McFuzz's New Athlete Group (CLOSED) (Page 15)

Well, this has been a very intensive week. Two swim trainings which were hared then I did before, I ran a little, i did a nice bike training on monay and I used my bike everytime i had to go to work. Unfurtonetaly we had a lot of wind and I had to bike a lot against a strong wind. I was planning on doing another run this evening but my legs are really tired and I still feel the effects of the bad cramp I had yesterday at the end of my swim training. Tomorrow I will rest because sunday = race day!!

A little explanation of the bike + run event tomorrow. The total distance is 10km ~ 6.2miles. You start out with your partner who is on bike. The first 800m ~ 0.5m is purely running. After that you meet up with the partner on bike. From then on, you can change to the bike as much as you want. So actually you are just running sets of intervals untill you are too tired to run and then you jump on the bike and try to rest while your partner is running his guts out. Half of the race is off-road and that may be a real problem. The last month it has been raining A LOT and I fear the off road parts are so muddy, we will sink in deep with our shoes and actually we will be faster in running then trying to bike through the muddy parts. Last year it was pretty dry and the fastest couple ran about 30minutes over the complete distance. Slowest couple was 54minutes. This year, it will be quite different.

Cycling heaven (apart from the weather)

Nice pictures! 

Originally posted by Lanne THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU Mike and Kate your suggestions really helped me get through the race yesterday! Conditions were perfect, good temp, little wind flat water a little overcast. I got in the water which was crystal clear till a 22m drop off point which was very dark blue there was no way of seeing the bottom so that relaxed me a bit I think its all the seaweed and dark shapes that put the fear of god in to me! Thought of calm reef and small fish and it worked a treat kept my pace and breathing steady and just took it one buoy at a time for some reason, I think subconscience kickked in, I only took a breath on one side and I normally breathe bi-latterally (if that's the correct term) but I could see the landmarks each breath. And knocked 3 mins off my last swim even. Decided to go with the cleats worked a treat ride was really good bit of wind on the way back, took 9 mins off my last ride although the weather was a lot hotter last time. Run not bad still got work to do but definitely have improved 7 mins off last time. So total improvement of just on 20 mins to last race including a couple of minutes off transition. goal was to finish and not walk any of the run - big tick now to set net race goal

It sounds like you had a great day and great race! Congratulations!

I'm glad you had a great race! 

Fill out the race report please! 

Worked more then 12h straight today. Night shift... pfew. Will write a report when i have the time.

Okay,

I finally got the time to write a decent post about recent happenings. So sunday I did this Bike + Run thing. And it was pure fun. Me and my partner signed in at 9 am and the first thing we saw were all triathletes and Biathletes. And they all looked very pro! But well, we came to have fun and our aim was to get below 50min over the 10km. There were 80 duo's

At 10 am the race started. The first 750m was paved. My partner started out first because he is slimmer then me and cant stand being in the cold that long. So after 750m there was a turning point and already the field was stretched out. The first runners were insanely fast. Starting from the turning point, we could switch from running to bike or vice versa as much as we wanted. Normally, when you jumped on the bike, you tried to recover from the interval. So when my partner, (Hans) passed by me, I started running with the bike in my hands and we exchanged bike for the first part.

I started running like crazy, thinking my recovery should be fine as I have been training a lot last two months. After another 600m we decided to switch because at 1,5km, the offroad part started and I am the better biker. Thopugh neither of us has MTB experience. We knew the offroad part would be very hard due to the massive amounts of rain we had last few weeks and because of the offroad part is next to a river, the rain doesn't infiltrate the ground easily but stays on top. So we expected a lot of water and deep mud. And deep mud it was.

After only 20-30 meters, I couldn't keep up with Hans and I was on a freaking bike!!! It was sooo tough. Maybe we didn't had the right tires or too much pressure. I dont know but a lot of people started to pass us and a lot of people rode away from us. And in fact a lot of people were already in front of us because like I said, they all looked very trained and ran like crazy.

After a 300-400m, Hans ran a bit slower and I was able to catch up to him and there was a slightly better part. My heart rate dropped very fast and I felt good to set my first foot on offroad grounds. So slippery. The first puddle I stepped into, reached above my ankles. But well, mind put to 0 and just focus whats beyond!! And after 1 minute of running, Hans was nowhere to be seen behind me. In fact, we then discovered he really is a very bad biker lol!! So I just started walking instead of running and after a while he catched up. I then heard he had to walk 2 or 3 times because of the bad conditions.

I took the bike and without really making agreements, we both felt Hans should just run longer but slower. At that point I saw he was running at about 6m30/km and that was just good enough for me to keep up and recover a bit. Halfway through there was a very bad part and we both had to run. Running with a muddy MTB really isn't easy!. But after this part, there came a better part, I told Hans to keep running untill my heart rate dropped and as soon as I was ready, we switched. I ran like hell and Hans was able to keep up with me due to the better conditions. We switched again because the end of the offroad section was in sight and I knew that last part was very bad.

We came at a bridge and under that bridge was a big puddle of water. I decided to go in strong with the bike and just see what happens. Well, it was so deep, even thge disc brakes were under water. But I managed to to ride through it. After that, a slope to get on top of the bridge. Because a lot of people already passed, the slope was in a bad shape and I had to run uphill with the bike which was hard. I asked Hans if he could run for another 100 or 200m so I could recover. We crossed the bridge and made the turning point so we could go to the finish at the other side of the river. It was all paved roads from here.

I started out strong and ran about 500m at 4min/km and then we switched. Hans was able to run at a steady pace of 4m20s/km. He took a nice long part. We switched again and I felt good. I ran a pretty long time, again at 4min/km. (thats about 9.5m/h if i'm not mistaken) We switched again but this time Hans was deteriorating fast. The first 100m he ran 4m20s again but then suddenly he dropped to 4m55s. I was still recovering good. I took a big part again. We were now in the last 2km. I think I ran a solid 700m then. I was amazed I could keep up with the amazing pace of 4m/km after all the mudbiking. We switched again. My heart rate now didn't really came down the first minute but then suddenly dropped again. At about 700m from the finish we swithced again and I took my last bit of energy and ran like crazy. Unfortunately I was really into "the zone" and was really focussed on not feeling the pain in my legs. I think I managed to run 3m45/km at that point. We made it to the finish line and I crashed. I was completely exhausted. In the last parts I hit 195HR which is almost my maxHR.

So the results? We ran 10km in 47m48s consolidating a 61th spot in total of 80 teams. We managed to overtake 4 teams in the paved part. Hans has recorded the whole run with his polar device. I accidentally paused mine after my first 600run. I meant to push LAP and not PAUSE

https://www.polarpersonaltrainer.com/shared/exercise.ftl?shareTag=271790f6cb2c33beef439e50567171ac

You can clearly see were Hans switched from running to bike. He is not used to riding a bike and had troubles to jump on the bike so he almost stood still while getting on the bike. After that there is always a small increase in speed, trying to gain on me :D Everything between distance 1,6km and 5.9km is fairly inaccurate about my running as the recordings were with a polar watch with Hans and not with me. Only on the paved parts we were together. At 5.9km i took my first paved run.

Here you have a little movie from a local TV station. Don't mind the language . You see a part of the off road section. That part you see is actually one of the beteer parts

http://www.focus-wtv.tv/?focus=16141

Oh, the first team finished in 31minutes

You are doing it right! 

Normally next year Hans and me are going to do it again. He surely did not let me down and I hope i didn't make it look that way. Allthough Hans' top speed is as big as mine, he still is the better runner. He is training to do a half marathon in under 5min/km (he almost runs this fast on training) and looking to do a marathon next year. And he is around 45 years old. So kudos to him. If the off-road part was just a bit better, we could have run a lot better the first part of the race. People who have trained on the offroad part on saturday, told us it wasn't that bad but at saturday evening, it rained a lot in the evening and the water did'nt had the time to get away.

But most importantly, we had fun :d