Cheshire Triathlon

Firstly, a big thanks to everyone who has sponsored me and my colleagues to do this triathlon. Cardiac Risk in the Young (http://www.c-r-y.org.uk/) will be about £1500 better off thanks to all our efforts today. This will probably save lives, which is great.

The race went pretty much as could be expected. I haven't done any swim training for about 3 years. This became apparent when I had to resort to breast stroke after 4 lengths of ropey front crawl. This didn't seem to slow me down much, and after another 12 lengths I got out of the pool feeling OK.

"No copying my technique now chaps!"

My swim-bike transition was alright as well. I had planned not to have a towel and to take my goggles with me on the bike as I was too lazy to need to walk back to the pool after the event.

My bike ride went well. I passed about 10 people in the 20k and was able to push myself most of the way round. It was gently undulating, so I could keep a decent pace up most of the way. I remembered the advice of changing down gears and pedalling more quickly when I was approaching the bike-run transition. This stops your legs feeling too much like jelly when you try to run straight away.


Sitting down - the fourth discipline

I managed to find my shoes at the transition, and slipped them and my socks on pretty quickly, having talced them well beforehand. I had been considering not wearing socks in order to gain that extra 10 seconds. But then I remembered blistering a few years ago when I'd tried that at a swim-run event.

Once I was out of the transition, I was passing runners for most of the 5k course. In triathlons, most of the good runners can also swim a bit. And because people are set off at times based on their predicted swim time, most of the top runners had already finished by the time I got on to the run course.

The final few paces

Overall I was very happy with my time of 1 hr 11 minutes and 2 seconds. One of the good things about triathlons is that you can spend as much time as you did in the event, working out what the results mean and where you need to improve. It seems pretty clear for me.

Swim
My time: 10:25
Fastest time: 06:31
Percentage of fastest time: 160%

Bike
My time: 40:01
Fastest time: 32:46
Percentage of fastest time: 122%

Run
My time: 20:36
Fastest time: 17:57
Percentage of fastest time: 115%

I clearly need to save more energy from the swim and bike, so I can shave some seconds off my run time :)

Whitebrook Wind-Up

We were visiting friends last weekend in Abergavenny. My mate does a bit of running and is very good, although not as driven to do races as I am. He had planned that we could coincide our visit with a local race, and suggested the Whitebrook Wind-Up. This is a trail half-marathon with a reasonable amount of hills in it, so sounded like something I'd really enjoy.

In the weeks running up to our visit, my friend picked up an achilles injury and Mrs Noel decided she is nursing her ankle, so it was only me who entered.

The race went pretty well. There was one guy there who was clearly in a class of his own and set off pretty quickly. I quickly clocked that I wasn't in the same league, so let him go. However, there were about 5 others who I think got dragged along with him for the first 2 or 3 miles. These lads didn't look great, but were clearly running more quickly than I was so I let them go too.

When that happens, half of you says "they're just better than you - get used to it" and half of you says "they've paced it wrong - you'll get them later". Luckily, I think some of them had set off too quickly. Over the next 8 miles, I passed all but the very good bloke and was cruising in second.

"Pride before a fall" and all that. Just when I was thinking I'd done all the hard work, someone shot past me with about a mile to go. Luckily I had the leg speed on the flat and won by a few seconds. I'm a bit sore today. Perhaps I should have built in a cycle warm-down after the race. That's what the winner did, after packing up his stuff into his Iron Man rucksack - he'd clearly cycled to the race too. I have a lot of respect for good triathletes.

Ideal race preparation

I was planning to do a fell race in Lancashire called Pendle Cloughs on Saturday. I got to the point of saying "bye" to the kids and walking to the door. At this point, it hit me how much of my day I would be dedicating to one race. Including driving there and back, it would be about 7 hours. So I decided to go for a long run near my house instead.

After last weekend's four trigs, I went the whole hog this weekend. This involves running from my house to the trig points of Shutlingsloe, Shining Tor, Burbage Edge, Axe Edge then Roaches. This is about 20 miles, with 3500 feet of ascent. I was pleased to do it without running out of steam, and finished in 4 hours 9 minutes.

Then on Sunday I had a day off, before racing today (Monday) at James' Thorn fell race in Glossop. This is a great short and steep race at 5 miles and 1600 feet. I was pretty surprised to feel good on the long ascent up to James' Thorn on the Kinder plateau. I had assumed that the mileage from Saturday would still be in my legs. Normally I would do a recovery run after a long day like this, but it seems a rest day was the ideal thing for me.

I was third at the summit and was praying that the guy who was in second wasn't a super fast descender. Luckily, he wasn't. So I could (very slowly) reel him in, and I managed to sneak past a few hundred yards before the end. I don't finish many races in the top three, so I'm definitely savouring this one.

17 miles, jackdaw kindling and French macarons

On Saturday, I decided I needed to work on my stamina. So I set off to do the famous 4 trigs gritstone challenge. "4 trigs?" I hear you say, "don't you mean 5 trigs?" Well, actually it is supposed to be the 5 trigs - running to the trig point on 5 hills that are local to my house. The challenge traditionally starts from the Cat and Fiddle pub and takes in the peaks of Shining Tor, Burgage Edge, Axe Edge, The Roaches and Shutlingsloe.

I knew my legs wouldn't be up for 20 miles, so I had to shorten it a bit, and miss out Roaches. This still meant it was about 17 miles, which is a long way for me. I was very pleased to finish it in a reasonable state. Not like a stumbling fool, which is how I normally look after long fell races.

Then we were amused to find the jackdaws had built a 5-foot high pile of kindling in the barn. Normally you can see that it resembles a nest, but this didn't at all. This is probably for the best, as it's level with a raise floor that the cat can get to.

Today, because it was quite windy and rainy, we took the opportunity to stay in and make some French biscuits from a packet recipe. We brought this back from France thinking they were biscuits, but it turned out we had to make them ourselves first. I think you'll agree, they are completely indistinguishable from how they should look. Thankfully, they taste nice.

Weather-adjusted improvement: Kinder Downfall

In most of the races I do, one of my main objectives is to perform better than I have previously at the same race. I knew this would be a tricky at Kinder Downfall as I've done it about 5 times already and was pretty happy with my time from the last time I ran it, in 2010.

As usual, everyone set off pretty fast - all trying to keep up with the person in front. This works fine unless you've got someone much faster than you at the front of the line. Evenually the line breaks and people find their own speed. By this time I could start to work my way up through the field of runners and was feeling strong by the top.

After slowing up on the start of the descent, I eventually found my rhythm and fell strong to the end. I'd finished in a time of 1:17:39. This is 39 seconds slower than 2010.

At this point, a focused and driven athlete would increase the intensity and specificity of their training. I prefer to bend the rules in these situations. It was very muddy today, which always makes for a slower time. This can affect times by a couple of minutes. Luckily, someone reminded me it had been quite dry for the previous few years' races.

So I'm claiming a weather-adjusted victory. Hurray for me.

Jura training camp

I had a few days working in Geneva and my hotel was just to the north, in France. So I took the opportunity to run up a very small bit of the Jura range one evening.
Here's my start point

Here are the hills I am aiming for. The town in the foreground is Thoiry. It's hard for me to judge how big these hills are.

The answer is "pretty big". I was running/walking uphill for about an hour before I got worried about the time and turned round. I think there was still a lot of uphill to go. Here's my high-point with some snow on the ground to make it feel even higher.

It had been quite a claggy day, but it cleared to give me a nice view. My hotel is down there somewhere.

For those of you who know the Jura, apparently I was part way up towards the summit of Le Reculet. I think it would have been too snowy to get there, as well as too dark by the time I reached it.

I've not explored around Geneva before. I was surprised by how accessible the Jura is from Geneva.

I'm hoping my small foray will prove to be the ideal training for Kinder Downfall race, this Sunday. Fingers crossed.

French cartoons and castles

We've just spent a week's holiday in the North Loire Valley, and here are the things we will now add to the list of "things that France is great for".

We were already aware of: nicer weather, more rock to climb on (see photo below from our day bouldering at Franchard), lovely pastries.

However, we are now also aware of:

1. The kids' cartoon "Linus and Boom". Sadly this is a French phenomenon and is yet to appear in the UK. Even the wikipedia page is in French.

2. The castle Guédelon. This is a castle that is being built using techniques from the middle ages. It's situated on a site of an abandoned quarry, in a forest, near some clay deposits, so they use all local materials, and process it on-site. This includes a blacksmith, stone masons, rope maker, tile makers, carpenters, etc. It's been going about 15 years and it be be fully built in about another ten years. There were loads of school kids there, learning about how things were done in the 13th century.

Note the two wheels that are part of the crane in the picture above. This is for people to get inside and use like hamster wheels to lift stuff up to the castle. Here's a shot of two blokes in it, providing the manpower.