2014 will be another year of iron!

I try not to think too much about the long term plan too much. I know I want to to race more and get better/faster/fitter, but at what distance or event I'm fairly sanguine. My approach is to relax, go with the flow, and see what I end up signing up for. I kind of let my subconscious get on with it while I watch from the sidelines. As a result it sometimes gets carried away before I can get it in check - but at least I know I'll always have a full calendar.

I entered IM 70.3 UK 2014 a while ago, and a few minutes ago also entered the full distance IM UK 2014. It looks like 2014 will be another year of iron! I'm also fairly convinced that in September my inner event-enterer will be signing me up to IM Wales again too. Glutton for punishment? Certainly. I have unfinished business on both of those full distance courses. They were my first, I was young and naive. I loved the experiences but made many rookie mistakes. I can go a lot faster. A lot faster.

Oops, I did it again

Also for 2014 there's Hell of The Ashdown to do (missed that this year due to ITBS woe), Ride London, a bunch of Thames Turbo sprint triathlons, the Virgin Active London Triathlon (really enjoyed the Olympic Plus event this year), and probably much more. I shall certainly be entering the Ultra Race London Ultra 50km (when entries are open, no news on that yet but I assume it'll be going ahead), I'd really like to run further too (Mrs is getting the bug for ultra-running, it's infectious). I really fancy a 50-miler, one day maybe longer (but probably not next year).

There are also the little "someday/maybe" side projects that swim around my head. I want to do my London run-derground over winter to make training a bit more interesting. I also fancy riding LE2JoG (Land's End to John O'Groats) again - I've done it before but spread over two weeks. I fancy trying it in 4 or 5 days. Maybe a little project for Easter. Added to that, there are so many parkruns still to do; so, so many more parkruns!

There's plenty to do first though - Thames Turbo sprint series race 4 is on Monday, IM 70.3 Zell-am-See-Kaprun is next weekend, with the Valencia triathlon the week after that. The following week is the ITU World Series final in Hyde Park, we got some grandstand tickets for the Women's race on Saturday and the Men's on Sunday - and Mrs even managed to secure a spot in the open sprint race so is racing on the famous course. I decided 4 consecutive weekends of racing was probably one too many for me so I shall be on cheering and photography duty.

There's nothing quite like a packed calendar!

Time to man-up and hit the reset button

This blog was about my quest to become an ironman. Well the votes are in and the results are out: I made it. Wimbleball, Bolton, Galway, Tenby - all finished, and I've got the incredibly rare Ironman Ultimate Finisher glassware to show for it.

My second full distance Ironman finishing chute, Ironman Wales 2012

At some point after Tenby I got a bit too wrapped up in entering more events, and wanting to go faster and further. I went balls-out on the Royal Parks Half Marathon and got myself a bout of ITBS to show for it. That wasn't fun, and it still isn't. I haven't run since November. I thought cycling was fine, so I got excited about cycling and put my efforts into completing a turbo-trainer mega-set over Christmas. Turns out cycling brought on ITBS too, so no more cycling either.

Rolling into 2013 the races I wanted to do and in some cases had already entered are ticking past without me in them. The first Hell of The Ashdown (last year's report) I've missed in 4 years, The London Ultra (Mrs ran it, she had an amazing day, and so did parkrun extraodinaire abradypus - I cheered them on), Thames Turbo Race 1 (Mrs raced it she had a good day - I marshalled and cheered, good fun). Next up is Thames Turbo Race 2, I won't be in that either.

I was signed up for Coach Joe Beer's tri-camp at Club La Santa in Lanzarote. I went there at the end of January with a month of pain-free knee. Lanzarote was great - incredible place, if a bit windy. I had already paid to take my bike out, so I took it. I cycled a bit too much, and on the morning of the last day the pain came back.

The leisure pool at CLub La Santa (the only Sports/Holiday camp with its own theme song)

I did absolutely nothing for 2 weeks afterwards, then got back onto my exercises (as scheduled by Mountain Man Rob Turner). I've been sticking vaguely to my rehab exercises since then - probably not as well as I should though.

I went Low Carb High Fat from mid-November, I saw great results up until Christmas with everything positive - the weight fell off and I got lower than I've ever been before. As I got more unhappy and rolled into 2013 I totally broke it. I made a string of very poor nutrition decisions, including stopping logging my intake entirely since the start of February. I thought I had everything in check and could freewheel. I couldn't. Recently I've put on weight at an astonishing weight due to continuing poor meal decisions. I've broken my adaptation to being a fat-burning athlete, I've eaten cake, pizza, toast - all of which now leave me with a horrible bloated stomach and a real toxic stomach ache as I'm just not used to processing carbs in such volumes lately. I've totally over-consumed alcohol, and I commented when I started this journey over a year ago that I have a problem with that.

I have stopped working with my coach (thanks Joe, you were great), and I'm not going to South Africa for Unogwaja or Comrades (I got accepted, I got excited, then ultimately declined - though not because of this injury).

Terrible clip-art, shamelessly stolen. I'm not proud.

The only person that can turn this around is me. So I am. It's time to man-up, take control, and hit the reset button. There it is, above. You can hit it too if you feel you could use a symbolic action.

The positives are that I am getting stronger. I can now cycle-commute twice per week as long as it's not on consecutive days, and I don't get any pain. If I carry on improving I could start running slowly and minimal duration as early as the end of April. I have an aim to run Wimbledon Common parkrun on my birthday - that would be a significant moment. I really miss parkrun.

I'm going to remove those races from the countdown on the front page (apart form the couple I'm still signed up for). I'm going to freshen up the colour scheme a bit. I did consider just not blogging any more (I achieved the point of the blog after all), but I think there are more races and adventures to come. I'm going to celebrate the success of last year - without feeling the need to go bigger and bolder this year.

I'm logging my nutrition in the wonderful Weight Loss Resources again to get a grip. I know the weight falls off when I'm well balanced - recently I haven't been, but I can be again. It'll all be good again, and I'll return stronger than I ever was before, ready for my next challenge, whatever that turns out to be...

Race Report: Hell of the Ashdown 2012 (100km route)

I had a certain amount of trepidation going into this sportive. As I said previously I had a bad experience in 2010 with this course, and because of that I've always had demons to clear.

I signed up in November last year when entries opened - my friend Chris signed up too, and we secured the same start time of 09:02am. There are two route options, a "100km" route (actually 106km), and a "50km" route (actually 53km) called "Devil's de Tour". Chris and I signed up for the 100km version, and Mrs fancied taking on the challenge too and, seeing as this was her first organised bike event, she opted for the 50km route (her race report is here on www.totkat.org). A good plan - Chris had done the same thing last year.

My car is "in the shop" and so I have an enormous Audi A4 Avant of boat-like proportions for the week as a loaner car. It swallowed the bikes and associated kit like they were a small snack.

You could ship freight containers in this thing - I love it!

We signed in and relaxed with a cup of tea ahead of our start time. 9:02am came and, after a quick commemorative photo, we set off.

Chris (L) overloading the CCD with his jacket and me (R) posing ahead of the "Hell"

Chris and I had agreed before hand that we weren't going to race each other, we'd play it by ear and if one of us naturally pulled away we'd just roll with it.

Right at the start there's a massive hill - don't let it knock your confidence, it's short and sharp and soon over, then it's into the ride proper. I was a little restricted on the flat and downhill due to having a faulty front mech - I couldn't move onto the big ring at all, nor could I use the smallest cog on the cassette. I knew previously that I had been having some gearing problems, but thankfully, it being more about the uphills than the fast rolling flats, I wasn't too crippled.

First lesson: Always check your equipment well in advance of the event.

The first 30km flew past, and we made it to the first of the two feed stations in what felt like no time. There were two climbs I remembered from both years as being Big Climbs that Deserved Respect - the first was encouragingly named "The Wall", and came just after the stop. It's quite distinctive as you round the corner at the bottom and see it stretching up ahead of you into the sky. On the climbs, Chris was pulling away from me - he had a wider ranged cassette so he could stay sat down and plug away keeping a good cadence while I ran out of gears and needed to get out of the saddle a bit more. I caught up over the brows of the hills though, so we ended up staying together the whole way round.

The first feed stop

Second lesson: Think about the gearing you will need in advance, and make sure you've selected a cassette with an appropriate range (and appropriate chainrings to match).

The Wall, despite its imposing name, wasn't the mountain I remember. I felt quite good on the way up, and had plenty of energy left for the shallower climb that ran on from the top of the steep section - overtaking a dozen or two other riders on the way and catching back up with Chris.

It was disappointing not to have the high gears I needed to really take advantage of the rolling ups and downs, but with some occasionally comedic high cadence moments I don't think it held us up too much. I flew up the hill I remember walking up near to tears two years previously, and we made it to the second feed station in high spirits.

I knew it had taken around an hour and a quarter the last two years from the second feed station to the finish, and there was only the mighty "Star Hill" between us and completion. Again, I had this obstacle pretty much the size of Everest in my head, and was amazed that I just dug in and rode up it. I put in a couple of higher cadence out of the saddle moments, but most of the rise was sat down, plugging away, and overtaking people. What a different experience to the last two years!

Spot the comedy cadence and rest stops

It was a bit lumpy

We finished and rode over the timing mat at precisely the same time in order to get an equal time - though it transpires that Chris must have crossed the start mat a second behind me, as he ended up one second quicker! Bah!

I finished 369th out of 956, one place behind Chris, in a time of 4:37:31 - absolutely smashing my 2011 time of 5:23:27 (a 46:56 improvement) and 5 hour target. My secondary objective was to break into the middle third of finishers - as it was I was 39% down the field, so very nearly made it into the top third!

Obligatory finishers picture with Chris (I'm not sure why he was pulling a funny face!)

I'm really very happy about the result, even my most positive estimate put me at 4:45:00 - and I know with a bit less hanging around at the feed stations and having all my gears to hand (or foot) I could knock another few minutes off the time. So I think next year's challenge is to break 4 hours.

My bottle full of gels was an interesting experiment. I didn't get sick of the taste at all, but the liquid was a bit too viscous to eat easily through the bottle nozzle. With a bit of adjustment I think it could be a winning formula though, and certainly an order of magnitude easier than fiddling with individually wrapped gels.

I was particularly pleased about my heart rate - the majority of the time was spent in Zone 1, with 55 minutes in zone 2, and just under 7 in Zone 3. This means for the most part I was well under my functional threshold which means I have more "in the tank" to commit without crossing over into a level I couldn't sustain for an endurance event. This is what endurance training has given me, and proves that I am building a good aerobic base. There's a lot more work to do, but - just like my recent 5km PB - it's a great motivator to see real results-based evidence.

HR plot - lots of Zone 1 (under 152bpm), this is a good thing

Mrs had also done amazingly, and smashed her target with an amazing 02:26:14 finish. She was second female (the margin was under 2 minutes - she's blaming chatting at the feed station for that!), and beat most of the blokes too, coming a stonking 4th overall! Check out her position in the results table here.

My Garmin plot for the event is here.

Finish picture with a squeeeeee-ing Mrs

I got some odd looks when upon finishing I ran into the cafeteria, changed my shoes, and ran out! The 15 minute run I'd been advised to tack on the end was a real eye-opener. I remember the leaden legs I had at the Thames Turbo races last year, I had no experience of running off the bike at all. I'd by lying if I said that my legs were feeling fresh as I ran out - but certainly the long runs and brick sessions had helped. I kept cadence high and form good (and pretty much sweated to death due to running in bib-tights and two tops on the hottest day of the year so far).

A few of my favourite photos from the event, taken en route by Sportivephoto Limited.

Event photos, a couple with Chris, and one with a cheery wave for the camera

Am now very happy, no longer scared of the Big Hills, and actively looking forward to next year and the sub-4 hour challenge!

Official documentation!

Thank you Catford CC for a wonderful event, friendly and welcoming atmosphere, and brilliant marshals.

The first event on the 2012 race calendar

Tomorrow is the first event of the year, "Hell of the Ashdown" organised by Catford Cycling Club. A choice of 55km or 110km sportive in and around the Ashdown forest (in, around, and crucially up and down). It's all about the hills.

For the revised 2012 route there are 8 major climbs on the 110km route. Taken from their website:

1. Cudham Test Hill – New in 2009, this literally gives a short sharp shock in the first mile or so. Don’t worry if you have to walk the 1 in 4 stretch at the top because in any case we ask you to dismount to turn right at the T junction.
2. Toys Hill – You'll need to settle in for this 2 mile steady grind.
3. Up to Mark Beech – A new one for 2012
4. Forest Row to Ashdown Forest Heights - Another 2 mile steady slog up the same escarpment as the Wall
5. "The Wall" - This daunting climb was considered so hard that the Tour de France gave it a miss when the stage went over the Ashdown in 1994. On the Ordinance Survey map it’s steep enough to warrant a 'chevron' on two stretches. Although Kidds Hill is 1.5 miles long you will climb for a total of 2.5 miles to the summit of the Ashdown Forest at King's Standing.
6. "Nouvelle Col de Groombridge" - A new addition to the HOTA which we have just discovered. This narrow lane soars skywards seemingly forever.
7. Bayley's Hill – New in 2009 it replaces Ide Hill. We are not surprised if you've never heard of it because it's wisely shunned by those in the know. The quite lane starts on the low levels of the Weald of Kent and arduously toils up for about 2.5 miles, easy at first but it gets steeper until it rears up to crest the North Down’s Greensand Ridge.
8. Star Hill – 'The sting in the tail'. This is the one everybody talks about as it is a vicious climb coming towards the end of a gruelling ride.

I'm excited about this event. It's the first "proper" event since I've started the Ironman training. I definitely feel fitter and faster, and so I'm intrigued to see what difference that makes on the clock.

I've entered the 110km route in the last two years. It used to be held on the last Sunday in January to make it a real winter test, but the bitterly cold and icy days they had in 2009 and 2010 meant that from 2011 it was moved to the last Sunday in February. I can definitely agree that 2010 was a true winter day of near Arctic proportions!

In 2010 I had my only real experience of "bonking" (the cycling equivalent of "hitting the wall") - I ran completely dry - it was one of the most horrible experiences I've ever had. I couldn't get up any hills (even a slight rise) and was so weak that I couldn't keep the bike going in a straight line on the down hills. This kicked in after about 5 hours in the saddle. I sat in a car park by the side of the road and gave up. Tried to call Mrs (or Miss, as she was then), but there was no reception. I felt sorry for myself for a while and realised that if I didn't get my arse into gear I was going to be stuck in the car park for the rest of my life.

After hauling myself up, I was amazed to find the next feed station literally (and I mean literally) around the next corner. I stocked up on hot sweet coffee and the wonder that is Mule Bar, and rode the final hour to the finish. I learned a lot that day, I've never been on empty before, or since, and I never want to repeat the experience.

In 2011 I had a pocket full of Power Bar products so I could fuel on the bike (or by the road) and performed much better. I also stopped at the first feed station (I hadn't done in 2010, a really stupid and junior mistake, and the primary reason for my energy depletion later).

This time, I'm trying an idea for Ironamn fuelling - to put a load of liquid gels into a drinks bottle. You need to use thin liquid ones like the Science in Sport ones below, or the High5 IsoGel, otherwise the mixture is too thick to get through the nozzle.

Save time, pocket space, and stickiness!

There's nothing fiddlier whilst cycling than trying to extract a gel from your pocket, unwrap it, and consume it without dropping any rubbish. This could save a huge amount of time in an Ironman race, so it's a good opportunity to try it out.

12 gels fit, almost to the from

The bottle feels oddly heavy, and I'm pretty sure it's going to be very weird "drinking" the gels, but let's see how it turns out.

Heavy duty bag, perfect for car boot protection

We also took advantage of a good accessories sale at Evans and picked up a couple of soft bike bags - total bargain at about £35 each - 10% off total for two items, with 15% off if you buy 3 items, so we got two of these and a £1.99 water bottle. A bargain for saving the interior of the car!

This was the last two years' performance:

This year, I'd like to get sub-5 hours, but there is a different route so let's see what happens. Finishing in the bottom fifth (80th percentile or below) is a pretty poor show too, I'd like to be in the middle third (33-66%), but there are some kick-arse cyclists that do this every year, so let's just see how it goes.

Oh, and just to make it fun (and more Ironman relevant), I'm tack ing a 15-minute run onto the end as soon as I finish!

So that's it, all ready for the morning. I'll let you know what happens...