The last post (of the year)

Well, it probably will be...I doubt I'll be organised enough to do another one this close to the end of the year.

So what have I been upto? For a change we'll start with non-exercise related stuff. I finally finished painting my copy of Space Hulk (images here on BGG ). In the most part really enjoyed doing the painting again...the dipping method is really very effective, and you get very good results for comparatively little time investment. It's inspired me to take on a larger painting project, this time a Warhammer 40K army, and I've decided on the Tau. Many moons ago I used to play Space Marines, so I thought I should go for something a little different. Elves/Eldar are "the ghey", Necrons are just a bit silly, Imperial Guard, though thematically great, are a little shit (possibly my next project though) and Chaos never really appealed to me. Tau as an army have a nice strong theme, and their play style is nicely focused...good strong points and weak points. I also think that they will suit the dipping technique perfectly. I've spent the last few weeks on eBay hoovering up squads, and I'm now at the point of assembling the minis, with a target of commencing an industrial painting operation over Christmas and the New Year...

Speaking of 40K, last weekend was a Fishcon, where we make a pilgrimmage to Norfolk, invade Fish's country house with a selection of PC's, and spend 60 hours beating the crap out of each other virtually. This time we spent a long time playing Dawn of War, an RTS based on Warhammer 40K. It's probably the first RTS I've actually enjoyed, as it delivers on massive firefights, and proper squad-based shenanigans, rather than the normal RTS result I see of snakes of units coming out of a factory... The rather less cerebral Left 4 Dead 2 also got some heavy play-time, being perfectly suited to a 'con (apart from the glaring omission of a LAN-based interface...all set-up has to be done via archaic console commands...). Great weekend, I really enjoyed it...

...however it does bring us back to the ugly spectre of fitness. As I've probably bleated on about before, I'm still training for Ride Across Britain. Normally weekends are taken up with long cycle rides in the rolling hills of West Berkshire, so to appease the guilt of sitting down and having no sleep for 3 days for Fishcon I decided to Yin the Yang, and cycle there. On paper it seemed fairly realistic to accomplish. A fairly simple route around London clocked in at about 170-180 miles, so if I stopped halfway at a B&B that would mean about 80-90 miles a day, which seemed emininently achieveable... what follows is a lesson in planning, and the lack-of therewithin.

I mapped a fairly high-level route, which consisted almost entirely of a list of major towns I had to pass through. For day 1 this read "Reading - Henley - High Wycombe - Hemel Hempstead - Stevenage - Cambridge" I booked a B&B in Cambridge for my overnight stop... Simple! I would simply cycle to one, then using my phone GPS pick a rough trajectory, and repeating this technique pick my way around the north-western corner of London. this looked great in theory, and I set off bright and early on the Thursday morning, well wrapped up against the cold and rain, with a rucksac with spare clothes, a lock and a plentiful supply of Torq bars and gels, while cunningly leaving my water bottles on the windowsill. I knew the route from Reading to High Wycombe, so made good time, even on the outskirts of the Chiltern Hills. I had never cycled to High Wycombe itself before, and very quickly discovered that it is remarkably well-named, though it doesn't mention it's general steepness as well. My average speed nose-dived, and at this point the rain really kicked off, and didn't leave again all day. I struggled through the Chilterns, reached Hemel Hempstead, and then struggled for 20 minutes to re-attach my chain after an impressive double-loop squeezed through the front gear-mech...

...and then I hit the Bedfordshire Downs...more bloody hills, and due to the general weather conditions I couldn't even really enjoy the downhill sections, as they were too steep to free-wheel, and corners were accidents waiting to happen. I continued to plod across the country until reaching the M1/A1, at which point I planned to head northwards to avoid major trunk roads, before crossing over to Cambridge. It was about 2pm at this point, and I reckoned on at least another 2 hours in the saddle, bringing up a concern over remaining daylight hours (mental note...December "days" are only about 7 hours long...). By the time I reached Hitchen I was pretty low on morale. My legs were frozen from the incessant rain and cold, and I had real concerns about a final run into Cambridge in the dark. Then my GPS died... Of course being as well planned as I was there was no backup navigation system, and after a (pretty feeble) attempt to get it working again I turned back to Hitchen, and headed to the train station to grab the next ride to Cambridge. The phone came back to life (it was probably the cold that killed it, though it was running Google Latitude, Nokia Sports Tracker and Google Maps, which in retrospect was not that wise), and I made my way sheepishly to the B&B to recover. I'd covered about 120km (80'ish miles), and reckoned I had about 30 or so to go when I stopped.

A hot shower, some junk food and half an hour leaning on a radiator watching crap TV and I was able to re-assess the situation. Physically I was fine. No aches or pains, plenty of energy and no injuries. I had simply been beaten by the weather, lack of daylight, and a lack of planning. I spent most of the evening working out a turn-by-turn route for the next day across Suffolk and Norfolk, as well as turning off most of the toys on my phone to preserve battery life, before collapsing asleep.

The next day, in comaprison to the first, was a complete doddle. I left the B&B at first light, and headed out of Cambridge on it's wide and generous cycle paths towards Newmarket. Half of the route was on cycle paths, the other half on a quiet A-road. Once past Newmarket I had proper country lanes and National Cycle Network routes all the way to the Norfolk Broads. The weather, as if in apology for Thursday, was dry, calm and sunny (though not especially warm far better than the day before...). The hills were behind me, and while it wasn't flat they were rollers, not cliffs. Having the planned route meant I never hit another A-Road, and very rarely even saw cars. Instead I had really rather pleasant roads around farmland, and small villages with 3 houses... I ended up racking up 130km, arriving at the Mill about 2.30pm, feeling rather cheerful.

I'd decided Thursday night that the return journey was probably not achieveable...given I ran out of time the "easy" way (with a tailwind), heading back would be even slower, and there was a 10-mile section between Henley and High Wycombe which was a major trunk road...scary enough in daylight, but terminal in the dark, and during a rush hour. With the aid of Gill I worked out a route using trains that would be fairly pain-free, however Mr.Dr. (though it's not like he could actually help you if you were bleeding to death...) Rob Lang went above and beyond all calls of duty, and drove halfway across the country to pick me and my bike up, before taxi'ing me back to Reading. Sterling work, and much appreciated, especially in the torrential downpour that occured.

All in all it was a good experience, and I'm glad I gave it a go. Perhaps next time I won't try such idiocy in December in the UK, and perhaps I may plan my route a little more thoroughly. It makes me very glad that when I go down the country in June someone else is doing the navigation and logistics, and there will be dedicated bike engineers with us. I'm also glad I won't be alone, as if the roads are not with you there is nothing worse than having no-one to pull you along. Other people may not be able to help you, but at least they can suffer with you!

My next blog post will probably be the New Years Resolutions one...expect it to include a lot of cycling, swimming, running and triathlon-related hijinks...

4 Months of Improvement...

In August I did my first 100-mile cycle, and it very nearly broke me. I suffered horrendous saddle sore, had a huge calorie deficit, and pushed my knee over into injury...it really wasn't pleasant. I'd quite obviously ramped up my distance far too quickly.

Yesterday I did 100 miles again, and coped far, far better. It was a combination of factors...partly I have strengthened up my legs, and had continual physio and massage work on my legs to keep injuries from settling in. I also approached the entire day far better, by keeping a far closer track of how I was feeling, and managing any needs. I was taking part in the first training day for Ride Across Britain. Due to the utter in-eptitude of the rail system I couldn't take my bike to Hungerford (about 25 miles away) on the train, so decided instead to cycle there and back. The weather was overcast, witha level of humidity that constantly threatened, but never quite delivered rain. I started the day with a steady session along the A4 to Hungerford...the lack of geography meant that I was able to settle into a good rhythym. I arrived at Threshold Sports, the people running RAB. They pretty much nailed all my requirements by welcoming me with hot tea and chocolate cake!
Once everyone had arrived (about 40 people were there), we all headed upstairs to slouch around on beanbags for a talk from Prof. Greg Whyte, where he covered some of the main challenges we were going to face. It was good stuff, and there were some real eye-openers to what can happen if you let a problem lie too long before you fix it. 1997 Ironman Womens Finish...this is either hilarious, or horrendous, and I'm still not sure which, but as a result of it I'm sure as hell going to make sure I keep myself well fed and watered.

We then had a quick chat from Mike Veal of Bike Dynamics, where he quickly covered the basics of bike setup...he was a man much in demand, and he stayed behind after the ride later to get people on a turbo, and do some basic adustment. I had a 10-minute session with him, and a couple of tweaks to saddle position later and I'm feeling a little smoother rolling along.

For the ride itself we were split into 3 groups roughly based on claimed abilities from phone calls over the last week. I'd obviously said something bad, as I'd been put in with the experienced riders. We started with a group of 14, led out by a pleasant chap called Tim. The route was a 19-mile circuit around West Berkshire...no big hills, but plenty of undulations, and the wet weather and leaves made some sections "interesting". We set off at about 16mph average, which is well with my ability levels, and for the most part stuck together (a couple fell off the back, however there were chaperones with each group, so they formed a new group behind us). This was my first experience of group riding, and it's going to take a little getting used to. On the plus side sitting in a group saves a huge amount of energy. At the end of the second lap Tim said we could fit in a 3rd, but the pace would have to go up...he reckoned about 18mph. I was feeling pretty good at this point... I'd been keeping topped up on gels and bars, and had also remembered to drink occasionally!, and again 18mph is within my pace. Five of us went for the 3rd lap, with the others heading back to base. Throughout the 3rd lap we started to fragment, and I'm pleased, and fairly relieved, to say that I didn't drop back. Eventually 3 of us finished on pace, with Tim dropping back to bring in the stragglers. I was really pleased with my performance...I kept up with far more experienced riders, and the work I've put in on hills paid off, as on the rolling sections I was keeping good pace, and not burning energy pointlessly.

After the ride we had a de-brief (which involved more cake for me), and then I had the 25 miles back along the A4 to do, and to add fun in it was getting dark. I have some decent lights (on both the helmet and the bike), so I prepped the bike and headed off. As I came into Newbury I started to feel fatigued. Normally I would have pushed on, and maybe taken a break once I was out the other side of Newbury, however taking Prof. Whyte's words into account I pulled over, had a food bar and a good amount of drink, and gave myself a 5-minute break...once I started up again my energy was back, and I was able to tap out a good rhythym back to Reading and home.

Really enjoyed the day...great to meet other RAB'bers, and was also good to crack out 100 miles without feeling like death the next day, and with no noticeable pain. It's still a long way to go to being able to do 115 miles a day for 9 days, but yesterday was a good milestone to hit...

Another Generic Cycling Update...

I have a feeling that this may be the general pattern of my winter...

I've completed the first month of my training for Ride Across Britain 2010, and by my calculations racked up about 800-900 miles in the four weeks. The new bike had some teething issues, however a couple of visits to a local bike store, and some emails to Wiggle sorted that out, and now the odometer on it is ticking over nicely.

The rides are basically taking four forms;

• Daily Commute - About 14 miles round trip, fairly flat. Goals here are fast pace, and practicing technique and cadence control
  
• Lunchtime Rides - a 1 hour, 18 mile loop, where the focus is on improving overall time over undulating terrain
  
• Weekend Rides - Long rides on Saturday and Sunday, to get used to cycling on tired legs, and also improve endurance over 40-80 miles. Also includes several climbs
  
• Velodrome Intervals - Speed and power work, aiming at holding a high pace and cadence for about 5 minutes at a time

The big challenge coming up is the transition to winter training. We visited the Cycle Show at Earls Court a fortnight ago, hoping to pick up winter gear, however the retail opportunities were a bit rubbish generally, so ended up ordering a lot of stuff online. I now have a windproof jacket and gloves, more shorts, some base layers and some rather clever Crud RoadRacer Mudguards, which I'm resisting fitting until I need to. The cold weather really kicked off this weekend, after a pleasantly mild start to autumn. Hopefully I'll acclimatize to the colder weather, and it would be really nice if it was a dryer winter...

One real issue I have is lights. I bought some cheapy Argos specials, and they are absolutely rubbish. Last week I had to cycle across town after dark to get to Palmer Park, and could see nothing until I hit street-lit areas. The way back was even worse, as the "light" (it barely deserves to be called that) decided to go intermittant. I've done some reading round, and there is a strong current of opinion that cycle lights are basically over-priced torches, and there have been a lot of advances in the torch arena that have not transferred over to the cycling arena. As such many suggest simply buying a torch, and strapping it to your bike. Given that I was already jury-rigging the light attachment, due to a general lack of sensible handlebars (all the clear space is given over to areo bars and elbow rests), I've ordered a Lenser P7, which has a power output of more than my current Inova T2. That and some velcro strapping should sort me out nicely. If it works out well I may pick up a second, and some LockBlocks (a simple device to make bolting the torch to a bar easier)

Weakness...

I pretty quickly cracked, and I have a day off work today to await delivery of my brand new Focus Cayo 105 from Wiggle. The Giant Defy has done really well this year, and I've clocked up over 3200km on it in 6 months, however it lacked in the gear department, which accentuated my generally patheticness on hills. I've sold it to a chap who has just left work, as he is looking to start doing some longer distance cycling.

Not only is it a jump-up in drive-chain quality, but it's also a full carbon frame. After a fair bit of shopping around I wasn't able to find any other bike that offered both a 105 system and a carbon frame for the price.


I've been trying to stick to the training plan for JOGLE, though I've slacked a bit on the interval sets, as I'm waiting for the velodrome to re-open. Last weekend I did my first back-to-back sessions, doing a fairly rapid 40 miles on Saturday, and a slower, hillier 60 miles on Sunday. The 60-miler was led by a chap called Callum, who is a fairly awesome cyclist, and he managed to haul us up most of the big hills around Henley and into the Chilterns...hard work, but I got up a couple of gradients I would have failed at a month ago, so it's a good sign. The plan for this weekend is to do another similar set, which will also be a good chance to break in the new bike (if and when it arrives...I'm checking out the window for a City Link van pretty regularly...). I'm racking my long cycles up on my Nokia SportsTracker page (I don't bother with the commutes, as to all intents and purposes they are too short to count as training). It's some great, free software for my phone, even if it is Beta, and occasionally crashes.

To back up the cycling I'm having a fortnightly physio/massage, in an attempt to conquer the continual injuries I've strugged with in the last year. The sessions are insanely painful, however I'm seeing some real benefits, adn I've been able to train at an intensity that would have reduced me to a limp earlier this year. I'm driving her mad by effectively not taking a rest day (apparently cycling to work invalidates a day as a rest??). Today will be a rest day, unless the bike arrives in the next hour and a half, in which case I'm cycling into town for PIE!

Getting braced...

This week I received my training plan for RAB 2010... Well, actually I got 3, for varying levels of ability. You were given a brief questionnaire to determine which training level you were;

• Enthusiast - What's a bicycle?
  
• Club - Has ridden a bike on occasion
  
• Pro - My name is Bradley Wiggins, and I display god-like powers on 2 wheels
  

The quiz put me in the "Pro" category, which I didn't believe at all, and that was before I even saw the plans. The schedules cover 9 months of training on a day-by-day basis, and towards the end you can expent to be spending 20-30 hours a week in the saddle, and that's on the "Club" schedule I quickly decided was the right one for me. The "Pro" one was insane, and expected you to have a Powertap (a rather expensive gizmo that measures the power you're outputing in wattage terms on the rear wheel of your bike. they are built into the hub, and need a fairly pricy computer linked upto them...)

It's starting to hit home just how far JOGLE (the nickname for John O'Groats to Lands End) is...this week I clocked up 2,000 miles cycling in the last 6 months...by comparison JOGLE is 1008 miles, and I'll be doing that in 9 days...previously it's taken 3 months! I've set myself an arbitary goal of doing the cycling bit in 60 hours, which equates to just under 17mph average, and about 6½ hours a day cycling. I'm already starting to think that I might be way too optimistic there. To add fun into the factor we'll be going north-to-south, which is against the prevailing winds in June.

I'm determined to stick close to the training plan... on a day-by-day basis items will need to be shuffled, however I'm looking to stick to the weekly targets, and use it as motivation to haul my ass off the sofa and get the miles in. In true geek fashion I've added a countdown and training agenda to my blog...it won't help any, but it should make me feel guilty whenever I see it...

Aside from the training, I will also need to sort out kit. I'm going to the CycleShow in a couple of weeks, and hoping to pick up some new shorts, tops, and also try out some saddles, looking for one that doesn't turn into a razor blade after 3 hours. I have a cunning plan that involves transplanting the aero wheels from my TT bike onto my road bike for the actual event, though I'm still half-tempted to upgrade the road-bike, as I only have 14 gears on the current one, and the 20 on the TT bike are a real blessing... Might be tricky convincing Gill on the sense behind that one...

Seasons End

as a New Years resolution I set myself the challenge of doing a triathlon this year... I ended up doing 5, and it's probably kept me sane as I've been continually pestered with leg injuries.

Last night was the final triathlon of the season... Tough gig, with sporadic showers, wet tarmac, and a nasty bit of wind from the remnants of Hurricane Bill. To complicate matters, traffic was atrocious (apparently an accident on the M3/M25 had clogged up everything, and overloaded the A-Roads), so I arrived at Dorney Lake while Gill and all my kit was grid-locked in Bracknell. While I quietly panicked Gill did sterling work getting through, and the race organisers decided to delay all the waves by 15 minutes, to give everyone time to arrive, so I ended up getting all my kit into transition, and having a vague semblance of preparing before the off.

Weather doesn't really affect the swimming bit too much, and I went for a different tactic this time, positioning myself right on the far end of the starting pack, giving me more clear water, sacrificing a bit of distance. The end result was less fisticuffs, and more chance to get into rhythm. Once again most people went wide on the return leg, and I had a clear run back in, ending up PB'ing the swim route in 13.26...

...which I promptly wasted by going onto the wrong rack in transition, and running around for a minute before finding my bike :-( That minute ended up costing me 10 places, and really highlights that I need to start taking transition more seriously. Once out on the bike it was time to face the breeze, with the outward leg of the 6 laps almost directly into it. This was the new bike's first outing, and it performed admirably...no-one overtook me, and I think I made up a fair number of places. I ended up slightly slower than the last race on the bike (32.54), however conditions were certainly against me this time, and once I almost came a cropper, coming into a corner far too fast, and coming out of it just a bit too sideways.

The run I was slightly gutted about...really pushed myself, after being chastised last time for running with someone else and chatting with them, however I came in about a minute slower (21.50), which is frankly awful, given that I've done sub 18 minute 5k runs before now...definitely something to work on over winter.

Final position was 44th, from about 350. It's OK, and hard to fully judge, as the final wave had a better time of it on the bike, as the wind was dying down, however next year I really want to start getting into the top 10%. Plan now is to take a week off cycling, to let my knee start recovering, and then start work on winter training.

Cycling - the ultimate geek sport?

Most sports can be real money pits, if you really put your mind to it. Triathlon attempts to be more expensive than most by combining several sports into 1. Outdoor swimming requires a wetsuit (specialist, of course, and you can clear £300 easily on an off-the-shelf, before spending as much as you want on having it customised to fit your particular physique). Running is in theory cheap, however you'd be surprised how fast trainers wear out, and how expensive they can go.

All this pales into comparison, however, to the bike leg. My first triathlon bike (bought a whole 6 months ago now)cost about £450, and on top of that I've put some cheap aero bars, some new tyres, and a fancy rear-mounted bottle holder, as well as the near compulsory pump, lock and basic repair kit. I reckon that I ride around on about £600 of kit. I regularly joke that my bike costs less than one wheel from some other peoples kit.

I've been doing fairly well at the cycling, given that it was the discipline that I started training on most recently... On sprint distance events I'm placing in the top 5-10% of a field on the bike, and I've also signed up for Ride Across Britain in 2010, which should either sort out my endurance or kill me. as an encouragement I decided to buy myself a new bike, and gave myself a budget of £2000. Which sounds like a lot for a bike....

...then I did the proper thing, and started to do some research. I was vaguely aware that bike geometry had some part to play, as did weight. I very quickly discovered that there is an entire sub-culture out there determined to to spend thousands of pounds to reduce the weight of their bike by a few grams, and that this obsession trickled down to every single part of the bike.

A few examples for you to mull over. My old bike had a Shimano 105 Rear derailleur (the bit that moves the chain up and down the gears). For £50 perfectly practical. It's weight is 222 grams. If you want to save a bit of weight (especially in the wallet department), you may instead plump for a hand-crafted carbon fibre model, at 120g. For a weight saving of less than 100g you pay £700 more.

How about a water bottle holder? Cheap at half the price, for £80 It only weights 27grams, before you put 750 grams of liquid in there... Or perhaps you'd like some handlebars for £800.

Insane costs, in return for a lower weight you could gain just as well by taking a decent-sized shit before a race. You could always go for a package bike, which could save you a fortune. I only just managed to find one that broke the £7,000 mark, though I'm pretty sure there are more expensive ones out there.

The real trap here is that the right kit on a bike can make you faster. It's one of the few sports where you are very reliant on a bit of mechanical kit, and as with anything competitive people will seek seconds where they can, and I have no doubt that for elite athletes those seconds count (even in 9-hour races such as Ironmans). For the over-enthusiastic amateur, however, there are definite barriers at the engine level, and I'm pretty certain that I'm not going to see much of a time benefit with a £10,000 carbon fibre shard rammed up my arse.

So I set about looking at the various options open to me in the price bracket, and it's here that I noticed a real similarity between cycling and PC specs...you can spend an in-ordinate amount of time tweaking and fiddling to get the theoretical biggest bang for your buck. The huge range of parts for a bike, and the number of manufacturers mean that there are a huge combination of setups to choose from.

I toyed with getting something fairly exotic, however realistically machines like that would rarely leave the house, as I'd be constantly terrified of getting a puncture (the more extreme wheels have a type of tyre called a Tubular, which differs to normal tyres in that they have no inner tube, and are instead a fully sealed tyre that is glued to the wheel. Apparently these reduce the roll resistance with the road, and thus make you faster, but do mean a puncture is going to screw you over big time). I'm a big believer in training on/in the kit you race with, so practicality had to play a part.

After lots of hunting around I finally found a bike that covered most of my needs, and (with a well-timed sale) was within my budget. Hopefully, tomorrow, I shall be the happy recipient of a Felt B12.

It's the cycling equivalent of a mid range graphics card, or a CPU with the architecture of the expensive brands, and ripe for over-clocking. It has the same frame and geometry as £5,000 bikes, and some wheels that are noted for decent aero-dynamic design without insane cost. The individual parts of high enough quality, without going too far over the "minimal weight reduction in return for massive outlay". It has some (compulsory) "fuck you" bling bits too (gotta love the frame cut-outs for the wheels, and the rear brake tucked in behind the seat-post). None of the bits you would expect to wear out are so exotic that they can't be replaced easily (an important consideration when you consider that I'll be training for a 1,000 mile cycle next year).

Fingers crossed it should arrive tomorrow, and after I've put it together (and bolted on the obligatory bits, like a new bottle holder (plastic) and a computer (cheap, but I did go for the wireless model) I'm looking forward to hitting the roads and seeing how she rides. I'd love to get her down the local velodrome, but that's out of action until September due to re-surfacing. Of course to justify it I now have to get my times down, however I'm not daft enough to think that "New Bike = Faster Time"...it goes nowhere without a rider, so I'd better knuckle down and work twice as hard training. I know how much I enjoy dashing past someone on a fancy bike, so now it's up to me to make sure I don't give someone else that pleasure...

More mid-week Racing

Last night was my third sprint triathlon of the year. For this one we decided to try a different organisational company called Human Race, who are doing a monthly series sponsored by 220 Triathlon Magazine. They have a good reputation (and also organise the big Windsor Triathlon).

The organisation on their part was certainly better, I just wish the same could be said of myself. I was once again racing with Harry, however he'd been up working the previous night on a panic fix, so was somewhat off kilter. For part I have an interesting collection of leg injuries (a strained Achilles and a still broken toe), meaning my running has been non-existent. As I cycled to Harry's I also picked up a puncture (I've had a real issue with tyres recently, as the brand I use have been recalled due to manufacturing errors, and the replacements seem to be ropey as well). A stone had punched itself all the way through the tyre, leaving a fairly big hole. There was no time to fix it at Harry's place, and I had my spare at home, so I called Gill, who very kindly diverted to mine to grab the spare, and a new inner tube, before heading to Dorney Lake. As we set off the rain (which had been intermittent throughout the day) became a vicious deluge, making it pretty apparent that the tarmac would be wet for the race.

We arrived about 50 minutes before the race kick-off, and quickly registered and moved the kit to the transition area. As we were racking up Gill turned up with the tyre, so I quickly got to swapping the rubber over. The big benefit of folding tyres is that they are pretty easy to get on and off the wheel, and with the aid of a track pump I had the front wheel replaced in about 5 minutes. After that it was a hurried sort out of the rack and kit, before dropping off my bags with Gill (who I think is resigned to me throwing bags over the fence to her in a race...I really am a bit disorganised at the start), squeezing into the wetsuit, and walking over for the race briefing.

The route was a bit different to the last race at Dorney...for a start the swim route looked pretty close to the correct distance (previously it's been either too short or too long), the bike route was on the other side of the lake, and consisted of 6 laps of a flat loop, with 3 corners of real note. The run was on the island, and was a fairly simple 2 laps up and down. We waited for the final swimmers from the early wave to clear the water (to rapturous applause and encouragement...one lad had been breast-stroking it, but bravely put in a 25 metre front crawl for the crowds), and then everyone piled in. We were in the main wave, and over 150 people had registered for it...by far my biggest start to date. Harry and myself went through our customary good-lucks, then split up to avoid thumping each other over the head once the race got underway.

The swim start was hectic, and very violent. For the first 200 metres there was a lot of punching, bashing and climbing going on. I was wedged in between 2 other swimmers, and the guy on the right of me was pushing in pretty hard. I ended up pulling off a fairly nasty move, which involved rolling onto my side, and coming down on top of him with my shoulder, effectively dunking him. I think that made him pull up (I certainly didn't see him again). Once he was gone I was able to drift to the right a bit, find some clear water, and settle into my stroke. By the first turn I was just behind a big group of swimmers, however they had the decency of all going off course on the return stretch, while I managed to keep a straight line right back to the final turn, and ended up ahead of them by a good 25-30 metres, and was on the toes of a single other swimmer...we ended up coming out of the water together, and I just got ahead of him in the run into transition to swap over to the bike (end time for the swim was 13.47, with a transition time of 1.32...not bad, though there is time to be saved in transition).

The bike is quickly turning into my favourite leg, and last night was no exception. The weather, which had been looking ominous, had cleared up, the wind had dropped, effectively turning into great cycling conditions. I was able to quickly get up to speed (about 24-25mph) and start hunting down the faster swimmers. I'd remembered to tape a couple of energy gel sachets to my bike for this race, and it paid off, letting me keep my speed up for the 20km leg. As it was laps it got a bit tricky to work out who I was passing, and who was from a previous wave, or a lap behind, however no-one overtook me (well, one guy did, but he was a lap down, and I quickly took him back when he overcooked himself) and I was regularly flying past people. As the surface was wet I was taking the corners gently, but managed to get past lots of people accelerating out onto the straights. I'd targeted myself at sub-33 minutes for the bike section, and was chuffed to roll in 32.39. I then wasted half the effort by having a rubbish transition (the tongue of my trainers dived in as I pulled them on, so I had to sit down and re-fit them).

I'd decided beforehand that I couldn't risk pushing myself on the run leg...my Achilles is not in great condition, and I really don't want another 6-8 weeks of downtime while I let another bit of me recover. I ended up running with another chap who came out of transition with me, and quickly formed a gentleman's agreement to pace each other for the most part, and finish on a sprint. This worked really well, and coming into the last kilometre he said we should aim to take the 3 people in front of us. we got past the first 2, and then I had to let him go ahead, as I started to get the formation of a stitch (this is what a summer of not running does for you). I trundled in with a run time of 20.55 (which is a bit slow for me, by about a minute, but it was expected to some extent). Final time was 1:10.07, and a final position of 27th out of 233, which I'm really chuffed with.

No photos this time, but Gill borrowed a camcorder which I'll be sorting out tonight, so hopefully some video of Harry and myself swimming, cycling and running. We checked the footage out on the screen last night and it looks really good.

I have one more sprint triathlon this year, and then it's into winter training, which will consist of learning to run again (planning to do cross-country, and also train for Reading Half), learning to swim properly (without using a pullbouy), and building up cycling endurance and strength. I've signed up for Ride Across Britain for June next year as an incentive to get my endurance up...if cycling 110 miles a day doesn't sort me out, nothing will!

Stupid Hobbies

After having survived a couple of sprint triathlons in the last couple of months I decided (with a bit of encouragement) to have a go at an olymic distance triathlon. In terms of time and distance it's a big step-up from Sprint distance to Olympic...well, double everything in fact. The distances involved would be a 1.5km swim, a 40km bike ride, and a 10k run. I had done most of these in isolation (with the exception of the bike, where my furthest distance had been 30km in one session), however I'd done no session anywhere near the overall time of the race...

...and then there came the course selection. Triathlons are actually quite hard to get into at short notice compared to running races, as the allowed number of participants is much lower (due to space requirements...the transition area, and swim start are all busy, crowded moments). I've been doing some training with a lad from work called Harry, and we eventually found an event in the Midlands called the Eastnor Castle triathlon, and duely put out names down.

Lesson 1...really check the course details! We found out a week beforehand that the cycle course (which was 2 laps of a 21km course) traversed a section of the Malvern Hills, and included an ascent approximately 10 times higher than anything we had trained on! Other features of note on the course was a shallow section to the lake (referred to as the "Eastnor Swim Hill"). Needless to say, the week leading upto the event was very nervy, and I was really worried that I had done nowhere near enough training prep...

We decided to combine the race with Gill's first experience of camping. We had borrowed her sisters tent (which was more akin to a garage!), and headed upto Eastnor the day before the race. The campsite was OK...the water was not working, but a quick trip to the supermarket sorted that out, and we had an excess of food, a decent gas burner, and tea-making facilities. Even the airbed (yeah, I know...proper soft camping) failed to go down. In fact it all went pretty well, and as the campsite was just triathletes for the race there were no real worries about security (good luck to anyone trying to make off with a bike, as they'd have quickly found a lack of pedals, and several overtly healthy chaps running him down!). I haven't been camping for ages, and must admit it was nice to have the extra space in the big tent...

Race day itself started off rather wet and damp, however it soon warmed up. Harry was travelling up on the day, and actually turned up on time for once! Gill and myself had driven round the bike course the night before, and I was now fairly worried about the massive ascent up the Malvern Hills... There were 2 transition points, and I spent ages getting both set up (I kept forgetting stuff, and there was a last minute toilet run), before we all suited up, and wandered down to the lake. In total there were about 130-140 runners, competing in 2 distances (I was doing the shorter one...some nutters were doing double the distance!). We all jumped in the lake (well, I climbed in), and had the swim route explained to us...2 and a half laps of the lake, followed by a 300 metre run to the bike transition. My plan was to go gently on all 3 legs really, as I had no real idea of how I'd cope with the distance. Just after 10am we kicked off...

The swim was pretty hard. Initially there were loads of people climbing over each other, as the water was very murky, and you had no hope of spotting nearby people. Then, just as people were starting to split out, we hit the shallow section, and it pretty much turned to nighttime while your face was underwater. The water was so shallow that your hands hit the floor, and the muddy bottom was being churned up by everyone. In this area my mask misted up, and I got utterly disorientated, and as I couldn't see I was trying to swim with my head up, which got me out of rhythym and out of breath. As we started to 2 proper laps I went wide, calmed myself down, and quickly took 5 seconds to clear my mask. Once that was done I came back online, and the next 2 laps went much better (the muddy section was nowhere near as bad once you were expecting it, and with a less dense crowd of people around you). I'd aimed to be out of the swim in 28 minutes, but actually took 30 (and was about 18th in my race), though lots of people think the swim was a bit long (this is pretty typical in triathlons...the distance of legs will vary a bit). It was then the long run to transition to get on the bike...

In total it took me 3 minutes to get to transition, get out of my wetsuit, get shoed up and on the road. I'd taken the decision to put on socks (I was going to do that for the run anyway, and decided that I may as well have the benefit for the bike as well). I then ate an energy gel, and settled down into a decent pace...or wouldhave liked to, only I was soon facing the ripples of the Malverns. At 2km there was a smaller ascent (prior to the race I would have referred to this as a massive hill, however my concept of scale has changed in the last week). First time over this I went at a fair pace, and took a few places back. From there it was about 10km of undulations, and a couple of decent fast sections. The wind was fairly gentle for the most part, and for the first half of the first lap I was feeling pretty good... And then the hill hit. Initially there was about 2km of gentle ascent (now into the breeze), and then you hit the ridge of the Malverns, and I quite literally ran out of gears on the bike. I ended up in first gear, out of the saddle and with a cadence similar to that of a slug. First time up I had to stop, reset my gears, and then continue up...it really was the hardest thing I've put myself through. The slope gentled up slightly, however I never got out of first gear, and by the time I reached the top my quads were burning, and all I could think was "crap...I have to do that again".

There was then a long descent, where you could get upto speeds of about 40mph. I wasn't confident enough on the bike to really tuck in and fly down properly, however it was a welcome rest. Starting the second lap while I felt OK, my quads were aching and I really felt it on the ascents. I had a computer recording the ride, and on the second lap I was notably slower on the uphills, though I kept my flat speeds up. A couple of people got past me (though some were doing the longer distance). Coming upto the hill for the second time I again had to stop and reset my gears (really need to work on hills more), however this time fatigue had the better of me, and I missed my footing when restarting, and had a brief coming together with the tarmac as I discovered the nasty downsides to clip-in pedals. I jumped back up, and annoyance with myself got me back up again, then I really did take my time going bck down the other side. I was thoroughly relieved to roll into transition (though again fatigue had an input again, and I slipped off the saddle, and came to a halt slding on both cleats, and my crotch on the crossbar of the bike, while a marshal dived for cover). Final time on the bike was 1 hour and 29 minutes, which was 17th overall in my race.

The final leg was a 10k run through a deer park, fortunately reasonably flat for the most part. I really didn't push myself on this part, partly as I had a broken toe, and hadn't really done any training. Saw Harry for the first time, as the race doubled back on itself a few times. He was a fair few places ahead of me, but wasn't really too worried about that. The run was for the main part fairly un-eventful...I stopped a couple of times to drink, and walked the one really nasty hill (and after checking on the people ahead and behind me didn't actually lose any time), and was fairly shocked to finish the run in 38 minutes (which was technically a new PB). Checking after the event indicates that the run was probably closer to 7.5km, which sounds more realistic.

So there you go...first olympic triathlon done, with a final time of 2 hours and 43 minutes, and a final position of 21st (out of 50 finishers). I saw a few people drop out on the bike (a puncture on the more remote sections of the race would pretty much be an end for you), and Gill saw one chap breast-stroking, and it looks like he never registered a time. I'm more than happy with the time and position...frankly I'm just glad to have got through that bike ride in one piece. I'm not sure I'll get to do another one of that distance this year (hard to find local events that aren't already full up),butI plan to do some next year, and now I have a much better idea of what's involved!

Halfway House

Nearly halfway through the year, which is more than a little scary. Time to see how the New Year Resolutions are shaping up...

1) Regain running fitness after injury.
I missed my target of 1h 30 for the Reading Half, though in retrospect the physio treatment time lines meant I never really had a chance to get back up to speed properly. Generally speaking I'm back in shape...still a little slow on the running, but certainly better. It's been helped no end by number 2 (below) and the tri-training. I'm notably a slightly different shape now, as the swimming and cycling take effect.

2) Start cycling to work.
Mission accomplished here. As well as cycling to work, I'm also doing some lunchtime cycles, and whenever possible going to Gill's on the bike as well, so averaging about 100-150km a week. My bike is holding up well, and in general for the distance I'm covering not many punctures or mechanical issues.

3) Do a triathlon.
Again, job done. I did the Dorney Lake sprint tri a few weeks ago, and I have at least 4 more scheduled in over summer, with the possibility of a couple more. More than anything I'm enjoying the variation in training, and I've been doing lots of bike work, and both pool-based and open water swimming. The running is not getting quite the work is deserves, mainly as I have a nagging worry about re-aggravating the knee...

4) Sort out the porch...
This one may not be achieved this year, due to fiscal constraints. Instead I'm currently considering doing one (or more) of the following pieces of work;

• New dishwasher and undersink plumbing in the kitchen
  
• New oven
  
• New garage door

(3) is the sensible option, and I'm going to chase up some quotes once the bonus is in.

5) Eat healthier.
Doing a little better here. I'm reducing the daytime snacking, and work now have a kettle, rather than just drinks machines, so I have moved off the hot chocolate to cuppas, which have far less fat and sugar in it. Weekends are still a bit of an issue, but far better than it was (and plenty more still to do). In my defense I'm dropping weight at the moment, so I do need all the calories I'm taking in, though I could probably do with improving the shift from simple carbs to more useful proteins and complex carbs...

6) Be a little less paranoid.
Who said that?

All in all not too bad. Three are fully achieved, one is in progress, and only one has had to be changed (I'm going to ignore the paranoia one for now, as it's not really quantifiable).

Time-lapsing...for fun and profit?

Well, maybe not profit.

I've just posted up a timelapse video of teh car jouney back from the Gower peninsula to Reading, and I'd thought I should back it up with a few notes on the steps I had to go through in order to make it...

The filming equipment was;

• Advent 4213 netbook
  
• Creative Optia Pro HD Webcam
  
• 150W Power Interver

The netbook was running the Creative software (Live! Cam Centre) for the webcam, which has a function called "Remote Monitoring", which can be set to take an image capture every x seconds and save it to the hard-drive (and if you are particularly eager, upload it to a website as well). For this video the time was every second, however due to the performance limitations of the netbook it slowly dropped to about 1 image every 4 seconds.

The webcam was attached to the sun-visor in the passenger seat, and the output image flipped/inverted as required in the driver settings (the camera was technically upside down). I took the biggest possible image size (1280x1024) and disabled automatic exposure control (which had trouble when facing towards the sun). The netbook was plugged into the inverter (the previous attempt to do the video on the way there had shown that the battery life was not enough to record the entire journey). In total 5337 images were taken over the course of 3 hours.

The images were all renamed into a numerically sequential order using the "batch rename" functionality of ACDSee, and then fed into VirtualDub as an image feed. VirtualDub can save sequentially named images as a video file. As part of doing this, I also applied a Crop filter to the output file to reduce the image size from 1280x1024 to 1280x720 (YouTubes preferred HD file format).

Once that was done I had the main video file, and I just needed to top and tail it in my preferred video editing software. Add an MP3 (took a few minutes to find one that was both long enough and vaguely relevant to the subject matter), and then encode it using a Divx 5 HD profile and upload it to YouTube...

Simples...

a Change of Tempo

The Reading Half is finally out of the way. By my standards it didn't go too well, with a finishing time of 1 hour and 33 minutes...my goal was always to get round without an injury however, and that was aciheved, so we'll call it a draw and move on.

The next race is a triathlon in May, and before then I have to get myself upto speed on a bike. I intend to cycle into work every day over summer, and build up the confidence and speed on the machine. This weekend I bolted a cycle computer to it, nad I now know that I cycle at about 20 miles an hour, with my target being 25. It should be achieveable, just need to get the feel of putting the power down into the pedals. I also need to sort out some outdoor swimming practice, as I'd rather not have my first wetsuit swim being "in anger".

In other, non-exercise related things, the Descent Team recently finished a rather long campaign (we reckon about a year in total). Byrnie did sterling work as the Overlord, and managed to go into the finale with a decent lead, and we all thought that it would be a brutal death to the heores, however the game was against Byrnie in a quite horrendous way, and in aspects we never really thought about, resulting in a fairly unexpected (and rather un-climactic) win for the Hero team late on Saturday/early on Sunday. Overall it was a good experience, though I think we are all feeling a bit of balance-fatigue and rulebook-exposure. There is a plan to take a session or two's break, and then start another campaign.

We've been having a few Left4Dead online sessions, which are a riot. It's quite possibly the best team-based game I've played, as it actually involves working together (not just playing together). In three weeks time an expansion comes out for it, which should add to the fun no end! My xBox360, on the other hand, is currently sitting at a repair site in Germany, after deciding to stop outputting sound. The Microsoft support system for them is actually fairly comprehensive, and after two phone calls doing trouble-shooting a pickup from UPS was arranged. This weekend I picked up a cheap copy of House of the Dead:Overkill for the Wii, and it's quite possibly the most hilarious game I've played in a long time. Gill and myself spent a cracking afternoon blasting our way through the initial campaign. The entire theme of the game is done out in a camped-up 70's psychodelic horror (the closest film similie I can reference is House of 1000 Corpses, which I'm fairly certain in turn takes it's style from another, older film).

We have a holiday sorted for Wales in a few weeks time, which is promising to be an eclectic blend of walking, boardgames, consoles and food, with the pleasant backdrop of the Gower peninsula. I'm dragging along my bike, a wetsuit and a kite, though I probably won't try and use them all at the same time. Fingers crossed that the weather holds on, as for the last couple of weeks it's actually been rather spendid. I'll also have a couple of crates of games, including Smallworld, if it decides to arrive on time...

If the weather does hold on, then this weekend (Easter weekend) I plan to finish prepping the garden for summer. We spent a couple od days tediously scrubbing and cleaning the decking, ready for a new coat of stain. I've tried to seed the patches in the lawn as well, but it doesn't seem to have taken (and the bloody pidgeons have eaten it all now!). Once it's serviceable then I suspect there may well be a barbeque planned...well, it would be rude not to!

Hilly ground...

I've just done my last long training run before the Reading Half next weekend. I'm on a course in London all week, so won't get a chance to do any long sessions over the week, maybe a 10k at some point.

I'm struggling on all fronts...speed, stamina, and strength on the hills, and it's all really down to a lack of training. I only got the all-clear to start ramping up my distances in the middle of January, and got back to Road Runners a month ago. I've been increasing the distance way beyond the recommended 10% a week, and while I'm now reasonably confident that I'll get round, it's not going to be breaking any records, and I'm certainly not looking forward to the hills. It doesn't help that I entered the before my injury, and so have received a stupidly low number (125, out of about 17,000). At the time my goal was 1 hour 25, now I reckon I'll be doing well to get under 1 hour 35, which will be my slowest half ever (and almost a minute a mile slower than initially planned...)

On the plus side, over summer I'll be doing triathlons, with the first one booked for May. I now have all the kit, and will be concentrating on the cycling stuff once the half is out of the way... the goal is to get up to the required 20k at a sort-of decent speed, and then focus on boosting up the speed while the weather is decent.

Fingers crossed I don't screw my leg up next weekend then...

It's like learning to ride a bike...

...which turns out to be quite bloody hard.

The last time I rode a push-bike was about 5-6 years ago, when I used to trundle into work every day (about 4 miles) on a mountain bike. Back then I wasn't some kind of gym rat, and so wasn't really burning up the tarmac. As soon as I had a motorbike I relegated the manual option to the garage, and pretty quickly sold it to someone at work. I do vaguely remember that I was reasonably competent and confident on it, normally tearing in and out of traffic, whilst occasionally hitting it (well, once, and I gave the bastard a right verbal for it)...

...what I don't remember is having each and every undulation in the road passed straight up my spine, and a eerie feeling of exposure and extreme vunerability. I suspect that this is very much to do with having spent 5 years perched on a 200 kilo machine, coated in leather and capped with a large helmet, compared to a pair of shorts, a t-shirt and a shaped strip of polystyrene delicately strapped to your head. There is also a slight different in wheel width (about 8-9 inches, compared to the razor-like contact point on the new bike).

As a road (and racing bike) the setup is very different to a mountain bike as well. Some some insane reason the tyres are inflated to 130psi, which is like having iron bars. They absorb absolutely no shocks at all, and as the rest of the frame is also solid the end result is that my wrists and spine take everything. The dimensions of the frame force you to be low to the frame, giving little flexibility for body-weight adjustment to your balance, and the drop handlebars give less leverage. All in all it feels a very unstable setup (which of course it is...it's all designed for speed, not comfort).

The solution, of course, is practice and familiarity. I'm sure that once I have clocked up a couple of hundred miles it will all feel far more natural. I've taken the decision to remove the race pedals while I get familiar (the idea of being bolted to a machine you're not 100% happy on doesn't strike me as the greatest idea ever), and replaced them with normal toe-clips (which several hundred hours of spinning classes have introduced me to). Once I'm not thinking about the bike (and the wierd-ass gears...it took me half an hour to work out that the brake lever pushed sideways was the mechanism to change down...) I can start thinking about speed, cadence and technique, however until I have rid myself of the "I'm about to eat asphalt" mentality I guess I'm back to novice status...

The long road to recovery...

So it's about 3 weeks to the Reading Half, which I've arbitrarily picked as my deadline for recovery from the rather persistent leg injury I've picked up. At the moment (touch wood-like laminate) I'm on track to finish without completely ripping up my tendons, however I'm not sure that the time is going to be exactly stellar.

On Sunday I completed my first 10mile+ run, covering 11 miles in just under 80 minutes. I reckon this puts me on course for a final time of about 1 hour 35 minutes, which will officially be my slowest ever run :-( I've started Road Runners again, and hopefully I can gain a bit of a spring in my step from the interval work that spans from there, however I doubt 3 sessions will be enough to get my pace from last year back... It's all rather depressing, how quickly all the conditioning and training falls off.

Over the summer I'm planning on doing some triathlons, and this week I should be ordering the bike and wetsuit. I haven't been on a pushbike since I did my CBT on a motorbike about 4 years ago, so I've got to get back into the habit of cycling. the plan is to do the commute to and from work 2-3 times a week (about 10 miles each way), so hopefully I can quickly rack up the miles and get a semblance of technique in place. The swimming worries me a bit less, as the distances I'll be competing over initially are well within my training set routines. Hopefully I can rack up some training in the wetsuit in my local pool, just to get the feel of the extra buoyancy.

Frustration and relief...

I had to make a decision last weekend to pull out of Tough Guy. It's the first time that I've failed to do a race, however I couldn't risk repeating what happened to me at the Grim in December. I'm stubborn and bull-headed enough to finish a race even when I'm in agony and doing serious damage to myself, so ultimately the safest option was to not go. The deciding factor was a treadmill session on the Friday, where my knee twinged at 8km... There was no prolonged pain, but just a warning shot to remind me that it was still vulnerable. I was really down about it, however the weather this weekend has been verging on biblical, with sub-zero conditions and snow. Harry, a mate who has done it previously, and did it again this year, has reported ice-covered lakes and "extreme pain". I'm not in optimal shape, and I can't believe anything other than attempting to complete that would have set my recovery back 3 months. Maybe next year...

The rehabilitation is still on target, and I'm running 5'ish miles at the moment, with 7 weeks to go until the half. There is still a long way to go, and I'm hoping the weather warms up a tad soon, as it's extremely hard to motivate myself to run outside right now, while treadmill sessions are just sweatathons. The swimming continues to go extremely well, with the average session covering a couple of kilometres. I need to start focusing more on technique and speed now, and have a couple of articles to work from to aid that. Feeling pretty confident about getting some triathlons under my belt this year now... hopefully this month I can source a bike and wetsuit.

Generally January can be considered the month of birthdays. I'm fairly rubbish at doing anything on mine (I went swimming), however Gill was a star, and whipped up a delicious roast lamb dinner for me (her first ever roast as well). Her birthday was a couple of days later (how organised of us to co-ordinate our birthdays), and we went to Ikea to buy stuff (she has a couple of projects, including a cat furniture tower, while I wanted some kitchen storage), and went out on the Saturday (pizza and film..I'm a classy guy). Then, Kate's birthday (Rob's better half) was on the following Wednesday, so we all went to a Chinese for an "all you can eat, and then a dessert". Delicious stuff all round. Next weekend is mine and Gill's first anniversary (that's shot by) and we are off to Colleys to celebrate. God knows why she puts up with me, but she does, and I'm all the luckier for it...

Work is a bit manic at the moment. There is a big project in the offing, and I have a large chunk of work to do for it. To make things a bit more awkward I took some holiday last week (for all the birthdays), and I was on a First Aid Course for most of last week. The end result is that I have 1 week to do an excessive amount of work. Yay? On top of that we have the fallout from the redundancies from the last month, and a general reshape of the department. The full announcement is on Wednesday, however it looks like my next year there is going to be more than a little hectic.

So lots happening, and lots to do, so doing something stupid like staying up half the night to watch the Super Bowl would be a stupid thing...right? Ohh..2nd Quarter has just started...!