6 days to go

The first week of my taper has been a bit of a mixed bag. Coming off the Peebles duathlon I recovered really well and went into my Tuesday night running intervals with my legs feeling great. Dan And Niall were both racing and Zac had been ill since sat so he text my the session. 1k, 2min rest, 400m 1min rest repeat 4times, aim for 1k 3mins at slowest and 4oom 64sec at slowest. I saw read that and though, "Zac thanks for the vote of confidence, but 3mins at the slowest is a big ask, so far 3:00 has been my quickest in my sets".

Wow, I have a lot of confidence in my running, but that session put my confidence for the Worlds through the roof. I did 2:57/62, 2:57/64, 2:57, 65 and 3:00/64, it's amazing what a difference having fresh legs going into a session can make. The first 2 sets felt so comfortable, it was great not starting the session already tired.

On to Wednesday and my lest bike interval session on Arthur Seat (WDC race course). This is where my mixed bag week begins, my legs were empty, Rich and Malk were just leaving me for dead on the every rep I just couldn't produce any power, please tell me it was just tired legs from my run session as I did it at night instead of lunch. Here's hoping thats all it was.

For the past few Thursday nights I've struggled to do the club interval session at Silverknowes as my legs have been so tired from the Wednesday intervals, since I struggled so much this Wed I hoped I might have something to give on this session. It was going to be a short session, 5xhill drags just under 1k with easy pedal recovery (~2mins), but aiming for high anaerobic capacity power outputs. On my warm up pedal across to Silveknowes my legs were feeling good so I was optimistic about the session. I try not to focus on my power output while I'm doing the reps, I just good as hard as I can for every rep. The reps felt good, I was dead by the end of the session hitting hear rates of 182bpm, so I was happy I had given everything I had, however would the power concur, I wouldn't know until I got home and downloaded the data.

My confidence for the second time this week was given a massive boost, in my head I had 400W as my target ave power for the reps, previously I had only managed to break 400W in 1 rep over a set, I now did it 3 out of 5 with the other 2 only fractionally missing out. Oh yes I can't believe how good I'm feeling about this, everything is coming together at the perfect time, 9days to go to the worlds and I'm running faster than ever, bike stronger than ever and I'm weighing in lighter than I have ever been, almost 4kg lighter than my normal racing weight, happy days.

My confidence this week has been on a roller coaster journey, up then down then up again where is it going to go from here? Down unfortunately, come Friday afternoon my throat was starting to get a little and on Saturday morning I woke up and just felt knackered. I'd had an easy day on Friday yet I felt like I'd done a load of hard training, I can't believe I'm coming down with something. The weekend has been spent, not training, but consuming as much, honey, protein, green tea and gargling with aspirin in the hope that I can get shot of this before it gets any worse. On the up side at least I got it now and not next Thursday/Friday, so hopefully the forced rest will work in my favour. Fingers crossed.

Peebles Duathlon

It was another glorious day in the Scottish Borders for the next round of the Borders sport and leisure trust multisport series, which consisted of the Peebles sprint duathlon (5k, 20k, 5k).

I had planned this race as a perfect warm up race for the World duathlon champs in 2weeks time and I wasn't the only one, several Scottish competitors were there with the same plan.

I had tired legs coming into the race after a week of high intensity training, so wasn't sure how the race would go. I took the lead for the start of the run and managed to keep in the top three going into T1 where we had a good gap over the rest of the field. The bike was where I felt my tired legs would show and I knew there were strong bikers behind so I just had to give it everything and hope they wouldn't catch me.

Going into the turn around point on the bike myself and Stuart Kerr were battling for second and third with Iain Grant up the road in first. As we turned at the dead turn we had a significant gap back to 4th and 5th who were Rich and Malk my Wednesday interval training partners and both strong bikers, so that was a great boast for the 2nd half of the race.

Stuart and I managed to stay ahead of the rest of the field for the remainder of the bike and I sneak ahead of Stuart into T2 and got out on the run with a small gap, my legs were feeling OK but not strong enough to hold off Stuart who was running strong and came past after about 1.5k.

The race finished with Iain Grant 1st, Stuart Kerr 2nd and myself 3rd which I was happy with, legs didn't quite have the usual zip in the 2nd run but I think when I'm rested and tapered for the worlds I should be running strong off the bike.

And so the taper begins, I can't wait for the Worlds.

Countdown to the Worlds

It's now only 2weeks today till the World Duathlon Champs at Arthur seat so the past few weeks training have been specific to the race.

The key sessions of my week have been, 400's and 1k run intervals and bike intervals on the course.

A Friend from work Zac (an excellent Algerian runner, 62min half marathon pb) has been helping me with my running preparation and has had me down at the meadows perfecting my running speed. It's strange how such a short session can kill you for the rest of the day. The first time we did our 400 reps I was wasted for the rest of the night, we only did 6 reps with a run recovery of 60-70secs, but that maximal effort was straight to the point. 6mins of effort, it really is quality over quantity.

With the bike reps I've been training with 2 fire brigade friends who are also doing the worlds, both of whom are really strong bikers, so I've properly been getting a doin every week trying to keep up with them. This week was our biggest and hardest week on bike course intervals, when I told the guy's what we were doing there was slight dread as they knew how hard the session would be, particularly as the previous weeks had been killer sessions and this one was tougher still.

The aim of the session was to do as much of the 5lap bike course as possible (part of the course is the opposite way on a one way road) so we went for 5 laps starting at the bottom of the decent all the way to the end of the main climb, which yes meant us climb up the Wong way of a one way system, but we were careful not to get in any ones way. So all in all we would be doing intervals of 4/5ths of the actual race course laps.

I can tell you know that the race is going to be a brutal one, it's already be doubt the hardest World Duathlon course ever and I think that is definitely going to be true. By the end of the session we were all knackered and that was without doing the 10k before hand and we had recovery reps between the intervals. The good think is it's going to hurt for everyone and I'll have the knowledge of the course in and out and when it hurts knowing I've probably hurt worse in training.

Feedback from all of these sessions over the past few weeks, keeps me positive that I'm in good shape. A good bench mark is going to be the Peebles duathlon tomorrow (Sunday 22nd Aug). It might only be a sprint 5k, 20k, 5k but it will be a good test of how everything is coming together, plus a lot of the Scots doing the Worlds are also racing it so it should be a competitive race. Can't wait to get racing again.

The short and long of last week

Last week I raced over the short 3x1mile run relay at the meadows midweek and then the Long hard Durty one which was also the British cross tri champs.

The midweek run really boasted my confidence for the World duathlon champs in 4weeks with a new pb of 4:36. I know it's only a mile, but it shows me that I have leg speed at the moment which should equate to fast 5and 10k times.


Form there I went to the cross tri British champs at St Marys Loch for the Durty tri. I was looking forward to the race as my mountain biking has come on from previous years particularly my climbing, I've climbing really strong this year and the course is favourable to climbers.

The swim was great, St Marys Loch is a wonderful fresh water Loch to swim in, I was feeling strong the whole way round the course and was in a good pack. Entering T1 I noticed that Sam Gardners bike was still racked beside mine so I must of had a good swim to be out before the race favourite. Saying that though he was just behind me, and with his off road experience he got out of transition before me.

On to the bike and I was climbing well, picking off some of the riders who came out of the swim before me. Things were going well, however it would not stay that way. Coming down the 2nd descent which was a mix of boggy sections and loose rock I managed to go arse of tip on the loose rock, and came down hard on my left hand side on the rocks. When I got up I could barely walk, I really thought I have done some serious damage and that was my race over. After sitting chatting to Rik, one of the marshalls at the next turn I decided it was time to get back to the transition to get changed and warmed up. However as I was riding my hip began to ease off, so I decided to do the second lap, I hate DNFing. I got round the rest of the bike safely, I wasn't trying any heroics to catch up on the field, just get the bike done and run like crazy to at least get a good training session out of it.

I was really pleased with how I run, coming from the back of the field I had a constant stream of athletes to pick off which always help. I've not seen the splits yet but would like to compare my run and swim time with the winners to see where I stand on those grounds, I just need to work on my descending skills to really be up there in the off road races, which is definitely something I'll be looking to focus on in the next few seasons.

A big congratulations to Paul and his team for organising the Durty tri, it was a great race and the hog roast afterwards was brilliant, I wish every race had that post race.