Mixing with the hoity toity

This week I raced in the shortest race in the world, ever, anywhere – the Bedford mini. A 200m river swim, 15km bike, 3.3km run. Actually, that’s not quite true - I did compete in a very short race on the South Coast a couple of years back wearing my infamous pink tri suit and placed second. At Bedford I came 4th, and 1st in my age group.

I have done Bedford twice before – 2004 and 2007 – and have improved each time (except this time I think the swim was long because my swim time was double last year's time). This goes to show that age isn’t necessarily a limiting factor when it comes to triathlon, and I am sure that I read somewhere that a person’s aerobic capacity does actually increase in their 30’s and 40’s. It’s not without a lot of hard work though, I can tell you.

I was looking through the results of the Bedford race from years gone by and it appears that I am in very good company. Apparently, a certain Chrissie Wellington won this race in 2006. Now, unless you’ve been living on planet Zogg for the past year or so, you will know thatChrissie is our very own World Ironman champion, having raced Hawaii last year, winning at her first attempt.

Another person whose name appeared on the results sheet of a race which I have done this year is Hollie Avil. Hollie was one of our Olympic hopefuls who unfortunately didn’t perform to her best ability this week because of an upset stomach. She raced Duston in 2006 in a time of 1:01:37. I raced Duston this year in a time of 1:06:52.

Hollie wasn’t the only British Olympian to suffer illness problems. It happened to Tim Don too who likewise performed well below his best. Tim was our great Gold Medal hope, but it was Alistair Brownlee who kept me awake at 3am this week whilst I was mesmerised by his courage and conviction against the World’s best. He eventually came in a very creditable 12th and first Brit home.

All this lack of sleep meant that I was in no fit state to train as much as I had hoped to this week, although what little I did do was short, fast, quality stuff. Here’s what happened….

Monday – rest day
Tuesday – run - fast sprints
Wednesday – run - hard intervals
Thursday – bike - hard intervals with tri club
Friday – bike - fast, around Bedford mini tri course with Alex
Saturday – OWS - intervals at Blue Lagoon with Dan from tri club
Sunday - race – Bedford mini tri (200m open water - River Ouse, 15K bike, 3.3K run) – 49:43 - 4th position overall (56 raced), 1st in age group (see the Shires Triers contingent below - from left to right: Me, Anne-Marie, Mitten, Tom, Maurice)





Next week I am off to Portugal for some quality time with the little Colin’s who have just returned from a week away in France where they had a thoroughly enjoyable time. I am hoping for a bit of warm weather training whilst I am there, but nothing too energetic – perhaps some sea swimming and a few runs. I mustn’t push it too hard because, with the miserable Summer we have had this year, I am not used to training in the heat. I must also be careful with what I eat. After all, I don’t want to suffer the same fate as our disappointed Olympians. Or, then again, perhaps I should find out what Chrissie eats on her holidays. Where’s the phone........?

Cheers.

C

Confessions on Super Sunday

Isn't the Olympic Games exciting? As I sit here now and write this blog, they are calling it 'Super Sunday' for the Brits, with fantastic gold medal performances from our swimmers and cyclists (amongst others) over the weekend. Sweet inspiration.

I always thought that competitors at the Olympics were unpaid amateurs but the attendance at the Beijing Games currently by names such as Nadal, Ronaldinho et. al. led me to do a bit of research.

The English public schools of the second half of the 19th century had a major influence on many sports. They subscribed to the Ancient Greek and Roman belief that sport formed an important part of education, an attitude summed up in the saying: mens sana in corpore sano – a sound mind in a healthy body. In this ethos, a gentleman was one who became an all-rounder, not the best at one specific thing (step aside the 'pure' swimmers, cyclists and runners - make space for us triathletes).

There was the typically English concept of "fairness" in which, bizarrely, practicing or training was considered as tantamount to cheating; it meant that you considered it more important to win than to take part. Those who practiced a sport professionally were considered to have an unfair advantage over those who practiced it merely as a "hobby". In short, professionals were cheats.

This ethos greatly influenced the creators of the Games. In their vision, athletes should be gentlemen and, initially, only amateurs were considered such; thus, professional athletes were not allowed to compete in the Olympic Games. This exclusion of professionals has caused several controversies throughout the history of the modern Olympics and it gradually became clear to many that the amateurism rules had become outdated, such that in the 1970s amateurism requirements were dropped from the Olympic Charter. This switch was perhaps best exemplified by the American Dream Team, composed of well-paid NBA stars, which won the Olympic gold medal in basketball in 1992. Now, apparently, the only sports in which no professionals compete are boxing and baseball.

So, it appears that the Olympics is a sport which allows professionals and amateurs to compete against each other. How refreshing. And how refreshing that the same applies in triathlon, and none more apparent was this than at the London Triathlon recently where first-timers were racing at the same time and on the same course as the world's best.

A major difference between age group and elite racing, of course, is the drafting rule. This is the practice whereby a cyclist tucks in behind the rider in front which has the very beneficial effect of shielding him or her from the wind and, thus, creating less drag. This greatly reduces the effort needed to achieve the same speed. Elites are allowed to draft – but age groupers are not – and many view this as cheating. This brings us neatly back to the original Olympics ethos which banned professionals, so-called cheaters, from competing.

So, why the picture of my beautiful steed – the Planet X Stealth, fully equipped with Union Jack saddle perched upon it - at the top of this week’s blog? And why the title 'Confessions'? Well, alas I have to confess that I have not conducted my racing this year with particular 'gentlemanly conduct'. I have cheated, and the source of my indiscretion has been the Stealth - my very own performance enhancing drug.

I purchased 'her' at the beginning of the summer and have used her for races, time trials and interval training sessions alike. As the months have gone by, my speed has increased dramatically. I suppose that it might have something to do with my training, but I am also sure that it must also be down to the Stealth - the way it is set-up, it's gearing, its weight. It MUST be giving me an unfair advantage over my competitors, and whilst it is not cheating in the conventional sense of the word, I reckon that those 19th century public school masters would have frowned upon its existence.

And why the cheesy Union Jack saddle? Well, two-fold really. As a reminder as to why I am doing all this, of course. Every time I place my fat backside on THAT saddle it gives me that little bit of inspiration. And also in recognition of our fantastic British Olympians over the weekend.

This week's training and racing looks like this:-

Monday – club swim - intervals
Tuesday – rest day (suffering from neck and knee pains)
Wednesday – rest day (still suffering)
Thursday – bike - 10 mile time-trial, time 26:02 - one second quicker than last week, but on a flatter course with a stronger head-wind
Friday – run – easy at 174bpm, incorporating hops, strides and sprints
Saturday – OWS - easy at Blue Laggon with tri club
Sunday - race – Concorde Sprint Triathlon (400 metre pool sprint, 20K bike, 5K run) – 1:10:27 - 39th position overall (278 raced), 15th out of 79 in age group (see event photo below)



The kids are away in France this coming week so I am going to try to cram in as much training as possible to take my mind from missing them. I am also entered into the Bedford Mini triathlon next Sunday - a race which I have done a couple of times before and at which I am hoping to PB.

So, as I finish this week’s blog, I am once again looking at the GB medal board over this weekend which has been completely dominated by the track cyclists. Would Wiggins, Hoy, Romero et. al. have achieved their brilliance without the assistance of their very own Stealth-type carbon machines? Maybe, but perhaps not quite so convincingly. And are they considered as cheats? Of course not. So, I suppose that eases my conscience whilst I sit here studying my ever-improving bike times and clean my Stealth from another hard day at the office.

Until next time, salut! And let's have one last big, fat photo of my current love....



Cheers, C

Il qui ne fait rien fait la défectuosité

I have recently taken up learning (or re-learning) that most romantic of languages - French.

I was pretty good at the 'ooh, la, la' stuff at school following an exchange with Pierre who attended a school somewhere near Paris but, alas, the opposite sex took hold and I lost all my faculties. The art of speaking French was one of those casualties.

Anyway, my current studies are DVD-based and concentrate heavily on pronunciation and I learn whilst driving. The two words to concentrate on in the title of this week’s blog are ‘qui’ and ‘ne’. Apparently, these two words, when spoken one after the other, should be rolled together and pronounced as one word, not as two separate words – so in this example they should be pronounced as ‘keen’, not as ‘kee ne’. Fascinating stuff!

Throughout my school days I was never taught (or perhaps I was, but wasn't listening) that that was how it was pronounced, and now, over 20 years later, I have learnt something new - something so basic and elementary in the art of the French spoken language.

Same with triathlon. After all these years I am still learning the elementary stuff. Like how to run more efficiently or how to take the correct line in an open water swim. That’s why this sport is so consuming. You think you know what you’re doing but then, suddenly, you find out something new. It’s forever changing. Such fun!

Currently, I have been concentrating on my 'achilles heel' which is running (excuse the pun). I suppose I should know how to run. Well, yes, but how to run fast? Nope. Nowhere near the speed I need to be in order to achieve my aims. That’s why I am going back to basics and learning the elementary stuff, with the help of my coach Mark Kleanthous. If a 2:20 London Marathoner cannot get me to full speed then what hope do I have? I suppose I could ease off of the pies and beers – that would certainly help.

This week's training and racing went like this:-

Monday – club swim - intervals
Tuesday – rest day
Wednesday – bike - 10 mile time-trial at Milton Keynes with Jev and Graham (from Team MK), time 26:03 - again, well off my best but it was a different (and harder) course than normal
Thursday – run - drills (hops and skips) and warm up and warm down at 168bpm
Friday – run – 5K time-trial, time 21:25, Personal Best
Saturday – informal race – Brogborough, with my mates Alex and Paul - see pic below (Paul, me and Alex - he's the short guy on tip-toes!)



Sunday - rest day, supporting at the London Triathlon . It was great going back to where it all started for me, and it all got a bit phototastic.

Well done to Anne-Marie (aka 'the Chuffer') for a brilliant peformance, looking wonderful on the super-sexy Cervello Soloist! Here she is storming out on the run straight from the bike.



After the race, I popped along to catch up with a few of my old mates. First-up there's Peter, Maik and Stu (who came in second, first and third respectively).



Then there's Matt (who's done quite well playing rugby since he left school, apparently). He was there doing something on TV about the triathlon.



Finally, just for good measure, here's Joe, me and Adam lying on the grass whilst everyone is huffing and puffing running around Docklands.



My comments on the race could not go by without a Big-Up to my mate Dave Knight from Hillingdon Triathletes who finished in a magnificent 2:13:44, storming in at 48th place in the sub-2:30 wave. Well done, mate!

Next week it's more running with a couple of cycles and swims thrown in for good measure. I don't have a weekend race planned, but I might see if there is a local one which accepts late entries.

So, until the next installment, ‘au revoir’ (meaning goodbye, until we meet again). That’s another French phrase where the two words blend into each other to make a smooth, romantic sound. And, just in case you were wondering, the phrase in this week’s title is from a French proverb – ‘he who does nothing does ill’. A bit like training, really.

Cheers.

Colin

Food, glorious food. And beer.

This week I watched a programme on TV about the state of British sandwiches. Not the type of programme I would usually watch, but nothing else was on. Apparently, M & S (that great bastion of British institutions) makes a sandwich which contains more fat than a Big Mac and chips! And there is one particular sandwich made by Subway which contains as much salt as eighteen packets of crisps! All very scary stuff indeed.

This got me thinking about my own diet. In my quest to improve my running I know that I could do with shedding a few pounds and so, in light of the TV documentary, I thought I would analyse my food intake for a week (do not confuse this with food out-take in the style of Gillian McKeith).

Check this out….

Breakfasts – Alpen, toast
Lunches – Varying between jacket potatos, chilli con carne (pre-packaged from M & S), bolognese and sauce
Dinner – Beans on toast, take-away curry
Snacks – Twirl, bagels, peanut butter on toast, crisps, service-station rolls
Drinks – coffee, energy drinks, water, beer

We all know that triathletes are in the fortunate position of being able to eat what they want, up to a certain point, but I think, looking at what I have consumed over the past week, that I might be taking this concept a little too literally. I definitely know that beer should be completely off-limits, but that is easier said than done, especially since so many of my friends like a glass or two (or, in the case of one who shall remain nameless, seventeen).

Then there are the pies and chips, oh those pies and chips. Being so busy so much of the time, I don’t often find the time to fit in wholly nutritious foods, so sometimes it’s a quick pie or pastie, a portion of chips, and that’s it. Not the most healthiest of diets, I know, and I am sure that Ms McKeith would have a field day examining my stools (what kind of a job is that?). I do know that I should start watching what I eat and drink, that’s for sure, and it has been a very useful exercise analysing what I have eaten this past week.

This week's pie-induced training went like this:-

Monday - run - 30 minute sprints
Tuesday - rest day
Wednesday - hard brick session, incorporating 60 minute bike interval and 45 run interval sessions
Thursday - bike - 10 mile time-trial - 25:55 - better than previous week but still off my best
Friday - run - 60 minute track session with my coach Mark Kleanthous
Saturday - race - National Relay Championships - 500 metre swim, 15K bike, 5K run - all flat (see event photo below)
Sunday - run - hard interval with Paul McGee

Next week I am off to London to spectate at the London Triathlon, the race which started it all for me years ago (although now at a different venue). Nowadays it is apparently the world’s biggest mass-participation triathlon and so promises to be a fantastic day. Maybe also an opportunity to treat myself to some bike bling.

So, until then, adios. I am off to the pub for a sneaky beer with Jev, then to MacDonalds for one last, fat-filled Big Mac and chips, and boy I am going to enjoy it all! I mean, it can’t be any worse than something from the shelves of M & S can it?

Cheers.

Colin

Surprises, surprises!

One of my favourite local runs is over at Ashridge where, over the years, I have ran with friends and, more recently, members of the Tring Running Club.

For those of you who don’t know it, Ashridge is a local beauty spot of approximately 5000 acres of woodland, used occasionally for film sets such as Harry Potter and, apparently, The Dirty Dozen.

This weekend, whilst the kids were at friends and the weather had turned for the better, I decided to take a drive over to Ashridge, on my own and with a picnic and copy of Runner’s World, to take some time out and relax in the sun. Whilst I was there, I took in the real beauty of the woodland. I had the time to actually look at the magnificence of it all and thought how lucky I was to have it right on my doorstop. After many, many miles treading the paths on lonely runs, I was surprised that I had never actually appreciated it all before now.

Another surprise came in the shape of my first ever sub 2:30 Olympic distance triathlon, with a PB to boot, at Milton Keynes the previous Sunday. Along with 20 other members of my triathlon club (stand up Shires Triers and take a bow) I managed to complete the race in 2:23:58. I was particularly pleased with my swim and bike times although it was a bit demoralising being passed by every man and his dog on the run. Big up for Jo Mitchell for the fastest Shire of the day in 2:10:49 – Jo, how do you go so fast??

Not the most jam-packed of training weeks, but here it is:-

Monday – no training, recovery day following MK Olympic the previous day
Tuesday – no training, again, still recovering from MK!
Wednesday – easy swim, incorporating 400 metre time-trial, at David Lloyd gym in Bushey
Thursday – bike – 10 mile time-trial with my mate Jev O’Neill, time 26:58 – nothing to write home about, but 6 miles was against a very tough head-wind
Friday – run – tough 30 minute interval session with my mate Paul McGee
Saturday – race – Bedford Aquathlon (750 metre open water swim, 5K run) – 38 minutes’ish – 8th position overall, winner in my age group (in fact, only competitor in my age group, but hey you gotta be in it to win it!)
Sunday – race – Bedford Open Water Sprint Triathlon (750 metre open water sprint, 22K bike, 5K run) with Jev – 24th position overall (116 raced) - that's me below in transition before the race



Here's a link to my online training diary.

Next week it’s a lot of run-specific stuff, and the National Relays on Sunday. Am really looking forward to that. Plus also another run or two over at Ashridge. This time I am going to appreciate, for once, how lucky I am to have it all so close at hand.

Until then, happy training and have a great week.

Why, oh, why?

It all began many moons ago in the late 1990's when, after a long lay-off from all sports, I decided to ditch the pipe and smoking jacket in favour of a bike and pair of swimming trunks. After a couple of months cycling to the local pool in Dunstable each morning it was suggested to me by my work colleague Jason Bennett (experienced Marathoner) that I might want to tag a run onto the end and do a triathlon.

I thought that sounded pretty cool and so entered, and finished, the London Sprint Triathlon. The race wasn’t the big commercial affair it is now and I enjoyed it very much. I caught the bug instantly.

The ensuing years saw me competing at very mediocre speeds at all distances – Super-Sprint, Sprint, Olympic, Half Ironman and Ironman. This culminated at Ironman Switzerland where, behind the finish line, I sat quietly on my own and wondered where to go next. I had achieved everything I wanted to achieve and felt deflated. I needed a new challenge.

I was becoming less and less interested in the 100 mile Sunday bike rides, preferring the all-out eye-balling Sprint races which were done and finished in just over an hour. It was at the start line of the 2007 Northampton Sprint (which was a BTA Age Group qualifying event for the 2008 World Sprint Championships), where I smelt the anticipation in the atmosphere. There I was, ready for the off, against the best Age Groupers in the country and I thought ‘this feels good’. It was precisely then that I knew I had found my next challenge - qualification for the GB Age Group Team for the 2009 World Sprint Championships in Australia - and re-kindled my waining interest in the sport in the process.

Ok, I might not be the fastest, but I looked at the results from that day and saw that, had I ‘registered my interest’ to qualify (apparently, this is something you need to do prior to competing for a GB place), I would have actually qualified by the back-door 'roll-out' method (that is where others who were faster than me had not taken up their spot, leaving me next in line).

The qualifying events for the 2009 World Championships are the Big Cow Sprint Triathlon - 6th/7th June 2009, the Grendon Triathlon - 10th May 2009 and the Blithfield Triathlon - 25th/26th July 2009. From now until then I have a lot of training to do.

Join me in my quest to train for those races, ultimately (and hopefully) leading to a place on the start line against the best Age Groupers in the World in Australia in September 2009. The high-energy, glamorous spectacle of the World Champs might seem a million miles away from that first low-key race in London all those years ago but I want, I need, to experience that unique smell of anticipation once more.