Happy New Year!

This morning I ran my first of two San Silvestre 10k races in Las Rozas de Madrid. I was convinced it was going to be absolute chaos with 800 runners doubling back on narrow paths through the woods but there didn't seem to be any problems, in spite of the trail being quite steep and technical in parts. Considering I haven't really trained for the distance and it's been exactly a year since the last time I ran a 10k race, I was quite happy with my time of 37:54, especially as the course was really cross country. I finished in 21st place out of 800 which isn't bad. Nobody overtook me during the whole race with the exception of someone who pipped me on the line with an awesome sprint that I couldn't match. I still prefer the Half Marathon distance which isn't so stressful. I do feel as though I have earned my celebration tonight, though. As a friend said after completing the race this morning, we have to pull ourselves back down by eating and drinking otherwise we'd become too competitive and have to make a living from athletics...

This afternoon I have the second San Silvestre "race" - the Vallecana - with about 38,000 other runners including my wife. I'll be getting dressed up for the event so check back here tomorrow for the photos! In the meantime, happy new year to all of you!

Week 2 / 10 (and Happy Christmas!)

I'm in London this week, celebrating Christmas with my family. I'm sure to come back with a bit of excess baggage the way things are going. After being teetotal for 3 months prior to the Valencia Marathon and still not hitting my target, I might as well allow myself a few lapses.

I find that I run noticeably faster in London. Maybe it's the relative altitude, the fact that road running is faster than trail running or simply that I find a change of surroundings stimulating. For logistic reasons my hard training sessions ended up getting bunched up. I ran 14.3 km in an hour at a tad over aerobic pace on Thursday, 3 sets of progressively harder runs from 15 kph to 17 kph on Friday and 8 sets of 4 minutes at 17 kph with a 4 kg backpack on Saturday. Today just before a massive Christmas lunch I ran 2 hours at comfortably aerobic pace (148 beats per minute) and manages to cover just under 27 km running from South London to North London and back again. My legs are now aching for the first time since I can remember (from training). The 2 hour run was supposed to be a 2 hour cycle ride but I don't have access to a decent bike (other than a Boris bike).

Tomorrow is definitely going to be a day off to give my body time to adapt to the stresses of the last few days. The series I had scheduled for tomorrow will have to wait until Tuesday and, in any case, the gym where I plan to do them is closed tomorrow.

Hope you have all had a good Christmas!

Ironman Hawaii World Championship 2011 Coverage

Week 1 / 10

Here we go again... The first week of specific training for the Seville Marathon on the 19th of February is under my belt. I say "specific training" but I've been doing a fair bit of swimming and cycling too, in preparation for the Half Ironman in Marbella. Even though it is "just" a half, I'm finding the extra hours of training to be a bit of a problem already. To give you some idea, the second swim session since the Ironman was over 2,000 meters!

On the running front, I'm quite happy with my speed. I did a 40 minute session at CCM (medium intensity) on the treadmill at a speed of 15km/h (that's to say a 40 minute 10k on the treadmill - not bad). Thanks to my fans (of the ventilatory kind) I was able to complete the session without too much problems, although the temperature rose by a couple of degrees in the time I was running. I did another fast treadmill workout on Sunday: 3 lots of 15 minutes progressing from CCM to UAN (anaerobic threshold) which I did as 5 minutes at 15km/h, 5 at 16km/h and 5 at 17km/h. The good thing about it was that it made running at 15km/h seem like a doddle. I've definitely noticed an improvement here. I'm not sure whether it is due to my fitness, the temperature or my mental toughness.

I also took out my trusty road bike for a spin on Saturday although it turned out to be a very windy day. Nearly got pushed off the road by a car invading the bus lane I was riding in (without looking or signalling of course). I've also been trying to pedal at least half an hour a day on the triathlon bike on the indoor turbo trainer to get used to the position. I ended up having to buy a new turbo trainer because the old one got stuck in the highest resistance for which a triathlon bike is not at all appropriate. Instead I'll take the old turbo trainer to Asturias for use with my Mountain bike on rainy days (of which there are many).

Soft Star RunAmoc update

After my original review, I thought I would post an update on how my RunAmocs were holding up to the punishment:

Interestingly asymmetric wear patterns...

Uh-oh

As you can see, the upper has torn slightly - it was probably the result of stepping too close to a sharp rock - but it has been like that for over a month now and doesn't seem to be getting much worse. I'm just glad that it was the upper that ripped and not my foot! On the other hand, after what I estimate to be about 850 kilometers, the soles are starting to wear quite thin. I reckon they've got another few hundred kilometers in them before they wear completely through, so I've already placed my order for my second pair that should hopefully arrive this side of Christmas. The "elves" seem a lot more busy this time of year, though. Last time there was only a lead time of 4 days between placing the order and the shoes being handmade and shipped. This time I haven't yet received the email saying they have been shipped. Maybe my review has turned so many people on to them that they can't cope with the demand! It's a shame that the soles aren't a little more durable - at this rate I'll be getting through a pair every couple of months in Marathon season. In this regard, I think that the Vivobarefoot soles are more hard wearing but, in that case the uppers are the weak point. In any case, I can't imagine training in any other "shoe" than the RunAmocs now.

I've also ordered another model, the RunAmoc "Dash", with a different upper and a thinner "road" sole. I plan to use these for casual wear but I thought I could also try out these options for running at the same time.

Nada he nadado

I went swimming for the first time since I clambered out of the sea in Florianópolis, after the 3.8km swim of the Ironman I did back in May. Unsurprisingly, my swimming hasn't magically got any better since then but, equally, it doesn't seem to have got much worse, either. And it is still just a boring as it ever was.

Time Trialing

To be honest, for me Triathlon is all about the bike. The only reason I got into it in the first place is because I am a bit big framed to be a fast runner and I have disproportionately strong legs (compared to the rest of my body) so I figured I could be handy on a bike. I can still remember a couple of years ago, when I bought my first bike since the road accident I had ten year's before, asking if for a Mountain Bike that was also good for Triathlon. They didn't take advantage of my obvious naïvité and sold me a decent Mountain Bike, patiently explaining that I needed a road bike - or what I used to call a "racer" - to ride in Triathlons. (Of course, there are such things as off road Triathlons but that's another story).

When I was buying the road bike I discovered that there were two kinds of Triathlon: those that permitted drafting and those that didn't and that, potentially, you needed a different bike for each although you could make do with one. But I wasn't interested in swimming or seeing how fast I could run off a bike, for that matter; what I was really looking for was a Time Trial in Spain. I imagined there must be loads of them up and down the country, just as there are in the UK - bike races where you are not allowed to draft off anyone in front of you and it is just you against the clock. For some reason there don't appear to be any such competitions in Spain for non-professionals.

I recently asked a friend who organizes Triathlons whether he fancied organizing a Time Trial in Spain, which surelly should be at least three times easier and cheaper. He said that that the Federación Ciclista expressly disallowed Time Trials run for profit. I wonder if you could get around this absurd restriction by obliging all competitors to run 100m to mount their bikes and calling it a Duathlon. Or perhaps one could be organized for charity? It seems a shame to me and perhaps goes some way to explaining why Spain dominates in Road Racing but not in Time Trialing or Pursuit. It's also probably due to the fact that road racers are generally smaller and lighter than time trialers as the main resistance they have to overcome is not that of the air but that of gravity.

I've sent an email to the Federación Ciclista Madrileña asking whether there are any Time Trials open to amateur "age groupers" like myself, and what the entry requirements would be. Still, I miss the grass roots amateur racing that exists in the world of running. I've also been trying to find out whether there is a velodrome reasonably near me and so far, all I have found out is that the only one in Madrid is in a state of disrepair. What Spain needs is a Cristóbal Hoy...