Running the Commute Route

After reading something in one of my magazines the other day I thought I would try the ride to work/run home one day followed by run to work/ride home the next method of training. Possibly I picked the wrong time of year to start, but still, a start I made!!

My initial feelings are positive toward this and it does make things a bit more interesting than the usual ride in, ride home routine.

I have also come across a website called SportsTrackLive which allows me to upload hrm and gpx files which are then displayed in a number of ways, the route is also plotted on Google Maps. Here’s one I made earlier of my commute Wednesday morning.

Another injury…

Last Thursday I intended to take an easy run on part of the club 10k route, down one side of the lake and back through the woods. All started well, settled into a nice pace down Whitlingham Lane, lake path was a bit muddy but otherwise fine. Then got down to the end of the lake, took my eyes of the path to look a bit further up and OUCH – a slip on a tree root and my ankle is on fire!

Having got to a fence to lean against I could barely put any weight in my ankle but after a few minutes I started the walk back. No further than a few hundred metres later my right knee starts hurting, obvioulsy as a result of not being able to put weight on my left ankle – great. Walk back to the office must have taken me about 40 minutes but fortunately the rain held off.

A visit to the doctors the morning after confirmed that there was nothing broken but just soft tissue damage, good news but the bad news was he reckon it could take up to six weeks to heal properly. This pretty much rules out the club 10k for Nov with Dec a close call.

I’ll be training on the turbo to try and maintain what fitness level I currently have and will then start with some walking on the treadmill building upto to a gentle jog as soon as the ankle allows.

I’m not sure how this will affect my swim training but I need to get back on top of that as I’m supposed to be swimming a mile or two to raise money for the RNLI. Please visit my Virgin Money Giving page to make a donation, with a good few of us swimming in the sea at some point in out triathlon “career” who knows when we’ll need their help!

Team Schleck

The Luxembourg-based team of Andy and Fränk Schleck are building up quite a significant team roster for 2011. Their Luxembourg Pro Cycling Project team have recently added Jakob Fuglsang (Denmark), Fabian Wegmann (German) and Linus Gerdemann (German) – the later pair coming from Milram who disbanded at the end of the 2010 season after failing to find a new main sponsor.

As well as the Schleck brothers, Team Luxembourg have cycling heavy weights Daniele Bennati and Jens Voigt in their ranks and there is also talk of the imminent signing of Faian Cancellara from Saxo Bank. It is reported that Cancellera cancelled his 1.2 million euro contract for the 2011 season at a cost of up to 3 million euros, one can only assume that he will be handsomely compensated in his new team and fancies their chances of success.

Faces of Team Luxembourg

Team Luxembourg are currently made up of:

• Fränk Schleck
• Andy Schleck
• Davide Viganò
• Daniele Bennati
• Giacomo Nizzolo
• Bruno Pires
• Jens Voigt
• Maxime Monfort
• Wouter Welandt
• Dominic Klemme
• Fabian Wegmann
• Linus Gerdemann
• Jakob Fuglsang

With other riders rumoured to be on the radar, Team Luxembourg must be confident of securing one of the remaining eight UCI licences for the coming season.

Daniele Bennati is one of my favourite riders and I look forward to seeing how he does in this new team against the likes of Mark Cavendish. The team should also do pretty well on the team time trials – providing they can keep up with Cancellera!!

2011 TdF route to be unveiled this morning

This morning, in Paris, the ASO will be unveiling the route for the 2011 Tour de France although 2010 overall winner Alberto Contador and sprints winner Alessandro Petacchi will not be present.

We have all heard about Contador’s doping allegations but Petacchi not so much before recent days. Petacchi was investigated during this years Tour de France and the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) have been investigating him also amid claims he used synthetic blood in 2009.

Petacchi could be up for a life time ban if found guilty as he has already served a doping ban, at the least he could get four years, which at 36 years of age, could see him having raced at his best already. It will be a shame as it’s great to see Cav, Petacchi and Hoshovd battle it out although if there are illegal drugs involved then it’s right to boot them out.

Back to the TdF, the race will be starting in the Vendée region on the 2nd July and finishing, as usual, on the Champs Elysées on the 24th July.

As well as the TdF route, the route for next years Etape du Tour will be displayed. The Etape du Tour is a mass participation ride and speculation is that it will be returning to the Alps, sounds like a fun challenge.

You can watch live video streaming from the official website here.

ASO to announce 2011 TdF route

On Tuesday 19th October, Tour de France race organisers are set to announce the route for next years race.

They are hoping to have resolved the doping case involving Alberto Contador, last years winner, prior to the announcement. Guess there are a few people doing overtime this weekend.

Contador in trouble over some dodgy beef.

I am not sure how a drug used to fatten cattle can be used by people to lose weight (and aid breathing). Any ideas??

Have a good weekend, oh, and stay off the beef!

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WTC Announce New 5150 Series

Yesterday, the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC), announced the launch of it’s new 5150 race series.

The events will consist of an international, or olympic, distance race made up of a 1.5km swim, 40km bike and 10km run.

The series will be the largest international distance series and the first non-drafting race series of its kind.

The 2011 season will consist of 13 domestic (US) and three international dates. There should be more European and Asia-Pacific dates coming sometime.

For up to date information please see www.5150.com.

2011 5150 Series (United States)

• March 13 – Miami International Triathlon
• May 1 – St. Anthony’s Triathlon
• May 15 – 5150 New Orleans
• May 22 – Memphis in May Triathlon
• June 19 – Washington DC Triathlon
• June 25 – 5150 Provo
• August 7 – Nautica New York City Triathlon
• September 4 – Hy-Vee Triathlon/5150 US Championship
• September 11 - 5150 Lake Lanier
• Ocotber 2 – 5150 Lake Las Vegas
• October 23 – 5150 Galveston
• November 12 – 5150 Clearwater/5150 Series Finale

2011 5150 Series (International)

• June 5 – 5150 Frankfurt (Germany)
• June 12 – 5150 Klagenfurt (Austria)
• Jult 9 – 5150 Zurich (Switzerland)

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Tour of Britain 2010 – Stage 8

What a lovely day Saturday was in London for the Prostate Cancer charity ride and the Tour of Britain finale.

Our preparations started Friday – an early departure from Norwich in the team bus followed by beer and curry at the excellent Bengal Village (highly recommended – the owner also runs the Roti here in Norwich) followed by a few more beers at the flat.

Saturday brought a nice fried breakfast and my first taste of “facon” (veggie bacon) – great start! Andy Hayes, who drove up to the Excel Saturday morning, cycled over to meet us and then we headed out to the ToB start.

We rode past the team buses and mechanics who mere busy making last minute preparations for their riders. We got to the registration point pretty early so had time for a drink before making our way to the start point where we joined at pretty much the very back.

The ride got underway and we slowly made our way onto the course and past most of the other riders to a point where the road was fairly open. I don’t think the route was as good as last year, certainly in terms of landmarks etc, but this years was not so flat with a climb over the Lower Lea Crossing. A good part of this route was the same as the London Tri so Andy and I were fairly familiar with it.

Overall the course was okay and we could see that there would likely be a group finish at the end. Here’s the route that we took based around the Excel and surrounding area.

Prostate Ride 2010 Main Route

The pros took a slightly longer route and we rode the extended leg leading to the start/finish straight right after the Tour had finished while it was still shut.

Route Extension

The pros took eight laps around the course and we saw Matt Barmmeier (AN Post Sean Kelly) attack from the start and stay out for a few laps. No surprise to see him awarded the combativie rider title for the final stage.

The pace was pretty high, I think the majority of the laps were averaged at around 26 or 28 mph with tspeed increasing toward the end. Where we wer standing, just past the finish line, was a great position to get a feel for the riders speed as they blasted past literally a couple of feet from the barrier – you could feel the air whipping past.

Sky were doing their best to get Henderson to the front and they were mainly responsible for pulling the peleton along and making the catch on Brammeier. They got Henderson to the front where he managed to pick up two sprint victories which was enough to lift him above Richie Porte of Saxo Bank and into the points jersey.

Andre Greipel of HTC Columbia came through a whole group of riders at the end to take his third stage victory of the tour (Blackpool and Great Yarmouth), Lucas Haedo of Saxo Bank came in second and Roger Hammond of Cervelo got third on home turf.

Overall, it was a pretty exciting race with the break away, the competition for the points jersey and the hope for a British rider to finish well. Not bad at all, I prefer the central London route but ti was still a good day and a good race.

Will link to some photos when I’ve uploaded some.

Tour of Britain 2010 is Coming to Norfolk

Unless you’ve been asleep for some considerable time you’ll know that the Tour of Britain will be ploughing through our fair county on Thursday.

Starting at King’s Lynn the riders will make their way through the countryside to Great Yarmouth via Norwich.

You can see the Estimated Time of Arrival information which will give you an idea of what time they will be coming through on the route, very handy. Be aware though, it’s a little chunky at 2.14MB.

I’ve posted here some maps which may help you if you are intending to watch in King’s Lynn, Norwich or Yarmouth.

King’s Lynn:
 and

Norwich:
 and

Yarmouth:
 and

Hope you find this useful!

Whitlingham listed as Olympic Triathlon Training Camp

Whitlingham Outdoor Education Centre has been included in the London 2012 Pre-Games Training Camp Guide as a prospective triathlon facility. I know this may be old news for some of you but I’ve only just happened across it now.

There are over 600 facilities across the UK listed out of which 20 are listed for triathlon training camps. Whitlingham are the only triathlon facility in the East of England.

The facilities had to meet strict criteria before they were accepted such as high quality training facilities, accommodation, catering, transport links amongst others. With the publication of the guide facilities are able to market themselves directly to the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and National Paralympic Committees NPCs). There are also financial awards available to NOCs and NPCs for their teams and individuals to train in the UK.

I really hope that Whitlingham manage to get some international teams/individuals in as it would be recognition of the quality of facilities available here and also for the local economy. Perhaps it would encourage other triathletes to train here in the future and maybe even host some bigger competitions?

Good luck Whitlingham!

Full list of triathlon training facilites.
Offical news of training camps (London 2012 website).

End to End swim

This morning we were fortunate enough to be able to swim the entire length of Whitlingham lake rather than returning from half way.

This meant either 1600m one way or 3.2km both ways.

Having not swam for a couple of weeks it took me a few hundred metres to get into a comfortable stroke. Once going it was quite a nice swim stopping only to empty leaky goggles!

Went in the first wave (for slower swimmers) and got passed by some of the faster people from seconf wave (faster) but still finished one-way fairly happily.

So, a time of 35:06 which I am pretty happy with, again felt like I could have put a bit more into it but confidence will help that.