unsurprisingly i've been glued to the tv for the past week watching the olympics...however i have managed to peel myself away to bank some good sessions. the run last saturday went really well, it was one of the glenn cook specials so i'm obviously bound to secrecy but it is basically a ~ 45min threshold run, i hadn't done the run since pre-vancouver so i was pretty apprehensive goin into it - if you're not fit it is a truly miserable experience! - i needn't have worried thouh as i was able to hold some of my best ever times and felt really strong. the rest of the week consisted of a couple of hard swims along with a track set of 10x1km and an emotional piece of bonkage (*innuendo bingo*) with freeman as we attempted to do some 'non-drafting' (i may have not quite perfected the art of this...sorry olly!) solid riding.
i was a zombie yesterday evening however a much needed rest day has done the business and i'm ready for another hard week before the taper starts for a quality trip over stateside.
apparently the london tri is on tv on sunday @ 7.55...you may get to see me being lapped on the run...sweet!!
Friday, 22 August 2008
Friday, 15 August 2008
put your hand up if you can JOG a 9.92!?
how easy did this guy make it look???? he literally jogged the final 60m and still ran one of the quickest 100m of all time. i had to watch it about 15 times to believe it. i'm loving every second of this olympics, it's even making me want to go swim training which is very worrying, although i soon realise i'm not mr phelps when i struggle to do 150m in the time it takes him to swim 200m.training's gone pretty well this week, i recovered from london surprisingly quickly and was able to complete a couple of solid swim sets and do 2x45min runs with no problem. i've got my first hard hard run in the forest tomorrow which will be a true test of the old shinnys so we'll have to wait and see how that goes before getting too excited.
i also found out today that steph twell is a friend of a friend of a friend, admittedly a fairly tenuous connection but it does mean i've got another race to really look forward to (along with about 50 others).
ps apologies for the embarrassingly short update but there's another 50hrs + of content on the BBC website for me to work through!
Wednesday, 13 August 2008
the olympics...the best thing in the world...ever!
" yeah i dived in, did a bit of fly kick, cruised the 1st 50m, goggles filled up, couldn't see what was going on, kept the pace steady as i've got some more business to look after....oh and i won my 10th OLYMPIC gold medal and broke the world record" - WHAT A MAN!!!
Monday, 11 August 2008
London Tri 2/3 of a 'Race' Report
Given how little racing i've done i can't really avoid writing this one up...even if it wasn't the best of results...
We arrived at the race on the saturday as my lil' bro Taco and the other Bodyworks XTC amigos were racing in the youth race. It was really good to see the guys race, their thoughtful and aggressive approach to racing definitely made me buck up my ideas for the following day! However traipsing around Excel (the mahhosive building where the triathlon is based) meant that my legs were tired and flat by the afternoon...schoolboy error!
Come race day I was feeling really really really stupidly legs-shaking running to toilet nervous, i shouldn't have been feeling like this given that there was zero expectation/pressure (I had only been running for a couple of weeks after having 8 weeks off with shin splints since vancouver), however i was and it was leaving me feeling drained and pretty negative.
The race start was an absolute fiasco, there is not way you can get 60 highly competitive athletes to line up perfectly for a deep water start...you just can't!! Not to mention a false start where we swam well over 100m before the kayaks ploughed into our path in a dangerous stopping manouvere. Once we finally got going I started to feel a bit better but I was definitely lacking the sharpness to be able to move up in the final 400m to secure a good position coming into T1. T1 felt like i had slipped into slow motion, missing the front pack by a matter of 5 seconds. These 5 secs were to prove very costly and an emotional 7km of painful riding ensued as I desperately tried to hook back onto a seriously shifting front pack, eventually I got back on with a couple of other guys however the pace continued to be fast, which never allowed me to settle or feel comfortable...despite this I was the 1st in and accelerated out of the last dead turn and found myself with a cheeky gap that only a few guys bridged up to before T2 (if nothing else I grabbed some crafty TV time).
The less the said about the run the better, it was always going to be tough to blag a 10km off so little training and the hard bike put pay to even scraping a decent 5km before popping. So I was straight on to survival mode and ploughed around the run feeling slow and miserable. The good news is is that there was no shin pain and hopefully i will be able to resume the hard runs that should get me back in the mix within a month or so...
We arrived at the race on the saturday as my lil' bro Taco and the other Bodyworks XTC amigos were racing in the youth race. It was really good to see the guys race, their thoughtful and aggressive approach to racing definitely made me buck up my ideas for the following day! However traipsing around Excel (the mahhosive building where the triathlon is based) meant that my legs were tired and flat by the afternoon...schoolboy error!
Come race day I was feeling really really really stupidly legs-shaking running to toilet nervous, i shouldn't have been feeling like this given that there was zero expectation/pressure (I had only been running for a couple of weeks after having 8 weeks off with shin splints since vancouver), however i was and it was leaving me feeling drained and pretty negative.
The race start was an absolute fiasco, there is not way you can get 60 highly competitive athletes to line up perfectly for a deep water start...you just can't!! Not to mention a false start where we swam well over 100m before the kayaks ploughed into our path in a dangerous stopping manouvere. Once we finally got going I started to feel a bit better but I was definitely lacking the sharpness to be able to move up in the final 400m to secure a good position coming into T1. T1 felt like i had slipped into slow motion, missing the front pack by a matter of 5 seconds. These 5 secs were to prove very costly and an emotional 7km of painful riding ensued as I desperately tried to hook back onto a seriously shifting front pack, eventually I got back on with a couple of other guys however the pace continued to be fast, which never allowed me to settle or feel comfortable...despite this I was the 1st in and accelerated out of the last dead turn and found myself with a cheeky gap that only a few guys bridged up to before T2 (if nothing else I grabbed some crafty TV time).
The less the said about the run the better, it was always going to be tough to blag a 10km off so little training and the hard bike put pay to even scraping a decent 5km before popping. So I was straight on to survival mode and ploughed around the run feeling slow and miserable. The good news is is that there was no shin pain and hopefully i will be able to resume the hard runs that should get me back in the mix within a month or so...
Tuesday, 5 August 2008
Beijing Olympics, fact or fiction?
Such stories about the reality of being a chinese citizen litter the internet. It is unsurprising that the horrific stories, which would not normally be told but do obviously sell papers, have appeared but that does not detract from there pertinence. Jacques Rogge has incessantly trumpeted that bringing the Olympics to China, and hence the eyes of the world, will instigate change however I can't but help feel the apathetic West will rush to forget these issues at their earliest convenience. Perhaps that is why it is so important that every athlete involved in this 'spectacle' (we must remember that this really is spectacle and not a celebration of New China), leaves China as an ambassador for change and does not permit the world to turn their voyeuristic attention to the next 'tragedy' and once again miss the opportunity to improve the lives of millions.
Saturday, 2 August 2008
to smashed and back again
the end of last week was pretty miserable, 2 weeks of consistent swimming and cycling (basically 2hrs of swimming and 2hrs of cycling everyday, with plenty of intensity) put me into a pretty big hole and by thursday evening all i was capable of doing was crawling into bed after eating everything that wasn't nailed down in a desperate bid to recover. friday was an easy day and thankfully i'm feeling much better today. it always amazes me how dynamic but also unpredictable the human body is, i've literally gone from thinking that i would need a couple of days off to looking forward to another weeks hard training...a complete physiological and psychological reversal, perhaps i should save that disscussion for another day.
not so good was having to stand one of my best mates up tomorrow as i have to train instead, being selfish and narcissistic is undoubtedly the hardest part of being an 'athlete'. i try hard not to indulge it but sometimes the decisions are unavoidable, i'll just have to make sure that i nail the session tomorrow to justify my choice.
not so good was having to stand one of my best mates up tomorrow as i have to train instead, being selfish and narcissistic is undoubtedly the hardest part of being an 'athlete'. i try hard not to indulge it but sometimes the decisions are unavoidable, i'll just have to make sure that i nail the session tomorrow to justify my choice.
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