Wednesday 4 September 2013

The Vitruvian Part One: Prep

The Vitruvian Triathlon 2013
1900m swim (1.2 miles)
85 km bike (52.8 miles)
21 km run (13 miles)


Sorry! There was so much to say I've had to cut it in half! Suddenly I've been thinking and writing for so long I have to call it a day or I'll spend all day tomorrow asleep at work!

So... where to start? I’ve missed some bits recently, like Woodhall Spa’s nostalgia triathlon. We’ll have to come back to that. I need to get this down before it goes. I hate to lose the experience, and it’s already slipping away...

The Vitruvian (or The Vit) *flashback to lots of “are you hitting the Vit?” facebook comments flying around particularly between the madogaylords* started for me at last year’s event. My friend Aidy completed it and I was marshalling (and didn’t everyone crossing the bike mount line, either way, know about it). I remember once everyone was in on the bike moving over to marshall a crossing point on the run, and determinedly waiting for the last competitor to come in (a very tired looking man who was quite a way behind everyone else, but he made it!). I remember being in awe of everyone taking part. The distance seemed crazy! I was still doing sprints (with pool swims) at this point and it just seemed off the chart. I was so chuffed and proud for Aidy, especially as it was a really hot day and his time was amazing! (The sun does seem to come out for him, as it did on the Outlaw this year. Heat is not necessarily the best weather for triathlon!) Cue Aidy telling me I could do it, and me getting caught up in the excitement of it all deciding to sign up for it. This made sense last September, when it still wasn’t real. “I’ve got a year, easy” I told myself. And so it began...

Fast forward to conquering front crawl, getting my head around open water, speeding up on the run, and investing time in the cycling which I hated with a passion, especially after Lincoln Sportive (see 6th June Update). Most of these have been/will be documented... let’s get up to speed (fnar fnar). So Rother Valley (first open water race) and the Dambuster (at the same place as the Vit, doing the same bike & run routes just one lap) were my “prep” to build up from sprint to half iron distance. Well, let’s face it, I papped my pants! I’d been kind of training, but clearly nowhere near the intensity and distance I needed to. After the Dambuster I had a massive “What the chuff have I done?” fit and even tried to cancel and get a refund on my Vitruvian place. I was told all I could claim back was a 50% credit not. You can imagine my snort of derision at that. It cost £120! My Yorkshire tightwadness then made the call... I was going to hit the Vit! At this point, I realised I had 8 weeks to pull my finger out and get training PROPERLY. I hadn’t been doing nothing, but I needed to get structured and do more workouts each week. I spoke to Aidy as I knew he’d followed a properly structured plan and he sent me a couple of links for webpages. There were plenty of ready made plans, it was all about organisation (not my strongest point) and some good old determination. I also ended up with the “A” team for support and I honestly do not know what would have happened to my training if it hadn’t been for them. The “A” team are made up of Fran and Chris Allison. Fran loves running and has been my running buddy for at least 2.5 years now, and Chris had been getting back into his cycling on and off and had recently treated himself to a new road bike. I explained to Fran how I was worried about getting ready for the Vit, and the next thing I had her and Chris as well commited training buddies 2-3 times a week each. They were amazing! I let them know at the beginning of the week what workouts I needed to fit in that week, what distances/times/intensity etc and between us we co-ordinated them. This included brick sessions (covering 2 disciplines e.g practising bike to run transition) which involved everyone! They really put as much time and effort in as I did, and we got into a great routine with it. They invested so much of themselves in it that they decided to come down on the day and cheer me on. Fran plays it down, but I don’t think I would have trained half as well without them. It makes all the difference having someone to train with. It’s easier to bin it off on a tired day or cut a ride short when you are on your own (who is going to know, right?)

The 8 weeks flew by... Sorry, the 6 weeks flew by. We fit the training in as best we could, occasionally missing one or two training sessions a week purely due to time restrictions, but still we worked bloody hard. The distances progressed really fluidly and it all felt great. I had a period where I wasn’t feeling great so had to have a quiet week, but it didn’t seem to matter. At the start, 8 weeks hadn’t felt nearly long enough, but by the time weeks 7 & 8 came (the tapering weeks where you do very little to make sure you have recovered from your training fully in time for the race) I felt ready! We hadn’t rushed or skipped up massive distances, and yet at the end of 6 weeks we finished by doing a brick session of both the full bike and full run distance. To be fair, it was pushing it a little by week 6, because we did the bike, then the run the day after, then 4 days later did the full distance brick. This was purely because a) I was away that weekend so couldn’t leave it until the weekend to do the brick which would’ve given me about a week to recover and b) I had to get the full brick done before tapering started because I knew psychologically that I needed to KNOW that I could do it. And the only way to do that, was to do it. So we did...

Tapering was agony! I was gagging to get some exercise and my goodness did everyone know about it! I did very very little in the last two weeks, mainly due to time limitations, and birthdays, but I felt completely ready for it, and very impatient. I didn’t want to wait any more. Now that I knew I COULD to it, I really wanted to get on with it! Frustration is not a big enough word to describe it! My tolerance level dropped massively, and in my head most people around me were dead several times over for crimes as minor as dropping a pen. It really was agony!


Then it finally came... (to be continued)

2 comments:

  1. A-team (running dept) checking in .... awww - I felt all emotional reading that and it made me realise how hard we all worked ... and still managed to find time to lark about! Remember the 'transition' photo call by our back gate!
    I look forward to the next instalment.

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  2. I'm just writing a bit on my blog and came to look at yours to check some detail about Sleaford.... and got reading this bit again. Awww - reading about training and how we were the A Team, gave me a warm glow. We had some great fun, didn't we? Worked hard .... and ate well :-) Looking forward to doing it all again this year.

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