This was what the year had been building to. Back in August, a bit of semi-banter had led to John and I entering the Outlaw Half Ironman race. Neither of us had done I triathlon before and I didn’t even own a road bike but this was going to be the start of an epic journey. I’d like to say that the sun rose gloriously over the lake at Hurst Pier Point, glinting off of the unbroken glassy surface as we confidently strode down to transition to rack our bikes. But it didn’t. It unceremoniously chucked it down as we joined the death march from the car park lugging our transition bags packed with all the gear we needed for the following 6 or so hours. Ok so I had everything, it was looking good. Bikes racked and wetsuits on, zipped up and ready to go…except the call of nature has cruel timing, and not the type you can get away with in your wetsuit. So with five minutes to the hooter it was in to the portal and then in to the water. I started at the back of my wave, sensibly, as John and I had agreed. John’s wave was ten minutes later and this was the final time we would cross paths until about five miles in to the run. John later said he started in the middle of the wave and took a beating as a result (which he loved by the way!). I learned that day that I cannot swim in a straight line as I weaved across the lake from one side to the other. As I went around the turning buoys was the only time I encountered any kind of physicality, and that was mainly due to my own inability to hold a line. Exiting the swim, I reached up to try and find the cord to unfasten the zip. I scrabbled around but it just wasn’t there…oh, it was already down! I wandered whether someone had yanked it down but more likely it was a helpful swim marshall, thanks guys! The 53 mile journey seemed to fly by and before I knew it, the last few miles were upon me, those last few cycle miles were no fun at all. The surface became rough, there were a few speed bumps and a cattle grid to contend with along with some great big puddles too. Just as I was coming in to transition a guy in front of me stacked it on to the tarmac, he was only going slow but the combination of a sleeping policeman and the slippery conditions took him to the ground. Fortunately being so close to transition there were plenty of helpers around to get him to his feet and back to the transition area. Back to my bike racking spot, I found another bike in my space! Resisting the urge to relocate it on to the floor I shoved my bike in any available gap and began the change in to running gear. My trainers were again protected bag a high tech polymer ASDA shopping bag so they were dry but the socks I had on were at saturation point. The plan was to change out of them and put fresh socks on but (a) the towel was actually wetter than my feet due to the large puddle it was sitting in; and (b) I couldn’t locate the socks due to someone else’s bike being on top of my transition bag… My right foot felt as though I was running on sandpaper at this point, or perhaps there was a large stone in there? I had to put these thoughts to the back of my mind as if I’d stopped to check I think I’d have not been able to continue. As the finish loomed in to view, I waved my arm at the funnel marshall to show him that I had the full complement of wrist bands given out after each lap. These would allow me page down the red carpet and across the line. Kathryn, the kids and Vicky had relocated to the stand along side the final straight and gave us a cheer to end the race. Relief! I had completed the challenge in 5 hours and 35 minute, well under my target and I was well chuffed with it. John was not too far behind (he just loves it) and then we were reunited with our loved ones. Those who had been patiently waiting in rubbishy weather for the entire day, thank you! | The bag had been packed and unpacked and packed again but I still was not convinced I had everything: Trisuit Wetsuit Goggles Bike Shoes Bike Helmet Gloves Socks x 2 pairs Running Shoes Race belt and number Timing chip Swim hat x 2 Gels Water Energy drink Snacks Gillet Arm warmers Body Glide Sunglasses In to transition it was easy to find my spot near the end of the row. Wetsuit off fairly quickly, a bit of a dry off of the feet, helmet on, jacket on, number belt, sunglasses, socks, bike shoes and then wheel the bike to the mount line before carefully climbing on and pedalling off in to the countryside. I'd like to say that this was a pleasant pootle around but it chucked it down with rain the entire time. The arm warmers I had purchased at the last minute were a stroke of genius as it wasn’t the warmest, highly recommended. It wasn’t pleasant but that’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the ride. Even though I was overtaken by everyone who owned a TT bike…ever, I still managed to catch up quite a few of the faster swimmer than me and had a few back and forth with various riders along the way, nothing like a bit of healthy competition. I needed to stop twice along the route, once due to the fact that one of my clip on aerobars kept making a break for it; a nice chap at the first aid station, at the top of the only real hill at about 20 miles, sorted it for me. The second was for the call of nature at the second one, doing a little dance waiting for the portaloo as my rivals shot past. At least I was hydrated, it probably would have been difficult not to be hydrated in that weather to be fair. So wet socks off, wet, bare feet in to dry trainers and off I went. Number belt twisted round to the front and off for a couple of laps around the lake. The brick training had paid off. That jelly leg sensation you get from the transition from bike to run was still there but I knew what to expect and my legs just did there thing and carried me. About two mins in I was relieved to see the crew on the side cheering, Kathryn can’t half shout loud you know! High fives from the kids and off I went. The course is a bit of an out and back along the trent and then a lap of the lake, followed by the same again with a slightly shorter lap of the lake. I saw JW a couple of times o the run. The first time we exchanged high fives and a cheer…the second time after seeing the family again, a grunt from John was all that he could muster but now, the end of the race was in sight. The best thing about the race was the fact that instead of a goody bag, you get your medal and t-shirt and are then ushered in to a food tent! Amazing! Your choice of a hot meal and a cake plus a pint of Erdinger Alcohol Free beer flavoured recovery drink to wash it all down with! On the whole this was a brilliant event, really well organised by One Step Beyond and I would highly recommend it to anyone. Well, anyone who wanted to do a half ironman triathlon anyway! |
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There are certain things that get on your nerves a bit in the gym. Not enough to tip you over the edge but if they all happened at the same time... #1: Is it really that difficult to put the hanger back in the locker? For some apparently it is, which makes it doubly frustrating when you open the only available locker and there's not one in it...grrr! #2 Goggle Thief - there's a Goggle thief about. I'm not great at remembering my stuff but I can't remember a single time anything I ever left in the gym was handed in. Numerous pairs of goggles have gone this way never to be seen again. I even overheard that one guy had his trousers taken from the changing rooms. #3 Free Weight Scrambler: not that I'm a massive user but these things come in pairs for a reason. It's not too hard to put them back in the right place is it? #OCD? #4 Lane Hog - I'm not the fastest of swimmers but...if you see people doing front crawl up and down the "faster lane", don't get in and start with the breast stroke with head above water. Actually that's fine but if you are aware that there is a faster swimmer bearing down on you, at least have the decency to stop and wave them through instead of causing a traffic jam! It works for golf, so why not swimming??? #5 Naked Guy Everyone needs to get dry. But if you have to sit in front of the mirror and blow dry your whole body....please put a towel on the stool first... #6 Litter Bug
If you bought a new pair of jeans and are going to wear them straight from the gym, fine. Just put the label in the bin... Contact lens wearer? No problem, just chuck away the packet. Don't want those pants any more, great...please just bin them or take them home and recycle them, use them to clean the windows or something... It's been a very busy month in terms of work and in terms of generally having a busy family life too. Keeping up with training has been hard but I haven't fallen too far behind. Jantastic saw Wrekin Road Runners finish in the top 30 overall and as 7th large team. A cracking performance with many of us, including myself scoring 100%. The good thing about Jantastic was that due to the multidisciplinary nature of it, I was on occasion doing a 30 min run, a static bike or spin class and then a half hour swim. Adding up to 1.30 - 2.00 hours of activity, this has been great cardio work and also it felt like it was contributing to the overall triathlon training. However I'm well aware that I need to focus more on training the things I'm worst at, namely the bike and the swim. Back in October, I'd ridden something like 80 miles on a road bike.....ever and the furthest I'd ridden was about 12 miles. After a slow start, that's up to more like 650 miles in total now and I've ridden up to 60 miles in one sitting. The rides are more regular and I've started to enjoy them a lot more. The longest ride especially, provided a confidence boost as the length of the half ironman bike leg is 56 miles. A welcome bonus is that my 5k time has come down further. Last time out it was 18.19 with maybe a little more in the tank? Next step is to get back on the training plan. Put the longer brick sessions together and continue to increase the mileage. There's Wombourne sprint on 26th April, Market Drayton 10k on the 10th May and then the big one, Outlaw Half Ironman on 31st of May. Bring it on... It's that time of the week again when you get pestered to make sure you have sorted out your jantastic logging for last week. Brilliant efforts from everyone in maintaining your consistency! Currently we sit 7th in the large team league and 24th overall. With a few people left to log anything other than those who are injured and have let us know I think we should be able to climb up a few more places by 8am tomorrow... You can now also set your Marchellous targets. Same as Febrilliant but add on a timed run, bike or swim target to beat. Don't make it too easy but at the same time not too hard, it's supposed to be an achievable challenge. If you don't achieve it on the first attempt you are allowed multiple attempts to do it. So a 5k parkrun might be a good opportunity? So get thinking about it, you have one week to set the targets for March!
January was cold and dark and wet and February, traditionally is similar in climate. But evenings are getting lighter and mornings seem less of a drag. Energy levels certainly seem higher than they have been in January past. Keep it going guys won't be long until Febrilliant becomes Marchallous!
At the end of Jantastic week 3 the results looked like this... Unfortunately we have lost one person due to injury but that can't be helped. Weather affected play on one of the club nights which may have knocked a couple of people, but generally things look gool on the whole. The max number of points it seems you can have is 25 for the end of week 3 so we are up amongst the pack leaders for our efforts.
Targets need to be set for February (feberiffic) again it's the total number of activities plus the length of your longest activity. Great for those in marathon training. So goodbye January, hello February let's keep the momentum and carry on. Don't forget to log week 4 before Tuesday, 8am and set targets tonight. I visited the Technology in Education show this year and it would have been easy to get overwhelmed. However here are three things I saw which impressed me... GCSE POD
SparkJar
Fiction ExpressAt BETT, I was talking to one of the exhibitors who asked me what it was I was looking for in particular at the show. I replied that I was looking for something that was really going to spark the imagination and that I was particularly interested in literacy as a focus for our school. I walked down the corridor and the next company I saw were doing something about ebooks. There was a lot about ebooks going on but this felt different. Fiction express are a really little company with only three staff who work their socks off on a weekly basis to publish three chapters of three different books each Friday at 3pm. Each book is targeted at a different reading age (6,8,10) and the students get to vote on what they would like to happen next. I thought that this would be a great way to engage reluctant readers and so we have taken up the offer of a three week trial to see how the students take to it. Sounds great doesn't it?
http://schools.fictionexpress.co.uk/ Good stuff so far in Jantastic. 21 out of 31 folk have already logged activities We've done 46 workouts between us covering swimming, biking and running We are the 70th placed large team (can't work out how many large teams there are exactly) All good, don't forget to log your runs by Tuesday next week for this week or they won't count. Even if you are using strava you still need to claim the activities in your profile to log them. If you are using strava, then why not join the Wrekin Road Runners group in there and see what everyone is up to (aka runstalking) - while your at it you can link your Parkrun profile to strava in time for the WRR parkrun takeover. Well done Jon who has completed all his activity for this week already ..... show off ;)
Jantastic is going really well, Wrekin Road Runners are showing the commitment to the cause meaning that we are performing near the top of the league tables for both the large teams and overall.
Checking on Thursday morning we were the 11th placed team in the large teams category having completed 365 workouts including 308 runs, 36 bikes and 21 swims. Phenomenal! In week 2 all Wrekin Road Runners gained the maximum points with only 1 joker needing to be used as far as I can tell. February is where it starts to get a bit more interesting. As well as logging your activities, you are also challenged to identify your longest activity of the week and meet that challenge. So make sure you set realistic but challenging targets. Ones which are attainable but aren't going to so easy that others will sneer at them (and they will...). Set targets that will push you out of your comfort zone and give you a sense of achievement when you pass them. Personally I've found Jantastic extremely motivational in these tricky winter months, combined with being part of a running club it's been easier to get out there, do those runs and keep up with the resolutions. More so when you know that you're encouraging others to log their runs too and if you don't do yours, you'll be letting the side down. Some would call it banter, others peer pressure and some would say it was bullying. Well if it is bullying, it's justified so there's no point crying about it ;) Cross country is like marmite, it involves a brown, sticky substance which is supposed to be good for you but is really difficult to wash out of your clothes. Although unlike marmite grown men and women choose to run round and round big fields of the stuff 3 or 4 times in a freezing cold afternoon in January.
Video courtesy of Jogging Jon
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