Zwift - Making the Turbo Trainer Less Dull

Just over a month ago I finally bit the bullet and purchased a turbo trainer. I didn't really want to as I much prefer riding outside, but I did have a few good reasons:

• I've spent the summer building up good cycling fitness and gradually improving my power output and I don't want to loose that completely over the winter and have to start from scratch again in April/May
• We are entering the winter and while I don't mind riding in the cold and wet I really don't want to be risking icy roads - where a crash on the bike could ruin my spring marathon training
• Riding indoors has the advantage that I can train and keep an eye on the kids and my wife can use the same time to go out for a run

I've therefore set myself an objective of maintaining at least one ride of between 60 and 90 minutes each week (usually on the turbo) throughout the winter as well as regular rides to work (only a couple of miles each way).

Turbo Trainer Purchase

With this in mind I purchased a barely used CycleOps Fluid 2 trainer off of eBay. I couldn't justify going for anything much more expensive given the relatively limited amount of use it's going to get. However I did spend enough to get a fluid model as these have significant advantages of smoothness and quietness over cheaper magnetic or fan based systems.

Level of noise was a big consideration as I'm usually cycling early in the morning and need to avoid waking the kids! I'm very pleased with the Fluid 2: it rides nicely and doesn't really generate any more noise than the washing machine.

First Sessions

The first two sessions I undertook on the turbo were mind-numbing! I opted to do a couple of structured workouts from a training plan, each of 60 minutes duration. For entertainment I went with trying to catch up with my backlog of running and triathlon podcasts.

I pulled off each of the sessions successfully, but the time just seemed to go so slowly. A 5-minute interval seemed like an age. Twenty minutes seemed never ending. I knew that if I was going to make it through the winter riding the turbo then I had to find something to make the whole experience less tedious.

My first thought was watching movies or TV series on the iPad while riding, but I wasn't really sure that would be much different to listening to a podcast. Then I saw an article (or mayby email) about Strava offering two months free access (for premium members) to something called Zwift...

Virtual Riding

The main premise behind Zwift is that it allows you to ride in a virtual environment with other riders from around the world. The data collected from sensors attached to your bike/trainer (see later) controls how quickly your rider travels through the virtual environment. Imagine a computer game where you are riding a bike and the speed is based on the cycling effort you put in on a real bike – that's pretty much it.

You have the option of just riding the course on your own, picking up other riders or a group and riding with them or even completing a specific structured workout. During general riding there are sprint and hill climbing challenges where you compete for the fastest time against the other riders in the game, plus the option to go for the fastest course lap.

Equipment and Sensors

So, how does all this magic work? First off you need a computer (PC or Mac) that runs the Zwift game. This needs to have a pretty good Internet connection so that you can see your position in the virtual environment along with all the other riders from around the world. I've found that the game is pretty processor intensive, so having the laptop plugged in seems to be essential.

Next off you need a turbo trainer and of course a bike! Zwift works best with a smart trainer where the game can control the trainer resistance to match the virtual hills on the course. However, it works just fine with a classic trainer and there are pre-calibrated profiles for most of the main manufacturers (Tacx, CycleOps etc.)

Finally you need some sensors to measure what you are doing on the bike. Ideally you should have a power meter as the game is largely built around power: so you will get the most accurate behaviour by using a real power meter. However if, like me, a power meter is beyond your budget then it also works just fine with a standard speed sensor – in which case Zwift use an algorithm to estimate your power. So far, the estimation seems to be pretty accurate as far as I can tell. You can also pair a heart rate monitor and cadence sensor for additional metrics.

By default Zwift works with Ant+ devices, and you will need an Ant+ USB dongle in your laptop. However, it's also possible to run the Zwift App on your mobile device, which allows pairing with BLE devices as well. The App and the computer must be on the same network so that the App can transmit the readings from the BLE sensors to the game. Additionally, the App also works as a cycle computer display and controller for the game, so it's pretty useful even if you aren't using any BLE devices, and it stops you dripping sweat all over the laptop!

This all ends up being quite a complex configuration of kit with lots of interconnecting parts (Internet, computer, phone App, bike sensors, hrm, trainer). There's quite a lot that could go wrong here, but surprisingly it works incredibly well. I had one small problem getting the phone App and the game on the laptop to communicate properly resulting in no reading from my BLE speed/cadence sensor, but once everything is communicating fine it seems really stable throughout the ride.

Riding Experience

The riding experience is really good, even with a classic trainer. As you ride, Zwift uses your power output (either measured or calculated) and translates this into a relative speed within the game. As the virtual course goes uphill, your virtual speed at the same power output goes down and visa-versa as the course goes downhill again.

I thought initially that it would seem strange going from flat to uphill without any change of resistance from my basic trainer, but the visual perspective of the course is good enough to trick your mind into thinking it's climbing a harder hill even though nothing in the real-world environment has actually changed. I have however taken to switching up a gear or two on the hill climbs just to make it feel tougher!

The virtual sprints and hill climbs are a great incentive to push a little harder, and seeing yourself on a leader-board against other riders from around the world is great. There's an inherently social element to riding with other people, seeing where they are from, what kit they've selected, how their performance relates to yours and so on. You can even chat and give a virtual 'Ride On!' along the way.

I've certainly found the experience immersive enough that even a 70 minute turbo trainer session seems to fly by much more quickly than before I started using Zwift. It really feels like you are out for an actual bike ride.

Workout Mode

For those who don't want to just ride round a virtual course, there's also a workout mode. You start by picking a workout from the list (I think a workout designer has just been released or is coming soon). You then ride the workout, with the game prompting you what your current interval power output should be and how long to maintain it before the next interval. There's also a virtual FTP test you can do as well.

In workout mode, you don't get to compete in the sprint or hill climb segments and you also don't get any benefit from drafting. You are however riding around the same course as everyone else so the full virtual experience and social element is still there.

Stats and Metrics

As you ride you can see your current power output, cadence, heart rate, virtual distance and speed. You also collect experience points that unlock new clothing, bikes and wheels that you can use in-game.

Once you stop riding there's a nice little summary screen with a couple of graphs and some power statistics. What's even better is that if you've linked your Strava account to Zwift then the ride is uploaded to Strava as a virtual ride along with all the data, virtual segments and Strava analysis. What a great idea!

Ride On!

I'm currently enjoying my 2-month free Zwift usage that now comes with my premium Strava account. However, I'm getting enough value from the Zwift experience that when this runs out I think I'll be paying my monthly subscription in order to see me through to the end of my winter bike training.

First Cross Country Race

I haven't done any cross country running since school. All I really remember was being made to run 5km along local footpaths and alleyways to the country park and back again. I vaguely remember being able to occasionally get into the top group, while the slower runners looked for every opportunity to hide somewhere along the route and then re-join on the way back.

It was therefore with some trepidation that I agreed to make my first outing for my new club (Team Kennet) at a cross country event. The chosen event was the Berks, Bucks and Oxen Cross Country Championships, held at Horspath Sports Ground in Oxford.

The morning of the event dawned fairly bright but cold, with a very strong wind gusting to over 50km/h. Temperature was only a few degrees centigrade and the wind chill made it feel much colder. Pretty much perfect weather for cross country running ;-)

I'd intended to run in just shorts, club running vest and gloves. However at the last moment I decided to add a long sleeved base layer to counter the cold wind. With hindsight this wasn't the best decision as I was rather warm during the race. For shoes I went with my Saucony Peregrine 4 trail shoes as these were the best (only) thing I had for running off-road.

The senior mens' race was made up of 106 runners of all age groups from 18 years and up. All the entrants were serious club runners so I knew it was going to be a tough event.

The course was pretty challenging. It started with a run across some fields and over a dry ditch. Then it was two laps round the main loop - starting with an uphill section on a reasonable gravel/packed mud path; then a flat slightly muddy section followed by a downhill on similar gravel/packed mud; finally a section across some rather wet and muddy fields back to the start of the loop. After the second lap was a very muddy footpath and a final sprint back across a field.

The uphill section was a bit of a killer: one of those hills that you go up and then, just as you think you are at the top, you turn a corner and there's more hill left to go and it's even steeper than what went before! I'm pretty strong up hills so I was able to push it to the top on the first ascent. Second time round I approached it with a bit more respect and adopted a slightly slower pace right from the bottom.

I found the downhill section much more challenging. The secret to going downhill fast is to just go with it and move your legs quickly underneath you to keep from falling head-over-heels. Trying to hold back or control speed through leaning back just doesn't work and tires you out really quickly. Unfortunately I found that running downhill fast aggravated my slightly tight achilles. Also, I wasn't confident with the grip of my trail shoes on the steeper parts. I therefore lost quite a bit of time and a couple of places on the two downhill sections. Running downhill will certainly be part of my training as soon as I get my achilles back in full working order!

The other sections where I really struggled were those where there was a lot of mud. While my trail shoes had reasonable grip on the grassy and packed sections, as soon as I hit a section of deeper mud I found myself sliding all over the place. The last section was a very muddy footpath and I found it really hard work keeping on my feet through here – not what you want in the last 2km of a hard 9km race!

One other thing that I found very different is that in all the races I've done previously, I've been able to make great use of the data from my GPS running watch. I've been able to ensure that I'm maintaining a sensible pace, not going off too fast while at the same time not letting the speed drop too much. In the cross country race this information source was pretty much useless!

Firstly it was really difficult to get a chance to look at my watch as I was so busy trying to stay on my feet and pick good lines through the roots and mud. Secondly, the constantly varying terrain and gradients made any sort of pacing plan almost totally redundant. All I could really do was run to RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion) and just use the watch data for post-race analysis.

I completed the 9km race in 42:14, which I was fairly happy with given that my flat 10km PB is only just under 40 minutes. I managed 69th place out of the 106 starters, and 22nd in the veterans (40+) category out of 42 runners. Happy with that in my first cross country event which was also a county level championship.

Learnings from the race:

• Don't make last minute kit or clothing changes, stick with what I know works for me
• Trail shoes don't really cut in when it's really muddy and that lack of grip affected my confidence going downhill. I've added some cross country spikes to my Christmas list!
• Trying to use GPS watch data for pacing decisions is pointless, just race using perceived exertion
• I need to do much more practice running downhill fast and letting myself flow rather than holding myself back

I really enjoyed cross country. It's nothing like I remember it from school, and I will definitely be doing some more of these races for my club in the future.

The 2015 Huntsman Triathlon

Back at the beginning of October I competed in the Huntsman Triathlon, my first Olympic distance event. I delayed this blog post a bit owing to the fact that I wrote a short race report that was published in the December 2015 issue of 220 Triathlon magazine. Here's my full account of the race and my performance.

The Race

The Huntsman Triathlon took place on Sunday 11th October 2015. It is based at the Hawley Lake complex in Minley, Hampshire. The swim takes place in Hawley Lake itself; the bike through the villages of Yateley, Finchampstead and Eversley on the Hampshire/Berkshire border; and the run along the trails surrounding Hawley Lake.

The race offers both sprint and Olympic distance events. After a strong summer of racing and training I wanted to finish the season with a challenge, so I opted for the Olympic distance event (1,500m swim, 40km bike ride, 10km run). This would be my first event at this distance. Pulling together metrics from my training and other performances, I set myself a fairly aggressive goal of a sub-2:45 finish.

Preparation

I didn't undertake any specific training preparation for the race, having trained all three disciplines strongly over the summer. I'd have liked to have got a couple more open water swim sessions in before the race, but other commitments made this impossible.

I did head down to Hawley Lake a couple of weeks before the race and took a ride round the bike course to familiarise myself with the route and conditions. This proved to be a valuable exercise and something I would suggest for every race, whenever time allows.

Pre-Race

The morning dawned with pretty much perfect triathlon conditions: clear blue skies, almost no wind and a predicted temperature of about 12-14 degrees centigrade. Not bad for a day in mid-October!

I got up early and had my usual porridge with a 33Shake All-In-One Shake mixed in, prepared my drinks and nutrition for the race, had a final kit check, loaded the car and set off. Fortunately I'm only about 45-minute drive from the lake so it wasn't a too arduous morning.

I arrived at the lake with loads of time to spare. I headed into registration, which was very professional with iPads for looking up your race number. Interesting set of goody bag items including a nice beanie hat and a miniature blue cowbell!

Then it was off to transition to set up the bike and other kit. There was a really good atmosphere and lots of good camaraderie between the athletes. The only fault I could find was that the bikes were racked incredibly close together, not giving you much space to set up your kit.

The pre-race briefing was perhaps the best I have experienced. Lots of good information, nice and loud and clear and with a good amount of humour and anticipation building mixed in. Always Aim High Events seem to have got this part of the race preparation just about perfect.

The Swim

Leaving transition we all headed down to the swim start. The Olympic swim course was two laps around the lake in a roughly triangle shape. Getting into the water was a slightly painful affair as you had to walk across a small stony area and then along the stony lake bottom until the water was deep enough to swim in.

Just before I got deep enough to swim I felt something sharp on the bottom of my foot, but as the water was a chilly 16 degrees centigrade my feet went numb pretty much straight away and I didn't think any more of it at the time. A future suggestion to the organisers would be to have a small floating pontoon so that competitors could jump straight into deeper water without having to negotiate the stones!

After a quick swim warm-up we were off. I really wasn't looking forward to the swim as it's my weakest discipline and I'm still not comfortable with mass open-water starts: last time I attempted one I panicked and it took me a good few minutes to get my breathing back under control. This time everything went much more smoothly and I took great care to focus on exhaling properly, despite getting a few bumps along the way. After about 100m I managed to find some calm water and got nicely into my (somewhat slow) stroke.

The first lap went by quite smoothly and I was still feeling good. Slightly disconcerted when at the beginning of the second lap, the first yellow hat swimmers from the wave that started five minutes after ours started to overtake me! Still, I kept on with a steady pace and could see other swimmers from my own wave around so I knew I hadn't dropped too far behind. In the end I completed the swim in 33 minutes, which was about what I was targeting.

T1

The main drama of my day occurred at the swim exit. The water was quite murky, so I couldn't really see the edge of the submerged concrete jetty that we were supposed to exit onto. Finally I found it with my knee. The concrete wasn't smooth either!

I managed to recover and clamber out, but, given my disrupted exit, I stood up far too quickly. A wave of dizziness came over me and I proceeded to fall sideways off the jetty, saving myself with a handily located race flag. Fortunately these things are quite strong! Not the most graceful thing to do right in front of the supporting crowd. I recovered just as the marshal came over to help and staggered slowly to my bike.

Pulling down my wetsuit I discovered a trickle of blood running down my leg from a small gash in my knee. I then noticed a hole in the knee of my almost new Huub wetsuit, which at the time seemed like a much greater disaster!

Here's my knee at the end of the race. Don't look too close if you are a bit squeamish about the sight of blood...

I managed to get myself focussed on the transition. It was all a bit slow as I had decided to wear socks due to the coldness of the water. That turned out to be a good decision as my feet stayed numb until well into the run and it would have been much worse without socks. Have you ever tried putting socks on when a bit dizzy? Probably explains why my T1 was just over 2 minutes long.

A message to the race organisers: can you please put some kind of matting or underwater padding over the end of the jetty please? I don't want other future competitors to have to experience the same wetsuit ripping, knee gashing experience that I went through!

The Bike

I don't remember much about the first ten minutes of the bike. I was busy dealing with trying to stem blood loss from my knee and assess the gash to see if I needed to stop and seek medical attention. Fortunately the cut didn't look too bad and after about ten minutes it finally started to clot and stop bleeding. All the faffing probably cost me about a minute on the bike overall. Once I'd got settled in I picked up the pace and started to catch and overtake some other riders.

The bike course was an out section followed by two laps and then a back section in to the lake again. The laps were quite varied. The first half of each was quite undulating with some narrow roads and tricky junctions, as we worked our way from Yately and on to Finchampstead. This part wasn't helped by a number of very hesitant cars who were struggling to overtake some of the slower riders. This tended to cause a bottleneck of faster riders stuck behind them and a fair amount of frustration from those trying to chase a fast time or a specific position. Still, I guess that's the nature of non-closed road courses.

The second half of the lap was a long straight flat section through Eversley Cross and back into Yately, which gave a good chance to recharge a bit before the returning to the hilly sections. I continued to make good progress, keeping up with some fairly fast riders, gaining positions and only being overtaken by a couple of aero-helmeted missiles on slippery bikes that cost nearly as much as my car!

Mid-way through the second lap I overtook a rider who didn't appear to be in the race (well he wasn't wearing a number anyway). He then tucked in behind me, hanging just a few meters back off my rear wheel. I'm not sure what he may have thought when the race marshal car pulled up beside him and had a word about drafting rules! Still, good on the organisers for taking the time to keep a good eye on people who might be attempting to gain an unfair advantage.

After the two laps it was then time to head back towards Hawley Lake. The return section has a big long hill on it, so I'm glad that my course reccy from a couple of weeks prior had prepared my for this. I'd saved enough to push up the hill without leaving myself too drained for the run. It was then a nice downhill and flat back into the transition area.

My finish time for the bike was 1:19, which was about four minutes faster than my course reccy from the previous week. Very happy with this time considering the distractions at the start and the number of times I got bunched behind hesitant cars.

T2

Not much to say about T2. All went smoothly and I was out in under a minute, even though I had quite a long run pushing the bike, as I was about as far away from the bike in point as it was possible to get. Picked up an extra 33Shake Chia Gel and I was off.

I'd considered doing the run in my trail shoes as it was going to be mostly off-road and we'd had some rain earlier in the week. In the end I decided to stick with my normal Saucony Kinvara 5's and this proved to be the correct decision.

The Run

The run was a 10km route, made up of two laps through the woodland circling the lake. It was a bit more hilly than I was expecting with a few areas of quite uneven terrain. Still, it was a beautiful morning with dappled sunlight filtering through the trees and I love running in conditions like this.

It took the first lap before my feet finally thawed out and I got some feeling back in them, but I'd got into a good running flow way before this. I managed to settle down into a good 4:20/km pace with some slower bits up the hills. I would have liked to have gone a bit faster than this, but the terrain pretty much dictated that this was about my best pace. I steadily worked my way up the field, picking off a number of other runners along the way. Then it was a strong finish for a time of 47:40 for the run.

The Finish

I crossed the line with a finish time of 2:43:14, which was just under two minutes better than my target of 2:45:00. Got to be pleased at that given the eventful swim exit and T1. This was also my first Olympic distance event, so doubly pleased with having put in a good performance at this longer format.

I have to mention the post-race goodies, which were way better than anything I've ever come across before. There were the obligatory bananas or course, but there were also bowls of trail mix, various sweets, broken up chocolate bars and a superb selection of biscuits! You even got a little pick-and-mix cup to put then all in. Superb!

There were also cups of Erdinger Alkoholfrei on offer. It's strange that even though I'm a non-drinker and hate the taste of beer and larger, that for some reason I really like the taste of this stuff at the end of a hard race.

Always Aim High don't usually do medals, instead preferring to give out lovely slate coasters with the race name and details on. This has pride of place on my desk and reminds me of the race every time I have a cup of tea. A nice touch.

After gorging myself on sweets and biscuits I headed over to the St John's Ambulance, where they did and excellent job of cleaning up my cut knee and assessing that it didn't need any further treatment other than a good bath and a sterile dressing.

It was at this point that the feeling started to fully return to my feet and I started to feel a pain under my left foot whenever I stood on it (if you can remember back as far as the swim entry and that sharp feeling while entering the water). Removing my sock I discovered a small hole in the bottom of my foot right through to the raw layers of skin underneath. I expect it would have bled quite nicely had it not been for the cold water and the general numbness of my feet! It took a couple of weeks of painful walking for this one to heal fully, but there don't seem to be any ill effects.

Summary

Overall, the Huntsman Triathlon was a great event. The organisation was pretty much perfect and you could tell that Always Aim High Events have a real passion for running the best triathlon they possibly can. The quality of the field was very high, so if you are looking for some serious competition then this event is definitely worth considering.

The lake made for a good swim and both the bike and run routes were challenging but not beyond the ability of most triathletes. Marshalling was good all the way round. From my point of view I'd be much happier if they could improve the swim entrance and exit to give them a bit less potential for injuries!

I was very happy with my performance, especially as I beat my goal time. I'll certainly be looking at returning next year to go faster and have a much less eventful swim.

More Stryd Experiments

In my previous post I described my first impressions of the Stryd running power meter. I've now had a chance to do a few more interesting runs and so far the power readings are looking pretty good.

Lactate Threshold Session

The first run I did since my last post was a Lactate Threshold session. This was 6km long with about 1.5km warm-up and then the remainder at my lactate threshold pace of 3:58/km. This is the pace I ran my fastest half marathon at and gives me an average heart rate of somewhere in the high 160's.

This run was recorded using the Stryd Beta iOS App synced straight to the Stryd Power Center (all graphs below are extracted from Power Centre). I also ran with my Suunto Ambit3 paired with a different heart rate strap to compare data sets. Happily the data from Stryd Power Centre matches pretty closely to that recorded by the Ambit3

Power vs Elevation vs Heart Rate

This graph shows plots for the LT part of the run with power in orange, heart rate in purple and elevation in pink. It's quite obvious to see that I had big power spikes on each of the two small hills that made up the run (around 8 minutes and 16 minutes in). You can also see a power drop during the downhill section (10 minutes).

Certainly something to work on in the future is trying to smooth these spike by adjusting effort and pace in order to maintain a steady power level throughout the run. I believe that this is much more the objective when running with power as the primary metric.

As expected, my heart rate gradually raises over time as I start to tire and this is usually what I see when I'm trying to maintain a consistent pace for a period of time. What is interesting is that average power output seems to remain fairly steady even though heart rate is going up.

What's also very noticeable is the steep rise in heart rate corresponding to the power spikes on the hills and that although my heart rate decreases after each hill it never returns to the level that it was at before that hill. I would expect that by trying to smooth out the power spikes on those hills, I would also get a much lower heart rate increase and perhaps be able to achieve a lower average for the same pace across the whole run. Something to test out in a future session and a good long term goal to aim for.

Power vs Pace

The second graph plots for the LT part of the run with power in orange and pace in blue. Not sure what happened between 12 and 13 minutes into the run as my Ambit3 didn't record such a pace fluctuation, so I'm going to assume this is just a data anomaly with the iPhone GPS readings.

What you can see from this graph is that I maintained a consistent pace across the whole run, even though there were a few small hills along the way. This consistent pace is the cause of the power spikes and heart rate raises on the hills. Again, next run the aim will be to try to keep a consistent power and let the pace vary as necessary.

Average Power Output

If I exclude the power spikes, caused by inconsistent pacing on the hills, and focus just on the two flat sections where power was steady I'm achieving an average power output of 345 watts (4.6 watts/kg). This seems fairly consistent with my 250 watts (3.3 watts/kg) recovery pace output and gives me a fairly decent baseline power figure for future Lactate Threshold sessions and half marathon efforts.

Track Intervals Session

The second run that I did was a session on the track. The entire session is shown on the plot below with power in orange, heart rate in purple and pace in blue:

This was all recorded on my Ambit3 using a second HRM strap to capture the heart rate data (as dual power and heart rate from Stryd to Ambit3 doesn't currently work). The session was divided as follows:

• Minutes 0 to 5: 800m easy warm-up
• Minutes 7 to 13: drills (skips, high knees, heel flicks etc.)
• Minutes 13 to 22: short sprints (about 30m at 80% effort)
• Minutes 22 to 55: intervals – pyramid of 200-400-600-800-600-400-200m efforts with the same distance as the previous interval jogging recovery between each
• Minutes 55 to 60: 800m easy cool down

Zooming in on just the intervals pyramid, we get the following graph:

Overall

The one thing you can clearly see is how well power tracks pace and reacts almost instantaneously. Given these were all fairly short bursts, heart rate is also following along quite well, but you can clearly see the lag at the end of each interval as it slowly returns to the recovery level. You can also see how my max heart rate increases each interval, making it a less than ideal measure of intensity compared to power.

Intervals

Power levels look pretty consistent as I would expect. The power for the first 200 is higher than any other interval (the last 200 was slow as I had a sore calf muscle at this point). The 400's have a higher power than the 600's and the 800. Both of the 600's and the 800 have a raising power towards the end as I pushed a bit harder.

Interestingly most of the intervals have a power dip at some point around the middle, probably indicating that I'm going off too fast and then slowing down too much in compensation. This isn't really noticeable on the pace graph, so either the stryd is giving me a valuable insight (which I suspect is actually the case) or it's not got it's power measurement quite right. Certainly something to play around with on my next track session.

The average power figures for each interval are:

200	402 watts
400	388 watts
600	358 watts
800	369 watts
600	362 watts
400	388 watts
200	377 watts

It's good to see that each interval either side of the pyramid has roughly identical average power. Interesting also how the 800 interval has higher watts than the 600's. However, looking at the pace graphs, I started out the 800 a bit too fast, which probably accounts for this figure.

One other thing I learnt is that using this data I am able to work out an approximate 3 minute sustainable power of something around 370 watts (4.9 watts/kg).

Recoveries

Between each interval there was a recovery period of the same distance as the interval just completed. I'm running all of these pretty steady and consistently at a relaxed pace of about 5:40-5:50 per km. Both the pace and power seem quite steady.

What is interesting from these is that average power is around 250 watts, whereas a previous recovery run had me being able to maintain 250 watts off a much faster 5:10/km pace. My suspicion is that this clearly shows a drop in running form due to fatigue from a hard interval (although see the next section also for another idea). Clearly something to work on is focusing on the power during these recoveries and trying to keep it as low as possible by maintaining good running form even though fatigued.

Warm-up and Cool-down

One slightly strange observation from this session was during the warm-up and cool-down laps. Given that these were on the track and an average pace of about 5:30/km I would have expected much lower power readings than the 250 watts that I have seen during recovery runs at 5:10/km pace on undulating roads. Instead, my power was still averaging out at about 250 watts.

I have three hypothesis to play with here:

• I run less efficiently while warming up and when tired at the end of a hard session (quite likely, but easily tested)
• 250 watts is some magical minimum figure of the amount of power that I require to get me running and I can only go up from that point
• My optimum efficiency pace is about 5:10/km and trying to run slower than that actually requires me to compromise my running performance (e.g. slower cadence, shorter strides) and that's less efficient and needs more power

This is definitely another area to play around with a bit more. I'm doing some slow runs with my children at the weekend, so will see how the results of these compare.

Multi-Terrain Run

The final run that I did was a multi-terrain recovery run. This wasn't anything particularly special as it was pretty slow and in horrible wet weather. Basically I just ran round a field five times while my boy was football training on the pitch in the middle! However what is interesting is the power map generated by Stryd Power Centre:

This map is coloured by power, with a scale from green being the areas of lowest power on the run and red being the areas of highest power, with orange being the middle between the two. Pace was a steady 5:30/km for the entire run and the terrain is pretty much flat the whole way round (3m elevation change round the whole 1km loop).

What is very evident from this picture is the change of power with the change of running surface. The bottom right section is mostly green and corresponds with a tarmac footpath and car park. The right hand side is the highest power and this corresponds to the transition from tarmac to longer grass. The entire top is in longer grass, except for the very small section directly above the football pitch that was well manicured. The left hand side was short grass but slightly wetter, while the bottom left was another area of well manicured grass.

This looks like conclusive proof that Stryd is correctly calculating differences in power requirement for running at an identical pace on different running surfaces.

Stryd Running Power Meter – Initial Thoughts

I backed the Stryd Running Power Meter in Kickstarter earlier this year as I thought that it looked like an interesting innovation. After a few months of waiting and some radical changes to the design, my Stryd device finally arrived yesterday. I've only taken it out on two runs so far, so this is very much an initial thoughts review. I'll follow up with more details as I get to grips with the device over the next few weeks.

The Hardware

The initial Kickstarter project was for a small clip-on device, but over the length of the project this evolved into a chest strap with built-in heart rate monitor (HRM) in addition to the power meter. Some people were a bit unhappy with this, but as I pretty much live in an HRM chest strap it doesn't really bother me that they decided on this form factor.

The actual device is somewhat larger than my current Suunto HRM, but it's very thin and light so I haven't really noticed any difference when wearing it. It looks to be a well engineered piece of kit and has the added bonus of a small flashing orange LED so that you can see that it is active, something I have struggled with on previous HRM devices.

Setup

The setup process is pretty easy. There's an iOS app that pairs the device and allows you to enter your weight (as this is essential for the power calculation). Then it's just a matter of pairing the Stryd with your GPS watch as a Power POD, and configuring an exercise mode to support power. Then it's time to go running...

Future versions of the App will apparently allow firmware upgrades and tracking of power data, but at the moment all it does is set your weight onto the Stryd. You have to have a GPS watch or use a third party phone App to track your runs and collect power data.

Data Collection and Usefulness

I've only done two runs with the Stryd so far but my initial findings are that it's power reading is a pretty good metric of what's going on with my run. There certainly seems to be a very close correlation between effort and power and their relationship to pace. Heart rate also appears to have the correct relationship to power and effort with all the usual lag in change of heart rate following change in effort.

The first thing that you notice is that when maintaining a consistent pace that power goes up when running uphill, goes down when running downhill and stabilises somewhere in middle when running on the flat. All as you would expect. I also found that I could maintain a fairly consistent power by slowing my pace on the uphill and running harder on the down.

For a fairly steady run at about 5:23/km (a pace I can sustain at aerobic effort for a long duration run) power was a fairly steady 252 watts. This seems about right and corresponds reasonably well to the same normalised power output of similar effort on the bike.

I also did a short test to see how power relates to running form. Over a six minute period on a flat gravel path I did three minutes trying to hold my best running form (high cadence, mid-foot strike, short stride length, pelvis up and forward, head high) and then three minutes trying to do the opposite (over-striding, heel strike, bum sticking out, slouched shoulders). The graphs covering this period are shown below:

You can clearly see for the first part that the power is fairly consistent in a band of about 252-270 watts, averaging out at 262 watts on a pace of 4:38/km. Heart rate gradually climbs as I'm going faster than I was previously and then levels out.

The second part shows a very different picture. Power is jumping around all over the place in a band ranging from 237-318 watts, with an average of 269 watts. Average pace is a bit slower at 4:46/km (couldn't run any quicker with such a broken running style!). Heart rate continues to climb above it's previous level.

So, evidence is that power looks to be a good measure of running form and efficiency. For a given pace on a consistent terrain it looks as if a drop in running form is directly related to an increase in power and visa-versa. This is definitely something I will be experimenting with further to determine if, for a given target pace, I can achieve it with a lower power value.

Also it's probably a good way to measure the rate at which running form decays over a long run by maintaining a consistent pace and seeing how power required to hold this pace goes up over time. Another option would be to pick a consistent power and see how pace required to hold that power slows over time.

The other thing I really want to play around with is whether the running surface has a significant impact on power and whether different technique adaptations for the surface can impact that power. The only firm conclusion I have from my runs so far are that grass requires about 10-15 watts more power to run at the same pace compared to road or gravel path. Any other comparison from my runs don't have value as the only time I spent on road was at the end of the long run when fatigue had already started to kick in.

Device Weaknesses

While I'm pretty pleased with the Stryd, it is pretty much a running only device. This makes is less useful during the triathlon season as far as I can see.

First off, it's not really waterproof enough to wear while swimming (the instructions say that you can rinse it under a tap to clean, but that's about it). Also, my Suunto HRM has on-board memory to capture heart rate while swimming that it then syncs to my Ambit3 when out of the water and a connection is re-established. The Stryd doesn't have this feature.

Secondly, the Stryd pairs to the Ambit3 as a 'Power POD', which means that wearing it on the bike could give some strange results (not actually tested this yet). For example, riding a bike without a power meter but with Power POD support enabled would likely cause the Ambit3 to think the Stryd was actually a bike power meter and record some very low power values. Not sure what would happen if I had both a bike power meter and the Stryd available at the same time - which one would be selected?

So, in a triathlon scenario I'd probably be left with two options:

• swap straps in T2 from my Suunto HRM to the Stryd ready for the run – doesn't make for an efficient T2 and probably not practical for anything but long course events
• wear both my Suunto HRM and the Stryd strap for the swim and bike and then just clip the Stryd to the strap in T2 – slightly faster, but means wearing 2 straps for the whole event, which isn't very comfortable

I personally can't see the current Stryd iteration getting much use during triathlon except on pure run workouts.

Ecosystem Issues

While the Stryd is a pretty neat, clever and polished device, it's something very new to have power data in running mode and to have a single device that captures both power and heart rate data. At the moment this seems to have broken quite a lot of the ecosystem that I use. Hopefully this will gradually resolve itself over the next few months as everyone catches up with Stryd's innovation.

As of today, here's some of the ecosystem issues I've discovered:

Suunto Abmit3

The Ambit3 probably has the best support for the Stryd as it already allows capturing power data in running modes (on Garmin devices you have to currently run using a cycling mode to support the Stryd!).

That said, there are a couple of issues that the Ambit3 still has:

• It currently can't stream both power and heart rate data from the Stryd at the same time. If you pair the Stryd as a Power POD then it's useless as an HRM. Suunto are apparently working on new watch firmware to overcome this problem. In the meantime I'm running with two chest straps so that I can get power and heart rate data - and it's a bit uncomfortable!
• For some reason I'm not getting any cadence data when using the Stryd. It looks like pairing it as a Power POD disables the cadence sensor built in to the Ambit3 and assumes cadence will come from the Stryd, but this data doesn't seem to be available. Hopefully this is just a bug that will be resolved by the next firmware updates as I tend to do quite a lot of work on maintaining a high cadence.

Suunto Movescount

Movescount seems to handle runs with power quite happily. The data is captured nicely and you can graph and explore the power values.

I have however found an error in Movescount where the FIT file format export seems to be missing occasional data points. When you drop this into Stryd Power Centre it results in a very jagged graph. Training Peaks uses the same FIT files and it also has the same missing data points problem. The data points aren't missing in GPX and TCX files so I've raised this as a bug with Suunto.

Stryd Power Centre

The Stryd Power Centre site seems to work pretty well and draws some nice graphs. Will be interesting to see how this develops over time. It should grow to be fully featured as it's an integral part of the Stryd offering.

Unfortunately it deals with the error in the Suunto FIT files by rendering zero values for power and heart rate if a data point is missing, which results in a very difficult to analyse, jagged graph. Training Peaks takes a better approach by just not rendering a data point in the graph for any data points that are missing.

Strava

Strava seems to quite happily receive runs from Movescount that contain power and hold on to that data. However it currently doesn't provide any way to view the power information for a run. It does export the power data to sites that pull data from Strava (e.g. VeloVeiwer) which is good.

Training Peaks

Training Peaks takes its data from Movescount in FIT file format so exhibits the missing data points problem. It currently doesn't display any power summary information for run activities, but if you expand the activity view you can see power on the graph and get lots of other interesting power metrics.

VeloViewer

VeloViewer pulls activity data from Strava and allows you to do lots of extra analysis on your performance. It successfully retrieves all of the power data for a run and graphs it properly. Also, because it's GPX based it doesn't suffer from the missing data point problem. This will probably become my default site for analysing my Stryd recorded runs until the other sites resolve their various bugs and lack of features.

Summary

From my initial runs, the Stryd looks very promising. Running power certainly appears to be a useful metric for evaluating form and efficiency. For any given pace and terrain it looks to be a much more stable metric than heart rate and a good measure of effort expended. Still lots of experiments to do though before I consider switching power to be my primary run training metric. I will be very interested to see the output from my next track intervals session on Monday.

At the moment, I'd say that the ecosystem is the main thing that is letting the Stryd down. If you are happy to be an early adopter and work round things that don't quite function as you would want then Stryd is certainly worth some experimentation. If you are after something that is polished and just works with all your devices and running data sites then I'd suggest waiting a few more months until the ecosystem catches up with this new and innovative approach to running metrics.

Newbury Triathlon 2015

This weekend saw me compete in my third ever triathlon - the Team Kennet Newbury Triathlon 2015. This was the same event that I did last year for my first triathlon. It's nice and local to me and has lots of people that I know competing.

This year as well as the event itself I had a little smack-down going with some local friends (Nick and Andy) as we are all at roughly the same performance level but have never raced against each other before. An added motivation to do well!

The race is a sprint triathlon format, based at Newbury's Northcroft Leisure Centre. It consists of a 300-yard pool swim, 22km bike ride and a 5km run. Last year I finished in 40th place (out of about 400 starters) in a time of 1:09:48. This year I'd trained harder and had more race experience, so I was hoping for a much better performance.

Preparation

When I did Newbury Tri last year I'd only been swimming for about eight months and cycling for about five. Since then I've been swimming every week and two or three times a week for the last 4 months. I've also put in a lot more cycling mileage, including a lot of triathlon specific bike training. I've also upgraded my bike, adding aero bars and adopting a much more aggressive riding position. I was therefore much more prepared both physically and technique wise to tackle this event.

In addition, I've also completed in another big triathlon event (Blenheim Palace Tri) and done a lot more transition practice, so I was a lot more confident mentally as well as physically. This was also a close friend's first triathlon event so I'd spent a fair bit of time helping him to prepare, practice transitions and so on. It's amazing how much extra clarity and confidence you get after having taken someone else through the whole event and procedures!

Pre-Race

The morning dawned clear and sunny with almost no wind, but pretty cold. Once the sun got going it started to warm up nicely. Perfect racing conditions. Met up with my friend and we took a nice leisurely cycle for the four miles from our homes to Northcroft Leisure Centre. This made a nice little leg spin to get the muscles moving.

Arriving at the venue we headed into registration. Numbers collected; race timing chip round the ankle; hands graffiti'ed with maker-pen numbers; technical t-shirt grabbed. As with last year the registration process was well organised and effortless. We took our bikes into transition and I helped my friend set up as his start time was 90 minutes before mine. Also met up with Nick and Andy to discuss the prospects for the day and drool over Nick's slippery bike!

Next it was off to pool-side to meet up with both mine and my friend's families and cheer him on through the first stage of the race. Interestingly, I was far more nervous for him that I was about my own looming race. He had a great swim and was soon on his way on the bike.

Now it was time to focus on my race. I returned to transition and set up all my kit. Bike shoes attached to cleats and held level with elastic bands. Running shoes with a bit of talc and some vaseline, so that I could bike and run without needing socks – something I've been practising over the summer and a great speed up in T1. Number belt, bike helmet and sunglasses. Nice and simple.

The Swim

Newbury Triathlon takes place in Newbury's amazing 75 yard (72m) long outdoor heated Lido pool. The original Lido dates back to 1870 with its current form being from the 1930s. It's a lovely place to swim and I've been using it each week for training since it opened at the beginning of summer. Sadly the poor August weather this year meant it didn't get used as much as it should have. Hopefully this won't effect any decisions about opening it next year!

The swim is four lengths of the pool, for a total distance of 300 yards. Competitors are set off in pairs at 30 second intervals. You swim up one lane, move across a bit swim down the next, under the centre rope and up the third lane, and finally across a bit more to the final lane for the last length. Up the steps in the corner and out through a little gate into the car park transition area.

Swimming is by far my weakest discipline, despite all the effort I've put in to improving it. However, the first two lengths I started strong, maintaining a good bilateral breathing pattern. By the end of the second length I was overtaking one of the swimmers who started 30 seconds before me. Lengths three and four I had to switch to breathing every two strokes in order to keep my pace high. Overtook the other person from the pair ahead of me. Out of the water and through the gate in 5:47 – 30 seconds quicker than last year.

Excluding the pool exit part, pace for the swim was about 1:44/100m, which is well above the pace I usually sustain, so very pleased even if there is still a long way to go in my swimming journey.

T1

The first transition from swim to bike is usually the most tricky. Balance is effected from just having moved from a horizontal to vertical position. There's also a few bits to do: sunglasses, helmet and number belt. This year I opted to cycle and run without socks, so that was a lot less faffing than my previous triathlons. My official T1 time was 35 seconds, which was the second fastest of the day and 9 seconds faster than last year. Except...

After crossing the mount line it all went a bit pear shaped: I crossed the line and climbed on the bike and as I did this I managed to steer the bike off the path onto the grass. Failed to slip my right foot into the shoe and while sorting this out my left foot fell off the pedal. The left shoe then dragged the floor and separated from the cleat. Got the right foot in and the bike back on the path but left my other shoe behind on the floor! Had to stop the bike, get off and go retrieve the shoe before finally sorting everything out and getting going again.

Amazingly, the GPS trace shows this only costing me 20 seconds, but that was still two places lost in the final standings. I really need to spend a lot more time practising the bike mount before my next event in October!

The Bike

After a disastrous start, I was determined to push hard on the bike. I knew Andy was starting only a minute and a half behind me, was a similar speed swimmer and a much faster rider so I wanted to stay ahead of him for as long as possible.

Got down on to my aero bars as quickly as possible and was soon overtaking other riders. Powered through the course as hard as possible, overtaking all the way. Heart-rate averaging about 170bpm all the way, which for me is pretty much on my lactate threshold effort. Looking as some estimated power readings (I don't have a power meter), they show a mean estimated power of 199w, normalised at 248w. This is the highest estimated power I've achieved over a sustained effort, so very pleased with this.

The first part of the course is a gently undulating country road. Nice and easy to ride, but requiring care when overtaking other riders as oncoming cars are often not quite as far over their side of the road as they should be. Next comes the gentle climb from Welford to Wickham. It's not very steep, but goes on for quite a long time, with the route's steepest hill at the end. I was buoyed going up this hill as the rider I was overtaking shouted out “you're going pretty fast!”. Thanks, it gave me a boost. The final section back to Newbury is a busier road, but it's pretty much flat or slightly downhill the whole way. Perfect for getting really aero, selecting a big gear and laying down some speed!

Unfortunately there was a bit of bad luck involved and I got slowed significantly by cars at three roundabouts and at a set of temporary traffic lights that had appeared two days before the event. Looking at GPS data, I estimate that these probably cost me another 20-30 seconds over having a clear run through. This equates to another one or two places in the final results.

Overall I've got to be very pleased with my bike leg time of 39:53, which is 2:31 faster than last year even with all the slowness. Nick thrashed me on the bike by just over two minutes (more about this in the summary) and unfortunately Andy had a puncture and had to retire.

T2

My dismount into T2 was pretty much perfect: feet out of the shoes nice and early on the straight before, off the bike with a running dismount and into transition. A quick 26 seconds to rack the bike, slip on the running shoes, remove the helmet and off again. Fifth fastest T2 of the day, 15 seconds quicker than last year.

The Run

The run didn't go as well as I had hoped. Having given it my all on the bike I was unable to sustain the running pace that I am capable of over a 5k distance. Started well with the first half a km at 4:10/km pace while I got into my running. Then got a massive stitch and rather than speeding up to my usual 5k pace, had to drop down to 4:30/km for the next 3.5k while it went away. Finally it cleared and I was able to complete the remainder of the run at 3:47/km pace.

The run course is a mix of footpath, narrow trail and canal tow-path. It's a nice route to run although the trail bit makes it pretty hard to overtake slower runners. I caught a couple up during this section of the run, which I think didn't help my pace particularly either.

Finished the run in 20:21, which was 36 seconds slower than last year and well off the 18 minutes I should have been capable of at my normal 5k pace (the run is slightly short at 4.6k). A solid reminder that triathlon is all about balancing the three disciplines.

Results

My overall time for the event was 1:07:03, which was 2 minutes and 45 seconds quicker than last year. A great result, but a long way from the 1:05:00 I was targeting. Finished in 24th place overall from 343 starters, and 12th in my age group.
My swim was 55th fastest, bike 32nd and run 36th. It's easy to see how bad a run I had as that's by far my best discipline and I'd normally be looking for a top-10 run in an event like this.

Full results available here.

Summary

Overall I'm pleased with my improvement, especially the big strides I've made in the swim and bike sections of the race. Removing a stupid bike mount mistake and some bad luck with the traffic I would have been a few places higher and significantly closer to my target time. I've also got a very clear focus on what to practice for my next event: bike mount, bike mount, bike mount!

I also had a good reminder that triathlon is about three events, not just one. No point pushing hard on the bike to gain a couple of minutes then loosing more that that on my strongest discipline! I think the prospect of our little smack-down and wanting to keep ahead of Andy for as long as possible on the bike may have forced some bad pacing choices. Lesson learnt for the future.

As to the smack-down, Nick comprehensively smashed me with a finish time of 1:03:05 for 7th place. I pipped him slightly on the swim and transitions, but he took over two minutes out of me on both the bike and run legs. Given our similar fitness and running performance levels I can draw a few interesting conclusions:

• Having a really good aero TT bike is definitely worth a couple of kph average speed (mine was 33.5kph, Nick's was 35.9kph over the main Strava segment covering most of the of the course).
• It also looks highly likely that a good TT bike means that this extra speed can be gained from a fractionally lower level of exertion. This result being that you can come off the bike with more energy to invest in the run.
• Nick has also had a professional bike fit on his bike which also looks to have contributed not only to his bike performance but also left him in a much better physical shape to nail the run leg.

Investing in a good TT specific bike looks like a really good option for my future triathlon ambitions. Better get saving!

I thoroughly enjoyed the event. Team Kennet did a fantastic job of organising it and the marshals were excellent. Hope to be back next year, although I may be helping to organise given that I've recently joined up with Team Kennet.

My First Century Ride

A couple of weekends ago I was blessed with a perfect set of riding conditions:

• The kids were away on holiday with my Mother-in-law
• My wife was off to the races for the afternoon and evening
• The weather was forecast as dry and warm but with a bit of cloud cover

I therefore decided to attempt my first ever 100 mile ride. Up until this point my previous longest rides had all been in the 50 to 55 mile range. This was therefore a big step up from anything I've done before.

Here's how it went...

Route Planning

I'd spent a good few hours playing around with some different routes. I wanted to start out with some familiar territory and then go on to explore some places I've never been before. However, to avoid getting lost too much, I decided that each new part of the route would link up with places I was familiar with. The result was a nice mix of alternating new and familiar roads and places.

I planned the route on Strava and then replicated it onto Movescount so that I could sync it to my Ambit3. The route following option on the Ambit3 is great as you can display a nice map on the watch that follows along based on your GPS location. This ensured that I didn't take any wrong turns throughout the ride. The planned route was 173km.

Next I looked at the elevation profile for the route and noticed that it looked quite hilly, mainly because I was taking in quite a lot of the North Wessex Downs. However, as I really wanted to enjoy the countryside and the views, and I wasn't under any particular time constraints, I decided to stick with my plan rather than alter it to something flatter but less interesting.

Preparation

My preparation was fairly thorough. I gave my bike a good service and prepared all my kit well in advance. Strava was predicting an estimated moving time of a bit under six and a half hours for my chosen route, so I used this as a basis for planning nutrition along the way (see later).

I also prepared myself a little route cue sheet listing the road numbers and towns as a backup to the Ambit3. I later found out that Strava route planner actually provides a cue sheet that you can use!

In my saddle bag I had the usual set of tools and spares: inner tube, puncture kit, tyre levers, multi-tool, chain tool (which was a ride saver - see later) and some tissues. In my jersey pockets I had: mobile phone, credit card, cash, another inner tube and my food.

Pre-ride

The morning before the ride I went to Parkrun as usual and, given I had no kids to run round with, decided to smash out a full effort and try for a new PB. It was pretty hot and I managed an 18:25 for the 5k - 8 seconds off my current PB. With hindsight this was perhaps not the best pre-milestone ride warm-up strategy!

After Parkrun it was a case of having a good sized meal, getting kitted up, applying body glide to the required places, dropping my wife to the station and then setting off. This all took a little longer than I'd expected, so I didn't set off until about 40 minutes later than I'd planned.

Dealing with a Broken Chain

The initial part of the ride was going nicely. I completed the first 40km with no problem, sustaining an estimated average power of 174W with an average speed of 28.1km/h. Very happy with this as most of the first part of the route was a gradual climb up onto the downs.

Then from about 40km I started noticing a small bump while peddling. Felt like something was loose somewhere or that there was a stiff chain link. I stopped a couple of times and gave the bike a quick once over but didn't immediately spot anything. I was planning a slightly longer stop at around 65km so decided to press on and do a more thorough investigation at that point. This proved to be a bad decision as at 63km, on the steepest hill of the ride, my chain fell off!

Recovering the broken chain I moved off the side of the road, whipped out my trusty chain link tool and started repairs. Fortunately it was just a link popped open and using the tool it was easy enough to force it back into shape and re-insert the pin. A good lesson here is to make sure you know how to use the tools you are carrying: they are just dead weight otherwise.

Fortunately I've fixed a few chains over the years, so it wasn't a huge problem. Although I did rush a bit and didn't thread the chain through the rear mech correctly the first time and then had to do it all over again. Doh! In all I lost about 25 minutes fixing the chain. Also I learnt that grass is a pretty good way of removing grease from hands.

Mental Toughness

Once the chain was fixed I got back on the bike and started off again. Mid-way up a steep hill, struggling to get moving again and annoyed at the wasted time the last thing I really needed was the 'trying to be helpful' cyclist coming down the hill shouting across "you need to pedal faster". Thanks!

The next 30kms were really tough - behind schedule and realising that the later start and unexpected delay would mean needing to complete the remaining 100km of the ride without a major break in order to finish in daylight. Then there was 15kms of almost continual up hill. At this point I seriously considered cutting the ride short at Hungerford (100km) and heading home.

Fortunately I then reached a long 20km stretch of downhill and flat road where I was able to get back to averaging 30.8km/h on an estimated average power output of just 131w. This gave my legs a chance to recover and my mojo to return. By the time I reached Hungerford I was both mentally and physically ready to carry on for the remaining 70km of the ride.

The remainder of the ride remained both physically and mentally tough, but I’d got myself through the down period and was now fully focussed on realising my 100 mile goal.

Hydration and Nutrition

I'd set out on the ride with two 750ml bottles, one with water and one with electrolytes. I don't tend to drink much on the bike, so was pretty confident this would be sufficient. However, the warm weather and hilly nature of the route meant I was getting through fluids far quicker than expected. A quick stop at a Hungerford newsagent and I refilled with water and Lucozade Sport. These drinks lasted for the reminder of the ride, with plenty of water still left.

Food-wise I decided to go with a mix of Eat Natural bars and trail mix. I picked these because they are both carb rich and I know I can eat them in reasonable quantities without any gastro-intestinal problems. Much better than energy gels or bars. Based on my typical energy burn rate on the bike I estimated needing about 1 bar every 60-75 minutes, topped up with some trail mix every 30-45 minutes in between.

 

I therefore packed 5 bars and half a bag of trail mix. I also purchased a bag of crisps on route to top up sodium levels. I came back with one bar remaining. I think I got the nutrition just about right as I felt my energy levels remained good right to the end of the ride and I didn't suffer any post-ride energy dip.

The Final Stages

The last 30kms of the ride were hard work. While I still had good energy levels, it was starting to get dark and my legs were feeling very tired. The steep hill up from Overton up to Kingsclere was an absolute killer. I had to dig very deep to make it to the top without stopping. Just after the top I hit the 100 miles (160km) distance with a very happy cheer and a big air punch!

From Kingsclere I’d planned to go out towards Ashford Hill and Brimpton before heading back home to Thatcham. However, with the light fading fast and the 100 mile mark already passed I opted to the slightly shorter and more direct route home. This only chopped 3km off the planned route, but by this time my legs had had enough and I was just pleased to be home.

The Aftermath

Surprisingly I didn't suffer any major ill effects from the ride. No chaffing shows I got the body glide and Vaseline application right. The next day I didn't really have any leg stiffness and wasn't really saddle sore either. In fact I was able to go out for a gentle 30km ride with a friend - a great active recovery. Probably the only parts of my body suffering any aches were my arms and my neck. The neck was the most sore just from being in a riding position with my head lifted up for such a long period of time. Felt generally tired for a couple of days and then returned to full on training.

Stats for the ride were: 170.6km covered in 7:11:49, with 6:19:16 of that spent moving. Fifty minutes lost to chain repairs, refuel stop and a couple of comfort breaks. Average speed was 24.7km/h with a top speed of 64.8km/h. Average heartrate was 148bpm, which was pretty good considering how hilly the route was. Estimated average power was 145w, with estimated normalised power being 197w (wish I could afford a power meter!).

Learnings

The main conclusion is that I now know I can complete a 100 mile ride and that I want to do it again in the future. I've also gained a new respect for Ironman athletes, being able to do that ride distance and then run a marathon straight after. However, it's also given me confidence that with the right training plan I could complete the iron distance (3.8km swim, 180km ride, 42.2km run) event and probably with a fairly decent age grouper time of between 12 and 13 hours.

The ride also re-enforced the requirement that I not only carry repair tools but that I need to make sure I can use them properly and efficiently. I also learnt that I know my bike really well and that as soon as I notice any change in sound or feeling from the bike then I need to stop and find out what's up rather than ploughing on and hoping to sort it out later.

I'll certainly be looking out for another free day in my schedule and filling it up with another long ride.

Blenheim Palace Triathlon – 14th June 2015

This part weekend I competed in the Blenheim Palace Triathlon, a sprint distance event set in the grounds of the beautiful Blenheim Palace on Oxfordshire. The event was great and incredibly well organised and I thoroughly enjoyed my first open water swim triathlon.

The Event

This was a sprint distance triathlon, consisting of 750m lake swim, 19.8km bike ride and a 5.4km run. The even took place over both days of the weekend, with me competing on the Sunday. It was primarily a sprint distance event, although there were a few super-sprint waves plus a couple of corporate relay waves as well. Got lucky with the weather, as by the time I started on the Sunday lunchtime the drizzle had disappeared and the bike course had mostly dried out.

My Performance

I was very happy with my performance, finishing the event in 1:23:36, which was just a fraction quicker than my target time of 1:25:00. Finished in 192nd position out of just over 4200 starters, and 36th place in the M40-44 age group. There were 78 competitors in my wave, from which I finished in 3rd place. Breakdown of the time was:

Event	Time	Position Overall	Position in Wave
Swim	15:48	770th	15th
T1	04:06	205th	1st
Bike	39:07	457th	9th
T2	01:21	53rd	2nd
Run	23:17	118th	1st

My full results can be seen here.

The Swim

This was my first ever open water swimming event. Prior to the race I'd done four other open water swims in the local training lake, but if was safe to say this was the part of the day that I was looking forward to the least.

The lake start is a 5-10 minute walk downhill from transition, so make sure you leave in plenty of time. It's also a path with a few stones, so if you have supporters it's worth walking down in flip-flops and getting them to bring them back up. The assembly point was pretty friendly and we collected our wave coloured swim caps . The safety briefing was excellent and ended with a hug with the person next to us. Then it was in to the water and a short swim out to the deep water start.

The lake at Blenheim is fairly deep and you can't see the bottom, so not one for very nervous swimmers. I'd reached a point in training where I knew I was comfortable with the distance, so it was just a case of dealing with the mass start and keeping my breathing under control. The horn sounded and we were off.

The first 300m was horrible! Even though I'd tried to position myself to keep out of the melee, I found myself surrounded by jostling people. People bashing in to me, hitting my legs, cutting across in front so that I hit them. It was almost impossible to get into a good swimming rhythm, my breathing was all over the place and a building sense of panic started to come over me.

I focused hard on keeping my breathing smooth and trying to relax. Then, the field started to spread out a bit and I found some smoother water and clear space. I was then able to get into a good stroke and breathing rhythm and everything settled down nicely. Managed to turn nice and tight to the buoy and even started overtaking some other swimmers during the closing stages.

Then I was at the slip ramp, out of the water, through the shower and heading up the hill towards transition. I didn't think of looking back to see how many people were still in the water, but I imagined that I was a good way down the field at this point (when actually I was 15th out of the water).

The swim part of the event can be seen below. My watch measured it at 870m, but that includes a bit of the run at the end and the fact that my line wasn't perfectly straight due to dealing with other swimmers and my inability to swim straight!

T1

The run from the lake back to transition is 400m, all uphill on a coarse carpet. I was out of the top part of my wetsuit by half way and taking care to try and stop my heart rate spiking too high. Looking at the stats I was fairly successful as it reached 179 just after exiting the water and I had it back to below 170 by the time I reached my bike.

It was at this point I realised I'd actually had quite a good swim as there were very few people in our rack lane of transition.

I'd laid out my kit carefully and it paid off. Wetsuit slid off easily (glad I'd practiced that in the back garden the day before!). Number belt and socks went on quickly as did bike hat and sun glasses. Pushed the bike out and did a smooth mount, including getting into my pre-clipped shoes with no drama.

I was the 205th fastest of the whole event through T1 and the fastest in my wave. Probably the only way I can significantly improve on this stage is to drop the socks and bike and run in just shoes. I'll definitely be testing this out before my next event in September.

One other word of note is that transition is carpeted, but the carpet appears to have been laid over a stone/gravel courtyard. You can feel the stones right through the carpet! I have bruises on the bottom of my feet from standing on these stones during transition. No way to avoid it, but something to be prepared for.

The Bike

I've been working hard on my bike and I think this had a real impact on my bike leg performance. I felt strong throughout the bike leg and the three laps seemed to pass by in a flash. The bike course at Blenheim is pretty undulating, with one longish (1km) steep up-hill (5-11%) and a couple of nice down-hills, including 2km at about 2-3% gradient. Felt strong on the up-hills and took the down-hills pretty fast. Perhaps slightly too tentative on the first lap, but attacked the hills more on laps 2 and 3. Strava estimates my average power at 211w, which is significantly higher than I usually achieve on training rides.

The only complaint I have over the bike course is other riders. Unfortunately the two waves prior to ours were corporate relay waves and thus, by the time I reached the bike, the course was still full of riders travelling significantly slower than I was. On the up hills there were lots of people wobbling all over the place at walking pace, which made overtaking on the fairly narrow paths a somewhat risky endeavour. Then on the down-hills there were lots of people travelling a bit slower than me but still making various overtaking manoeuvres on a number of very tentative riders. I therefore had to hold back slightly in a few places more out of safety concerns for myself and other riders.

I think the marshals could have done a better job of ensuring that slower riders kept well to the left to leave enough space for overtaking. There were some places where I had to brake on a downhill in order to avoid the drafting zone of the bike in front as there was just no space to overtake safely with riders already 2 or 3 abreast. The top bike times from our wave were all slower than most other waves and I think this was largely down to the volume of other riders littering the course.

I also found it quite disconcerting that in a few places there were marshals positioned with white flags yelling at everyone to slow down. I understand this is for safety, due to tight bends or bumpy roads, but after the first lap I felt my awareness of the course was good enough to be able to take these at speed and in full control. However I still felt obliged to back off slightly with the marshals shouting 'Slow Down' at you repeatedly!

Given a clearer course and the fact that I now know all the bumps, turns and hills, I think I could probably shave another minute or so off the bike leg if I attempted it again.

T2

I managed a smooth dismount from the bike, including taking my feet out of my shoes on the final straight with no incident. Quickly back to the bike stand, although I did loose a couple of seconds trying to spot my kit position on the rack, even though I'd mentally marked it's location in line with the advertising hoarding logos. Hat off and into running shoes. Then off again. I was 53rd fastest in the whole event in T2 and second fastest in my wave.

Took the gel that I'd attached to my bike but didn't need so I could fuel up early in the run. A great transition and probably still have a few seconds I could shave off as well in the future.

The Run

The run was always likely to be my strongest discipline and it turned out to be true. I felt really strong through the run and managed to complete this part in the 118th fastest time of the day, and 1st in my wave: more than twenty seconds faster than the next best.

I probably could have pushed a fraction harder in the first lap of the run, but a cracking second lap averaging 4:00/km on a very undulating course made for a strong finish. Lots of overtaking runners from the earlier corporate waves also gave the feeling of moving very fast!

One thing I did find very different was the fact that by this stage in the event everyone is very spaced out, including runners from multiple waves on the same 2-lap course. I was therefore running largely alone without knowing where I was relative to other racers in my wave. This is a very different sensation to a mass start run where you are constantly striving to catch the runner just ahead of you, knowing that each person you overtake is an improved place in the final results.

Crossed the line with a big smile and picked up my medal, bottle of water and a glass of Erdinger Alkoholfrei isotonic beer (I'm a non-drinker and don't really like beer, but this tasted okay – however that might just be because I was really thirsty at this point!).

Atmosphere and Organisation

For such a large event, I'd have to say that the organisation was immaculate. Everything ran pretty much like clockwork. Pre-race packs arrived early and the race guide had everything you needed to know clearly spelled out. Parking was well organised and timing chip collection very smooth

Racking bikes in transition was very well managed. All the instructions were really well presented and the announcements in transition and the swim start were clear and precise. The pre-race briefing was superb. All the marshals did a great job and offered clear instructions and direction, although those on the bike course could have done a slightly better job keeping slow riders to the left of the paths.

With such a big event you always get a great atmosphere and there was plenty of cheering on the way up from the swim and around the main straight in front of the palace building. Race village was good and there were plenty of toilets and lots of good food options.

Conclusions

I had a really enjoyable day, got a great time, conquered the mass-start open water swim that I was really nervous about and put in a very strong bike leg. The event was really well organised, if a bit expensive to enter. I'd certainly recommend it as a great location for a first sprint triathlon.

I'd certainly consider going back again next year, but I'm also keen to step up to standard (olympic) distance events and Blenheim Palace doesn't offer this distance as an option. I'd therefore be doing it as more of a training race, and it's probably a bit too expensive to enter on this basis.

Now going to take it easy for a few weeks, keep up the open water swimming and start thinking about training for my local pool based sprint triathlon at the start of September.