Daz Does Tri

Race today, Southern Mens League Division 2 N at Cambridge. My first track race since the GRE Cup final in 2000. Preperation didn't go great. After a hard track session and bike on Tuesday, I did a hard swim (mile) and bike on Wednesday. Thursday managed 4 very tired miles running and was absolutely shattered at around 7.45 pace. Friday again was tired but went out for my brother in laws 'tame' stag do in the evening. Had a curry & 3 beers after a big pub lunch. Wasn't 100%, had an afternoon nap and lots of sleep Thursday / Friday night. Not sure what was wrong but was feeling wiped out both days. So to race day, wokr up fine. Got to the track at 3pm just in time to see the 5000m. The C&C boys all had cracking races. CW, BrotherJohn from fetch (a storming 16.38) & Al (17.02) all running great guns. Alex from Hunts AC / BRJ clocking 18.06 after a fast start. So all revved up to have a crack at a decent time. Warm up fine feeling ok. Until I...

Wednesday after track I decided to do a cross training day. Legs were ruined, tendons not used to going over barriers. Muscles fine, just not done that explosive kind of exercise for a LONG time !! Swam at lunch time, Manor of Groves again so 80 lengths of the pool in 33 mins which is a 4 min pb for the mile. Ached a lot beforehand but kind of just got into it. Tried to glide more which I think helped get the time down. Bike session in the evening, same route as Tuesday morning with a slight bit added on. Felt very tired on the hills and was a good workout keeping the speed roughly to 17.5 mph again. Today was a very tired run. Wanted to get something long done but my legs are just trashed. Got a tired 3.9 miles in 30 mins. Not great but got to thinking that running on legs so tired must be worth a lot more than running on fresh legs. Racing Saturday and I certainly want the legs to be fresh by then so I am going to shut down till then and get my legs feeling 100%. Ve...

After a good ride today, needed to buy some spikes for Saturdays race. Combined it with a trip to the pub with the family for tea and made the mistake of buying the extra large burger. Got me spikes from Advanced Performance in Cambridge. Loverly aren't they !! Not much choice to be fair, when I were a lad I used to pore over magazines for the best spikes, usually Bourne Sports in Stoke or Knight Sports in Chingford. Now I am just happy to own a pair !! It was always Nike Air or Asics back in the day. So to the session. Pace judgement for 3k SC on Saturday. Aim was to run 3 x 1000m @ 3.20 pace for a target time of 10 mins. We laid some hurdles out on the bends in lane 3 and a barrier out on the back straight so with not much work being done in lane 1 it was probably working out closer to 1025m (the extra 3/4 secs is important !!!) I know there is no water jump so the distance is probably fair. New guy Paul turned up, he's got some shit hot PB's and was happy ...

After doing not much last week (Mrs Birthday Tuesday and Brother in laws stag do Saturday) I got out for a steady / hard 6 on Sunday night @ 6:30 avge pace. Felt pretty good which was nice for a change! Monday was a long day at work and din't get a chance for an afternoon run and ended up getting out for a tired 5 @ 7/mm avge in the end. Felt really good on the run, pace felt easy and was holding back for the best part of it. Legs were a little stiff and I think it's just them gettung used to running less miles at a quicker pace. Went out on the road bike for half hour today - just under 10 miles @ 17.5 mph. All good training as I'm still considering the half iron man in Sept. Track tonight, hoping I havn't left too much fitness on last weeks beer / CBA week. Just one of thise things where life gets in the way but hopefully pick up where I left off and march on to a 5k pb before too soon. Pace wise, starting to crack well under 7/mm for steady runs now. Go...

Friday I decided to have a rest day. We were taking our youngest kids to Gullivers Land in Milton Keynes and then having friends over for dinner in the evening. My window to run was pretty narrow and I only wanted to get a 6 mile recovery run in, so went for the rest as the legs were still feeling weary. Ended up having waaayyy to much booze in the evening (17 bottles of beer, 3 bottles of Rose and a large dent in my bottle of Mount Gay Rum between 4). In bed by 2.30am and then up at 7.15 with the kids. Narrow window to run in the afternoon was missed in favour of a doze on the sofa. Out to a friends BBQ in the afternoon and decided to swerve the booze as I was still feeling a bit sensitive and wanted to get some kind of run in. Out at 9pm on the dot, decided to just run pretty hard as I will only get 2 short runs in this weekend so wanted to drain the best out of both. First mile up in 6:45 and feeling way too hard and a bit long compared to usual beep point! Eased back for...

Felt a bit bleugh today, really couldn't face 2 runs but knew I had to get it done. Plan was 10 this morning then 5 HR test this evening. Was going to run with Andy at work which would have been c 9/mm pace but he darted off early doors so I was on my own! Set off and legs felt terrible. Not sure if it was the swim yesterday but I never felt great at all on the run. Garmin was also giving stupid readings - not sure if it was trees on the trails or what but I was 6 mins into the first mile at 7:20 pace and without slowing I ended up with 7.30. The second mile started at 8:20 pace !! Then half way through it was 7.35 pace before going up to 7.50 pace. I understand that pace is all over the shop early doors into a mile but half way through to change that much! So it all made the run even harder to get through. Winded it up at 8 miles, could have gone on but couldn't face it. 8.11 miles @ 7:58 pace. Ate well in the afternoon and got out for the HR test this evening af...

Plan for today was always to take a day off running and get a long swim in. Having entered a half ironman back in April (when I hadn't swum for years or even own a bike) I always felt that I would do it if I could get a distance swim and bike in. Today wasn't the full distance swim but I could easily have done it if I needed to. Unfortunately the pool at John Warner was busy so I had to go to Manor of Groves. The MOG is only a 20m pool which meant I needed complicated maths to work out how many lengths I needed to do !! No dramas, got in and hit straight off for 80 lengths. Did an extra couple at the end just incase I had miscounted but I'm sure that I did more if anything as if I wondered (54 or 56 for example) I made sure I called it the lower number. Swim time was 37 mins. Happy with that as I got a few turns messed up but I felt very strong throughout and could have gone much further. Technique isn't brilliant but off just 5 swims I think that is pretty ...