by : notatriathlete Race Reports, Triathlon

Ironman Dubai 70.3 – the power of positive thinking

So. It’s done. The first marker of the Ironman Wales 2020 season was the Dubai 70.3 Ironman event. A race which, in the past, I have professed to hate. Let me just say, right here, that first impressions are not always right.

                  I had felt surprisingly calm in the lead up to the Dubai race. I really think it was the lack of pressure. Since qualifying for the GB Age Group team in my first ever middle distance race I think I’ve always felt a pressure to perform to that level. Needless to say, since that day in the Cotswolds back in 2017, I’ve never come close. I panic before every race and every time my pace drops of I start to beat myself up. I spiral in to a negative mindset and from that second, the race is lost. I went in to this race with the full awareness that I really could not hope to match 5:31, I am simply not fit enough. So the next goal was – fall in love with middle distance again.

                  I spent the whole week ensuring I was sleeping, eating and drinking enough. If I’m honest, I’ve been tapering since RAK tri three weeks ago – but not intentionally. Work/life/lack of second car have all conspired against me. I think I had swum four times, run around 9 times and cycled twice. I managed to smash out my first sub-25 minute 5km in eighteen months at Cigna Parkrun this weekend and have been feeling pretty good about my running. I felt that if I were to make any gains at all over my 2018 time on this track, it would be on the run. My swim is pretty solid and my cycling is, at this point, utter crap. I was in for a surprise.

Nervy grins!

                  Let me just state the fact that the conditions were ideal. No chop, no wind, a little bit foggy, and not as hot as some February days in the desert can be. I was as calm as can be going in to the swim, which absolutely flew by. There were a few (okay, a lot) of the usual idiots seeding themselves way too optimistically who were resorting to breaststroke by the first buoy. Truthfully, my only tactic was just to plough through them. Maybe that’ll encourage them to be honest next time. I caught a sharp left hook to my jaw coming round on to the home straight and even managed to yell hello to friend of mine who was marshalling on his paddleboard. I finished on exactly the time I was predicting given that the swim was 100m long, finishing in 37 min when I had hoped for mid-35 over 1.9km. Ideal. 

                  Twat hat on, shoes on, food in pockets… go. Straight on to the bike, gel, yell hi to another friend who had come through the swim in exactly the same time and out on to a bizarrely pleasant bike course. I busied myself rehydrating and refuelling, adjusting kit and bottles and was amazed when the first 5km split bleeped over as sub-10 minutes. I told myself not to get over excited and to slow down a bit. I thought I did. The second 5km split bleeped over sub-10. I was super careful about drafting so couldn’t understand how I could be cycling this fast when I usually have to be clinging on to a wheel for any chance at averaging over 30kph. So, I assumed that there must be a pretty hefty tailwind… but all the flags were drifting in my direction, not away from me. They were clearly confused. I got my head down and focused on a steady rhythm and tried to ignore everything around me lest it get my hopes up for a positive bike split. But I kept seeing my splits. Bleep – 9:31. Bleep – 9:26. At one point – Bleep – 8:44. WHAT IS GOING ON?! I’M CRAP AT CYCLING!! The biggest challenge I faced was when I got to 65km in 2:06 and convinced myself that I still had 35km to go until I finished the 90km ride. Maths has never been my strength. That one took a good 90 seconds to work out. As I rode down Um Suqeim I realised I was in for a PB on the bike, something I hadn’t dreamed of in the lead up. I ended up finishing the split with a 9 minute all time PB, over 20 minutes faster than I had been expecting. 

                  I realised I had two hours and twenty minutes to run the half marathon and beat 6 hours. I started off a little ambitiously, running the first 3km at 5:30 pace before realising that this was potentially a bit much. So, I settled in to try to enjoy the run as much as possible. Every time I felt hot or heavy, I made myself think of how much pain I was in at Parkrun the previous week and of how running this much slower was way easier. Of how there was an aid station around the corner with Coca-Cola and ice cold sponges. Of how two of my best friends were on the track cheerleading whenever I went past. Of how I was, somehow, going to beat my previous time for the course. I avoided the bouncy green path as much as possible, sticking to the bricks which provided far more momentum and speed. I smiled at everyone instead of giving my usual ‘pray for me’ grimace. I saw so many people I knew including my Dubai parents, yelling and cheering as I bounced (yes, bounced) past. I finished without crossing the line stopping my Garmin and reflected on the fact that for the first time in years I had fully enjoyed a race. Every second of it. 

SO smiley!

                  I’m writing this the day after the race trying to work out why it went so well. I was incredibly happy to be repping the kit for my old club back in Wales who I will be re-joining this year, despite being in the UAE. The Newport East Wales Triathlon Club is responsible for me falling in love with this sport, and I cannot wait to be part of the 27-odd strong team of NEWTs heading to Ironman Wales this September. Two fellow NEWTs were there and seeing familiar faces from my UK racing days was just fantastic. I saw one of my training buddies absolutely smash our age group, finishing in 5:11 despite tech issues on her bike. I saw a work friend break down all his expectations and finishing almost an hour faster than he had anticipated, despite forgetting his goggles and his Garmin. Most hilariously, I saw my husband’s face switch comically from concern to utter confusion when he saw me smiling as I left the athlete village. A timing error had led him to believe I was almost half an hour slower than I actually was, so the poor bugger was preparing to deal with self-berating, pissed off and grumpy Harri, not positive, smiley and upbeat Harri.

                  All it can come down to is lack of pressure and a positive mental attitude. And a miraculous bike split.

T-10 days to Ironman Muscat 70.3…

Repping Newport East Wales Triathlon!!
by : notatriathlete All Things Triathlon

New Year, New..nothing. Just improvements.

So we are well in to January, the weather out in Dubai is all a bit weird and I’m sitting on my sofa wondering what I am actually hoping to achieve in the next few weeks. I have an Olympic Distance race this Friday in Ras al Khaimah, more to remind myself of how to rip a wetsuit off than anything else, and two 70.3s looming in February.

My training so far has been sporadic at best but I actually feel fitter than I have done in a while. I know I’m not going to hit any PBs this early season but as my ultimate goal this year doesn’t involve PBs, I don’t want to get too hung up on my 70.3 distance times. In the last week, since being back at school, the main thing to have struck me is how much better I am feeling, and therefore performing, with better sleep and better food. Now I know we all know this but here is what I have noticed:

Sleep:

I’ve always been an easy sleeper. I can hit the pillow, read my book for five minutes and be asleep in ten. I’ve always been super careful about screen time before bed, and I sleep with my phone on night mode so nothing disturbs me during the night. I do eat quite late, usually between eight and nine in the evening but this has never seemed to have an effect on my sleeping pattern. However, I am partial to a G&T. As a rule, I try to stick to only drinking on the weekend, but during the Christmas break I lapsed entirely and definitely had a beverage every evening. It was Christmas! But in all honesty, the sleep quality I have had in the last week, sans boozy bedtime tipple, has been so refreshing that I feel honestly guilty for having deprived my body for the last month. My new Garmin VivoSmart tracks my sleep, and tells me how many hours of light vs deep sleep. The pattern is obvious. Booze batters my sleep. Now, I am absolutely not going to say that I’m giving up gin, but this week really has made me think about how that one (ok, two) cheeky indulgence will, ultimately, affect my training and therefore performance come race day.

Diet:

Well, it’s January the 12thand I have already been overwhelmed by the use of words like ‘keto’, ‘paleo’, and ‘intermittent fasting’. Fair play, if that’s your thing then go for it, but something that really hits me at this time of year is how these buzz words take over our conversations. I am in no way a nutritionist, but I am absolutely a foodie and I also spend a lot of time training. My fuelling strategy is bound to be different from that of a more sedentary person or, from that of a body-builder. That doesn’t necessarily make it better or worse, and I absolutely hate conversations which compare diets. For me, diet is really personal and I don’t actually want to argue with people about it! I have my own opinions on ketosis and fasting but I try to keep them to myself, mainly because the amount of calories I have to take on during a long day on the bike would send a fasting person into spasms of calorie driven envy.

I love food and I love to cook, and I also love a cheeky Nando’s at the weekend. For me, balance is key. I eat a well rounded, homemade, fresh diet in the week, then go in for a couple of treats (and a gin!) at the weekend. The honest truth is that I could do with losing a few kilos for my races in February so; I cut out all midweek treats. I eat eggs, fruit, steaks, tuna, homemade curries, casseroles and soups. I think salads are boring, so I don’t eat them. I drink sparking water made with my brilliant Sodastream, coffee (lots of) and have just discovered green mint tea. And guess what? With plenty of hydration, loads of fruit and veg and a high protein intake, I am slowly losing my Christmas padding. 

I know that it’s a new decade and everyone wants to better themselves, but there are so many , far easier ways of doing this than spending a fortune on ‘fast results’. I train for long distance triathlon – I need the carbs, so Atkins and Keto don’t work for me personally. For me, cutting out that after-work treat every day, or prepping all our food on the weekend to avoid the temptation of a midweek takeaway makes that huge difference. 

As I said, each to their own, but personally, I’m not even vaguely interested in the weird metallic taste you get in your nose when you are truly in Ketosis. I get it after long, poorly fuelled training sessions and it’s vile. I know that we all want to make improvements and there are a million ways to do this, but we are all different in our bodies and our lifestyles and therefore what works for one person will not necessarily work for you. So, whether you’re an endurance athlete, a life-long Atkins-er or just trying to make some healthier choices.. make them for you. Not because someone told you pasta is evil.

by : notatriathlete All Things Triathlon

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming…

…a mantra that I should have been singing to myself much more often for the past few months. Sadly, I didn’t, and now I find that I can’t.

                  Okay, maybe a slight overstatement as I clearly can still swim, but nowhere near as well as I once could. The annoying thing with swimming is that if you don’t keep it up on a twice or thrice weekly basis, the skill quickly begins to evade you. A few years ago, I swam upwards of 2km twice a week with my triathlon club in South Wales, at a pretty respectable pace. Currently, I’m struggling to keep that pace up for anything longer than 200m. 

                  I find swimming the most intimidating of the three triathlon disciplines. Maybe it’s because it’s the most dangerous, but also maybe because it’s the discipline with perhaps the biggest leap between ‘good’ and ‘freak of nature who should have been born amphibian’, and I certainly don’t fall in to the latter category. It’s also absolutely bloody knackering. But, with 10 weeks and counting until my first race of 2020, I suddenly realised that pottering along in the 25m school pool just wasn’t going to cut it. So, I decided to trial for a swim club of sorts at our local fitness freak gym complex.

                  Now, I’ve seen these people swimming. They’re bloody good. Two years ago I would have had no qualms going for a trial, but now… well, let’s just say I let the pressure get to me a bit.

                  I organised the trial for a Sunday evening, planning to go straight from work to the pool. I conveniently realised on the way that I needed petrol, and that I would have to battle my way up the bottleneck of Hessa Street in order to get there. There was just no way I was going to make it. So convinced was I of this terribly unfortunate situation that I thought I would pop by the pool anyway, just to introduce myself to the coach, express my deepest regret at how long it had taken me to get fuel, and promise to be there next week. I sincerely hope you’re picking up on the sarcasm.

In the event, I actually got to the pool with enough time to get changed and sprint to poolside, and so steeled myself for the trial… only to arrive at poolside to discover that some thoughtful child had neglected their pre-swim toilet routine, resulting in the pool being closed for 48 hours. Such a shame.

                  However, this now meant that I had to re-steel for my trial this Tuesday. On the day, I got home, did a hill set on the turbo and reasoned with myself that really, I should go to the trial fresh, having not done any training so… I’ll just curl up on the sofa. Luckily, my hero of a husband came home, and in a firm but loving manner, hoofed me out of the door. I arrived at the pool and introduced myself to the coach who as conducting the assessment. We talked through my background, times etc, to which he responded that I would probably be put in the Beginner Fitness Class. I’ll be honest, my ego was crushed. He hadn’t even seen me swim and had already written me off as a non-swimmer! How dare he?! So in I got, determined to show him how good I was (note use of past tense here). In the event, after watching me swim a few lengths, the coach got me out and stated that, actually, I should definitely be in the Advanced Class. Ego rebooted, I switched to the lanes next to the aforementioned class to complete my own set and to have a nose at theirs. They were doing IMs. For the non-swimmers amongst you, this stands for Individual Medley and consists of butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle. Back to back. Flat out. On repeat. I haven’t even attempted fly since I was about 12. I haven’t needed to! Ego back at the bottom of the pool, I completed my set and dejectedly made my way to the changing rooms. My first session with the club will be next week once I’m back from the UK. Let’s see if I can persuade my very weak upper body to ‘just keep swimming… butterfly.’.

by : notatriathlete Race Reports

Urban Ultra Coast to Coast Challenge: lessons learned.

Well. What a weekend. Last Friday I took part in the Urban Ultra Cycle Challenge, and it was potentially the biggest learning curve I have ever experienced. It was hell on a pair of carbon wheels, but it has really shown me where my weaknesses lie when it comes to my cycling.

The morning got off to an inauspicious start when I thought I had forgotten my inhaler and actually did forget my Snickers bars for the ride. The inhaler turned up, the ‘nutrition’ needed replacing in a service stop on the way to the start. There was then the standard issue of Google Maps not actually knowing its way around the UAE, meaning that we drove around the Sharjah corniche a couple of times before locating the start line. However, inhaler tucked securely in to my bright orange jersey and pockets stuffed with peanut butter Snickers, off we sped in the back pod, intending to average around 28kph for the 200km of the ride.

The first 92km of the ride were some of the toughest hours of riding that I have ever endured, and where my first real lesson was learned: don’t EVER put yourself in the back pod of a big race or cycle challenge. There are so many reasons for this but here are a few:

  • You are the last group, and therefore more likely to get swept up by the ‘grim sweeper’ bus if anything goes wrong.
  • You could end up in a group of utterly inexperienced riders who have absolutely no idea of how to ride in group formation in a windy highway.
  • Your group captain might spend so much time trying to rescue these people that he gets swept up by the grim sweeper, leaving your pod speed at the hands of other utterly inexperienced riders who don’t know how to maintain pace.
  • All of the above may result in your already significant (and yes, irrational) fear of the hills being compounded by fear of being dropped and seen as an utter failure by the rest of the group.

At the first break at 60km, we were averaging 28kph. Physically, absolutely fine. What was not fine was the fact that my fickle brain had decided to sabotage my entire race. The next 32km passed by in a blur of sickness, shakiness and terror as I tried desperately to cling on to the back of the pack. I dropped twice and was hauled back by the support car – total legend. I was on my last legs, and that was it. As soon as that thought entered my head, I was slingshotted out of the back of the pack at the bottom of the first climb. Coming to a natural stop, I mentally berated myself for having entered a race in such a state of unfitness, for being overly arrogant etc, etc, etc. I was swept up by the grim sweeper, and away we went in the bus.

I was furious. With myself, with the race organizers, with the heat, with the wind, with my training partner for not telling me I was crap at cycling… until, after around five minutes of rest, a bottle of water and a protein shake, I suddenly felt as good as new. I wrestled with myself for twenty-odd kilometers on the bus, made friends with another swept up cyclist and, on the other side of Generator Hill (see previous post), got back on my bike.

We rode together the next twenty kilometers to Feed Station Three, where I found my tough-as-nails friend Aimee, and we joined the next pod up. Weirdly, despite a higher average speed, I tucked in, ducked down, put in some work and loved every minute. I stayed with the pod for the next 80km, only getting dropped on the final hill, around 10km from the finish line. I felt absolutely great. It was hot, fast, and hard, but something had changed. My mindset.

I crossed the finish line to be greeted by my amazing Dubai family consisting of my Head of Department, her husband (ex-army training partner from last week’s post) and their two awesome little girls. I had a little cry, ate three plates of the BBQ food put on by Le Meriedien Al Aqah, and spent the afternoon relaxing on the beach.

It was a long, long way from my finest race. But, as my husband said to me when I finished, it may have been one of my most valuable in the starting stages of my Ironman Wales Training. I learned a huge lesson: despite being a Welsh triathlete, since moving to Dubai I have developed an irrational fear of hills. It’s not going to go away over night, but I have time. I have a feeling that Jebel Jais, Jebel Hafeet and the Hajjar Mountains are going to see a lot of me and my little bike over the next few months. I have a lot of work to do in the gym, and a lot of work to do getting out of my overactive little mind. But I have a pretty awesome crew around me, and the game is officially on.

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by : notatriathlete All Things Triathlon

And so it begins…

Well, I’m back from Japan. The running target was hit (kind of), and the steps target was doubled almost daily; my count was over 30,000 steps most days. We watched lots of rugby, visited lots if shrines (inundated with thousands of Japanese and foreign visitors; ruined the insta-worthiness), and drank a LOT of beer. Now, half term is over, school has recommenced and Ironman training really does need to start.

Japan showed me just how unfit I really am. I wrongly assumed that by moving from the desert to a cool, rainy, North Western Pacific island, my running would be MILES better than it is in Dubai. NOT the case. Whether as a result of tiredness from the flight (I refuse to call it jet-lag unless I’m pacing the room at 3am), the humidity or the sheer number of Heinekens I drank, my running was dreadful. My asthma had me doubled over next to the Kamogawa River in Kyoto, wheezing. Apparently all those electric cars zipping around haven’t actually done that much for the pollution levels…

I wrote last week about holding myself accountable for my training, and how I really want this blog to do that, but this week I’ve also been really inspired by some interviews on Sarah Williams’ Tough Girl Challenge podcast. The idea that really hit me was my need to have races booked in to actually make me do my training; otherwise, I am often quite happy to revert to my natural ‘bookworm on the sofa’ state. Two or three races a year used to be enough for me, but I’ve recently noticed that this doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. I used to be able to rock up to a 10km or even a half marathon and race comfortably, even if I hadn’t specifically targeted that race…those days are well and truly over for me. Dubai has broken my fitness.

So I’ve landed, binned the booze, started actually taking my preventative inhaler and have been getting in to bed by half nine every night. So far, my Training Peaks is all green, although it is admittedly only Wednesday. Over the next few months, I have entered myself for half marathons, sportives, 10k races and two Half Ironman Distances.

With all this taking up space in my overwhelmed little brain, the main challenge I face will be organization. I know so many people out here in Dubai who say they have far more time for a work-life balance here than they did in the UK. Whilst I do agree with that I feel like I have a better work life balance, I genuinely think that’s because I now know when to say no, and not because I have a quieter life. Between work, triathlon, gym, golf, cooking and friends and family visiting, my husband and I are regularly like ships passing in the night… and this is before I start training for the biggest race I have ever taken on!

Next on the hit list is the Coast to Coast ride from Sharjah to Fujairah on the 15th of November. I’ve joined in the back group in the hope that I can maintain 27.5km/h for the duration. I know that riding in a group is supposed to be easier, drafting saves energy etc.. but at the end of the day it’s still 200km across an entire country. The flat will be fine (totally used to that riding in the desert), but my poor legs haven’t seen a hill since racing in Ibiza in October 2018, so it could be a very interesting (see: disastrous) race. I have a couple of weeks of good quality training to put in, and fingers crossed my current state of non-fitness will get me to that pint of non-alcoholic beer on the Fujairah coast…

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