So, what went well:
·
I did as I was told. This was my first season following a coached
plan and I think it fair to say that I followed the program very closely,
completing ~87% of the scheduled hours. Moreover, the vast majority of sessions
were completed as prescribed. Of course, work and family commitments sometimes
had to take priority, but it was a very consistent training year.
·
I looked after myself. My diet was very consistent and I hardly
touched alcohol; my weight bottomed out at just over 57kg in time for UK70.3. I
was very proactive in terms of seeing my physio as soon as niggles appeared,
and I kept on top of things with stretching and regular massages, managing to
get through the entire season w/o injury (go-karting accidents aside :-D). I
had plenty of sleep and rest on a regular basis. This of course all contributed
to my consistency.
·
I planned ad nauseam. As Benjamin Franklin said “By failing to prepare,
you prepare to fail.” In terms of kit, race prep, nutrition, pacing etc, I
planned, agonised and then planned some more. Achieving my IM target is
testament to this. You could argue that so far my luck has held out in A-races.
On the other hand, maybe the “bad luck” I had in May (2x punctures, 3x tumbles,
plus the aforementioned go-karting incident), when the stakes were low, made me
appreciate even more what can go wrong and influenced my decisions accordingly.
Ok, but what do I want to
improve:
·
My swimming technique. If I’m honest, my 1:05:xx time at Regensburg
is flattering; 39 min at Las Vegas is a more realistic assessment of my
swimming. My Zoot wet suit makes a huge difference but it hides deficiencies in
my stroke. Getting my IM swim split under 1:05, and hopefully even closer to 1
hr, will require some serious work. I’ve already had some video
analysis with Nick T. This confirmed my “overglider” phenotype identified at
the Swimsmooth clinic in 2010, but now I’m in a better position to tackle it.
So I’m now trying to initiate my catch earlier, and working with a wetronome to
increase my stroke rate.
·
I want to run like Crowie. I’ve been following the Kinetic Revolution
website, which is extremely interesting: will they do to running what
Swimsmooth did to swimming? They showed a very interesting video analysis of
Craig Alexander and Chris Lieto in the 2009 Ironman champs. Based on this, as
soon as I saw Lieto running in this year, I knew he was toast, he looked very
laboured; by contrast Alexander was running “effortlessly”. Interestingly,
Raelert looked incredibly strong as he tried to chase down Alexander but it
wasn’t effortless, he was pushing real hard, and in the end it wasn’t
sustainable. So, although my running came on loads last year, I still think I
can work on this to become more efficient, i.e. can I run "effortlessly" at IM pace? But
how? My plan is to get Jacky to video me running up and down the road; while my
technique probably isn’t so bad, I bet I’m heel striking to some extent. The idea is to then include some of the
Kinetic Revolution drills and exercises into my schedule and see what happens.
·
Need to push a bigger gear. Like my running, my cycling improved a lot
last year. But again, being realistic, that my Regensburg split was ok was
largely down to pacing, while my good performance at Wimbleball was largely
down to the weight part of the power-weight ratio. What I still lack is much
in the way of raw power! On the rolling hills of Las Vegas, I noted that I was
often being overtaken by people in the big ring while I had shifted down to the
small one. Not sure exactly how I’m gonna to address this just yet, but the
first thing I need to be able to do is measure it. So I’ve splashed out on a
power meter which is currently being built into a wheel for me.
There are a
number of other areas I want to work on (e.g. transitions; running through aid
stations; regular stretching/yoga; ankle flexibility, strength & balance)
these are the big ones, and they will be ongoing projects for a few years, but hopefully I can
improve in all three areas before May 2012, in time for my next big test.
And the overall goal?
Well, getting where I want to in the longer run will take a few years. In
Regensburg I came 58th in my age group. Demonstrating that I’m on the right track will require a significantly better placing:
top 35 at Lanza will do now.
