Just keep swimming

In 6 days I will do my first Ironman. Today I got to thinking about mental strategies, and here is what I came up with....

SWIM
I am not a very good swimmer, although I have improved a lot over the last few months. I thought this would be a funny mantra for me, click on picture below for more details:

BIKE

I am not a very good biker other, and it is normal for people (girls) to go past me on the bike.

But, because I know I am a good runner, I should keep thinking "Alrighty then, I'll see you later on the run!".

RUN

And this is where the fun begins for me. Now, it is all a matter of "Run them down, one by one!!"

I'll see you at the finish line!!

First half Ironman podium finish - the end of an era?

I always believed that in order to do well in triathlon, I needed to take at least 5 minutes off my (1.5k) swim time..... People told me that it would be "difficult", and that "it could take years" to achieve it. But apparently nothing is impossible - I took more than 5 minutes off my swim time from my last race in November, to take my first ever Ironman 70.3 trophy! Wheeee! :D

But where did the story leave off the last time? With a new Ironman 70.3 PB under my belt, 2011 started with a bang, some snow.... and some unplanned injuries! Minor niggles (foot, ankle, calf) prevented me from much hard running training, and before I knew it, April and the Paris marathon rolled around...

Stine and I signed up for this ages ago, but I forgot to ask Mr Coach what he thought! Turns out that running a marathon a month before a big half Ironman race was a bad idea, so I did part of the run "for fun". I ran a fun 25.5k in under 2 hours, and then stopped to be a spectator!

Also worth mentioning is that I did manage to get my first multisport race for 2011 in the weekend before Paris! I completed the Jels duathlon with much grumbling and discontent, as I battled the wind and the "Danish hills" to take the place of 2nd woman overall and 2nd in my category. Someone took a funky picture of me at this race!!

April turned to May, and my parents arrived for their visit to Denmark. Then it was off to Majorca for my first half Ironman of 2011. With only one long training week of just under 14 hours in 2011 when most of my friends had been doing 15-20 hours per week for months, I was full of trepidation. Could I really do a half Ironman with the training I had done? Had I trained too little / too much / too hard?!

Apparently not!! Triathletes like to write "race reports" which goes to the nth degree of detail. As a policy I don't do that on my blog and this will be no exception. So to cut a long story short....

The swim was in the sea, where the water was pleasantly cool and clear, off a beautiful beach in the bay of Alcudia.

I thought I had blown the swim since the 2nd half was getting slower and slower, so imagine my surprise when I clocked 31:55 instead of my expected 40 minutes!!

The bike was a hilly course, and many people came past me, including a handful of girls. But the course was 5k too short, and I landed in Transition 2, stuck in my shoes!

On to the run, my best discipline, and it was a matter of running the girls down, one by one.

I started too fast, and started to hurt at the halfway mark. I wanted to slow down, but I could hear the voice of my coach calling me an "amateur" if I did. So I pressed on. At the final 500m, II spied a woman ahead of me, about to finish too.

Somewhere deep in me I found the "final gear", and overtook her with a flying 15+km/h sprint down the finish chute! My parents were waiting for me at the finish, and handed me my Malaysian flag for the final sprint...

It was so so cool. I knew I had done well, but I had no idea how well! "Top 10 woman" according to Alex after, and "3rd or 4th in your category". Wow, that is so cool!!

So I did it! 3rd in my category, 8th woman age grouper. 3rd fastest woman age grouper run for the day. All thanks to the new training regime of Mr Coach. Whoa! It was a good day for the lone Malaysian competitor....

Next up, Challenge Roth, my first full distance Ironman!! :)

Welcome to SubOpt Tri! The journey of a thousand steps... begins with a blog!

Welcome to SubOpt Tri! Those of you who have read my blog before would notice that I have cheated and recycled my old posts here. Yes and no. I decided that I want to spend more time writing about my tri adventures, and my old blog was never aimed at that. So I've given my blog a makeover and a new name. As of today, we are SubOpt Tri! And don't ask me who "we" is, I don't know!

So where did the name come from.... Chrissie Wellington has used the word "suboptimal" a few times in her Twitter (@chrissiesmiles) posts. Coming from someone as dominant as she is in her sport, I find it quite ironic. But it made me think, how life can't be perfect, and often, we are stuck in "suboptimal" circumstances. As of today, I have a swollen foot, the weather is crap and I have been sleeping badly. Hardly optimal circumstances for an aspiring triathlete!

But it could be worse, and I am certainly not complaining. After all, 2010 was a fantastic year of opportunities. Settling into my Danish life, bagging a bronze medal at the European Champs duathlon, racing in Hawaii for my 30th birthday and qualifying for the World Champs Ironman 70.3, racing in the long distance Danish Champs and coming 2nd, and finally smashing my previous best time by 20 minutes in the World Champs Ironman 70.3.

So my quest for 2011..... I signed up for my first full Ironman (Challenge Roth). With the help of my coach, I hope 2011 will bring more speed, and less suboptimal performance! Ok, so I might have to rename my blog if that happens, suggestions welcome... ;)

Solution to hours on an indoor trainer - Twitter! (and other forms of mind manipulation)

I have been asked a few times, how I motivate myself to spend hours on an indoor trainer. The amusing (and quite serious) answer is... Twitter! Ok not quite, but I have found a way to mount my laptop within reach of my tribars....

I follow various triathlon superstars on Twitter, and I keep myself entertained reading linked posts, etc on the Internet whilst cycling. I followed the live telecast of IM Arizona. I haunt triathlon magazine websites for the latest news in training and racing. Yes yes, all a bit geeky. :)

Worth noting that actual browsing is limited when faced with interval efforts. Reading with minimal scrolling works, but nothing mouse-clicking intensive! Which brings me to my next point....

At this point in time, my training sessions are not particularly long, but they are intensity focussed. In other words, I spend most of my bike sessions doing intervals. You need to know your heart rate zones, here is a guide if you do not: http://www.ultracycling.com/training/heart_rate_training_zones.html If you don't know your LT, 220 minus your age is a good start.

Aim for longer intervals in zone 3 (e.g. 3x 20 mins or 2x 30 mins) and shorter intervals in zone 3 building into zone 4 (e.g. 3x 15 mins). Include a warm up (~20 mins) and some strength work (low cadence ~50rpm in zone 3) and you get about 1.5 hours of a workout. :) Top it off with a 30-40 minute run, and you have a 2 hour+ quality workout.

Don't forget a towel to mop up the sweat..... ;)