Tag Archives: triathlon

Iain

End Of Month Report: February

My plan for February was:

  • Bike (average) 100 miles a week.
  • Run (average) 16 miles a week including a 10k+ run once a week.
  • Do yoga at least once a week.
  • Swim twice a week.

What actually happened:

  • I averaged 85 miles a week on the bike. I’m happy with that. Due to other commitments I wasn’t able to do any weekend biking (other than once) I also lost a week due to a head cold.
  • I ran on average 15 miles a week and managed at least a 10k every week.
  • I managed 1.5 yoga sessions a week.
  • I swam twice a week.

Overall, I’m pleased with February. I didn’t have much spare weekend time to bike/run but still managed to get close to my targets.

This month’s targets:

  • Stirling Duathlon.
  • Alloa Half Marathon.
  • Bike (on average) 100 miles a week.
  • Run (on average) 16 miles a week including a half marathon and a 10k.
  • Do yoga at least once a week.
  • Swim twice a week.

I’m looking forward to the duathlon as I’ve never done one before. I’m not sure how to pace one it so I will just aim to go slightly faster than Andrew!

I’ve done Alloa a few times. It can be a hard race as there’s a long straight section into the wind. My aim is to get under 1 hour 45 minutes.

Here’s a selection of photos from February. If you want to see more then follow me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imacivertodd/ 

 

Andrew

The hero pose (Andrew)

For years philosophers have debated a simple question: if an athlete runs in the woods and no one is there to give it a thumbs up on Strava, did it really happen?

That’s why it’s important we record every run, ride and swim and upload it to social media as soon as we press save. If it’s not on Strava then it didn’t happen.

But it’s not just the stats that matter. On social media you also need to manage your image. Not only did you ride today – but you rode like a hero. Oh yeah.

That’s why it’s important that we also take a photo of every run and ride (but not swim as there might be children present in the pool and we don’t want to be reported to the attendant for lurking in the shallow end holding out a portable camera and gurning like a duck).

Today, I had my first ride outside since cough-gate, the illness/conspiracy that took out January and half of February. We (Iain, myself and another keen cyclist) went for a 40 mile spin round Ayrshire, though Eaglesham, Whitelee Wind farm, Kilmaurs and Stewarton.

At the wind farm we spotted a cyclist struggling at the side of the road. “Do you need any help?” We asked.

“My chain’s broken,” he said, “do you have a chain breaker?”

We did. He then asked if we knew how to use it and all three of us looked at each other and went.

“Ermmmmmm!”

No body knew how to use the one tool that everyone has to repair a chain.

“Don’t worry, lads,” he said, “I think I know what to do?”

20 minutes later, as Iain helped keep the chain together while he worked the chain breaker, it finally looked intact. Our good samaritan deed done.

We then cycled off before he tested it so that we would 100% know we did the right thing by stopping and we 100% would never know if it broke two minutes later and he was left stranded in the middle of Eaglesham moor.

Our good deed done we stopped for a photo just after Stewarton. The sun was starting to set. We had a good straight road behind and it was time to adopt the “just out of for a spin, I’m not knackered, honest guv, work it like a boss pose”.

You can see it below. Note:

  1. Lean casually on the handlebars like you would at a bar when you don’t want to show you are really keen to be served.
  2. Smile!
  3. Turn the wheel slightly otherwise you could be posing on a pogo stick.
  4. Smile!

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It doesn’t show my heavy bike (the one with wheels bigger than tank tracks so as to be comfy when commuting), my heavy legs (the one with a bum bigger than tank tracks so as to be comfy when sitting) or my heavy mind (oh God, this is tougher than a turbo, what is this thing called ‘head wind’?).

I’m a god. A cycling god. Look at that bronze sky. That easy pose. I could ride for miles and miles! I’m Kanye West on a BMX! I’m invincible!

And knackered.

But happy.

First ride outside done.

Iain

The Beer Triathlon (Iain)

Whilst training for an event some people will abstain from alcohol. There’s a name for them – boring bastards!

My fastest ever half marathon time was achieved whilst drunk. Would I have gone faster if I’d been sober? Probably not – I was so hungover and desperate for water that I ran the legs between water stations as fast as possible.

If it’s possible to drink and run, is it possible to drink and triathlon? After a swift Google I’m proud to announce the best and definitely drunkest race ever invented – Beer-athlon!

It comprises a beer swim, a beer bike and beer run. It will take place in Austria because that the only place I could find a beer swimming pool.

Starkenberger’s Castle in Austria doesn’t just have the world’s only beer swimming pool. It has seven! Each pool contains 42,000 pints of beer! That’s 294,000 pints. Enough to keep a Scottish man in beer for at least a few hours. 🙂

If anyone gets out of the pool alive then it’s onto the bike leg. For this I’ve sourced the worlds best beer bike.

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This bike allows you to “refuel” on the move. The distance of the ride is however far it takes to finish both kegs.

The finale is provided by a beer I spotted in the pub – Running Beer.

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Each athlete has to down a pint and then run 100m in a straight line. The winner is the first person to achieve that.

I can’t see what could possibly go wrong with this format. 🙂

Andrew

Last week’s training (Andrew)

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A full week of training complete.

A tough week. Double the training and back in the pool for swimming and back outside for running (though not yet on the bike).

Swimming had all the grace of a Donald Trump tweet. Every stroke felt like I was flailing, sinking, drowning and moving backwards but, by Sunday, and three swims, I started to feel more comfortable in the water.

Running was good. A bit slow and stiff to start with but I managed at least five miles for each run and, despite very heavy legs on Saturday, nearly 8 miles round Shawlands on Saturday afternoon.

I didn’t manage to get out on the bike, still slightly nervous that two hours of cold air would bring back my cough, but I did manage 90 minutes on the Turbo instead. This week’s challenge is to get outside and get a long ride in. If I waited for warmer weather in Scotland I’d never get out at all…

 

 

Andrew

Walking into it (Andrew)

[Sitting in the pub with folk from work, including boss]

Me: You know what’s brilliant? Last month I added some Smart Lightbulbs to the house.

Boss: What’s a smart lightbulb?

Me: It one I can control from my phone and switch the lights on and off when I’m not in!

Boss: What’s the point of that? If you’re not in you don’t need lights.

Me: Never mind that! It’s the future! Next I can switch the heating on and off.

Boss: When you’re not in.

Me: Yes!

Boss: Right…

Me: But even better…

Boss: Better than being able to heat and light an empty house?

Me: Yes! I also connected the lightbulbs to that Amazon Echo and I can control them with my voice.

Boss: So, you can now tell your empty house to switch on the bulbs and heating you don’t need?

Me: Even better – when I’m sitting on the couch and I want to watch a film in the dark I don’t need to get up. I just tell the light to switch itself off.

Boss looks unimpressed. Colleagues look unimpressed.

Me: It’s brilliant!

Boss: By the way, what was that event you did in the summer? Norway man?

Me: Norseman.

Boss: And what did that involve again?

Me: Well, that would be a three mile swim through freezing water, 112 mile cycle and a marathon up a mountain taller than Ben Nevis!

Boss: Very impressive.

Me: Thank you.

Boss: But one thing bothers me.

Me: What’s that?

Boss: You say you swam three miles through freezing water.

Me: Yes!

Boss: You rode 112 miles.

Me: And got hypothermia.

Boss: Yet… YOU CAN’T GET OFF YOUR ARSE AND SWITCH OFF A LIGHT!

Everyone laughs.

Me (thinking): I walked into that one…

 

Iain, Race Report

Feb 12th – Kirkintilloch 12.5K (Iain)

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The Kirkintilloch 12.5k is an “undulating” course – 12 hills in 12 KM. I prefer to call it a course with 12 downhills in 12 KM’s. That sounds less fearsome. Similarly, Mount Everest sounds better when described as a long walk down.

This should have been the first race of the year against Andrew.The winner of the event receives one point in the Todd Championship (TC)- the annual competition to find who’s the best Todd. I’ve won the last two editions. If you win the World Cup three times you get to keep it. If I beat Andrew three times do I get to keep him?

I’m not sure where I’d put him. He’s a bit too big to fit in a trophy cabinet. I’d have to stuff him and use him as a coat rack.

Unfortunately, the showdown was a non-event. Andrew pulled out due to a “life threatening” case of the tickle-y cough. A terrible disease that only Andrew gets, strangely its always at its tickliest on a race day….

Due to his forfeit I now have a 1-0 lead in this year’s TC. He asked for a medical exemption but that’s what a loser would ask for. The rules of the competition quite clearly state “If both name’s are on the starting list then its a TC event. Even if one Todd fails to start!”

The rules also say “Stop your excuses Andrew! Man up!”

I might have made up the last rule.

Last year I did the race in  1 hr 3 minutes. This year my aim was to finish in under an hour. I finished in 59:55. Job done…just!

Iain

YOU! ARE! A! WINNER! (Iain)

A couple of years ago I was running a race. During the last 1k of the run, I had a man running alongside me.

He looked at me. I looked at him. He then shouted “YES! YOU CAN BEAST IT! LETS DO THIS!”

Was this aimed at me? There was no one else there. It must have been me – but I decided not to “beast it”. He didn’t run any faster either.

He looked at me…again. I looked at him…again. He then shouted  “YOU’RE FLYING NOW! LETS FINISH THIS OFF!”

Seriously! Was he aiming this at me? But I choice not to “finish this off” and neither did he.

We could now see the finish line. He looked at me. I looked at him. He then shouted “ARGGHHHHH!” and changed his running style to the most over the top show-y off-y style I’ve eve seen. Arms and legs flailing everywhere. He was either running or having an epileptic fit.

As he crossed the finish line he shouted “YOU! ARE! A! WINNER!”

I crossed the finish line and though to myself “YOU! ARE! A! WANKER!”

This weekend I’m running my first race of the year. I’ll do it quietly and without fuss. I may quietly mutter to myself well done if I do it in less than an hour 🙂

Iain

Is that a wart on your foot or do you have six toes? (Iain)

My school had three rules for swimming:

  1. No dive bombing!
  2. No kit, no swim!
  3. No verrucas!

If you don’t know what a verruca is, then it’s a wart on your foot. It’s commonly caught off someone else who has one.

To prevent the spread of verrucas swimming pools had a small hole in the ground at the changing room exit. The hole would commonly be filed with a red chlorine like liquid.

On exiting I had to put both feet into the wee pool of red (normally freezing cold) liquid. The liquid supposedly contained disinfectant that protects feet from catching a verruca.

I got a verruca. Andrew got a verruca. In fact most of my school got a verruca.

It put me off going swimming. I didn’t like the wart! I didn’t like wee red pool of disease! I didn’t like the heavy smell of chlorine in the air! I didn’t like all the people in the pool swimming past or across me! I hated everything about swimming!

It put me off going to public pools. I didn’t swim for 15 years.

I didn’t discover a love of swimming until I joined the Arlington bath club. – the oldest surviving Victorian bathing complex in the world. It doesn’t have a small verruca puddle, it doesn’t stink of chlorine and most importantly it has lane etiquette.

Lane etiquette means once I start swimming in a lane its mine until I’m finished. No-one will jump in to the lane with me. No-one will swim across me and no-one will have a verruca…I hope!

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Andrew

Freestyling (Andrew)

People say that golf’s a “good walk spoiled” but, as I like golf, I prefer to say that swimming’s a “good drowning spoiled”.

Swimming is a silly sport.

Think about it. You don’t have running events where we move our legs in different ways. We don’t have the 100m normal run, the 100m bandy leg run – nor do we run 100m backwards. Yet, swimming thinks it’s perfectly okay to have umpteen different ways of thrashing your arms to make you go forward – or backwards.

Shouldn’t the person who swims 100 meters fastest be the person who… you know… swims 100 meters the fastest? Stop giving gold medals to people who are clearly not fast enough to swim fast enough.

And swimmers know they shouldn’t reward second place. There’s a hierarchy in swimming. At the top they have ‘free style’ and at the bottom they have ‘doggy paddle’ a stroke so poor they don’t even call it a stroke, they call it a paddle, a name which comes from having to use a boat because you can’t swim. And this hierarchy is clear because although swimmers have free style events where swimmers can swim any of the four main stokes – freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly – they all swim freestyle because it’s the fastest.

You wouldn’t race Uisean Bolt by jogging not sprinting, so you don’t race free style by using any stroke other than the fastest.

Yet, still we celebrate Michael Phelps even though he’s not actually got as many gold medals as you think because many of those medals are for events where, even though he came first, he was still not the fastest man to swim from one side of a pool to another.

Perhaps my views on swimming are based on the fact that I’m just jealous. Swimming is hard. I enjoy it, but it’s hard.

For years I could only swim breaststroke. But, when I entered my first triathlon, I knew I would have to learn to swim free style – and I struggled.

The first lap would be okay, the second not bad, the third was when my lungs gave out, the water leaked into my goggles and into my eyes and, by the time I’d reached the fourth lap I was knackered.

It took a few months to become even vaguely confident about swimming and, even now, a few years later, while I’ve grown to like swimming, I don’t love it the same way I love running and cycling.

Swimming is a silly sport.

But it’s part of triathlon and a major part of Celtman so, to help with getting ready for this year’s race, I’ve changed gym (more on that next time) and joined one that’s easier to get to first thing in the morning. And while I’ve been unable to train the last few weeks I have made one major change to help when I start again. I’m now getting up at 6:15 rather than 7:00 so that I can train in the morning before going to work. And, a major part of that change will be to go to the pool at 7am.

No wonder I hate swimming. It’s made me get up early in the morning.

Damn you swimming!

However my new gym has one advantage over all the other gyms in Glasgow (no, it’s not that the pool is only 21m long so it makes you think you swim a lap faster than anywhere else) , it’s the fact that it has a policy of only allowing one swimmer a lane.

The bottom of the pool has lanes marked on it and, once you’ve picked one, no one else can use it until you’re finished. No more sharing a land with someone really, really slow. (Or Iain, as I call him). No more sharing a lane with someone who wears indecent running shorts instead of swimming trunks. (Or, again, Iain, as I call him). Instead, you can swim back and forth free and uninterrupted swimming any stoke you like – even if you know there only one stroke that really counts.

Iain

End of Month Report: January (Iain)

My plan for January was:

  • Bike (on average) 75 miles a week.
  • Run (on average) 13 miles a week running including at least one 10k.
  • Do yoga at least once a week

It looks like I’ll finish the month:

  • Bike (on average) 100 miles a week.
  • Run (on average) 16 miles a week including four 10k+ runs.
  •  Most weeks I’ve managed two yoga sessions

Overall, I’m pleased with the start to the year. The weather has been unusually good which is reflected in my better than average performance. There hasn’t been a day when it’s not been possible to commute to work by bike. In previous years I’ve lost at least a week in January due to snow and ice.

My plan for February is:

  • Bike (on average) 100 miles a week.
  • Run (on average) 16 miles a week including a 10k+ run once a week.
  • Do yoga at least once a week
  • Swim twice a week.

My plan is to slowly increase bike mileage every month. I might not be so lucky with the weather in February so I’ll make the goal the same as what I achieved this month.

I’ve joined a swimming pool so I should be able to swim twice a week as its on my way to and from work. I won’t put any distance down for it as I just want to enjoy the first few weeks back.

This month training was also good for photos. Here’s a selection from my training. If you want to see more then follow me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imacivertodd/ 

Andrew is not on Instagram. I think he’s worried about how many likes I get in comparison to him 😉