Public Safety Announcement

After last weeks less than impressive race I have been trying to get back into my training and switch focus toward my next race. This week has been pretty uneventful but the training has gone very well and I am feeling much better.



On Wednesday, for the first time ever, my lunch time run was interrupted by a Head of State. The President must have been addressing congress and as he left Capital Hill the Capital Police shut the roads so that I was unable to get down The Mall. I had to wait 5 minutes or so before he passed but he did give me a wave to make up for it.



This weekend I had a 4 hour bike ride on Saturday and today I swam 3k, biked 2 hours and ran 40 minutes. Despite a blow out of my rear tyre as I descended Sugerloaf Mountain in Maryland I was able to stay on my bike and the rest of the ride yesterday went very well. I used the ride as an opportunity to do a couple of loops of next weeks Poolesville High School Road Race route. The route is not too bad but the gravel section of the course, for which it is infamous, has some really nasty pot holes and I am a bit concerned about my wheels.

So what is the public safety announcement? Well as this is a bit if a no news week I thought I would take the opportunity to share with you one of my experiences following a long summer ride last year which will hopefully act as a warning to others. Last summer I was out for a ride and I was wearing my tri shoes without socks, as I normally do. About an hour or two into the ride I was caught short and decided to answer a call of nature in the woods by the side of the road. Unfortunately being still relatively new to these shores I am not used to looking for Poison Ivy and must have brushed against some with my ankle. The resulting reaction did not clear up and I ended up having to go to hospital to get some steroid cream. So if you do need to 'spend a penny' beware. Here is a pic of my leg - enjoy.

Lake Anna Half Ironman Race Report

I am usually pretty quick at posting my race reports because so far they have always been very positive. Pretty much everything has gone as planned and I have seen a nice steady improvement in my race results. Even this year the Myrtle Beach Marathon showed that I could complete a marathon in a pretty good time with the bare minimum of marathon specific training and with plenty left in the tank. The Cherry Blossom 10 miler showed that my body performed exactly as predicted by the Cadence LT testing and the race went like clockwork. My tardiness in posting a race report for Saturday’s Half Ironman is a good indication of how badly that race went.

It was my first tri of 2008 and it was the Lake Anna Half Ironman at Lake Anna, Virginia. This time last year I did the sprint race at Lake Anna. It was my first ever Tri and I was really happy with my sub 1.5 hour finish. My coach’s advice for the half was to go steady on the swim, bike and first half of the run and then to go all out for the end of the run if I had the capacity. I had only done one other half prior to this race and that had taken me over 6 hours to complete which was largely a reflection of the very hilly course. I knew that Lake Anna was relatively flat and in light of all the training I have been doing I was hoping that I could break the 5 hour barrier.

I drove the 1.5 hours south to Lake Anna with Wendy and my mum, who is visiting from the UK, and we arrived at about 6.30am. I registered and started to get myself ready. I had a few butterflies, which surprised me, and it was clear by the time it took me to get ready that I hadn’t raced for a while. I lined up with the rest of my wave on the small beach at the lake and we were the 3rd wave to start. It was a beach start and we needed to do 2 laps of the triangular course with a short run across the beach in between. As we waited for the off the announcer was trying to whip up the crowd by telling them how hard a half ironman is to complete. As he explained how are legs would be burning coming off the bike and how are arms would ache coming out of the swim we all looked at each other in disbelief, his comments were certainly not helping the competitors.

When the horn went off I did the ministry of silly walks run to try and get across the shallow water and then started jockeying for position in the water. It was a fairly big wave and there was quite a bit of pushing and shoving. I felt like my heart rate was spiking and it wasn’t until I was on the third straight of the first lap that I realized that Eric “the Eel” Moussambani would be able to give me a good run for my money the way I was thrashing around.



For anyone who cannot remember “The Eel” he was the very brave wild card entrant from Equatorial Guinea who competed in the 2000 Sydney Games. He and his female teammate Paula Barila Bolopa, nicknamed “Paula the Crawler”, set records for the slowest ever Olympic swims but it was the first time either of them had been in a 50m pool. Apparently Equatorial Guinea only has 2 pools the longest of which is 20m.

The second loop was a lot smoother but not necessarily that much faster and I finished the swim in just under 40 min. Considering that I really need to go around 70 min at Lake Placid this time is very disappointing. I ran up to transition where I struggled a little to get my wetsuit off and took the time to towel off and apply suncream. I was a bit peed off and made a point of getting past some people before I settled down on the bike.

The bike course was 2 laps on rolling roads around the circumference of the lake. Although it was a pretty quick course some of the rollers were large and there seemed to be an almost constant headwind. The first loop I overtook a number of riders at the start and one guy in his late 50’s went past me. I kept him in sight and my heart rate in the low 150s and had a fairly uneventful 1st lap. Toward the end of the 1st lap I caught up with a group containing a couple of people I knew but that group then seemed to pull away from me. I didn’t want to push too hard on the bike and let them go. The 2nd loop was even more uneventful and pretty damn lonely. My heart rate dropped a little into the high 140s and I suspect the second lap was actually slower than the first. Toward the end of the 2nd lap a couple of blokes and a woman past me and we continued to jockey for position the rest of the ride.

Sue Pearson 2008 ©

I finished the ride in 2:46 which was again a little bit disappointing. If I wanted to finish in under 5 hours I should ideally be swimming 5 mins and cycling 5-10 mins faster than I did. Not to worry, I had been very conservative and although I had not felt comfortable on the bike, saddle sore, sore glutes and sore neck, if I put in a good solid run I shouldn’t be too much over the 5 hour mark. I threw on my cap and set off on the run but as soon as I hit the first climb straight out of transition I knew I was in trouble.

I still have not worked out what went wrong but my body just refused to get going. My legs would not fire up and my body refused to speed up. I decided that I was going to have to walk as I was getting nowhere fast with the run. After a few minutes I decided to try running. This time my legs were there and they were quite happy to tick over at quite a high cadence but after a few hundred metres my chest and stomach would clench, almost as if I was going to be sick, and I was forced into a walk again. I decided (very quickly) to forget about finishing in any sort of time and to walk/jog the rest of the run. At every aid station I would make sure that I drank 2 cups of water and when I broke into a run I would go flying past people and then a few hundred yards further on I would walk until they caught me and then I would go running past them again.

Near the end of the final lap I picked up the pace and ran the last mile fairly briskly down to the finish. It was a strange experience and I certainly didn’t feel like I had completed a half ironman. There was lots of running left in my legs but the rest of me was not playing that day. As I try and analyse the problems I could probably come up with some theories/excuses. The bike ride for some reason really took a toll on my gluteus maximus which may have caused the initial lethargy on the run. After that I could possibly try blaming the heat. The average temperature was 82 degrees and was probably in the mid to high 80s on the run. This is a lot warmer than I have been training in and as a fair haired anglophile the heat can really kick me in the teeth. The other biggish difference was perhaps my nutrition where I experimented with a couple of things for the first time in a race.

Sue Pearson 2008 ©

All the excuses aside I had a bad race and will have to chalk it up to experience. It is a hard pill to swallow as this is the first time a race has not gone well for me. I am trying to think of some positives and can only come up with the following:

My face and arms are now fairly brown (I did burn myself fairly badly on the back where I couldn’t reach with the suncream).
I got to christen my aero helmet and new wetsuit.
I had no problem with the swim distance.
My gut feeling is that I could maintain that bike pace for 112 miles and hopefully a fraction quicker.
Even though I walked half the run I still ended up with a personal best for a half ironman.

Ok what is done is done. No more long course races now until I hopefully line up at the start of Lake Placid. In between now and then I have a number of Olympic distances the first of which is Columbia and apparently both Chris McCormack and Matty Reid are both racing this year. I suspect they are both breathing a sigh of relief after seeing my half results but I hope to regain some confidence by putting in a good performance during that race.

Thanks to my mum for taking pictures of my race.

Big Cycle Week - Big Fun

Well it is Sunday night and I have had a good week but I am well and truly ready for a good nights sleep.

The week started with the Cherry Blossom 10 miler on a miserable, cold, soaking wet Sunday and finished with another cold overcast Sunday. In between, the weather has been wonderful getting up into the 80's. I have been sun burnt twice this week and yesterdays run left me a sweaty mess.

I have only done a little swimming this week and after Sundays race my runs have been around 75 mins long and pretty uneventful. The highlight of this week has undoubtedly been cycling. I have gone into Tuesdays group ride in some detail but on Thursday I tried to repeat the roadie group ride experience. This time I joined the lunch time group ride around Hains Point in downtown D.C.. Hains Point is a wonderful ride. Named after Major General Peter Conover Hains, this spit of land has a fantastic 3.4 mile flat tarmacked road that runs around its circumference and is therefore a very popular spot for local cyclists. There is a group ride leaving from the golf club every lunch time at 12:05.

Apparently Tue, Wed and Thu tend to be the faster days with Mon and Fri being a little more relaxed in light of the weekends racing. I left work at 11:45 and headed down to Hains Point. When I go there at 11:55 there was no one around. I started to think that the ride was off because of all the traffic there to view the Cherry Blossom. I did one loop of Hains Point thinking that I would go off for a solo ride but then I started to see other riders coming in the other direction. I turned around to join them and headed around Hains Point in the wrong direction until low and behold a peleton appeared. I tagged on the back and the first lap was very genteel as everyone warmed up. The weather that day was absolutely glorious, very warm and sunny. After the first lap the pace started to really pick up and again I began to struggle.

As the group got separated by traffic I saw the faster guys begin to disappear. Everyone seemed happy to watch them go but I decided I was going to close the gap. I launched myself off the front and rapidly started to close them down but .... I only made it 4/5 of the way across the gap before my legs gave up, oh well I was close and I am sure I will only get stronger. I fell in with another group and had a very enjoyable 40min cycling fairly hard in the sunshine before going back to work.

As I already had my bike and cycle gear with me I decided to go to the gym at work to do my weights session before going back out to Hain's Point again to join the Team Z group ride. It was a perfect evening and although I didn't do any pulling I had another very enjoyable ride.

A great weeks cycling was capped today with a Team Z ride along Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. For those who do not know the area, Skyline Drive is a beautiful road that winds its way a 100 miles or so south from Front Royal in Virginia along the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The first 10 miles or so of the ride are all uphill but you are rewarded with the most spectacular views.

About 2600ft and getting cold (don't let the sunnies fool you)

Unfortunately, unlike midweek, the weather again took a turn for the worse. Instead of the 80's we had experienced earlier in the week the temperature was back down to about 47 degrees in the car park before we set off. When everyone rolled out Chris and I cut off to a garage to use the rest room. By the time we got to the entrance to Skyline Drive there was a big queue of cyclists waiting to pay the $8 entrance fee. I eventually got to the front and waved my National Parks card before we started to climb. I tapped out the rhythm and Chris stayed with me while we went up. Chris is a an experienced triathlete and having just turned 60 is in with a great chance for qualifying for Kona this year. When I joined the team last year I would regularly draft off him during the longer rides but now at least I have the ability to do my fair share of pulling.

I do not have particularly low gearing on my road bike so I found it easier to push quite hard on the climb in order to maintain a good cadence rather than go slow and get bogged down with a very slow cadence. Starting at the very back was actually good fun. We got to see other members of the team that we do not often get to speak to on a ride and it is always more motivating going past people than being passed.

Chris Wren, Ed Zerkle (Team Z founder) and Me - 3000ft'ish and bloody freezing

After a little over an hour and half we turned around started the descent. Although it had been overcast all ride it had until that point not rained. Unfortunately as we descended it began to rain. Because we were up at 3000 feet the rain had turned to ice and my face was pebble dashed by hail and ice rain as we flew down at 40mph+.

Back at the car park I grabbed a coffee and started to get the feeling back in my fingers. I could really feel the climbing in my thighs but I had that lovely warm, tired, satisfied feeling that comes after a good hard ride. We passed several of the slower riders on the way back down who all had another couple of hours of cycling ahead of them and in light of the weather I was really impressed by how cheerful everyone was.

So a great week but I also have to mention Derek, a friend of mine back in the UK who has just completed his first marathon, the London Marathon, in a very, very impressive 3.30.

Montagues v. Capulets

Man Utd v. Liverpool F.C. Fans,
Navy v. Army,
Hello v. OK Readers,

And of course;

Triathletes v. Road Cyclists

All classic rivalries but like Mahatma Gandhi and MLK before me, through non-violent means, I am striving to break down the barrier that exists between Triathletes and Road Cyclists by doing a bit of both. Of course I am being a tiny bit overdramatic but as I got into the sport of Triathlon last year I certainly got the impression (however misguided) that there was an underlying rivalry(?) between the two groups.

If any triathletes or road cyclists are reading this please do not get upset with me these are just my observations/points of view and as always my tongue is never far from my cheek.

I suspect that any antagonism between the groups stems from the fact that keen road cyclists tend to do a lot more biking for the simple reason that Triathletes also have to fit in time to swim and run. On top of this extra riding they tend to ride in a group most of the time. Triathletes on the other hand must race alone and are not allowed to draft off another cyclist. Many triathletes apparently prefer to cycle alone in order to train as they will have to race. Bottom line is that road cyclists do a lot more riding as a group.

They also ride quick. Top triathletes may be able to hold a fast pace over the course of the race but they do not have the sudden accelerations that road racers have. You do not have to be a cyclist to realise that a lot of people riding fast as a group within a foot or so of each other can be very dangerous. In order to remain safe you must be alert and most of all predictable so that you do not cause an accident. As a triathlete I had not experienced this requirement to such a high degree and roadies know this.

It seems to me that roadies instigate a policy of tough love when it comes to new cyclists. In order to keep the group safe if you do something stupid or dangerous you get shouted at. There is also no waiting around you either keep up or get left behind. If you get left behind you are done in a race and if you get left behind training you must ride more until you keep up. To that end they treat any new cyclist, including triathletes, as potential sources of danger until proven otherwise.

Triathlon group rides, on the other hand are very different. Most people, most of the time, are training in their endurance zone and are not after generating bursts of speed. As you are not constantly accelerating, decelerating and cornering there is plenty of time to discuss the weather, John’s latest haircut or the pros/cons of the yoga. There is inevitably less experience in the group and sometimes it can be a little dangerous but I bet it is no different to a novice group of ‘roadies’.

I have ran road races to improve my running and even did a swim meet last year to improve my swimming but as yet I have not done a road race to improve my cycling. That will all change on May 3rd when, with my coaches blessing, I do my first race. I have already mentioned that this race has more than its fair share of crashes and people continue to tell me that it is a poor race choice for you first race but things are as they are.

To try and increase my chances of completing the race I realise it is important to get in some group riding of the sort I have mentioned above. Last night I was down for a 2 hour endurance ride so I decided to spend 45 min cycling down to Wakefield Park where I would link up with a weekly group ride. 5 or 10 minutes before the ride start I was not sure that I was actually going to find (the rather large) Wakefield Park but sat at the traffic lights up ahead was a roadie decked out in his racing kit. I asked him if he was going to the group ride he introduced himself as Bo and said that I could tag along as he warmed up on route to linking up with the group.


We rode around the neighbourhood course backwards, chatting away, he turned out to be a nice guy and I thought to myself this pace is fine I can live with this. We then saw the rest of the group turned around and tagged on. I sat right at the back and Bo hooked up with one of his teammates. Again I was feeling fairly pleased with myself. As we went up a small rise I saw Susan, the ride captain from Team Z, who was out on a separate ride and I said hello as my group went past. Then suddenly the pace exploded. I tried to keep up and my heart rate shot up into the 180s. I was being dropped. Oh no! I am 2 minutes into my first roadie group ride and I am being dropped. To make matters worse I was wearing all my new, shiny Cadence Gear so I looked liked a pro but was riding like a toddler.

Luckily some one else was getting dropped and a few others were struggling to keep on the back. I pulled up and tried to get my heart rate down. I was slightly overdressed so I took off my skull cap and hoped that people thought I had pulled up on purpose to take off some of my winter clothing. The group had turned around and were on their way back. Bo and the other elite riders thundered past and I tagged back on. The group had now split into 2 groups and I hitched onto the back of the second group.

I was now in a group of about 12 cyclists some were older guys and there were a couple of younger guys in the group. I again felt out of place in my new gear as everyone else was wearing their beat up training gear which looked like it had seen many miles in the saddle but what can I do it’s a Catch 22 i.e. if I don’t wear it it will always look new. We kept the faster guys in sight for a while and it was obvious that the initial burst of speed was clearly aimed at breaking the group up. I think I probably got the worst of it as I was sat at the very back and unfortunately, for my pride, I passed Susan again as I was hanging off the back of the group. Although I was no longer with the elite guys my group was still moving at a quicker pace than I was used to. Instead of a constant effort the group would hammer out of corners and push hard up hills which is very different to way I train for Triathlon. That being said I was fairly comfortable staying in the group and even took a turn pulling. I did feel a burn in my legs a couple of times but luckily I seemed to recover fairly quickly from it.

As we passed the parking lot I dropped out of the last 30 mins of the ride as I had arranged to get picked up by Wendy. It was interesting ride. Although the initial burst of speed was scary after that I was OK in the second group. I would be interested to know who I was riding with and how the pace compares to what I can expect in my first Cat 5 race. It was not as much fun as my Tri group rides. There was no talking and the ride was very business like. That being said Bo and another guy I chatted to after the ride, called Chip, were both really nice guys and not fire breathing dragons.

I am planning on joining the group ride around Hain's Point tomorrow lunchtime so we will see how that compares.

Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Race Report

I hope this post is not to badly writed but I am fealing reelly shattered. Yesturday I was up at 'stupid oclock' to do the Cherry Blossom 10 miler and today Holden, being the simpothetic sole he is, had me up at the same time again today doing a 1.5 hour ride before breakfast. Befor i slump over the keeboard here is my report;

The alarm went off at 0530. Race start was 7:40 for the the elite women and 7:50 for the elite men, there were then a number of waves leaving every couple of minutes thereafter. As I got out of bed I looked out of the window and the rain was pouring down. Wendy was undecided as to whether she was going to come along and one look at the weather put her off completely. I cannot claim that I was particularly motivated at that point either and I was fairly slow to eat my breakfast and leave the house. I took the metro into the city as the race attracted something like 13,000 racers which is just staggering. On the metro I bumped into Kathy and Dave from Team Z (tri team) and we headed in together.

We got off the metro at Federal Triangle which was only a short walk from the GW Monument, the new start location for the 36th Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run. The rain was still coming down heavily and I was reluctant to strip down to the singlet and shorts I had elected to run in. To help fend off the rain I decided I was going to wear a bin bag until just prior to the start. When I struggled to be able to punch a hole through the bag for my head I began to wonder just how good I was going to be during the run.

Holden had made it crystal clear that I was to push hard during this run and I should be aiming to run at my Lactate Threshold throughout. If you go back to my last Cadence Run Blood Lactate Test my lactate threshold zone is from 164 to 171 bpm. The training zones table goes on to say that at 171 bpm I should be able to run 7:02 to 6:46 min miles. I had decided to set my dream goal as 65 minutes and my back up goal as 70 minutes. I had no reason to think I could run 6:30 min miles for 10 miles which would be needed for a 65 min finish but it seemed like such a nice clean goal. According to my training zones I should be able to maintain 7:00 min miles at LT so that gave me my more realistic goal of 70 min.

My wave of 2,500! runners was the red wave but between you and me I snook into the yellow wave corral in front. This was my first 10 mile run and when I registered I had no idea what time I could run. Following a winter of Cadence Coaching I was aiming for a quicker time than I predicted. As some of my team mates were starting out from the yellow zone I decided to join them. Looking around I was glad that I had moved as there were clearly plenty of slower athletes around, even in the yellow corral, and unlike Myrtle Beach I really didn't want to be threading my way through slower runners throughout the race.

I managed not to get kicked out and after the gun went off we found ourselves very quickly squeezed into the narrow road entering Hains Point. Hains Point is a big spit of land opposite the Reagan Airport and there is a very smooth tarmacked road around its circumference which is lined by Cherry Blossom on either side. Hains Point is not far from my office so I often find myself running around it at lunch times but yesterday morning the 3 and a bit miles seemed to be longer than I remembered.

Within a few hundred metres of the start I found my heart rate at 170 to 171 bpm and steady. I did have to overtake quiet a few slower runners at the start but after only a mile or two I found myself surrounded by pretty similar paced runners. It was clear by the time I got around Hains Point that the 6:30 min miles were not coming off at this heart rate and knowing where my LT was I didn't want to up the pace. In fact the opposite happened and my heart rate dropped a beat or two for the middle few miles which were probably my slowest.

By the time I had worked my way back around the tidal basin I was over half way and on the out and back past the Kennedy Center I managed to get back up to pace. The course took us over Memorial Bridge but as we came back across the bridge a slight uphill coupled with a gusty wind colluded to get my heart rate up and a bit of a 'sicky feeling' in the pit of my stomach.

As we headed back toward the wonderful finish location at the foot of the GW Monument there were signs marking 1200m to run, 600m to run etc. At 600m I decided to pick up the pace for the much cliched 'strong finish'. I don't know how they measured those 600m but they were long and again I began to feel sick. It was amazing that at 171 bpm although I was in a state of steady pain it was nothing I couldn't cope with but as soon as my heart rate rose a few beats I would feel sick.

I crossed the line in 68:35. That meant an average of 6:51 min miles which is smack-bang in the middle of Cadence's predicted pace for my LT and I ran the race pretty much dead on my target heart rate throughout. From that perspective it was a very successful race. I ran much closer to the wind than at Myrtle Beach but some how the finish seemed far less satisfying. Perhaps it was the mechanical nature of the race and my first marathon had that added sense of achievement. I am not sure my head was ever really in the race and I didn't take in my surroundings as I concentrated on maintaining my pace. The weather was depressing but actually a very good temperature for running and the rain did let up for the hour and a bit I ran.

The race marked the end of a week in which I had had a couple of disappointing training sessions and a bit of a slump. Please do not think that it was not a good race, it was.

To round out a long day Wendy and I went to watch a local Crit (Criterium) Bike Road Race at Tysons Corner. As I mentioned in my last post I have recently got my Road Race Licence and I have just (20 minutes ago) signed up for my first race on May 3rd (I am also on the waiting list for a Crit later in May). Not really knowing what to expect when I turn up at a road race we went to watch the Pro Men and Women race and get a feeling for what 'goes on'. The racing was interesting and I got to meet Ken Young, a local Marine Sergeant and very successful rider, who Brian Walton at Cadence had put me in contact with for advice on local group rides. He had a good race and was just pipped at the post following a sprint finish.



My first race will be at Poolesvilles and it is a 42 mile road race which is well known for a gravel section that is often the scene of a crash or two. Not ideal for my first race perhaps but it was the only date that fit. To try and reduce the number of times I will get shouted at during the race I will try and get in some group rides with local road cyclists.

Breaking one of the Golden Rules of Blogging

Always stick to one subject in a blog or else the reader will lose interest. Well assuming you have some interest in this blog, unlike the poor guy who was sent to my page by google when searching for a rain cover for his mobility scooter, or the guy who was sent here when looking for a falconing glove!!, then I am afraid I am going to cover several topics in one go;

Well done to Holden for his first race of the season.

My coach, Holden Comeau had his first race of the season at the Miami International Triathlon a few weeks ago. I meant to congratulate him earlier on my blog but he finished the Olympic Distance event in a fantastic 1:56:40. Not only was this a PB but it put him in the top 10 pros in a field which included the winner Matty Reed and the US Navy's own stellar triathlete Timothy O'Donnell. I know these are great athletes but the thing that I find most amazing is the swim times which were in the region of 12.5 mins for the top guys, when the same swim distance last year took me 30 mins.


Training Update

My training has been progressing fairly well. I have been using the new HR zones from the last round of LT testing to pick up the pace on my runs. My endurance running zone of roughly 130-140 bpms limited me to some pretty slow paces however I have a much larger endurance zone now and Holden has been pushing me to run at the top end of this zone. I am regularly running near 8 min miles on my endurance runs and keeping my HR under control.

I have also had strides introduced to my program. I am not sure that I am getting them quite right but the basis behind them is to pick up your pace to in excess of 180 steps per minute in short, sharp, faster intervals. By doing this you engage muscles that you do not use on your more leisurely endurance runs but the intervals are so short (about 100m max) that you do not have any residual fatigue. I can certainly agree that they exercise muscles that do not get used very often because my groin is feeling a little tender after a couple of stride sessions this week. The pictures are from my recovery run plus stride session from this afternoon.

My running will get a thorough test tomorrow as I am racing the Cherry Blossom 10 miler. It is a huge event with over 10,000 runners including many elite runners who will be finished around the time I reach half way. The plan from my coach is to push hard and run a fast pace race up at my Lactic Threshold. There are obviously risks with such a strategy as if I overdo it slightly at the start I may 'blow up' (figure of speech for running out of puff before the end). Race Report to follow.

Doing a Lance

I think most Triathletes know this but I am not sure how many non-endurance athletes are aware of the fact that Lance Armstrong was a very successful junior Triathlete before he decided to specialise in cycling alone. Well I am following in his footsteps (apart from the successful Triathlon bit; and the Tour de France victories; and I suppose the fact that I am not really specialising in cycling). I love to watch cycle racing on the TV and enjoy cycling for Triathlon so I have applied for my road race licence. I want to have a go at a couple of road races this year as part of my training and for the experience.

To help me I have invested in some Cadence Cycle clothing which I am assured is good for an extra 2 mph over non-branded clothing and it certainly looks and feels the part. I am also looking at doing some local group rides which will be a bit faster than some of the triathlon group rides. I will definitely keep you updated and hope to secure a place at a race or two (they sell out quick and there are a lot of Category 5 racers, or beginners, like myself, looking for a place). I look forward to the experience with a sense of nervous excitement similar in a way to what I felt before my very first Triathlon. In the meantime here are some pictures of me posing in my new gear.

I know the bike is not my lovely new Cyfac but road racers do not take kindly to tri-bikes when riding in a group as the brakes are not in the same place as the gear levers. I have therefore dusted off my old road bike in preparation for a bit of non tri group riding.