The Triathlon thread - Ironman, 70.3, Olympic, Sprint

[Gargamel]

S1KRR said:

Ahh apologies. You'll be used to the costs

https://www.strava.com/activities/412208007

(Not my strava)

The hill from Egg upwards is the hardest one. Not too bad tbh. Heartbreak hill is steeper but shorter. Loved the descent back into Kusnacht Overtook so many people

Run course was flat when I did it, but it's been tweaked to go into the city more rather than just the lake so can't comment. Swim surprised me, it was very choppy out in the lake. Felt a bit seasick at times! Which I never normally do.

In 2015 it was so warm it was non wetsuit. It was a very hot day 32-34 degrees.

Yes used to the cost, though you never really get used to paying eight quid for a small lager.

Will look at the Strava, and practice my descent technique ( 1. take brain out at the top. 2. Hold on and don’t brake mid corner)

Last year was also non wetsuit and even hotter about 1/5 th of the field dnf’d. Apparently it was brutal on the bike course in the heat.

I swim the lakes regularly so hopefully I am used to the conditions...

[dangerousB]

Fourmotion said:

I'm doing the Norseman this year, which is very much about the finish and not the time!!

Missed THIS when you posted!!! You lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, bar steward!!!

Wow, that's gonna be some experience - I am SO envious I entered the ballot for the 5th time last year and watched the whole Youtube live draw (only not to see my name pulled out again ).

I competed at the inaugural Swedeman event last year (which is another XTri event and very similar) and I'm glad I did - brought it home to me just how tough these events can be. The fell/mountain running is definitely a skill to acquire (that I don't currently have) - was hitting 10k PB's every week on the run up to that race (on tarmac) and it counted for absolutely nothing on the day.

You are in for one hell of an amazing day - enjoy it and definitely let us know how it goes! I will be glued to my monitor for the 2020 draw again though!!

[dangerousB]

Had this posted on my FB feed today. Never has a truer word been spoken!

[Scabutz]

Lanzarote registration opens today.

Redemption time!!!

Anyone else in?

[dangerousB]

Scabutz said:

Lanzarote registration opens today.

Redemption time!!!

Anyone else in?

Oh yeah

Absolutely love Lanzarote - an absolutely amazing, iconic, super tough race. I've been wanting to return and compete there for the last couple of years, but all manner of things have prevented me from doing so - to have good day there you have to ensure you're able to get a good winter's training in.

2020 is looking all good for me though with a year to go - bang up for it.

[redback911]

Hiya Folks, just looking for 70.3 event suggestions for this year, ideally in nice locations with trail/mountain runs.

So far this year I did Epicman 70.3 which had a brutal ride in the wet and trail run to finish, I have Lakesman 70.3 on Sunday, Starman Night Triathlon (a midnight start) in Cairngorms (August), Helvellyn Triathlon (September), Lakes in Day (50mile Ultra - October). Any other suggestions for this year?

[ED209]

redback911 said:

Hiya Folks, just looking for 70.3 event suggestions for this year, ideally in nice locations with trail/mountain runs.

So far this year I did Epicman 70.3 which had a brutal ride in the wet and trail run to finish, I have Lakesman 70.3 on Sunday, Starman Night Triathlon (a midnight start) in Cairngorms (August), Helvellyn Triathlon (September), Lakes in Day (50mile Ultra - October). Any other suggestions for this year?

Me and the wife are doing the lakesman half on Sunday, it’s definetly not a mountain run. Very flat!

Did the half last year and the full in 2017.

[redback911]

ED209 said:

redback911 said:

Hiya Folks, just looking for 70.3 event suggestions for this year, ideally in nice locations with trail/mountain runs.

So far this year I did Epicman 70.3 which had a brutal ride in the wet and trail run to finish, I have Lakesman 70.3 on Sunday, Starman Night Triathlon (a midnight start) in Cairngorms (August), Helvellyn Triathlon (September), Lakes in Day (50mile Ultra - October). Any other suggestions for this year?

Me and the wife are doing the lakesman half on Sunday, it’s definetly not a mountain run. Very flat!

Did the half last year and the full in 2017.

Coolio, see you there! I just entered the Lakesman as its local, but I prefer trails over the street. The weather looking good, sunshine and showers, perfect. :-)

[ED209]

redback911 said:

Coolio, see you there! I just entered the Lakesman as its local, but I prefer trails over the street. The weather looking good, sunshine and showers, perfect. :-)

Last year was decent weather, 2017 was brutally hot for the full. It was over 30 degrees, not once during training did I worry about being too hot in the Lake District.

The Mrs has won prizes the last two years, I’m in the biggest male age group and come nowhere.

Hopefully I might beat her this year as she will be slowed down by being 13 weeks pregnant. I bet she will be the fastest pregnant competitor though! Shame there’s not a trophy for that !

[redback911]

ED209 said:

redback911 said:

Coolio, see you there! I just entered the Lakesman as its local, but I prefer trails over the street. The weather looking good, sunshine and showers, perfect. :-)

Hopefully I might beat her this year as she will be slowed down by being 13 weeks pregnant. I bet she will be the fastest pregnant competitor though! Shame there’s not a trophy for that !

Wow, that is amazing..! Puts things into perspective for the rest of us when we don't feel like training or competing.

Edited by redback911 on Friday 14th June 13:04

[ED209]

redback911 said:

Wow, that is amazing..! Puts things into perspective for the rest of us when we don't feel like training or competing.

Edited by redback911 on Friday 14th June 13:04

I only beat her and plus 1 by three minutes at the outlaw half last month.

[craig r]

dantournay said:

Watch out for the cows at Birmingham Tri When I did it in 2017 a small heard watched everyone swim in the lake and then ambled idly across the bike and run course. Made in interesting distraction lol

I kept an eye out for bovine obstacles yesterday, and luckily there were none! However, the cycle route was not good. The paths around there are in shocking condition!

As for my time, 1:38.37. Which I'm quite pleased with!

[ED209]

craig r said:

I kept an eye out for bovine obstacles yesterday, and luckily there were none! However, the cycle route was not good. The paths around there are in shocking condition!

As for my time, 1:38.37. Which I'm quite pleased with!

I had to stop for about 2 minutes during the lakesman half yesterday due to a farmer moving a full herd across the road, me and about a dozen others!

I finished in 5hrs 55 which was about 8 mins slower than last year but I will take it.

The wind on the bike seemed to be a permanent headwind and made it a slog, I also had a bovine road block which cost me time.

The run felt like a struggle but was only about a minute slower than last year.

The wife did great as usual 3rd in age group prize at 14 weeks pregnant!

[redback911]

ED209 said:

craig r said:

I kept an eye out for bovine obstacles yesterday, and luckily there were none! However, the cycle route was not good. The paths around there are in shocking condition!

As for my time, 1:38.37. Which I'm quite pleased with!

I finished in 5hrs 55 which was about 8 mins slower than last year but I will take it.

The wife did great as usual 3rd in age group prize at 14 weeks pregnant!

Nice one, we must have been close by at some point during the race. I finished in just over 6hrs, it should have been a bit faster but for a stupid incident on the bike (faffing with my water bottle), and coming off and banging my knees and bending the bars midway around the course - https://www.strava.com/activities/2454587616

Edited by redback911 on Wednesday 19th June 10:48

[ED209]

redback911 said:

Nice one, we must have been close by at some point during the race. I finished in just over 6hrs, it should have been a bit faster but for a stupid incident on the bike (faffing with my water bottle), and coming off and banging my knees and bending the bars midway around the course - https://www.strava.com/activities/2454587616

Edited by redback911 on Wednesday 19th June 10:48

Well done, I found it tougher on Sunday than when we did the full.

Looking at your results you were behind me all the way but you caught up a lot on the bike. I pulled away a bit on the run.

I find it interesting comparing my results to people who finish around the same time as me.

My swim is normally bang average, my bike is poorish ( you were 13 mins faster than me despite your mishap) then I’m generally a decent bit faster than those around me on the run.

I doubt I will ever improve my swim as I find swimming boring. I could probably improve my bike a bit with a bit more focused training and trying to ride in a more aero position. At the moment I ride a more endurance focused road bike and don’t have any tri bars on it. Sunday was only the 4th time this year I have actually been outside on the bike!

I’m fairly consistent on the run, the last 4 70.3’s I have done my run times have all been in a 2 minute window. The only other I have done was my first and I found the run a huge struggle, some of it was on soft sand though.

[redback911]

ED209 said:

Well done, I found it tougher on Sunday than when we did the full.

Looking at your results you were behind me all the way but you caught up a lot on the bike. I pulled away a bit on the run.

I find it interesting comparing my results to people who finish around the same time as me.

My swim is normally bang average, my bike is poorish ( you were 13 mins faster than me despite your mishap) then I’m generally a decent bit faster than those around me on the run.

I doubt I will ever improve my swim as I find swimming boring. I could probably improve my bike a bit with a bit more focused training and trying to ride in a more aero position. At the moment I ride a more endurance focused road bike and don’t have any tri bars on it. Sunday was only the 4th time this year I have actually been outside on the bike!

I’m fairly consistent on the run, the last 4 70.3’s I have done my run times have all been in a 2 minute window. The only other I have done was my first and I found the run a huge struggle, some of it was on soft sand though.

That is interesting that you found it tougher on the half, versus the full. Sat at the hospitality table post-race, a couple of other folks said the same thing. I signed up for the full originally but a rotator cuff problem means I cannot swim more than an hour at the moment, so switched to half a few weeks ago.

This was my second 70.3, I did the Epicman at Windermere a few weeks ago. Both were absolutely brilliant.

Just starting out on my Tri journey realy, my first one (sprint tri) was last September but really enjoying them so far. Just need to lose some weight, at 90kg I am too heavy and the end runs feel really hard. Also like you I am not riding in an aero position or with tri-bars, my bike is a cycle cross with 36mm treaded tyres. I think tri bars and some practice in an aero position, smaller tyres, maybe slicks, might be a good improvement. Except it may be bloody uncomfortable.

[dirty boy]

redback911 said:

ED209 said:

Well done, I found it tougher on Sunday than when we did the full.

Looking at your results you were behind me all the way but you caught up a lot on the bike. I pulled away a bit on the run.

I find it interesting comparing my results to people who finish around the same time as me.

My swim is normally bang average, my bike is poorish ( you were 13 mins faster than me despite your mishap) then I’m generally a decent bit faster than those around me on the run.

I doubt I will ever improve my swim as I find swimming boring. I could probably improve my bike a bit with a bit more focused training and trying to ride in a more aero position. At the moment I ride a more endurance focused road bike and don’t have any tri bars on it. Sunday was only the 4th time this year I have actually been outside on the bike!

I’m fairly consistent on the run, the last 4 70.3’s I have done my run times have all been in a 2 minute window. The only other I have done was my first and I found the run a huge struggle, some of it was on soft sand though.

That is interesting that you found it tougher on the half, versus the full. Sat at the hospitality table post-race, a couple of other folks said the same thing. I signed up for the full originally but a rotator cuff problem means I cannot swim more than an hour at the moment, so switched to half a few weeks ago.

This was my second 70.3, I did the Epicman at Windermere a few weeks ago. Both were absolutely brilliant.

Just starting out on my Tri journey realy, my first one (sprint tri) was last September but really enjoying them so far. Just need to lose some weight, at 90kg I am too heavy and the end runs feel really hard. Also like you I am not riding in an aero position or with tri-bars, my bike is a cycle cross with 36mm treaded tyres. I think tri bars and some practice in an aero position, smaller tyres, maybe slicks, might be a good improvement. Except it may be bloody uncomfortable.

I did a 1500 swim on Sunday, as a 'warm up' swim behind the two waves of Olympic Tri athletes, I couldn't believe how many of them clearly neglect the swim. I'm a pretty bang average swimmer and cruised past probably 50 odd and I wasn't racing (which probably makes up for the fact they've got a cycle and run to do still)

However, swimming is so much about being efficient, so just plodding up and down on your own or with a bog standard set will be boring and won't help a great deal, you'll already be fit from the cycling and running training.

People spend £00s if not £000s on an aero bike, helmet, wheels and bike fitting etc, but water is 784 more dense than air, so it's so important to have correct body position and technique. You can perhaps maintain the same swim speed but use up far less energy to improve the cycle and run.

[ED209]

Makes your bike time even more impressive in what seemed like a permanent head wind!

When we did the full it was a venture into the unknown, trying to make sure we finished in the 30 degrees plus temperatures, conserving energy and trying not to overheat. Couldn’t have cared less about the time, just finishing. Did 13hrs 1 min in the end and I was gutted ! If I had known how close I was to a time starting with a 12 I am sure it would have been doable ha ha.

When I do a half I’m always trying to beat myself, I’m never going to win anything but I like to set targets in my head. On Sunday I knew after 5 miles on the bike that I wasn’t really feeling my best so about half way round I revised my target to breaking 6 hours which I did. The race photos from the bike confirm this as I looked like st!

I spent most of the run really worried about my wife. I had seen her in T1 and she looked tired so when I hadn’t seen her after a couple of laps running I was concerned something had happened re her pregnancy. She was fine and only about 7 minutes behind me but it was a real worry for a while.

She’s banned now though from triathlon until next year!

[redback911]

dirty boy said:

I did a 1500 swim on Sunday, as a 'warm up' swim behind the two waves of Olympic Tri athletes, I couldn't believe how many of them clearly neglect the swim. I'm a pretty bang average swimmer and cruised past probably 50 odd and I wasn't racing (which probably makes up for the fact they've got a cycle and run to do still)

However, swimming is so much about being efficient, so just plodding up and down on your own or with a bog standard set will be boring and won't help a great deal, you'll already be fit from the cycling and running training.

People spend £00s if not £000s on an aero bike, helmet, wheels and bike fitting etc, but water is 784 more dense than air, so it's so important to have correct body position and technique. You can perhaps maintain the same swim speed but use up far less energy to improve the cycle and run.

Absolutely..! I started swimming in Cumbria with an open swim tour company and was amazed at how much better some of the older and larger swimmers were. They might not be able to run 5k but they were excellent swimmers and looked some much smoother in the water.

I would love to improve, I started looking at My Swim Pro https://myswimpro.com/, ideally some coaching sessions would be good but my local pool is 40 minutes away, whereas the sea and lakes are 5-20 minutes.

During the Lakesman I messed up by getting caught in the front middle of the pack at the swim start. When the klaxon sounded it was like being in a washing machine. I started too fast, got tired and had to slow right down. I should have started towards the back or sides, and gradually increased pace comfortable. When I swim locally on my own in open water, I manage 2min/100m pace and anything up to 1.5k is fine. On Saturday it dropped down to 2.40min/100m.

ED209 said:

Makes your bike time even more impressive in what seemed like a permanent head wind!

When we did the full it was a venture into the unknown, trying to make sure we finished in the 30 degrees plus temperatures, conserving energy and trying not to overheat. Couldn’t have cared less about the time, just finishing. Did 13hrs 1 min in the end and I was gutted ! If I had known how close I was to a time starting with a 12 I am sure it would have been doable ha ha.

When I do a half I’m always trying to beat myself, I’m never going to win anything but I like to set targets in my head. On Sunday I knew after 5 miles on the bike that I wasn’t really feeling my best so about half way round I revised my target to breaking 6 hours which I did. The race photos from the bike confirm this as I looked like st!

LOL... My same for my run. Lap 1-3 run pics look OK, 4-5 look like I need serious medical attention.

ED209 said:

I spent most of the run really worried about my wife. I had seen her in T1 and she looked tired so when I hadn’t seen her after a couple of laps running I was concerned something had happened re her pregnancy. She was fine and only about 7 minutes behind me but it was a real worry for a while.

She’s banned now though from triathlon until next year!

She sounds awesome, what an amazing result..!

We need to organise a PH Tri training weekend in The Lakes - we have 6-room guest house accommodation with a small restaurant and bar in Western Lake District. It has direct access to beach and fells. Perfect running, cycling and swimming, direct from the backdoor: https://thewayside.uk/.

[Gargamel]

Alll of which is true, but the swim is relatively short, and the difference between say a 2:00minute for 100M vs and 1:30minute for 100m, really isn’t that big in a half or full distance.

Hence most people put effort into the cycle and run. Also with cycling to some extent you can buy speed. Not so much in a swim !