Well I did it! Did I achieve my target time I hear you ask. We shall see....
I had taken a long period of taper from the time that I finished my big block of training as set out in the Triathlete magazine August Edition. Those who follow my blog will see in fact that I spent a few days in Bali. I did not train at all that weekend, but I did 3 lots of 2 hours straight of lugging a big old training surf board through the beach break. I can tell you by the end of day 3 I could barely get my arms out of the water when I was paddling. This was great training and it was a lot of fun.
The other trip that I had anticipated for the month of September did not arise, so I did not lose the extra week of training that I was planning at the beginning of the training blog. But I must confess that I was pretty beaten up by the 5 week block of training that I did follow and I did take the full 5 weeks to loosen up and get over the worst of the fatigue that the training block had caused. My legs were very tired and I was starting to get some pain in my right elbow from the swimming, particularly, I think, from the adjustment to my stroke that put strain on a whole new set of muscles in my shoulder and around my elbow.
To counter some of this I went for quite a number of massages, with a big focus on my deltoid muscles. I also had a massage that was focused on loosening my legs up. So you could say that I was pretty banged up in the time leading up to the race. That said, I was training really well. The weekend out from the race I went for an easy ride and blitzed 40km at an average speed of 30km/hr, all the while just trying to hold myself back.
On the Sunday I did a run session of 6 x 1 km all at an easy 4:30 km pace. To make sure that I built up some level of heat tolerance, I started this session at around 1:30 pm to capture the heat of the day. This may seem crazy, and it is. However, my race was scheduled to start at 9:50 am, which means I will be running at mid day. It is hot at mid day in Singapore. Again, during this session I was just holding myself back in order to ensure that I did not wear myself out, while still getting in a decent session.
Swimming in the week leading up to the event was also pretty easy. I did my regular session with Louise Tang on Monday morning and on Tuesday I did a session in which I swam 1100 m in 22 min 36 sec. So all three disciplines I was able to go through at race pace with very little effort.
Tuesday night it went a little pear shaped. While running on my favourite track around the Botanical Gardens, I started to get a little pain in my left hamstring. I endeavoured to run through it, but it got progressively worse and after about 5 km, I had to pull the pin.
I resolved to get myself ready for the race on Saturday at any cost. First thing on Wednesday morning, I got myself an appointment with one of the team at intouch physio. Luckily I was able to get an appointment for that evening. The Physio there is a young English guy called Paul Richards. He was able to do some work to release the hamstring and also my left hip, but he did worry that the problem was originating, not from the hamstring, but from a torn meniscus in my left knee. Not exactly what I wanted to hear.
He advised me not to do any more exercise, or even stretching between the appointment and Saturday and just see how it went. I felt OK about this, but I was a bit worried that the I would struggle with the change in biomechanics of my leg because my hip had been loosened up. Thursday night I went for a short walk/jog session, to build up my confidence. I also made an appointment with an acupuncturist on Friday. They put a few needles in my hamstring and ankle and then massaged my ITB and thigh. After all this treatment, I was able to get myself to the starting line, with a relatively high level of confidence that I would get to the finish line.
Saturday morning, I headed out to the race venue on the East Coast, nice and early. Mainly because Sophie was competing early in the morning. My race was not to start until 9:50 a.m. so I had plenty of time to get prepared and watch Sophie going around in her event.
All things must come to an end and so it was with my preparation for this event. After an easy warm up swim, a short wait at the starting area, it was time to rock'n'roll!
With the confidence that I had developed from my swim training over the past few months I got myself to the front of the pack for the start of the swim leg. My plan was to get out well early and hook myself in behind a stronger swimmer and swim easily in their wake for as long as possible. The plan worked well for the first 20 m or so when I was in the lead group. Alas, the swim course was only 750 m long, so that each swimmer had to swim two laps of the course. I got boxed in behind a group of slower swimmers from one of the earlier waves and by the time I got myself untangled, the lead pack had escaped me. However, after about 100 m I was able to hook onto the thigh of another swimmer and there I cruised for the next 600 m.
I felt good at the turnaround at the 750 m mark and all the way until about 1100 m. Then I started to fell sluggish but picked up for the last 200 m. I finished in about 32 minutes, which is by far and away my best open water swim and a great confidence booster.
T1 was good, but there is a long way between the swim and the bike at East Coast Park. The transition area was not very well set up I am afraid to say. The rack my bike was on was prone to fall over, which it did as I pulled my bike out during T1. I had discussed this with the officials before the start of the race when I found my bike and a number of others sprawled out in the transition area, but their efforts to correct it were feeble. I was lucky that I was out of the swim in a good position and first to pull my bike out of the rack. I am afraid those that came after me fond a tangle of bike and rack.
Onto the road and I made pretty good time. The bike course consisted of 6 laps of 6.67 km and from my training and racing over the last year and a half I knew every of teh circuit meter intimately. I wanted to set a pace of between 32 and 33 km/hour and keep it there for the whole race. It required discipline not to go out faster for the first lap. I felt really strong and my legs wanted to go somewhat faster. However, I was very conscious of the fact that there was a long way to go and I wanted as much as possible in the tank for the run leg. It turned out that there was very little difficulty keeping the pace and I averaged 33 km/hr. My only problem is that I ran out of fluids with one lap to go. When my bike fell over before the start of the race, my water bottle must have leaked, and I came in off the bike leg a little dehydrated. At the end of T2 I was at 1 hour and 50 min, right on schedule for a 2 hour 40 min standard distance triathlon.
All I had to do was run the 10km in 50 minutes. I had trained at this pace and better, consistently over the past 8 to 10 weeks and there was no reason I could think of that I couldn't do it on the day. I was very confident that I had done the training I needed to pull it off and I was sure that the discipline I showed by not going out too hard too early on the bike was enough from me to get home at the required pace. I was wrong. A 58 min run leg led to my overall time blowing out to 2 hr 49 min 15 sec. A personal best to be sure, but not my personal goal. I am happy to say that there was nothing left. When I finished, I was absolutely finished, so given my preparation, whether it was good or bad, I performed as well as I was able.
My thoughts about the training I did for this triathlon. I guess the training block that I undertook was pretty good. It truly tested me throughout the 5 weeks that I did it. The last week was very tough and I did not do the final week of training justice simply because I was so tired. I am pretty proud of my week 4 of that block when I did 6.8 km of swimming, 242 km on the bike and 18.8 km of running. That is up there as being one of my biggest weeks of training ever. On the down side, it may have been too big a leap from where I was at before taking it on. It took me a full 4 weeks to recover in the period leading up to the race and that included reduced training and a fair bit of massage.
Perhaps this recovery period was too long? Maybe I didn't do enough during the recovery period to carry the full benefit from my training into the race. I will need to think about this as I plan my next effort. For all of that, the thing that I will focus on is that I trained pretty hard, and I improved and that is a very good outcome.
The fall out.
So now I get to take a short break from running and cycling while I wait for my knee to recover from whatever it is that seems to be ailing it. Possibly a minor tear of the meniscus. I have also been having some physiotherapy on my right shoulder as it has tightened up p[robably as a result of the modified technique that I applied to my freestyle during the last 2 months of training. Even though it gives me a lot more power, it does work muscles that haven't been doing much for a long time and this could well have caused an imbalance in rotator cuff muscles leading to restriction of the shoulder joint. I have had some initial treatment on the shoulder and it is feeling pretty good. The knee I will try out again in early November and see if time alone has enabled the body to repair any injury.
Thanks to all for reading this blog. I hope there are many more to follow.
I had taken a long period of taper from the time that I finished my big block of training as set out in the Triathlete magazine August Edition. Those who follow my blog will see in fact that I spent a few days in Bali. I did not train at all that weekend, but I did 3 lots of 2 hours straight of lugging a big old training surf board through the beach break. I can tell you by the end of day 3 I could barely get my arms out of the water when I was paddling. This was great training and it was a lot of fun.
The other trip that I had anticipated for the month of September did not arise, so I did not lose the extra week of training that I was planning at the beginning of the training blog. But I must confess that I was pretty beaten up by the 5 week block of training that I did follow and I did take the full 5 weeks to loosen up and get over the worst of the fatigue that the training block had caused. My legs were very tired and I was starting to get some pain in my right elbow from the swimming, particularly, I think, from the adjustment to my stroke that put strain on a whole new set of muscles in my shoulder and around my elbow.
To counter some of this I went for quite a number of massages, with a big focus on my deltoid muscles. I also had a massage that was focused on loosening my legs up. So you could say that I was pretty banged up in the time leading up to the race. That said, I was training really well. The weekend out from the race I went for an easy ride and blitzed 40km at an average speed of 30km/hr, all the while just trying to hold myself back.
On the Sunday I did a run session of 6 x 1 km all at an easy 4:30 km pace. To make sure that I built up some level of heat tolerance, I started this session at around 1:30 pm to capture the heat of the day. This may seem crazy, and it is. However, my race was scheduled to start at 9:50 am, which means I will be running at mid day. It is hot at mid day in Singapore. Again, during this session I was just holding myself back in order to ensure that I did not wear myself out, while still getting in a decent session.
Swimming in the week leading up to the event was also pretty easy. I did my regular session with Louise Tang on Monday morning and on Tuesday I did a session in which I swam 1100 m in 22 min 36 sec. So all three disciplines I was able to go through at race pace with very little effort.
Tuesday night it went a little pear shaped. While running on my favourite track around the Botanical Gardens, I started to get a little pain in my left hamstring. I endeavoured to run through it, but it got progressively worse and after about 5 km, I had to pull the pin.
I resolved to get myself ready for the race on Saturday at any cost. First thing on Wednesday morning, I got myself an appointment with one of the team at intouch physio. Luckily I was able to get an appointment for that evening. The Physio there is a young English guy called Paul Richards. He was able to do some work to release the hamstring and also my left hip, but he did worry that the problem was originating, not from the hamstring, but from a torn meniscus in my left knee. Not exactly what I wanted to hear.
He advised me not to do any more exercise, or even stretching between the appointment and Saturday and just see how it went. I felt OK about this, but I was a bit worried that the I would struggle with the change in biomechanics of my leg because my hip had been loosened up. Thursday night I went for a short walk/jog session, to build up my confidence. I also made an appointment with an acupuncturist on Friday. They put a few needles in my hamstring and ankle and then massaged my ITB and thigh. After all this treatment, I was able to get myself to the starting line, with a relatively high level of confidence that I would get to the finish line.
Saturday morning, I headed out to the race venue on the East Coast, nice and early. Mainly because Sophie was competing early in the morning. My race was not to start until 9:50 a.m. so I had plenty of time to get prepared and watch Sophie going around in her event.
All things must come to an end and so it was with my preparation for this event. After an easy warm up swim, a short wait at the starting area, it was time to rock'n'roll!
With the confidence that I had developed from my swim training over the past few months I got myself to the front of the pack for the start of the swim leg. My plan was to get out well early and hook myself in behind a stronger swimmer and swim easily in their wake for as long as possible. The plan worked well for the first 20 m or so when I was in the lead group. Alas, the swim course was only 750 m long, so that each swimmer had to swim two laps of the course. I got boxed in behind a group of slower swimmers from one of the earlier waves and by the time I got myself untangled, the lead pack had escaped me. However, after about 100 m I was able to hook onto the thigh of another swimmer and there I cruised for the next 600 m.
I felt good at the turnaround at the 750 m mark and all the way until about 1100 m. Then I started to fell sluggish but picked up for the last 200 m. I finished in about 32 minutes, which is by far and away my best open water swim and a great confidence booster.
T1 was good, but there is a long way between the swim and the bike at East Coast Park. The transition area was not very well set up I am afraid to say. The rack my bike was on was prone to fall over, which it did as I pulled my bike out during T1. I had discussed this with the officials before the start of the race when I found my bike and a number of others sprawled out in the transition area, but their efforts to correct it were feeble. I was lucky that I was out of the swim in a good position and first to pull my bike out of the rack. I am afraid those that came after me fond a tangle of bike and rack.
Onto the road and I made pretty good time. The bike course consisted of 6 laps of 6.67 km and from my training and racing over the last year and a half I knew every of teh circuit meter intimately. I wanted to set a pace of between 32 and 33 km/hour and keep it there for the whole race. It required discipline not to go out faster for the first lap. I felt really strong and my legs wanted to go somewhat faster. However, I was very conscious of the fact that there was a long way to go and I wanted as much as possible in the tank for the run leg. It turned out that there was very little difficulty keeping the pace and I averaged 33 km/hr. My only problem is that I ran out of fluids with one lap to go. When my bike fell over before the start of the race, my water bottle must have leaked, and I came in off the bike leg a little dehydrated. At the end of T2 I was at 1 hour and 50 min, right on schedule for a 2 hour 40 min standard distance triathlon.
All I had to do was run the 10km in 50 minutes. I had trained at this pace and better, consistently over the past 8 to 10 weeks and there was no reason I could think of that I couldn't do it on the day. I was very confident that I had done the training I needed to pull it off and I was sure that the discipline I showed by not going out too hard too early on the bike was enough from me to get home at the required pace. I was wrong. A 58 min run leg led to my overall time blowing out to 2 hr 49 min 15 sec. A personal best to be sure, but not my personal goal. I am happy to say that there was nothing left. When I finished, I was absolutely finished, so given my preparation, whether it was good or bad, I performed as well as I was able.
My thoughts about the training I did for this triathlon. I guess the training block that I undertook was pretty good. It truly tested me throughout the 5 weeks that I did it. The last week was very tough and I did not do the final week of training justice simply because I was so tired. I am pretty proud of my week 4 of that block when I did 6.8 km of swimming, 242 km on the bike and 18.8 km of running. That is up there as being one of my biggest weeks of training ever. On the down side, it may have been too big a leap from where I was at before taking it on. It took me a full 4 weeks to recover in the period leading up to the race and that included reduced training and a fair bit of massage.
Perhaps this recovery period was too long? Maybe I didn't do enough during the recovery period to carry the full benefit from my training into the race. I will need to think about this as I plan my next effort. For all of that, the thing that I will focus on is that I trained pretty hard, and I improved and that is a very good outcome.
The fall out.
So now I get to take a short break from running and cycling while I wait for my knee to recover from whatever it is that seems to be ailing it. Possibly a minor tear of the meniscus. I have also been having some physiotherapy on my right shoulder as it has tightened up p[robably as a result of the modified technique that I applied to my freestyle during the last 2 months of training. Even though it gives me a lot more power, it does work muscles that haven't been doing much for a long time and this could well have caused an imbalance in rotator cuff muscles leading to restriction of the shoulder joint. I have had some initial treatment on the shoulder and it is feeling pretty good. The knee I will try out again in early November and see if time alone has enabled the body to repair any injury.
Thanks to all for reading this blog. I hope there are many more to follow.
