First Half Ironman since surgery

[Tri Hard Alan]

Earlier in the year I completed my first marathon since my BHR in Oct 2015 and yesterday I added a Half IM to that list of firsts.

I hadn't trained super specifically for the distance and had been especially lazy with Swim training with pools and lake swims in the UK still having booking and availability problems so very much took this on with the simple target of finishing and making sure my pacing was conservative on the bike and run so I didn't push to my limits being this was my first attempt at the distance in 7 years. This is how it went:

Swim 1900m- On current, poor, swim fitness levels I would expect maybe 36 to 38 minutes but the course was long by watch at 2000m and some people had 2100m on their watches. Added to which, bizarrely in a river swim, on a 2 lap course, they made us swim up the middle of the river against the current where its strongest. Been racing Tri's 12 years and never seen that. Everybody was slower and I clocked 48 minutes.

Bike 85.6k - This was a lumpy course with 800m of elevation. You cycled out to a loop which you did 3 times and then back to transition. Each loop had a 7km steady climb. Low gradient but continuous so I was very careful to keep the Power figures in a range I know I could maintain. Once of the steady climb the rest of the loop was very fast but with on and off rain throughout conditions were not ideal. Finished in 2 hours 51 minutes with an average speed of 30 kph, HR of 143 and Power of 189, all of which was on target for what I wanted.

Run 20k - Four flat 5k loops. I aimed to run at 5 mins per K and thought this would be reasonably comfortable. So I set of and 1km beeped on my watch, 4.38. And then a 4.41. But instead of backing of I carried on with same effort thinking "this feels easy". I of course paid for this later. My HR was reading 164, about 20 higher than a run of this pace normally, so really should have slowed down. Lap 2 was all good but slowed a little on lap 3 and capitulated on lap 4 with 3 walking breaks of a 100 count. Run time 1.43 at 5.15 per k pace

With casual T1 and T2 including pee stops and change of kit total time was 5.30.01. Take of the extra swim time and considering the bike elevation I was reasonably happy with that and managed 5th in the Over 50's Age Group. Most importantly, and I was confident this would be the case beforehand, the operated hip was absolutely pain free.

Will switch back to Sprint and Olympic distance for the rest of this year and give the Half IM another, more serious go, next year.

I think in terms of the long term goal of getting to the point where I can do everything I want to do that I could do before the hip surgery on a consistent pain free basis........ I am there  :)

[PalmettoGolfer]

This is awesome to hear.  Congratulations!!

Great job THA!

[petemeads]

Go Alan!

Great news, and nice to see your numbers - my FTP is 179W at the moment so your bike power over 3 hours is very impressive.
I had a good winter/spring just running - crap weather for biking, no gyms open for indoor climbing - and managed to tick off Gold standard times for all distances from 1 mile to 30k in my new 70+ age group but since June 1st have been stricken with sciatica and cannot walk. Biking is my only exercise currently but the sciatic pain does seem to be reducing slowly. Hips are good but I can't use them!

Good luck for the rest of the season,

Pete

[Tri Hard Alan]

Thank Pete.

Seeing you at 70 with both hips operated still running, still achieving in your AG, that's inspiration and what keeps me going. Great work.

Bike power is mean to be an absolute metric, consistent across all distances etc but its not really. My FTP is 283 which is based on achieving an average of 297 for 20 minutes. But could I really hold 283 for an hour? I doubt it to be honest, it just gives me something to train to. And of course that 297 for 20 minutes was sat up on a road bike on the Turbo trainer. On the TT bike in an aero position power is less. But of course that is more than balanced out by the Aero gains. My last Sprint Tri, with a 20k bike, averaged 238W and speed of 37 kph (pancake flat course mind you) but with average HR of 166 so comparing that to my Half IM bike speed/power/effort it all ties in roughly and was, I think, paced about right. Whilst not an absolute number training to Power and racing longer distances to it definitely helps.