<?xml version="1.0"?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>Bob Holloway - Tri247</title><link>http://www.tri247.com/index.html</link><description>Latest articles submitted by Bob Holloway on Tri247</description><item><title><![CDATA[You win some, you lose some!]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_3142.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[One of the great things about the English language is the multitude of sayings, maxims and metaphors that allow us to take comfort from whatever circumstances we find ourselves in. For example, on the one hand, it is said that many hands make light work, but on the other, that too many cooks spoil the broth! And the world of triathlon does not escape. I have probably read just about every training journal ever written on triathlon in the quest for the holy grail; ie, to become world-class on next-to-nothing training, and I think I can legitimately divide them equally between those which say you should turn the negatives into positives and those who argue that you must be honest with yourself and learn from your mistakes.

So, in that vein, there follows a report, well, I should say two reports, on my exploits at the first in this year&amp;rsquo;s series of Thames Turbo sprint races. As you will have gathered from last month&amp;rsquo;s column, I went into this event with confidence at a low ebb and not expecting a great deal. In fact, I was expecting a kick in the teeth; a wake up call, and that is exactly what happened. At the end of 2004, I posted a time of one hour three minutes and a few seconds for this race, which got me 13th place overall and first in my age group. Some three years on, I achieve 122nd place; sixth in my age group in a time of 1:18:13. So where did it all go wrong? To help you solve this conundrum, there follows two race reports from opposite extremes of the spectrum!

Turning the negatives into positives
Even finishing an event that comprises a 438m swim; 13.5 mile bike and 5km run is something that the overwhelming majority of the adult population could not even complete, let alone do so in one hour and 18 minutes. So that puts me at the pinnacle of fitness and something I can be proud of, particularly as the pleasure of free bus travel is not that very far away. I shall be 54 in a few weeks time, so I should take comfort in the fact that I am still able to drag my ageing body around the triathlon circuit. 

In 2008, prior to the race on 24th March, I had visited a pool on just eight occasions and never managed more than 800m in any one session. One could say that this was hardly ideal preparation for my first race of the season, but we are in positive mode, so let&amp;rsquo;s search for a few silver linings to the otherwise cloudy picture. The swim time at Thames Turbo includes the time taken in T1 and at my best, my time for the 438m swim and T1 is about 8:40. Hardly Ian Thorpe stuff, but I am to swimming what Eddie &amp;ldquo;the eagle&amp;rdquo; Edwards was to ski-jumping. Enthusiastic, keen, but hopelessly out of depth!

So how do I account for the leisurely 10:45 it took me to complete the swim leg the other week? Well, those of you who ventured out early on Easter Monday, can&amp;rsquo;t help but have noticed that it was a bit cold, with snow in the air. Hardly ideal triathlon weather! I had decided before the race to wear a long sleeved compression top underneath the tri-suit and to slip on a cycling jacket over the top after the swim. That probably added 30 seconds or so to my normal time, but at the last moment, I decided to leave a pair of gloves in T1 which proved to be my downfall. To be honest, I hadn&amp;rsquo;t really thought this through beforehand and, with hindsight, I should have taken a pair of the many cycling gloves I possess. These would have slipped on pretty easily, but the gloves I had with me were running gloves that are a comfortable fit with dry hands but an excruciatingly tight fit with wet and cold hands! I must have wasted over a minute trying to get them on and although I was tempted at one stage to throw them away in disgust, I persevered and was glad I did given the cold conditions on the bike.

And so on to the bike. My times for the 13.5 mile bike leg has varied between 35 and 39 minutes but the 41 minutes I recorded this year was an all time worst. Just about the only excuse I can offer is that five minutes into the bike, I went to change up to 53 x 16 (I&amp;rsquo;m a spinner, not a grinder) but the derailleur wouldn&amp;rsquo;t shift up from the 53 x 15 and I spent the rest of the bike leg on the small ring to maintain my usual&amp;nbsp; high cadence. Heading into T2 I was already well down on the clock and heading for a personal worst time. This wasn&amp;rsquo;t helped by the fact that in T2, my frozen, numbed feet stubbornly refused to co-operate and the picture of me hopping around trying to get my running shoes on must have been a picture. In the end I gave up, sat down, and saw the funny side of things. That lost time in transition and my lack of fitness on the run, resulted in an embarrassingly slow time of 26 minutes but, being in positive mode, I wasn&amp;rsquo;t forced to stop on the run and I overtook more folk than overtook me!

So all in all, had it not been for the atrocious weather and mechanical problems on the bike, I am certain in my own mind that I would have given the eventual winner, Dan Corner, a good run for his money. Oh, and I hadn&amp;rsquo;t shaved down either. Perhaps I could have nicked the course record as well!

The ugly truth
It was awful. Compared to the general population, my effort is to be congratulated, but compared to the triathlon community, my age group peers and my own previous performances, it was everything I thought it was going to be, and worse. My first race in the 2007 series was completed in one hour and 12 minutes, but I am a notoriously slow starter and this improved to one hour and  seven minutes by the fourth and final race in August. Although I went into the race knowing that my fitness level was poor, I still thought that I was capable of avoiding a new personal worst time. Looking back on the race, and trying to be objective, I think I lost about three minutes because of the extra clothing needed, getting stopped at the &amp;ldquo;waterworks&amp;rdquo; traffic lights and having to spend most of the bike leg on the small ring. But that only brings the time down to one hour and 15 minutes, which means that I have lost about three minutes worth of fitness compared to the same time last year.

And the answer is?
Luckily, I have always been the type of person whose cup is half full rather than half empty and I will, therefore, put this minor setback behind me and think positively about where things went wrong and how to put things right. In practical terms, this means losing more weight and spending the next two months doing the sort of training, in terms of volume, that most normal triathletes would have done over the winter months. On that basis, I have set myself a target of not thinking about being race fit until the Windsor standard-distance race in June and will use four sprint events before then to gauge my fitness levels and identify any weaknesses that need to be addressed. With luck, I should be flying by the end of the season!]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Is it really just a few weeks away?]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_3034.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[As I walked to Woking station this morning in the driving wind and rain, I thought to myself, &quot;will I really be swimming in an open air pool and cycling around Sunbury and Chertsey wearing nothing but skin tight lycra in just a few weeks time&quot;? On the one hand, the answer is &#039;yes&#039;, the first in the four-part Thames Turbo sprint series kicks off on March 24th and I will be there. But, on the other hand, unless Mother Nature is very kind to us on the day, the chances are that something a bit more weatherproof and warmer than a single layer of lycra may be required come race morning!

Don&#039;t get me wrong, Hampton Pool is heated and is a pleasure to swim in however cold the ambient temperature, but waiting in the queue for your start time wearing nothing but your swim cossie can be a daunting experience. For those new to the race series, I would recommend that you keep a warm top on for as long as possible and discard it at the last moment, either to a friend or on the ground somewhere safe and out of the way. You can also check out Tri247&#039;s handy guide to the race.

What to wear in these early season races can also be an issue. There will always be the bravehearts who have no hesitation in wearing nothing but the skimpiest of trisuits and who can be heard after the race saying that it wasn&#039;t really that cold. But for us lesser mortals, there are several ways of ensuring that our bodies aren&#039;t reduced to a shivering wreck in T1 and on the bike/run. The temptation, of course, is to put on another layer in T1 over your tri-suit or swim cossie. Fair enough, but take my word for it about the difficulty of slipping on a tight cycle top, for example, over a wet, tired and generally uncoordinated body. If you do go for the cycle top option, find one that has fairly loose arms with a front zip &ndash; and don&#039;t forget to pin one of your numbers on the back or to put the number over the top of the jersey if you prefer using a race belt.

If the weather is simply cold rather than freezing, then something like a cycle gilet may be worth thinking about. But my plan this year is to try something a little different. For a few weeks now, I have been wearing a certain brand of compression clothing, which, despite its thinness, has kept me pleasantly warm in every type of condition the English weather has thrown at me. To be honest, I have no idea whether these garments retain their fit when immersed but I am likely to find out when I slip one on under my trisuit come the  24th March! And if it&#039;s really cold, I might even fold up a pair of arm warmers on my arms which I can then unfold as the bike leg progresses. Neither am I sure how much all of this will slow my swim down, but to be honest, (a) I&#039;d rather be warm and a minute slower than fast but hypothermic, and (b) my swim times are so slow that the odd bit of drag isn&#039;t really going to affect the outcome!

Those of you who read my last but one blog will know that my winter training was far from ideal. A very busy time at work has meant that training has paid second fiddle to almost everything else and for about the third year in succession, I face my first race of the season unfit and uncertain about my fitness level. My record over the Thames Turbo course is 1 hour 3 minutes, but on each of the opening races in 2006 and 2007, I managed a paltry 1 hour 12 minutes. If I was being honest, I wouldn&#039;t hold out too much hope of beating that time this year, but that won&#039;t stop me from giving 100% and racing as hard as my body will allow. I just fear that at some stage, either on the bike or the run, I will run out of steam and suffer. I hate being unfit and I hate not being competitive, but events over the past three years have conspired against me and once again, I find myself having to get race fit during the season rather than before.

My next blog will be due a few days after the Thames Turbo race so expect a full account of my exploits &ndash; warts and all!]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Bob’s 'Day at the Races']]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_2923.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[I guess that most people make the journey to Sandown Park in Esher to view the graceful elegance of various steeds and to spend a great deal of money to boot. Not much difference then to the thousands that descended on Sandown Park last weekend to while away the hours at TCR 2008. I can&rsquo;t recall how many TCRs there have been but I do know that I have been to them all. So have things changed? For the better or worse?

For what it&#039;s worth, I think TCR 2008 was one of the best. On the one hand, it held on to the traditional features such as the swim clinic (which I never visit for fear of reminding me yet again how bad my swimming is), the 220 seminars; the indoor fitness tests and the presence of the larger retail outlets and on the other, it found the space to cater for the smaller, innovative products and services that can all so easily go amiss. 

As one of the Tri247.com &#039;testers&#039;, I headed first to the Garmin stand and a quick chat with Garmin&#039;s marketing and product guru, Andy Silver. We talked about the new 405 and 705, and I have to say that the latter looks to be a very nice piece of kit indeed. Andrew asked about the Forerunner 305 and how I found it in use. Contrary to what I have read on various web sites, I have never experienced any problems in either finding a signal or losing one and it has been as steady as the proverbial rock. But I couldn&rsquo;t resist the opportunity to mention a few of the items on my wish list. Firstly, I would just love it if manufacturers of HRMs, GPS devices, etc, could incorporate a bluetooth device (Ed AMT+ is a form of Bluetooth...) or some other wireless mechanism so that I can hear my heart rate zone alarms, etc, through an earpiece. In the quiet of the house, the alarms on most watches are audible, but out in the open, against the noise of traffic, they are about as much use a chocolate teapot. My other gripe, which I know is shared by many of my triathlete colleagues, is the fact that in one respect, the Garmin is just like a horse. In other words, you can lead it to the water, but... ...you can&rsquo;t make it drink, or more specifically, take it for a swim. The fact that it is only showerproof and not waterproof doesn&rsquo;t of course stop some users from getting up to all sorts of tricks to record the length of their open water swim, but what I&rsquo;m sure we are all searching for is a GPS watch that, unlike the horse, we can take into the water. But here is the rub. According to Andrew, having a GPS waterproof watch strapped to your wrist wouldn&rsquo;t work! It needs a constant signal and having the watch disappear under the water&rsquo;s surface every stroke would inhibit the data flow. So it looks as if storing it under your swim cap is perhaps the only practical solution. Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise after all. Do I really want to know how poor my open water navigation is and how much extra distance I am swimming! Now, what I really need is a waterproof sat nav; &ldquo;At the next submerged shopping trolley, veer 30 degrees to the left&rdquo;.

I then headed off to the Saucony stand and a quick chat with Peter Swaine about their 2008 range. For the past three seasons, I have raced in Saucony shoes as part of the Tri-UK sponsorship package and I have come to love the fast twitch versions of their lightweight racing shoes. And on show on Saturday was their new Type A racing flat which has as much support as a pair of carpet slippers (only joking Peter!) but looks the dog&rsquo;s doo dahs! Supplies have yet to reach the country but they should be in stock in time for Tri-UK&rsquo;s 2008  team launch. Can&rsquo;t wait. 

You can&rsquo;t of course visit a TCR show and not flirt with the latest in bike and wheel technology. It looks as if this year I will be riding a Van Nicholas titanium bike but that didn&rsquo;t stop me from casting an envious eye over some of the machines on offer. What caught my attention this year, unlike in previous years, is how much state of the art tri-specific bikes have fallen in price. OK, they aren&rsquo;t cheap, but two or three years ago it would have been unthinkable that a top of the range bike could be had for less than two grand, and with change to spare. Not quite in that price bracket, but if I wasn&rsquo;t a sponsored rider and had the money to spare (rest assured Mrs Holloway, I haven&rsquo;t!), I think I would have walked away with one of Mike Trees&rsquo; Ceepo modular carbon bikes. 

Another feature of the show that fascinated me, was the current interest in swimming and music. One device on show effectively waterproofed your iPod, whereas another was an MP3 player in itself which is somehow strapped to your goggles strap. Don&rsquo;t get me wrong, I&rsquo;m sure that both products are technologically sound. But somehow I just don&rsquo;t buy into the idea of listening to music whilst swimming. Fair enough, I can see a potential use in coaching terms so that comments from pool or lake side can be relayed to you in real time, but music? Sorry, not for me.

So did I resist the temptation to splash the plastic? In the end, I think I showed great tolerance by not giving in to all the temptations on offer. But I couldn&rsquo;t resist adding a another bit of compression kit to my collection; a half price pair of Ironman running tights and a pair of Aqua Sphere&rsquo;s new swim goggles, the Vista.  Aqua Sphere is another of Tri-UK&rsquo;s sponsors and I went to the show thinking that a pair of the new Vista goggles would probably end up in our team package this year. I therefore ventured over to the Aqua Sphere stand out of curiosity and to see what all the fuss was about. I tried on a pair and without even putting on the strap, the suction was incredible. They stuck like a limpit to my face and I was so impressed that I bought a pair on the spot. The peripheral vision was as good as any face mask I&rsquo;ve worn in the past and unless I am very much mistaken, I foresee many pairs of Vistas making their appearance at long distance events this year. 

And of course, I couldn&rsquo;t possibly let this report go without mentioning the success of Tri247.com in winning the 220 Best Website award. Having worked closely with Henry and the rest of the team for the last year or so, I know how much sweat, blood and I dare say, a few tears, has been shed in getting the web site up and running. I am proud to be a small part of the team and have every confidence that the site will go on to bigger and better things in 2008.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[A New Year, a new leaf...]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_2772.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[&ldquo;Hello, my name is Bob... And I&rsquo;m a ... triathlete&rdquo;

There, that wasn&rsquo;t too hard was it? They say a problem isn&rsquo;t a problem that can be resolved until it is recognised and confronted. So, what is this problem that I talk about?

Recent events have caused me to question my commitment to triathlon and all the peripheral stuff that comes as part of the lifestyle package. You know what I mean; training, blogging, buying bike bling, participating in various triathlon fora, and so on. Until recently, I counted myself as being very lucky in as much that I was able to keep on top of a stressful job and train pretty much as I wanted to. OK, I could never find the time to pack in the training hours that some of you are able to manage but by training smart, I have been able to notch up some reasonable successes over the years. But throughout 2007, I have been directly involved in bringing forward a whole new local government pension scheme in time for its introduction in April next year. It has been a challenging period and one which, to be honest, has taken my eye off the ball, in terms of my triathlon activity.

As is customary, my season ended with the Thruxton Mass Attack duathlon in October which, for the record, saw me fail in my quest to win my age group for the fourth year in succession. Notching up my first two minute drafting penalty didn&rsquo;t help, but on the day, I was a good minute or so behind Mike Morris, now of Thames Turbo fame. Since that race, I have managed just a handful of training sessions and to be perfectly frank, I have on occasions enjoyed not having to spend an hour or so in the garage on the turbo or heading out into the cold and wet for those long weekend runs. Getting home after a hard day&rsquo;s work and languishing in front of the TV and spending quality time with the family soon became the order of the day. So is this the end of my absolutely average triathlon journey? In a word, no!

Most of the hard work in bringing forward the new pension scheme has been done so as the pressure relaxes, I can start thinking about resurrecting my training programme and getting back into the habit of a daily routine of training. In total, I guess I have trained at a very low level for the last two months so my level of fitness is very poor and I am at least a stone over my normal racing weight. There is plenty of hard work ahead but on the plus side, this is the first real break from triathlon that I have taken in all my 12 years or so involvement in the sport. Perhaps starting from rock bottom will prove to be just the impetus I need to get me back to the sort of form I was showing two or three years ago before my eye problem revealed itself in 2005. Since then, my training and racing has been haphazard to say the least, but all that is behind me now and now that things have settled down at work, I have no excuses left to explain any mediocre results next year. Next year will also be my last year in the 50-54 age group, so  a good end to the 2008 season will ensure that I make the most of my first year in the really old gits category!

Apologies for that rather long introduction, but to get back to the main message, I do think it is important that we put triathlon in its proper perspective, particularly for us age groupers who constantly need to juggle various balls in the air, eg, family, work, triathlon, etc. This is best summed up by regarding life as a three legged stool, with each leg representing work, family and any outside interest such as triathlon. A &#039;healthy&#039; stool, or life, is one where there is true balance. Take one leg away, and life becomes that more difficult. Take away two, and the stool, like your life, is likely to collapse. As individuals, we will all place different priorities on the time we commit to our jobs, our family and our sport and of course, these priorities will change over time, almost on a daily basis. This year, I took the view that too much emphasis on triathlon would make it nigh on impossible for me to be successful at work and that, to me, would represent a failure on my part.

Don&rsquo;t get me wrong, triathlon has always been and hopefully, will continue to be, a very important part of my life, but it will never be more important than my family or my work. Whether others can make that sort of decision does depend, to a large extent, on whether triathlon has become a healthy addiction, in a positive way, or an obsession that you could not do without. I have every respect for the individual and their family, who are willing to make huge sacrifices in order to let someone live their triathlon dream but where I do begin to have problems is where our hobby, and let&rsquo;s be honest, that&rsquo;s what triathlon is for most of us ( albeit a very expensive and time-consuming hobby), jeopardises our career or, even worse, our family life. So let&rsquo;s keep this wonderful sport of ours in its proper perspective and give proper credit to our employers who, after all, enable us to enjoy this expensive hobby, and to our families for putting up with our endless training sessions, dirty washing and 3.00am alarm calls on race days!

But to end this serious blog on a seasonally jocular note, how can you tell the difference between somebody who is obsessed with triathlon from somebody who is unhealthily addicted? Perhaps the following pointers might help...


You spend most of your time at work logging onto various triathlon web sites
You have a special &#039;hot key&#039; to quickly disguise aforementioned web site whenever the boss goes floorwalking
Your family holiday always coincides with your main &#039;A&#039; race
Your are on first name terms with the folk at your local LBS
Your garage/wardrobe is full of bike bling unknown to your better half
Your website purchases are addressed to your work-place
When asked by your better half how much that new bike bling cost, you have a sudden attack of amnesia
You spend an inordinate amount of time at work compiling blogs to a very well known triathlon web site

Well, that&rsquo;s all for now folks. Oh, and if you see a large, fat bloke jogging around the streets of Woking, it&#039;s not Father Christmas in training for the Lapland winter duathlon, it will be me, so don&rsquo;t forget to say hello!]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Vitruvian and the plan of 35]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_2435.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[The 2007 season is nearing an end and, as in the previous two years, I had reached something like race fitness much too late to put in a serious bid to beat five hours for a middle distance event. But that didn&amp;rsquo;t stop me from having a plan. It perhaps wasn&amp;rsquo;t as cunning as one of Baldrick&amp;rsquo;s, but it looked good on paper. In the words of one Michael Johnson, all I had to do was execute my strategy!

So what was the plan? I nicknamed it the &amp;ldquo;35 plan&amp;rdquo;, because it entailed a 35 min swim, a 2hrs 35m bike and 1hr 35m run. This would give me a 4hr 45min time, plus three or four minutes for both transitions and hey presto, a sub five hour time! But didn&amp;rsquo;t somebody once write about the best laid plans?

Just after 7.00am, I stood in the murky waters of Rutland Water together with hundred or so other  gentlemen of a certain vintage. The first turn buoy was hardly visible from the shore but it was nicely aligned with the rising sun on the horizon so navigation wasn&amp;rsquo;t going to be a problem. And then we were off. The first few minutes was bedlam and, having lost some confidence in the swim, I found myself bottling out of the arm wrestling and fisticuffs and let the big boys fight it out for their space in the water. After 200m or so, things began to settle and I began to pick people off one by one. The rest of the 1900m was pretty uneventful and I finally exited the water in about 36:50, almost two minutes off my pre-race target. But now was not the time to panic. I still had about 90% of race time available to make up the deficit and it was, therefore, with some confidence that I ran into T2 for a speedy transition.

Part of my cunning plan was to ease my way to the first section of the bike up until the first ascent of the Ripple. As I approached the first of the three climbs, my heart rate was at a manageable 145 and I was feeling good. So good that I completed the first climb on the big ring! I was not so arrogant on the second climb and negotiated the toughest of the three climbs on the small ring with a combination of on and out of the saddle. Heart rate at the top of the second hill was 162bpm but I still felt strong. The third climb on the Ripple is the easiest of the three and I stayed in the big ring until half way up. But disaster struck as I managed to ship the chain off the small ring. Normally, it&amp;rsquo;s possible to shift it back but on a hill I wasn&amp;rsquo;t prepared to risk it. I had no option but to stop and manually get the chain back to where it belonged. But Lady Luck was not on my side. The chain had managed to wedge itself very tightly between the chain ring and chain stay and it took me a good few minutes to rescue it. I only lost three minutes in this unscheduled pit stop but after the longer than expected swim, my plan of 35 was beginning to go somewhat the shape of a pear.

Now common sense would suggest that after a mishap like this, you take things steady. I&amp;rsquo;ve lost count of the number of track meetings I&amp;rsquo;ve seen where an athlete falls and is then criticised for trying to get back too quickly. Yes, you&amp;rsquo;ve guessed it. I spent the next few miles pushing hard to make good the places I had lost. Another entry for my &amp;ldquo;lessons to be learnt&amp;rdquo; journal! I spent the rest of the first lap overtaking more people than passed me and all was looking good until we turned on to the final stretch of the A606 into a headwind. Suddenly, I lacked power and was struggling to hold 15mph. It&amp;rsquo;s occasions like this which remind me to get off my turbo and go out on the roads for some proper bike training. The second time up the Ripple was uneventful and I continued to push a reasonable pace. But the second ride along the A606 was the final nail in the coffin. Now I was struggling to hold 12mph and the legs started to tighten up and cramp. This was the first time in the race that I started to have negative thoughts about the outcome, but a quick glance at the computer showed that I had achieved a bike split of 2hrs 39min &amp;ndash; disregarding the three minute pit stop &amp;ndash; which was some seven minutes quicker than last year. All was not lost!

I left T2 with about 3hrs 23min on the clock, some seven minutes behind my target. I needed a 1hr 37min run to get close to beating the five hour target but it was obvious from the first steps of the run that I had left my running legs on the bike split. I had no pace and the quads were screaming for me to stop. I had no option but to ease off the gas and hope that things would settle down after a few miles. Things did settle down eventually but every time I put in an effort, the quads said no way. I was therefore resigned to running a conservative half marathon but whereas my 1hr 42 minute run last year involved a fair amount of walking, I was determined this year to run the whole way. On that score, it was a case of mission accomplished, but the price I paid was a personal worst for any half ironman run of 1hr 49 minutes.

I crossed the finish line with mixed emotions. My time of 5hrs 12min was three minutes slower than last year and I had struggled on the run, usually one of my strengths. But on the bright side, I had taken a significant chunk off last year&amp;rsquo;s bike time which has to be seen in the context of my total lack of bike training on the road. This was only my sixth time on the bike this year and all of those occasions were in races. The longest being the 23 miles at Milton Keynes in July. OK, I churn out the miles on the turbo which is good enough to see me competitive in short distance races but is no substitute for road work when conditions get tough or when racing over longer distances. I also take some consolation in the fact that a five hour or thereabouts half ironman on minimal training stands me in good stead for my target of a sub 11 hour at Roth next year. There will no cheating for that race. If I don&amp;rsquo;t put in the miles on the run and the bike, I will suffer and fail. For the past two years, I have not sown, in training terms, and in consequence I have not reaped any benefits. But for the first time since my first eye operation in October 2005, I am looking forward to a full winter&amp;rsquo;s training and, in particular, the chance to sort out my running. In 1987, I ran a marathon in 2hrs 42 min and a half marathon in 1hr 14min. Having raced those times in the past, taking 1hr 49mins to run a half hurt as much mentally as it did physically.

So the plan of 35 is destined for the rubbish heap. But there&amp;rsquo;s always next year&amp;hellip;]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mud, anyone?]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_2332.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[Well, the weather did improve and with that, the training mileage also improved, though the incessant rain did its best to spoil this month&rsquo;s triathlon calendar as my report from this year&rsquo;s Big Cow Olympic distance triathlon below testifies! I&rsquo;ve also included a short report from the &#039;Long Swim&#039; event at Dorney Lake towards the end of the month and although it means slipping into early August, I&rsquo;ve also offered a few words about my day at this year&rsquo;s London Triathlon. There is no doubt that it remains the biggest triathlon within these shores &ndash; and perhaps beyond &ndash; but is it the best? For reasons you will gather from this blog, I&rsquo;ll be in a better position to offer an opinion this time next year! 

Mud, mud, glorious mud!
Sunday 22nd July was perhaps one of the busiest weekends in the triathlon race calendar, but sadly, the bad weather and flooding put paid to many a race and made those that were able to go ahead a bit of a logistical nightmare for the organisers. But, despite everything that the English weather could throw at them, the Big Cow crew played a blinder in making sure that their standard distance triathlon event went ahead as planned, albeit, with a few tweaks here and there to avoid the necessity of wet suits on the bike and run!

I left home at 4.30am in driving rain and having had to take several detours to avoid local flooding, I was very close to throwing in the towel and heading back home for the comfort of a nice warm bed. But once past Heathrow, the skies lightened and the rain eased off. By the time I hit Emberton County Park the sun was out but it was clear from the state of the ground that we are all in for a very muddy and messy day!

The transition area at Milton Keynes is in a field and it would be fair to say that most of it was underwater. My pitch was just wet and muddy whereas others, not so fortunate, were having to rack their bike in deep water. Having said that, not everybody turned up to face the challenge of the weather so there were plenty of alternative slots available. But the activity of hundreds of folk walking and running soon turned the whole area into one massive mud bath, to the extent that shoes were being sucked off during the run!

But back to the race. I suppose the one good thing about triathlon is that the weather can do very little to spoil a swim. Thankfully, the water level was high &ndash; so no danger of a short swim and any repeat of my 23 minute swim a few years back &ndash; and water conditions were good, temperature-wise, even if the water itself was more cloudy than in recent years. My plan was to swim an even-paced 28 minute split and things were looking good until about five minutes into the swim when my goggles decided to leak and mist up. Sighting became almost impossible but I was able to follow people&rsquo;s feet and managed to steer around the course without too much problem. In the end, I exited the lake in a shade under 27 minutes and headed off towards mud city!

Because of the conditions, I had opted to leave the bike shoes on the pedals and although this meant running barefoot through the mud with very little traction, at least I have still have a pair of bike shoes that are relatively clean and serviceable. But getting wet and muddy feet into bike shoes on the move is not the easiest of tricks and it took me a good half mile before everything was in place. The last time I did this race the bike consisted of two very fast laps but we were about to embark on a single lap bike course, reduced to about 22.7 miles due to local flooding. After the short climb after Olney, my heart rate was close to 170bpm which for me, on the bike, was too close to the red line. I eased back for a few minutes to lower my heart rate but for the next eight miles or so I found it very difficult to get any sort of rhythm and was finding it difficult to average 20mph. The terrain was rolling with very few long flat or downhill stretches and I had the distinct impression that I was going backwards and not forwards! In contrast, the second half of the bike leg was fast and I was soon overtaking some of my fellow age groupers who had clearly attended more swimming lessons than me! The end of the bike leg was the usual fast downhill sprint back to Olney and with 1hr 35m on the clock, it was an elite type dismount and once more into the quagmire of transition. 

The run was also a casualty of the bad weather. Not only were conditions underfoot very wet and muddy, but the distance had to be reduced from the normal 6.2 miles to something like 5.4 miles. Having struggled over the shorter 5km distance of sprint triathlons this year, it was with some trepidation that I set off on the run. I am slowly getting used to the feeling of running sluggishly and heavy footed and this would be no exception. I plodded around each of the three laps and overtook a fair few but there was none of that customary zip that, in the good old days, would enable me to gain places that I had lost on the swim and bike. 

It was with some relief that I crossed the finish line in 2hrs 13mins. I had set myself a target of 2hrs 25mins and taking into account the shortened bike and run, I reckon that I just about came out on top. I finished fifth in my age group with the 11th fastest swim, 3rd fastest bike and 3rd fastest run. A couple of years ago, I would have been much closer to two hours over this shortened course, but things are slowly moving in the right direction and I can now look forward to six weeks of hard training in preparation for the middle distance event at the Vitruvian in early September. 

And finally, a big thank you once again to the Big Cow team for getting the event off the ground and for putting on a great day&rsquo;s racing in very adverse conditions. Perhaps on the day, they should have re-named themselves &#039;Bog Cow&#039;!


Somebody lend me a boat!

It was not long into the 2.4 mile VOTWO Long Swim at Dorney Lake on 29 July that it dawned on me that the &#039;tank&#039; was built for rowing, not swimming, and that progress up and down the lake would have been much the easier on the water rather than in it. But to cross the magical Ironman finish line, you have no choice but to complete a 2.4 mile swim and still be fit enough to climb onto a bike for 112 miles and then finish things off with a run over the marathon distance. Although my first stab at the Ironman distance won&rsquo;t be until 13 July 2008 at the Quelle Roth Challenge, I entered the VOTWO Long Swim both to gauge my level of fitness in the swim and to give me a marker for what I can expect over the half distance swim at the Vitruvian in early September.

The event took place in the feeder lake, not in the rowing tank itself, which was very sensible given the amount of traffic on the lake proper early on a Sunday morning. The course was a simple two lap affair but as nearly always seems to be the case at Dorney, the wind was to play a big part for the less accomplished swimmers who had to fight against a strong wind on both return legs and into quite a chop on the surface. Even in long distance swim events, there is no way of escaping the &#039;washing machine&#039; experience though, on this occasion, things did settle down after five minutes of hard swimming. I soon got into a good rhythm and tried my best to latch onto faster swimmers&rsquo; feet and draft my way around the 2.4 mile circuit. After 1 hour and 13 minutes, I hauled myself out of the lake and made a few stumbling steps to cross the finish line. I had been hoping to duck under 70 minutes but wasn&rsquo;t too disappointed given the low volume of swim training so far this year. Provided that I continue with my swim training throughout the coming winter (I usually take three months off) and can work hard once the open water swim season starts in April next year, I left Dorney Lake confident that I could beat my 70 minute target at Roth in July 2008. 

My day at the London Triathlon

I have been around triathlon long enough to remember the very early stagings of the London Triathlon which, to be frank, received a very poor coverage in the press and from competitors. The event has therefore never featured on my radar but in recent years, the event has grown both in stature and reputation. Could I be tempted to join the thousands who flocked to the Docklands area on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year so far? Well no, but the organisers were looking for a handful of spotters to work alongside the BBC camera crews with the promise of a free entry for the 2008 event. This would be an ideal way of finding just how far the event had progressed and I had no hesitation in offering my services. 

On arriving at the ExCeL Centre, me and my fellow spotters were handed our radio sets and given a quick lesson in the art of communication. We were posted at various points around the course and I was lucky enough to be posted to the pedestrian footbridge just outside the ExCeL Centre. My job was to radio in the location and identity of the main elite triathletes as they crossed under the footbridge, together with a short description of their attire. Cameramen have enough to do without having to work out who Tim Don or Michelle Dillon are so it was our job to tell them who they should be following. It did of course mean that I had a grandstand view of both elite races and although it was pretty clear who was going to win pretty early on into both races, it was nevertheless a great experience to see these guys racing in the flesh. A truly awesome experience and apart from the searing heat, it persuaded me that I would enjoy my free entry for next year&rsquo;s race.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Déjà vu]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_2246.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[Reading John Levison&amp;rsquo;s latest column  struck a chord  and reminded me of how I felt on the final 5km run at the F3 Events sprint triathlon at Dorney Lake on July 4th. Like me, John has a strong running pedigree but, albeit for differing reasons, we now find ourselves struggling in what used to be our strongest discipline.

It is all too easy to look back on my halcyon days when 34min 10kms and 1hr 14min half marathons were pretty much par for the course but we somehow seem to forget that we were probably logging in excess of 50 to 60 miles a week of running. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that our times begin to dip once we incorporate two completely new sports into our training regime. In all my 12 years or so of triathlon, I think you can count the number of training weeks where I have exceeded 30 miles of running on the fingers of one hand. Yet, up until last year, I was still clocking 18/19 minute 5km runs at the end of a sprint triathlon and sub 40 minute runs for 10km Olympic distance runs but all that changed at the end of the 2005 season when I developed the eye problem that most of you are fed up of hearing about!&amp;nbsp; To cut a long story short, I have missed out on two winter&amp;rsquo;s training as far as my normal long/slow/distance work is concerned and although I have never stopped run training completely &amp;ndash; apart from the immediate post operation periods &amp;ndash; the lack of endurance work is now manifesting itself in some pretty dismal run times. 

I say &#039;dismal&#039; in a relative sense, by way of comparison to what I have achieved in the past because I&amp;rsquo;m sure there are many of you reading this who would just love to be able to run a 22 minute 5km at the end of a sprint triathlon. But to me - and this brings me back to the evening of July 4th - this feels so pedestrian and alien. OK, it had been a very hard bike into a biting wind and the legs were pretty much shot, but unlike a few years ago, I had no selection of running gears available. I have become a single paced runner, unable to up the ante to run down any of my rivals. 

And the solution? Well, some decent summer weather when you can slap on the sun cream and kiss goodbye to those pasty white legs would help. As would some consistent run training over the ensuing months. On the one hand, I am building up my training distances across all three disciplines to try and make up for the endurance work I missed out on over the winter, but at the same time, I am trying to race as&amp;nbsp; often as possible. In practice, this means that there is very little space for easy tapering weeks before races which only adds to the problem. As well as not being race fit, I am also going into races tired and heavy legged but the important thing is not to get depressed, keep positive and remember that the only target this year is a podium finish at the Vitruvian in September. Plenty of time for improvement. Fingers crossed!

June&amp;rsquo;s training
Training remains pretty much hit and miss. I&amp;rsquo;m still struggling to improve on my average training volume of 4/5 hours although the one ray of light on an otherwise gloomy background is that my long distance swimming is coming along nicely. I am now swimming three laps of Heron Lake &amp;ndash; about 2700m &amp;ndash; in about 46 minutes which I hope will stand me in good stead for the 3800m swim at the VOTWO Long Swim event at Dorney Lake on  July 29th. But the less said about the bike and the run, the better. Steady progress is perhaps being overly optimistic and the proof of the pudding will be at the Big Cow standard distance triathlon on 22nd July. For a variety of reasons, this is a notoriously fast course which, in view of my lack of preparation, particularly on the run, may give me a faster time than my level of fitness warrants. My suspicion is that I will have a fairly good swim (25 minutes?), an average bike (1hr 15mins?) but then collapse hopelessly on the run for a 45 minute 10km for a finishing time around the 2hr 25min mark. In all honesty, I would be happy for anything under two and a half hours. Anything quicker would be a bonus.

Bob&amp;rsquo;s Top Tip
If, like me, you attach your bike shoes to the pedals for a quick get away in T1, then here&amp;rsquo;s a little tip to ensure that the whole thing doesn&amp;rsquo;t go pear shaped. Now, not all bike shoes are the same, but the Adidas and Carnac shoes I use both use a single velcro tightening strap which runs through a plastic slot. Most of us, I guess, open up the strap as loose as possible to enable the foot to slip in without too much problem, but I have lost count of the number of times when I have arrived in T1 only to find that the strap has somehow magically tightened itself!&amp;nbsp; So what I do now is to take some paper with me and tear off a small strip which I then fold small enough to wedge between the underneath of the strap and the plastic slot. The trick is to make the paper wedge big enough to lock the strap in place, but not so big that it doesn&amp;rsquo;t slip out when you pull the strap tight after inserting your foot. ]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[The merry month of May - not!]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_2125.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[&amp;quot;One swallow does not a summer make&amp;quot; - or words to that effect. The great bard&rsquo;s words hit home to me as I collected my thoughts on my training and racing in the merry month of May. After a solid month of training in April and a good result at the second Thames Turbo race in early May, it is disappointing to report that things have not progressed as much as I had hoped. I could, of course, blame my lack of motivation but I think I&rsquo;ll take the cowards way out and blame the weather. To be honest, after an early start at work and a long commute home, I really do need some decent weather to motivate me to get out of the door again. Alas, it was not to be. The dank and drizzly weather throughout May quite literally put a damper on my training and although I haven&rsquo;t necessarily gone backwards in terms of training volume or fitness level, neither have I made the leap forward in May that I was hoping for.

Swimming

With a handful of open water sessions under my belt, I am regaining the confidence to be able to hold my own in the water.  Already, my times at Heron Lake are comparable to what I was achieving towards the end of last season, though I don&rsquo;t rule out the possibility that somebody has moved the marker bouys! I am still managing to get down to the local 25m pool twice during the week  and have managed a few sub 6:45 400m swims, which is still way short of my season&rsquo;s target of 6:15. But, having said that, my main focus this year is on having a successful outing (no, not that kind!) at the Vitruvian middle distance event in September, so most of the emphasis in training over the next few months will be on improving my speed/endurance in the open water.

I&rsquo;m not sure why, but at last week&rsquo;s session at Heron Lake, I purchased a pair of Aqua Sphere&rsquo;s swim mitts, the ones with the webbed fingers. I tried them in the pool this week and improved my 750m swim time by over a minute! I had the impression that my hand entry was better than normal, ie more controlled, and that all important &ldquo;feel&rdquo; for the water was also heightened. I was half expecting to end up with sore shoulders the following day but, touch wood, there were no negative side effects. Time will tell whether they prove their worth and do anything to improve my swim technique. And anybody that has seen me swim will know why I use the word &ldquo;technique&rdquo; advisedly!

Biking

Being a fair weather cyclist at the best of times, meant that I spent most of the wet and windy May indoors logging up hundreds of miles a week on the turbo. I know that this strategy is far from ideal but its better than doing no bike work at all, and for all but the most technical of courses, it gets me around in reasonable shape. As long as I can get four to six weeks of actual road mileage in before the Vitruvian, I&rsquo;m pretty confident of posting a good bike split come the big day.

Running

My running continues to improve, though it has to be said that I&rsquo;m not seeing as much progress when running after a hard swim/bike under race conditions. This probably points to the need for more regular brick sessions to get the body used to running hard when tired. I still need to shed about three quarters of a stone to get me back to the weight I was at in 2004 when I had one of my best seasons so all in all I&rsquo;m pretty happy with the way things are shaping up.

A day at the races - well, two actually!

As one of the two hundred or so folk lined up to take part in the third race in the Thames Turbo Sprint series on 28th May, I&rsquo;m sure I was not alone in thinking that getting up at the crack of dawn on a Bank Holiday morning was not the best decision I had ever made. Temperature was 7/8 degrees, the wind was gusting in all directions and the threat of rain was ever present. Perfect weather for a triathlon!

Climbing into the heated open air pool at Hampton was welcome respite from the cold, but after 7 minutes of frantic arm whirling, it was back on to terra firma and into T1. I had already decided to slip on a cycle jacket for the bike split and thankfully, this slipped on pretty easily. Thankfully also, the rain held off, but the wind was playing havoc and bike times across the board were several minutes off the usual pace. My bike split was pretty uneventful until with two miles to go, I started to feel more bumps from the rear tyre than normal. I was losing pressure and a mile later, the rear tyre was completely flat. This is my first season using clinchers and whereas in the past I felt able to ride pretty hard on a flat tubular, this time, I was weary of the tyre coming adrift from the rim. I was also worried about trashing my new Flashpoint F60 wheels!

Being so close to the bike finish, I decided to ride the final mile, and the &ldquo;dead zone&rdquo;, out of the saddle. Probably not the best decision, given the 5km run to follow, but it kept me in the race and I was determined to finish. By the time I exited T2, I knew that I had lost a good few minutes on the bike and I coasted around the run to finish in a time of 1:12, some four minutes off my target time. But I did take some consolation in the fact that I finished the event, unlike others who were not so lucky and had punctured some distance from the finish. 

Later in the week, I ventured down to Emberton Country Park in Milton Keynes for the National Aquathon Championships over a 750m swim and 5.3km run. Compared to earlier in the week, the weather was perfect for racing and spectating and it wasn&rsquo;t long before the smell of sun cream was filling the air! A few days before the race I had swum a 12:50 750m in the pool and was looking for something in the region of 12 minutes on race day. I&rsquo;m not sure whether it was my lack of speed-endurance or an over distance swim, but exiting the water in 13:42 was disappointing. Some 40 seconds later, I was out of the wetsuit, on with the shoes and out on to the run. I felt strong and confident and the sun on my back was very welcoming. At the end of the first of two laps, somebody decided to draft me. He made no attempt to share the work and stayed religiously on my heels for the rest of the run. With half a mile to go, we overtook somebody who he was clearly pleased to pass and muttered something about getting the podium finish. But was he in my age group? I wasn&rsquo;t sure and was dreading a final vomit-inducing sprint for the line but with 200m to go, he thanked me for pacing him around and let me cross the line unchallenged. It turned out that he won the 60-65 age group! That just about summed up my day. A good race, but not good enough to compete for any honours. I finished in a time of 37:07 to finish in eighth place in my age group, some eight minutes adrift of the winner, Kevin Partridge and ten minutes from the overall winner, Andy Tarry. And, to make a good day even better, I had a clear drive home on the M1 and M25!

What next?

My next blog will include a report of my endeavours at the European Duathlon Championships in Edinburgh on 16 June.  I am not in great shape and will go there with the intention of enjoying the occasion and participating without the pressure of hard racing. I haven&rsquo;t managed a sub 40 minute 10km for several years now so I&rsquo;m not expecting to finish the first leg in under 42 minutes. If I take the first 10km easy, and feel good on the bike, I might then start to push hard to see what is in the tank, the worst thing I can do is to get caught up in the pre-race banter and go off with the leaders. Oxygen debt and a DNF would surely be the only outcome!]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Back to winning ways]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_1994.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[Bob&amp;rsquo;s been seduced by the sparkly new trophies that Thames Turbo have on offer for their races this year. Trouble is, unless he can get a grip on his malfunctioning wardrobe, the referees may well be reading this and quoting Rule 14.5 at him next time around!

 

Let&rsquo;s face it, how can you fail to up your training mileage in the glorious weather we enjoyed throughout the whole of April. Just like the French rugby team, training is oh so much the better for having the sun on your back and not having to fight the combined elements of wind, rain and cold. Which is another way of saying that my training volume has continued to increase since my last eye operation in January. This is almost entirely down to an increase in my weekly running mileage which has helped to push my weekly training volume to around the 5 hour mark. This is still some way short of what I would normally expect at this time of the year, but on the positive side, the leg injury is now a thing of the past and after a successful - though hardly speedy - season&rsquo;s opener at  the Thames Turbo earlier last month, I felt emboldened enough to abandon caution and throw the &ldquo;10%&rdquo; rule out of the window. Ok, I didn&rsquo;t go mad and double my training effort in April, but if I am to get anywhere close to a podium finish at the Vitruvian in September, it was clear that I needed to get closer to 7/8 hours a week before the early summer. 

Swimming

I am now back into a regular pattern of swimming three times a week, though I still have the problem of trying to fit this into my lunch hour which means that at best, I end up with about 25-30 minutes of actual pool time. My warm up 400m session is now consistently under 7 minutes and by the end of May, I hope to improve this by another 30 seconds. My longest straight swim is 1000m which I managed in 17 minutes 35 seconds, about a minute slower than my best but not bad considering the low base I started from in February. But the really good news is that April saw the first open water session of the season. I don&rsquo;t exactly hate pool swimming, but given the choice, give me open water swimming every time. For me, triathlon is all about open water swimming and where better to learn that craft than in the same environment in which we race. For the past four years or so I have made the short journey from Woking to Heron lake in Wraysbury for my early Saturday morning swim. And so it was that I headed along an unusually traffic free M25 on 28th April  for my first open water session of the season. With the unusually hot weather in April, water temperature was bound to up on the average for the time of year but I was taking no chances! At 6.30am and suitably attired in wetsuit, neoprene hat and boots, I took that momentous decision to dive into the cold, clear waters of Heron lake. Those of us brave enough to face the open water in the spring will be all too familiar with the &ldquo;ice-cream headache&rdquo; sensation. In years gone by, this has lasted for the entire session with feet remaining impervious to any feeling for hours afterwards. But this year, the discomfort only lasted for about the first 100m. There was none of the usual panic and hyperventilation and having spoken with others after the session, the general opinion was that the conditions were more typical of late May rather than late April. 

Having only managed a 1000m pool swim, I restricted this first session to a single lap of 900m followed by a smaller lap of 500m. My time for the 900m lap was 18min 4sec, about a minute and a half off my best time, so plenty of room for improvement there!
On yer bike!

Or in my case, not! Despite the good weather in recent weeks, I am still not managing to head out on to the open roads on the bike. I think that this has become a mental thing and isn&rsquo;t helped by the fact that I still seem able to record half decent splits on turbo training alone. Having said that, I am mindful that turbo training has its limitations and is hardly the ideal training tool for middle to long distance racing or on shorter, technical courses, so I am happy to concede that I am selling myself short by limiting my bike training to the confines of my garage! Having said that, I am showing signs of improvement on the turbo. At the beginning of February, my normal recovery session of 45 minutes, easy spinning at 180 watts was completed at an average heart rate of 130-135bpm. This is now down to 115-120. My end of month ten mile time trial test session has also improved from 21min 35s in February to 20 min 6s at the end of April. I should of course emphasise that this bears no relation whatsoever to what I might achieve in a real world 10 mile TT! 

Keep on running&hellip;

Having been plagued with a calf injury since November last year, I was beginning to think that things would never get back to normal. Because of my background, I rely a great deal on my running to maintain cardio-vascular fitness so when I stop running, my whole triathlon world crumbles! But the good news is that April was entirely injury free, something I put down to a daily routine of leg raises to strengthen the calf muscles. Either that, or I have developed so much scar tissue over the years that there is no longer any muscle to injure! I am now back to running 15-20 miles a week, with the longest run at 11 miles. At this point in the season, I don&rsquo;t intend to go much beyond the half marathon distance in training and in addition to this long week-end run, I will also introduce a short, tempo run of about 5km, a longer fartlek session and one easy recovery session.


Monthly training: April


  
    Swim time/mileage
    1hr 50min 29s / 5878m
  
  
    Bike time/mileage
    10hrs 53min 10s / 275.45miles
  
  
    Run time/mileage
    5hrs 58min 10s / 51.14 miles
  


Back to winning ways&hellip;

The early bank holiday Monday saw the second in the popular Thames Turbo sprint series. Not only was there a strong wind and squally showers to contend with, but also a 25m stretch of roadworks where we were required to dismount and walk in one direction and slow down to a single file, 10kmh on the way back. Despite these handicaps, I managed to finish about a minute faster than 4 weeks ago and notched up my first age group victory of the season. I&rsquo;m not sure whether to put it down to co-incidence or the race organiser&rsquo;s masochistic tendencies but my main competition in the shape of Mike Morris, was only about 5 places behind me at the start of the swim. Knowing that I was being hunted down all the way certainly kept my pace high -  and my heart rate. On the bike, I averaged 165bpm, or 90% of my max! Having put 100% effort into the bike leg, I knew that my legs would be pretty much shot for the final 5km run, but from somewhere, I managed to drag myself around in 22min 35s, which includes the time spent in T2. This was about 10 seconds faster than last time, so some progress here as well. My finishing time of 1hr 10min 2s was enough to secure first place in my age group by about 46 seconds - a bit too close for comfort - but I have another three weeks to try and shave another 2 minutes or so from my time in race 3.

On balance, I am giving myself 6 out of 10 on yesterday&rsquo;s performance. I am still not at the stage, unlike 2 or 3 years ago, I can give 100% performance across all three disciplines when racing. If I go hard on the bike, I know that my run will suffer but holding back on the bike can lose the most time. 

The next race could be a real toughie. Mike Morris is racing again and Jeff Grimes will be making his first appearance in the series. Richard Stanhope, ex Olympic rower and medallist, will also be there. He recorded a 1hr 7min time in the first race and on paper, should be favourite for race 3. But the new Thames Turbo trophies are real beauties and I do so want another one in my trophy cabinet!


Bob&rsquo;s Top Tip
The day before any race is a good time to check your equipment. Apart from the obvious checks on the bike, it&rsquo;s a good idea to check tri-suits, wetsuits, etc, for any tears or, as I found to my cost at the recent Thames Turbo race, malfunctioning zips! After a hard bike split, I looked down to see that the whole front zip of my race suit had parted like the Red Sea. It was still connected at the top so I spent the entire final 5km racing bare chested, much to the amusement of all onlookers. So checking even the less obvious bits of your race equipment is worthwhile to ensure that your race isn&rsquo;t hampered by any wardrobe or technical malfunctions!]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Good news week!]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_1900.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[I know it hasn&amp;rsquo;t been that long since the last blog, but several things have happened since then that deserve mention. On Friday 13th April at approximately 10.00am, I became the proud owner of a brand new pair of Zipp Flashpoint carbon wheels. They are a 58mm deep rim clincher wheel with an aluminium braking surface and, in my eyes anyway, are the bees knees. Up to now, I have always raced on tubulars and my knowledge of race clincher tyres could be written on the top of a pin-head. But after a lot of &amp;ldquo;googling&amp;rdquo; and questions posed on various triathlon fora, I finally plumped for a pair of&amp;nbsp; Schwalbe Ultremo tyres. They are light, at only 185g and, like the Grand prix Attack/Force tyres, come in different varieties for the front and rear wheel. At the time of writing, they are on their way from a certain mail order emporium in Germany, but as soon as they are shod, I will take them for a road test and report back on their performance.
My second bit of good news came earlier this week. In a fit of unbridled optimism, given my long standing eye problem and more recent leg injury, I applied last year for a place in the GB team at the European Duathlon Championships to be held in Edimburgh on 16 June. Racing for GB on home soil was too good an opportunity to miss and having placed 4th at the same championships when they were held in Swansea in 2004, I was well motivated to try and equal, if not better that performance. The plan was to try and qualify at the Clumber Park duathlon, but the leg injury that had plagued me since November last year, put paid to that idea. In the end, I failed to compete in any of the qualifying places and in recent months, had rather lost interest in the Edinburgh race. So much so, that I promised John Lunt that I would be available to help out at the Windsor triathlon over the same weekend. Well I&amp;rsquo;m very sorry John, but a few days ago I received an e-mail from the team manager, Gary Jones, to say that I had been selected to race in Edinburgh after all. But, if it&amp;rsquo;s any consolation, I&amp;rsquo;ll be just as happy to help out at one of the Eton sprint events on the week-end of 19/20th May.
News about the Edinburgh selection is a blessing in disguise. It has now given me a mid season focus and a key race to aim for in terms of fitness and performance. As I write, I am confident of having the fitness levels to cover the 10km/40km/5km distance, but I am still way short of race pace and would be well short of the 2hrs 11min time and 4th place in the 50-54 age group that I managed at Swansea three years ago. So it&amp;rsquo;s time to climb into the hurt box, lose those final few pounds to get down to a good racing weight and start knocking out those brick sessions.
On the training front, things are going well after a sporadic month&amp;rsquo;s training in March. I&amp;rsquo;m not far off training 6 hours a week and should be up to 7/8 hours - something like my normal training regime - by the middle of May. The next test of my fitness will be at the second Thames Turbo sprint event on 9th May. I&amp;rsquo;m confident of improving on the 1hr 11min recorded at the first race on Easter Monday but quite how much the margin of improvement will be is difficult to say.]]></description></item></channel></rss>