Outlaw Half Ironman

Outlaw Half

My build up for Outlaw was fantastic. I like to do something short and fast the week before a race, just to keep me sharp. I chose the Surrey Track & Field County Champs, at Kings Meadow, Kingston for a 5000. Conditions were good, if a little hot, and having run a pb at Parliament Hill earlier in the year, when I was more run focused, I wanted to see if I could get another sub 17.

I went off targeting 80 secs per lap, which I held for 3000, coming in at 10:02. However, I laboured around the next mile in 5:44, but picked up the final 400 to make 16:55, only 3 secs off my pb. I was happy with this, knowing I had the speed to run a quick HM at Outlaw.

I was quietly confident of making the top 20 at Outlaw, giving myself a target of 4:30, and with the winner doing 4:21 in 2013. Conditions were again perfect, if a little hot, and the comparatively short swim plays into my hands over a 70.3. My targets were as follows, with change for the transition:

Swim - 33 mins

Bike - 2:30 

Run - 1:26

I had recently bought a garmin vector power meter, but was unsure what I could hold over a 90km bike leg. Recent power testing led me to an FTP of 285, so I was targeting around 242 watts, at 85%. This would be a great tool for me for the IM, so would very much be an experiment for this race.

The Swim 

It was a wave start, with approximately 400 in each wave. However, the waves were split between sub 40 and +40 min swimmers, and with it being a long straight, I was able to push hard from the off and find a good rhythm.

On coming out, I saw 31 on the clock...great start! However, my left hand had lost all feeling with the low temperature. Cue much faffing around, and an extra 2 mins lost in T1. Gutted, all that good work lost!

The Bike

The beginning of the bike route was superb, flat fast a roads, just what I like, and I was overtaking athletes from the wave ahead for fun. I stuck to my goal of 242 watts for the most part, and kept my HR around 140. 

Temperatures were hotting up, but I felt great at the halfway point, and was on course for a split closer to 2:25. The second loop saw slightly rougher roads, and was a little more technical, particularly the last 5km, which was unfortunately on awful gravelly road. I also noticed that the course was going to be long - no great shakes, but it meant that my target of a sub 4:30 was not going to happen.

Stats as follows:

Distance - 56.71 miles

Time - 2:30:06

Ave Speed - 22.7 mph

Ave Power - 237 watts

Ave HR - 142

The Run

I had a good transition this time, keen to make up for the time lost in T1. However, At this point I knew I would need to run a 1:22 half marathon, which, in the heat of the late morning wasn't going to happen. I settled into a good rhythm of 6:39 per mile, ticking off more athletes on the way.

Total finish time of 4:34, a little off what I wanted, but I was pleased with how I felt, and an overall finish position of 29th and 7th in my age group. A great platform to build off for Frankfurt!

Endurance Goals for 2014

It's been a few years since I blogged. I decided that people aren't that bothered about my results, or my training! 

However, I thought I'd start again, purely for my benefit, so that I can reflect on the big races I choose to do. This could help me improve as an athlete, and reflect on why I have or have not achieved my end goal.

Having raced and underachieved at Ironman before, and having achieved my big running goal of going sub 3 at Abingdon Marathon last year, I decide to give IM another crack, and that it would be my big goal for 2014. With a number of club athletes from Clapham Chasers competing at Ironman Frankfurt, it was a goal I felt excited to work towards. Though I tend not to excel over longer distance endurance races (my weight being the limiting factor), I've always enjoyed the thrill of training for something long, and with a big goal in mind. As much as I enjoy racing 5 & 10k's, I like the process of training for something big! So by February I was embarking on a 5 month plan to achieve IM glory. 

My running has come on leaps and bounds over the last year, down mainly to a more strategic approach to training, and specifically increasing the focus on tempo runs, rather than track running. Where I found track running useful for developing flat speed, stretching my anaerobic threshold was possibly what I really needed to work on, and what really helped me

PB's at the beginning of the year were as follows;

5km - 17:34

10km - 36:13

HM - 1:20:39

M - 2:57:57

I chose Outlaw Half, 6 weeks out from Frankfurt as my tune up race, and in the time building up to that, would put together a plan where I would try and structure my training as follows;

Mon - Steady turbo

Tue - tempo run

Wed - Interval turbo, swim

Thu - interval run

Fri - Easy run

Sat - steady run, endurance swim set

Sun - long ride into tempo run brick

Obviously, work and training with clients would affect this, but it would give me a structured focus for the week.

I also chose two half marathons; Wokingham, where I ran well for a pb a couple of years before, and Paddock Wood, in Kent - a flat, fast half two weeks before London.

I would also enter two 5km races on the track, and the Majorca 312 sportive in April, an event that would really kickstart my cycling.