1st May 2011 – Great South Run – Half Marathon (Entered)
15th May 2011 – Freaky Triathlon – Olympic Distance (1600m/40km/10km) Entered
12th June 2011 - Tour of Pembrokeshire – 189km Bike ride taking in much of the IM course (TBA)
19th June 2011 – Cholmondely Castle Tri – (1600m/40km/10km) **TBA
10th July 2011 – Bustin Skin Middle Distance – (1900m/94km/21km) Entered
21st Aug 2011 – Bath Triathlon – (1600/40km/10km) **TBA
The Race
11th Sept 2011 – Ironman Wales (3800m/180km/42km) – Entered
OK – so the past few months have been a little up and down as we’ve been doing IUI trying for a baby, unfortunately after a number of near misses we are still no closer. The upshot of doing the IUI is that I’ve been staying off the bike and not beasting myself with 14hours excercise weeks, which means I’ve missed Lanzarote and Nice.
But all is not lost… I have found the very glamorous Ironman Wales … yes thats right, we’re off to Pembrokshire in September to do the Ironman… well I did say I’d do it somewhere abroad where people speak funny!!!
So I’m back in the saddle and enjoying getting straight back into training, and the bright side is I have the whole summer with some light evenings to do the training.
More training and fundraising updates to follow…
It’s been a while since my last post (appologies), i’ve been having a little break from the Intensive training – although still keeping things ticking over! Full training starts again soon – and what better way to kick start things than doing the Great South Run along with another 20,000 other people this Sunday (24/10/10) – I’ll be posting my usual race report here after the event
Race Report -
Managed to get to the event on time ( rather than my usual last minute rush) which was fortunate as it appeared the other 23,000 runners all wanted the same parking space! Fortunately I’d used www.parkatmyhouse.co.uk to find a space that could facilitate a quick getaway. Stood around at the start line for quite a while but it was cold but sunny and my choice of all black clothing proved a good idea as my temperature soared – I don’t think the chap in the pink tutu and fishnets next to me was quite so warm!
I got off to a pretty good start, putting in consistent 7min30sec miles – for the first few miles, I must have been in the zone as I don’t remember running past the 3500 tonne HMS Victory! - however by the 10km mark I’d slowed to 7min50sec miles. I managed to maintain some sort of pace in the middle of the race, but miles 7-9 were a bit of a struggle and I felt like I was missing a gear. I managed a final effort to get me over the line in 1Hr23mins. In hindsight I probably ran the race the wrong way around and went out to hard and finished slow, but it was still a credible performance, finishing in the top 11% overall and in the top 20% of my age group. All in all a great race 
I have now raised my first £1000 (mostly for Rowcroft so far) – so a big thank you to anyone that donated and helped motivate me to train harder.
Well my race didn’t go strictly according to plan!
The Swim went OK but was slow by my standards, mostly because I”ve eased off swim sessions due to a niggling rotator cuff injury – swim time was circa 30mins (still waiting for times to be posted) – here’s the swim start
T1 was ok (in fact all my transitions were quite well planned!
The bike started well, I took about 5 people on the hill directly out of the event, however about 5 miles in, on the next hill, my chain jumped and I took a nose dive off the bike landing on my elbow and cracking my ribs on the handlebars, undeterred, I put the chain back on, remounted and carried on – albeit with limited gears – mostly high ones!
I was a little slow on the hills – but the flat and down hill, I rocketed along and made up 20+ places on the bike
The run was a OK, slow to start and I thought I had stitch all the way round (turned out to be my ribs!) but I kept running the whole way through
A big thank you to Jamima from Jammy and Co – my race may have gone pear shaped with my crash – but your training plan ensured I finished even though I was hurting
(more videos to come…)
I did it!! 175km, 3200 meters of climbing (that’s 10,500feet!!) peeing down with rain and a wicked headwind – ride complete in just over 7 hours (allowing for food stops and my broken chain)
Very impressed – especially with all that climbing – and making it up Peak Hill without stopping – excellent spectators, loads of encouragement to keepgoing! Awesome Day!!!
Well its the last week before the Tour Ride – the weekend was good and i didnt get rained on!!!
Did a 2hr 30minute turbo bike session on Sunday (I really couldn’t face the roads) and then a hilly 10km run monday
Tuesday – 1hr bike followed by 30min run – which felt really good – i could have done it all over again (but instead I decided to consume my own weight in Oreo biscuits)
Rain!! Sideways rain, downwards rain, head on rain, upwards rain, 85miles of cycling in the rain!! The MET Office forecast was for “the weather will brighten up through the day with sunshine in the afternoon” and not “it will be a flood of biblical proportions”. Still we had a good ride despite being very wet and still did the 85 planned miles.
Usual long ride on Sunday – this time taking the route over the top of Dartmoor past the Warren House Inn ( Teignmouth -> Kingsteignton -> Teign Valley -> Moretonhampstead -> Postbridge -> Asburton -> Newton Abbot -> home)
We tackled the hill at Dartmeet again – I almost wiped out at the bottom when the car I was following decided to test his brakes and let someone across the bridge – and again on the decent towards the Holne Chase someone turned across me – it’s no fun locking you back wheel up on a bike at 35mph – the picture shows Roger my cycling partner reaching the top of Dartmeet hill
The rest of the week saw pretty much the usual, swimming at Teignmouth on Monday, although i only managed 1400m as my shoulders been hurting. Also did a great Turbo run session on thursday, with an hour o the bike averaging about 220watts and then out for a relatively fast run – which felt really good.
Just a 30min run to do on friday – and providing my physio say my shoulder is ok maybe a 2000m swim
