19/08/08
I’m still alive. As you might have been able to tell be seeing my race reports.
Since my last blog I have pretty much done my entire race season. It included ITU races in Germany, Holland and Ireland as well as some domestic races too. They have been great experience for me and I have made a lot of new friends, particularly the Kiwi’s who race over in Europe in the summer season.
I’m now on holiday for 2 weeks, reflecting on the season. Looking back it seems that I never really recovered from my flu bug in February and looking back it has affected my performance all year. I lost all the strength that I had and I am still well below the weight that I was in before getting ill. I now realise that I needed the power more than ever stepping up to the Elite level. My body has been fighting off illness all year, the day I finished London and announced the break my body cam down with a cold and I am going to let it work its way through in its own time.
Changes have also occurred with my training. I am working with a new triathlon coach from thetrilife.com; Richard Jones and I’m now racing for of thetrilife.com. Richard, Lou, Liz and Duncan have been very helpful and kind in giving me the opportunity to join their team and I hope that it is the start of a long and effective partnership.
Rich and I will be sitting down to discuss the plan for next year soon and I will aim to keep the site updated as and when I know what I am doing.
24/04/08
Since the weekend, training has been going really well. I started back with my duathlon type training sessions and I was pleased to be running at sub 32:20 pace consistantly for the run portion of the race. 10k is seeming less and less far now! Thanks also to the long sunday runs with the Harriers.
I'm currently up in Chester where I am getting my physiology testing pre season. Things are looking up as I have just finished day 1 of testing (on the bike) and so far it looks as though I have improved in every area tested so far. Some by not as much but others by a great proportion. I will have more tests done tomorrow which might help to see where the improvements have come from so I'll let you know as soon as I do!
20/04/08
I would like to thank Aquaman Wetsuits for joining Team-Lewis!
I found out today that I will be wearing the NEW AQUAMAN CELL GOLD for the 2008 season. The first wetsuit in the world to be mostly made of Yamamoto GIGA #40 neoprene!
The year is shaping up to be a fast one!
18/04/08
A day to go before the Elite National Duathlon Championships. I'm looking forward to the first race of the season, although how relevant it will be to the season I don't know. It's currently cold and windy and the conditions will be wet to boot if the weather forecast is right! So watch this space!
16/04/08
I've done it, made the cover of Triathlon 220 Magazine for issue 220! Sporting my aquaman wetsuit when coming out of the water in the Blenheim Triathlon in 2007!
07/04/08
I'm getting close to full fitness again, hard work is now paying off and although I have been quite careful in coming back and it's taken quite a long time I am almost there. This morning swimming went better than it has for a long time, I got tired towards the end of the main set and dropped a few seconds off the time but I was almost there.
Coming off the weekend where I was asked to step into the Midland 12 stage Road Relay Championship team at the last minute (I was not in shape and had planned to miss it). I anchored the team home with, all be it the slowest time of the day, a 16:48, but on a windy, cold day when hail started to fall on me I ran just 25 seconds off my personal best time and I was running on my own for pretty much the whole time. Still, running for the Harriers the team came 4th Overall beating the likes of Owls, Coventry and Belgrave behind Notts (1), Bristol (2) and Tipton (3). It was a good experience and useful to learn the course for next year when I will hopefully make an assult on the National 12 Stage Team.
01/04/08
April fools! I'm getting over the last few weeks of being ill and off form and the last few days I have been getting my confidence back and training has been coming back on line.
I am getting the hang of roller skiing which is great cross training and it makes a nice change for training. I have now clocked up around 18 miles on them in 2 ski's and apart from 3 "moments" yesterday's ski went really well. As well as a large number of funny looks that accompanied me as I skied to Mumbles and overtook the land train.
I have decided to concentrate on getting my self ready for the European Championships in May, as I didn't get into the ETU race in Spain which was my planned start to the season. Probably a good thing as I have been hit pretty hard by the last few weeks dramas and I wouldn't have been able to race at my best in Spain.
Today I got back in the pool and I wasn't being left behind for the first time since I've been back in. The last 15 mins was a bit of a struggle but I was happy with the way it all went. I also got back into favourite session ever. Developed throughout last year on Teignmouth's prom I started out on perhapse the toughest day I could get. A headwind matched only by the corus 5mile race all the way up the last straigt of the track. It was so strong it was close to blowing me over along with my turbo! 8 minutes on the turbo, increasing the resistance every rep followed by a transition and a 1200m run. After the first one, I got my act together and my speed started to increase.
I know that there is a lot more to come in the next few weeks which is pleasing, I just hope that the wind stays low and the weather keeps nice and warm so i can really get my speed up!
30/03/08
Well done Tim and Andrea! 3rd and 5th in Malooba World Cup. I am starting to get my fitness back, but I will be peaking for the European Age Group Championships now. Looking forward to the next couple of weeks when I start to get my fitness back.
19/03/08
Apart from being completely unswimfit I was surprised that my technique was pretty much perfect after 2 weeks off, not sure how I managed it, but swimming the forst length in 27 strokes set the tone of the session. I didn't go much below 1:20 for any 100m but I didn't want to push it. I did a few 100's breathing every 5 and every 7 strokes and my lungs held up really well. With the Welsh National Championships this weekend I am going to go to London tomorrow and train there as I'll have access to a pool which will be helpful! Looking forward to seeing Spamalot on Saturday for my birthday present.
My other birthday present arrived on monday but I'll wait until I've got the hang of it before doing a special post on the subject.
17/03/08
Back to training for the forst time in 2 weeks!! I have lost 4kg (not sure how much of it was down to dehydration) and am still on antibiotics until Sunday but I've stopped coughing and I'm able to do some aerobic work again, today I did a 2 hour ride around the Gower putting in a couple of hills and put some more weights into my programme.
11/03/08
My birthday! It isn't a great one, I have been ill for a week now. But i'm getting better at last, had a full nights sleep last night for the first time in about 4 days! So i'm starting to get better which is good!
02/03/08
Welsh 5k Road Race Champs,Bute Park, Cardiff
A bit of a short course unfortunately, running through the first two km in 3:10 and 6:20 the 3k marker came at 9:00 I was a bit surprised as I has a bit of a bad km and I knew I didn't run it in 2:40! Still, I carried on and at 4km I decided to pick up the pace a bit more and finished in a time of 15:47, which is around what I ran in Armagh so was quite pleased considering I had managed one during the week before.
27/02/08
It's been busy again with lots of running races, but I've picked up a cold and so decided to stop until it gets better! My three bad things that started with Alseger have passed and the good luck is back, only took a couple of weeks so that was ok. I went up to Loughborough for the BTF's time trial day where I was not impressed it has to be said. It was actually a complete waste of my time money and effort going up there for the day and if they had told me what I needed to know before hand it would have been a lot less stressful!
Still, since then things have been going a lot better, I raced in Armagh, N. Ireland last week and I ran a 5k P.B. of 16:24, knocking a full 40 seconds off my previous best. I was happy with that, the training is paying off. Unfortunately I picked up a cold on the way to Ireland (those damn aeroplane air conditioning systems) and it effected me after the race and I have taken a couple of days off to get over it. On sunday I had the longest hardest most energy sapping race I've ever done, ok it wasn't that long but the mud was a foot deep and there wasn't really any flat in the course. The Welsh Cross Country Championships was the race and I finished in 27th, I was actually in better form than showed but I was suffering from the cold really badly. It didn't make for a pretty middle or end, although saying that the first 300m of the 10.8k felt surprisingly good!
08/02/08
A lot has been happening, some good sessions, some not so good! I have had another two 5 mile road races, first one was the West Glam. League on 13th Jan. in fairly windy conditions, running for MMTG I came in with a new PB of 27:03 having gone off a little bit too fast over the first 800m into a fairly strong head wind. Then on 3rd Feb a number of the harriers traveled up to Stoke-on-Trent to run the Alseger 5. Conditions were cold, damp and windy as hell. I didn't have anything much in my legs and it showed when after the first mile (5:20 and on target for the 26:40 I was aiming for) the pace was hit and the weather got worse and worse I ended up coming finishing in 28:19. A long way to go for a poor showing but it wasn't the most important race in the world and it's better to have a bad race now than during the season.
Since joining swim swansea I have been progressing and have had the best week in the pool so far. Something has clicked recently and over the last two weeks my swim speed has come up over the whole length. Today I was able to rep quite comfortably off a 1:25/100m base, considering that this time last year I was repping off 1:30 in a 25m pool there is quite a large improvement there. So I am happy with the swimming even though the run is on a plato at the moment.
Racing tomorrow cross country so I'm looking forward to that.
06/01/08
Richard Burton 10km. A new year and a new p.b. the the course in Camarthen was hilly and really quite tough. I had spoken to Marc Hobbs and he suggested going steady until the first of the hills after about 2km. I went a little too steady and was well dropped by about 1500m down in around 20th again. Sound familiar? It does to me, perhapse try something new next race. I had about 15 seconds to the back of the second group and I was running just ahead of Andrea Whitcombe. I thought some of them must have gone off too quickly and I was right. One guy blew and I caught him after about 500m of runnign up. The rest of the group were slightly seperating and slowly runners were coming back to me. A bit too slowly, but there wasn't a lot I could do about it.
I looked at my watch and it said 18:00 I was still feeling good so I decided I'd work the up hills realy hard and see what would happen. What did happen was that I was reeling people in and on the downs I was able to keep the speed up and use my long stride to my advantage passing and catching others.
Then at the bottom of the last major climb I ran hard up and caught 3 people by the top. With the watch saying 27 mins I knew the last 2km were pretty much flat so I dug in and got onto the flat. I still had at least one person on my shoulder and I kept on trying to surge and break them, but it wasn't happening. We were running fast but so was the man in front and the gap was around 20m.
There was 10th place in front of me and that meant a pay cheque for £25 which would pay the entry for another couple of races. But I couldn't do anythign about it! So I had to settel for 11th or 12th. With 500 to go I made a move but it was covered so I decided to wait it out, still keeping up the speed I waited for the two left turns which would take us into the finishing straight. At this point I said how good is your finish and took off. Now, some people might say it's arrogant but it's racing and it gave me the umph to pick up and go. I was moving away from 12th at some rate and suddenly with less than 50m to go I saw the 10th place runner and I thought, well, it's worth a go isn't it?! So I kicked up into the next gear and headed for the line, with 20m to go I was 5 behind and he realised this and tried to up his game but it was too late and I took him by about a foot on the line to bag myself 10th.
Well, I thought it was 10th at the time but according to the results I came in in 9th which is quite a godo show. I also got myself a p.b. of 34:06 which is round about 30 seconds off a fast course. So a good day out!
26/12/07
Glynneath 5 mile road race. Boxing day came and I was quite happy that I had cooked salmon and not turkey. Tish, Mum and Dad came with me to the 5 mile road race along the old valley road. My last training session befor Christmas had gone well and I was ready for the race. The gun went and there was soon a lead pack, unfortunately I was just off the back and I was being dropped along the flat road.
This is not good I thought to myself, I'm getting beaten by Santa! (yes there was a fancy dress santa kicking my butt, he was a good runner though) and after dropping down to about 20th place I was happy to have a rise to run up. My leg cadence wasn't particularly high but my stride was quite long so at the top of the hill I thought to myself, "well, they are running faster than me on the flats, lets see if they can keep up on the down hills!" and with that I strode out on the declines and went from about 20th to the top 10 in one down hill. Next up came and the down followed and here I overtook Santa and found myself in 9th place.
By the 2 mile mark I was back on the flat and was struggling when someone went past. He has about 20m on me at the turn and I thought to myself, I have to beat him at the line. So I pushed on, the gap remained fairly constant and it yo-yo'd around the 25-30m mark until the last mile where I put a bit of an effort in over the last climb to bring the gap down to around 20m again. I saw the sign with 400m to go and I thought when shall I use the speed? I didn't really need to think as George said that's it alex now use your speed, and with about 250m to go I though ok then and I kicked up a gear and cruised up to the shoulder of the guy in front and past. I extended the gap over the last 200m. Yes, we can safely say that my sprint finish is back! Finishing time of 27:06 which is a PB for 5 miles.
16/12/07
Well a lot has been happening, I have now moved to Swansea and I'm setteling into my new home. On 2nd December I raced in the Gwent cross country league, race went well, in really heavy conditions I ran a clever race. I knew that I didn't really have the basic speed as I've been working at increasing my threshold pace since september. That said, I felt like I could carry on at the same pace for another 2 laps. After lap 1 I was in 25th, then on the second lap I came up to 23rd with a group of 3 ahead of me, I was holding the gap, running my own lines and with 1.5km to go I decided to put a fast km in and in the space of 200m I had gone clean past all three of them, and that is where I remained. I was in control of everyone behind me but was too far behind the one in front to catch him. Still, it was a fun race and I helped Swansea Harriers to the team win.
25/11/07
Pembrey forest cross country. Not a bad race, was all about putting some hurt into the legs and with 1.5 miles of running on the beach from 7 miles. Came in in 6th place in 1:01:40. After the weekends 2hr run and a fairly fierce chain gang with Phil, Dan and Helen yesterday I didn't have much in my legs. Still, I went off with the leaders and finished well ahead of 7th. With coach Rick coming in about a minute ahead. GRRRR, but it was good to get a hard run into the legs. Got a velodrome session tomorrow so some more hard work for the legs.
21/11/07
Well that wraps up 15 hours of training in 3 days. Today was a step set in the pool, 7x200m off 5 minutes with the target times of 2:55 down to 2:25. I managed to hit every target time and felt really good. Then it was 18x100m best pace and I was averaging 1:15 so I was happy with that. Anoter really good swim, then a strong bike this afternoon with Oly Howton. I'm ready for a rest day tomorrow though!
20/11/07
I've now setteled in to the training group at Swansea and have been training here a month. We've just finished the first easy week so far and back into intense training again.
The rest worked and I have swam some of my best sessions since I've been here within the last week.
During the week I also knocked off an average of 20 seconds a lap on the Gnoll run, which is a 2.5km hilly cross country loop. I went under 9 minutes for the first time going 8.59 for my final lap.
Monday I swam the best session so far swimming 12x300 at an average of 4:03 long course.
Had a good conditioning run today, 25mins at 16.5km, which was easier than it was to maintain a week ago, then the 3mins at 17 and 2 mins at 17.5 with a 2 minute jog recovery, again a lot easier than it was last week. It feels like the threshold speed is increasing too.
08/10/07
I've moved to Swansea to start training at the high performance centre!
Training at the High Performance Centre starts with a 2 hour swim and a hilly 10 mile run.
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27/09/07
Meeting at the Wlesh National Pool in Swansea with Rick Velati.
As a result of the meeting I am going to be joining the training group at the Welsh High Percormance Centre! I have been working towards it for 18 months now and I am going to be moving up to start training on the 8th of October.
I'll be training with Andrea Whitcombe, Richie Nichols, Oly Howton and Andrew Fargus to name just a few.
This will be a big step up for me and I am looking forward to the new challenges that it will give me.
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19/09/07 Pictures in the Gallery!
Physiology testing at Chester University with Christine Foster.
19th Today started with a Wingate test all out cycle for 30 seconds.
I then had a break and then performed a sub maximal running test looking at lactate threshold and that was followed a bit later by a maximal running with post test blood lactate analysis.
18th Today I had body composition skin folds taken.
Resting haematological profile which includes blood lactate, glucose, haematocrit and haemoglobin.
Also cycle sub maximal test measuring lactate and gas analysis.
Cycle maximal test measuring gas analysis and post test blood lactate levels.
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14/09/08
Good perparation for the Bala Standard Distance Triathlon?
12th September I bent over and slipped a disc in my back.
13th September I somehow managed to get down to London - we don't know how, and see Kerri Elston, who is pretty much a miracle worker. She adjusted me for 30 minutes before a new patient and then for 1 hour after and from not being able to walk more than 20m at a time and being bent over with one leg 4 inches shorter than the other when I got to the office I was able to walk out straight backed at 3:15pm.
Since then my back has been getting better and less than 24 hours after first seeing Kerri my back is at about 91% and I am now able to look forward to competing at the Bala triathlon.
Believe in your body and it will be good to you back.