Tag: thetrilife.com

CHATEAU DE CHANTILLY TRI – OLYMPIC DISTANCE

31st August 2018 / amanda / 1 Comment

Sunday 26 August 2018 – Olympic Distance Triathlon
1500m swim
45 km bike
10 km run

Another weekend, another 5.30 a.m. alarm, another skirmish with wetsuit awaits. It’s pitch black outside. I’m beginning to wonder if they’re going to floodlight the turn buoys. Never mind. By the time I get to the castle dawn has well and truly broken and my only quibble is that it could be a damn sight warmer, seeing as I’m in France and it’s August. Ah well, could be worse. Here I am in the most stunningly beautiful venue in the grounds of a majestic castle with acres and acres and acres of glorious gardens and countryside. How incredibly lucky I am to be able to be here, to do this.

I’m relaxed as I have zero expectations. Six weeks on the sofa is not a recommended training plan. I’d meant to train. Honest. But once I finished my 70.3 my body and brain, mojo ‘n’ all simply got up and left. And you know what? Zero expectations is a fabulous place to be.

My swim start is at 7.30. I saunter down to the line and stop halfway to … erm … take my wetsuit off and attempt to put it on the right way around!! Like I said – zero expectations. Just as well. I took it as a sign of good luck.

THE SWIM

Well, nobody was going to drown. The brief included instructions such as ‘if you get into trouble and get fed up lying on your back with a hand in the air signalling the marshals, just stand up.’ Yeah, it was that shallow. Not that you could see the bottom, – or your hand, or anything else for that matter. This was a swim that was blissfully current-free, but if you were prone to letting your imagination run away with you this was probably not the most relaxing swim for you. I’ve not done that much gardening in years – an hour of weeding 😊 From surface to floor it was weeds – and not weeds that you could see … some were frondy, some were flat and weird and it was quite entertaining. Some were large and moved past very quickly. Oh. Wait. No, that was a fish – nothing under 18 inches in length! Aaaaaand … stand up if you dared! Who knows what was lurking in that squidgy mushy sinky slushy mud below haha

TRANSITION OR THE RUN?

Apparently the French like to do half the run again BEFORE the bike! Out of the laKEW, across the path, around the pond, up the steps, around to the far side of the bike racks ….. hilarious. Still, plenty of time to untangle the weeds from under arms, caught in watches, goggles, wrapped around ankles …

No wonder T1 took me so long! I also struggled with freezing hands so it took me forever to try and get socks and shoes on, clip helmet … all requiring functioning fingers.

THE BIKE

Not a lot to say about the bike. It took me a long long time to get going. I felt like I was pedalling through glue. However, I hadn’t been on a bike in 6 weeks so can’t complain. The course itself was great. Enjoyable when you had no expectations. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone wanting a fast race. Although there were no hills to speak of (nicely undulating), the first half of the course was very stoppy-starty with so many 90 degree turns in and around villages and no real opportunity to settle down. It didn’t help that there were also stretches of bone-shattering cobblestones, over which I lost my water bottle and the lack of water after the swim affected me quite a bit. Second half of the course was amazing and a combination of salt tablets and a newly acquired bottle meant I could look up and enjoy it. Shame is wasn’t terribly friendly. Being used to multiple shouts of encouragement by athletes passing me/lapping me … of which there are ALWAYS many (and today even more than usual), it was disappointing that not one athlete had a word of encouragement, even though I did my best to cheer on as many as I could.

T2 and THE RUN

The run was the best and the worst. I was happy with my transition considering I didn’t have triathlon races in my trail shoes so had to tie knots. I also realised very VERY quickly that this was where the lack of training had caught up. I started slow slow slow and it didn’t take long to realise that no other gear was available. However, the run was GORGEOUS! How lovely to have a trail run instead of road – and through and around these stunning castle grounds. Fabulous! And even though any self-respecting tortoise could have lapped me I won my own little battles. After the first 5k I was more and more tempted to do a bit of run-walking, but to be honest I could NOT come up with a good enough excuse the whole bloody way around. All I could think was tired legs, jelly legs, general fatigue – were simple not acceptable excuses to start walking, so I ran (using the term loosely) the full 10k and ended on a high if only because of that. It’s the little things, innit?

p.s. My sole injury: sore heel. I thought it was the result of running on gravelly ground in trail shoes, since I hadn’t run for a while, but no …. I’ll admit – just for your amusement: it was the result of running on two panadol which I’d snuck into my shoe in case of emergency after the bike. (Feel free to roll your eyes) 🙂

My laughable results:

Swim 00:45:13
Bike 01:51:27
Run 01:08:22

Total: 03:55:45

thetrilife Masters Programme – Month 2

20th May 2016 / amanda / 0 Comments

It’s been a more intense four weeks and my goal has been to stick firmly to the plan and focus on running cadence, bike cadence (rather than pushing gears) and anything and everything to do with swimming.

SWIMMING: Drills this month have focussed on hand placement. I feel fairly confident that I’m not too far off here. And remember I chickened out of finding ‘gears’ last month? Well, I really REALLY tried this time. Of course, finding 6 gears to swim 6 x 75m progressive meant that I was close to swimming backwards for the first one – but try I did and I did my best. Interestingly, my ‘progression’ in terms of stroke rate was always the same. For 5 of the 6 I simply upped my stroke rate, but for the final one I dropped stroke rate in favour of power. So did this mean my final 75m was the fastest – as it should have been? I DON’T KNOW!!! Lol Since I didn’t pause to press the ‘interval’ button every 75m my watch didn’t record them. Note to self: I need to play around with this a bit and find out!!

BIKE: A couple of these sessions I substituted with a SPIN or RPM session and simply add on the isolated leg sections (usually beforehand). Although I’m good at pushing myself on my own and I do complete every set, I still work harder in a class and get a good mix of climbing and sprinting so I think it’s working well. The longer rides have been fine. I’ve been lucky with the weather because I’m a wimp if it’s raining or cold. I’ve really focussed hard on maintaining cadence and am learning that if I focus on that then my speed creeps up gradually to that magical 14.5 mph whereas if I keep pushing bigger gears my pace fluctuates wildly and in the end I get tired quickly and my final average speed is slower!! It’s hard to get my head around this but I’m going to 100% trust the plan!

RUN: Not getting any faster. In fact, I think I’m still getting slower – but still focussing on cadence and I’ll stick with it. Have to admit, I still do do DO enjoy my running – whatever the pace 

OFF-PLAN ROUND-UP: I juggled a couple of weeks and threw in TWO sprint triathlons this month – Steyning Tri and Uckfield Tri. Both were pool swims – not very fast but steady. Both times I was pleased with the bike – at least reaching the minimum mph I was looking for – and I was chuffed to bits with the runs – both times averaging under 10 min miles. Yes, they were short distances but all boxes ticked and good chance to kick in the competitive spirit and get a great workout.

Finally – my test results this month compared to last month:

Month 1 Swim – 300s: Avg. 6:55 mins/13 spl – and 2.18/100m
Month 2 Swim – 300s: Avg. 6:37 mins/13 spl – and 2.12/100m

RUN TEST: Month 1 – Avg HR over 20 mins @ 90 rpm: 129 bpm/Avg 10.53/mile
Month 2 – Avg HR over 20 mins @ 90 rpm: 135 bpm/Avg 10.41/mile – a little further, a little faster; weather a lot warmer

thetrilife Masters Programme – Month 1

10th April 2016 / amanda / 0 Comments

Four weeks down. My thoughts?

Direction! I’ve got direction. It’s great to be training with purpose. I neeeeeeed direction and purpose. For the last six months I’ve been mostly sitting on the sofa, going for the occasional run and that’s about it. I decided to try and rediscover my triathlon dreams and I entered a couple of sprint tris but the occasional swim and bike is dull, boring and demotivating. Without a plan, everything comes under the umbrella ‘junk’. So here I am, at the end of my first four weeks of training on the TriLife Masters programme and not a junk mile or minute to my name. That feels so good. It gets me up in the morning and it’s ultimately comforting to know that whatever I’m doing is the right thing to do. I’m not worried that I should be doing hill sprints instead of an endurance run – or swim drills instead of 400s. What a great feeling that is.

In terms of training this month has revealed the effects of a few months off. At 50+ you lose fitness like everybody else, but you ALSO lose strength and power and it is very VERY difficult to get those back. To an extent, it’s not possible to get them back, but I can regain some with hard work and determination and I can definitely prevent my body losing any more.

So … RUNNING: The focus has been on stamina and cadence. Fascinating. My stamina is non-existent but this is something I CAN really work on – and love doing. Plenty hard work ahead. I’ve been trying really hard to get this higher cadence sorted – mostly by shortening my stride and concentrating on form. It’s working. It’s harder than it should be, but it’s getting there already. Parkrun after four weeks and I did nothing other than focus on maintaining steady cadence – and I still came in around my previous average. My hopes of a PB have gone out the window – that six months off has put paid to that – but that 5k result is still super-motivating.

SWIMMING: Breathing is better. Body ‘roll’ is better, my stroke is more even and I think my kick is improving. Still struggling with speed. I feel my 100s and 200s should be harder. I’m going for even pace but I think that pace should be consistently faster. That’s my problem … when I increase stroke rate I seem to lose pace so need to figure this out. Drills are paying off, I think – but only just done my first ‘test’ so too soon to know.

BIKING: She has a name: Polly. Not my choice of name; she was sort of named for me – but it’s stuck. Polly she is, then. She’s doing well. Once again, focus has been on cadence. Lighter gears and cadence. Long rides have been easy and enjoyable (lucky with weather) but I’m still – as always – worried about speed. Back to the ‘power’ question again. This is going to be a big battle. As a masters athlete I can’t increase it any more. What’s gone is gone, so the research dictates – so where am I going to find that power? I’m going to trust this programme 100% to show me where! THAT is exciting.

First sprint tri of the season in a couple of weeks. Actually looking forward to it.

thetrilife Masters Programme Week 1

23rd March 2016 / amanda / 0 Comments

Oh, I’m such a slave to programmes but find myself completely at a loss without. After my two IM fiascos last summer I ditched my bike for the indoor rower and focussed on a team WR attempt – which proved to be hugely successful and so much fun! (Well – if ‘fun’ and ‘rowing’ can be used in the same sentence??) After that, though (December) I lost the plot and resorted to doing more or less nothing. January came along and for the first time ever I had no goals, no plans, no motivation, no desire to do anything. February came and went in much the same way. It was time to get my act together and take action. After much research, I signed up to the Trilife Master Programme – simply to give me direction, to get reinspired, to get me moving and basically to tell me what to do.

It’s easy to say ‘Oh, but you know what to do already’. Yes, maybe – but much like doctors make the worst patients I find it extremely difficult to set up training plans for myself and stick to them. I need external eyes, experience and knowhow. Besides – since I never crossed the finish line of those two IM I’m not really feeling too confident about doing anything for myself. Committing to a programme is a great motivator.

And so … after a slightly interrupted taster week, I’ve completed Week 1. Loving having a programme to follow and knowing that I’m in professional hands. There are no ‘fluffy’ sessions here. Everything is exact, everything has a purpose. Not a junk mile in sight and it’s fun to be back in the classroom again! One week and lots learned::

Swimming: One of the sessions is VERY heavy on kicking. I’ve always thrown in a couple of token ‘kicking’ drills – thinking this was enough. Doing ‘lots’ of kicking has been fascinating – repeated lengths with nothing to do but discover different effects of kicking technique. Suddenly it clicks and my speed almost doubles, then I lose it again. Actually can’t wait to repeat that session. I’d have lost the will to live had I ever tried that on my own! And as for T-pace? Working on that one. Currently, I have one pace which I’m calling T-pace. If I attempt T-pace + 10 I think I’ll find myself dead in the water. Needs work! As for ‘building’: I can just about find 4 speeds to build on – but definitely not 8. There’s a goal right there! Final Week 1 swimming lesson: Faster stroke rate does not mean faster speed. Looking forward to finding a happy medium here (hopefully in this lifetime). In my case, increasing my stroke rate is resulting in a less-efficient half-executed stroke and therefore less speed.

Biking: Turbo session great. Harder work than it should be. My fitness is at the bottom of a very deep hole somewhere. Going to be interesting hauling it back up. Already ‘natural’ cadence is getting closer to the desired 90 rpm. That’ll do for now. Outdoors – tentative and unsure on my bike so need to find some confidence. As always – slow! Will be working on that a lot.

Running: The hazard of focussing on endurance these last months is that short-and-fast has been left behind. Result? I have ONE gear and one gear only and that gear is slower than it’s ever been. Never thought I’d have to work really hard on my running. That used to be my ‘given’. Not any more. Quite a challenge keeping up cadence of 90 continually so that’s a fun goal for now.

Bring it on Uckfield and Mid-Sussex tris. It’s going to be a FUN and positive confidence-building summer.