Johnny Hall's Travels and Travails

This was my last event of the season, entered during a bout of over-enthusiasm earlier in the year. The Big Triathlon is an unusual, tough event in Fort William. The distances suggest that it is a middle distance (half Ironman) event, but the finishing time point towards it being closer to a long distance (Ironman) event. 1.9km in the sea water of Loch Linnhe, followed by 56 miles of mountain biking, topped off with an ascent of Ben Nevis, from sea level. After Esme was born, my motivation and time for training seemed to disappear at the same time, and I've not followed much of a programme since early August. After Helvellyn, 3 weeks ago, all I had done was run once for 2 hours, cycle once for 2 hours and go mountain biking a handful of times. I've only been swimming once (at Helvellyn) in the last 6 weeks. So, I wasn't too sure if I had the endurance to complete a grueling 10 hour race but there would only be one way to find out. I'd trained pretty hard most of the rest of the year, so I was hoping I had reserves. My original target had been about 9:30 (40 swim, 5:00 bike, 3:30 run plus transitions) but I wasn't hopeful of getting anywhere near that, so I just wanted to finish. I decided to camp again, to save some money but it's not ideal preparation. So far, at Wimbleball and Helvellyn, it hasn't done me any harm, and it's certainly easier to get up and sort breakfast in the wee hours before a race if you don't have to rely on a hotel or B+B to do it for you. I stayed at the Glen Nevis site, which I can recommend. Triathlons require a lot of kit and a lot of organisation to sort out the kit into the right places. Mountain-based triathlons even more so. So most of Friday night and Saturday morning was spent wrestling with an inordinate amount of gear. Eventually I made it to the water's edge, ensconced in my wetsuit. I had an idea that the swim would be cold but it turned out to be pretty reasonable. The race started at 7:15 and after a bit of a bashing, I settled in towards the rear of the 70 or so competitors. No point in pushing it for the sake of a few minutes, so I cruised round the 2 laps, occasionally looking up to see if I was on course (which I usually wasn't). 39 easy minutes later (on target) and I was out of the water and up to the change tent. I leapfrogged a few folks who decided to change into cycling gear because I had my trisuit on and then I settled into the first steep road climb up the Lundavra road and then onto the start of the offroad section. Gradually, I began to catch people, and I think I passed maybe 3 or 4 people on the first long climb. The bike course was 4 laps, which went up and around Cow Hill above Fort William, then down a fast, loose, rolling descent to the Braveheart Car Park on the Glen Nevis road. The first of several accidents happened here on a trivial 180 degree turn where my front wheel (with high pressures in the tyres for the road section) lost traction and washed out, crashing me to the ground and banging my right hip and staving a finger. After dusting myself off, I started riding again but my hip was sore and I started to worry if I could walk on it, never mind run up and down a mountain. After that descent, it began to slowly climb for a few miles, going eastward along a forestry track above the road. A short, bumpy technical descent took us back to the road. I managed to ride all of it (bar a step on a sharp turn, which only 2 people rode) and this helped me to make up time on those riders who couldn't manage it (quite a few). However, accident number 2 happened here on my second lap when I washed out the back wheel and managed to strain my (weak) right achilles. It seemed ok though, so on I went. Then it was back to transition along the road for about 4 miles for the start of the next lap. I consistently passed people during the whole ride, with only a couple of people passing me (who must have been even slower swimmers than I am!). My lap times were pretty consistent, around 1:15 each and I finished in 5:02 (on target again). However, when I started running on the road towards the start of the track up the mountain, my hip wasn't in good shape and every step hurt. I knocked back a couple of anti-inflammatories and continued though and it disappeared soon enough, to be replace with my usual sore lower back and my tender achilles screaming at me! If I was going to finish, I'd have to ignore the pain. A few people passed me on the first lower section of track up the hill and I latched onto the back of a local girl who knew the shortcuts, which saved me some time, if not effort. Gradually, I started to feel better (as I knew I would - long races always have their ups and downs) and once we hit the zig zags and entered the mist, I started speeding up a bit. Lochaber AC had provided local runners to help guide the racers up the mountain at the top to ensure nobody got lost and that we went the quickest route. I joined up with a chap called Steve who whipped me up and down the last few hundred metres in good style. It took me about 2:15 to reach the summit, not too quick but not too bad either. Now for the descent that was worrying me since my achilles wouldn't like it too much. Luckily though, it had been well stretched out on the long, steep climb so it seemed like I'd get away with it. I seem to have improved my descending recently and I managed to catch a couple of people on the way down. Accident number 3 happened, ironically, about 200m from the end of the track before the road. After running down a steep, loose, rocky descent for an hour, I managed to catch my foot on a rock on easy ground, and despite my best efforts, I went down hard. After a bit I managed to get up and dust myself down but I was a bit shaky and started off running again slowly. I had a badly bleeding knee, as well as cuts and scrapes on my ankle, elbows and hands. Perfect. The last road section wasn't too bad and I managed to run at a reasonable pace and catch the local girl who had passed me on the descent. I pushed hard to the line and finished the run in 3:35 (more or less on target) and the whole event in 9:27 (bang on) exceeding my expectations, which weren't high. The Big Triathlon is a great event, despite being pretty tough. I was pleased to finish the season on a high and I met some nice people over the weekend. I'm now recovering with a strained achilles, swollen finger, bruised hip and numerous scrapes and cuts. If I hadn't fallen so often, I think I'd be in good shape, all things considered. Now, a months rest before I start to think about training again for next year's events.

Not perhaps the most groundbreaking news ever but to a parent, it's an exciting (and nervous) time. Emily decided to start attempting to walk about around the time that Esme was born - she probably didn't want to be upstaged. Gradually she's gotten better and better at it, and she's reduced the amount of time that she spends crawling. As she gets more confident, the likelihood of her battering herself against inanimate objects like tables and door frames becomes greater. If you look at the photo on the right you can just about see a wee bruise on her forehead. She's also developing in other ways too. Before she goes to bed, either Mum or Dad reads her a story. Last night she went over to the bookshelf, picked a book out and brought it over to me to read it to her. My heart melted. Then, this morning, I put on Lazytown just in time for the song at the end. She got out of Esme's bouncy chair (which she was hogging) and walked over to me with her arms up, so that we could dance to the song. I always pick her up and swing her about to the Lazytown song and she's knows it. Some might say that I've brainwashed her, but I like to think it was done with love.

A week early, thanks to those lovely, incompetent people at Argos, Galashiels. No play yet but I'll give it a bit of a tanking after Emily has gone to bed tonight. Right now I have to work, then train, then get my dinner. Life always gets in the way!

When I originally had thoughts of getting into triathlon (around this time last year), this was the event that drew me in. It seemed to be everything that would interest me about triathlon - challenging, unusual and revolving around a mountain. So, yesterday, a year later, I got to compete. The event is a non-standard distance. A mile swim (1600m) in Ullswater, 38 mile cycle around Helvellyn and finally a 9 mile run up and down the mountain itself. Each discipline has its difficulties, to some extent. The swim is fairly standard, although Ullswater is cold (I didn't really notice it myself, having braved the North Sea a few weeks ago). The cycle is bumpy for a triathlon, and culminates in a climb up and over Kirkstone Pass from Ambleside, which has a section of 25% gradient near the top, aptly named The Struggle. The run doesn't involve a great deal of running for the first half as you manfully plod up the mountain via Swirral Edge. My preparations for the event had unfortunately been hit by the arrival of Esme in the last few weeks, which has affected my ability to get out for longer than an hour or so at a time. In fact, over the last few weeks, I think I only trained longer than an hour once, and swam very little due to the requirement to travel to the pool. If I'm honest, my motivation has wavered a little as well. I had no idea how much my endurance would have suffered over the last few weeks but enough that my rough guesstimate of how long the race should take me had gone up somewhat. I travelled down to Glenridding on Friday to ensure I got a decent camping spot (too poor for a B+B or hotel) and it was just as well I did, since there was also a motorcycle trials event on in the village and the campsite was crawling with (very noisy) bikers. Unfortunately, some of them didn't seem to be too concerned with others and the site was very noisy all weekend. During the day the riders would be revving their engines continually, and in the evening there would be children screaming ('til midnight!) and music blasting. There's not much can be done about it - it's the price you pay for camping. I managed to sleep ok despite it all. On Saturday, I had thought about going up the mountain, or going for a ride, or going to Ambleside but in the end, I didn't nothing more than register, sit in the sun and read the papers. I did meet a fella (Adam) that I had trained to be a teacher with in Leeds, who was also competing (for the fourth time) in the event. He was with his wife, dog and new baby, which made me wish that the girls were with me but that would have been too much. Adam is still a teacher after 13 years. I only lasted 3, which is the average apparently. Race morning involved getting a thousand things done - up with the larks, breakfast, washed, sort out kit (lots of it), fill bottles, put the camping gear away (damp) and get down to transition to rack the bike. Transition was a bit chaotic, since the bikes didn't have numbered areas. I managed to squeeze my bike in but I'm sure a couple of other racers weren't too happy. Oh well. After a very long pre-race briefing, we made our way to the Lake. We had to swim over to the start, which was a useful warmup. This was my first in-water start, and it was much better than the free-for-all of my last 2 events, which involved running into the water. As I hadn't been swimming much recently, I decided not to go too hard, so I just cruised round nice and easy. I probably went a bit wide but it wasn't too bad, if slow. My swim time was around 36 minutes. A reasonably quick transition and I was onto my bike. I'd decided to use my Cervelo (tri bike) rather than my road bike, despite all of the hills. It turned out to be a good choice. I got up the hills no problem (aided by my road bike's compact chainset) and I must have overtaken a hundred riders or more. I had the usual feeling of sore legs for the first 20 minutes or so but after that I felt pretty good. My neck was giving me bother (lack of miles on the tri bike recently) and I got held up by traffic in a couple of places, which was annoying but apart from that I went well. The Struggle was just that but my low-ish gearing got me up better than most people. The biggest problem I had was holding onto the bars with sweaty hands and no gloves. The were a lot of people at the top but I didn't pay too much notice because my HR was maxed by that point. The ride down into Glenridding took longer than I had expected but I got back into transition in about 2 hours and 9 minutes, perhaps a little slower than I'd hoped but but too bad considering. Another quick transition and I was off on the run. I was wearing my fell shoes rather than my road shoes and my feet were sore due to the lack of cushioning. I probably could have got away with my road shoes but in the end I don't think it mattered. Very soon, the path reared up for the first steep section. I wasn't feeling too strong, so I just plodded along. I got overtaken by quite a few people on this section. After about 30 minutes, the path flattened out and rolled along until the climb up to Swirral Edge. I started running here and took back a few places. Once on to the edge, I overtook some more people - I guess most of the runners would have been unused to such terrain but to my mind it was very straightforward. Soon enough, I was at the top, which was swathed in cloud and wind. There were a few walkers up there in, fully wrapped up in waterproofs, watching running go past them with little more than a lycra shorts and vest. It wasn't cold and just a little damp, so I know who was dressed inappropriately. After a short climb, the downhill began. I'm not a great downhill runner, so I expected to be passed by a lot of folks but to my surprise, I did most of the passing. I managed to get a stitch with about a mile to go, due to all of the pounding on the hard track but I stuck it out and finished well. My run time was just over 2 hours. My overall time was 4 hours and 51 minutes (plus a bit) which I was more than happy with. I was 202nd out of about 600 entrants, I think. I'm planning on using this event to kickstart my training again before doing the Ben Nevis (Big) triathlon in a couple of weeks. That event should take me about twice as long as Helvellyn did, which is a sobering thought.