This time round, I decided to use the enforced rest time from running to really work on further improving my swim and on increasing my mileage on the bike. It was only last October that I found myself able to swim an entire session of front crawl without an alternate breaststroke recovery length or without needing to grab at the poolside in a gasping, wheezing desperation for oxygen. Swimming definitely does not come naturally to me and it's a discipline I've really had to work at. Initial progress was slow, but, these past few months, I have noticed a real improvement and I am almost starting to look and feel like someone who belongs in the water rather than an erroneous land-loving mammal who has accidentally fallen overboard and is flapping about in panic in attempt to regain dry land.
Enough! I digress! This summer, fed up of having to head to the hated gym in attempt to retain a modicum of fitness, I have got out on my bike, got in the pool and signed up for some different events to keep me motivated to train and stay fit. I have competed in three triathlons (two pool based, one open water), one duathlon (run – bike – run), two cycle sportives of 66 and 54 miles respectively, and one 1km sea swim in a choppy, murky English Channel. If a change is as good as a rest, as they indeed say, then mentally my mind is refreshed and physically, my injury is well rested.... I have though acquired a whole new set of injuries, such as a pain in my right glute from the bike, but hey, as least it's giving my lower left leg a time-out!
I have written about the two pool based tris in previous posts, so I won't bore you with more talk of those. So, to the duathlon. One Sunday morning, Matt and I had gone for our Sunday morning swim at Sidmouth pool and, on leaving, Matt noticed a sign on the noticeboard advertising the 'N1 Westpoint Summer Duathlon Series'. I had seen the name 'N1' on the swimming timetables for Honiton and Sidmouth pools and knew they were an East Devon based triathlon club. Last year I briefly joined the Exeter tri club but their swim sessions didn't really work for me, so I didn't renew my membership in March and decided to go it alone. The poster said that these summer duathlons, held over four weeks, on a Wednesday evening throughout summer, were open to non-N1 members and were only £3 to enter. There was one coming up the coming Wednesday, so I decided to give it a go.
They are held at Westpoint driving circuit (you tube the 'Chris Boardman cycling two abreast safety video: it's fimled at Westpoint!). This is hired by N1 each Wednesday evening in summer and is a safe, traffic free mock-up of a road network and a great place to practice bike handling skills, riding in groups, drafting, cornering at speed, and a great location for a duathlon. With Gary Parett of Axe Valley Runners and Grizzly fame at the helm, the duathlons are superbly well organised with chip timing! Each circuit is half a mile. You run 3 circuits, bike 12, run 1.5 circuits, finish. As fast s you can! The course is not flat, it's basically a square with one side being uphill, the next being flat, the next downhill and the next flat. There are sharp bends on each of the corners. The first time I approached a corner on the bike section, I totally misjudged it, went wide, and nearly took out a runner who was coming the way! Bike handling skills could use a bit of improvement... Over the course of the 12 laps though, I started to get a feel for the turns and when to brake, when to coast etc, and my lap times got quicker. My second run – off the bike – went surprisingly well and I posted the 3rd fastest time overall for it, having only been the 5th fastest for the first run on fresh legs. Who needs brick training?! My transitions were the quickest of anyone as I was the only person not switching to cleats for the bike! Finish position was 5th overall with a 10:27 first run, 19:21 bike, 4:52 second run. It was great fun, with a low-key friendly atmosphere and a great event to give duathlon a go. It also enabled me to have a chat with Dennis and Liz Elliot from N1 tri club about hooking up with them. They were extremely friendly and helpful and offered for me to try a couple of their swim sessions and see how I found them first, with the option to join after. A productive evening all round!
Westpoint Duthlon. Thanks to Dennis Elliot who took all apart from the above picture.
Next up, two cycle sportives. My sister-in-law, Caroline, had entered me into the 66 mile Jurassic Classic sportive as a birthday present. It was on Sunday 16th August. Sportives are not races and are billed as being non-competitive, but, for those of a competitive mindset (i.e., me!), they do publish “standards” for the course that take into account the distance and elevation, and so you have something to measure yourself against. For a senior female, to get the 'gold' standard at the Jurassic you had to average over 16.9mph, which icludes time spent at fuelling and, er, defueling stations. I was entered into the standard distance which has over 4000ft of climb, so I figured that aiming for silver would be a realistic ask. The hills come thick and fast in the opening half of the ride: Peak Hill, followed by the absolutely horrendous Salcombe Hill, followed by Branscombe Hill, then the long drag up to the top of Gittisham Hill. I had to abandon Canondale on both Salcombe and Branscombe Hills as the gradient was too sharp; I simply ran out of gears and ground to a halt! Ever aware of that silver medal slipping away, in my wisdom I decided to run up the hills, pushing the bike, and I overtook quite a lot of men who were determined to cycle! No time to stop at the first aid station in Gittisham, on on to the next! By the next, in Aylesbeare, I was bursting for the loo, so had no choice. I sprinted in, did the necessary, and sprinted out, grabbing a piece of flapjack as I passed the ladies behind the counter serving tea and cakes who looked on at me incredulously. I found out from another participant after that the were also serving pasties and tea in china cups: I hadn't even noticed! I wanted the silver medal more than I wanted a pasty!!
For several miles, I had been playing cat and mouse with a guy who was also doing the standard distance. He seemed to like my company and would drop back to wait for me after the descents, as he was quicker on those, and he would work like stink to try and stick with me on the ascents, which he couldn't always, so I'd then feel obliged to wait for him at the top. It was nice to pass a bit of time and have a natter, but, after a while, I found myself getting a bit annoyed at being obligated to ride with someone. I had my goal set on that silver medal and this man was messing with my pacing strategy! I then found myself wondering if that made me a ruthless, over-competitive, horrible person. I then began to question whether I was actually enjoying this cycle ride in the beautiful countryside of Devon, or whether I wasn't allowing myself to enjoy it because I was GO GO GO!! the whole way, being so Goddamn driven and focussed. Was I doing it for the fun? No, not really. I was doing it for the training benefits. I then began to question my whole attitude to sport. I entered two sportives to make me do a longer ride than if I were just heading out the door by myself. I always have to have a purpose to get me out and training and that purpose is usually to get fit for racing. In truth, I'm not too sure that I really enjoy exercising to the extent I do all that much! If I was doing it just for fun, I would have chosen the easier, flatter 33 mile option... or I'd have stayed in and watched cycling on the telly! In truth, I think pushing myself to do all the exercise I did in my teenage years has pretty much set the stall for how I approach it: it's something I do for self-improvement, not for the love of it!
Anyway, enough of the amateur self-psychology. I eventually ditched that poor chap, who was lovely but whose innate chatter had become too much for me and my craving for solitude and focus, and I managed to finish the whole thing in a time of 4h19m, 20 minutes inside the time for the silver medal! Horray! When I heard everyone animatedly talking about their experiences after and they said what a great time they'd had, taking photos en route, drinking tea in china cups, I did feel a bit sad that I am seemingly incapable of allowing myself to take this relaxed approach, but then I looked down at the silver medal round my neck and that somewhat made up for it. Besides, I have tea at home. And china cups to drink the stuff out of.
The one thing this approach did have against it is that it pretty much wiped me out for the rest of the week. I was sleeping loads, tired out, struggling to focus at work, and struggling to do any meaningful training for several days after due to physical exhaustion. My first reaction was to think I am a total wimp as there were much older, less fit, ladies doing that ride who came off it perfectly fine, but then my rational self was eventually able to see that they probably didn't push themselves as hard as I did: I'm pretty certain I was the only lunatic running with their bike up Salcombe Hill! My hell-for-leather, all-or-nothing personality does deliver results, but sometimes those results come at a price, in this case, leaving me drained and knackered!
The Exmouth Exterminator ride then came just that little bit too early, a mere 6 days later. I wasn't ready for it, physically or mentally. I had given everything the previous week and just couldn't get fired up for this one. Furthermore, the standard distance on this was 76 miles and 5000ft of height gain! 10 miles and 1000ft more than the previous week, which had left me a wreck! On the start line they offered you the option to change up or down a distance if you were feeling good / bad and I was bloody grateful! Not like me to shy away from a challenge I've signed up for, but even the short course on the Exterminator is 54 miles, so that would be enough for today thank you! I somehow managed to come away with the gold standard on this one as they standards were much softer – only 14.5mph average needed this time, so upgraded to gold but with a slightly slower average time than the week before.
By now I had joined the N1 tri club who are simply fantastic! I have enjoyed some amazing swim training sessions at Honiton pool and they have also given me the kick up the pants and the confidence needed to start sea swimming. Lakes, no problem, but I am not a lover of the sea surrounding the British Isles: cold, murky, jelly-fish riddled and often rough, it has never really appealed. That said, the first sea swim I did with the club, at Sidmouth was flat calm and it was a beautiful sunny evening. I was looked after expertly well by Dennis, the club chairman, who seemed to be more perceptive than I was at detecting that I was stiff as a board and needed to relax more. He taught me how to draught off another swimmer and, all in all, my first sea swim in the UK was a great experience. Not a jelly fish in sight! One sea swim done = one sea swim race entered that very night (you are now beginning to see how my mind works I think...).
The Geoswim took place at Goodrington Sands, near Paignton. They had 1km, 3km and 5km distances on offer. Just the 1km for me; best not to bite off more than I can chew. One thing doing so in a run or bike race when you can just stop, but it's not so easy when you're out of your depths in the open ocean to just call it a day. The race started on the beach with a mad charge into the sea, there was a lot of wading in shallow water before taking the plunge and starting the swim. First stride, first gob full of water. In fact, I swallowed what certainly felt like half the contents of the English Channel in the opening few meters. I like to breathe to my left; the waves were coming from my left. Different strategy needed. Suddenly aware of loads of other swimmers passing me whilst I coughed, spat out salt water, doubted why I thought I was ready for this after only having swum in the sea twice. “Gees, this is going really bad”. Couldn't even resort to trusty breaststoke as your legs are too buoyant in the wetsuit and so a breastroke leg kick is totally ineffectual. Can I give up and turn back? Oh, shit, I've only swum about 5 meters. Nope, press on. Don't be a total embarrassment. I evntually found my rhythm, but it took a while, and I still wasn't much enjoying it. The waves were quite big and I was actually starting to feel a bit dizzy and sick with the motion! Only I could get sea sick swimming! At long bloody last, I can touch the bottom again. Wade in. Start running up the beach. Oooh, catching the guy in front, charge! Just got him. Cross the line. Get handed the prize for 3rd lady. SAY WHAT?! Are you sure? What happened to the others? Did they drown? Did they take a wrong turn and end up in France? 3Rd lady – too funny! It felt like a truly abysmal performance, though the watch did say 17:57 for 1km, but I think some of that was waded and not swum as the tide was quite far out!
The initial mad charge into the sea. I am the 4th visible athlete from left.
The sprint up the beach after the swim and a chance to make up some ground!
3rd lady?! Say what?!! Haha, too funny! (Yes, that is a steam train behind me!)
It did, however, give me confidence going into my last event of my first season as a mutli-sport athlete.... the Cotswold Spint Triathlon. This one deserves its own blog post and, besides, I think I've bored you stupid enough for one day with this epic! That one will have to wait a couple of weeks however, as tomorrow morning we fly to Iceland for our honeymoon :-) A change is often as good as a rest, but, sometimes, you also just need a rest! My body is physically tired. We had mooted the idea of doing Yeovilton 5km tonight on our way up to Heathrow, but I've woken up with a sore throat and generally feeling achey and under the weather. It's been a long season of tri-ing new things and it takes the body a while to adapt. Although I have been resting my leg and not doing as much running (15 miles per week max), I have been training over three different disciplines, plus the usual strength and core stuff. I have started doing an early morning swim before work, in addition to commuting to work and back by bike and/or doing an after work run. It's been quite a jump up in volume and your body will only put up with it for so long before it starts giving off warning signs. (NB. The fact that I've picked up on this is progress, as I do somewhat have a habit of running myself into the ground then falling apart spectacularly!) Well, signs heeded, honeymoon booked, resting whilst sipping wine in thermally heated mountain springs, about to happen! Iceland here we come!
New experiences in multi-sport this summer. Had a great time and learned a lot. A rest, followed by a hard winter's training, and who knows what next year will bring. On on!
