Allerthorpe Triathlon Race Report

I entered Allerthorpe for two main reasons; A) I wanted to try racing over the Olympic distance as a test to see how I faired, as the plan is to race 70.3 next year (2015) and B) to support my local triathlon club (Barracuda) because this was agreed to be our club triathlon. Aside from these reasons, I wanted to get one more race in before heading to Australia at the end of the month for a nice long holiday.

Allerthorpe is one of the most local races I can do living in Hull, which is nice as it’s always good to see how strong the local competition is. I normally race GB Age-Group qualifiers so to race in a more relaxed local race is always nice as I didn't need to place so much pressure on myself and I could just enjoy the race. The only concern I had was getting the nutrition right. Normally, I only have a bottle of water on my bike when I race sprints, but knew that racing this distance I couldn't just rely on my CHO stores. After a few text’s to Ian (my coach) and a mate Rob I decided that 2 gels on the bike should do the job nicely.

I woke early, consumed my standard pre-race breakfast, drove to the race, registered, sorted all my kit out in transition and chilled out as registration closed 90 minutes before my race start. I found this a little frustrating but it gave me a good chance to catch up with a few members of my local tri club before the start at 9:30am. I was in the first of three waves so I knew that everyone that I was racing against would be direct competition, as the slower competitors were in the two latter waves.

After the pre-race brief we were given able time to get our wetsuits on and get into the lake for a good warm up. We were then given a 2 minute warning so I positioned myself to the right hand side of the pack, giving a nice direct line to the first buoy. The horn went and we were off!! Everyone else also had the same idea to me which made the start absolute carnage with everyone racing to the first buoy. After the first buoy the field spread out and I was able to get into a nice swim rhythm, which I maintained for the total of the 1500m 3-lap swim. I felt like I paced the swim well and came out the water in the top 25 which I was over the moon with. After exiting the water, I quickly ran into T1 to grab my bike and start making inroads into the top 10.

The bike course was perfectly suited to a “TT’er” triathlete as it was dead pan flat. The course consisted of a loop of Allerthorpe and the surrounding areas. I've been racing a fair few TT’s this season and have placed well, so was confident I would have the bike legs for a good result. I felt really strong on the bike and I think the weather (Hurricane Bertha) played in my favor. The roads were pretty open to the elements (wind and rain) and I knew that my TT strength was helping as into the wind I started clawing my way back toward the top 10. I approached T2, just after the hour mark, had my feet resting on my tri shoes and dismounted before the dismount line.  

The run was just a single 10km lap with a similar elevation gradient to the run with only a few small climbs over hump-back bridges. In a similar story to the bike I felt super strong but this time it took me until the final 3km to start picking off competitors. I could see the finish line fast approaching so kicked for the final 1km. I completed the 10km in just over 42 minutes, which I was a little disappointed with. This disappointment was soon alleviated when I was informed that the run was actually closer to 11km, thus making my run time about right.  

I finished with an overall time of 2:08:40, which resulted in me coming 14^th overall and 5^th in my Age-Group. I’m happy with my performance as this was my first attempt at racing an Olympic distance triathlon and can now kick back and enjoy my 3 weeks in Australia, before my coach, Ian starts cracking the whip to get me back in shape.  

Thanks to my sponsors Meridian Foods and Coconoil.

Thanks to my coach Ian Mayhew (Gears & Tears)

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) Monitoring using ithlete

I have recently decided to update my blog after purchasing and moving in to my first house. Everyone tells you that moving house is up there with the most stressful things you can do, but I wasn’t so convinced. Well that opinion certainly changed and it’s all thanks to the iPhone app I use, called ithlete. ithlete monitors heart rate variability (HRV) and should be done every morning upon awaking. HRV is a relatively new method for assessing the effects of stress on your body. Anyway in the final week of me renting, my HRV was rock bottom (≤55 and was displaying Red) for the whole week. I initially didn’t think that much about it, but interestingly once I moved in and after my first night in my new home my HRV bounced straight back to my normal values. This therefore really fills me with confidence on how useful daily HRV monitoring is, ensuring that I’m fully recovered, both physically and mentally before I head out and train again. I would definitely recommend this app to anyone who wants an objective measure of how your responding to your weekly and monthly block of training.  

Now for the science stuff about ithlete  

Measurement of heart rate variability (HRV) for use in monitoring training and recovery involves analysis of the heart's beat-to-beat variation as you breathe in and out. By accurately measuring the time interval between heartbeats, the detected variation can be used to measure the psychological and physiological stress and fatigue on the body during training. Generally speaking the more relaxed and unloaded (free from fatigue) the body is, the more variable the time between heartbeats. HRV data can indicate the impact of fatigue due to prior exercise sessions, hydration levels, stress and even the degree of performance anxiety, nervousness or other external stressful influences. Research evidence increasingly links high HRV to good health and a high level of fitness, whilst decreased HRV is linked to stress, fatigue and even burnout.

ithlete measures your HRV, as well as your resting heart rate, every morning during a simple 1 minute test, whilst wearing a HR monitor. During the test you breathe deeply & relax, so that you minimise the effect of external stressors on the HRV index and focus on what your body is telling you about the impact of your training. After you have built up a baseline over a few days, the ithlete software algorithms compare your daily readings with baseline to determine if any significant changes have taken place. These are reflected in traffic lights for today's training and a chart to help you track trends.

Simple measures of the small changes in each beat of your heart can provide a wealth of information on the health of your heart & nervous system; such measures are called heart rate variability or HRV. Originally applied to assess the risks for patients who suffered a heart attack, HRV analysis is now becoming a standard tool in sports science research & coaching practice.

Since researchers first found significant changes in the nervous systems of athletes involved in hard training for the rowing world championships (Iellamo, 2002), a number of studies have tried to use HRV as a tool to monitor over training. In general such studies show that HRV is much lower in over trained athletes than healthy ones (Mourot, 2004).

The problem is, when you are over trained it is too late. It might take weeks or months to get back to full fitness, so what you need is a daily measure to tell you how well your nervous system is doing. Daily monitoring using standard HRV methods have shown that listening to you heart via HRV can not only stop you over training but actually make your training more effective. (Manzi, 2009).

The idea is quite simple. Monitor your HRV every morning and train as normal. If your HRV drops significantly, take this as an early warning that you are overloading the system. A small drop is OK as long as you recover. Training is, after all, about stress and recovery and a hard session, especially on top of accumulated fatigue, will lower your HRV.

But if your HRV stays low even with rest you could be on the edge of trouble. In my opinion, using daily HRV to monitor training stress is the best thing you can do to make your training safe and effective. 

Thanks to ithlete for the blog content

Rother Valley Race Report

After my misfortune at the end of last season, puncturing at Newbiggin in September 2013, which meant that I failed to qualify to represent the GB Age-Group team in Kitzbühel, I decided to enter two GB qualifying races this season. The first was Nottingham (see race report below) and the second was Rother Valley two weeks later.

After a positive performance at Nottingham coupled with some great results in my local TT and duathlon series' I was heading down to Rother Valley confident that I’m in good shape and should be able to secure a spot on the GB Age-Group team again. 

The conditions were good for racing; sunny with a gentle breeze. I was in the second wave of athletes (M25-29 & M30-34) starting at 8:27 am. Just like Nottingham we were called into the water ~5 mins. before our wave start. The water temp was a balmy 17°C, which I found surprising as I only live 45 miles away and the lakes I’ve been swimming in have been nowhere near that! After failing to position myself well in the swim at Nottingham I was keen to not let this happen again and started close to the front to give me the best chance of drafting my fellow competitors. The horn went and we were off!! The swim was as good as I expected and I was happy with my placement, which resulted in a good swim for me, coming out in the middle of the field, which suits me fine as my strengths lie with my bike>run. 

Once through transition I was onto the bike course. The course is best described as lumpy and within 5 mins. of leaving T1 you're onto one of the long drags. After climbing out of the valley the rest of the course was fairly undulating but that’s the sort of course I like, so was able to get the power down as start clawing back the places I lost to the stronger swimmers. I pushed as hard as I could on the first lap and was flying. Things were looking good for a top result or so it thought! Then I had what can only be described as a "melt down". I seemed to have it in my head that I needed to do one loop extra than what I should do. Halfway through the extra loop it dawned on me that I’d made a "cock up" of all "cock ups". The more I think about it the more I can’t understand why I did that! 

Anyway.............. I smashed it back to the park, had a slick T2 and was quickly into the run. The run was flat and fast and I pushed as hard as I could although my head was gone and I was so annoyed with myself after that school boy error! My final 5km run was still a sub 19 mins, which I was happy with especially after doing that extra loop on the bike!  Reflecting back on this race maybe my melt down can be attributed to me moving house the following weekend or that it was the first Father’s Day without my Father. Either way, I didn't realise it had affected me but perhaps it did! 

Thanks to my sponsors Meridian Foods and Coconoil.

Thanks to my coach Ian Mayhew (Gears & Tears) 

Nottingham Triathlon Race Report

I entered Nottingham at the start of the season hoping to qualify for the European Sprint Distance Championships in Geneva 2015. In the build up to this, training and racing had gone well, although I would have liked to have had a few more open water swims under my belt. Looking at previous winning times, I knew that a time of <1hr would be seriously competitive and give me a good chance to qualify.  

I travelled down to Nottingham (Holme Pierrepont) the night before, in an attempt to relive some of the stress of travelling on race day, especially as the M1 is a nightmare at the moment with all the road works. I made good time and after registration I put on my cycling gear and headed out on the bike for a quick recce of the course (as the pre-race info listed a few pot holes and tight corners).  After the recce I headed to the hotel, checked in, dropped off my kit and then headed out for dinner. After a really tasty Chinese, which I have to thank Sally for we returned and settled down for an early night (rock ‘n’ roll, I know!!)

I woke 3 hrs. prior to the race start to have my standard pre-race breakfast, chilled out for an hour or so before heading over to Holme Pierrepont. This was a split transition race so I first made my way to T1 and started setting up my bike and laying out everything I needed for the swim and bike legs. I then headed over to T2 to put my trainers down. I was lucky with T2, in that I had an easily identifiable landmark so I knew where my trainers would be upon entering transition. After setting out all my kit in both transitions I started to put my wetsuit on, whilst listening to the pre-race brief.

As this was a GB qualifier for both the Worlds and Europeans we were going off in Age-Group waves (M 20-24, 30-34 & 35-39), although I'm only 29 this is my first season racing in the M30-34 AG. I knew that pretty much everyone around me was direct competition and there were a few familiar faces from when I raced for GB last year at the Europeans in Turkey. We were able to get into the water ~5 mins before the race start and I started to warm up and get acclimatised to the water temp which was a tad chilly. We then got a 1 minute warning and at that point it occurred to me that I had left it too late to get a good position in the water. The horn went and we were off!! It took me until the first buoy to get into my swim rhythm as it was a constant battle to find clear water. Unfortunately I didn't get into the swim group I wanted to be in, so couldn't take advantage of the better swimmers, but you live and learn. After exiting the water I quickly ran into T1 to grab my bike and start making up for the time I lost in the water.

The bike course was 4 laps of 5km (20km in total) and perfectly suited to the “TT’er” triathletes as it was dead pan flat, with four 90° bends per lap. I've been racing a fair few TT’s this season and have placed well, although I from these races I've identified that I tend do better when it’s slightly lumpy. I felt really strong on the bike and as the laps ticked down I was constantly gaining and passing some of my fellow competitors. After four storming laps I approached T2, just after the 30 min mark, with my feet resting on my tri shoes and dismounted before the dismount line.  

The run was just a single 5km lap of the bike course with a few slight deviations. In a similar story to the bike I felt super strong and kept picking off competitors. I could see the finish line fast approaching so kicked for the final 1km. The finish line was down the “blue” carpet in front on the grandstand where the crowd was, a great way for finish the race. I completed the 5km in just over 19 minutes. 

I finished with an overall time of 1:05:33, which resulted in me coming 23^rd in my Age-Group. Overall I’m a little disappointed in my performance as I went there to attempting to qualify. I think the take home message for me is to position myself better in the water for the swim start. That being said in reflection I’m happy with my performance as there were some seriously big hitters racing also aiming to qualify. I've now got a couple of weeks of training before my second bite at the cherry to qualify for the GB Age-Group team at Rother Valley on 15^th June. 

Thanks to my sponsors Meridian Foods and Coconoil.

Thanks to my coach Ian Mayhew (Gears & Tears)

Body Power Expo.

Last weekend I had the pleasure of representing both my sponsors Meridian Foods and Coconoil at the Body Power Expo in Birmingham. I got there bright and early to pick up my "athlete pass", help set up and generally have a nosy around before it was open to the VIP's and general public. As I was there for the whole day my plan was to help the Meridian team (Darren, Sue and Sophie) in the morning and then after lunch help out Garry from Coconoil. 

I thought I knew what I was letting myself in for at this show with everyone being seriously obsessed with packing on as much muscle as possible, but on arrival, it was a little scary to actually some of the man and women mountains!! I must admit this was definitely a different crowd to what I was used to as an endurance athlete, where the Holy Grail is to be super lean and lightweight.    

As soon as the doors opened at ~10am it was nonstop until leaving at 5pm. I was on the stall with Meridian in the morning and it quickly became apparent that I wasn't the only one who was a "Meridian Nutter" I think everyone was. Although we were dishing out samples of their nut butters it was heart breaking to see everyone's faces when we told them that the nut butters weren't for sale! Meridian were there to promote their brand new peanut and almond nut bars. These new bars are made up of 100% natural ingredients, containing ~55% nuts, bound with rice protein and agave nectar. These little bars (40g) pack ~8g of protein in a bar, a perfect choice. The bite size samples were flying off the counter so quickly that sometimes we were struggling to keep up with the demand, but that might have had something to do with the "one for you" and "one for me" system that I found myself doing!! Ha 

I heard that a few reality TV "stars" were knocking about so once it started to quieten down I was able to stretch my legs and see who I could find. I was like a kid in a sweet shop when I spotted Joel from Geordie Shore and the twins from The Valleys but bottled it, asking for a selfie with them!! 

← Sophie & Me on the Meridian Stand. 

After a protein packed lunch (shock that protein was on the menu here) I then headed over to Garry at Coconoil. Unlike Meridian, Coconoil wasn't as well known in the Body Power scene, so I helped the Godfather of Coconoil (Garry) tell the world about how great a product it is and all the health and performance benefits (see performance nutrition blog for more info) it offers! In a nut shell (see what I did there?) is an edible Medium Chain Triglyceride (MCT) oil, which is ideal for for cooking due to its high heat resistance. Another unique property is that it’s free from saturated fat found in meat and vegetable oils, thus making it the perfect health cooking oil. I use Coconoil exclusively for cooking and in my pre-training coffee. To start with I took a back seat and watched how Garry worked the interested customers and then before I knew it I was in following in his footsteps and before I knew it the sales were flying in. 


Garry - Mr Coconoil himself ↓