Maryka's Little Project

Expectations

2011-08-12T20:19:00.009+01:00

Before I had Otter, I had fitness. I had watts. I had several seasons of consistent training and racing, virtually injury-free, and with some pretty decent results.

This is what my PMC looked like:

January to October 2010: Before Otter

In January I was just starting to rebuild after a couple of months off following the Ironman world championships in mid-October, and 2010 was the season I went from triathlete to cyclist. The big peaks indicate periods of huge training loads (February in Lanzarote, April with lots of road racing, July at the Ras Cymru). Between the peaks -- which were followed by actual peaks in performance -- there are a few troughs where life took over: illness, minor injuries, holidays. The end of the season in early October coincided with peaking for hill climbs, thus shorter more intense training sessions for very short (~5 minute) races. Over the whole season I went from a CTL of just under 70 to a peak of over 120, then tailed off to 85 by end of season.

With this in mind, I had great ideas of how life would be once she was born, how I would take a few weeks to recover then get back into shape as quickly as possible. Hours-long road races and TTs were out, of course, but shorter stuff like hill climbs seemed like just the thing I could do after childbirth. Supposedly my extra red blood cells would mean a kick to my Vo2max and everyone knows that you lose weight while breastfeeding, right? HA HA.

This is my PMC now:

October 2010 to August 2011: After Otter

From the 85 I was at last October, my CTL fell dramatically over the winter, picked up again in spring, then went into freefall to an all-time low of 30 at the start of August. I'm holding that steady now, but not really building it back up, though that's more due to lack of time to train than lack of desire.

But even with an unplanned c-section (and my fitness did play a big role in helping me recover quickly from that), I still thought post-birth that I could fulfill my pre-birth expectations. Two weeks afterwards I rode my bike for the first time -- stamina was low, legs felt terrible, but ah the fresh air! The wind on my face and the sun on my arms! Never mind the watts.

Then a few more weeks passed and my power didn't seem to be improving. Worse yet my body just didn't want to push itself much. And apart from the massive weight loss I got in the week after she was born, I wasn't losing any more! It felt like I was newly pregnant again -- outwardly not looking too bad, but inwardly no legs, no motivation, no power. And no sleep to boot. Still, I was happy to be out on the bike. Though starting to rethink my expectations a bit. Ok, definitely no road races. Probably not even a 10 mile TT, especially with wrecked ab muscles and a sore lower back in desperate need of some core work. Even hill climbing, that beacon of hope in the distance, was starting to look pretty unlikely.

Nine weeks in, I now have to admit that 2011 is going to be a washout season. My FTP has barely climbed from the 185 watts I had in April to 205 watts today. Last year's 240-250 watts seems like a dream. The last 5kgs of pregnancy weight is not going to come off my body without a fight -- probably not til Christmas when Otter starts to wean, or maybe even later til I completely stop breastfeeding. Which means that there's no way I'll attempt hill-climbing, which is all about low weight and high watts. Pretty much the opposite of what I have now!

So 2011 is the season that wasn't. Quite forgettable in athletic terms... yet so memorable in life terms. We have the best prize of all -- we have Otter! What's a few missed races and lost watts when I have a beautiful kid to show for my efforts.

How long til she's on a bike of her own?

New Beginnings

2011-06-18T11:56:00.003+01:00

I should have known that going out and buying a swimsuit appropriate for my 9-months-pregnant body would mean I'd use it once and promptly go into labour. And that's exactly what happened, I went for a swim on Monday night, the day after my due date, and that night woke up in a puddle. Four days of latent labour, full waters being broken, induction leading to the most pain I've ever felt in my life, and a c-section later, we had our little one, a girl we've named Otter. She weighed 8lbs 9oz at birth, but at only 19 inches long it's looking like she takes after short stocky me rather than tall lanky Jim. She was a superstar throughout the entire labour, her HR very steady and showing no distress, and scoring a 9 out of 10 on the one-minute Apgar test (10 out of 10 at five minutes). In fact, she appears to be very strong and fit and the midwives have nothing but compliments for us.

Despite a stressful and tiring labour for me -- both physically and emotionally -- I'm recovering well (something I chalk up to my great fitness going into it) and already looking forward to when I can get on my bike again. I'll give it another week then start out with gentle spinning on the turbo and see how it goes. My CTL has already plummetted to below 50 in the short time I've been off the bike, with more to lose before I can start back again, but that was to be expected.

Otter in extreme close-up

Just in case it sounds like I'm bragging or overconfident or anything... let it be known that I'm really just getting through each day as it comes, trying to catch sleep when I can, nursing very sore nipples (and massive knockers, wahey!) and generally letting Otter lead me as to what she needs and when. Having a newborn glued to you nearly 24/7 is quite a bit harder than I imagined. When Jim goes back to work next week it'll be even more challenging. But it seems Otter is a pretty easy baby so there's that to be thankful for at least!

I have no idea what I'm doing!

So over the next little while, I'll be doing more supporting than riding while Jim does a few TTs he's entered. I'll have to live my racing life a bit vicariously through him, though I hope myself to manage a 10-mile TT by end of summer, then a few hill climbs. Racing a crit isn't out of the question but I'm not holding myself to it. Longer road races are quite unlikely as I just won't have the time to train for or race them well. Instead I'll dig out my running shoes again and start to build up the miles there for the autumn cross-country season. Once Otter is big enough to go in a jogger, we'll buy one. But I think a bike seat is still a long ways off!

My favourite view of Jim in TT mode

June 5

2011-06-05T21:29:00.005+01:00

Today was my due date. And I rode 35km in Richmond Park, mostly to say that I did it. Total of 75km ridden this week. Goal accomplished! No pics to mark the occasion but I can verify that I'm now wearing one of Jim's medium-sized KW jerseys, my quads hit the bottom of my bump with every pedal revolution (giving me an unintentional bowleggedness) and afterwards my ribs feel battered and bruised from having a 8-pound baby's legs squashed into them. An hour to 90 minutes is my max these days on the bike then I've had enough.

Ironically I feel fairly fit still -- in fact, I put in the highest peak 1-minute and 5-minute power I've seen in about six weeks, though that was partly due to my annoyance at how many slow and silly cyclists were in my way today! -- but riding a bike is ceasing to be much fun now. Glad to have ridden as long as I did but the time has come to stop I think.

So... the other day I finally relented and bought a swimsuit to fit my giant whale-like shape. Tomorrow or the next day I'll visit the pool for a swim. Looking forward to it actually, as it'll be a novelty to swim with such a huge belly -- will I float more than usual or start sinking? What'll work best, freestyle, backstroke, or breastroke (dare I say butterfly)? All of this will be interesting to discover and it'll give me something to keep my mind and body occupied while I wait for this now-overdue baby to make an appearance.

But sorry, no pics of me in said swimsuit will follow. It was bad enough seeing myself in the changeroom mirror when I tried it on!

For those with no imagination, I'll probably look something like this.

Training Partners

2011-04-16T17:25:00.001+01:00

It's a good thing I wrote my last post when I did and not a week later, as it's true what everyone says about 30 weeks and beyond: the baby grows by half a pound a week, your lungs get more and more compressed, and life is suddenly a lot tougher again. Three weeks on and I can't even run up a flight of stairs without feeling completely winded! These days my rides have as few rises in the road as possible, and my usual quick out-of-the-saddle sprint to get through roundabouts and come out of corners has been reduced to a slow careful slog.

But I can't complain as I'm still fairly comfortable on the bike, the weather has turned to glorious spring, and the longer days means more time to ride in the evenings. It could be a whole lot worse, and frankly I'm going to plan this timing for the next kid too -- it would be horrible to be 30 weeks in the middle of autumn with nothing but dark dreary short days to look forward to for the next four months.

As I've been forced to watch many others pass me by -- quite literally, as every cyclist on a road bike these days overtakes me -- it's been interesting to contemplate this dramatic fall in speed and power and think about my journey through various training partners since I got pregnant. I hesitate to say "regression" though that's of course what it's been; it's nicer to think of it in terms of getting to know various folks in the club as I join them on rides I'd have rarely done otherwise.

Pre-pregnancy to week 6
Still riding lots with Jim and the other 2nd/3rd cat racers in my club, which means hard training sessions and hammerfests that really push my limits at times. Club runs are those of the more social variety as recovery and mental health rides, where I hold back a lot on the flats and drop most people on the climbs whether I'm trying to or not. In other words, I'm in pretty peak form.

Weeks 6-18
The sudden influx of morning sickness means faster-paced club runs are about as hard as I care to ride. Full of fit guys and girls, not road racers but strong TTers and hardened sportivers nonetheless, up for pushing the effort from time to time but mostly wanting a steady good-paced ride and that suits me fine. It's touch and go at times, and I end up doing a lot of solo rides as I just can't tell on any given day how good or bad I'll feel or if I'll want to bail after an hour. But by the end of November I'm still going pretty well, having only gained a few kgs. We hold a club race skills training day at Hillingdon and the 4-lap scratch race at the end turns out to be more fun than I thought. Things are looking up, and when the snow flies just before Christmas I'm out on the cross bike having a blast. Racing has gone out the window though, after a few half-hearted attempts at cross and getting too depressed with how slow I am, I decide my season is officially done, and I'm now sucking the wheels of those fit guys and girls starting their winter training periods.

Weeks 19-29
I'm feeling much better, more or less back to normal, though the weight is piling on and this is having some adverse effects. "Club run pace" is the default for me now, with the occasional burn-up at the end. Raising my stem about 2cm helps accommodate the growing bulk in my midsection, but I find myself having to reach down and physically shift my belly upwards to get comfortable on the bike as occasionally I get a side stitch or ache from the awkwardness of it. I buy an 11-32 cassette (eschewing the 11-34 thinking I'll never want a 34-tooth cog... ha ha, how naive is that!), prompting the guys at Sigma Sport to refer to it as the "maternity cassette". Nonetheless, my ego gets a shock when I end up having to get off and walk up the last 200m of steep and nasty Pebblehill Road near Boxhill. Still, it's going well and I'm actually gaining fitness back, able to do long rides of over four hours and 100km as long as I can stop to pee every hour!

In fact in March I do more miles than I have since the previous July, helped by numerous midweek "work dodgers" rides with fellow Wheelers who are off work or working strange shifts. Of course, the average speed is a lot slower and towards the latter weeks I find myself deliberately avoiding routes with steeper hills. The top corner of Coombe Road, or the steep early section of Crocknorth is about all I can manage now. It's starting to get more than frustrating being dropped up every hill, no matter the gradient, by average club run pace folks, but I can still hold my own on the rollers and flat sections. Ironically, descending becomes more fun and secure with the extra weight, not to mention faster! I'm still leading club runs but generally from 3rd wheel shouting out the turns rather than sitting on the front a lot myself. Clubmates are starting to make jokes about whether they should be prepared to deliver a baby on a ride, and any time I fall to the back of the group I'm met with concerned looks and questions of whether I'm feeling all right.

Weeks 30-?
The end of March sees me off the bike for an entire week as I juggle all the tasks of moving into a new house and getting out of the old flat. The movers come and I can barely go up two flights of stairs empty-handed let alone lift or move many boxes. It's shocking how breathless I've suddenly become, and how quickly my heart races with any small effort. Finally a few days after moving into the new house I get out for a glorious sunny ride and manage 22km/h average speed for the first hour. Three hours later I make it home quite exhausted and I have to admit my 100km riding days are over for now. Club runs now see me volunteering to lead the "newbie" ride, with its slow pace on the flats and even slower pace up the hills (I'm last up the two shallowest hills we ride -- the so-called backmarker -- and get dropped easily now on the smallest of rollers). Richmond Park laps are of the TT-course variety, avoiding both Dark Hill at Kingston gate and Test hill near Robin Hood gate. Any headwind on a hill sees me slow to a virtual crawl. Where's that 34-tooth cog I should have bought!

Worst of all, I no longer have any mental desire to work hard, and my legs feel like jelly if I do. My HR shoots up so high with any effort that I have to ease off otherwise I feel sick. It's like the first trimester all over again, only 25lbs heavier. Riding has become about getting out for some sun and fresh air, and all thoughts of power or speed or effort are completely gone. It's hard to guess what my FTP might be, but I suspect I could not hold more than 175w for an hour these days. Luckily I can diesel along at 130w for several hours still, but I'm getting less and less motivated to ride, and more and more fearful of hills. Still, I'm pretty stubborn and have yet to pull out my upright old MTB for a last-ditch resort to ride on the flat towpaths. Even as I see my CTL drop again (after hitting a max of 85 in week 29) I can't be too fussed about it. Even with the nice weather, I just don't feel like riding much anymore. Though at least I still have a few training partners left, the guys who are coming back from injury or extended lay-offs or just plain fat unfit cabbies (you know who you are!)

The final weeks
This is where it all becomes a mystery. I had said I wanted to keep riding til my birthday which would be the end of the 37th week, but that's looking like a big ask now. To be honest, I'd be happy to go into labour by then! A few weeks early is starting to look like a great plan. In the meantime I'll have to start making plans to stay active somehow. The pool is seeming most likely, and brisk walking seems to feel like proper exercise. In fact, anything but sitting on the couch feels like work...

The future
Over the past several months I've gone through the whole gamut, from riding with the strongest and fittest members of my club to riding with the weakest. It's been strange to measure myself against others and watch the slow decline in performance, knowing that a group I join to ride with will soon be saying good-bye a short while later as they leave me behind. I can only hope that the months after the baby see me progressing back up through the groups, improving the way I declined til finally I can ride with Jim again at his speed. Though of course riding with Jim again is going to mean a whole new problem to solve for both of us! But it's something I've really missed so it's worth the effort to make it happen in the future, even for just a rare Sunday. Anyone want to baby-sit?

29 weeks

33 weeks

"So how long are you going to keep riding?"

2011-03-15T15:45:00.010Z

... must be the most frequently asked question of me these days when I'm out on a group ride. I guess people assume that sooner or later I'll stop, and I guess I will stop at some point. But when? Who knows? I always say in reply, "as long as I can!" then add that while I've never done gone through a pregnancy before and really can't predict what will happen, I'll continue to ride as long as I'm comfortable and healthy and happy with it. Which is true. I see no reason to get off my bike and with the days getting longer again and the weather improving, the last thing I want to do is stop riding!

The funny thing is, after a huge drop in fitness last autumn (that first trimester really kicked my ass), I've been bouncing back quite steadily. Late last summer, post-peak and post-holidays, my CTL was hovering around 100 with a few road races and a handful of hill climbs to go before taking a real break. Then I got pregnant and by Week 6 -- within two weeks of the embryo implanting itself -- morning sickness had hit and my life was turned upside down.

It was like suffering a two-month hangover. Energy I used to have disappeared, I suddenly went completely off some foods and couldn't get enough of others, training became a miserable chore (so I stopped training, though of course I kept riding), and generally I felt like crap for the next eight weeks. My CTL plummetted from 100 to 59 by mid-November and while I started to feel better around this point and managed to get out more (week 14 marked a big turning point), the bad weather and then going away for Christmas kept me from any consistent riding for a few more weeks.

In the meantime, I had lost a lot of power and had to rejig my FTP to compensate for it. Not wanting to do any proper FTP testing (and I suspect my power curve has gone a bit haywire these days anyway, what with my top end aerobic power dropping like a rock but my low level endurance dieselling along like it always has), I estimated my threshold using perceived effort and muddling with the intensity factor of various rides.

This meant my tried-and-tested 240w FTP in late September was cut nearly 15% to 210w in one fell swoop in early October (numbers from the National Hill Climb in late October, the only race I've cared about since I got pregnant, confirm this). Then from the end of November onwards I gradually gained some back, leaving me with about 215-220w these days, though I feel that may drop again as my lungs seem to become more and more encroached by a growing baby! So my PMC chart below is based on those estimates, meaning the TSS and CTL numbers will be a best estimate as well.

PMC from September til now (week 28).

I was interested right from the start in trying to stay as fit as possible throughout pregnancy, and scientific curiosity motivated me to track it as best I could. So much to my delight, about halfway through the second trimester I realised that I was getting stronger again, and actually wanting to push myself a bit harder. Within reason of course! My body simply won't let me push into uncomfortable territory for long these days anyway; I can hover happily around a sweet-spot tempo effort but any hard effort leaves me cranky and tired afterwards.

But I can still ride lots and often, as long as I stop frequently and put easy days between hard days. Last week I had a TSS of 780, putting in over 350km and 13 hours of riding, the most I've done in any week since September. And since my season's low of 56 CTL at end of December, I've managed to climb steadily back up to 75. Eventually I will have to stop riding, but if I can keep that kind of fitness going between now and then I'll be pretty happy.

Obligatory bump shot:

That silly look must be what they mean by "glowing"?

Bump in KW kit

The Year of the Bike

2010-12-31T15:30:00.011Z

There's not much to write about 2010 really (have a look back through my posts throughout the year if you want specifics!) But I have to say that hanging up my running shoes between February and October to focus completely on cycling was not a disappointment. So considering I only managed a total of 120km of running this year, all the stats and figures below are cycling-only.

One thing is for sure: 2010 was the Year of the Bike for me. And I certainly savoured it, as I knew I might never have another year like it! After the kid arrives, I might manage to regain my success in racing or improve my peak power, but somehow I doubt I'll be cycling 1250km a month ever again... well maybe in my 60s. There's hope I suppose.

The geek in me always likes stats and graphs and pictures so rather than a wordy summary, here's a visual and numeric roundup of my year.

Training
Overall very consistent and steady, which surprised me as I wondered if I'd get sick of doing nothing but riding my bike. I definitely took a much-needed year off from my TT bike (it did come out for a few races but nothing I took seriously), and discovered how wonderful my 650c deep section wheels rode (and looked) for road racing. Nonetheless, my trusty and travelled Soloist has now nearly 20,000kms on it, clearly marking its position as my #1 training bike.

By the numbers:
15,166km
562hrs
90,000m climbing
367,000 calories burned

Kms per month on the bike in 2010.

A notable improvement in mean maximal average power between 2009 (dotted line) and 2010 (solid line) -- especially at the top end.

Two peaks in my season, marked by heavy training weeks in March (Lanzarote) and July (Ras Cymru stage race). Also some troughs due to illness, holidays, bad weather, and a brutal plummet at the end of the year thanks to the wonders of the first trimester. Black bars indicate top 100 rides of the year in TSS.

Racing
This year I took part in 64 races (including 4 stage races) with at least one race in every month except December. They were split pretty evenly between men's/mixed and women's-only. And only one DNF.

By the numbers:
20 road races
20 crits
13 TTs
5 cyclocross races
6 hill climbs

9 wins! (4 crits, 5 hill climbs, 1 TT)
18 podiums
29 top 10s

Average power in watts per race type. Hill climbs are definitely the toughest! I have yet to give my powertap wheel a try on the cross bike.

Interestingly, cyclocross is slower than hill climbing, my TT speeds were pathetic this year, and road racing has a much lower HR than anything else.

Steady efforts in TTs, self-preservation (lots of L1!) in road and crit racing, and a whopping 70% of hill climbs spent above Vo2max power.

The red squares denote where I travelled for races in 2010.

And finally
Knowing next to nothing about pregnancy before, I naïvely thought that everything before the "getting fat" stage would be no different from my normal life. Ha ha! Little did I know how rapid my turn from confident cat 1 racer and hill-climbing dynamo to wind-sucking and wheel-sucking (and just sucking in general) rider would be. Literally within two weeks I went from winning hill climbs to barely being able to push my watts over threshold. Very sobering, but also quite amazing! I'm looking forward to a similar increase in power right around July of next year again....

July 2010 as the solid line, and November 2010 as the dotted. Somewhere around 15% of peak power gone in a few short weeks.

Not quite a year-end review

2010-12-30T10:05:00.008Z

More of a preview of 2011 really. I'll write a year-end review tomorrow as New Year's Eve seems more appropriate for maudlin reminiscing.

So what will 2011 bring?

First off, it will bring a new addition to Jibberjim's and my little family. The two of us will become three, though to be honest, we would have been keen to double it -- who doesn't like a two-for-one, plus all the science and research fun that comes with identical siblings! (Just kidding, my monozygotic relatives!) Yes, it runs in the family. And after the horrible first trimester I had, I was frankly wishing that it was twins so I wouldn't have to go through all this again! But alas.

Between now and then (early June is the projection), I'll be trying in earnest to stay fit and healthy and give myself the best chance possible at getting back into shape afterwards, even though I know that will be hard work what with all the sleepless nights, endless feedings, sudden changes in priorities and inevitably steep learning curve I'll be struggling with. Or rather, WE. And hopefully everything between now and then stays nice and boring and uncomplicated. So far so good.

Now that I've gotten past the energy-sapping first few months, I've started to enjoy being pregnant a bit -- all this eating what I want without really caring, being amazed at heartbeats and ultrasound scans, and learning to accept the bottomless spiralling pit of my watts/kg. I'll keep riding my bike as long as I can until it's either too uncomfortable or too unwieldy to be enjoyable, and the same for running. Swimming I'm saving as my last resort for getting a good workout when all else fails. It'll also help that the worst of winter will be over before I get too big to feel human, so spring coming and the days getting longer should help with the mental health aspect.

The timing of it all turned out to be pretty ideal. I managed a full season of racing in 2010 with the small exception of the national hillclimb which in the throes of morning sickness was simply a bridge too far. If it had been just a few weeks earlier, the story might have been different. However, this does give me a goal for 2011! I won't be road racing or TTing at all, but I can probably manage to train for a few 3-5 minute hillclimbs, what with that extra bit of Vo2max that pregnancy brings. And for anyone wondering if it's advisable to continue with training during pregnancy, here are a few useful articles and studies that show how beneficial it is (to both mother and baby).

http://www.sirc.ca/sportcanada/may08/documents/Pregnancy.pdf
http://www.ideafit.com/fitness-library/the-pregnant-athlete
http://www.exercise-ball-exercises.com/exercise-and-pregnancy.html
Not to mention an entire book that says you don't have to keep your heartrate below that arbitrarily-devised 140bpm or stop running/riding/living during pregnancy!
Exercising Through Your Pregnancy by James Clapp

Most of all, we're very excited and looking forward to our new little athlete and all the fun and joy he or she will bring. First teeth, first words, first bike... you know how that goes!

Beating bike thieves

2010-11-18T17:42:00.005Z

Every now and then I post something useful to the Kingston Wheelers forum (sort of like the proverbial infinite number of monkeys typing at infinite keyboards, yada yada) and it occurs to me that it might be nice to post it to the wider world. So today's blog topic, beating bike thieves -- not literally although if faced with one in real life I might like to give him a beating -- is in response to a clubmate trying to track down his nicked bike and see the thief prosecuted and a timely Guardian bike blog post.

Another well-meaning clubmate writes:

It's so sad reading that the guy who has had 8 bikes stolen telling people to expect your bike not to be there when you return. It's so shitty that he has come to accept that.

My response:

The truth is, if they really want your bike, they'll take it. All the best locks and deterrents in the world are only useful to the point that it becomes too much hassle for undiscerning thieves to steal yours so they go for some other poor sucker's bike instead. But if they really want yours, they'll find a way to get it. :( This is true the world over (having lived in Vancouver, Toronto, Utrecht and now here, I've heard so many tales of stolen bikes that it's just depressing to think about).

The only answer: if you can't keep an eye on your bike all the time or lock it somewhere completely safe, then ride the crappiest bike you can that still gets you from A to B comfortably, safely and reasonably quick. Or resign yourself to having it stolen eventually. Or both.

In Holland this means the rustiest hulking piece of crap omafiets, preferably painted weird colours or covered in tape. Here it means probably an old tourer or MTB with slicks. Almost certainly not a nice 80s retro fixie, or even a modern day fixie, or a Brompton, or anything remotely racey or bling.

Sad but true. I'll admit I'm a bit paranoid about cafe stops on club runs, making sure I can always see my bike. But it only needs to happen once to make you feel completely emasculated, furious and sad.

Btw, the LFGSS forum has some good stuff:
-- the (currently 105 pages long) "stolen bikes" thread, occasionally one turns up and everyone is ecstatic
-- the "what to do if your bike is stolen" thread
-- the "locks that work" thread
-- and my favourite, the "how not to lock your bike" thread, including this great example:

Cross about cross

2010-10-18T10:14:00.013+01:00

(courtesy of Cross-Crazy by LCS)

Yesterday was my first cyclocross race since last February. In the throes of hillclimb-cum-off-season, trying to cling to my five-minute max power from road race season while letting go of the endurance and threshold a bit, I found the race a lot harder than anticipated. Halfway through I started to fade badly and if I hadn't put in a fast final lap I would have finished even further down than 7th in the women's race. Nobody to blame but myself though; I'm caught in that self-induced mix of off-season dwindling fitness, lack of motivation to push myself and rusty cyclocross skills. And stuck with a bike that's showing itself more and more to be below the level I want to ride.

This was driven home in particular by the performance of CJ Boom yesterday, who's racking up an impressive run of good results in her cross racing. A perusal of her blog shows why: she's serious about it and is putting in the effort accordingly, both in her gear (hand-built tubs) and her attitude. As someone who was handy to measure my performances against last year in cross and this year on the road, it's pretty inspiring to see her doing so well and really driving her racing up a level. The result is she's dropped me like a 4th cat newbie. And I will admit to not liking this one bit!

So that leaves me with two choices:

I can get a lot more serious about cross, as I have with road racing. Make a point of practising those mud/sand/grass handling skills, mounts/dismounts, run-ups, gear selection, etc. outside of races. Get a much better bike, more wheel and tire choices, race more often and on as many courses as possible, get some results so I can be gridded. Train to start faster and more aggressively, go back to threshold workouts to bring my 40-60 min power up again.

Or I can forget about all of that and go out to race and have fun. Try not to crash too much and hope that my skills improve by coincidence or consequence. Enjoy myself on a day out with lots of other cyclists (cross is after all the most inclusive, welcoming and social of all races in my opinion). Keep riding my same old bike and clincher tires. Start happily ungridded, unstressed, and towards the rear of the field and see how many I overtake during the race. And most importantly, not bother to train for it and not care!

Not that these two choices are entirely mutually exclusive of course. In fact, the top-end crossers get just as much fun and enjoyment out of racing as the lanterne rouge Go-Race guys I'm sure. And I find it really hard to keep from being competitive when I have a number on my back, no matter what my pre-race intentions are. But at the same time, I'm a bit worn out from racing non-stop since March and I'm dying for a break mentally if not physically.

So in my typically half-assed way, it's going to have to be choice number three for now. I will upgrade my bike to something lighter with better components (if only to have a more enjoyable ride) but I won't do much different about wheels and tires. I will race when and where I feel like it -- and when I do, vow to make it count -- but not be too bothered if that doesn't happen too often. If the weather turns crappy and I want to ride but not on the road, I'll get the cross bike out and practise a bit. Once the national hill climb is over and I've had a few weeks off, I'll re-evaluate where I am and what I want to accomplish over the winter and whether cross is something that's important enough to me to train for specifically. And I'll still have fun! Not sure I can ever quite give up cake though...

Catford and Bec Hill Climb reports

2010-10-11T12:49:00.012+01:00

Living in London means that popular local events are quite well-attended, and the iconic Bec CC and Catford CC (oldest bike race in the world) hill climbs yesterday didn't disappoint. Soaring temps of nearly 20 degrees and full sunshine helped, I'm sure!

Edit: the Guardian has since showcased a cool Catford audio slideshow and London Cycle Sport featured a video by VC Elan rider Mat Pennell.

Catford climb on Yorks Hill

First up was the Catford climb, which starts with a draggy shallow bit and steadily ramps up and up to the final 200m which is grindingly out-of-the-saddle steep. I'll admit I was quite nervous before the start as the top woman's prizes were a good haul (Rapha softshell jacket and Condor-donated Mavic Huez shoes worth about £500 total). But in my good intentions to rest this week hoping for strong legs on the day, it appeared that I had actually over-rested as my legs felt terrible within the first few seconds. Ignoring the powermeter and everything but the road ahead (well, I did sneak a few looks at the elapsed time and distance before the road turned upwards), I just gritted my teeth and tried to hang tough.

As it was my first time at this race I hadn't realised just how much energy you get from the screaming Tour de France style crowds in the final minute. I'd held back just a bit too much before the finish, but when I saw the finish line with 20m to go I realised I had something left in reserve and managed to put together a good sprint for the line. In the end, this made the difference as I finished in 2:49.5, a mere 0.6 seconds ahead of the second-placed woman Juliette Clark. She wasn't to go for half an hour after me though, so that made for some nail-biting moments waiting for her result, as I was sure I hadn't done enough to win it. I was quite relieved to find that I had!

With the mini-camera mounted to my handlebars I managed to video my trip up Yorks Hill and capture the essence of the event: the narrow road, the huge crowds and my own agonised heavy breathing. Many thanks to all the supporters especially the dozen or so Kingston Wheelers who rode out to watch. At the time I could barely focus on anything but the road directly in front of my wheel, but looking at the video I realise how cool it was climbing through all those people.

Bec climb on White Lane

With the awards from the Catford race running late and my start at the Bec climb being early, I was in a rush and got to White Lane less than an hour before I was due to start. No time for a structured warmup on the turbo trainer, I headed out for a quick spin on the roads (praying for no tire punctures!) then went down to the start. This time I was determined to go off harder knowing I could dig deeper towards the top through the crowds. This climb was fairly steady at ~12% with only a steep bit in the final 100m or so.

About halfway up I was feeling the effort and stalling a bit but soon afterwards I saw Jim standing alone yelling and that spurred me to work harder. Up ahead I could see the streamers strung across the road and hear the crowds and the announcer saying I was headed their way. In my addled state (again, never having done this race before), I figured that was pretty close to the finish so I gave it as much as I could only to find that the finish was further.. and even further... and much further than I thought! After what felt like an eternity I saw the checkered board and limped across the line totally spent. But I felt 100 times better than in the morning race and knew I'd given it my all.

Again, though, I had to wait a bit to find out if I'd won, and again I only managed to snag first place woman by 0.6 seconds! This time to Deborah Percival, who had come third at Catford. Pleased with my performance and with my new power records (and hearing my name and time announced on the loudspeaker over and over as the leading woman until no other women were left), I got a nice prize packet of Rouleur hat, book,t-shirt and magazine. Oh yes, and a lovely subscription to Elle Magazine which I haven't decided yet what to do with.

Where's that finish line? (Bec pic courtesy of Sylvain Garde from Addiscombe CC)

And the stats and graphs for those who like that stuff (btw, I believe the timekeeper was a second slow on the Catford climb, for everyone of course!)

Catford


 Duration:   2:48
 Work:       57 kJ
 TSS:        9.2 (intensity factor 1.407)
 Pw:HR:       10.46%
 Pa:HR:       34.92%
 Distance:   631 m
 Elevation Gain:     79 m
 Elevation Loss:    1 m
 Grade:      12.5 %  (78 m)
  Min Max Avg
 Power:        0 482 340  watts
 Heart Rate:   124 181 168  bpm
 Cadence:      61 115 81  rpm
 Speed:        3.8 25.7 13.5  kph
 Altitude:     117 195 156  m
 Crank Torque: 0 64.1 40.5  N-m

Bec


 Duration:   2:41
 Work:       56 kJ
 TSS:        9.6 (intensity factor 1.466)
 Pw:HR:       5.03%
 Pa:HR:       24.75%
 Distance:   616 m
 Elevation Gain:     81 m
 Elevation Loss:    3 m
 Grade:      12.7 %  (77 m)
  Min Max Avg
 Power:        0 501 349  watts
 Heart Rate:   132 178 170  bpm
 Cadence:      52 103 81  rpm
 Speed:        1.3 22.6 13.8  kph
 Altitude:     170 247 207  m
 Crank Torque: 0 88.8 41.0  N-m

Suffer

2010-10-07T23:11:00.002+01:00

Seen this summer on a fellow racer's bike:

Sadly I'm not hardcore enough for this to work for me, and the truth is, I'd probably laugh out loud mid-race if I put this on my bike -- it's that cerebral side of me. But "stop messing about and get it done" is a bit too long to fit on the handlebars.

Hell Climbing, I mean, Hill Climbing Joy

2010-10-03T14:00:00.003+01:00

(courtesy of clubmate Nick Hussey)

I sort of fancy myself a climber, though in reality I'm more of a pint-sized rouleur than a lightweight grimpeur. Still, when the road goes up I tend to do well, so what better way to top off a fine racing season than to try some hill climbing time trials?

Mistake #1: hill climbing is nothing like climbing a hill in a race. Following wheels, attacking off the front, marking others' attacks and setting tempo on the front are all completely different from the all-out lung busting effort that is a typical UK hill climb (more or less five minutes at ~10%). Rarely will you find me at my all-out 5-minute power for longer than a minute or two in a road race unless it's the final few minutes. And most importantly, the pyschological distraction and stress of other riders makes climbing at that intensity in a road race quite a bit more tolerable.

Mistake #2: pacing is pretty crucial. Going out even a bit too hard will be repaid in a thousand agonies. If the race is a short two or three minutes, you might get lucky; at least it's over quick. But for anything longer than five minutes, pacing is really important.

Mistake #3: underestimating how badly it will hurt. I've done three hill climbs now and I feel I've learned a huge amount between the first and the third, but the one thing that hasn't changed is how awful it feels while you're doing it. Proper pacing makes it manageable but that wheezing chesty cough still happens after every one. I have yet to puke at the top so maybe I'm not going hard enough though?

So what is a hill climb about? It's the most intense experience of time-trialling that exists. It's all you and nothing but you out there. The clock is ticking somewhere far away, but in the here and now it's just you... suffering, hearing your own ragged breathing, struggling to turn over the pedals, thinking how badly you're doing, wondering when it will end. If you're lucky you'll see someone ahead of you floundering even worse and use it as mean motivation; if you're unlucky you'll be overtaken by your minute man which only serves to dampen further any enthusiasm you have for hill climbing. The final seconds are a sweet respite as the sight of the finish line promises relief that this will finally be over.

But it's cruelly deceptive, as the first few seconds after the race is over are nearly more painful than the race itself. Gasping for breath, legs jellified, skin tingling, brain insisting that you never do one of these again! All of which disappear in the next minute or two leaving you feeling exhilarated and full of adrenaline. And those feelings last long enough to sign up for the next one.

Me climbing through cowbell corner at the John Bornhoft Memorial Hill Climb (courtesy of clubmate Rich Allen)

2010 Team Series Wrap-up

2010-10-02T15:00:00.002+01:00

Two weekends ago was the final race of the Team Series, and with a hilly course suiting my strengths and several of the series' best riders away in Ireland at the Ras na mBan stage race, I was looking forward to a good result. So with a team of four strong riders we were off to Coalville to race on a chilly and windy but thankfully dry September morning.

We rolled out of the HQ, across the road and 400m later past the lap/finish line: 6 laps to go, 14.5km per lap. This was a longish race Team Series standards, but that was fine with me. Leona was behind the lead car as it pulled away, and with all the Motorpoint girls (juniors, nearly every one of them) chatting away about school, boys and whatnot, I casually made my way up the group to sit beside her. And then picked up the pace just a bit. And then decided to ride off the front ever so slightly... peeked behind and the bunch was somewhat noticing but not really.

All of sudden Emily came flying past me and I let her get a gap of 30m or so. Nobody reacted because it was so early (2km into an 87km race!) and I'm sure they thought she would come straight back to us in a minute or two. Then MaxGear's Anna Fischer -- one of the best domestic riders in the UK right now -- flew past on her way over to Emily and I decided this was a wheel I needed to jump on. I did, and we quickly reached Emily who was able to grab my wheel and the next thing I knew we were away with a massive gap. And so it stayed for the next 85kms.

First lap we pulled out a minute, second lap another minute, by the third lap that seemed to be holding (Anna's teammates policing the bunch with Leona's help, and Motorpoint not able to get anything going) and by the fourth lap there was word that two riders were 2 min behind us and the bunch was not chasing. At that point, even though we were slowing down from our original lap-times (not helped by the wind picking up), I knew we'd stay away from everyone as long as we kept working.

But my legs were not good. Emily was having a really great ride, I had been worried at first that she'd get gapped on the sharp hill before the turn into the finish-line draggy straight, but she hung on. And did more than her share on the flats and into the wind. Anna did quite a bit too, in fact I felt like I was the weakest of the three of us at times, struggling a bit with an upset stomach from early that morning and legs threatening to cramp up. Frustrating, but I could live with it.

In retrospect Emily and I should have been attacking Anna on the last lap, taking turns at it, but in the moment we didn't really have our plan organised and frankly I wasn't convinced we could beat Anna anyway. Emily selflessly sat on the front most of the last lap and when Anna attacked going up the hill before the final corner I went with her for about 5 seconds til my legs said "no way" and my brain stupidly said "2nd place is fine" so I came in about 100m behind her with Emily another 100m behind me. Not a bad result really, though of course now I'm annoyed with myself for giving up the win without a fight!

Looking rough at the halfway point (from left: me, Anna, Emily) (courtesy of race organiser Nick Horner-Maddocks)

But the best was yet to come... after the finish we turned around to go back and watch the other riders come in. I was curious who the 2 riders between us and the bunch were and much to my delight it was Leona with a giant grin on her face, having outsprinted her break companion to come 4th! Mathilde ended 11th, rolling in with the next group as the bunch had split again at some point. So that meant top team was us, Surrey League. All in all a pretty successful day and a satisfying finish to the end of my road race season. Great rides by Emily and Leona made for 3 happy girls on the long ride home.

Leona and her break partner Maxine Filby working together (courtesy of race organiser Nick Horner-Maddocks)

Later we learned that with our strong finish at Coalville, we managed to leap over the Rapha Condor team in the overall standings into 3rd. A nice way to end the season and it showed that consistent performances are just as important as stand-out performances when it comes to a season's overall results (see the series report on British Cycling's site).

End of Summer Vacation

2010-10-01T20:47:00.006+01:00

Okay, so I haven't written for a while... call it a summer vacation. It's now well past summer as a glance outside at the dark pouring rain would show, so back to blogging.

Lots of news to share, starting with the London Women's Cycle Racing League prize presentations last night. It was a great event, hosted by Look Mum No Hands of course. We, the Kingston Wheelers, did quite well with teammates Sabine and Emily picking up 5th and 7th place respectively, with Emily also getting the Most Combative Rider award. Having held on to my 1st place through July and August, I won the overall and KW as a team finished in 3rd. We all left with more cash than we arrived with, and some nice prizes too. All in all a pretty successful night!

From left: Emily, Lise, Maryka, and Sabine (Hillary absent) (courtesy of Dave Hayward and London Cycle Sport.)

Jerseys and Suffering

2010-06-14T13:07:00.003+01:00

The Etape de la Defonce stage race in Wales went pretty well, all things considered; I'll write a proper blogpost about it later with pics and data. I came home with what I'd hoped to get, which was the women's GC leader's jersey and prize. It wasn't easy as strong Welsh rider Ang Mason was also there, but with the help of my teammates I gritted my teeth and got it done.

At a particularly low moment in the first road race, it occurred to me that cycle racing is just an adult verison of those games you play as a kid, the "who can suffer the most" games. Stuff like holding your breath for the longest time, who cries uncle first when someone's punching your arm, who's the first to chicken out of a head-on collision with another kid on a bike. Everything else being more or less equal, it isn't fitness that tests the best riders, it's nerve and determination and ability to suffer. Mental toughness as it were. Sadists, the whole lot of them!

On a different note, I've now worn four different jerseys this racing season.

From left to right:
-- my home club the Kingston Wheelers
-- the Surrey Cycle Racing League, our women's team for Team Series and other team races
-- the London Women's Cycle Racing league leader's jersey (which I currently hold but could lose at any time)
-- the Etape de la Defonce ladies' overall winner's jersey (which I technically never wore to race, but no matter).

Good legs

2010-06-10T12:28:00.009+01:00

Funny how it only takes a few days of good riding to feel happy again about being on the bike. My saddle sore has recovered and I'm over whatever mysterious illness I had a week ago at Hog Hill (blinding all-day headache stupidly compounded by riding 50km to get to the race through the dustiest smoggiest part of east London) which left me dropped from the lead group on the bell lap and struggling for a 7th place finish.

Sunday saw me at the Team Series race in Melbourne, Derbyshire, one of the more hilly races on the calendar and thus suiting me well. With three of us from the Surrey League team in the front group of 18 (it was a race of attrition more than attacks) and the other two in the second group, we managed three top-12 finishes and fifth place overall team. Considering my form and preparation wasn't the best, I was pretty happy with the result against a strong field with several big teams represented.

Monday's ride saw me in Richmond Park under the guise of recovery, but my legs despite being a bit fatigued were awesome and I actually stopped to recalibrate my powermeter because I thought it was reading too high! Two clockwise laps in under 45 min and 195 watts... so much for recovery.

Tuesday's Palace race was off due to the wet course, but I was commissairing anyway and we ran the kids' races on the top circuit instead. I had opted to drive the car for some stupid reason and learned my lesson there: nearly 30 min longer than it takes to ride my bike! Never again.

Then yesterday was our club 10 TT, this time a 2-up team event though I had asked permission to run a 4-up with Leona, Emily and Lise as training for this weekend's Etape de la Defonce stage race. I headed out early to the hills to get a few more miles in my legs and to my surprise the supposed southwest headwind felt like a tailwind. And my powermeter must have been off again too, as the watts were reading a bit higher than the effort would have said. Nope, all good... so there I was, gliding up the hills and flying along the flats, trying to hold back a bit for the TTT but my legs would have none of it. Until the puncture of course, but that just gave me more reason to haul it along the A25 to get to the club 10 signing-on in time.

The TTT itself went very well, we took the first half steady (again I noted the lack of headwind and wondered how the return leg would go). When we turned around to come back, there was no wind there either and we caned the last few miles in a very smooth through-and-off for a respectable 24:34 time -- all of us on roadbikes with not a stitch of aero gear.

Siting in the car on the way home, I mused that it had been one of those rare days when there's always a tailwind, the hills seem flatter and riding a bike is just plain fast. It was the anti-Shut Up Legs day. We cyclists often moan about the omnipresent headwinds, the steep hills, the crappy road surfaces, etc. but yesterday was just the opposite for me. Seems my legs are coming back nicely. Dare I hope for a good result at the race this weekend?

(Click the pic to order one of these t-shirts from the Cycling Tips blog)

Unscheduled Downtime

2010-05-30T21:49:00.007+01:00

My dwindling fitness graphically portrayed, thanks to some unscheduled downtime.

After our 10-day monster training camp in Lanzarote in early March (blog post about that still to come), I carried some pretty great form and fitness straight through til the Bedford stage race two months later. Well... to be fair, that form was starting to get somewhat ragged around the edges by then, and as a former "big event" triathlete I wasn't quite sure what to do about it. My years of training until this year have been based on the train hard, train harder, train so hard you're dead, taper/rest, then race schedule that I really had no idea how to approach this week-in week-out constant training and racing. How does one maintain fitness without too much fatigue and still have good form for races? So after Bedford I decided the best way to hang on to my form yet stay fresh was to forego the weekly long rides and stick mostly to shorter stuff, either as races or faster training rides. After all, the longest non-TT race I'll do this year will be less than three hours, so why the need for 100 mile training rides?

So with a CTL hovering nicely around 110 and TSB plus or minus a few digits, I settled in these past few weeks to that plan. And while it seemed to be working in terms of freshness and fatigue balancing into some semblance of form, I still was missing that zip in my legs that I had back in mid-April. I wasn't awesome when I wanted to be; form in races seemed to come and go when it felt like it. Thursday night handicap AKA training race? Great performance! Southeast road race divisional championships? Meh. Crystal Palace saw me relying more on good position and timing than on good legs, and the National 10 mile TT last weekend could barely garner FTP watts. What to do?

Then, a crash a week ago Friday (bringing with it some unwelcome road rash and bruises) made the link between my body's fatigue and freshness even more tenuous, and finally last Tuesday the saddle sore I'd been carefully nursing for the past few weeks was no longer a minor annoyance. So as a result I've been off the bike for six days with at least another two to come before I dare try my luck matching arse to saddle again.

I've been trying to find a bright side to this as I watch my CTL drop like a stone with every passing day, now below the level it was when I finished the training camp in March. And I think it's this: downtime isn't necessarily a bad thing. The timing isn't catastrophic. I'm not truly sick or injured, so building my fitness back up shouldn't be an issue. My peak from the last major build came about six weeks later, and looking at the calendar, the same timing now should mean good form for the Essex Giro national series race at the end of July. So in the end I think I've answered my question about form and fitness and how one races all summer long trying to hold a peak: you don't. At some point you just have to let it go, take a rest, then work to build it up again. I mean, I could race 12 months a year non-stop, but I suspect I'd just end up frustrated that I never felt 100% fresh and zippy. Some downtime, unscheduled or not, is required.

Now I just need to figure out how to make the races that count your best ones... but I have a sneaking suspicion the answer will be much the same. This is a big reason why I love cycling: there's just so much that can't be predicted, though we data geeks sure love to try.

The Boxhill Challenge or Why I'm a Big Fat Liar

2010-05-25T12:46:00.009+01:00

According to Cycling Weekly, the 2012 Olympic road race will take place on roads I know well and love to hate, including that Alp of Southeast England, Zigzag Road up Boxhill. So popular is this little climb and the woods around it that on any given weekend the cafe at the top is overflowing with mountain bikers and road cyclists scarfing down tea and cake. The Olympic course will include at least one and hopefully more loops of the hill, and while hardly a bump in the road for pro cyclists, it will be an interesting spectacle nonetheless.

With any climb comes a challenge, and the very nature of Boxhill with its easily identified start and finish points, unique switchbacks, low traffic and promise of cake at the end means amateur cyclists like myself can't resist racing themselves and the clock to get to the top. Thus the Boxhill Challenge was born, and it's one in which I fare pretty well compared to a standard TT or Richmond Park's 3LC (three lap challenge). Climbs level the playing field for smaller riders as long as their power is high relative to their weight. I'm not a pure climber by any means, but when the road goes up I don't mind at all! The longer the better, in fact.

Boxhill Gradients

Boxhill at 2.5kms with 5% average gradient means hitting it at full-on VO2max power, bouncing over the rough road, fighting an oft-present headwind, and forcing the pedals to keep turning over when it slightly steepens. It begins as you turn into Zigzag road, sheltered from the wind, and quickly progresses to the steepest section at about 10%, though you hardly notice it if you're carrying good speed after having sprinted to get a quick start!

Turning the corner into the next switchback usually means a tailwind, much welcomed albeit short-lived, and if you have a tailwind here, you're guaranteed to suffer a headwind on the third leg. That one parallels the first and is almost fully exposed to the elements. It's the longest leg and seems to go on forever, bringing about the inevitable bargaining and promises made with oneself: "just a few more minutes, you're almost there", "keep going, at the top you can stop", and my personal favourite "once this is over, you'll never have to do it again!"

Finally the last corner comes into view, inviting a sprint to get around it as the road starts to flatten. The last few hundred yards are a frantic dash to the "finish line", which is at the carpark entrance directly across from the cafe. Gasping for air, you hit "stop" on the bike computer and try to see through bleary eyes what time you did.

While I climb Boxhill as part of my rides around the Surrey Hills quite often, I only take part in the Boxhill Challenge once in a while. My brain does a pretty good job at remembering those bargains and promises I made to myself the previous attempt. Of course, those promises fade into lies, as I always find myself climbing Boxhill full-tilt not two months later, gasping and struggling and cursing the clock, the hill, the road, myself and all the other people who think it's important to race up Boxhill and test themselves, then post their results to motivate everyone else.

And my result? Yesterday's effort -- with a rare but favourable tailwind from the NW -- clocked 6:19 at 297 watts, more than 10 watts higher than my previous best and only one second off my best-ever time (set with my TT bike last September). In fact, I smashed my previous best road bike time by 14 seconds and set a new five-minute peak power record. And of course, I lied to myself that I'd never have to do it again, but in a month or two I'll be back again to see if I can break 300 watts and get closer to six minutes.


Boxhill Climb (297 watts):
 Duration:   6:19
 Work:       113 kJ
 TSS:        16.6 (intensity factor 1.255)
 Norm Power: 295
 VI:         0.99
 Pw:HR:       6.46%
 Pa:HR:       0%
 Distance:   2.487 km
 Elevation Gain:     185 m
 Elevation Loss:    60 m
 Grade:      5.0 %  (125 m)
  Min Max Avg
 Power:        133 479 297  watts
 Heart Rate:   149 186 178  bpm
 Cadence:      75 112 93  rpm
 Speed:        13 35.5 23.6  kph
 Altitude:     61 190 132  m
 Crank Torque: 15.3 53.8 30.5  N-m

Crystal Palace 2010, Race 5

2010-05-19T20:08:00.006+01:00

Having missed round 3 because I was helping as assistant commissaire and round 4 because I was recovering from Bedford, after Sunday's disappointing race at Hillingdon I was eager to burn up the tarmac at Crystal Palace last night. We got another good field of women out with 15 on the start line, though with the warm weather it seemed every 3rd and 4th cat guy in London was there as well. The average speed turned out to be faster than usual and 25 laps made it the longest so far, at just under an hour.

Such a close finish! This pic was taken a few metres before the line (courtesy of London Cycle Sport.)

We started out easily enough but within a few laps Natalie from Twickenham had come to the front to start pushing the pace. This dropped a handful of riders from the group, and spurred on by Charlie from Cyclefit, Natalie and I put in some attacks to try and get a gap. We never really managed to get away, but did manage to tire some legs, and with about 10 laps to go we were down to seven riders. Attacking more at that point seemed futile as the fracturing of the other races meant we had to endure group after group of men overtaking us (though we overtook a fair few men ourselves).

On the final lap, Natalie -- doing too much work on the front as usual! -- was pushing the pace with my KW teammate Emily on her wheel, followed by Emma P from the Dynamos (the only sprinter left in the group at that point) and me. I tried to time my now-customary bid for freedom on the hill so that Emma was out of position and couldn't jump on my wheel, but I think I was slightly overgeared as I hit the steepest bit of hill and felt like I was stalling. I managed to keep her to the outside on the bend but knew it was a losing cause as she quickly overtook me, leaving me with no option but to get on her wheel and settle for second. Or so I thought. Fifty yards before the line, she was labouring a bit, and I thought "could I? can I? actually win this?"

I stood up, found my legs keen to give it a try, dug in with everything I had and almost magically found myself coming around her left side. I nearly ran out of road but just nicked my wheel in front of hers in time. The few seconds afterward weren't ones of celebration but instead a mix of shock, disbelief and nausea as I tried to recover from what was apparently a massive effort; I hardly ever feel pushed right to the limit of being sick in a race. Power numbers show new peak watts for 45 to 55 seconds, so clearly I was working hard!

So it's the most exciting win yet in my short-lived racing career, but maybe not one I'll be able to repeat often as my typical "jump with a minute to go" must be looking old hat to the others! The good news is that Emily came in a strong third so I think we've got some more KW cards to play in the future. It'll have to wait two weeks though, as next week I'm back to my role as assistant commissaire.


Entire workout (197 watts):
 Duration:   55:30 (55:58)
 Work:       657 kJ
 TSS:        99.5 (intensity factor 1.037)
 Norm Power: 244
 VI:         1.24
 Pw:HR:       7.2%
 Pa:HR:       1.52%
 Distance:   33.053 km
 Elevation Gain:     726 m
 Elevation Loss:    727 m
 Grade:      -0.0 %  (0 m)
  Min Max Avg
 Power:        0 716 197  watts
 Heart Rate:   118 187 171  bpm
 Cadence:      38 182 99  rpm
 Speed:        0.6 63 35.7  kph
 Altitude:     73 99 87  m
 Crank Torque: 0 89.6 18.6  N-m

Pack Fill redux

2010-05-17T22:52:00.010+01:00

Last year I wrote about my first men's cat 3 race, a great experience where I was happy to finish in the bunch though upon reflection I knew I was just pack fill. And I thought to myself at the time, "enough of this! from now on I will ride at the front, attack when I can and make a difference in my races!" Ha ha.

To be fair, I haven't done a bad job at this, at least in women's races. In men's races my prime objective is to 1) hang with the front group as long as possible, followed by 2) not get dropped by the main bunch, and 3) get a really good workout and test my limits. But in women's races, my aims are higher. Obviously, I'd like to 1) win, but failing that, I'd be happy to 2) get on the podium, 3) make the break, or 4) do something memorable. Sunday's Hillingdon Grand Prix women's race was one of those where I did none of the above, and my mediocre performance led exactly to what it deserved: a mediocre result.

Well, maybe I'm being a bit hard on myself. It was a national series race, which turned out to contain half the elite riders in the country, most of the Olympic Development Team, plus various world track champions past and present. The course is the least technical around, with wide sweeping corners and barely 5m of altitude change per lap. In fact, it's the very same course that lulls average 3rd and 4th cat men each week into believing they are good racers because they can hang onto the bunch for an hour "saving themselves" for a finishing sprint they have no hope of winning. And I'm all of 5-foot-2 and 53kg, with a nearly-middle-aged crash-wary body, lacking the drive to claw my way up the bunch for what would be at best a 15th place finish in the final sprint. So my only hope in such a race is to attack early and often, try to get a gap, try to get someone to join me, and hope we can stay away.

But did I do that? No. I watched and waited, saw a few other strong riders try to make a break for it and told myself "if it sticks, I'll bridge". It never stuck and they always came back. The primes every few laps did nothing to help us there, as the big sprinters -- also strong riders -- knew they'd make an easy £20 every time if they kept it together. Why work harder than you need to?

Two girls take advantage of a couple of lapped riders to make a go of it, what I should have been doing.

With two-thirds of the race gone, I had moved up to the front fifteen in the bunch in preparation for another prime, wondering if this would be the one that opened a gap and divided the bunch into two. And it almost happened, six of the strongest contenders went for the prime and kept going, and I instantly knew I had to join them, now or never. So I dug in, sprinted away from those behind me and made sure nobody was on my wheel, got over to the six girls... just as they sat up. The End.

Where's Maryka? Safely in the middle of the bunch! zzzz

Ten laps later and I, deflated and jaded, lacking any motivation to have a go myself and no longer wanting to fight to maintain my position in the bunch, had drifted back to 30th or so for a while. Then two laps to go and I wondered if I took a flyer off the bunch at the bell, would I be allowed to get a gap and maybe ride away with it, everyone thinking I'd blow up long before the finish? Probably not but at least I'd come away accomplishing #4, something memorable. But it was too late, I was well back and there was no way I'd get up the bunch in time to try it. And the bell went and I rode around at a slightly higher speed and effort than I had most of the day but made up no places and rolled in for 33rd in the end. Power numbers read 180 watts average and 205 watts normative power -- far from what I can do in a 68 minute race.

Just another easy day on the bike from the look of it. You have to look pretty far down to the bunch to see me on the right-hand side. Oh yes, the girl crossing the finish line is already 11th.

Lessons learned:
-- crits are not my thing
-- non-technical crits are definitely not my thing
-- position maintenance is incredibly mentally tiring
-- it's hard to unleash a sprint from 30th place and achieve anything
-- next time I should just put my entry fee directly into the pockets of the prime and race winners and not bother racing! and just hit the pub instead.

I can see, however, that crit racing would definitely appeal to some kinds of folks, and frankly I'm surprised that I don't bite harder on them, what with my background as an ice hockey player. Contact sports, I love 'em! But somehow contact with people on expensive bikes going all out at 50km/h with nothing but hard asphalt to answer to if a mistake is made doesn't quite entice me the same way. I'll stick to the hills I think.

Epilogue:

At least my day, mediocre as it was, ended with me and my bike upright. Not so lucky for Rapha's CJ Boom who was part of a 3-rider crash and lived to tell about it. Best wishes to her and to Cassie Gledhill who came off the worst and was taken away by ambulance (she's home now with broken ribs and shoulder injury).

Racing as Training

2010-05-14T11:59:00.011+01:00

Thursday night was the weekly Surrey League handicap race. These offer a great option on the midweek racing menu around London, as they take place on rolling 3-4 mile open road courses rather than the usual short closed circuits. The "handicapper" (usually Keith Butler, founder of the Surrey League) sets up the groups and the times between them depending on the course and which riders show up.

The make-up of each group varies from night to night (Keith has a good memory for names, faces and abilities!) but usually the first group to go consists of new 4th cats, ladies and 4th vets. The second group has weaker 3rd cats, 3rd vets and more experienced 4ths and ladies, the third group has the stronger 3rd cats, the fourth group is the 2nd cats, and the scratch (last) group contains all the elites and 1st cats. The groups are set off in order with gaps of up to several minutes between, meaning each group has to try both to catch the groups in front and stay ahead of the groups behind. On any given night, nobody knows how generous the handicaps will be, who will work together well enough to stay away, or how long it will take to be caught by the groups behind. Makes for some very interesting racing!

Tactics are basic but ruthless: the faster groups try to sprint past when catching the slower groups to prevent anybody from jumping on the train, while the slower groups try desperately to latch on and keep going. Within each group, it's an unspoken agreement to work together, but sandbaggers can expect to be attacked. Groups are often as small as eight riders. With nowhere to hide, and everyone with a vested interest to work together to catch/keep from the other groups, it's one of those "push your limits or get dropped" kind of races. Just what some of us need to get in a great night's training, as I could certainly never ride 30 miles so hard on my own the way I can in a handicap.

What's interesting about handicap races on the open road -- where you often can't see a group you're catching until mere minutes before you catch them -- is how little shelter it offers the rider who's used to hiding in a 60+ rider bunch. In the early laps, most people will come through and take a turn on the front, but as the laps pass and legs tire, often it's down to only a handful of riders doing all the work while the rest are doing their best to conserve energy and hang on. Sharp corners, rolling hills, accelerations as other groups come past and unexpected gaps opening up all contribute to that stretching elastic effect til suddenly you look around and realise that half the group you started with is off the back. This is when some riders are confronted with the brutal truth that a good Surrey League handicap race exposes: just because you can finish in the bunch at Hillingdon week after week doesn't mean you're a strong rider! In fact, I would say that not only are handicaps a much better way to use racing as training, they are a good test of true fitness. And they will expose your weaknesses in racing like nothing else.

To illustrate my point, here are a few diagrams taken from WKO+ from recent men's races I've done. The first is Hillingdon during the winter series, a 3rd cat men's race. The second is Goodwood, a pan-flat windy circuit, also a 3rd cat men's race. And the third is last night's handicap at Accommodation Rd. out by Longcross. All three races I felt that I put in some effort, but was still well within myself. Note how much less time is spent essentially freewheeling in the handicap, and how much more time is spent sprinting and at VO2max level!

Hillingdon, January 2 2010

Goodwood, March 28 2010

Accommodation Road handicap, May 13 2010

Oh yes, a race report!

In last night's race I started in the second group and it was quickly apparent that I was one of a handful of stronger riders in the group. We worked together reasonably well but it was only two laps before we were caught by Jim's group (the third group), who had quickly pared themselves from ten to four riders by the time they caught us. Most of my group managed to latch on, though the speed had now increased and some people (who had already disappeared from the front a lap before) were struggling. They got some respite as we caught the leading group on the road of 4th cats, many of whom also managed to join the back of our group thanks to a car that slowed us at the wrong moment. A lap went by, then an attack at the front saw the group split briefly at the corner-plus-draggy-hill section and I was on the wrong side of it. But seeing Jim and fellow KWer Damien in the group ahead, I was content to let them go and not chase -- especially when nobody came around me to help!

We caught them back up by the next corner after the downhill though, and it stayed that way for another half-lap until the scratch group came steaming through, which included a strong rider in Jim's original group who had been caught napping when the four of them had attacked. The acceleration from the scratch group saw most of my original group and all of the 4th cats dropped, with only four of us left (not coincidentally the four who had been taking the most turns before being caught by Jim's group). I looked around and realised I was the caboose on the train, and though I knew I needed to move up the line of riders, with the tailwind and speed I just couldn't and sadly hit the next corner still at the back. I tried desperately to come out of the corner and hit the hill hard, but as that was the prime attack spot on the circuit, attack they did and off the back I went. As I did, I overtook two riders from my original group as they blew themselves up trying to stay in touch, and ended up 100 yards behind the main group -- now the front group on the road -- as they rode away.

The last guy left from my original group joined me and we worked together to try and stay away from whoever was left behind us, which we managed for another lap and a half. Then just as we hit the bell lap, the rest of the scratch and 2nd/3rd cat riders who had been dropped from those groups earlier on caught us up and I spent the final lap in a group of a dozen riders again. On the final hill to the finish, I managed to come around a few of them who either gave up or blew up and I ended around 20th or so. Not bad for an evening's training! Damien ended up in the points at 8th and Jim 11th, while former Wheeler Luke was 5th.

Below is the hardest lap out of the eight we did, lap 3 when Jim's group joined us. Note my FTP at 235 and how I spent much of the time above it! My peak 1-sec, 5-sec, 10-sec, 2-min, 5-min and 10-min were all in this lap.

The hardest lap


Lap 3 (0:09:04.04):
 Duration:   9:03
 Work:       119 kJ
 TSS:        16.5 (intensity factor 1.045)
 Norm Power: 245
 VI:         1.12
 Pw:HR:       -11.92%
 Pa:HR:       10.83%
 Distance:   6.011 km
 Elevation Gain:     84 m
 Elevation Loss:    84 m
 Grade:      -0.0 %  (0 m)
  Min Max Avg
 Power:        0 741 219  watts
 Heart Rate:   154 184 175  bpm
 Cadence:      31 159 101  rpm
 Speed:        16.9 68.6 39.9  kph
 Altitude:     35 72 52  m
 Crank Torque: 0 87.9 20.3  N-m

Entire Race
 Duration:   1:16:51 (1:17:41)
 Work:       951 kJ
 TSS:        123.7 (intensity factor 0.983)
 Norm Power: 231
 VI:         1.12
 Pw:HR:       5.35%
 Pa:HR:       1.49%
 Distance:   48.081 km
 Elevation Gain:     666 m
 Elevation Loss:    665 m
 Grade:      0.0 %  (0 m)
  Min Max Avg
 Power:        0 741 206  watts
 Heart Rate:   85 184 170  bpm
 Cadence:      31 196 99  rpm
 Speed:        4.5 69.6 37.5  kph
 Altitude:     35 72 52  m
 Crank Torque: 0 87.9 19.6  N-m

Secret Ingedient Mock Mojo aka Kitchen Sink Bars

2010-05-10T16:33:00.016+01:00

Over the past six months I've been making my own energy bars. Part of this was brought on by being sick of nearly every other energy bar out there (both in the way they taste and in how much they cost), and part of it is that the only bars I really like have a very limited distribution in the UK. So until Clif manages to export Chocolate Brownie and Cool Mint Chocolate flavours to the European market, I'm stuck buying them by the boxload the few times a year I visit home. And making my own when I run out.

Last year I discovered another Clif invention that was nearly as good as their regular bar -- the Mojo bar. For long bike rides, these rock! Sweet and salty, a nice chewy mix of textures and of course can't-do-without chocolate. So this recipe is my ode to the Mojo bar. Named after my old housemate's cat Mojo, of course, who's not a fan of being mocked as you can see.

Mojo circa 2007, photo by Barry

Mock Mojo Bars
*all measurements approximate*

1/2 cup maltodextrin (this is the secret ingredient!) dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water
2 tablespoons runny honey (or melted crystallised honey), less for less sweet
1 cup of jumbo Scottish oats
1/2 teaspoon table salt to taste (I like mine on the salty side)
total of 1 to 1 1/2 cups of any/all of the following (this is the kitchen sink part):
- raisins
- currants
- dried cranberries
- chopped dates and figs
- dried coconut flakes
- pumpkin seeds
- sunflower seeds
- walnut or almond pieces
- roasted peanuts
- chocolate chips or chunks
- pretzel pieces (not super common in the UK)

Stir the honey into the dissolved maltodextrin, then add the oats and blend well til coated. Add the other ingredients and stir well. Add a little water if the mixture is too stiff or falling apart. Add more oats or some crushed up Special K cereal if it's too sticky. The mix should have the consistency of cookie dough but not stick too badly to the spoon. Put into a baking pan -- I found a glass Pyrex square pan lined with parchment paper to work best -- and bake at 200C for ~20 min. The top should feel very lightly crusted when it's done, don't overbake or you will be needing a trip to the dentist. Cool and cut into squares/rectangles and wrap separately in foil or cling-wrap. Store in the fridge. Put into jersey pocket before a ride and enjoy!

The finished product

The P2SL Project

2010-05-08T18:51:00.006+01:00

As most people who know me know, I love my Cervélos! My trusty Soloist, aka the Stealth Bike, has racked up thousands of miles as my bombproof all-season road and racing bike since I bought it new in May 2008. And the P3C is one of the most aerodynamic TT frames ever made, a perennial favourite on the Ironman scene. Alas, once the P3C arrived last June, my P2SL -- the first Cervélo I owned -- was reduced to mere frame and forks and relegated to a bag under the spare bed, awaiting a possible future as a fixed-gear track bike. So despite owning three Cervélos, but only two were ever fully-built and rideable. Until recently.

2008 Cervélo Soloist Team, 48cm

Jim and I had signed up for a couple of hilly Surrey League road races at Easter, but a persistent squeaking sound finally attributed to worn-out bearings meant his Powertap wheel would be at the repair shop over race weekend. With a 700c Powertap wheel on my Soloist and a 650c Powertap wheel on my TT bike, we had two Powertap wheels we could race with -- true data geeks would rather not race than be without a Powertap! -- but only if I built up the P2SL frame into a road race bike. I'm proud (embarrassed?) to say we had nearly all the spare parts lying around the house to do that, with only a front derailleur needed.

2006 Cervélo P2SL, 48cm

So I set about it two days before the first race, spending some time first studying the Cervélo geometry pages, then lining up the Soloist against the P2SL to try and replicate the position as best as possible. The first test rides revealed the need for a longer stem (and more comfortable saddle) but in the end I'm so glad Jim's Powertap died when it did, because without that impetus I might never have thought to put drop bars on the P2SL and race it. Instead, I now have an amazing little road machine that tops even the Soloist in agility and quickness. And it's pretty damned aero to boot.

Various smaller women, including 4'11" American elite racer Kerry Litka, have extolled the virtues of 650c wheels on their bikes, and I would never disagree when it comes to TTing, where aerodynamics and a short headtube and low front end are of utmost importance. But I was a bit hesitant to dive headlong into racing a bike with uncommon-sized wheels in important road races. Even Cervélo Test Team pro rider Emma Pooley, who rode 650c in 2005 as an amateur, now rides 700c as a pro (albeit 650c on her TT bike).

Emma at the Bedford Stage Race 2005 on a tiny Principia, photo by Paul Brown

Emma at the British Championships 2009 on a Cervélo S3, photo via Cycling Weekly

In a world where everyone else is on 700cc, it's clearly a distinct disadvantage to be riding a odd-sized wheel, even for someone with a team car following the race! But so far I've found it's not too bad. Convincing reluctant neutral service car drivers to carry my wheels for me is a bit of effort, though fortunately I've not needed to use them. I either race for myself or as one of the top riders on my team, so the likelihood I'd need to give up a wheel to a teammate is slim -- and if I were to do a race in support of another rider, I'd be happy to ride 700c just in case. And on longer rides I stick with the slightly less aggressive and more comfortable Soloist, which means I can share spare tubes with my riding companions if need be.

Here's what my two bikes looked superimposed on each other. Notice the steeper seattube on the P2SL (it is a TT frame after all), horizontal toptube and slightly slacker fork angle. I've still got some spacers under the stem which I'm hoping to remove over time so I can get even more low on the front end (the Soloist would need an lower-stack headset to get any lower). Both bikes have compact cranks, but the P2SL has an 11-23 cassette while the Soloist has a 12-27 for getting up those steep hills I train on but never seem to see much in races.

48cm Soloist (grey) vs 48cm P2SL (black)

The biggest difference I've found is the quicker acceleration with the smaller wheels, particularly on hills. There's also no toe overlap like I have on the Soloist (an unfortunate side effect of proper geometry on a small frame with 700c wheels). I've since added 165mm cranks to the Soloist to try and improve both of those things, but I definitely notice a zippier and more frisky feel to the P2SL. At the same time, it seems to hit bumps harder and roll less happily over rough ground, which I attribute to the smaller wheel size (similarly to the way 29er mountain bikes are supposed to handle bumps more easily). Not sure if this is actually true or just my subjective feeling?

Some more pics of the P2SL alone and lined up against the Soloist:

Giro d'Holland, er, Italia

2010-05-06T22:27:00.011+01:00

Image by Gigilla83 at Wikimedia Creative Commons

This weekend the Giro d'Italia begins, otherwise known as "official summer cycle racing season". It starts in Holland this year, with the prologue in Amsterdam on Saturday, then Sunday's stage running in and around my old stomping grounds the Utrechtse Heuvelrug to finish in the Utrecht city centre. We had initially planned to be there to watch the stages in person, but between working out the logistics (ferries, lodging, bike storage), predicting the weather (cold and possibly rainy) and recovering from last weekend (which only ended on Monday night), we decided to give it a miss. We'll probably head there for a warmer sunnier July visit instead.

Nonetheless, the next three weeks will mean Giro fever around here and on the Kingston Wheelers forum. I'm planning to catch a few stages at the new Look Mum No Hands cycling cafe in central London, but mostly I'll be watching the stages at home: studying the attacks, watching the way the race plays out and seeing how well the teams cope with the pressure of protecting a leader's jersey or trying to win a stage. A rougher and more ruddy-cheeked sibling to the slick Tour de France, often seeing snowy conditions and gravel roads, the Giro is stage racing at its raw best.

I've even selected a team on Velogames, though historically my sports pool teams have done quite poorly! Maybe this year that will change.

Type	Name	Team	Value
all-rounder	Christian VANDEVELDE	GAR	8
all-rounder	Vincenzo NIBALI	LIQ	14
climber	Carlos SASTRE	CTT	20
climber	David MONCOUTIE	COF	12
sprinter	Andre GREIPEL	HTC	10
gregario	Linus GERDEMANN	MRM	8
gregario	Sebastien HINAULT	AG2	6
gregario	Ignatas KONOVALOVAS	CTT	6
wild card	Alexandre VINOKOUROV	AST	16

With 100 points to play with, I took a gamble on Vandevelde, that Dutch-named American, coming into form sooner than he thinks. Sastre is my sentimental favourite and Gerdemann is hopefully ready to burst forth with his huge talent. And Vino of course as the wild card, because hey, the guy really is a wild card.

Much better cycling fans than I write much better previews and reports of pro racing, so I won't even bother to try that here. Check out the very excellent Podium Cafe instead for day-to-day Giro chat and in-depth analysis. And Velonews for the news, results and interviews.

Bedford 2-day Stage Race, day 2

2010-05-05T22:40:00.001+01:00

If I thought day 1 was pretty tough, I had no idea what day 2 had in store! We woke up to blustery 4 degree temps, with the added fun of sideways rain squalls coming over every hour or so. The Millbrook testing centre -- built for testing cars and trucks -- would have been a great place to race had it been nice and sunny, but without any indoor facilities or running water, we had to make do with sheltering ourselves in the parking lot and changing in our vehicles. Luckily between Leona's van and Emily's camper we could set up a cosy little basecamp with our turbo trainers and stay dry and warm for the most part.

The morning started with an individual time trial, two laps around the banked oval speed circuit totalling about 6.5km. I had set myself a time goal of under 10 minutes and much to my surprise managed to pull that off. It was a tough race though, as we started into a headwind, gradually picked up a tailwind as we rode around the oval, then ran straight into a headwind again by the lap/finish line. Twice! My speed fluctuated between 30km/h at my slowest to 50km/h at my fastest -- all of which was on a dead flat smooth road.

Quite the outdoor velodrome!

My time of 9:45 put me into 8th place for the ITT and 13th place overall on the GC which would turn out to be the highest I'd get for the whole race. I managed 276 watts AP/NP, so perfectly paced and new power records to boot, which was quite pleasing. Maybe I should be thinking more about racing the individual pursuit on the track...?

We had a few hours to kill between the morning and afternoon races, and in that time Jim and Eddy were racing the men's support event. It hadn't warmed up and if anything the wind had gotten even stronger and more gusty. Jim had on every layer of gear he'd brought and then some, but never managed to warm up and dropped out after two laps of the hilly road circuit. He spent the rest of the day chilled -- no doubt made worse by standing out during our race and taking lots of photos -- and came down with a cold the following day. Eddy finished in 15th place in a race where nearly half the starters DNFed.

With just a single lap of the "alpine circuit" part of the course (consisting of a half-mile climb at 7%, a swift twisty downhill, then another 200m power climb at 14%) under our belts for a warmup, we headed to the start line for a neutralised lap of the oval then nine laps to follow. Having been warned about the more dangerous corners where the road narrowed and crosswinds kicked in, I was perhaps a bit overcautious as I ran off the front of the bunch leaving the oval and rode the next five minutes on my own, 10 seconds ahead of the bunch. An extra warm-up as it were, and an opportunity to stay out of trouble as the crosswinds caught some people out.

The next few laps were steady, though Catherine Williamson of Rapha attacked along with Anna Fischer of MaxGear to clean up the sprint and hill points. They never got more than a minute ahead of the bunch under the watchful eye of Horizon Fitness, even after a third rider joined them. Jim had suspected that Horizon had a deal amongst themselves to get Dani King the road race wins and Sarah Storey the overall GC, and he was right: no break was going to get away without the two of them in it.

As the bunch dwindled with every lap and my legs started to feel the punishment of the climbs, which were neither long enough nor steep enough to do me any favours, I had to fight to stay up near the front. Even if I crested the 14% hill at the front, I often lost lots of space on the downhill, and had to ride hard to get back on the bunch into the brutal headwind that followed. Then recover as best as I could in the oval, come out and cross the bridge and start it all over again for a new lap. I had a sneaking suspicion that I couldn't last the whole nine laps in that yo-yo, and I was right. On lap five, even as I was thinking to myself that I had to move up before the climb started, an attack went and our bunch of 20 split into three different groups with me in the third. Willpower was lacking, but legs were lacking even more. We tried to get back on, but once our little group realised that the chase was futile -- all the big names were in the front group, which would later catch the break, and the second group contained another eight strong riders -- we set about working together just to get through the rest of the race.

And so it went for the last four laps: in the oval and on the flat bits into the wind, we worked a smooth paceline; the hills we rode tempo and the descents we grouped back together. One rider attacked on our second lap together and rode off not to be seen again. That put us down to eight, which shortly turned to seven as another rider cramped up and suffered off the back. Those seven lasted the last laps, and as we left the oval to begin the bell lap, I crunched down an Energy Surge and started thinking about how I could win our group sprint. First step: push the pace a bit more on the climbs, as I was easily making it up the hills in better shape than my companions. Second step: wait until the pace inevitably slowed and people started missing turns in the oval for the final mile or so, then attack. And sure enough, as we rode along with the tailwind and passed the 1km to go sign, the two riders up front stopped working and started chatting. I took that opportunity to launch the sprint of my life to come around them, and to get as aero as I could to put as much space between them and me as possible. After what seemed like an eternity but was probably only 20 seconds, I chanced a glance behind and saw that not only was I alone, I had a gap of nearly 100 metres.

Riding straight into the headwind, I was starting to hurt pretty badly, but soon the 200m banner appeared and shortly after that the finish line. I was losing speed rapidly -- down from 55km/h max after I launched my sprint to 32km/h into the wall of wind -- but I managed to hang on to get across the line clear of everyone else by several seconds. And it was worth it: that gap would get me one extra place higher on the GC, from 17th overall to 16th. And it was a nice finish to an otherwise disappointing race where I'd hoped to finish more like top 10.

Nonetheless, given the strength of the field this year I can't say I'm unhappy with my result. And I'm extremely proud of my teammates who all finished the race, which is more than can be said about most of the other teams. In fact, of 17 teams who entered, we were one of only three with no DNFs. Had the overall rankings for the team standings been done on cumulative rider time instead of finishing placings, we would have finished a strong 5th place with all our riders placing in the top 60 of 90 entrants. Between Rachel's strong day 1 race and Leona's strong day 2 race, they both salvaged good GC placements. Emily put on a great showing for her first stage race ever, and Claire despite feeling under the weather all weekend gutted it out and finished every race in the top 2/3rds of the field.

Here are the final BC results, and report/pics as well. And the nearly 300 photos that Jim took on day 2 are on Flickr too.

I've taken my 25 favourite and created a little slideshow below (collage above). Onward to the next one!

Bedford 2-day Stage Race, day 1

2010-05-02T21:31:00.006+01:00

Quick report on the first day of the Bedford 2-day race, pics to come later.

This year we put together a team of five Surrey League riders quite complementary to each other in ability and experience. It seems the Team Series is getting a bit more serious with every passing year, with Sarah Storey's Horizon Fitness team topping quite a solid list of contenders. With our team lacking any elite or near-pro riders, our plan was always to do our best to hang in there and well, do our best. And enjoy ourselves as always. At least this year I felt like I knew all my teammates pretty well, which made it a lot more interesting and fun.

The weather, unlike last year, was rainy, cold and windy, but also unlike last year, I managed not to fall apart completely. Our TTT this morning looked and felt quite a bit better drilled than last year, but we finished only 8th out of 17 teams, a full 2:22 behind Horizon Fitness (who finished 1:34 ahead of everyone else). The stiff headwind and lack of TTT practice couldn't have helped, but I couldn't help feel a bit disappointed and wondering if we could have done better.

With that on my mind, I went into the afternoon race feeling less than optimistic for a strong GC placing in this stage race, but kept reminding myself that I just needed to stay in the front group to mitigate the morning's results. High hopes to get in a break if I played my cards right, though with the strong winds and relatively flat course being a "big girls' race", I wondered if that would be possible. The first lap started out hard with Horizon keeping the bunch at a manageable pace: hard enough to shell the less-fit riders, not hard enough to string it out too badly. My legs felt okay, but not great. Good enough to hang in, good enough to be near the front to watch everything unfold, not good enough to make any real go of it on my own. Second lap, more of the same though with the hill and sprint primes thrown in, things were getting tougher. On the third lap, Natalie Creswick from Twickenham attacked and the bunch let her ride off to a maximum gap of about 20 seconds. After nearly a lap on her own, another rider tried to bridge across and shortly afterwards I decided to try and follow; nothing doing. Legs were just not enough for me to attack into a headwind! I was brought back, leaving two riders out there hanging. And I decided that would be the extent of my attempts to hurt myself today.

And yet, a few minutes later after a third rider had gone off to join them, I found myself in a promising position near the front of the slower-than-expected bunch as former pro Catherine Williamson from Rapha and her teammate Ang Mason took a flyer. I saw this potential six-woman break as something that could be big, so despite my previous agreement between brain and legs, I found myself flying off after them. I caught them and we began to work well towards bridging to the other three. But alas, before we could really reach them, the bunch strung out behind four Horizon riders -- they had none in our would-be group of six -- and we were all reeled in. It stayed this way for the rest of lap 4.

Then coming over the lap/finish line hill for the bell, I made the crucial error of finding myself too far back in the bunch as an attack (containing two Horizon riders) went. And to compound it, I had to take a hastily-timed bottle hand-up that nearly spit me out the back of the dwindled bunch. Luckily I got back on without a problem, but the five riders in the break were well gone, and after a few minutes of spirited chase, the rest of us more or less gave up and they were gone for good.

So the last lap was ridden in a group of 25 or so, and we lost a few of those to a bad crash during a moment of inattention once we had sat up. Coming into the final miles, a few early attacks went off the front for the finish but I managed to keep them close until the final few hundred metres up the hill when my legs finally cried out for mercy and refused to stop working. After what seemed like forever pedalling through wet cement, it was over and I had finished 13th overall. I later heard that the winning break of five consisted of Sarah, her teammate and top rider Dani King, the former pro Catherine, and one top-ranked rider each from MaxGear and Halesowen. Had I been in that break, I would have been hard-pressed to do much work without being shattered! So in that sense, I can't be disappointed with how I did; I finished about halfway in the front group behind the break, and ended up 18th in the GC at the end of the day.

Our team had a strong performance by Rachel -- who ironically rides for Rapha these days, but not in the Team Series -- as she hung on until the bell when the attack went and she dropped off the back. She caught a few other riders on her solo lap and finished well. Leona and Emily were in the next bunch and Claire came in a lap down but still in the top 2/3rds overall.

Tomorrow is the ITT, promising a 10-minute session of pain and suffering, followed by a hilly road race that probably suits me better than today's wind-fest. And hopefully my creaking old legs will let me play a bit harder!

British Cycling's report on day one is here.

Today's power numbers:

TTT


Duration:   16:49 (17:02)
 Work:       223 kJ
 TSS:        30 (intensity factor 1.035)
 Norm Power: 243
 VI:         1.1
 Pw:HR:       -8.73%
 Pa:HR:       -2.75%
 Distance:   9.115 km
 Elevation Gain:     150 m
 Elevation Loss:    146 m
 Grade:      0.1 %  (5 m)
  Min Max Avg
 Power:        0 481 221  watts
 Heart Rate:   105 182 166  bpm
 Cadence:      54 141 95  rpm
 Speed:        6.8 45.9 32.6  kph

Road Race


Duration:   2:07:54
 Work:       1329 kJ
 TSS:        159.2 (intensity factor 0.864)
 Norm Power: 203
 VI:         1.17
 Pw:HR:       -3.15%
 Pa:HR:       -1.46%
 Distance:   79.398 km
 Elevation Gain:     586 m
 Elevation Loss:    596 m
 Grade:      -0.0 %  (-11 m)
  Min Max Avg
 Power:        0 697 173  watts
 Heart Rate:   114 183 159  bpm
 Cadence:      39 182 100  rpm
 Speed:        15.2 65.7 37.2  kph

Crystal Palace 2010, Race 2

2010-04-30T20:44:00.005+01:00

Week 2 at Crystal Palace and the weather was even nicer -- warm, sunny and summer-like -- which meant another good turnout of riders. And this week everyone seemed just a bit more juiced to the push the envelope, or in the men's races at least; there were two nasty crashes by E/1/2 riders overcooking the bottom corner in the within the first 10 minutes, and the 3/4s managed another later on.

My legs were feeling quite sore from the weekend's TT and with some of the previous week's fire missing, I was happy to more or less sit in the ladies' race and see what happened. Not quite the same number of riders as last week, but with 14 starters we still had a pretty good field with 11 of us staying together til the last lap. I was happy to have three and a half Kingston Wheelers teammates on the start line with me, the most I've ever had at once!

Annoyingly, we were once again given the bell lap immediately after being overtaken by a group of 3/4 men, meaning we caught them up with 200m to go and had to ride past them to the finish. With the memory of crash I'd witnessed earlier etched firmly in my mind, I made my usual jump to start the sprint, but the second it became obvious that we were going to run into the back of the 3/4s, I hesitated and both the eventual 1st and 2nd place girls sprinted by me. The two of them were shoulder to shoulder all the way to the line, and thankfully the guys stayed out of their way so they made it across safely. Quite a close finish that I caught myself spectating from my position in 3rd:

Emma just pips Claire at the line, photo courtesy of John Mx of LondonCyleSport

I had mounted a camera behind my seatpost to film the entire race, and though it wasn't perfect (at some point I hit it with my leg and it turned frustratingly sideways), it's been pretty neat to watch the videos and see how things behind me went. Sadly I had neither the legs nor the motivation to launch any big attacks, so a half-hearted one in lap 8 for the sake of the camera was all I could muster. I've split the 14-lap race into four parts, all of which are uploaded to Vimeo below, though be warned they are somewhat boring and scratchy-sounding! And I had to compromise between file size and quality otherwise they'd have been uploading for days. Next time I'll get more creative with the editing and music, and see if I can improve the resolution a bit.

Spring

2010-04-28T22:30:00.002+01:00

Some days it's just one of those days, the kind where every project you start remains unfinished, you get into pointless arguments with people over nothing, the weather outside is beckoning but you just can't get out the door... well that was today. Videos from last night's Palace race are still being edited/encoded/uploaded (thank you YouTube for not being useful) so that report will have to wait til tomorrow, and my brain is too tired to write coherently about much else.

So today was one of those days when the simple act of getting on my bike to ride -- finally, at 6:30pm -- was the best and most enjoyable thing I accomplished all day. Took me an hour or so to feel the love, but by the time I came over the top of Whitedown and crossed the A25 into Surrey Hills country, I felt a lot better. The roads were quiet, the sun was gently setting, the flowers and trees were blooming, the air was still warm, the countryside was beautiful, and I was glad to be alive and on my bike.

Someday I'll get myself a proper phone with a camera so I can take photos more easily on my rides, but til then this will have to suffice as today's little visual memory.

photo by Ben Gamble via YourLocalWeb.co.uk

Crystal Palace 2010, Race 1

2010-04-27T16:14:00.003+01:00

Last week was our London Women's Cycle Racing league race at Crystal Palace, that short twisty crazy circuit in south London. With the daylight hours not stretching much past 8pm, the race was underway at 7:15 and lasted a mere 30 minutes for the ladies, about 40 for the E/1/2 men's. But that didn't deter people from signing on, there were over 100 people on the circuit by the time the races started!

Photo courtesy of John Mx of LondonCyleSport

I was freezing from standing around waiting to start so I hit it hard in the first lap and managed to string it out pretty good and drop some of the less confident/fit riders. In fact my max minute and 2 mins was in the first lap... oops! A few laps later we were down to probably ~12 riders and I attacked hard up the hill. Not sure if I even got a gap as there were some strong riders in our race and they were definitely chasing everything, but I started to tire some legs at least. Tried it again around lap 7, again, not much of a gap but lots of heavy breathing behind me! I really have to mount a camera on my seatpost so I can see what happens when I jump, at the moment I have no idea if my attacks don't stick because I don't jump away hard enough, give up too soon, or get chased down too eagerly. At least I dropped some more people with it.

So with a few laps to go and the front group down to about 6, I figured it would be a bunch sprint which didn't thrill me as we had some sprinter-types hanging on the back that I thought might steal something at the line. Also problematic was the way the men's races, particularly the 3/4 race, had broken up so badly that there was a constant stream of men overtaking us. For about 2 laps straight there was just one small group after another, leaving us to just ride around and not really do much.

We hit the bell lap and the two Pearson's riders, Elise and Mathilde had tried to cook something up. Mathilde hammered off the front around the hairpin and down the hill and Elise who was 2nd wheel let her have a tiny gap. I was 3rd wheel thinking, I gotta get around Elise! but that wasn't going to happen til the hill, I'm just too little to gain anything on people descending. We came around the bottom corner to go up the hill and I was still 3rd wheel, but then Mathilde started flagging and I saw my only chance. I jumped hard and buried myself going up the hill, just hoping that I had enough of a gap to make the sprinters have to kill themselves to catch and overtake me.

We came around the top corner and lo and behold, a dozen 3/4s all over the road pedalling like morons because they had been dropped (and likely lapped) ages ago, heading to the line. Seriously, if you've effectively stopped racing with a few laps to go, get off the damned track already! They were completely in our way. I had to decide quickly what to do, I ended up picking the right side, which was the long way around the bend but looked to have the most space to get by. I just floored it and hoped for the best, and managed to get the win. It was very close between me, Claire from Rapha and sprinter Emma from LD, I really think I just got lucky not getting tangled up with the guys. Frustrating for the other girls I can imagine, but then again, nobody but me did any attacking during the race, so if they wanted a better result, they should have made something happen I guess. Thankfully John Mx was there doing the judging which must have been a complete mess with us finishing in the middle of a pack of men.

So not a bad win, though with Charlie B and some others absent, it didn't really feel like an awesome one. Wish I could have done something more with my attempts to get a gap, but with such a short race maybe that was always going to be wishful thinking.

Entire workout (206 watts):
 Duration:   29:11 (29:24)
 Work:       360 kJ
 TSS:        59 (intensity factor 1.101)
 Norm Power: 259
 VI:         1.26
 Pw:HR:       2.28%
 Pa:HR:       2.07%
 Distance:   17.163 km
 Elevation Gain:     358 m
 Elevation Loss:    361 m
 Grade:      -0.0 %  (-3 m)
  Min Max Avg
 Power:        0 744 206  watts
 Heart Rate:   129 188 169  bpm
 Cadence:      30 125 96  rpm

Last lap at 1:58 and 291 AP!

London Women's Cycle Racing

2010-04-26T16:18:00.007+01:00

Late last year, several of my fellow female cycle racers led by Maria David came up with the idea of a London league: a dozen or so local races that we would tag as "league" races, add up points based on the results, and hand out prizes at the end of the season. From the humble beginnings of a few e-mails sent around and a meeting at the pub grew the London Women's Cycle Racing League, or LWCR for short. We're now over 50 affiliated members strong, representing 20 clubs across Greater London and southeast England and beyond! It can certainly be said that women's cycle racing is growing in popularity and enthusiasm.

So far we've held four events and the feedback from both riders and organisers has been excellent. Racing continues throughout the summer into late August, with the top 7 results for each rider counting towards the final points tally. In the meantime, the points leader wears a leader's jersey especially designed and created for our LWCR league. And our gracious sponsors Look Mum No Hands cycling cafe are on hand after every event to award the jersey to the current points leader.

I'd be lying if I didn't say I was interested in wearing that jersey at some point. But for me, the league means more than results and points. I'm really impressed to see how many women have jumped on their bikes and come out to race. All of our races have had more than twice the number of entries usually seen at their respective circuits, and the competition at all levels has been great. Being fairly new to racing myself, one of my biggest disappointments last year was showing up at races to find fewer than a dozen -- often not more than a handful -- of women to race against. Meanwhile, I would look on enviously at the men's races filled with willing participants at all levels. With the LWCR we've taken some big steps in improving that, and there are no signs of it slowing down. And this is great news for women's cycling everywhere, not just London. Women want to race and they are showing it.

If you haven't been to one of our league races yet, by all means come out and race (if you're a woman) or cheer us on (if you're not)! You will not be disappointed.

FTP and the 25-mile TT benchmark

2010-04-25T21:12:00.007+01:00

Today I completed my second ever 25-mile time trial on the roundabout-filled and rolling G53/25 course. This is an interesting distance to race due to its association with that hallmark measurement of fitness and performance: FTP or functional threshold power. With the advent of powermeters on bikes, someone decided that the power you can put out for approximately an hour (coincidentally the length of time a 25-mile or 40km TT lasts for a reasonably fit rider) should be the benchmark for measuring all other power outputs. Thus, all other performance and fitness factors are a function of that one-hour power, with paces and levels described as a percentage of FTP. So a Training Stress Score (TSS) of 100 is defined as one hour at FTP, and an Intensity Factor (IF) of 1.0 is when your power output is 100% FTP.

I've often thought about whether this system of testing and evaluation power is really accurate for most riders, since few of us ride 60 minutes at a steady state in an all-out effort very often. Yet this magical number is how I and WKO measure my effort and fatigue from all other workouts, both short and long. I suppose it's like anything: you need to train it to be good at it, so if I actually did lots of steady-state intervals at FTP like Coggan suggests, maybe my one-hour power would reflect that. But since I don't, I've had to use other measures to figure out my FTP. And it turns out that the FTP I've been using to define my training is actually a bit lower than what I can actually put out for a 25 mile time trial.

Last autumn when I did my 25 mile TT for the first time, I had my FTP set at 240 watts. This was based on a number of races I had done, intervals I could hold in training, etc. I showed up at the TT on the knife edge of fatigue, merely a few weeks before Kona. And managed to put down a time of 1:00:49 with 221 watts normative power, 218 watts average power. A full 15 watts fewer than I "should" have been able to do! Hmm.

I don't think I overestimated my FTP too much, maybe by 5 watts or so. A few weeks earlier I had done a 10-mile TT (~105% of FTP) on 254 watts so had based my numbers in part on that. Had I been fully rested, I might have been able to hit that 240 watts, or had I been doing Olympic distance triathlon training instead of Ironman, or, or, or... anyway, suffice it to say, I let my fitness tail off after Kona and at Christmas I was back down to an estimated FTP of 220 watts, to be built back up between January and March via cyclocross, winter circuit races and a warm-weather training camp spent on the Canary Islands.

Today I showed up -- same course, same time of day, same air temperature and conditions more or less, same equipment more or less, same lack of sleep, though I was less fatigued overall -- and put down a 1:01:59 with 225 watts normative power and 223 watts average power. The rain halfway through and subsequent windier conditions probably was the biggest factor in the slower time (the winner of both races who happened to be the same guy was also 90 seconds slower), though I also wriggled around a lot and cost myself some aerodynamic advantage, having not ridden my TT bike in a while and not being entirely comfortable on it. Yet I still fell 10 watts short of my current estimated FTP, which is set at 235 watts these days and I think is pretty close to reality.

No excuses this time (apart from the wriggling), but again it leaves me wondering who out there can actually ride 60 minutes straight at a completely steady effort at their WKO-estimated FTP. Yes, I could set my FTP lower, but then all my other intervals -- particularly the shorter ones -- would be overestimated, thus inflating my IF and TSS for every other workout. So this is the flaw in WKO+ I think: basically your single biggest benchmark by which all effort is measured is somewhat impossible to actually achieve! Unless of couse you race 25 mile TTs all the time. Does anyone else have this problem?

At any rate I was pleased to see an overall increase in today's race of 5 watts over last time, meaning that my fitness is pretty much at the same place it was last September when I was peaking for Ironman Kona. And it's still April! Lots of summer racing to come. For future FTP tests I'll be more likely to go out and do a Richmond Park 3LC some nice evening. Same ~60-min effort and a lot closer to home!

Below is a graphical comparison of the September 2009 and April 2010 time trials (the grid line shows the average watts for each race). Both were paced reasonably well, both contained an obvious dip halfway through as I felt the effects of the effort, and both started out perhaps a bit strongly. Today's effort showed a better recovery and kick through the last quarter of the race, and also shows how much less fatigued my overall state was, with an average HR of nearly 10 beats higher! Otherwise, the slower speeds on the downhills show the headwind today; you'd never know I had a disc cover on there.

September 27, 2009

Lap 1 (1:00:49.15):
 Duration:   1:00:49 (1:00:57)
 Work:       796 kJ
 TSS:        85.9 (intensity factor 0.921)
 Norm Power: 221
 VI:         1.01
 Pw:HR:       -0.28%
 Pa:HR:       -4.76%
 Distance:   40.329 km
 Elevation Gain:     412 m
 Elevation Loss:    417 m
 Grade:      -0.0 %  (-5 m)
  Min Max Avg
 Power:        0 389 218  watts
 Heart Rate:   98 176 167  bpm
 Cadence:      47 131 94  rpm
 Speed:        0.3 57.4 39.8  kph
 Altitude:     32 137 69  m
 Crank Torque: 0 60.9 22.2  N-m

April 25, 2010

Lap 1 (1:01:58.01):
 Duration:   1:01:58 (1:02:06)
 Work:       828 kJ
 TSS:        95 (intensity factor 0.959)
 Norm Power: 225
 VI:         1.01
 Pw:HR:       0.75%
 Pa:HR:       -2.91%
 Distance:   40.35 km
 Elevation Gain:     417 m
 Elevation Loss:    421 m
 Grade:      -0.0 %  (-5 m)
  Min Max Avg
 Power:        0 656 223  watts
 Heart Rate:   117 184 176  bpm
 Cadence:      53 123 97  rpm
 Speed:        1.4 59.1 39.1  kph
 Altitude:     32 137 69  m
 Crank Torque: 0 103.2 22.0  N-m

Three weeks

2010-04-24T12:28:00.004+01:00

Time flies and my blog has been sitting neglected since February I see. Not that I haven't been busy (I have!) or haven't been writing (sadly more for other sites/forums than this one, not to mention micro-blogging on Twitter), but it would seem I haven't created a proper habit of posting to my blog and therefore it goes undone.

Habits take three weeks to form, so we're told. In fact, I've informed my new husband that he needs to wear his wedding ring for at least three whole weeks before he's allowed to decide it's too uncomfortable for daily wear. So in that spirit, today marks day 1 of my attempt to make blog-posting a regular habit again. Every day for three weeks I will post something! Some longer and more detailed than others, but at least something every day.

To remind myself, here's what I need to catch up on:
-- race reports
-- training camp in Lanzarote
-- PMC/FTP/CTL and other assorted acronyms
-- more race reports
-- my new TT-turned-road-bike
-- plans for the season
-- race reports!

And oh yeah, I got married on April 7.

Maps: Riding and Racing in SE England

2010-02-01T20:30:00.005Z

I use Google Maps a lot to find my way to places or give directions to others. While I tend to stick with BikeRouteToaster to create specific cycling routes for upload to the Garmin 705, Google Maps is great for larger-scale projects and collaborative efforts. Here are three I've been working on lately.

The Surrey Hills Project
This was started by a Kingston Wheelers clubmate as a list of the climbs in the Surrey Hills, but soon grew to include tea and cake stops as well. Still a work in progress!

View Surrey Hills Project... in a larger map

Triathlon/Time Trial Training Routes
Last year when I was training for my Ironman races, I struggled to find flattish, straightish, good quality roads without too much traffic. I eventually came up with some useful routes for longer rides, as well as a few others for shorter intervals or testing my aero position. And also where not to go!

View TT training routes in a larger map

Local Cycle Racing Circuits
With the race season starting up again and some new riders in our club getting into racing, I figured I'd map all the local closed-circuit courses in and around London. There are only a few on there so far, but if I get ambitious I'll add some of the open road circuits, TT circuits and cyclocross locales as well.

View Cycle Racing Circuits in SE England in a larger map

2009: A review and some stats

2010-01-16T23:31:00.004Z

I've been keeping a workout logbook consistently for over five years now, but 2009 marks the first full year I logged my training with the GPS-based programme SportTracks. By using a Garmin device in nearly every training session, I've been able to track my performance, analyse my statistics, and keep course maps of every outdoor run, ride and swim like the true geek that I am.

Where in the world I trained this year.

Firstly, let me say that 2009 was a breakthrough year for me in that I ran and rode for more hours and more miles faster and more consistently than ever before. Even my swimming -- which I admittedly ignored quite a bit -- managed to improve. I credit losing over 5kg between January and May for a lot of the increased speed in all three sports, but mostly I managed for the first time ever to train week after week with consistency, keep myself motivated, and stay injury-free.

2009 Totals:
13,611km (avg 1134km/month or 262km/week)
591 hours (avg 49:18/month or 11:22/week)

Cycling:
12,026km
436 hours
avg speed 27.6km/h
73,500m total climbing

Running:
1503km
121 hours
avg speed 4:51min/km or 12.4km/h
6,000m total climbing

Swimming:
81,600m
23.5 hours
avg speed 1:43/100m or 3.5km/h

Other (weights, core, ice hockey):
10.5 hours

2009 totals for all activities by month.

SportTracks gives me nearly endless ways to mess with my stats, so with a few clicks of the mouse I can see that my biggest training week on the bike wasn't my January training week in Lanzarote but the week of April 20-26 -- coincidentally my first week with a powermeter -- when I rode 22 hours and 602km. The fastest ride I did was my 10 mile time trial in September, done at a speed of 43.2km/h (though I could only maintain that for 22.5 minutes!) I did four rides over 160km long (aka the imperial "century" distance), but no ride more than six hours.

Running-wise, my biggest month by far was September when I ran 186km. My slowest run with the exception of a brutal trail run/walk/stumble in the Belgian Ardennes was Ironman Hawaii, done at 6:33/km. Highest average heart rate for a run longer than 5km was the Wokingham half-marathon where I averaged 173bpm or 83% of max for over 90 minutes, maxing out at 191 at the end. Toughest run was the Tadworth 10 mile race in January, which I rated an 8 out of 10 "very hard" for its 200m of climbing (and descending!) through the frozen Epsom Downs. It'll be a long time before I attempt that race again!

Some other notable or not so notable numbers....
-- 4:15 spent on the turbo trainer, a number I'll have to increase this year if I want to improve my top-end power and VO2max. Not a single minute run on a treadmill!
-- over 34,000m open water swimming in oceans and lakes in Holland, England, Spain and the USA
-- 36 cycling races: 8 open road, 8 time trial, 16 circuit, and 4 cyclocross
-- 315km on my fixed gear bike at an average cadence of 82.6rpm
-- 3 DNFs: one cycling road race, one 10k running race, and one marathon
-- and 3 wins: one cycle race, one time trial, and one Ironman.

... and a few graphs for those who are still reading:

Injury-free thanks in big part to tons of trail running.

Average time spent per type of bike ride, skewed greatly by my long distance triathlon races.

How my average HR becomes more and more depressed as my training ramps up, and then rockets once I'm rested again (taken from runs over 1 hour 45 min). Note the very low HR in October due to walking a lot of the Kona marathon.

Bring on 2010! :)

Cyclocross

2010-01-09T22:11:00.004Z

I had been planning to post a little retrospective of my 2009 season -- which, as I've been reminded, was a pretty successful one -- but in the meantime, I thought I'd write a bit about my latest adventure in cycle racing: cyclocross, aka off-road riding on a road bike with knobby tires. This winter, what with the unusual cold weather creating icy roads and freezing windchills, cyclocross has been my saving grace to get outside on otherwise snowy and unrideable days, not to mention a welcome escape from the indoor turbo trainer.

Snowy conditions can't stop the cyclocrosser! (photo Roger Merriman)

My off-road skills have never been awesome (something I'd like to work on once I buy a good mountain bike), but cyclocross doesn't tend to have much in the way of technical climbs or descents. It's just good old-fashioned mud, grass, short sharp run-ups, off-camber corners, and the occasional unjumpable barrier thrown in for fun. In fact, it's become such a popular sport the past few years that even the BBC sent a sports reporter out to investigate, who filmed this video (watch for me to overtake him at 30 seconds in, ha ha).

What goes up... (photo Jim Ley)

Enjoys the ride down! (photo Jim Ley)

Having both the outer path of Richmond Park (my favourite running loop in dry weather) and Esher Common/Oxshott Heath close by means I can be out practising my riding skills on wooded trails and open fields within 15 minutes of leaving home. And whereas a similar park area in Canada might have a few trails here and there, wonderfully old heavily populated England means dozens of criss-crossing paths in every direction. I can easily spend two hours playing in a few hundred acres and never ride the same path twice. The same goes for races: a small bit of single-track and a football field can make up a course that takes 10 minutes to traverse!

A mile-long course in the space of a few acres.

As for race skills, years of riding a city bike around the Netherlands had already perfected my coasting dismount, and triathlon transitions meant I was good at jumping on the bike at speed too (though in cyclocross you already have your shoes on!) Running up hills: no problem, in fact the more running in a race, the better I am relative to other riders. But the wet grassy corners and giant ruts of mud everywhere have required me to up my game lest I crash more often than not, or worse yet, take someone else out. Thankfully taking a tumble in cyclocross usually means a soft landing, though embarrassingly often in front of a crowd of cheering fans.

Not so gracefully negotiating a corner. (photo Jim Ley)

The imfamous Herne Hill "hurdy-gurdies". (photo Jim Ley)

The races last about an hour with anywhere from five to ten laps of the course to complete. Add in a mass start with up to 100 riders and the first couple of laps are usually quite chaotic. But as a flat-out 60-minute training session, you couldn't ask for a better workout. By the end my quads are burning and my lungs bursting, but I always finish with a smile on my face.

A typical race start. (photo LondonCycleSport)

Jumping on and off the bike. (photo LondonCycleSport)

The mud flies! (photo LondonCycleSport)

Surprisingly, I've managed to pull off some good finishes in my London Cyclocross League races so far, though after a disappointing 4th place last race -- 38 seconds behind 3rd place and all of that lost in the first lap -- I can see I need to work on my starting position and effort if I want to improve. The women usually race with the main group, so call-ups (being placed in the front few rows) are rare. It just means I need to get to the start line earlier and hold my place aggressively so the late-comers can't push their way in front of me. With a hard first 30-60 seconds to maintain my position in the group after the gun, I'm hoping to keep from getting caught behind slower folks. Starting near the front also means I can stick with some faster wheels longer to take advantage of the draft through the open parts of the course. Time will tell how this new tactic works for me!

Sometimes the bike takes a beating. (photo Jim Ley)

But often the rider does too!

Ironman Hawaii World Championships 2009 Race Report

2009-12-31T23:21:00.006Z

Firstly, a few apologies for the extreme tardiness of this blog post. I've been meaning to write it for more than two months now and somehow just never got up the motivation or desire to get it done. Part of me was pretty disappointed with how my race went and was just happy to let it become a memory without much more fanfare; another part of me was looking for a long-needed break from all things triathlon-related: particularly training, analysis, race reports and retrospective navel-gazing at all the minutiae that did or didn't happen. I haven't even bothered to order any of my official race photos yet! (Rest assured a 10% e-mail rebate has kicked me into action, so I'll be replacing a few of the ones in this post with good quality digital copies in the new year.)

But people kept hounding, er, asking me when I was going to write a Kona race report. And I didn't feel I could go on blogging about the new things happening in my life until I put Kona to bed, so here it is finally. With this closure I will be getting back to more regular blog posting, for better or worse (though I admit the self-imposed hibernation has been nice!)

Without further adieu then... the Ironman World Championships 2009.

The Lead-up

The weather: sunny, humid and unbelievably hot. The wind: variable but not nearly as bad as it had been earlier in the week. The atmosphere around town: electric, overwhelming, and just the slightest bit cheesy... like this man-made event was the biggest thing people had ever experienced in their lives. Call me a cynic but as much as I was happy to be there, I just couldn't part with the sense that it was all a bit too surreal. But there I was, in the middle of it, finally experiencing the goal that had driven my training for nearly two years. It was on.

At the bike check-in, I was handed a free Cervelo t-shirt, "thanks for riding a Cervelo!" The industry and media folks lined up along the check-in chute noting down everything from bike brand and wheels to saddle and brake levers. The transition zone on the pier was nothing short of awe-inspiring; to think that 1800 people had, just as I, carefully micromanaged every last detail in the hope of setting themselves up for the race of their lives. The volunteers outnumbered the racers, some coming from further away than I had just to be a part of it all. And all of us were as ready as we'd ever be, or at least as ready as we could be. Can't really ask for much else.

Note-taking at bike check-in.

My bike is just one of many Cervelos (#1449).

The Swim

Not much of note here, except a few things:
-- all week long I'd been swimming along the official mile marker buoys with a Garmin 305 under my swimcap noting the distance and swimming 1:36/100m regularly. Race day I managed to swim nearly an extra 400m and not due to zig-zagging. The course was long! Didn't make my 1:09 feel any better, but at least it was the same for everyone.
-- my speed suit chafed the hell out of my neck and shoulders but easily bought me close to 5 minutes, well worth it!
-- I managed not to get sick on the salt water or swallow too much of it.
-- I picked a bad starting spot in the middle and got punched, kicked and swum over more than any other triathlon I've done in my life.
-- for the most part, I was pretty pleased with my swim and feeling fine for the start of the bike.

Age groupers lined up for the start.

And the cannon goes!

Pulling off the speed suit (note the calf guards!)

The Bike

It was a smoking hot day out there, 30+ degrees, and my frozen bottles on the bike were lukewarm in no time. I felt pretty good early on, surprised and pleased by how little drafting I saw, and just generally ready to take on the day. Little did I know just how hot the sun would be, how little food I would be able to get down, and how awful 5 hours and 50 minutes on my TT bike would feel. But it was much worse for the older folks and weaker cyclists; with no tailwind to aid the ride out to Hawi but a brutal headwind kicking up for the ride home, many bike splits were longer than anticipated and more than a few 70-something athletes missed the cut-off. Tough day out there for sure, and the heat didn't help.

As the hours wore on, I did my best to stay cool by dumping cold water over my body at every aid station. My white shirt helped, but my inner forearms were burnt to a crisp by the halfway mark. And I tried to take in the nutrition I had practised in training but just could not. In the end, I managed a few hundred calories in gels but that was about it. Nowhere near bonking, I was determined not to switch to Gatorade or Coke for fear of creating new stomach problems for the run. Instead, I just rode my race, kept my watts steady and did my best. 180km was a long way, but nothing I couldn't handle physically. Mentally, that last 20km was absolute agony, made better only by the people I overtook coming back to Kona, especially on the hills. I was far from the worst off out there! Thankfully my aero position and huge bike mileage in training kept me in the hunt for a top 10 AG finish, even with a time 15-20 min slower than I had hoped. With the marathon left to run, I was still in the race, or so I thought.

Looking happy early on the bike through town.

Looking less happy out in the lava fields later on.

Now just willing it to be over...

...which it finally was, nearly 6 hours after it began.

The Run

As I've done in every single triathlon race in my life -- and knowing the transition from bike hand-off to run bag on the pier was long -- I left my shoes on the bike and dismounted barefoot. And this is where it all went wrong for me. Somewhere along the pier I stepped off the green astroturf and onto something red hot. I ran with the ball of my right foot burning with pain to the tents, where I sat down and tried to take stock of the situation. Ice? Blister pad? Just grit my teeth and bear it?

In the end I chose the latter, knowing I had to get out and start running or my race would slip away quickly. So ran I did, stiffly at first but loosening up, hoping the heat would let me keep moving if I could only get enough ice to cool myself down. But within a mile my foot was in agony and I started to worry that if I ignored it now, I'd be even worse off later if the blister split open. 26 miles is a long way to run, but walking it was unbearable even to think about. Looking back, this is where the chinks in the armour started and where my mental defenses started to fall down, with reasons to walk becoming excuses not to run. Stop at an aid station and see what they could do for me? Sure! Wait while they radioed another aid station to see if anyone had blister pads? Hey, why not! Over an hour to complete the first 6 miles? Ah well, my heart wasn't in it anyway.

And that was pretty much it. I spent the first half of the marathon just wallowing in my own misery, walking a lot, running when I felt guilty for walking, then walking again when my foot hurt too much to run. Most of the 17 women in my age group who'd been ahead of me blew up on the run, one by one, as I found out later. If I could have only kept moving enough to run a conservative 5:30/km pace, I'd have finished an hour earlier and in the top 10. But mostly it dawned on me that I'd pretty much used up my quota of HTFU for the year at Lake Placid. As much as I wanted to get to Kona, I'd sort of not counted on the mental effort required to do well once I got there. And without that to drive me, I was pretty much lost. Finishing the race was never in question, but racing it was long gone.

Around the halfway mark, I met up with someone in a similar situation and we started to run/walk together. We cheered others on, joked about how the handcyclists were killing us, and shared the contents of our special needs bags. Tried to convince ourselves that it wasn't so bad to be walking the marathon at Kona -- heck, tons of people would give their right arm to be in our position, right? Then with 10km to go, we did the math and realised that if we could run the last 10km in less than an hour, we'd go under 12 hours total. And finally, with a goal in mind and a reason to pursue it, I was back on track. We ran more, walked less, focussed on the task at hand and brought it home in style. My last 10km were the fastest I'd run in the whole race. My last mile was run in 6 minutes and 37 seconds. It was dark when I crossed the finish line, but I crossed it finally feeling like I deserved the finish and the medal and all the accolades that came with it. Sure, the race had taken some chunks out of me, but I'd still beaten it. And even though a few days earlier I'd been thinking that this was my first and last Kona, I suddenly decided that I'd be back sometime for a rematch, just to see if I couldn't do it better next time.

Fresh into the run, still thinking I could make something of it.

Not long afterward, realising it just wasn't going to happen.

The Finish.

Somehow it doesn't look so fearsome the morning after.

The final numbers.

The Aftermath

Since that day, I've had a lot to think about. 2009's been a great year, I've achieved above and beyond what I ever thought I could. And every time I reached a goal, I just came up with a bigger one and got busy making that happen too. My yearly totals speak for how much I've improved, and what I've done to get where I wanted to go: over 12,000km on the bike and 1500km running, nearly 600 hours of training. Ironman has been pretty special to me, but 2009 marks the year that I retire from it -- for a while at least -- to focus on other things. Sure I'll be back in Kona someday, but only when the desire to win my age group is as strong or stronger than any desire I ever had to get there in the first place. In the meantime, the hunger can grow a little at a time until it's so great that I'll be looking to call myself an Ironman again. How about 2019?

Kona Pics

2009-10-08T04:24:00.004+01:00

Figured I should finally get around to writing about Kona itself and my experience so far, and post some pics for people to enjoy. I feel in some ways that being here for the race and spending so much of my time and energy living Ironman that I haven't been a proper tourist so to speak. I've certainly left my camera at home more often than not! But I've still managed to see and do some things, as evidenced below. Here's a mishmash of sights seen, both triathlon and non-triathlon related.

Every day from sunrise to sunset, athletes can be seen swimming at Dig Me Beach, aka the start of the swim course at the pier. I've been there a few times myself, usually around 7am when it's the busiest. Last week it was pretty quiet; come Monday it was crowded and busy with a bag check-in, free swag and tons of glistening muscled bodies in Speedos everywhere. Speedos are nearly outnumbered by speedsuits by now, but not quite! On race morning I'm sure speedsuits will be the order of the day.

Lots of athletes gather at the beach, many leaving their $5,000 bikes unsecured in the racks nearby.

A view of the practice course, curving around the orange markers parallel to shore.

This week the floating Coffees of Kona espresso bar appeared, handing free coffee out to anyone who swam the 700m to the boat.

I tried out my new speedsuit (which is indeed speedy!) but all the coffee in the world can't take away that awful warm saltwater taste.

Afterwards, this iconic cafe is the main attraction for many people (the guy riding on the bike is one of hundreds who will pass by during the day).

Earlier in the week, we went snorkelling at Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park, aka the Place of Refuge and found this little guy getting a few swim lessons of his own. At 10 weeks old, he wasn't too fond of the water!

The big dog tried to show him how, but he just wouldn't get off that rock.

Cruise ships come to Kona every few days, full of (ahem) more average-sized Americans or Australians who stand out like a sore thumb against the backdrop of 1800 fit and ripped Ironman athletes. This one was about to pull away for another night of cruising the ocean.

Like a giant floating city of its own.

The finish line isn't set up yet, but this sign stands here year round. It's right next to the swim start, but seeing as the actual sign is about 4 feet above my head, we had to photoshop this pic a bit to fit it in.

That's King Kamehameha, the first Hawaiian king, on the sign, by the way.

Jim and I finding some shade and breeze from the relentless 31 degree heat made worse by the strong sun here. One of the coolest things about Kona is how much "indoor" stuff is outside, like the airport gate waiting areas and baggage belts, and hotel check-in desks. All are covered in case of rain, but temps of 20-35 degrees year round mean outdoors is always comfortable if you're out of the sun.

Having been sunburned already, we weren't taking any more chances!

I registered today and got all my kit and wristband. Every age group gets its own colour, meaning I'm checking out the wrists of every female athlete I see, sizing up my competition. Ironically, I'm neither representing Canada nor Great Britain; instead I'm one of only threes Dutch women here, the other being last year's 2nd place pro Yvonne van Vlerken and handcyclist Monique van der Vorst.

Blue is my favourite colour, so I'm hoping this lovely blue wristband is a good omen?

And finally, my bike is primed and ready, just need to attach the number plate and put the bottles on. Aero helmet is a go after I discovered that my brains were frying under my regular helmet too. My position is so aggressive that every fast-looking guy I passed going the other way on the road the other day had a long good look at me... so apparently I must look like I'm good at least!

The mean machine ready to eat up those miles.

Postcard from Kona

2009-10-07T20:38:00.003+01:00

In keeping with my lack of blogging myself and instead writing for other sites, my club the Kingston Wheelers has published a little blurb I wrote in a rather introspective moment in Kona (complete with a photo that's only a tiny bit photoshopped, ha ha. Those familiar with Kona will know what I mean!)

Here's what I wrote:

It's now halfway between our arrival to Kona and race day, and I actually feel normal again. Jetlag from the 24-hour trip - and along with it an 11-hour timezone shift - have passed, though we still rise every day before 6.00am: early mornings are the best part of the day here. We've been surrounded by fit, fast, and bronze-bodied triathletes since we left Heathrow, sharing our flight with over a dozen other competitors judging from all the bike boxes that were unloaded at LAX. The flight to Kona was entirely filled with people sporting Ironman finisher's shirts and M-dot tattoos, and every day more arrive here to enhance any feelings of insecurity or inadequacy I might have had about this race. That girl running 6-minute miles, is she in my age group? That guy motorpacing, surely he's a pro? TT bikes outnumber every other type of bike 10-to-1. Not a minute goes by without someone running down the road past our flat, and on the highway it's one cyclist after another, all riding alone in full aero mode. Mornings at the beach are packed with people swimming the course, followed by the required breakfast at the iconic Lava Java bistro. It's all a bit overwhelming... and it's not even race week yet!

So today instead of wrestling my bike through 40mph crosswinds, running in 30 degree heat or swimming mile after mile with the tropical fish -- all of which I've done in the past few days - we took a day just to be tourists. With a rented boogie board we headed to the beach where I tried my hand at surfing with the local kids while Jim sat in the shade with his book. It was a welcome relief from the constant reminder that everyone here for this race is just as fit and ready as you are, with the speed, body and kit to prove it.

Any training I do from now on will just be to satisfy my mind and keep my body reminded that there's a race to come. I've come to know the course, I've steeled myself for the relentless heat and wind that are hallmarks of Ironman Hawaii, and I've made sure everything I can do to prepare has been done. Now it's just a waiting game until Saturday when all of us line up at the start, eyeing each other warily and wondering who will have the race of their lives and who will be reduced to a cramping shuffling mess by the finish. Needless to say, the former is the only option for me!

More to come later, with photos I hope, as I go to town to register and check out the expo. Nothing planned but a short run today, otherwise it's IM tourist time!

Kona-bound!

2009-09-29T23:26:00.003+01:00

Tomorrow we're headed for Kona, an 20-hour flight from the UK with one stopover on the way. We'll arrive there at 8pm where it will feel like 8am to our GMT brains and bodies... ugh.

But I'm finally just about packed and getting quite excited about going. Hot weather, bright sunshine, new sights to see and food to eat. And the race of course! No matter what happens, you only do Ironman Hawaii for the first time once, so I'm looking forward to a great day.

The TrainingPeaks folks recently asked if I'd like to be featured on their blog and of course I said yes. The timing couldn't be more perfect as I didn't have time to write a proper post for my own blog this week. So for anyone who wants to know more about me, my background and why I do triathlon (plus some insights to what I'll be doing next season), check it out!

Next post from Hawaii with pics!

Peaking and Tapering, Part III (the triathlete's dilemma)

2009-09-23T13:30:00.001+01:00

Having written Part I musing over my taper for Ironman Lake Placid, and Part II about how I was going to fix this problem for Ironman Kona, I recently stumbled upon some important information leading me to post Part III: the triathlete's dilemma. Thanks to the Endurance Nation folks for starting this discussion (maybe it will get moved to a Hall of Fame thread so the public can read it too) and to Russ Cox for helping me out by analysing his own numbers. In fact, I'm looking forward to meeting up with Russ in Kona for an evening of number-crunching geekiness as we try to work out how and why a good taper works.

The dilemma is this: in triathlon, you do three sports. At the Ironman level, I think we can assume most people swim a reasonable amount but not enough to have a severe impact on their training stress. Huge amounts of swimming just aren't a good return on investment for time spent training vs. time gained in the race. So that leaves us with cycling and running. Running tends to be harder on the body, requiring more recovery for most people after intense or long workouts. Cycling can be done in larger volumes and for longer periods at a time, as the impact on the joints is not as great. Thus the fatigue and associated recovery time from running is likely different than the fatigue and recovery from cycling. So the question is, why do we measure ATL (fatigue) on the same scale for both cycling and running? And more importantly, why would you want to pay much attention to a combined Training Stress Balance when that could hide vast differences in fatigue between the two? The answer is, you don't.

Once I had this "a-ha" moment, I looked back at my IMLP taper and sure enough, my TSB was +33, but that consisted of a bike TSB of +26, while the run TSB was a mere +7. In other words, no wonder my legs felt fatigued out there, my run was not nearly tapered enough! Too much running in the week or two leading up to the race led to this, which was caused by my blindly following my plan without thinking that my mileage up to that point had actually been below what the plan called for. Running 3-4 hours a week in training, then tapering by running 2-3 is not that smart. But low-mileage running is a topic for another post.

I haven't found much information yet on the "ideal" CTL, ATL and TSB numbers for the run vs. the bike in Ironman tapering (though digging through the Google Wattage list and other blogs has got me a bit closer to understanding it), but using Russ's numbers it looks like a run TSB of +15 or so worked for him. I'm aiming for a +12 on race day. I've also adjusted my run ATL to a 10-day constant rather than 7-day as I have on the bike. Wary that I backed off too much on the bike for IMLP, my bike TSB on race day in Kona will be +19 and I'm trying to limit my CTL losses to 13-14%.

See my charts below for the way it's going to look. Note that my TSB will be steadily climbing, rather than seesawing as it did for IMLP, and likewise my ATL and CTL steadily falling. And apologies for mixing and matching Performance Management charts from both SportTracks and WKO+. I finally spent a painstaking evening putting all my workouts between now and Oct. 10 into WKO+ and messing with the length/intensity of each to get what I believe now is a more ideal TSB. So the charts below reveal my new numbers:

run
TSB+12, CTL 37 to 30 for a loss of about 20% (that loss is perhaps still a bit high? but again, my run volume in general has been low compared to the intensity)

bike
TSB +19, CTL 85 to 73 for a loss of about 13-14% (TSB still a bit high, but we'll see how well I acclimatise to the heat and humidity in Hawaii)

total
TSB = +31, CTL 129 to 113 for an overall loss of 12-13%

Peaking and Tapering, Part II

2009-09-17T13:40:00.001+01:00

In Part I, I talked about how (I felt) my taper wasn't quite right for Ironman Lake Placid. I've done more training hours, more consistent training, more intense training and more volume this year than in any year before, so my previous tried-and-true taper method also needed some reworking (it appears). For Ironman Hawaii, I'm going to be a bit stricter on myself in adhering to scheduled workouts in the last few weeks before the race -- both in the sense that I don't overdo it and I don't underdo it -- and hopefully I can have a better race day.

Ultimately, I want to use the Performance Management Chart (PMC) to plan my workouts to help me achieve two things by race day:
1) TBS of about +20
2) CTL loss of about 10% from its highest point.

To this end, the first thing I did was plug my proposed workouts for the next three weeks into SportTracks, along with their projected TSS values. Incidentally I find SportTracks with the Training Load plugin way easier than WKO+ to work with; the calendar makes sense, the notes field lets me add stuff seamlessly, and the general UI and feel of the software is so much more intuitive. And since I'm using TSS/TRIMP values to determine my training load and stress balance (the plugin by default uses HR), the PMC will look the same in WKO+ as in SportTracks -- just nicer. :)

I got my projected TSS values by looking at past similar workouts in WKO+. For instance, I know that a long ride of ~100km/4hrs at an intensity factor of .70 will give me about 200 TSS points. Similarly, an hour-long run including some mile repeats gives me a TSS of 100 or so. Swims I generally use one TSS point per minute, less if I swim easy and more if I swim hard.

Three weeks of workouts, including the final two weeks of peaking/tapering from my Endurance Nation plan, plugged into SportTracks gives me this for my PMC:

projected CTL/ATL for October 10, 2009

That's a CTL of 119 (down roughly 10% from a projected high of 131 on Sept. 29) and an ATL of 97 to give me a TSB of 22 the day before race day. The TSB is a bit high maybe. But it's also likely that my workouts will feel a bit harder once I get to Kona as I'll need to acclimatise a bit, so having a bit extra on the TSB should be fine. Interesting to compare it to my LP taper (the big drop leading up to July 26) and see how it drops off more gradually and with fewer ATL spikes until the final week.

It's an interesting balance, tapering to shed enough fatigue without losing too much fitness. The problem is, as TSB rises, CTL decreases which can mean more than 10% fitness loss on race day. So which one is more important, keeping to a no-more-than 10% fitness loss, or having a TSB of +20? I think this is probably a problem for most athletes who carry a high CTL: the higher your TSS/day (which is what CTL is), the more you have to do to maintain it. And the more severely you taper and cut your volume, the more CTL drops compared to its absolute highest.

The highly analytical article from Coggan describing the art and science behind the PMC is here, but in my view the most important sentence is this:
in the Performance Manager concept, an individual’s CTL (and the “composition” of the training resulting in that CTL – see more below) determines their performance potential (at least within limits), but their TSB influences their ability to fully express that potential. Their actual performance at any point in time will therefore depend on both their CTL and their TSB, but determining how much emphasis to accord to each is now a matter of trial-and-error/experience, not science.
But I think it's also important to keep in mind what ChuckieV has said about tapering and freshness (though I have to say he loses me with the "anyone training less than 15 hours a week only needs a few days of taper" bit!):

Quite often athletes erroneously aim for being "fresh" when Ironman day arrives, when they really just need to focus on being rested.

Rested is what I'm going to have to be to put on my best performance. That means early to bed every night, naps if I need them, limiting the time spent on my feet doing touristy things and generally staying away from the hustle and bustle of 2000+ other Ironman athletes stressing about their race.

Peaking and Tapering, Part I

2009-09-06T21:57:00.005+01:00

Yesterday I had an enlightening moment reading Joe Friel's blog about Projecting Race Readiness. I had known that my IMLP taper wasn't right, that I had tapered too much and lost too much fitness, resulting in a less-than-ideal race performance, but hadn't really crunched the numbers to see how. I had followed the protocol of 70% of usual volume in the first week of taper, 50% in the second week, 30% in the third week. Still, I felt flat and underpowered on race day and terrible compared to last year at Ironman Germany where I had tapered so carefully and hit race day feeling great.

Two things stood out for me in particular from Joe's post:
1. Training Stress Balance (TSB, or CTL minus ATL) should be about +20 by race day.
2. Total loss of Chronic Training Load (CTL, aka fitness) should be kept to about 10%.

I had a look at my own Performance Management Chart from WKO+ and checked out the numbers. Sure enough, between my taper start date of July 5 and race date of July 26, my CTL (blue line) had gone from 133 to 112, a 15% drop. And my TSB (yellow line) was over 30, way too high! Ironically, being more "rested" through a lower ATL (red line, aka fatigue) and higher TSB is the very thing that helped me feel slow and tired and flat during the race.

Tapering is certainly part art, part science, and there are a lot of factors that could have affected my race day readiness in Lake Placid. But from studying my data below, I can see clearly now how my drastically reduced training load -- too much too soon -- nearly blew my race though a poorly-executed peak period and taper.

How not to peak/taper

In Part II I'll take a stab at describing what my peak period and taper for Kona should look like, and what I'll do differently to achieve it (and in doing so, hopefully achieve a better race day freshness than I did at Lake Placid).

If you're not familiar with WKO+ and all the terms I've used, here's a basic crash course.

Of pointy hats and small cogs

2009-09-02T20:00:00.004+01:00

After a summer of trying out a few informal "club 10" time trials, I finally managed to complete something bigger on Monday: an open 50 mile TT on one of the fastest courses in the country. Over 100 riders took part, with the winner riding finishing in 1:40:50 (that's nearly 30mph!). I managed a respectable 2:05:43, which is 23.86mph or 38.4km/h, but still finished more than eight minutes behind the women's winner and only 6th out of the women's field. Still, I was satisfied with my performance as I managed to pace it fairly evenly (more about that below), with 1:02:57 for the first 25 miles and 24:42 for the last 10 miles. I'm hoping these numbers bode well for my open 10 mile TT in two weeks and 25 mile TT at the end of September. Not only are these TTs good training for Kona, but they'll give me good baseline times to improve next year, not to mention a shot at some trophies at the Kingston Wheelers awards dinner at the end of the year!

The data and discussion of my ride are below, but before I get into that, I thought I'd provide a newbie's point of view of time trialling in the UK. According to Wikipedia, it's quite an old sport, first beginning in 1895 and historically being held on the fastest roads available. Supposedly, races were held illicitly for many years as the highway code didn't allow any racing at all. Now it's a sport with a devoted following of early-risers (TTs often start at 6am) who squeeze every conceivable ounce of speed and aerodynamic advantage out of their equipment possible; I thought triathletes were bad, but TTers put them to shame! When I arrived at HQ, I was shocked at the number of bling frames, frighteningly low handlebars, disc wheels, aero helmets, tiny gear cogs and skinsuits all in one place. In fact, I felt rather out of place in my regular bike jersey and shorts (albeit the tightest-fitting I own), triathlon shoes, and a mere 60mm deep rear wheel with *gasp!* my everyday cassette on it. At least I had picked up an aero helmet at the last minute, so from far away I didn't look too out of place. But it's funny how a sport as old school and grassroots as time trialling -- where sleeveless shirts are not permitted but helmets are optional -- has at the same time the most flashy equipment and slick-looking riders. I didn't see anything like BBAR champ Nik Bowdler's bike (pictured below), but there were certainly a lot of huge chainrings and tiny cogs around!

That's a 73 tooth chainring on the front!

My start time was 7:43am, but given the convoluted course instructions I figured I'd better get there early to drive it and make sure I knew where all the turns were. I needn't have worried, as the organisers had signed everything very well and placed marshals at every junction. Not a fun job to stand on the side of a divided highway and point an endless stream of cyclists in the right direction for hours on end -- at least in a road race you get to watch the attacks and breaks! -- but the volunteers were great, even cheering me on each time I passed their grim position. The weather turned out better than expected, as the chilly wind from the previous few days had died down considerably, leaving only a misty drizzly and warm morning. Later on the mist lifted and the roads dried up, and nearly all the top times were owned by vets, who started long after 8am and enjoyed extremely fast course conditions compared to the early starters.

I didn't really have a goal time in mind, but figured somewhere around 2 hours 5 minutes would be a good time for me in my first go at the 50 mile distance. After Googling around to try and figure out a good wattage number to aim for, I finally decided on ~215 watts, or ~95% of my test FTP on the TT bike: much harder than the 80-85% I'd target for a 56-mile half-Ironman bike leg, but not as all-out as a Richmond Park three-lap challenge. In fact, I had read that a good perceived effort for a 50 mile TT was more or less that of an Olympic triathlon (which lasts roughly the same amount of time), so I kept that in mind while I was out there.

According to Joe Friel, the third quarter of a TT is always the hardest, even if you hold back in the first half. Paced properly, the last quarter can be quite strong; paced badly, I would imagine it to be a complete sufferfest. Below is my power graph for the entire event, divided roughly into four quarters (and slightly smoothed for ease of viewing). Even though my VI is 1.01 -- nearly perfect for a more or less flat time trial -- it's apparent I didn't pace anywhere near perfectly.

Heart rate is red, power is yellow, elevation is orange.

First quarter:

Duration:   30:59
Work:       392 kJ
TSS:        42.6 (intensity factor 0.908)
Norm Power: 213
VI:         1.01
Pw:HR:       5.18%
Pa:HR:       -4.93%

I managed to go out a bit hard for the first 15 minutes or so. In fact, after the first five minutes when I realised that I forgot to switch my cassette from the hilly IMLP 12-25 to a more appropriate 11-23 for a flat time trial, I decided I'd better try and compensate the loss of speed and power on the downhills by going a tiny bit harder on the uphills (bad idea, next time just make sure to start with the proper cassette!)

Second quarter:


Duration:   32:02
Work:       400 kJ
TSS:        42.9 (intensity factor 0.897)
Norm Power: 211
VI:         1.01
Pw:HR:       4.71%
Pa:HR:       -1.44%

I was expecting a headwind at any moment once I turned south again, 20 miles into the event, but it never seemed to come. In fact, the section between 20 and 25 miles felt the best of the whole day. Riding past the turn-off for the finish line, I started the second lap feeling pretty good.

Third quarter:

Duration:   31:48
Work:       387 kJ
TSS:        40.9 (intensity factor 0.878)
Norm Power: 206
VI:         1.02
Pw:HR:       4.46%
Pa:HR:       -18.3%

Somewhere between 30 and 40 miles, I started to suffer, as my legs were really starting to hurt and I wondered how I could possibly do another 30 minutes at my current pace. It felt like my watts were really dropping (though it probably just seemed that way as I glanced at my powermeter probably at moments where I knew I was slacking off). I also started to lose focus a bit. Spending 90 minutes by myself, riding at the same pace, in the same position, on a boring straight highway with traffic roaring by was taking its toll mentally. In reality, I was only down a handful of watts, but at the time it felt like I was pedalling in molasses.

Fourth quarter:


Duration:   30:56
Work:       397 kJ
TSS:        43.4 (intensity factor 0.918)
Norm Power: 216
VI:         1.01
Pw:HR:       -2.9%
Pa:HR:       -5.96%

Thankfully in TTs the last 10 miles are counted down one by one; whether that's for added pacing assistance or just to motivate the riders to finish, I was overjoyed to see those markers. The final 5 miles seemed to go by more quickly than expected, so I guess I had more left in the tank than I thought. The final mile was downhill and with one eye on the clock, I was pretty sure I'd break 2:06 and I did. You're supposed to yell out your number to the timing official but I really had nothing left as I passed him. No doubt about it, I left nothing on the course and in fact had to pull over to eat something before I started the 15-minute easy ride back up the hill to HQ. A rider who finished just after me rode by and I couldn't even bring myself to make conversation, let alone join him. I was simply too spent.

Overall, I managed 1:02:57 for the first half and 1:02:46 for the second half, with 212 NP for each. Next time I'll make more an effort to hold back a little bit at the start, and be more mentally prepared for the draggy third quarter so my watts don't drop so much. Between that and some very needed aero improvements (as can be seen from the photo below!) I should be able to get a lot closer to 2 hours for 50 miles on a good day.

Copyright Charles Whitton Photography

Happier endings

2009-08-25T17:15:00.004+01:00

This week was much better on the racing front. Three races, three top-3 results, though to be fair all of the races were women-only and two of them had fewer than 10 riders! Such is the state of women's cycle racing, which is a bit sad when you think that I live on the outskirts of the biggest city in the UK. And most of us know lots of women cyclists who ride with our clubs, commute to work, do sportives or triathlons, etc. but for whatever reason can't be talked into giving cycle racing a go. Is it the ugly crashes highlighted on the news in the pro races that scare them away from the sport? Or just the simple competitiveness; the idea that when you race, you are forced by your competitors to push yourself to the limit most times? Not sure, but I do wish more women would get involved in cycle racing. I'd love to do a road race with 50+ women all more or less my ability, the way Jim can do with his fellow cat 3 guys. Instead I do races filled with elites and Olympic hopefuls who trounce me, or races with fewer than a dozen women, only half of which manage to hang on til the end. Anyway, stuff to think about for a later blog post.

Last week we had some really great weather, which always makes me motivated to get outside and be active. Late summer and never knowing if it might be the final spell of sun and warmth until next spring might have something to do with it. In any case, even with Monday as a rest day I managed a 14.5 hour training week, more than 11 of which were spent on my bike either riding to/from races, racing, or riding around watching others race. It was also my last week neglecting my TT bike as I need to get back to it this week and start building up some long rides for Kona. It's been nice for the break, but at the same time I'm looking forward to riding fast into the wind again, ha ha.

Tuesday -- Crystal Palace
Not quite as many as the week before, but still ten of us showed up to race the second-to-last week of the Palace circuits. Series leader Charlie Blackman was there, as was SE Road Race champ Natalie Creswick, so it was looking like a promisingly tough race. I was curious to see if we could catch Charlie once she (inevitably) got away solo, and we managed to do it once -- though by doing so dropped all but four other riders. Or was it more like she sat up to take a rest before riding off again to finish a few hundred metres ahead of us in first place... Still, my bike handling is improving and I worked my butt off both to try and catch Charlie and to hold off Natalie who's been stronger than I have at every race we've ever done. In the end, as I was coming up the hill on the final lap giving it all I had and waiting for the inevitable sprint to come around me which never came, I let up just a moment too soon and was pipped at the line for 2nd by Melanie Sneddon from the Penzance team. Frustrating, but since she had done quite a bit of work to try and get away from us -- and managed to reach and stay with Charlie a short while before being dropped and coming back to us with a couple of laps to go -- I couldn't complain. She definitely deserved to beat me. Leona had another strong ride finishing 5th, and both of us were not surprised to see our power data show a 10-watt jump in effort from the previous week. It was a tough race!

Leona leads early on, with Charlie on her wheel waiting to pounce, photo from London Cycle Sport

Saturday -- Hog Hill
Having run 19km on Thursday evening then ridden 110km on Friday in the alternating sunshine and pouring rain to watch the Surrey League Revolutions 5-day race (with my teammates Steve Saunders and James Beaumont taking part), my legs were feeling a bit heavy. But I'd been meaning to give Hog Hill a try all summer and this was the last chance to do it in a low-key women's race (unlike the rather higher profile London Open Circuit champs in two weeks' time). So Leona and I rode the 20km to London's Liverpool St. station -- a kind of contest all on its own, to keep out from under bus wheels and away from cab doors -- then grabbed a train to Goodmayes, then rode another few km to the circuit. Sure enough, there's a good little hill there, but nothing too crazy. Seven girls were on the start line, two fell off almost immediately, and the other two were dropped with a lap to go when one of the riders thought it was the bell lap and attacked going up the hill. I sat on her wheel easily, thinking "oh, that's smart, attacking before the bell instead of after", only to find out as we crossed the line that she thought it was the finish! Been there, done that... so we took off again for another lap and this time with the help of Leona clearing the right-hand side for me, it was my turn to attack going up the hill. I gunned it pretty hard and knew I was in the lead, but mindful of losing at the line I was afraid to glance around and see who was where behind me. Turned out I needn't have worried! So that was my first victory and felt pretty good to finally get one. Nice to get the £15 too and set a couple of new power records for everything from 10 to 30 seconds.

Yep, pretty sure I have this one sewn up! photo from London Cycle Sport

Sunday -- Goodwood
I only needed 11 points to get my cat 2 license, but none of the British Cycling reps at Hog Hill could tell me what my win got me, so I figured I'd better do the 3/4 women's race at Goodwood anyway, just to be sure. Early morning races are never my thing and this one was no different, though once we arrived at sunny warm Goodwood and had a lap of the course I was feeling a bit more awake. Seventeen riders lined up at the start -- good turnout for a women's race! -- and we set off a minute or so behind the men's cat 4 race at quite a slow pace. No matter, I was happy for the extra warm-up. It was a windy day, and what with the flat gently turning circuit it was going to take legs of steel and courage to match in order to get away from the bunch on this one. I tried a couple of attacks to see what would happen, but only succeeded in tiring out the less experienced riders and thinning out the bunch to nine. A crash in the men's race on the finishing sprint just after they overtook us meant the first part of our last lap was neutralised, but afterwards it was just a waiting game to see who would start to sprint first. I had my eye on who I thought the strongest rider in the race was and stuck to her wheel like glue til the closing few hundred metres when she was led out nicely by some friends in the race. Despite my best plans to wait until the last second (we were sprinting into a headwind) to try and come around her, I just didn't have enough in my legs to do it, not to mention picked a wrong gear and couldn't get on top of it. In the end, she won a good race and I finished over a bike length back. 2nd place at a circuit like that, not bad.

Just couldn't get around her, though it might help if I could sprint better than a Dutch commuter.

Anatomy of a DNF

2009-08-17T14:25:00.005+01:00

Sunday was my first (and probably not last, but hopefully not very often) "did not finish" in a cycle race. A day later, I'm still kicking myself over it -- not the actual DNF itself, but the way it came about -- and I guess the best I can come away with is that it's a learning experience if nothing else.

I had done a Surrey League men's cat 3 race on the Dunsfold circuit back in March and done pretty well to stay with the pack, though in retrospect that course with its twisty narrow lanes, short descents and draggy climb is pretty suited to my abilities and weaknesses when racing with guys. The Walliswood course where we raced yesterday... not so much. Leona was right to be a bit worried!

The story:

We did a recce lap of the course about an hour before the race (Jim, Leona, another guy and I) and even at a nice warm-up pace it was over 30km/h. Jim commented on that but it didn't occur to me that this should be a warning. Mistake #1.

The race began and after a near disaster in the neutralised zone due to some poor road surfaces and a pack of 60 riders trying to avoid oncoming cars, the pace sped up. A few attacks went off at the first climb, but nothing too serious. I was trying to stay near the front and having varying success; the roads were really busy with cars coming at us, making riding on the right/outside somewhat stressful. After a while I moved to the left/inside, which was a bit easier though more risky for getting caught out by accelerations in the group. Mistake #2.

The second half of Lap 1 was marked by a sharp turn followed by a twisty rolling bit, a fast steepish descent with a crappy road surface, then onto a busy major road with a slight uphill helped by a tailwind. Starting the descent in the front half of the group, I was near the back by the end, but the bunch slowed considerably on the uphill as things came back together. I figured this would probably happen every lap. Mistake #3.

Lap 2 was more of the same, though instead of getting up to the front, I was caught out on the first climb behind some slower guys. Wary of putting out too much energy too early in the race, I decided not to claw my way back to the front and instead try to sit on for a bit. It's sort of dangerous to be near the back in such a large group as it's hard to gauge whether you're 40th, or 50th or at the very very back (to me, anyway). I didn't want to look around behind me, but if I had I would have seen that I was literally sitting amongst the rear dozen riders, not a good spot to be! Mistake #4.

Then it happened. Sprinting out of the sharp corner cost me some energy, and the twisty rolling bit didn't see me gain any position back. Suddenly the swift downhill appeared, I hesitated over some rough road and everyone who was behind me shot past me, including Leona. "No worries", I thought, gritting my teeth and giving the powertap everything I could muster as we turned onto the main road. "They'll slow down any second now". Except they didn't. Jim's power data later showed that that was the hardest section of the entire race, that five minutes from the A29 up past HQ to the lapboard. Whether it was an attack or just a general sharp increase in pace, I don't know. I could only watch as the group powered away without me in it. A minute or two later I saw Leona coming back to me as the guy in front of her was gapped and she was unable to get around him. We looked at each other and shook our heads, stunned by our combination of bad positioning, bad timing and bad luck at being caught out. 40km/h became 35km/h as the two of us worked together for another lap (passing more than one disheartened guy who'd also been dropped, including Mr. Gapped). But that was the end of our day in the bunch.

Funny enough, my power data shows I averaged the same watts for the lap with Leona as I did for the first two laps with the bunch, but at 5-6km/h slower, our choices were to ride five more laps alone or slow down and be lapped by the main field and try to latch on as they went by. And as it was my third race in eight days and I'd also run over 44km during the week, my brain decided my legs weren't up to either task so I called it a day as I cruised by HQ. Turned in my race number, got some food, and sat to watch the rest of the race unfold while I not-so-silently fumed at myself for being so stupid. Leona joined me shortly afterwards.

The rest of the Wheelers didn't fare so well either. Damien spent a lot time bridging to the break, then cramped with a lap to go and couldn't hang onto them. Jim got near the front on the last lap with a top 10 in mind going up the final 100m climb to the finish line, but cramped and literally had to limp his bike over the line. Andy was nearly taken out by a rider who cut the final corner short and had to settle for a finish in the bunch. Mickael, the ghost Wheeler, sat in the break for some time then disappeared and was not seen again -- not sure if he even finished! At least the afternoon's E/1/2/3 race was a bit more successful, with Steve Saunders taking 2nd place, Luke Wallis 9th and James finishing in the pack.

Damien and Mickael in the break, photo from London Cycle Sport

Lessons learned:

-- always stay near the front! even more important for me in men's races than in women's, and especially important when coming up to a tailwind or downhill section. These guys outweigh me by more than 15kg, so even if I were the world's greatest descender I'd still have to work hard to keep up. To that end, Olympic rowing medallist Elise Laverick was also in the race and did a great job to finish in the bunch. She is quite a bit bigger and stronger than Leona and me though!

-- keeping to the right/outside is nearly always safer from a positioning perspective than the left/inside, particularly on uphills. And since the roadside is often soft and uneven by the edge, it's sometimes better from a safety perspective to be riding the white lane line in the middle, oncoming cars or not.

-- a fast recce lap means an even faster race and even more reason to STAY NEAR THE FRONT!

-- never assume that every lap will be the same, and certainly never count on the bunch slowing down, ever. Luck is something that happens unplanned. Planning for luck to come through is a sure way to fail.

-- sometimes life is just like that. Accept it, learn from it, move on to the next one. At least I didn't crash out.

Crystal Palace

2009-08-13T22:15:00.007+01:00

Watch that pedal strike (and the tongue won't help in a crash!)

In my quest to get enough points for cat 2 and to visit all the race circuits around London in the meantime, I headed to Crystal Palace on Tuesday evening for their weekly race. It's by far the best atmosphere I've seen yet for a cycle race: lots of folks on the grass lounging around and chatting, a course that only takes about two minutes to ride per lap, and sunny weather that's the requirement for the race to run (too slippery and dangerous if it's raining). Apparently the women's race tends to attract pretty low numbers, so it was nice to see a dozen of us on such a beautiful late summer evening lining up at the start.

Early on and we're already chasing escapees

The Palace is more crit-like than any other circuit I've raced, save the Nocturne: a 1.3km course consisting of a 50-metre straightaway after the start, then a sharp 180-degree turn, a quick little twisty downhill, a long 180 degree corner, and a draggy uphill before a flat finish. The course is wide enough to allow overtaking, though with three groups racing (women's, men's cat 3/4, and men's cat E/1/2) it can be a little crowded at times -- as evidenced by the guy who swung wide into me on the corner and hit my front wheel, nearly taking me out! But as I proved at the Smithfield Nocturne, my cornering is pretty awful, and my descending and cornering combined is even worse, so even though I'd ridden a few laps in warm-up, I had no doubt that I wouldn't be going off the front anytime soon, if ever. And in 23 laps at Crystal Palace, I swear the lap counter said 14 before I even felt comfortable in the drops, not braking, and managing to lean my bike into the turns! The good news is that by the end, I sort of had it worked out, though I had to keep shouting to myself "lean! lean!" on every lap and focussing on weighting my right leg as much as I could for those left-hand bends. But for my first time at the Palace, I wasn't disappointed with how I rode.

Following Rachel's line, I'm getting better at the lean

I'd read some other reports of how this race usually goes down -- a strong rider goes from the off and manages to stay away the whole race -- but with Charlie Blackman out of town, it was going to fall to someone else this time. I thought, "if only I can keep her in sight, whoever she is, til my legs come around in the second half, then maybe we have a chance to get some ground back." Little did I know the effect the men's race overtaking us every 7-8 laps would have. Basically I learned from the wrong end the prime rule for racing at the Palace if you're in the women's race: get a bit of a gap, hold it as best you can, let the draft from the overtaking men's races give you a little boost to get even further ahead, then repeat seven laps later. Not sitting on wheels, mind you (that's not allowed), but just using that massive pack of guys to disappear from the sight of the women chasing you. I must admit I tried to do that myself when the guys came around -- use them to get a bit more speed and momentum to make catching our ladies' break easier -- but by then it was too late. If someone's away by the time the guys come around the first time, you can pretty much plan to see her at the finish line unless she either punctures or blows up.

Trying not to lose touch on the downhill

The effort is starting to show for all of us

Is that a grimace?

Still, a race at the Palace turned out to be the best 51-minute workout I could have asked for. Once I settled in (took me a good half-hour as usual -- and I'd ridden an hour to the race as warm-up!) I sat a lot on the front and drove the pace up the hill in particular. One of the two girls who went off the front was brought back; the other was too strong. I didn't trust my legs to try to get away myself, so I just worked hard and brought our group of 11 down to six by the finish. My teammate Leona and I -- both of us never having raced there before -- didn't have any kind of plan, so it came down to a bunch sprint. I knew that there'd be at least one person trying to come around and outsprint me at the finish, and given my awful acceleration and sprint power, I knew I had to use my head instead of my legs. Coming up the final hill, I was caning it quite hard but eased off just before the top, thinking I could jump on the inevitable wheel when it came around, but I mistimed it and she was by me before I knew it. A valiant effort to get on her wheel, but I ran out of road and finished a bike length behind, 3rd place overall.

Leona and I both have rental powermeters on our road bikes so we've been comparing power data lately. We're about the same weight, though she's taller and younger and I've been cycling for longer. Still, thanks to Leona's recent push into training and racing hard, we're remarkably close: FTP, top-end watts, even heart rate. It's interesting to break down the differences in our Crystal Palace race.

Maryka

Entire workout (207 watts):
 Duration:   51:29 (51:33)
 Work:       640 kJ
 TSS:        85 (intensity factor 0.996)
 Norm Power: 234
 VI:         1.13
 Pw:HR:       5.2%
 Pa:HR:       3.09%
 Distance:   30.413 km
 Elevation Gain: 683 m
 Elevation Loss: 682 m
 Grade:      0.0 %  (1 m)
               Min Max Avg
 Power:        0 678 207  watts
 Heart Rate:   123 187 175  bpm
 Cadence:      38 170 101  rpm
 Speed:        0 60.9 35.4  kph
 Pace          0:59 0:00 1:42  min/km
 Altitude:     73 99 87  m
 Crank Torque: 0 89.7 19.3  N-m

Leona

Entire workout (204 watts):
 Duration:   51:32 (52:41)
 Work:       630 kJ
 TSS:        94.9 (intensity factor 1.051)
 Norm Power: 231
 VI:         1.14
 Pw:HR:       5.25%
 Pa:HR:       1.58%
 Distance:   19.018 mi
 Elevation Gain: 1504 ft
 Elevation Loss: 1467 ft
 Grade:      0.0 %  (38 ft)
               Min Max Avg
 Power:        0 624 204  watts
 Heart Rate:   117 188 175  bpm
 Cadence:      31 182 91  rpm
 Speed:        4.6 41.4 22.1  mph
 Pace          1:27 13:03 2:43  min/mi
 Altitude:     219 303 266  ft
 Crank Torque: 0 1303 187  lb-in

-- FTP: judging from this race, I think Leona's FTP is probably higher than the 220 she's got in WKO+. In fact, given that Crystal Palace is the kind of course where you don't get much rest (sprinting out of corners, riding uphill, even blasting downhill to catch up to faster descenders), I'd say that if we'd ridden another 9 minutes to bring the race to one hour, her NP wouldn't have been much lower than 231. My tested FTP on my road bike is 235, and both my perceived exertion in the race and the numbers show that that figure is probably still about right.

-- Work: according to the kJ spent by each of us, I did more "work" per se, even though the overall training stress score (TSS) for me is lower than for Leona. This is because TSS is directly related to FTP -- the higher the FTP, the lower the TSS for the same training session, all other things being equal. The reason I burned more kJ is because I sat on the front of the group more and didn't draft as much behind other riders.

-- zero watts: what you can't see in the data summary above is how much time we both spent freewheeling, or producing fewer than 20 watts. According to Coggan and Allen's book, "most winning road racers do not pedal at least 15 percent of the time". Looking at our cadence distribution charts, I pedalled for 86% of the race at Crystal Palace, but Leona managed to pedal only 80% of the time. Again, this shows how much she was drafting and how much I wasn't -- and in fact, how much smarter she raced because of it! Maybe if I'd pedalled less, drafted and conserved more, especially in the last lap or two, I would have been the one coming around the others to sprint to the win. Or maybe not...

In any case, both Leona and I are signed up for a men's cat 3 race this coming weekend (Jim and a bunch of other Kingston Wheelers will join us), and you can bet that both of us will be doing as little work as possible!

A return to cycle racing

2009-08-09T22:00:00.002+01:00

Week one of shorter, but more frequent posts to my blog. Pics are Jim's, as usual.

Being done with IMLP but with lots of time before IMH, I decided that I should get back into cycle racing again. My last race was over two months ago, and one thing I've noticed is how my 1-minute and 5-minute peak power have dropped, not to mention how rusty my "feel" on the bike has gotten at high speed, in tight corners, and around other bikes in the bunch. As well, my FTP could use some rebuilding after several weeks of Ironman taper and recovery. And cycle racing is just plain fun and a great workout! So with that in mind, I was off to Dunsfold Park this morning for the women's cat 3/4 Surrey League race.

Leona and I warm up in the shadow of a giant 747

Dunsfold Park is also serves as the test track for the TV show Top Gear. In fact, our finish line is the very same as the one for "Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car". Today's course around the airfield was slightly shortened and modified, turning us up the main runway (car tire donuts could be seen everywhere) and back down the outside. I never realised how massively wide an airfield runway is, and how long/large the paint patches have to be to read them from the sky. Of course, the crosswind meant that 60-odd cyclists were strung out in a line along the grassy edge of this 45-metre wide stretch of perfect tarmac, but it wouldn't be bike racing if someone wasn't riding onto the grass in a panic.

Dunsfold Park Aerodrome

Only five women showed up for the women's race, so we decided to join the men's 4th cat race instead. Probably less of a workout for me, but certainly better for getting the rust off my racing skills. Everything went well, with some attacks getting away but always been dragged back. About 25 minutes into the race, I found myself near the front on the sharpest corner and coming out of it I was in a group of five or six guys pulling pretty hard. I pulled through, a couple of guys sprinted by me and I realised we had a bit of a gap on everyone else. I kept riding hard, and just when I started to flag, someone new would bridge across to me, giving me a wheel to sit on and catch my breath for a few seconds. A hundred metres ahead of us was the strongest break of the day, four guys who were working well together. By now a few guys had managed to bridge over, so I decided to go for it and pedalled my heart out for several minutes trying to reach them. But it was like paddling in a strong upstream current towards a bridge: you can see it there, it's kind of getting closer, yet you seem to be making no quick headway. After a while, I realised the rest of the bunch had caught me and was happily sitting on my wheel as I put out 275 watts... yes, did I mention my race smarts were a bit rusty too?

Should have realised that I was already caught here, but my head's still down!

After that, I mostly hung in the bunch, tried to move up before the corners and accelerate smoothly out of them. A dead-flat course with a 90-degree corner at one end and a 135-degree corner at the other made more interesting by traffic cones narrowing the road and some large potholes; I was not in my element. We had dropped two of the women, leaving three of us in the main group when the last break was reeled in a few laps before the finish. The two ladies had been joined by a couple of guys who'd also been dropped, and they were working together as a tidy foursome. The only problem was, we lapped them just as we crossed the finish line for what I thought would be the bell lap (the lap counter had been displaying '3' two laps previous). And the bell rang, sort of. The lap counter now said 1. A few of us looked at each other and asked "so is this the last lap then?" And suddenly the whole bunch sped up, so we did too. Coming around the final sharp corner, I was on my teammate Leona's wheel but she had picked a bad line on the windward side of the course. Wheels were going by me on the leeward side, so I jumped onto one and started moving up the field. With 100m to go, I noticed the third woman ahead of me but catchable, though that meant giving it full-bore and standing up to sprint past her. Which I did... just in time to hear the bell ringing again, signifying the real last lap.

Ian (far left) sprints for second

Being so out of touch racing-wise, it didn't really occur to me that the bell was ringing until the bunch shot past me and a gap opened up. Leona rode up beside me and we both cursed the air blue over the confusion, and our own idiocy being caught out. Well, nothing to do but try to catch the bunch and latch back on. We both worked pretty hard up the runway straight, but by then my heart wasn't in it. Came around the final corner (again!) and Leona went for the sprint while I sat up and threw my hands in the air. Disappointing 3rd place for me, about 50th overall. Later I learned that the bell and lap counter had been for the group we were lapping (why those four riders should take precedence over the entire bunch is something I didn't get to ask the race organiser). Oh well, that's cycle racing I guess. Next time I'll be more aware of bells and riders.

Not happy at the finish!

The best part of the day, though, was hearing my Kingston Wheelers teammate Ian -- he of the strong steady wheel and awesome slipstream -- came 2nd overall and has now moved up to join Jim in the 3rd cats. Leona got enough points to move into 2nd cat and I'm now only 25 points away from 2nd cat myself. Not sure if it's worth really pursuing that promotion before the end of the season (rankings in regional women's cycle racing up to 1st cat seem somewhat arbitrary anyway, as points are given out for the top ten in every race and there are barely ten women in any given race), but it does give me a reason now to race at some of the other local circuits I haven't made tried yet, just to pick up points! Feels good to be back racing again.

Ironman Lake Placid Race Report or How I won my age group and got a Kona slot

2009-08-06T00:15:00.010+01:00

Wow, a whole month since I've posted anything. No real excuse other than that I was tapering for and travelling to Ironman Lake Placid, trying to get my head around the race and just generally taking it easy and getting rested. Note to self to get off my arse and post more often from now on! (and shorter posts too, this one is a whopper!)

The Trophy

Anyway, the race. By now, pretty much everyone knows that I achieved what I set out to do and beyond, not only earning a Kona slot but winning my W35-39 age group. The former was never really at risk, but the latter still amazes me. How often do you really get to win something? I can count the number of races I've won since as an adult -- triathlon, running, swimming, cycling -- on one hand. What a privilege and triumph. But I'm getting ahead of myself here... of course every great race has a story, so here's mine.

Prologue

We left the UK on July 14, flew to Boston then picked up the rental car (fully loaded with a bike box (mine), bike bag (Jim's), two large backpacks and two small ones. Thank God for American cars, this would not have worked if we'd been flying and renting a car in Europe!) Drove straight to Ottawa that day, arriving after midnight. My brother and sister-in-law were generous enough to put us up for the week, which meant great food, even better company (my parents and sister came up on the weekend to visit) and lots of downtime to ride around Ottawa. In particular the Gatineau Park is a fabulous place to ride, but I'll save that for another post.

A week later we drove to Lake Placid to get settled into our three-bedroom condo just on the north side of town. We'd lucked into a place with some other folks when one of their friends had been unable to do the race, thanks to a nasty car/bike accident. It turned out to be perfect for us, though, as our housemates were fantastic and a great mix of first-time IM competitors, vets, and supporters. We were close enough to walk to town but far enough to be away from the bustle of the Ironman Show, which can really wear you down if you're immersed in it 24/7.

Transition Zone

I had been feeling a bit under the weather most of the week, just generally tired (despite sleeping quite well) and my stomach was a bit off (though I did avoid eating a lot of junk food -- no Taco Bell the whole time I was in North America!) That was a bit worrying, but I knew I'd done the training and I was prepared. We spent the days before the race driving the bike course, riding the sections that I thought might be good to know in advance, namely the descent into Keene and the climb back into Lake Placid. I also ran the big hill on the run course into town so I knew how it would feel on rested legs (on rested legs it was tough, so on the day I knew it would be a heartbreaker!) The night before the race my stomach did not want the usual two bottles of Ensure I force down, so I went with one bottle and a bit of Sustained Energy, then went to bed and tried to get some rest.

Race morning dawned, tummy still not happy but not rebelling either. Dropped bags at Special Needs, then onto the body marking station. It was 5am, still dark but the place was completely alive. Lake Placid certainly gets behind its Ironman! Half the town must have been out there already. The weather was fine so far, muggy and cloudy, but calm and warm with a threat of rain but otherwise predicted to be a good day. Mirror Lake epitomised its name, for a short while anyway til 2250 athletes and thousands more spectators invaded its waters and banks.

Body Marking

Mirror Lake at 5am

The Swim

It had started to rain quite hard just before the swim started, though those of us in wetsuits didn't mind of course. The pros set off at 6:50am and ten minutes later the American anthem had been sung and the gun went for us. I had seeded myself right near the buoy line (at Lake Placid the swim course is marked by permanent buoys connected by a yellow underwater rope, making staying on course pretty easy) and pretty close to the front. One thing I don't mind is the washing machine bump-and-grind that characterises mass swim starts; as an ex-club swimmer and lifeling ice hockey player, I generally feel both comfortable and protected in the water. All those bodies moving in the same direction mean extra free speed for me, so bring it on! As it was, I ended up getting on some good feet just inside the buoy line and only came outside of it to go around the corners.

The Washing Machine

Lap 1 to Lap 2

I had been swimming the course earlier in the week with Jim's Garmin 305 and thought that the course was a bit long: one lap exactly following the underwater cable was 1960m instead of the 1900m it should be for an Ironman. Not that 60m (120m for the whole course) matters to me, but at least I was prepared for when the clock said 29:28 as I came over the mat, ran across the beach and jumped back in for the second lap. The second lap is always slower just by virtue of fewer people moving in the same direction. So I knew my swim was going to be slower than IM Germany and defintely slower than the sub-60 minutes I'd hoped to go. This wasn't helped by my ridiculous re-entry into the water where I followed some guys the long way around the dock. Regardless, it was a nice swim. My only regret was taking off my swim cap as I ran along with my wetsuit under my arm towards T1. The Garmin was under there, and while I managed to juggle it, the cap, my goggles and earplugs all together, at some point I dropped the Garmin and had to double back to look for it (at a few hundred dollars, I didn't want to lose it, not to mention my data on it!) Thankfully a volunteer saw me looking, took my race number and offered to find it for me so I could carry on. I hoped for the best and made my way to T1.

Swim time: 1:01:58 as 29:28 first lap and 32:30 second lap, 6th AG and 239th overall

Swim course and speeds

Chute to T1

T1 and The Bike

A long run up to the Olympic Oval where the bikes were racked, made amazing by the throngs of people lining the chute screaming like crazy. Transition was pretty easy, I grabbed my bag and ran into the tent, threw on my helmet, sunglasses, race belt and shoes and handed my wetsuit and gear back to a volunteer. Since I've discovered 2XU Endurance Tri shorts this year, I've been able to swim, bike and run wearing the same clothes throughout, which makes for quick transitions. My number had been called out on the megaphone but by the time I reached my rack, I was greeted by a poor confused volunteer who sort of looked at me helplessly. I was fortunate that my bike was only three spots from the end of the row, so I just waved at her and smiled and grabbed it myself. She looked relieved and I was on my way, running through the grass in my bike shoes.

T1: 5:13, 4th AG and 177th overall

Straight out of T1

The rain had stopped but the roads were still wet, and with a crazy 180-degree turn followed by a steep downhill straight out of transition then another sharp corner and more downhill, I mounted my bike and rode the first few minutes very gingerly. Once out of town, I settled in and assessed myself. Stomach still not happy, though feeling hungry which I took to be a good sign. Legs however were unaccounted for. Still, not time to panic yet, it's only an hour into the race and I've got at least nine and a half to go! I climbed out of Lake Placid in an easy gear, then ate a bit of my Perpetuem mix before tackling the 7.5km descent into Keene (where I managed to average 54km/h on the first loop and 52km/h on the second -- max was over 70km/h which I know is not super fast, but then again I'm a bit of a lightweight!) The roads were closed to cars which made me feel better than on the day I had practised it, though the winds are tricky through there and my 60mm deep front wheel had ideas of its own about where to go. I kept repeating to myself "you are a good bike handler! this descent is easy!" the whole way down, which seemed to work as I didn't crash like a few unfortunate folks I saw along the way.

Bike Course and speeds

From Keene to Jay was a massive tailwind and given the number of fast guys on the course by then, I was towed along by the draft it seemed. It actually took some effort not to draft as there were just so many bikes along there. Overtaking one person just to hit another's draft zone was frustrating and meant I either had to continuously overtake at least three people a minute (maximum 20 seconds in each person's zone) or pick and choose who I should pass and who I should let sit legally in front of me. Once we hit the hills between Jay and Wilmington, things broke up a bit more, but even so this was a difficult course to ride 100% within the rules. Thankfully I didn't see any huge draft packs and the smaller ones I saw were breaking up regularly due to the hills and aid stations.

Heading into Wilmington

Jim had left town right after I got through transition, and had ridden the opposite direction on the bike course so he could meet me before the out-and-back section for photos and encouragement. By then -- 45km into the bike leg -- I knew I was going to struggle with my body all day. I felt bloated, blah, head-achy and completely off my game. The average watts I'd planned to push on the bike just didn't happen without an alarming rise in heart rate, so I settled for racing on "feel" while keeping half an eye on heart rate and mostly ignoring the watts on the powertap. In some ways this worked great, as I was able to conserve a lot of energy on the tailwind and downhill sections of the course, yet still climb the hills the way I'm used to -- steady to FTP watts but nowhere near blowing up. In the end my VI was 1.11 for the whole race which I think is quite high. But given my state of disarray on the bike course, going on feel meant surviving on what felt right to me at the time, which meant ups and downs instead of a steady watts ride. I'm still thinking this one over and the truth is that I haven't done enough "bad" long rides and IM races to know whether I did myself a good or bad turn with this strategy. Interestingly enough, my normative watts over the whole course were only about 5-10 watts off from what I'd wanted my average watts to be! All I can say is I hope to ride more steady at Kona.

A happy moment

The wheels are in sync even if I'm not

So, plan B then: after burping up my Perp mix a few times, I decided to back off and go with plain water for a while. I knew I had to keep up with my scheduled Endurolytes and Anti-Fatigue caps, but even those were hard to get down. In retrospect, I think I should have had more water early in the bike leg as I probably took in too many calories without enough water to process them. Given that it wasn't really warm on the bike until nearly an hour into it, and that the swim had been in cool water, I thought I didn't need as much water -- and mindful of the multiple times I had to pee during the Stein race, not to mention that I'd already peed twice during the swim -- didn't want to start drinking too much. As it was, I didn't start to need to pee until the second lap (over 3 hours into the bike leg) and didn't stop til nearly 5 hours had gone by. If that wasn't the biggest clue that I was underhydrating.... hard to believe now that I could have been so dumb! It wasn't for lack of aid stations either, it was just me being a newbie. Speaking of aid stations, at the out-and-back I tried to grab a fresh water bottle, but between the right-hand hand-off (I'm left-handed), the size of the bottle and the fact that it was cold and dripping, I managed to drop it not once but twice! Finally the third hand-off worked, but to all the folks riding anywhere near me at that moment, I sincerely apologise for making your day needlessly stressful by having to steer around my dropped bottles. Mea culpa.

Crowds at the aid station

All along I'd been taking split times on the bike and I knew after the end of the out-and-back that I was in pretty good shape timewise for someone who was riding too easy and not having a great day. When I hit Wilmington just after 2 hours on the bike and started the last ~20km back into town to complete the first lap, I knew I was still in the money. Climbing past Whiteface Mountain my legs finally put in their first appearance of the day and I started to feel better all around. The Papa Bear climb was packed with cheering fans, and I got a real call-out for my in-the-aero-bars climbing technique, especially as I passed a dozen guys out of the saddle and grinding their way up the hill.

Into town and passing the crowds, I blew right by Special Needs (the flat tire monsters had thankfully stayed away this year, so there was nothing I needed anyway) and started the second lap. Pretty much the same as the first, though now the course was quite a bit more deserted, the wind had kicked up, the sun was hotter, and the people I did see were looking considerably rougher around the edges. I continued to feel a bit better, tested the waters with some more Perp, then switched to Hammer Gel instead. I attempted to pee on the bike several times between Keene and Wilmington, but as the day was sunny and bone-dry, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Frustrated by the lost seconds spent coasting and trying to go, I finally gave up and stopped for a minute at the portapotty on the out-and-back.

Still aero

My stomach and I had seemed to come to a truce: I wouldn't keep trying to overfeed it, and it wouldn't get worse on me (though never truly came around and felt great either). But apparently I'd forgotten to negotiate a deal with my legs because a few kms after leaving Wilmington for the final painful jaunt back into Lake Placid, I got a wicked cramp in my left quad on the inside. Tried to stretch it out and massage it on the bike, but every time I put any power into my pedal stroke it would seize up again, so I finally had to stop by the side of the road and try to fix it. This was particularly frustrating as I had been overtaking lots of people at this point (minus the stops, my split times between first and second lap were pretty good). A guy with a maddeningly squeaky disk wheel and I were trading places on the climbs and descents, and I wanted to cry when I was off my bike stretching and saw -- heard -- him go by.

The muscle cramps got me twice more on the road back to transition, the left leg again and then the right. The final time was just before the last five rollers into town, the Cherries and Bears. I pulled over to the side, right leg unclipped and in agony, thinking "the shoulder's not that wide here, better pull off into the rough so people can get by me" and promptly hit the sand and crashed on my left side, still clipped in, expletives leaving my mouth rather loudly. Some guy rode by and asked if I was all right in that sort of "I'll stop if I have to help you but I really hope you say you're fine" way -- and given the number of ambulances we'd all seen on the course, I can't blame him -- but I waved him on. Took stock of the damage, a scraped knee and big bruise on my thigh where it hit the top tube and felt pretty mad at myself. Which then sort of woke me up and got me going again, I jumped back on my bike and rode the rest of the way into town cramp-free and with fresh resolve to get the suffering over with and start the run. By the time I got through transition, I was in 3rd place in my age group and 263rd overall in the race, 114.4 miles down and only 26.2 more to go.

Bike time: 5:49:49 as 2:50:19 first lap and 2:59:29 second lap, 3rd AG and 333rd overall

Head down to climb the last hill

T2 and The Run

The second transition was quick and painless, with the only interesting moment happening when I dismounted my bike, leaving the shoes on the pedals, and ran -- rather hobbled -- barefoot towards the bag racks wondering how I was going to run a whole marathon when I could barely make it through transition? Socks and shoes on, decided to start with a visor and see how it went (lately I've been finding it cooler to run without any hat), grabbed my packet full of goodies while a volunteer slapped some sunscreen on my shoulders, and then I ran out. The packet contained all the individual Hammer gels I'd prepacked for the run, plus two Hammer coin purse thingies, one for Endurolytes and one for Anti-Fatigue caps, all in a Ziploc bag. I started loading my pockets as I ran out onto the course to save time, then tossed the baggie at the first aid station. Jim had seen me coming in from the bike course and shouted that I was in third place in my age group by only about five minutes or so. Good to know, but at this point I had to focus on running well and pacing carefully or all that holding back on the bike would be for nothing.

T2: 2:22, 2nd AG and 121st overall

Sorting through the packet

My legs loosened up right away, and I ran the first half mile (albeit all downhill) in only four minutes, which was a bit quick for my plan. I figured I might as well take my first bathroom break to help slow me down a bit. My goal was to run about 5:10/km for the first ten kms -- those splits including all walk breaks at the aid stations -- then try to pick it up a bit or hold steady, depending how I was feeling and knowing that the last six or seven kms of the course with their tough uphills would be the hardest and slowest. I had the Garmin 405 on my wrist so I could keep track of how hard I was going, and it proved to be a great time-manager (and later a whip-cracker) for my pace. I was feeling more or less like my old self again, choking back gels as I needed to and getting my aid station ritual down: dump the old sponges at the start, grab two cups of water (one for my mouth, one over my head), a crushed fresh cup of ice to sit in my trishirt behind my neck, then fresh cold sponges across my chest. Walk just enough to make this all happen, then start running again. I was passing tons of people even in the first lap, as predictably many guys had overcooked the bike leg and were looking at a long day's suffering on the run. Just before I reached the turnaround at 9km, I saw the two women ahead of me in my age group running towards me. I estimated that only about half a mile separated us which put an age group win in reach for me, unless one of them turned out to be a great runner. But as I ran back I spotted the fourth place girl about the same distance behind me. Nothing I could do about it, just had to keep going.

Running the tangents

Up the hill to town and man did that hurt. People were already walking. At least I knew how long it was and that it flattened out after the corner, so I dug a little and kept running. Through town and onto Mirror Lake drive to complete that cruel race director's joke called the second out-and-back. On the first lap, at least the Special Needs bags are there providing some distraction from the fact that you need to run nearly a mile past the finish line entry point then back again before you can head out of town for the second loop. At the end of the race it's nearly unbearable to have to run past the finish chute again before you can enter it! Special Needs had only one thing I wanted: a (no longer) frozen bottle of Heed that I'd made up the night before. The sun had come out again and it was getting hot, so I also dumped my visor in the bag. That bottle of Heed tasted like nothing ever has or ever will again -- I grabbed a cup of ice and poured the Heed over top and drank like it was the last drink of my life. Awesome! It lasted until I made the turnaround and ran past the aid station again, where I chucked the empty bottle and ran past the cheering crowds feeling like a million bucks to start the second half of the marathon. Kms 20 and 21, the ones after Special Needs, rang in at 5:00 and 5:05 respectively, keeping my overall pace to that point at 5:15/km. I did feel bad, however, to see the folks still riding in after their second bike lap and who hadn't even started the run!

Fleetfooted after Special Needs

Running downhill out of town again, I finally saw the end of of a long day slowly coming into sight. Just had to keep up the relentless forward movement, counting down the miles -- now fewer to go than I had done -- and I would be done with Ironman Lake Placid. The run course was really crowded now as most people had started the marathon, and it was hard to tell who was on the first lap and who was on the second (note to IMLP organisers: little bracelets to hand off after the first lap would help competitors keep track of each other!) The run out River Road to the turnaround was again pretty quiet, though the cramps that had taken me down on the bike were threatening to return again on the run, this time in my calves. My aid stations walks were becoming longer and I had to stop several times to stretch out my calves. I had been running the tangents, saving myself as much distance as possible, but now I wondered if it was better to run slightly longer but in the shade. Midway to the turnaround I saw two women in my age group coming at me and looking quite strong, and in my mentally exhausted state couldn't remember if they were the same women who had been ahead of me all along. If they were, then they had me beat by a fair bit. If not, then where were the women ahead of me? At that point I realised that it was out of my hands either way. I couldn't run any faster without risk of cramping up, and as long as I didn't slow down, I wouldn't lose any places (the 4th place girl who I did recognise in her Endurance Nation kit was falling behind steadily). So to my great relief, I just gave up caring where anyone else in my age group was and ran on as best I could.

Trying to run, not walk

Run Elevation and Gradient

Turned out that the two women in front of me were fading fast while I was still running 5:17-5:18/km, but I didn't manage to catch them until the final half hour of the race. I barely noticed overtaking them as I was going by tons of people by then, particularly on the hills where many were walking, and the body marking had worn off hours ago. Later, the third place girl would tell me she saw me go by but just couldn't hold my pace. I saw Jim at the top of the hill with less than two miles to go and suddenly had a moment of panic: what if there was some hotshot marathoner who'd been creeping up on me all this time the way I'd crept up on the others? I shouted to Jim "who's behind me?" and he gave me a confused look. "Everyone is! You're in first place!" I shook my head thinking it couldn't be possible, what about those speedy ladies I'd seen before? But no time to argue, I had to keep going but for the first time I allowed myself to think that I might actually win my age group.

Just that awful last out-and-back to do along Mirror Lake, helped immensely by the thronging masses cheering me along for actually still running at a reasonable pace, then I was done. I made sure to toss my sponges and ice at the aid station to make myself presentable for the finisher's photos, and Jim (where did he come from? must have hoofed it up that hill double time!) shouted to smile when I crossed the line. Then into the Olympic Oval and half a lap around before running under that magical Ironman banner. I reminded myself that this could be the last race I ever do -- after all, you never know what could happen in the future -- which did indeed bring a grin to my face, and with a sort of gay fist pump I ran across the line. In the end I ran the fastest marathon in my age group.

Run time: 3:42:31 as 1:49:16 first lap and 1:53:15 second lap, 1st AG and 131st overall

Fist Pump!

Across the finish line

The Aftermath

Despite aching legs, I actually felt pretty good when the race was over. Mike Reilly had called out my name when I finished, but no mention was made of what place I was in my age group so I still wasn't quite sure I had won. I grabbed some food then got my dry clothes bag and took off my wet shoes, socks and calf guards. Found Jim and chatted briefly, then went to get my scraped knee bandaged and a massage before my muscles completely seized up on me. The medical tent was full of rough-looking folks --only 152 people out of 2250 had finished in front of me and half of them were in that tent! But given the number of ambulances carting people from the run course I wasn't really surprised. As much as I wondered how good it would be to get an IV, I knew I didn't need it, so I got changed into my compression tights and went out to take care of some lingering business: checking out the results and tracking down the lost Garmin!

Thankfully I didn't need one of these!

Seeing my name listed as first in my age group, it finally sunk it that I had won! I immediately felt a sense of guilt, as I had had such a bad day that I almost didn't believe I deserved it. Still, upon checking out the bike and run times, I realised it was my months of training and my race execution on the day that got me through it, and not how good or bad I felt during the race. Staying cool-headed and trusting myself rather than panicking or giving up was the key to getting through the tough moments. So in that sense, it was one of the most deserved victories I've ever had. And ultimately, if I had to choose between an awesome day with a lesser result, and a tough day with a great result, I'd pick the latter every time. :)

Total race: 10:41:52 as 1:01:58 swim, 5:49:49 bike and 3:42:31 run, for 1st AG, 16th woman and 153rd overall

Ironman Mom

The Kona rolldown was at 9am sharp the following day (we were nearly first in line) and then it was the awards banquet. Mike Reilly gave an update on the last finishers of the night and played the poignant pros, volunteers and finishers videos. Then we were presented with our trophies (little M-Dot plaques in graduating sizes) and called up by age group to the stage for photos and applause. Though it looks like we were standing in order of height, that's actually the order than we finished!

Male and Female 35-39 Podium

Later that evening my five housemates and I went out for a group celebration dinner, with plenty to celebrate as both Jeremiah and Esther had completed their first Ironmans with excellent results. Bob had enjoyed his time volunteering (and drinking beer for a change while in Lake Placid for race week, as he'd previously done the race several times himself as a competitor). Our loyal supporters Jim and Armando stuck it out the whole day despite the rain, the sun, the crowds and the long hours standing around wondering where we were. So a success all around and a great time had in Lake Placid.

The gang from 4 Cherokee Trail

All pics by Jim except for a few from the official race photo guys which I'm planning to purchase shortly.

Epilogue

Some bike power data for those who like that kind of stuff:

Lap 1:
Duration: 2:50:19 (2:50:21)
Work: 1515 kJ
TSS: 137.5 (intensity factor 0.696)
Norm Power: 164
VI: 1.1
Pw:HR: -11.49%
Pa:HR: 12.33%
Distance: 89.771 km
Elevation Gain: 2598 m
Elevation Loss: 2591 m
Grade: 0.0 % (6 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 344 148 watts
Heart Rate: 102 169 150 bpm
Cadence: 47 166 91 rpm
Speed: 0 75.8 31.6 kph
Pace 0:47 0:00 1:54 min/km
Altitude: 195 672 395 m
Crank Torque: 0 57.6 15.6 N-m

Lap 2:
Duration: 2:59:29 (2:59:30)
Work: 1587 kJ
TSS: 147 (intensity factor 0.701)
Norm Power: 165
VI: 1.12
Pw:HR: -2.99%
Pa:HR: 23.89%
Distance: 90.3 km
Elevation Gain: 2597 m
Elevation Loss: 2606 m
Grade: -0.0 % (-10 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 394 147 watts
Heart Rate: 104 170 154 bpm
Cadence: 30 166 90 rpm
Speed: 0 93.5 30.2 kph
Pace 0:39 0:00 1:59 min/km
Altitude: 195 672 396 m
Crank Torque: 0 66.8 15.8 N-m

Entire workout (30.9 kph):
Duration: 5:49:49 (5:49:52)
Work: 3102 kJ
TSS: 284.4 (intensity factor 0.698)
Norm Power: 164
VI: 1.11
Pw:HR: 2.62%
Pa:HR: 7.25%
Distance: 180.083 km
Elevation Gain: 5194 m
Elevation Loss: 5198 m
Grade: -0.0 % (-4 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 394 148 watts
Heart Rate: 102 170 152 bpm
Cadence: 30 166 91 rpm
Speed: 0 93.5 30.9 kph
Pace 0:39 0:00 1:57 min/km
Altitude: 195 672 396 m
Crank Torque: 0 66.8 15.7 N-m

And run data too:

Lap 1:
Duration: 1:49:15
rTSS: 126.8 (0.788)
NGP: 5:05 (196.8 m/min)
Pa:HR: 7.29%
Distance: 20.719 km
Elevation Gain: 418 m
Elevation Loss: 408 m
Grade: 0.0 % (9 m)
Min Max Avg
Heart Rate: 91 162 145 bpm
Speed: 0 16.7 11.4 kph
Pace 3:36 0:00 5:17 min/km
Altitude: 504 583 530 m

Lap 2:
Duration: 1:53:25
rTSS: 128.1 (0.781)
NGP: 5:09 (194.0 m/min)
Pa:HR: 2.5%
Distance: 21.354 km
Elevation Gain: 442 m
Elevation Loss: 451 m
Grade: -0.0 % (-9 m)
Min Max Avg
Heart Rate: 104 161 151 bpm
Speed: 0 22.5 11.2 kph
Pace 2:40 0:00 5:22 min/km
Altitude: 504 583 531 m

Entire workout (149 bpm):
Duration: 3:42:40
rTSS: 259.5 (0.785)
NGP: 5:07 (195.5 m/min)
Pa:HR: 4.98%
Distance: 42.073 km
Elevation Gain: 860 m
Elevation Loss: 860 m
Grade: 0.0 % (1 m)
Min Max Avg
Heart Rate: 91 162 148 bpm
Speed: 0 22.5 11.3 kph
Pace 2:40 0:00 5:19 min/km
Altitude: 504 583 531 m

The speedy P3C and the Hed wheels that were worth the wait

2009-07-07T23:14:00.003+01:00

The weather's gone from beautiful and sunny and almost but not quite too hot the past couple of weeks to cool and rainy today, more typical English summer weather I suppose? Given a hard couple of training weeks including a 165km ride on Saturday, I've felt a bit blah the past couple of days. So I figured I'd blog about my new (used) TT bike to help pick up my spirits. It's a 2006 Cervélo P3C with a Powertap Pro+ in Hed Jet C2 60mm rims. In short, more carbon fibre than I've ever seen in my life, and easily the most bling bike I've ever owned.

It's funny to reflect on how my bikes have evolved since I did my first Try-a-Tri on my old mountain bike back on Labour Day weekend, 2003. After that race, I was well and truly bitten by the tri bug, so I set about finding a "real" road bike and ended up with a circa 1988 12-speed Italian roadbike knock-off that I picked up for $100 at a secondhand sports store. I replaced the drops with tribars and managed to rig up the downtube shifters to the aerobars, though I couldn't get up any hill over 5% without standing due to its 53/39 Biopace rings and 11-24 cogset. Still, it did the trick for the next two summers and even saw me through my first half-Ironman. Alas, it's been sitting in my parents' shed ever since I left Canada and though I've been resisting for a while, I've finally given in to their wishes to just get rid of it. My sister will probably sell it at a garage sale for $50...

The trusty old 1980s "Finelli"

When I moved to Holland in 2005, I bought another old steel roadbike, this time a Batavus, as my daily getabout, stuck some flat bars on it and used that for the first few months of bike training until I found a secondhand 2002 Giant OCR for €400. With clip-on aerobars and a nice female-friendly saddle, I rode that Giant into the ground for the next 10,000+km, including a trip to Lanzarote where it got lost on the way for three days, all kinds of races from sprints to 3/4-Ironmans, and even a city criterium on the cobbled streets of Utrecht. It was finally replaced by my Cervélo Soloist Team a year ago, and after riding that for a few months I realised that the OCR is actually just a bit on the big side for me. So with the addition of the Fuji track bike cum fixie last Christmas into the overcrowded bike room, I knew it was time for the OCR to go. With sadness I sold it for £180, trashed Rolf wheels and all, where it was parted out by an enthusiastic Bike Radar bike flipper -- hopefully the frame has gone to a good home!

2002 Giant OCR

Once I knew I'd want to tackle an Ironman -- and coincidentally decided that I was finally a "good enough" cyclist to get a nice new bike -- I figured I'd better get a proper TT bike. The mid-priced and solidly engineered Cervélo P2SL fit me like a glove, so I picked up a new old stock in beautiful anodised black when home on vacation in the late summer of 2007. The difference in speed was immediately noticeable, as it had 650c wheels which allowed me to get quite a bit lower and more aerodynamic. It got me through a number of races including Ironman Germany and with some secondhand Hed Deep wheels it was going to be my IM Lake Placid bike this year.

2006 Cervélo P2SL with Hed Deep wheels

Which brings us to the P3C. Jim found the right-sized frame for a great price on ebay, and once we won the auction and picked up the bike, I set about transferring over all my bits from the P2SL. After that, it was just a matter of waiting for my Hed wheels to be built with the Powertap Pro+ for the bike to be race ready. And frustrating as that wait was, it was well worth it as this is by far the fastest bike I've ever ridden! After three weeks of tweaking the bars and stem and saddle, all the while hoping my legs would remember what it was like to ride in that low TT position enough to regain their power, last weekend it all finally came together.

2006 Cervélo P3C

Hed Jet C2 60 rim with Powertap Pro+ hub

With a 30km run in my legs from the day before, I set off on what I thought would be a ~150km/5-hour ride on a more or less flat course, the goal being to cycle at Ironman watts with a few harder intervals thrown in. The wind was pretty strong but to my surprise it never felt like a headwind unless I was literally riding straight into it; at every other angle, I felt like the wheels were being pushed along like a sail. I kept looking down and seeing speeds between 34-38km/h while barely hitting 150 watts, something that would be unheard of on my regular road bike. When I caned it along at 200 watts for 30 minutes into that direct headwind, I managed to hold 36km/h! Later with the tailwind it was an effortless 45km/h as I overtook cars in the towns I passed through. Finally home 5 hours and 23 minutes later, to my amazement I had ridden 165km in 5 hours flat of riding time.

All that shiny gridded carbon

No doubt that Ironman Lake Placid is hilly but that one long ride has done more to boost my confidence for the race than any ride has in months. I've started to taper this week, easing back on the high volume though keeping up the intensity, and my last big race rehearsal ride this weekend on reasonably fresh legs should yield similar if not better results. I've got half a mind to find a last minute 100 mile time trial if only they'd let me have a late entry...

A few more shots of the P3C and my setup:

Profile Design bars, nearly infinitely adjustable

Nice narrow profile for the wind

Stein Long Distance Triathlon Race Report

2009-06-22T22:14:00.004+01:00

We just got back from our whirlwind Benelux trip, which started with a ferry over to France then a drive to Luxembourg where we stayed three nights at a great little holiday apartment just outside Vianden. On Saturday we headed north to south Limburg in the Netherlands for my long distance triathlon race in Stein on Sunday. Despite weather that always seemed to be threatening rain, we had two 100km cycling days in Luxembourg: home of colourful and immaculate little houses and farms, great climbs and descents, and quiet well-paved roads. The weekend included an obligatory trip to Albert Heijn, and we got to see some of my Hellas Triathlon friends who were racing in Stein as well. The only downside was the 22-hour day we had getting back to the UK yesterday after the race was over, though it was much worse for Jim (who did all the driving) than for me (who raced, then got to sleep on the ferry).

colourful houses in Bettel, Luxembourg

Hills and valleys of lush farmland as far as the eye can see

The Stein long distance race is billed as being in the "Dutch Mountains" which is kind of cute -- it'd be like saying a race in the North Downs is in the Surrey Mountains! With a cheap entry fee of €85 and huge prize money open to everyone (not just pros), it's surprising that this race isn't more popular especially amongst British women who I think would be very competitive here. I've done it three times now (twice as a solo racer, once in a relay) and would recommend it to anyone who wants a low-key, well-organised and spectator-friendly race not too far from home in a very hospitable part of the Netherlands (Stein is just north of Maastricht right in the middle of Amstel Gold country). The race weekend also has a bunch of kids' races on Friday evening and both a sprint and a draft-legal Olympic distance Saturday afternoon. The long distance race is all day Sunday.

Waiting for the swim start

Running out of the water to my bike

The swim is 3km in the port of Stein (water was 20 degrees and calm, though a bit "industrial"), two loops with a quick exit/entry between. The day was unusually cold and rainy early on, making it a bit hard on the spectators, though Jim toughed it out despite having no rainjacket or umbrella handy. I got out of the water in 48 minutes, knocking a couple of minutes off my previous best time for that course. I can probably chalk it up to being very comfortable in the water and getting on some good feet, I think. Transition was slow as I pulled on a bike jersey over my trisuit for extra warmth.

Absolutely pouring rain!

Nonetheless, I was pretty happy with my new P3C

The bike is four laps of a twisty 27km mostly flat course with the three Surrey-like hills, one made of big cobblestones. The northern Dutchies with their 11-23 cassettes were weaving all over the road trying to get up the 14%er by the last lap, which made for an interesting sight. It took me about a lap and a half to get comfortable on the bike, as my legs were feeling the kms we'd ridden in Luxembourg. My plan was to ride at Ironman pace anyway so that I could put in a strong run and treat the whole race as a training ride, so I was okay with that. The rain started to pelt down hard by the second lap and I saw more than a few folks by the side of the road struggling with flat tires. Two of the female pros dropped out due to the cold and two guys managed to crash their bikes on the tricky descents leading to the climbs. I was able to pick up the pace in the third and fourth laps as the sun finally came out and I warmed up a bit. With a time of 3:35 I came in to T2 about 100th place of 200 competitors but with lots of energy in reserve.

By the time the run started, the roads had dried up and the sun was coming out

Very light-footed on the run, which was a nice feeling

The run is also four laps with two steepish hills winding through the town of Stein, each 7.5km lap finishing in front of the grandstand in the middle of town with the announcer calling out names. The entire town gets into the race, what with people sitting in their front garden cheering everyone on, and little kids collecting and distributing sponges and water. My target for the whole race was sub-7-hours (having done 7:30 in 2007) but my running was even better than expected, and with a 2:19 for 30km I ended up with a 6:46:47 final time. Good enough for 7th place woman and 48th place overall, overtaking many guys who had blown by me on the bike then blown up on the run, as usual. Three of my Hellas buddies put in a solid performance to take first prize in the mixed relay race, with another three Hellassers forming a second team who just beat me by 17 seconds. Three other teammates who were racing solo finished strong as well.

I had hoped to go sub-7 hours so this was a great time

The prizes (€2700 for the winner down to €550 for 5th place in the women's race and €200 for 7th place in the men's, plus €100 for each age group winner) attracted quite a few pros this year. The men's winner was Fraser Cartmell of Scotland, the women's was Natallia Barkun of Belarus who also picked up another €500 for breaking the course record. I was disappointed to see my time 11 minutes out of the money, considering the same time woud have earned me 3rd place two years ago, but happy with my performance seeing as I didn't taper for it and used it as a race rehearsal of sorts for IMLP. There's talk of Stein trying to get a 70.3 franchise which in some respects would be great but in other ways would ruin this quaint small-town race, not least by tripling the entry fee I'm sure.

I've now got five weeks til IMLP and it's a great relief to know that my swimming and running are where they need to be. The P3C performed really well too, though I'd still like to get a bit lower in front (adjustable stem maybe?) and tweak my position to get more comfortable in the neck and shoulders. And I can clearly see my goal for these last few weeks of hard training: to squeeze every last watt out of my FTP so I can push that tiny bit harder on the bike and still put in a solid run. Tomorrow I finally get to pick up my Powertap 650 wheel so with a few Club 10 TTs and some time spent riding hard laps of the park I can ride myself into good form, I'm sure (I hope!)

All in a week of Ironman training

2009-06-08T15:24:00.002+01:00

Last week was fairly unusual in that I raced four times in four days (five times in seven days if you count the previous weekend's Melbourne Team Series race). What started out as a fairly easy week on Monday with a beautiful evening run in Home Park became progressively harder as the week went on, culminating in a double-race Saturday (which marks my mid-season break from cycle racing so that I can focus on triathlon training), followed by a 22km run on Sunday with several intervals at half marathon pace. A tough week for sure, but it's all in a week of Ironman training.

Tuesday -- the long ride

The weather was beautifully sunny and hot, so Jim and I decided to give Hillingdon and Crystal Palace a miss -- and thankfully so, as there were big crashes at both races -- and do a 90km ride in the Surrey Hills with some of our favourite climbs instead. I set a surprising new best time on the Boxhill challenge with 6:38, knocking over 40 seconds off my previous best. It was only last summer that I was over eight minutes, and now I'm wondering when I will get below six!

Wednesday -- the running race

26.2 RRC, our running club, held its annual mile race on the local track. I've done a number of mile repeats in the past few months, but nothing could have prepared me for how hard four laps of the track was going to feel! Well, maybe some previous hard 400s and 800s would have prepared me... but nevertheless, after a warmup and some strides, I took to the start line with the rest of the ladies. At the gun we took off at an unholy pace, led out by one hardy soul running a 15-second first 100m until she crashed and burned, leaving me at the front of the pack to suffer alone.

1st lap: way too fast. There was no way I could hold this pace for the next three laps. 1:22
2nd lap: somewhat better. I was hoping to go under 6 minutes so this was about right. 1:30
3rd lap: despite my attempt to speed up on the back straight and drop the heavy-breathing women on my shoulder, it was actually slower and starting to hurt quite a bit now! 1:33
4th lap: after 150m I finally managed to lose everyone behind me and now it was just a race against the clock. The last 100m I felt I was gliding through the air, every stride was so long! 1:27 for a final time of 5:52, mission accomplished.

Once recovered, I figured I should make it a real workout, so I joined the men's race ten minutes later for a second mile at a more reasonable pace. I managed that one in 6:10 with much more even lap splits, leaving me amazed that a single second per 100m was the difference between a hard effort and an all-out gasping painfest. Clearly I need more track work on pacing if I'm ever going to run a good mile time!

The best part of the evening was the fun 100m dash we ran afterwards. I was transported back in time to when I was 10 years old and running at the Track and Field day at grade school. My time was surprisingly not much different either, around 13 seconds. I ran the entire 100m on my toes which felt amazing, though the next day my feet and calves were quite sore.

Thursday -- the handicap race

The Surrey League holds a series of handicap races over the summer and the circuit for this week's race was one we know pretty well. Having heard from teammates that handicap racing is the best workout around, Jim and I decided to give it a try. I was set off in the first group of 4th cat vets (40+) with teammate Ian, Jim went off in the second group of regular 4th cats and 3rd cat vets, teammate Andy was in one of the regular 3rd cat groups, and 1st cat Steve went off in the scratch group with a full 8 minutes to make up on my group. In fact, we had done an entire lap of the 3 mile circuit before Steve's group started, making it not only a physical but a psychological challenge for them to both catch us and then lap us to get in front!

We went off fast, and though we dropped several guys, I managed to hang on to the core group of half a dozen vets quite well. The difference in men's and women's racing became quite apparent, however; while I tried to do my part in the paceline, I found it ridiculously hard to pull through at 42km/h after sitting in the draft at that speed. In the end, I probably only did one out of every four turns that I should have, but I did manage to be less of a sandbagger than the guy who sat completely on the back and never took a single turn!

Nearly eight full laps went by before Jim's group -- led by Jim pulling the group along at the front, as usual! -- caught us. We all realised that this large group would be the front pack, as neither Andy's nor Steve's group were going to catch us in the two laps before the finish. I was hoping Jim could get a good placing and some points, so I stayed mid-pack to help him out where I could. On the last lap, right after Jim had reeled in an attack, another attack went up the hill and I jumped on the front to pull him back. That done, I settled back in the last km as Jim headed to the front to see what he could do in the uphill finish. Ended up a strong 4th place for him and 6 license points, while I cruised in at the back of the pack, picking up some Surrey League points as the first (and only!) female to cross the line. One more finish like that and Jim will be a 3rd cat himself.

Friday -- the swim TT

An easy day off the bike, and with my feet still feeling rough from the track work, I went to the pool instead. I'd been meaning to do a 1000m time trial to verify my threshold swim pacing and this was the day for it. After 1200m of warmup and drills, I hammered through 10x100m at 1:30 pace, maintaining good form throughout and finding the aerobic side of it surprisingly not taxing. Clearly my running and cycling fitness has clearly helped my swimming as well, as has the losing the extra 10 pounds! I think I'll do another one of these in a few weeks and see if I can't knock another second or two off my threshold pace, seeing how fast I can go before my form and technique gets too ragged. My swimming confidence is back, now I just need to get to the lake a few times with my wetsuit to burn the rust off my sighting skills.

Saturday -- the double race day

The morning dawned rainy but cleared up in time for the South East regional women's road race championships in the afternoon. With a field of only 30, it was a smaller race than what I've been doing lately, but still had its share of strong riders. Not a very hilly course and only 60km long, so next to no chance for me to get a podium place. However I did have two Kingston Wheelers teammates racing plus I knew there could be a break of half a dozen strong riders, so was hoping to join that if it happened.

Early on it was slow going, but on the second lap Charlie Blackman attacked hard -- she is so powerful when she does, she just takes off like a rocket -- and the rest of us gave chase. I knew Natalie from Twickenham would be my best bet either to reel Charlie in or to bridge over to her, so she and her Twickenham teammate and I set about working. Being the new and inexperienced and unorganised riders that we are though, we never managed to shed the rest of the bunch so after nearly a lap Charlie came back to us and we settled in for a few more laps with nobody really on the attack. My teammate Lise (a very good cyclist in her first race ever) turned out to be a bit of a wild card by racing very strongly, so when it became clear that it would end in a bunch sprint, I took to the front to drive the pace, figuring Charlie and Natalie would battle it out for the win and Lise would be up there as well. In the end, Natalie won it, Charlie came second, Lise picked up 7th and my other KW teammate Leona got 10th. I rolled in at the back of the bunch, feeling conflicted with my own poor result, but happy to see Natalie get a win and my teammates finish top 10.

Charlie (in white) before she attacked.
photo by Jim

Later that evening were the Smithfield Nocturne crit races in central London around ~1km of twisty city roads, including two sharp corners requiring some skill to navigate. The women's race was a last-minute addition to the elite race and men's support race, so I was keen to support it and help put on a good show for the 10,000 spectators lining the streets including a bunch of KW teammates on the "pub corner". Six or seven girls from the afternoon's road race were there as well, looking noticeably tireder than the bright fresh teenaged track riders and junior elites who were there to contest the win.

I wasn't sure how my legs would feel given the afternoon's race -- where admittedly I'd only done 15km of real work -- but after a quick recce lap behind the car, we lined up and started off fast. I took forever to get clipped in, and in that few seconds the main group was gone, leaving me to thread my way through riders as they got dropped off the back. Every lap brought me closer and closer, and having all that space to myself meant I could get used to the turns on the course, not that that helped my awful cornering technique much! About five laps into the race, I finally tagged onto the back of the main group which had about 15 riders in it. After a near miss on one of the worst corners -- skidding my front wheel and nearly hitting the barriers -- I eased off a bit and decided not to try to move up the group, sparing the other riders any close calls with my terrible cornering. This meant chasing on after that dodgy corner on every lap, but my legs turned out to be great. Since hard accelerations and sprints are not my forté I was pleasantly surprised to find that staying with the main group wasn't that hard at all.

About halfway through, a group of three girls attacked and left the rest of us behind, after which I just hung out at the back and enjoyed the atmosphere. The crowds at the start/finish line were banging on the boarded barriers every time we rode past, and on the opposite side the KWers were drinking more and more beer and cheering me on with gusto. Nineteen laps and 30 minutes after we started, we sprinted for the finish and then took a slow cooldown lap to the applause of the crowd. A very cool experience and lots of fun to be racing in front of so many spectators! And a great way to top off my racing season. Once the Ironman is over, I'll be back cycle racing but until then the road bike is taking a backseat to my new TT bike.

Giving a thumbs-up to the KWers on the pub corner.
photo by Jim

The new kit looks great!
photo by Jim

Taking a corner hard.
photo by Larry Hickmott for British Cycling

Melbourne Team Series race report

2009-06-01T19:43:00.001+01:00

Yesterday was my toughest road race to date, and surprisingly turned out to be my best performance to date as well. At the finish line, I was shaking my head disappointingly, but after a day of reflection and studying the results, I now feel like I can be proud of how I did. Fifteenth out of a field of about 50, in an 80km race with over 1000m of climbing. Oh yeah, and on a hot and sunny day (who knew England could be so summery in May?)

5 Laps of Hilly Joy

This was my last race in the women's Team Series for a while, as I'm turning my focus 100% to Ironman Lake Placid training now. Well, I've got one final race next weekend, the South East Regional Women's Road Race championship, where I hope to go top 5 or so -- but aside from that, I'm doing the great majority of my cycling miles on my TT bike these days. In fact, my new Hed Jet6 650c wheels just arrived and once the rear is built with a Powertap hub, I'll be all the more motivated to ride that bike hard and fast.

Yesterday's race consisted of 5 laps of a 10-mile course, with 1 longish climb, 2 medium climbs and a couple of shorter lumps in each lap, getting to about 10% at their steepest. The finish line was after 1km of false flat road at the top of one of the medium climbs and there were hill primes for laps 1, 3, and 5 on the longer climb. We started out fairly quietly from the town of Melbourne through the neutralised area, but once the lead car took off, so did the group, gunning for the first hill prime. I had decided already not to try for those unless I was really well-positioned mid-way up the climb, as I'd rather conserve my energy for the attacks and breaks that invariably would happen later in the race when I tend to be stronger anyway. My ultimate goal was to get away in a break somewhere in the middle of the race and guarantee myself a top 5 finish if I could.

Lap 1 was fast and furious, dropping lots of not-as-good climbers from our starting peloton of 50 in the process. By lap 2 we were down to about 30 riders in the main bunch, with little attacks going regularly and being chased down. There were 3 large teams with several contenders each, plus a handful of other teams who had one or two strong riders. Nobody seemed to really get organised to launch attacks as a team; it seemed like (as usual) everyone for herself, and over the course of the next 3 laps it was a war of attrition as the hill prime accelerations tired lots of legs and the steep and fast downhills strung the group out quite a bit. I managed to stay near the front, thanks to my good climbing fitness and a newfound descending technique: elbows below the drops, nose to the handlebars, chest on the top tube and rear end in the air, AKA the "don't try this at home" position that the pros do. I hit 70km/h as my top speed at one point, not bad considering the descents were into a headwind!

The 3rd lap saw Twickenham's Natalie Creswick, a former triathlete turned road racer who's having a stellar breakout season, pushing the pace on the front to try and catch some escapees and drop some more out of the back of the group. I knew if I could stay near her, I would eventually be rewarded with one of her patented "hey she's speeding up! no, actually she's breaking away" attacks. I did some work on the front but mainly just kept an eye on everyone around me, tried to stay behind fast wheels and not get trapped behind riders suddenly hitting a wall on the climbs.

All was going well until lap 4, when we were riding into the headwind slightly downhill along the main road. I had been seesawing between the left and right side of the road all race long, trying to strike a balance between the dangerous cat's eyes and oncoming cars on the right with the chances of getting boxed in on the left. At this particular moment I was on the left, directly against the curb. Just as I started thinking "gotta get over to the right, something's going to happen", it happened: Natalie accelerated cleanly away to bridge to a couple of girls who had gotten 100m on the group. I had about 3 seconds to decide what to do: wait to see if the line of BC Junior team riders in front of me would chase? Or try to squeeze by on the gravelly left-side of the road to give chase myself? In those 3 seconds, another rider took off from the outside to chase and nobody did anything, and I suddenly realised with a sinking heart that one of the escapees up the road was a BC Junior and the girls sitting on the front were actually going to work as a team to police the front of the bunch for a change. MaxGearRT and Mischiefcard.com, the other strong teams in the race, were no help either, as they also had riders represented in the break. The bunch kept riding along as if it was a club ride while I watched helplessly, trapped and boxed in by my own lack of attention: the winning break was being made and I wasn't in it.

By the time I got clear enough to chase, it was too late. And having no great acceleration on my own -- had I been where I should have been on the right side, I could have timed Natalie's jump and tried to grab her fast wheel, working my heart out to go with her -- I gave up on any ideas of a solo attack and just decided to ride the last lap as best as I could and limit any more damage to my final placing. This meant driving the pace as much as I could up the climbs, hoping to tire out already tired legs for the sprint. I was well-hydrated and fed, and as usual had been feeling better and better as the race went on, so I had lots left to push hard on the front. On every climb I put in an acceleration to force the pace up, I descended as fast as I dared, and on the flats I put out near FTP watts.

By the final climb I was at the front of our whittled-down group of 15 and as it flattened out to the last km of 1% uphill, I let a few riders come around me to pick up the pace for the sprint. Held on to a wheel as best I could and was rewarded with overtaking a few spent riders 50m before the line to take 10th in the sprint and 15th overall. That effort earned me my first road race point ever, which took the sting out of missing the break. Natalie ended up finishing second in the sprint to Dani King (who usually rides with Nicole Cooke's professional Vision 1 Racing team), and the other 3 riders in the break were all cat 1 racers as well. I would have been in good company and hard pressed to stay with them I think!

In the end, I can't be too disappointed with how my race went. At least this time I knew when I was making a mistake as it happened, rather than realising it after the race was over. I need to do a better job of staying aware of the group in general, looking up the road for people who have escaped, and predicting when the next bridging effort or attack will go. I still don't have enough confidence in that kind of field to attack myself, though I'm hoping that will grow over time. I probably just need to race more often and try out different stuff to see what works and what doesn't, not be afraid to blow up or get dropped or be in a break that's caught before the finish line. One thing is for sure: next week's race is not nearly as hilly and therefore I will have to get away from a bunch sprint if I want any hope of finishing high in the placings. With the field of racers including Natalie, elite rider and strong TTer Charlie Blackman, and elite circuit sprinter Janet Birkmyre, it's going to take both physical ability and some good tactics to put in a good performance!

Gritting my teeth on one of the early climbs

Velonews.com and my foray into journalism

2009-05-28T11:50:00.005+01:00

After my post about Theo Bos and the Tour of Turkey crash (mostly my translation of his version of the events), Velonews.com contacted me to ask if they could use it on their site. I said no problem, and also mentioned that I liked to write other stuff too -- so should they by chance have something else they wanted covered, to let me know!

Sure enough, Tom Boonen's cocaine bust happened about a month later, but much of the media coverage was in Dutch of course. Velonews asked me to put together a little article summarising the Belgian media's handling of this fall from grace by Belgium's biggest sports star. I found a couple of interesting articles including this interview with Quick Step team manager Patrick Lefevere, and wrote a piece about it last weekend. The following Tuesday I was quite pleased to see it on the Velonews site with me listed as a "London-based journalist"!

The article is here for those who haven't seen it yet. Pretty cool to see my name in print like that, and hopefully it won't be the last time either. My love of writing has been rediscovered and rekindled over the past few months with my regular posts to this blog, making me think I should take it a bit more seriously and write more in general. It would be nice to carve out a little niche on the side, but even without a paycheque I've been enjoying putting thoughts on paper again for others to read.

Wokingham Half-Marathon report

2009-05-25T21:10:00.009+01:00


Early in the race	Late in the race

Thinking last week about running, Vdot, and training paces got me realising that I haven't done a timed running race in a while. Well, I did the Tadworth Ten back in January -- on frozen ground with insanely steep hills, the most sufferable 10 miles I've ever run -- but my time was so poor I'd like to forget that was even a race. I'm planning to run a 10k in the first week of my Ironman taper in July, but since a lot of my training until then is being done at half-marathon pace, I had a look around for something local and found the Wokingham half marathon last Sunday. It was originally scheduled to be run in February, but a freakish bout of snow forced its postponement as the roads were too icy. Since many folks had signed up for it as prep for the London Marathon -- long over now, of course -- that it wasn't hard to find a spare race number at the last minute.

My last half-marathon was run on a blustery February day in 2007, leaving me with a pretty soft PB at 1:40:10, so I knew that unless things completely went south, I'd get a new best time in Wokingham. Sub-1:35 was the goal, sub-1:33 the dream, but the recent hot and sunny weather had me reconsidering how hard I should go. I've done only a few runs in 20+ degree temps this year, and all were either slow or painful or both. Sunday morning dawned completely clear blue skies and 15 degrees already at 7am, so it was going to be a "scorcher" as far as May in northern Europe goes. (Note to my Ontario friends: yes, I can hear you all laughing now from your air-conditioned comfort that 20 degrees is hot, but let me tell you: when you're not acclimatised to it and suddenly have to run in full sun and warm weather, it might as well be Hawaii!) So I dressed in my triathlon race kit -- singlet and trishorts, calf guards and sunglasses, foregoing the hat for a change so my hair could get some sun -- and headed to the race. Rode my fixie bike to the station, took the train 45 min to Wokingham and rode to the race start (planning to ride the 45km home as cooldown/recovery).

Only about half of the registered 2000 runners showed up, making the start pleasantly uncrowded. The course was reasonably flat with just a few hills (mostly highway overpasses). The first kilometre was downhill, meaning the last would be painfully uphill: nearly impossible to get a negative split, in other words. Since I tend not to go off like a rocket, I often seed myself a bit further back than I should, and this race with its 1:11 female course record had me a bit hesitant to move very far up the start chute. Had I been running in 2008 with the time I set this year, I would have finished merely 419th out of 2000 people overall and the 54th woman. To put that into perspective, in the flat and fast Toronto Waterfront half-marathon with over 6000 participants, that same time would have landed me 214th and 26th place respectively! England certainly has a lot of strong runners!

With a 4:30/km pace in my head, dead on to run a 1:35 half marathon, I set off, crossing the start line only 30 seconds after the horn. It was pretty hard not to go out at a crazy pace, given the downhill, the adrenalin and the hordes of people flying past me. But I reined in my self-control after a 6:53 first mile, and managed to get though the first 5km in a respectable 21:47 (4:22/km or 7:01/mile). This was a pace I thought I could probably sustain for most of the race if I could stay cool and hydrated. Funny how my body has an uncanny ability to "know" more or less how fast I can run for a given distance in a race; I'm usually pretty good at pacing myself based on perceived effort and feel (the Tadworth Ten, being poorly paced, is the exception that proves the rule). Funny how most other people, Garmin devices or not, have no idea how to pace themselves and the ones who fly by me early usually implode around halfway and plummet backwards! This was going to be one of those days, made even worse by the warm weather. People were going to be suffering later, I could tell.

The first aid station was at 3.5 miles, and I promptly grabbed two cups of water to dump over my head and another to drink. Nobody else seemed to be doing the water over the head thing, surprisingly, but I didn't hold back. Every aid station brought fresh cold water for my head, neck and back, and I gulped down as much as I could (which is never very much but always seems to be enough). By 10km (43:54) I was surprised at how easy it all still felt; in fact, I was running along feeling so good that I started wondering why I didn't race half-marathons more often. It seems like the perfect distance, really: long enough to be run at a strong but not killer pace, short enough to limit the muscle pain to only the last few miles or so. 5k races are bleary-eyed flat-out gasping for air, 10k is a battle between you and your lactate threshold, and 15k is run right on the limit of (dis)comfort. But a full marathon starts out boring and shifts to painful with only a small window of enjoyment between about 15-25km. So a half is really the perfect distance to race, and also the perfect distance to train for, requiring a good mix of volume, distance and speed work but nothing long or crazy. Why have I only discovered this now?

15km came and went at 1:06:08 -- a new PB for that distance too, I'm pleased to report -- and with it the last water station. Right around that time, the course turned back south and the sun was full-on, all the shade disappeared and the wind was now slightly behind me. And I faced the worst hills of the day, with the same 50m in climbing that I'd descended in the first 6km. None of the hills were steep, but the combination of heat and sun, along with the now-starting-to-hurt downhills made them tougher than I expected. Passing the mile 11 sign, my patience was finally up and I started to run faster, wanting to see if I could break that 1:33 that I'd been keeping in the back of my mind.

Overtaking the people who'd blown up and were walking spurred me on, but just as I hit the mile 12 marker, I was seized by a massive side stitch, like I'd been stabbed. This has happened a few times in training, always after I'd been running for an hour or more then picked it up to tempo pace for a few kms. So frustrating! And it's not a nagging side stitch that I can run through uncomfortably, but the kind that makes it impossible to breathe and so so painful. Nothing to do but stop and hope it goes away.

So I had to stop and try to fix it. I spent about 20 seconds by the side of the road stretching my right side, digging my fingers under my ribcage to try and massage whatever was pulling everything painfully tight. I managed to get running again, albeit gingerly, but by then 1:33 was gone and I was just trying to hold on to 1:35. 12 to 12.5 miles was my slowest-paced half-mile of the day at 7:50/mile (4:52/km), including the stop. But the final km turned uphill and that helped, with no downhills to jar my body and the effort forcing me to breathe deeply. From 12.5 to 13 miles, I picked it up again to 6:58/mile (4:19/km) pace, and by the final turn I was running pretty hard, watching the race clock tick over to finish at 1:34:06. Chip time: 1:33:38 for a PB of 6 minutes and 32 seconds, good for 15th woman and 184th overall out of 1062.

I'm pretty disappointed to have to stop and walk in the last mile as I did, but given the conditions and the full week of training that I'd put in, I'm pretty pleased with my result. My resulting Vdot is up to 48.7 now and that represents what I can really do in a midday summer race, which means my training should be dead on for Ironman Lake Placid. Riding the fixie home, however, was not the wisest plan, as my legs were feeling pretty rough and the rolling roads for the first 25km did not give them much respite -- either uphill or downhill!

Final numbers:

	Wokingham Half Marathon
Duration	1:33:36
Work	n/a
rTSS	158.4 (0.953)
NGP	4:20 (230.6 m/min)
VI	n/a
Pw:HR	n/a/
Pa:HR	2.46%
Distance	21.137 km
Elevation Gain	644 m
Elevation Loss	641 m
Grade	0.0 % (3 m)
	Min	Max	Avg
Heart Rate	119	195	174	bpm
Speed	0	19.1	13.5	kph
Pace	3:08	0:00	4:26	min/km
Altitude	26	66	46	m

With my new improved Vdot, I get to run everything 5 sec/km faster in training now. :) My new training paces are the following:

Run Zones
Zone	HR	Pace Mile/km
Z1/EP	< 155	8:40/5:23
Z2/MP	151-159	7:24/4:36
Z3/HMP	160-168	7:06/4:25
Z4/TP	175-181	6:58/4:19
Z5/IP	> 182	6:32/4:03

Milestones and Benchmarks

2009-05-17T14:45:00.013+01:00

Yesterday was my birthday and I've now hit that (magical?) 35-year mark. Halfway to 40, a "veteran" category runner, and apparently I should be starting now if I want to have kids someday. A lot to think about! Of course I benefit from aging up to the 35-39 category for my Ironman, and I get to use the excuse that the girls who thrash me soundly in my cycle races are young enough to be my kids (not that I was much of a sprinter when I was their age regardless!) In the sense, I should be glad to be aging, as not only am I genetically more inclined to the endurance side, I've got nearly 20 years of base-building behind me to support it. Put them in a 6-hour race against me and I'll win every time, right? So why am I racing those one-hour crits again?

Otherwise I've had a reasonable training week, getting over the cold I had last week and setting some new benchmarks and best times:

Cycling

Tuesday: a hard clockwise lap of Richmond Park on the road bike, setting a new best time of 19:31. Had I really wanted to set a big PB, I should have ridden the other way to have the wind at my back on the long draggy climb up to Richmond Gate, but mostly I wanted to get a 20-min baseline power level.

Wednesday: my first ever 10-mile time trial, a low-key event put on by my club every other week. It consists of riding 5 miles as hard as possible down a divided highway, turning at the roundabout, then riding the same 5 miles back (again as hard as possible). I put down a respectable 25:33 time, not bad considering I've never ridden the course and I was on my road bike with no aero bars. I wanted to get a baseline wattage from the Powertap so I could compare and contrast with later TTs on my TT bike (alas I'm still waiting for my Powertap 650c Hed wheel to be built).

Interesting to compare the 2 sets of data (taken from WKO+). The peak 20-min power numbers were also fairly similar (250NP/240AP for Richmond Park and 247NP/242AP for the time trial), though the shorter effort had a higher VI as I was resting in the 30 seconds immediately following the 19:31 effort!

	Club 10-Mile TT				Richmond Park lap
Duration	25:31 (25:37)				19:30 (19:31)
Work	369 kJ				283 kJ
TSS	41.8 (IF 0.992)				32.4 (IF 0.999)
Norm Power	248				250
VI	1.03				1.03
Pw:HR	5.48%				-0.6%
Pa:HR	-1.37%				6.07%
Distance	16.121 km				10.834 km
Elevation Gain	274 m				294 m
Elevation Loss	290 m				289 m
Grade	-0.1 % (-17 m)				0.0 % (5 m)
	Min	Max	Avg		Min	Max	Avg
Power	0	519	241	watts	0	397	241	watts
Heart Rate	118	182	174	bpm	146	180	169	bpm
Cadence	50	114	97	rpm	62	150	96	rpm
Speed	2	52.8	37.9	kph	14.5	54.1	33.3	kph
Pace	1:08	30:00	1:35	min/km	1:07	4:08	1:48	min/km
Altitude	79	119	100	m	3	57	30	m
Crank Torque	0	64.1	23.8	N-m	0	43.6	24.1	N-m

Judging from my data in the power distribution chart in WKO+, my FTP is around 250 watts, though I have yet to formally test it on a good, rested day. Both the efforts above run a little low if my FTP really is 250. However, I felt during both of them that I "could have gone harder but just couldn't" if that makes any sense. On Tuesday I was still feeling the effects of my cold, as evidenced by my low average HR, and on Wednesday my legs felt a bit tired from Tuesday. Still, it's good to set some numbers as a baseline.

My plan for next week is to complete two 20-min efforts in the park with a two minute rest between, to try and get a solid idea of my peak 60-minute power or FTP for training purposes. I'll probably do this on Tuesday after a reasonably easy Monday. The next club 10-mile TT is the week after that, when I'll (hopefully) have my tri bike PT wheel finished, or if not I'll pop some clip-on aero bars on my road bike and reverse the seatpost to approximate my TT bike position (not sure how much effect it will have on my wattage, but it should make me a bit faster!) Then at the beginning of the taper for my Ironman I'll do a 25-mile TT to get my real and current 60-min FTP to set my race wattages for IMLP accordingly.

Saturday: a long ride with Jim into the Surrey Hills to tackle a couple of our favourite climbs (my first such ride with the Powertap). I managed to get up the nearly 1km 10% Whitedown in a new best time of 4:00 flat, average watts 281, knocking nearly a minute off my previous fastest. Since my peak 5-minute power is 294, I think there's room for improvement there too (and I'm already wincing at my next date with Whitedown, that's gonna hurt!)

Running

Probably part of why I was a bit tired on Wednesday was that I did some hard 1-mile running intervals earlier in the day. I've recently become a paying member of Endurance Nation again, as I felt I needed that extra little push in doing my best at Lake Placid. According to the Vdot calculator, I've got a Vdot of 48 these days (not having done a 10km race for ages, I had to use my most recent 3-mile club handicap for the calculations). According to EN's formula, my running paces are as follows:

Run Zones
Zone	HR	Pace Mile/km
Z1/EP	< 151	8:49/5:28
Z2/MP	152-161	7:32/4:41
Z3/HMP	162-170	7:14/4:30
Z4/TP	171-177	7:05/4:24
Z5/IP	> 178	6:39/4:08

Most of the workouts in the EN plan call for longer intervals at Z3 and Z4 pace, not a whole lot at Z5 (intervals of five minutes or less). Lo and behold, my mile repeats were exactly at Z5 pace which more or less confirms my Vdot zones, so that's useful. Thankfully I can now do the lion's share of my running at the more reasonable Z3 and Z4 from now on!

Swimming

Erm... nothing to report here yet, but I will be tackling some outdoor swims at the Princes Club on Monday evenings from now on. Apparently the water is a balmy 15 degrees Celsius, just cold enough to make me want to swim pretty hard, wetsuit or not! Yikes. Fridays I'll be hitting either the indoor pool in Kingston, or the heated outdoor pool in Hampton.

Racing

As I've been writing this, the Grand Prix criterium at Hillingdon was taking place (i.e., an hour of pain and punishment at the hands of the country's elite female crit riders and sprinters). I'd signed up for it, but once I found out the course was going to be run backwards from what I'm used to -- meaning the normal uphill finish becomes a flat tailwind sprint -- I decided not to bother going, in favour of getting in that 90-minute run I never did this week. I went through a major review of my training schedule the other day, and with only 10 weeks to go before Ironman Lake Placid, I think running today is infinitely wiser than racing a crit, from an IM training point of view. So today's run will include two 15-minute intervals at Z3 in Richmond Park, which is a great ipod pace for my first post-35th-birthday run.

10 weeks to go! Holy @#$%!

I've been kicked out of Ironman UK

2009-05-08T11:00:00.002+01:00

Well, it's official. I'm out of Ironman UK. It's been a most bizarre past few days, but the lowdown is that the IMUK race owner, Alison Boon, has taken offense to my posting an e-mail she had sent to me to the TriTalk.co.uk forum. As such, she's sent me a litany of accusatory and berating e-mails and withdrawn me from the race. Thankfully (and surprisingly) she did refund my money, so I suppose I should be happy for that at least.

A little background: I signed up for the race back in December, knowing fully that it would be a new course this year, but believing the IMUK organisation when they said they would have courses organised and the website updated by the end of January. January and February came and went with no update; finally in March they posted a map to the bike course but no other information about the transitions, the run, where the finish line would be or much else. Not only me but a lot of other competitors were getting antsy about it, as was evidenced by the posts to the TriTalk.uk forum. And frankly, judging from the standard set by other IM websites around the world, IMUK's was and still is woefully inadequate, so we did have something to be antsy about. It's now less than 3 months to race day with many questions still left unanswered.

Finally, last week IMUK sent out a mass e-mail with a link promoting an affiliated training programme created "specifically for the 2009 IRONMAN UK course in Bolton". Interesting, since no official info on the run course has been released! I e-mailed them to ask what was going on, and to say that instead of sending me spam trying to sell me something, how about some real information about the course? IMUK's rep Ms. Boon replied with a long list of as-of-then not publicly known information, which I posted chapter and verse to the TriTalk forum in the interest of sharing it with other racers. One of the things she mentioned that struck me as particularly unfair and unprofessional was that there were two different run courses being considered and being "tested" by competitors in the race: meaning that some competitors knew what the run course could be, while others still had no idea. Hmmm.

And that's where it really went wrong. Yep, I'll admit it, I was definitely critical of the IMUK organisation on that forum thread, and I wasn't the only one. But I stand by my opinion that IMUK has been extremely remiss in providing proper info to its competitors this year. The big irony is that the same day they withdrew me from the race, they updated the website with all the same information about the transitions, aid stations, and the run course that had been in the e-mail sent to me, so in a way my mission has been accomplished. Too bad it had to be accomplished like this!

There are two sides to every story, no doubt, and I should have paraphrased rather than posted her e-mail as a direct copy-and-paste to the forum. But that was out of pure laziness rather than malice. And I don't think it should have gotten me kicked out of the race. In the original letter from IMUK's rep Ms. Boon, she said they are kicking me out due to my "overwhelming inability to follow instructions" (i.e, that I didn't notice the confidentiality disclaimer at the bottom of the previous e-mail which stated that the contents could not be reproduced without permission). Nowhere can I see in IMUK's rules or in any Ironman rules anywhere that a competitor should be kicked out for neglecting to adhere to a small-print e-mail disclaimer.

As well -- through my postings to the forum I guess? because I was very definitely polite to her in my e-mails -- she said I was "unacceptably rude" to her organisation. She informed me she isn't going to stand by while I "bring the name of Ironman into disrepute" and "constantly rumour-monger and cast aspersions about her event and the Ironman brand". To top off her letter, she says she's kicking me out in order to avoid my choosing not to follow rules or instructions on race day (apparently she's clairvoyant too).

Subsequent letters from Ms. Boon have included childish rhetoric and nonsensical statements about Freedom of Speech, whether what I posted was "fact", and the interpretation of the race rules. After her first e-mail, I posted to the forum warning another competitor to be careful what he wrote there as it could be construed as a violaton of the Ironman rules, and she then e-mailed me quoting what I said and lambasting me for it. When I replied to say that we would have to agree to disagree about the whole thing, she informed me that there was no need for that, as she knows I was completely in the wrong. Or something like that. It's been difficult to tell what she means at all, between the spelling errors, incoherent rants and general unprofessional tone she's taken with me.

For me, these e-mails have just confirmed what I already suspected about the lack of professionalism in the IMUK organisation. I did call her immediately upon receiving her first e-mail, hoping I could apologise and straighten out what to me was a bad misunderstanding. But she never called back, instead choosing to write those long rambling e-mails justifying her actions. I've since read that IMUK allegedly sued some racers a few years back for writing critical comments about one of their events on a forum, and also for writing to the World Triathlon Corporation to complain about a possible lack of safety in the race. Unbelievable. I think at this point, I need to simply give up and cut my losses. What's that old saying about not trying to argue with fools?

Anyway, with friends like that, who needs enemies, so I'm out of IMUK and it's probably an opportunity more than a crisis. I was really gunning for a Kona slot this year -- hence my desire to know the course as early as possible -- and now I fear that there's no way I could be treated fairly if I did this race. I'm probably lucky to get my money back. This is after all, a race that bascially sells out every year, and people will continue to sign up for it (as it's the only official Ironman race in the UK) regardless of who's running it.

So tell all your friends: be careful when dealing with any races put on by these organisers. I also advise anyone who is considering anything to do with IMUK to do their research before paying their money. Wish I had done that. Instead I'm now lodging official complaints with the WTC, along with various local governments who have paid IMUK to host the event in their jurisdictions.

As for me, I'm not put off from doing an Ironman. In fact, just the opposite: I think Ironman is a fantastic product and I will continue to do races in the future. I've been planning and training for this event for months now, and this is the best shape I've been in for years, so I don't want to give that all up. I'm now thinking about a charity slot for Lake Placid for my "A" race of the season. Will cost a bit extra but it's for a good cause, and it means my family in North America can come and watch. Still gunning for that Kona slot! It's just too bad I won't be able to go for that slot in my adopted country anymore.

2 Days of Bedford Women's Stage Race Report

2009-05-06T17:35:00.009+01:00

(Click on the photo to see the slide show)

This past weekend I did my first ever stage race. My Surrey League team with 6 members made our way to Bedford on Sunday morning, staying over Sunday night and racing again Monday: a total of 4 races over 2 days. The British Cycling preview for the race listed some strong riders, but in the end the Belgian team pulled out, leaving the best teams to be Squadra Donne, MaxGear RT and Altura Patterson.

Day 1

We started out in the morning with a 9.7km team time trial which was cool. Our team of 6 was quickly whittled to 5 early on, but the rest of us pulled together quite well for a solid through-and-off (considering we've never raced together!) I felt quite strong and did a huge pull at the front in the final km . Our end time was 15:50, which was 1:17 behind the lead team. Looking back, I think we could have gone a bit harder, but seeing as some of us had just met for the first time and we were on a mix of TT and roadbikes in windy conditions, I think we did well just to put in a solid performance and finish together. We ranked 9th out of 14 teams.

In the afternoon was a 80km (5 laps of 16km) road race, complete with hill points and sprint points. I made the crucial mistake of not eating enough between -- thinking that I hadn't done that much in the morning to warrant eating tons -- and by the end of the first lap I was already starting to feel the elastic being stretched. Just had no kick in my legs and my stomach was complaining about lack of food. The sprint for the prime points on the second lap stretched out the field considerably, and I was lucky to hang on. A crash happened soon after that which left about 30 in the front bunch, myself included.

Between the hills prime (on the finish line of laps 2 and 3) and the crosswind/downhill section immediately following, and the sprint prime right after that, things were really strung out and I was finally shelled off the back with a few others. Five of us managed to work together pretty well, however, and we got the bunch back with a few km to go before the bell lap. I must say my heart sank a little bit when we caught the bunch because I knew by then I would just have to endure another confidence-busting shelling out the back when the hills/downhill/sprint sequence came around again.

And so it did, and so I was. I spent the first 10km of the last lap by myself, working as hard as I could but gradually bonking, running out of water, and dying a slow death. Cramping up as well. Basically it all went wrong. Finally I was caught by a group of three including one of the crash survivors and we worked together til the finish. I ended up 32nd, four minutes back from the bunch. Not too badly considering how awful I felt, but disappointing.

The winner was the very strong Natalie Creswick of Twickenham CC. She managed to bridge over on the last lap to two girls who had gotten away, and the three of them rode together well til Natalie dropped them on the final climb. The bunch was another minute or so back from them, then there was my little group. Several teams had race radio and worked really well together as a team, with many of their riders strongly in the front bunch.

Day 2

It was a much better day Monday, despite not sleeping well and feeling rather unmotivated due to the rainy weather and general tiredness. From the moment I woke up, I started eating and never stopped the entire day, and this meant a huge improvement to my performance.

First up was a 3.4km time trial. I did a reasonable warmup but should have ridden more, and definitely should really have ridden the course -- lesson learned for next time -- as I'm sure I could have shaved 15 seconds off just through familiarity with the course. Still, not too bad, I finished in 5:43, good for 26th of 73 overall, which kept me in 32nd place.

The rain went away in time for our afternoon race, 70km in 4.5 laps around Bedfordshire. The race leader Julie Cook had 1:20 up on the 2nd placed rider, so it was just a matter of her team protecting against attacks to win it for her. The course was very fast through the lanes, both downhill and tailwind, but as soon as we turned onto the busy main road into a stiff headwind, things slowed to a crawl. Later I reflected that the first 2.5 laps were a perfect warm-up for my old tired legs, what with the 3-min hard, 2-min easy, 5-min hard, 10-min easy nature of the course. I really do seem to get better as the day goes on, even more so after two days of racing. I suspect I've always been a bit like this, though now that I'm nearly 35, it's just showing more and more when I'm up against the youngsters.

I sat in towards the mid/back of the bunch until the third lap, when I saw a good opportunity to move up during the lull after the sprint prime. Just as I did (and if only I had done it a few seconds earlier!), an attack with two strong riders went off the front and I jumped to join them. A bit late I think, as a few more jumped on me and the bunch was dragged back. Nevertheless I was now on the front after gunning up a short hill. Had a glance at the powermeter and saw I was well within myself so gave it some go and managed to string everyone out. The hill prime was 2km up the road and given how I felt on that hill in the previous laps, I thought I'd try for some points this time. Figured I would get overtaken early up the hill but then could sit on wheels and put in a big effort near the top again and reel people back in, as is the norm for me on hills it seems.

Coming around the corner with about 700m to go before the hill prime, some horses and riders were walking along the right of the road. I blew by them staying as left as possible, but I could see them start rearing up and then heard cries from the bunch. A few other girls joined me as the bunch slowed behind us, and we started to go hard up the hill, but suddenly the red flag came out of the race car. Apparently they were neutralising the race and actually wanted us to come to a complete stop on this 8% hill! We protested this loudly, all the while riding up the hill at 10km/h, and the bunch followed. At the top we all finally stopped and waited for the race to restart.

I was disappointed that I never got to go for my hill prime and a bit confused as to why the race was stopped -- given the carnage in the form of crashes and general complete disruption of the race by cars, parked cars, giant recycling trucks, etc. on the roads, I wouldn't have thought horses were any different. Turns out nobody was injured, one girl came off her bike but that could have happened regardless of the horses. Thinking about it now, I'm not sure what I should have done -- were we just doomed to wreak havoc on the horses whether I saw them and slowed, or not?

The race restarted and I resignedly resumed my position at mid-pack, not to be seen again til the finish on the same hill when I nipped a dozen girls on the way to a safe bunch finish about 25th or so. Ended up about 31st overall, 6:33 back from the GC winner. Still cursing my poor fueling from the day before that cost me so much time, but what to do. Better luck and better preparation next year.

I was definitely glad to regain some confidence on Monday after Sunday's disaster, but I'm feeling a bit fed up with the whole road racing thing for now. It's just so generally unsafe-feeling... cars everywhere, holes in the road, bad bike handling skills, horses even... think I'll stick to some traffic-free circuits for the next little while. My only other major issue with Sunday is that my Garmin 705 malfunctioned while saving my data from the race, meaning I lost all speed, power and HR data after 10 minutes into the race. The lap averages were saved, but that's it. Grrr...

Londoncyclesport's report and results here, British Cycling's is here. Jim took tons of photos which we're planning to throw on flickr or somewhere.

Jim's Race

Jim raced the men's support version of our road race on Sunday, a cat 2/3/4 on the exact same course, and did very well for his first road race ever. He was a bit disappointed to be dropped from the main group with half a lap to go, but considering that well over half the riders had been dropped in the 1st and 2nd laps while Jim hung on and even managed to try and bridge to an attack, I think he did pretty well. His report is on the Kingston Wheelers forum.