Big fat blow-out and a spot of catch up

Another month has passed and another disappointing lack of blogging from a young Mr Warnock. But new year, new leaf. And I feel the creative juices, not to mention motivation, welling up inside me once again. But before I go about entertaining you like a monkey in a waistcoat playing the cymbals, making you laugh more than a fat woman falling of a swing, and educating you more enjoyably than a school with Stephen Fry as the headmaster (how cool would that be?), I figure we’ve some catching up to do, you and me.

Firstly the Creek Striders Half Marathon that I spoke about last time. In short, what an event. The course looped up and around the creekside roads of Dubai, up and over some of Dubai’s iconic bridges, and sections of the course actually went through the souks in Bur Dubai – best road race I’ve ever done (admittedly, that’s not many). It was also a great atmosphere with a huge fry-up breakfast afterwards. In terms of performance, I did 1:33 – a 3 minute PB ona  far harder course than the PB was set on. Given that I’d not done much long running at all, I was pretty happy with that. In February, I’ll be racing the RAK HalfMarathon – the flat and fast race in which I set my previous PB and, as my current programme does feature a weekly long run (26kms), I’m gunning to go sub 1:30 for the first time there.

Xmas and New Year were both perfectly pleasant but, to be honest, having returned to the UK for my nan’s funeral just a week before, I wasn’t feeling too festive. I missed my family a lot and couldn’t stop thinking how tough it must have been for my mum and dad. This translated into a lack of motivation on the training front too – I missed more sessions at the end of December than I think I’ve missed all year, but I wasn’t too fussed. Did manage an Xmas morning sea swim with some of the T2A gang, which was a highlight.

Just after Christmas, my friend Janey (actually an ex but we’ve stayed quite close) came to visit on her way back from Thailand, and we had a really nice time – with a few other friends joining for a couple of days too. I took a few days off work, took all four days off training, ate too much, drank every night and it was lovely. I was sad to see them go as it’d been such a welcome break and diversion, but I dropped them at the airport at 5am on Friday morning and went straight to join in with the Dubai Roadsters 120k-er – and absolutely loved every kilometre of it. The motivation came flooding back – it’s a ride I’ve not done for quite a while and I was amazed at how much easier I found the pace, how I could join in all the sprints, and how easily I could motor up the few little climbs that used to leave me trailing far behind. Progress is the greatest form of motivation, when you can see it that clearly. The highlight of that ride was joining the ‘fast group’ for the last 45kms and averaging in excess of 40kph (assisted by a large peloton and tailwind, but still...) and being led out by former Ironman World Champion Faris Al Sultan who is sponsored by Abu Dhabi and does quite a bit of his winter training here in the UAE. Mercifully, he actually wore full shorts and a long-sleeved bike jersey...

He'd have been cold wearing this...

Since then, I’ve not really looked back. Coach sent me my Jan schedule through and it’s by far the biggest I’ve ever done – way more kms than I was doing in peak Ironman training even (tho more favourable conditions than Dubai in August help with that) and it’s just what I needed. It’s basically a base training month with very little intensity, but I’m loving getting all these kilometres in my legs, especially on the bike which I have a bit of a like-hatehatehate relationship with at times. 

I think the other reason for the motivation racing back faster than a drunk to last orders is that a few big races are now in sight – before, they were very much on the horizon but I’m almost able to start counting the weeks down now. That helps a lot.

Other than all the training, life is generally consisting of a monumental SHITLOAD (sorry ma, but it really is a shitload!) of work as we race to get products out for the end of the financial year. In the office for 56 hours last week; in the pool, on the bike and on the road for another 20...doesn’t leave much time for much else, tho I don’t mind that so much right now.

So, there we go, you’re all up-to-date, au courant, al dia, with what’s going on here. Hasta pronto, amigos.

Why triathletes are better than cyclists – part II

An awful lot of cyclists are jealous of triathletes. We established this tenet a couple of months ago, right? My experiences since have given me no cause to review my assertions. In fact, I recently came across a cycle club that won’t even let a triathlete get near. “But I’ll do the whole ride on my base bars...” SHHH! “But, I’m an experienced group rider who often” ZZZZZZPPP! “But my tri bike is the only bike I ha...” GETOUTTTTTT!

At this point, I must emphasise that this isn’t the case here in Dubai. Both Dubai Roadsters and Cycle Safe are extremely welcome to all kinds of cyclists – turn up on a Penny-farthing as long as you can keep up.

Long solo rides (something I’m trying to add a bit more of for future Ironman glory!) give you a lot of thinking time and while doing a couple of laps around the Arabian Ranches development last weekend in order to watch my Garmin tick over the 100k mark for the day, I realised something else....sure, triathletes are nicer than cyclists, but we’re also way more intelligent.

Why? What could possibly have led me to such a sweeping generalisation? Well, I have never, ever, not once, not a single time, seen a triathlete riding along in an aero tuck and not wearing a helmet. And yet I lose count of the number of times I see cyclists taking to the roads with their bonces unadorned. I guess they’re relying on the old ‘no sense where there’s no feeling’ adage to protect them. Probably some truth to it - there's definitely no sense in those noggins!

Back in the UK, I saw them hurtling down mountain passes without a lid on. In the UAE, they jet around busy developments helmet free. Spend tens of thousands of dirhams on state-of-the-art, carbon fibre Pinarellos and BMCs..? No problem! Wear a relatively cheap, nicely-vented, weighs-almost-nothing helmet that can save your life..? Are you a moron – it’ll mess up my expensive haircut!

The argument you always hear is that, in the unfortunate event of an accident, a helmet ‘won’t do much good’ anyway. Hmmm, James Cracknell would disagree:

Still not convinced that a helmet can protect you from even the most unexpected of accidents..? Ask this guy:

A final note: not only are Dubai Roadsters and Cycle SafeDubai welcoming to triathletes and populated by the kinds of riders that wave to other riders when out on the road no matter what type of handlebars they have, they also both operate a strict ‘no helmet no ride’ policy. Top stuff. 

Step by step (and some random images related to Ironman training)

This weekend was my last weekend of truly epic training and I'm happy to report that I passed with flying colours. I wouldn't say I'm finding training easy - far from it - but I'm not doubled up in pain, and walking doesn't feel like walking directly on nerve endings, as I thought it might. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing but it's far too late to change anything now.

heading out for a very hot run with fuel belt loaded up with agua

The weekend began at 4am on Friday morning when I set out to rack up some kilometres before meeting the Dubai Roadsters for the 120km ride. My legs were a little tired throughout but it was a good ride and I stayed with the group the whole way (something I struggled with when this IM journey started...so, tangible progress!), then cycled the 20km home and a small extra loop afterwards to end up with a 165km ride - 5km more than my schedule asked from me. The first time I'll have ridden the full 180km will be in Ironman itself, although that's far from abnormal in endurance events. I've now done 5hour+ rides of 160-165km on three occasions and have ridden between 145 and 155 on another four occasions, so I'm hoping that consistency is what will see me through rather than doing a few 100km rides and then once managing 180km.

supplements and carbohydrate energy gel...the diet of a triathlete!

Again, I had to forego a brick run straight off the bike due to heat and a gym closed for Ramadan, so I got in a nap and had a productive day (packing for home mainly) before heading out as soon as dusk fell (and thus fasting was over and I could hit the streets armed with H2O!) for a nice steady 10k run - in spite of the heat, managed to maintain a good pace, which bodes well.

new 'missile' style hydration system which i'll be using for Ironman

This morning, a veritable lie-in with a 5am wake-up to do the coffee run - a group ride out 30km to Bal Al Shams, a lovely resort hotel in the desert, where we're treated to coffee, pastries, juice and fruit, before we make the 30km journey back. This is a nice social ride, and 60km is, nowadays, a very sociable distance. The ride is split into two groups and, although the faster one is more my kind of speed, I rode with the slower group which is great for keeping me slow and steady - the aim of today's ride is simply a bit extra mileage while spinning easy and flushing out the legs after yesterday's hard ride.

rear hydration system wwill carry one bottle and some spares/tools

This afternoon, it was to the gym to hit the treadmill for some shorter, faster stuff - I did sets of 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m to the tune of about 8k in total...didn't feel too bad at all given the miles in the legs and sprint work is normally tough for me. Throw in some tidying and excellent packing progress (packing for a month-long holiday that's to include a lot of training, an Ironman and two weddings is pretty stressful!) so, all told, blinding weekend.

the only fail-safe solution I've found for avoiding bloodied nips...plasters!

The other development is that entries are now open for the first Golden Tulip sprint triathlon here in Dubai - it's a regular series that, until this year at least, has formed the bread and butter of all local triathletes' race calendars. The first race is on 30th September so I wasn't sure whether I'd enter as that's only three weeks after Ironman. I may just about be training again by then but I'll only have endurance and no speed in my legs by then (a sprint is 750m swim, 20km ride, 5km run) so I'm not likely to put in a stellar performance. I entered in the end though because, as I've said before, I just really love racing. If I'm still finding my legs by that point then c'est la vie...it'll give me an easy target time for the next race, won't it.

probably makes me odd but I always find there's something incredibly peaceful and contemplative about a pool pre-swimmers 

The Golden Tulip series is responsible, as much as anything, for the tri-addict you read before you today. It wasn't my first triathlon but it was my first taste of regular racing. I was reflecting on that while doing my sprints today - part of me misses those times when I had no idea what I was doing and the learning curve was massive. Every race, I'd knock 5 or 10 minutes off my PB! That's now very different - eventually, you get to a point that requires an awful lot of training to go a tiny bit quicker. In some ways, that's frustrating...the first time I didn't beat my PB I was annoyed with myself, even though I'd just come back from a week-long press trip and hadn't slept in 48 hours. But I felt cheated somehow.

165km ride + 44C temperatures + tight lycra = award-worthy bout of prickly heat

Strangely, Ironman has changed all that from me. You'd expect, after all these hours of training, I'd be even more competitive and put more pressure on myself to do well, but I've remembered, through IM training, why I love this sport so much. Sure, some of the enjoyment does come with putting your balls on the block and leaving it all out there on the course to find you've knocked a few seconds off your PB. But just as much comes from the people, the atmosphere and knowing I've raced hard. That's all that counts.


29 days and counting...Ironman Wales four weeks tomorrow!