First Olympic Distance Triathlon

Marlow Triathlon was my first Olympic Triathlon, I anticipated on what I was going to expect after watching the start to the Marlow River Swim on a wet Saturday afternoon. Feeling a little nervous about the swim and not feeling confident about my bike I was eager just to get going. Like all starts the first 4 minutes in the river was manic, not relaxing and quite frustrating, the memories of entering the boxing ring came flooding back! Alex describes it well in his previous post. Once I settled into my stroke I felt comfortable and thought I was passing people, which always provide you with confidence. However there is lots of work to still do on the swimming front!! Happy to get out of the water I entered the transition zone and wrestled my wetsuit off. The T1 process will hopefully only get faster the biggest thing is to remember everything… cycle helmet clipped, nutrition etc. Cycling out was great as the course included elements of the Challenge Henley route. Cycling up to Nettlebed was taxing but coming back down the hill was exhilarating. I tried to stay strong on the bike and not thinking too much about the run, going into T2 was a relief as I have recently had a large number of issues with my bike, which results in low confidence about the technology and whether I have the right bike for this event. My aim for the run was to clock as close to 40 minutes as possible and to attack the fellow competitors, knowing that the run is my strongest discipline I really wanted to make an impact on the field. Shaking off tired legs I clocked 20.45 for my first 5 km, motivation and support from my wife instilled a fast 2nd lap, as the aim was to close the gap on all the triathletes in front. Relatively pleased with my run and overall time, with nothing to compare it to have included the results from fellow competitor and GB triathlete Mark Yeomen. Out of the 215 competitors that finished I came 26th overall. An analysis of my performance indicates time lost throughout my swim, as indicated before this is an area that requires more work! Area for improvement in T1, Mark’s time here is ridiculously fast! I think I’ll get the baby gel ready for the next event. I’m fairly surprised with my bike but I know I can improve here too! In general if I aim to take this serious I need to work on all element but my focus will lie both in the swim and the bike, with such a short time frame to Challenge Henley. The results from the race can be found following the link: http://www.f3events.co.uk/ additional action shots can be found on the following link, http://www.sussexsportphotography.com/ using the hyper link Marlow Tri, you can filter using my race number 351.

Mark Yeomen Philip Hindley


Swim Time 00:20:59(5) Swim Time 00:28:29(87)
T1 00:00:32 T1 00:01:10
Bike Time 01:04:21(4) Bike Time 01:10:30(53)
T2 00:00:32 T2 00:00:36
Run Time 00:40:00(15) Run Time 00:39:02(10)
Overall Time02:06:27 Overall Time 02:19:49

Previous training update: I have really enjoyed embracing the triathlon community in doing so I built a great relationship with an outstanding athlete who is on the top of his game for his age category, Jules. Jules has recently won the Windsor Triathlon and smashed under 5 hours for a half distance Iron Man in Milton Keynes, a true inspiration and a great motivator, it’s great to have Jules down at the lake.

Previous lake training distance have included 4.5km, Aquathlon with Harrison (3.8km swim & 7 mile run), my previous two swims have been 3km. After buying a new pair of goggles for the triathlon my last swim has felt like my strongest, visibility certainly aids swimming performance! Prior to the Triathlon I had a great ride out on my bike with another excellent triathlete who will be alongside us on the starting line on the 18th of September for Challenge Henley, Laurence Miles. Laurence is a GB long distance triathlete, who achieved 10th overall position on Marlow Triathlon at the weekend, 2nd in his age group, a frustrating 15 seconds behind the winner who has also represented GB for triathlons. Laurence and I cycled a loop of the challenge Henley Course, clocking 70 miles in total.

Training update

With a far too hectic work schedule kicking off, training has been difficult to fit in but have managed some good sessions. Have been in the pool alot working on technique and doing some shorter sprint sessions and longer distance swims (which are really boring compared to in the lake at Little Marlow). Have also put in some runs, nothing of a huge distance but some good intensity. Enjoying running around Boston at night, some amazing views, photos to follow. Also cracked my first decent track session for a while, not a lot of speed knocking around in the chicken legs but did some solid 400m and 800m reps. Again the heat takes its toll abit but it's great to be enjoying tops off training. Need to look at some longer stuff in prep for half ironman on 30th July. Could be interesting!

Marlborough Tri 2011 - Podium finish!

Last Sunday I travelled to the town of Marlborough about an hour west of Boston to compete in the third annual Marlborough Sprint Tri. It was completely thrown together last minute and a big thanks to Pete for lending me a bike (about 10 sizes too small!) and for sorting late entry into the race. The event kicked off at 9:00am but it was still blazing hot. The swim was only around 500m but it was emotional as the first 200m were like a washing machine of bodies all colliding with each other for space. Great experience but not very nice to be literally fighting for position. Managed to find some clear water but exited the swim way down the field. The bike course was a 20km course split into 3 loops. This included some challeneging hills but also one kick ass decent that allowed you to seriously test your nerve and the size of your kahoona's!! Despite my riding position being aweful on the small bike, I left it all out on the cycle course but then paid the price on the run (felt terrible all the way round). Was all in all pretty chuffed with my time of 1hr 19mins given the type of training I've been doin. I was a whole 18mins behind Pete who won the event overall. Great effort. Looking at my splits I did give away nearly 3 mins to him in transisition! It was a great experience and great to race with Pete and in the same event as Olympians like Jarod Shoemaker and also Dick and Rick Hoyt. Dick Hoyt competed with his severely disabled son Rick towing him in a dingy on the swim, with him on the the front of his custom built and bike and in an adapted push chair for the run. Inspirational stuff. I was stoaked to come in 39th overall (including the elite men), In the top 10 of my wave and 2nd overall in my age catagory (25-29). You can't argue with a podium!! It was a shame Harrison and Hindley weren't there as I'm sure we could've sweeped the board! No wait, Stewey would be in the veterans section!!! Great day and great to say I've raced in the USA. Even a flat tyre on the freeway driving home couldn't damped the spirtis. Totally awesome dude!!!

First session stateside

For the next few weeks I've left Harrison and Hindley (and hopefully Mr Prior) to keep smashing the training hard in the UK while I'm away working, sunbathing and warm weather training in Boston. A good start has been made with a killer pool session yesterday. I'm lucky enough to be training with Pete Mallett, a former member of the US Tri team and experienced world cup racer. Pete and I completed some sprint work in the pool and looked at some drills working on the catch phase in the water and tunring more efficiently in the pool - not essential for ironman but essential for looking the business!!

Possible opportunity this weekend to race in a sprint tri just outside Boston - updates on this and future training to follow. Hoping the boys back in berkshire are training hard - no doubt of this! Half Ironman pencilled in the diary for July 30th - fingers crossed were ready!

Strange fish!!

With the sun in the sky the ironboys headed over to little Marlow lake for the first open water swim of the training program. Harrison, being an experienced lake dweller was chomping at the bit. AB and PH were a bit more sceptical, mainly because they can both only just about swim!!

It turned out to be an awesome session and a great atmosphere down at the lake. despite the initial worries, a total of 3KM was covered! Only 800 meters short of the full ironman distance. Confidance gained no doubt!

Photo (L-R) Phil 'the dolphin' Harrison, Stewart 'the stickleback' Harrison, Alex 'the mutated sea bass' Ballard.

They've won it four times!

Team BCA retained the Pharmalink Maidenhead Relay Marathon for the 4th consecutive year on a wet and windy Sunday in June.

The team of Si Neale, Alex Balalrd, Stewart Harrison, Phil Hindley and captain Jon Childs romped home in a collective time of 2:33:00 after all running two blistering legs each around the 2.6 mile course. Some awesome running was on dislay despite the harsh weather and PB's were logged by all the BCA athletes who were looking lean and hungry despite already taking the event title for the previous 3 years.

Check out the link below for the event video

http://www.maidenhead-advertiser.co.uk/leisure/article-21763-video-maidenhead-carnival-2011-sunday-highlights/

The BCA-B team were also on great form with some top runs from all the athletes.

As the trophy was presented the organsiers stated that a 5th win next year would net the BCA team the trophy for keeps! Let's have it then!!

Team Hulkamania Smash up the Green Belter!

Young Gary Clarke and myself SMASHED UP the legendary Green Belter Course in Hambeldon Estate on Saturday, we teamed up in silly rig as the famous wrestler Hulk Hogan. The Adventure course/competition consisted of a multi-sport mix of biking, running, kayak and a "Green Machine" obstacle course to finish on.

The opposition didn’t show too much fear in their eyes as they witness team Hulkamania pull up on their ill equipped bikes, the fellow competitors prepared well with their specialized tri boxes for, well equipped nutrition and bikes that cost more than my first car! Team Hulkamania attempted not to be phased by the big guns on show and muscled in on the front line for the start. We hit the first run hard and went into T1 in the top 10, entering the 20km bike section, we struggled and fell into the top 30, the bike was taxing, sheer sweat and determination ensured that we didn’t slip too far from the front. It’s not very often that Hulk Hogan has rubbery legs when competing but on this occasion we both had to run our rubbery legs for the first 2km of the second run (10km), by the time we completed this stage we edged our way back into the top 20, leaving too much to do top get in the top 10, but we were in the top 5 in the team competitors we gained strength from hearing this and picked up our pace taking over 1 team in T3, striding out towards the Thames for the kayak, hulkamania put some hustle behind their muscle to power their way into 3^rd position coming out of the Thames, with the second team in sight, we managed to overcome cramp to sprint ahead of the team before entering the ‘Green Machine’ obstacle course, team Hulkamania came 2^nd overall in the paired event and 14^th overall.

PB’s all-round in Marlow 5

Team BCA Smashed out Marlow 5 in first place as a company, after winning a £10 Waitrose voucher can we call ourselves professional athletes?

P.Hindley: 30:04 (PB)

J.Childs: 31:16 (PB)

A.Ballard: 31:26 (PB)

Birthday Swim in the River Thames.

To celebrate Stewarts 33^rd birthday the three of use decided to go for an open water swim, slipping into the Thames and trying our best to put the pool swimming into practice. As expected Stewart was strong and Alex once settled into the open water looked comfortable and applied his pool skills to good effective use, whereas I was lucky to survive, a serious wake up call and an extremely poor swim from me however I did manage to apply the front crawl technique 90% of the way whereas in comparison to my swim the same time last year I could only manage breaststroke. I know swimming for me is going to be a challenging discipline, one that needs serious work on!

Great Welsh Marathon

As the spring sun broke through the early morning Llanelli mist on Sunday 10^th April, six athletes lined up for the 9am start of the Llanelli Great Welsh Marathon.

The two lap, technically demanding, undulating course, was superbly organised, steered us through the length of the beautiful traffic-free coastal path / cycle-way, stretching from Machynys Golf Course in the east through to Burry Port Harbour in the west

As the temperatures raised to 21 degrees C the scenery was only of secondary importance to us all as our priority was to remain hydrated during the race. With this being the first marathon for Alex, Sarah, Si and I we were excited and somewhat anxious about the distance. Alex and both lined up on the start line with the thought of the iron man in the back of our minds, Simon lined up for his first competitive race in months as he he’s been laid off due to injuries, Jon striving for a PB, and 8 weeks ago Sarah and her Father Tony set themselves a challenge to complete a marathon before Tony turned 60 years of age.

Not knowing how to approach this race I settled in to my stride and sustained a comfortable pace, Alex, Jon and Si ran together for the early stage of the race and Sarah ran alongside Tony. On completion of our first marathon Alex and I were happy with our times, Jon smashed his PB, Si successfully ran a respectable marathon post injury, Sarah and her father was successful in what they set out to achieve. Well done to all!!

Times:

P.Hindley: 2:58:06 (PB)

J.Childs: 3:21:23 (PB)

A.Ballard: 3:23:40 (PB)

S. Neal: 4:05:34 (PB)

S. Lipscombe: 5:07;05 (PB)

T.Lipscombe: 5:59:51

Harrison and Hindley smash their P.B's on Reading Half

A stepping stone in the right direction in the quest to become an iron man, Harrison and myself clocked P.B’s in the recent Reading half marathon, this is an annual event for Harrison and for myself this race was run in the build up to get me prepared to run a marathon, the target for us both was to sub 1:30, however this looked bleak after Harrison suffered with stomach ache and I wasn’t feeling the best from a hard swim session on the Wednesday. Beside this we approach the race with a lot of spirit and enthusiasm, the energy drawn from the amazing crowd supported our race, whilst the beat of the drums running under the bridge gave us the drive to push on, beside the demoralising last mile, running into the Madejski Stadium was awesome. The picture above is of two wanna be elite athletes outside the elite tent with 2009 European cross country champion Hayley Higham.

Mr. S. Harrison position 346 Time: 1:25:31
Mr. P. Hindley position 302 Time: 1:24:39