

Raffle – Jean and Vince standing up
The whole day was brilliant.  Once the raffle was completed and the dust had settled, between everybody who attended we had raised £630 (or £787.50 if you include Gift Aid) which is simply phenomenal.

A massive and heart felt thank you to all those who attended and raised such a brilliant total for Chestnut Tree House.  Especially big thank you to Jean and Vince and everybody who helped them out to make the day go so perfectly.

Basketball game.
Chestnut Tree House is the ONLY children’s hospice in Sussex and South East Hampshire.  Without the support of charity fundraisers and private donations they would not run.  Without Chestnut, there would be NO help for life limited children and their families throughout the entire of Sussex and South East Hampshire. NONE!

My aim through these Ironman endeavours is to pay for a days care at Chestnut.  It costs them £6850 to stay open for just one day.  As I write this I have raised £3,381.80, which is 49% of my target.  If you would like to donate please visit my Just Giving page and give what you can.  It simply means the world to me and the families that Chestnut Tree House supports.


Thanks All.

James



Halfway there in the rain – The Owler Middle Distance Triathlon

On By 00snookIn 70.3, challenge weymouth, cycling, Middle distance Triathlon, running, swimming, The Owler, triathlonLeave a comment

It’s 06:15 on Sunday 26th July and unusually my alarm has not gone off.  Must be time for the Owler Middle Distance Traithlon.

The reason is that my alarm was not needed was because I was in bed with my oldest little girl Niamh and we had both been up since 5am.  We are staying in Hythe, Kent, to house-sit for Cat’s Dad and Girlfriend and make sure that Cat’s 15 year old brother Miles doesn’t burn the house down.  Niamh is sleeping in a different bedroom than usual.  Crucially it has a double bed in it and no blackout curtains.  As such she gets up when the sun gets up (about 5am) which also means that either Cat or I get up at that time too.  Luckily for me I had to be up early so no real harm was done.

The Owler Triathlon was held in Ashford, at the Julie Rose Stadium.  Breaking from tradition I had organised all my gear the night before and even put the bike in the car, so it was a relaxing morning getting ready and then driving on the backroads from Hythe to Ashford to ensure that I avoided Operation Stack.

Half way through setting up pre-race.

Arriving in plenty of time for the 08:30 start I registered and made my way down to the transition area.  This was situated on the outer edge of an athletics track and made for a fairly spectacular location.  There was plenty of space in transition with individually marked out bays for your bike and plenty of marshals on hand.  I was number 73 and struck up conversation with number 72.  He had done the Owler Middle Distance Triathlon a couple of years before and said it was a great event, well organised and well supported.  It certainly seemed that way so far to me too. 

At this point I would like to clarify something.  There is nothing “middle” about a “middle distance triathlon”.  It is named in rather a confusing manner.  The order of difficulty (increasing distance) in triathlon goes Super Sprint, Sprint, Standard (also known as Olympic), Middle (also known as Half Ironman or 70.3) and then Full (also known as Ironman, Iron Distance).

The “middle” distance is also known as 70.3 because this is the number of miles that you cover during the race.  Just to make things simple I work in kilometres so will describe it in that for you.

1.9km swim
90 km bike ride
21 km run (half Marathon)

It is exactly one half distance of the race that I have been building up for, Challenge Weymouth in September.  One half of an Ironman.  Not to be under estimated.  Some people train for years just to attempt a half Ironman.  I had less than 2 years training behind me and only 5 previous triathlons of any length.  Gulp!  Anyway back to the plot……….

Chatting away to number 72 we were soon warned that it was time to make our way down to the lake for the swim.  The lake was only a short walk away and would be my first lake swim of the year.  Following on from the briefing I made my way into the water and was surprised how cold the lake was.  I was glad to be in my wetsuit.  Positioning myself at the back of the swim bunch to try and avoid getting bashed about too much the countdown of 3-2-1 was heard and we were off.

Swim Course

Advice from absolutely everybody regarding the longer distance traithlon’s (Half and Full Ironman) is to take it easy at the start.  There is no point in going all out in the swim and using up too much energy, especially as a few minutes gained in the swim can be made up much more easily on the bike or the run.  “Nice and slow” I was thinking to myself as I swam straight into the feet of the swimmer in front.  It was murky in the lake and visibility was not good at all.  I picked my way through a few swimmers as best I could, got kicked a few times in the ribs and an elbow to the side of my face.  I couldn’t help but smile.  This is what triathlon is all about.  The idea of getting kicked in the face whilst swimming would probably terrify most people.  To us triathletes it simply means the race has begun!

Settling down into my swim I concentrated on getting into a rhythm and sighting (lifting my head up to see where I was going) every 6 strokes.  I felt good in the water and despite swimming through some very thick weed and a swan almost landing on my head I was steadily overtaking a few people.  Simply concentrating on swimming smooth, I rounded each buoy in turn.  Bizarrely I ran aground when passing past the middle island on the final part of the swim.  There was big pile of gravel under the water which my arm hit.  It was just deep enough to slide over using my hands to push me along and then I was off again.  Round the final buoy I turned left, swam a short distance to the shore where I was helped out of the lake by the marshals and then it was a short run back to the athletics track and into T1.

Before the race I had decided to replicate my Ironman tactics in total, so in T1 I needed to change out of my wetsuit into my bib shorts and cycling top ready for the bike leg.  Arriving at my bike I already had the top half of my wetsuit off.  Quickly getting it off my legs I threw on my dry robe (think large hoodie made of towel material with the arms cut off) over my head and pulled my bib shorts on.  Taking the dry robe off, I realised my shorts were inside out.  Back on with the dry robe (to hide my modesty) I then turned the shorts round the right way and put them back on.  Dry robe off again, I realised my shorts were back to front.  Muttering an obscenity under my breath it was back on with the dry robe once more, then finally my shorts were on correctly.  I clipped on my heart rate monitor, my cycling jersey was zipped up, helmet and shoes on and I was on my way out of T1.  Good thing to, as I had been there for about 25 minutes and I think the marshals were wondering if I was going to make camp.

Before the race I had set an alert to go off on my Garmin if my heart rate went over 155 beats per minute.  The idea behind this is to make sure that you keep your heart rate low, allowing you to maintain an endurance pace for longer as you are not over exerting yourself. As I was reckoning on it taking me at least 3.5hours on the bike endurance was definitely the name of the game.

Off onto the bike course my Garmin was going beserk.  It was constantly alerting me that my heart rate was over 155 and I was barely pedaling.  I was convinced it was malfunctioning (something it does only too well) and was getting frustrated with the constant bleeping alarm.  Luckily, I was soon to have something more important to worry about, as after about 9 minutes of cycling my rear wheel went flat.  This was not good news; however these things happen. I carry a spare inner tube and this was good practice for if it happens at Weymouth.

Pulling over I set about changing the wheel, accompanied by the constant bleeping of my heart rate alarm.  All was going well until I went to pump up the replaced inner tube with my CO2 cartridge and rather than the CO2 coming out when I want it to (using the switch on the CO2 dispenser) it just started whizzing out.  I quickly got the end of the nozzle onto the valve but the CO2 was running out already and I barely got 40PSI into the tyre.  I run my tyres at around 100PSI and the difference would be clearly noticeable.  Anyway there wasn’t much I could do.  I didn’t have a normal pump or any more CO2 so it was time to get back on the bike and get on with the race.  I had wasted over 12 minutes changing this inner tube and with 22 minutes of the race gone I had barely covered 3km.  Not quite the start to the bike leg I was looking for.

Almost exactly as I got back on the bike it started to rain.  Rain had been forecast, but as I own absolutely no wet weather cycling gear I decided to just race in my normal stuff.  This would turn out to be a mistake, but more of that later.  The rain falling and my under inflated rear tyre made the bike handle like a rodeo bull, but thankfully I managed to stay upright until I reached the village of Wye where there were some marshals stationed.  “Have you got a pump” I shouted as I rode towards them.  “Certainly do, Joe Blows” they cheerfully shouted back and then got out their Joe Blows (this is a genuine brand of bike pump) and topped me up to 100PSI.  One of them kindly gave me a spare CO2 cartridge and then I was off, with a properly pumped up rear tyre.

Bike Course

At this point it was raining hard and I was already getting cold.  There was nothing for it though than to just keep pedaling.  I was very conscious not to go too fast to try and make up for lost time.  I just kept up a steady rhythm, concentrating on riding smoothly and keeping an eye out for potholes, manhole covers and any other hazards that become infinitely more hazardous in the rain.   Exchanging some words with a few of the riders I was overtaking I was really feeling good mentally, but extremely cold physically.  The good part about this was I felt like I was putting in hardly any effort.  I had turned off my heart rate monitor shortly after my puncture and was riding purely on feel.  This is where my training really started to pay off.  I was used to the feel of steady exertion.  All the hours in the saddle meant that I knew how hard I could push for what length of time.  Somewhere inside my brain I knew that I was at a sustainable pace.  I knew that I would make the bike course and get to the run.  There were a few very scary moments, including a big rear wheel slide on a fast downhill but other than that things were going well.  I also lost a water bottle as it slipped from my hand towards the end of the bike leg, so rode the final 25km with no liquid refreshment.  

The major issue was the cold.  My feet had gone numb after only about 45 minutes of riding and had stayed numb.  I had lost feeling in my fingers and my quads were absolutely freezing.  Out of all of these, the quads were worrying me the most.  My quads like to cramp on the run stages of triathlons.  Starting a run with them freezing cold was not going to help.

Despite the cold I was amazed to finish the bike leg in around 3hrs 30 minutes, which was bang on my target time despite the puncture.  Climbing off the bike and into T2 I felt pretty good.  Sadly I had to change clothes again.

Remember the dry robe from before?  Well this was no longer dry.  It was absolutely soaking having sat out in the rain for hours, as was pretty much everything else.  The only things I had managed to keep dry was a pair of socks and my trainers.  Struggling under the soaking wet dry robe, it was off with the cycling gear and on with the running gear.  The dry socks and trainers felt like heaven on my freezing feet.  I paused to have a quick chat with a marshal as I had ridden past quite a few stranded riders who had either given up or suffered mechanical breakdowns and wanted to make sure somebody was going out to get them.  I was reassured that a van was going round picking these unfortunate people up, so I shuffled my way out of T2 and onto the run course.

The Owler run course.  2 x 10.5km laps

Either I hadn’t read the blurb properly or had forgotten it, but the first and last 2.5km of each lap of the run course was cross country round the lake.  The run was two 10.5 km laps, so I would have to run 5km of each lap cross country.  This is usually not an issue; however it was very very very very muddy and finding a dry path was proving difficult.  Fortunately the rain had let off just after the start of the run and I was making progress.  My plan was to follow my Ironman run tactics.  Run for 1.8km, walk 100 metres then run another 1.8km.  The only reason I had chosen 1.8km was that this is the distance between aide stations at Challenge Weymouth.  I will be walking through all the aide stations in Weymouth, so it seemed logical to practice exactly this.  

Running is my weakest triathlon discipline.  Compounded by a foot injury that I have had now for about 4 weeks causing me to stop all run training, I knew the run would be tough.  I was making very steady progress using my run/walk tactics and managed to stagger round the first lap in 1hr 6 mins.  This was not bad for 10.5km and better than I was expecting.  The second lap really took its toll as the heavens opened up even worse than during the cycling and the wind whipped around me.  I could no longer manage to run for 1.8km before walking.  My foot had thawed out and was starting to hurt, my quads were screaming and every step it felt like my calves were going to cramp.  I just concentrated on form and swapped to a strategy of running for 4 minutes and walking for 1.  This slowed my pace to 7min 30sec kilometres, but gave me a second wind and I was still making progress (all be it very slow progress).  

Rounding the half way point of the second lap I knew I only had just over 5km to go.  I have run 5km hundreds of times and just imagined that it was a sunny morning on Southsea seafront and I was enjoying a relaxing jog with friends.  This was quite some leap of imagination, as in reality it was monsoon-esque, but I was feeling good.  I was going to complete The Owler.  Best of all, I was looking like finishing in less than 7 hours.  A smile crept across my face.  I felt like a proper Triathlete.  Even better than that I was going to become a finisher of a Half Ironman race.  It’s not everybody you meet who can say that.

Love this medal

Jogging along in my fantasy world, thinking about sunny weather, cold beer and what Challenge Weymouth had to hold the final 5km went past without incident and I was through the finish chute and over the line.  The weather was so bad that the announcer couldn’t even see my race number so I had to tell him who I was, which he then triumphantly announced over the loud speaker.  The irony of this was not lost on me, as there were only about 10 other people around.  Most of the other competitors had finished and were either safely inside out of the rain, or had gone home.  Never the less I heard the announcement and I felt very very proud of myself.  Completing the 70.3 was the biggest achievement of my athletic career to date.  Definitely something to smile about.

YES YES YES, Ive done it

As you can see from the picture on the left I completed the race in 6hrs 50 minutes.  Most encouraging was a good swim time and a very decent bike leg considering that it was awful weather and I had a puncture.

The run was slow, but this was to be expected.  I am not a good runner and probably never will be.  

Who cares though right.  Race done and onto Challenge Weymouth for the big one.

The final thing for me to say is sorry it has taken me so long to write this update.  I have been a very busy boy of late, with some major changes for me and the family on the horizon. Not to mention rather a lot of Triathlon training. More of this to come in further updates.

TTFN

Snooky

One bad and one extremely good.

On By 00snookIn challenge weymouth, Chestnut Tree House, cycling, running, swimming, training, triathlonLeave a comment

Last week has been a bit tough on Iron Snook!

What started with a simple filling in my tooth ended up as me having 3 days off work and experiencing the most intense pain I have ever felt.  I don’t want to go into massive detail, but lets just say I had an infected tooth which took 4 days of very strong antibiotics to get under control and the pain was so bad I was begging my wife to pull the tooth out with pliers at home.  Luckily she said no, the infection seems to be better (though is still a bit painful today) and soon I can go back to the dentist and get it sorted once and for all.

Not a good picture, but left is Mike and right is Bruce

This infection has meant no training.  I was in agony and in no condition to do anything.  Because I felt better by Friday night, I agreed to meet the boys for a bike ride on Saturday morning.  Following a week off  of exercise and fighting an infection this bike ride was very tough going indeed.  I felt extremely weak.  I also tried a quick 5k run on Saturday evening which was equally tough.  Waking up this morning I felt like I had been run over by a bus.  Clearly I am not quite over this infection yet!

On the positive front the scenery we saw as we wound our way around the Meon Valley was simply stunning.  I feel genuinely privileged to live in such a beautiful part of the world and to be able to go and enjoy stunning summer mornings on my bike with my friends.

This is a part of the Ironman training that was totally unexpected for me and is rapidly becoming the bit I am enjoying the most.  If it hadn’t been for this little Ironman adventure I would never have learnt the peace and serenity you can get from running for hours on end, riding you bike for 100’s of miles or simply swimming along in the sea.  Some people say to me “isn’t the training boring” or “I just couldn’t be bothered with cycling for hours on end”.  Before I started my training I felt exactly the same.  I also found the training such hard going to start with that it was never enjoyable, it was simply hard work.

After exercising consistently for a few months you stop feeling awful every time you go out and you start to see and feel the beauty in exercise.  I genuinely believe that our bodies are built for endurance activities.  You start to unlock something primitive inside yourself.  You feel the need to run.  You feel more alive when your heart is pumping hard than you do when you are sitting still.  It is a bizarre and wonderful feeling.  

The beautiful Meon Valley

Recently I have had this feeling almost every time I have gone out to do some training.  Don’t get me wrong, training is always hard, but there are periods within the effort when you feel a real sense of inner peace, a kind of tranquility that is hard to describe.

It is during these times that my thoughts almost always move back to my motivation for doing this Ironman race in the first place.  Of course, this is the wonderful Chestnut Tree House, who (despite NO Government funding) manage to care for 300 life limited children and their families year after year.  They rely on over £3,000,000 of charitable donations every year just to stay open.  They are the ONLY children’s hospice in East Sussex, West Sussex and South East Hampshire.  Without Chestnut, there would be no children’s hospice care in any of these areas.   

I am hugely grateful to all those who have sponsored me so far and genuinely feel like you are all with me every moment of my training.  Chestnut Tree House means a huge amount to me personally and any support that people choose to give them is simply amazing.  This is where my one “extremely good” from my blog title comes in.

One of Chestnut’s Charity Shops

My sister is marrying a splendid fella called Damian. Damian’s Mum and Step-Dad (henceforth known as Jean and Vince – because those are their names) have a games party every year at their house.  Their friends and family come along, play garden games (largely devised and created by Vince), make merry and generally have a jolly good time.  This year the party is extra special.  I am hugely humbled and massively proud to say they have decided to make the party a fundraising event and are donating the money they raise to Chestnut Tree House.

The huge effort that Jean and Vince are going through to host this party and raise money has been inspired by my efforts and also by the story of Louise and Steve (which you can read by selecting the “Motivation” tab above.  This massive show of generosity from Jean and Vince and their friends who will attend the party almost brings me to tears.  When I started on this road to the Ironman I never expected that I would receive so much great feedback about my blog and never expected that I would inspire others to raise money alongside me.  It is truly humbling and makes me believe that perhaps one man can actually make a difference and help this truly amazing cause.  Not on his own, but with the help and support of others WE really can make a difference.  Every single penny that goes to Chestnut helps families who are in the most desperate of times, the most challenging of circumstances.  Nobody ever expects to outlive their child, but knowing that Chestnut Tree House are there to care for children who’s lives are cut short and help them and their families make the most of the time they have together, is a comforting thought.

Sensory room at Chestnut Tree House


Chestnut Tree House is a wonderful place, filled with fun and laughter and if you ever get a chance to visit I would strongly recommend that you do so.  I am immensely proud to be competing at Challenge Weymouth to raise money for Chestnut, massively humbled at the efforts of Jean and Vince to help support my cause and hugely looking forward to only 9 more weeks of training before the big event.

Thank you all for reading my blog.  The updates will be coming more regularly as we get closer to the big day.  Only 2 weeks until my half Ironman race in Kent and then the big push towards Weymouth begins.

As always, any and all support you would like to give to Chestnut Tree House and to me via my JustGiving page would be hugely appreciated.  

https://www.justgiving.com/Iron-Snook

TTFN

Snooky










Is Insanity during Ironman training absolute insanity?

On By 00snookIn challenge weymouth, Insanity, ironman, training, triathlonLeave a comment

Bit of a cryptic blog title I agree, but all will make sense I trust you.

At work we have a gym.  It is a nice little gym with bike, rower, X-trainer and a pulley weight stack.  We also have a TV and on this TV I have gotten into the habit of working out with Shaun T at lunchtimes.

Shaun T
Mr Motivator

For the uninitiated, Shaun T is a muscle bound motivational guru who makes Mr Motivator look like a bit of a wally (lets be honest, he was a bit of a wally anyway).

If you are a fan of late night television, you may well have seen Shaun T advertising one of his workout series. In his catalogue he has Insanity, T-25, Insanity Max 30 and others.

Again, if you haven’t heard of any of these let me explain.  Insanity (my favourite) is 40-60 minutes of interval based workouts with long intervals of exercise combined with short periods of rest.  It has at least 10 minutes of stretching in each session and a long warm up (which is tough in its own right) and is a great workout which only uses body weight as resistance.  There is a hell of a lot of jumping up and down involved, plenty of press ups and plyometric movements.  

I first had a go at Insanity before I ever started this triathlon business and it was very hard indeed.  In fact, I didn’t even make it through the warm up the first time round.  You work out 6 days a week and it batters your body if you start from almost zero fitness base (which is where I was at the time).

Now I am a lot fitter, I really enjoy these Shaun T lunchtime workouts.  Sometimes we do T-25 (25 min workouts) and today we tried the Max 30 for the first time (30 minutes of non stop effort and very tough). I am joined every day by my colleague Sarah (who is some sort of fitness monster) and we have other colleagues who join in occasionally.  When I don’t feel like working out at lunchtime I don’t and skip these days.  Essentially I pick it up and leave it whenever I want.

People who have done Insanity seem surprised that I am doing it on top of my usual triathlon training, but I must admit I feel good.  It is something to do at lunchtime, I enjoy the workouts and there is no doubt it must be good for my overall fitness.  I seem to be able to do the workouts without any hint of injury (other than a minor elbow issue today) and can’t really see any reason to stop.

Perhaps in the long run these lunchtimes would have been better spent going for a run, but there is only so much running I want to do (as it does tend to injure me) and I would have thought the cardio workout you get from Shaun T is as good as the same amount of time running.

So is it insane to do Insanity at the same time as Ironman training?  The answer to that is almost certainly YES if you plan to do the full 6 day a week Insanity, but as I pick it up and leave it when I like and only train when I am feeling good I can’t see it doing any harm.

Besides, I get to spend lunchtime with this bunch of lookers!

TTFN

Snooky



Injuries, Jellyfish and bloody bumpy roads

On By 00snookIn bike, biking, challenge weymouth, Chestnut Tree House, crap roads, cycling, ironman, jellyfish, resiliance, running, training, triathlonLeave a comment

As I sit and write this it is 75 days until Challenge Weymouth.  75 days until I don my wetsuit with 2000 other masochists and stride into the surf of Weymouth bay.  This brings me onto one of the things I would like to talk about…….jellyfish.

All along the south coast of England we have record numbers of Barrel jellyfish appearing just off of our shoreline.  Juvenile Barrel jellyfish are normally predated on by fish, keeping the numbers of adults in check.  Over-fishing has caused less juveniles to be predated, meaning that there are literally 1000’s of these jellyfish growing into adulthood.

A barrel jellyfish photographed off the Dorset coast

Adult Barrel jellyfish can get big.  I mean really big.  Up to 6ft wide and weighing in at up to 35kg (77lbs, or 5 stone 7 lbs).  Articles from marine experts are saying that there may be 10’s of 1000’s of these aquatic fellas off of the Dorset coast.

Now not all of them are going to be as big as the one on the left, but there are jellyfish the size of bin bags washing up on the coast all over the place.  Portsmouth has had a few and over the weekend there were large numbers washed up in Swanage.

I don’t want to come across as a big girls blouse, but I am less than happy at the thought of sharing my swim at Weymouth with these underwater whoppers.  Their sting is only as strong as a stinging nettle and poses no threat to humans; however I imagine that swimming into a 35kg jellyfish will be more of a shock than anything.  My toddler only weighs 15kg and I wouldn’t want to swim into her.  Plus she doesn’t sting.

Spotted off coast of Boscombe at weekend.

Made slightly worse is the fact that the swim at Weymouth is in September, when the sea is at its warmest.  If we have any sort of onshore breeze or current there is going to be a fair few jellies sharing the water with me.  

Just the thought of this makes me very nervous.  I am not exactly sure why.  They pose no threat to me; however there is something primordial and spooky about jellyfish.  There are beautiful sea creatures and I would never harm one, but also I am happy never to get that close to one.  I feel the same way about tarantulas (and I wouldn’t want to swim with any of those either).

My wife is convinced that if there are loads of jellyfish about at race weekend then the organisers of the race will do something about it.  I am not so sure, but we will have to wait and see.

I also seem to have picked up a little niggling injury.  Well I say little, we will have to see how much worse it gets, but I am definitely officially injured.  Self-diagnosis has led me to believe that I am suffering with a form of Plantar Fasciitis 

As you can see from the picture on the left, this is a strain in the fascia just after the heel bone.  A very common running injury, which manifests itself in pain in the arch of your foot.  I only have it in my right foot and bizarrely it goes away whilst exercising and comes on at periods of rest.    Recommendations on how to fix this vary hugely.  Some say to rest, ice etc; however there is a large movement away from icing injuries like this, as it may slow healing.

Others say to keep exercising but at a lesser level.  It is a bit of a mine field and hard to work out what I should do.  Luckily I have a bio-mechanical coach who I trust 100% who is going to take a look at me and hopefully give me some exercises to help this go away.  He is a former professional Ironman and will understand that I cannot just stop training with only 75 days to go.  Fingers crossed Trevor can get me sorted out and I will be on the way to recovery soon.  In the meantime I am going to back down on my running, but keep the bike work up and increase my swimming.  I have hardly been swimming at all if I am honest, so this little injury is probably a blessing in disguise.

Lastly I want to have a moan up.  A good old fashioned complaining session.  What us in Pompey would refer to as a “squinny”.  The more I spend time on my bike, the more I love it.  You start to feel at one with your machine, instinctively knowing when to change gear, when to stand on the pedals to finish that final hill, when to push on the flat etc.  The only thing that affects my enjoyment of my cycling time is the road quality (or should I say total lack of quality).

Broken tarmac – easy in a car.  Horrible on a bike

When you cycle you keep to the left of the road so cars and other faster road users can overtake.  This is just good etiquette.  The problem with doing this is that the shoddy road surface is even more shoddy the closer you get to the verge.  There are potholes that are actually small caves and endless miles of broken tarmac (an example of the sort of thing I mean is on the right).

When you are in a car this broken tarmac is nothing.  You just smooth straight over it.  On a super stiff road bike with very narrow tyres this is not a comfortable surface to ride on.  You can hack it for a while, but after a few hours of constantly bumping over this sort of stuff it starts to wear very thin.

Occasionally you can find some stretches of road that are blissfully smooth.  Mostly it is this bumpy crap.  So my moan up is this.  Hampshire is one of the most affluent counties in the UK.  We all pay a tonne of council tax to live in such a beautiful county.  Take some of that council tax and fix the roads up a bit.  I am fed up of jolting along on tarmac that should be in much much better condition.  That is not to mention the cycle paths, which seem to have a special sort of tarmac that breaks up even more than the roads do.  Just bloody well sort it out.

The roads in Surrey are much nicer.  That’s probably why everybody who lives in Surrey thinks they are better than everybody else.  🙂

Anyway that’s it from me.  Big week of training this week, injuries, jellyfish and crap road surfaces not withstanding.

TTFN

Snooky




















Here we go, the ramp up is starting

On By 00snookIn challenge weymouth, Chestnut Tree House, cycling, Don Fink, training, triathlonLeave a comment

So, as I sit and write this it is 123 days until Challenge Weymouth.  Not an especially significant number you might think. It is not so much the number of days left that is significant, but rather the phase of the training I am about to enter.

The plan I am following is split out into distinct phases. These are the “Base” phase, followed by “Build 1”, “Build 2”, “Peak” and then finally the taper down to race day.

Base phase is exactly what it says on the tin, designed to increase your base level of fitness.  In all honesty I have not put quite as many hours in as I would have liked due to wanting to be at home and help my wife through a challenging time with our kiddies.  That being said, I am fairly confident that my “base” level of fitness is not too bad and so missing some training sessions during this phase has not phased me (see what I did there).

Next week starts the “Build 1” phase.  This sees me increasing my training load, putting in extra time and distance in all three triathlon disciplines.

I am aiming towards the following:

Weekly training targets:

  • Cycling – 250 miles
  • Running – 50 miles
  • Swimming – 8 miles

If you prefer to think of this in time rather than distance, we are looking roughly like this

  • Cycling – 15 hours
  • Running – 8.5 hours
  • Swimming – 4 hours

You don’t need to be a mathematician to work out that this is around 27 hours training per week, which is a lot.  It’s more than an entire day every week devoted to training.  

This leads us nicely to the $64,000 question, “How the hell are you going to fit all this training in?”

Luckily there are a few things in my favour.  It is only my intention to hit the mileage/distance targets about for the 3 or 4 weeks before tapering off ready for the event.  This allows me to ramp up the training gradually.

Also my wife is being amazingly supportive.  Despite the fact that our lovely 2 year old daughter seems to have morphed into a terrorist and our 12 week old baby is permanently attached to her, she is happy for me to train almost as much as I like.

Lastly I live a very convenient 20 miles away from work, meaning that I can cycle into and back from work fairly regularly.  This is decent mileage and has relatively little impact on the family.

So all in all things are looking good.  I am feeling strong, the training is going well, I am blessedly injury free and am starting to really look forward to the big event in September.

Below are a few pictures of Bushy and I on a recent bike ride just to prove that training is actually fun.

TTFN

Snooky

Just setting out.

Quick pitstop
An excellent demonstration on how not to change an inner tube

Still going, 45 minutes later














I Fink, therefore I am

On By 00snookIn Brighton, challenge weymouth, Chestnut Tree House, Don Fink, fundraising, marathon, running, triathlonLeave a comment

It’s all been a bit quiet on www.ironsnook.co.uk of late.  I haven’t updated the blog for over a month.

To be honest I have a good excuse.  On the 17th February my second child was born, a beautiful baby girl we have called Mia.  Naturally training went on hold whilst I helped my wife recover from the birth and look after our 2 year old.  I went back to work this week and my training restarted.

Don Fink – handsome isn’t he?

Challenge Weymouth is a mere 190 days away as I write this and I have started my Ironman training plan.  Well I say my plan, but I have done nothing to create it.  The honour of writing my plan goes to Mr Don Fink.

Fink wrote a book called “Be Iron Fit – Time Efficient Training Secrets for Ultimate Fitness”.  The training plans held within this book are designed to get the fastest improvements on fitness possible over a 30 week period.  Your fitness is designed to peak for your big race day and countless Triathletes before me have followed the plans to Ironman success.

I have had to start the plan on week 3, as week 1 and 2 were during my paternity leave and I was otherwise occupied.  You start with a mere 8 hours a week training, ramping up to over 20 hours a week by the end.  

This may sound like a lot to some of you and if I am honest it sounds like a lot to me.  That being said I am almost at the end of my first week of training and I feel great.  I have actually done a little bit more than the plan stipulates so far but am ache and injury free.  To top it all I have just got back from a swim session which was by far the most enjoyable training session I have ever had.  I felt strong and like I could have carried on swimming forever.

There are a few minor hiccups to following the Fink plan.  Firstly he stipulates specific dates when you should compete in an Olympic distance and then later a Half Ironman in preparation.  I have already booked an Olympic distance race and it doesn’t match the date Fink suggests.  Hopefully this won’t make much difference.

Secondly I am running the Brighton Marathon for Chestnut Tree House  on Sunday 12th April so I am currently doing one long run a week ramping up for this. Fink does suggest long runs; however they are not as long as what I am currently doing at this stage of his plan.  

The marathon is likely to take it out of me and normal people take a fair bit of time off of training following a marathon as it is quite a task in itself.  Triathletes are not normal people. I am treating the Brighton Marathon as a training run and will be back to my Ironman training plan as quickly as possible afterwards (though I might have a couple of days off as reward). 

Just a very quick update for tonight as I am intending on blogging weekly for a while as there is a fair amount to discuss.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

Snooky