I have a coach!

Spoke to my coach (ha ha first time I've ever had one of those!) Monday and got a new plan in place. Starting with a Monday eve session of strength and stretching, easy I thought, then I did it...ouch. She then says that this is my rest day!! oh dear if thats a rest day then I'm scared Squats, jumping lunges, ski seat etc etc today Im walking like John Wayne.
So today it was 90 minutes made up of 15 minute sessions which involved speed work....tired but feeling positive. No matter how I do in this race I'm going to be a much stronger runner!

new blog

Hi to anyone who still checks this blog! I have a new blog about my training for the Marathon Des Sables next April (2015). Please check it out http://highwaytohell2015.blogspot.co.uk or my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/johansmds2015

Thanks
Johan

Celtman 2013 Race Report

 

Celtman 2013 Race Report

Well it was a long journey getting here…over a year of training as much as a job abroad and a young family will allow. Then the actual trip up to Torridon which was stunning. Scotland really is one of the most beutiful countries in the world.

This was the view that greeted us! Not bad is it. Slightly scary but stunning.

Anyhoot, my team and I were going full luxury and decided to use a motor home and stay in the local campsites which were perfect. We stayed at Torridon Thursday, Shieldaig Friday (swim start was near there) and Torridon again Saturday post race.

Showers and toilets provided and just a 5 mins drive around the loch was the Torridon Inn which does the best chicken and haggis I have ever had. Oh and some nice beers to settle the nerves before the race J

We came up Thursday night and regd on the Friday and did race briefing etc.

Here I am on my way to reg and behind me you can see the stunning loch Torridon.

Race day arrives, we bimble our way down to the coaches after a small breakie:

I’m sat on the coach and suddenly remember that I am very stupid and that I don’t have the little electric tag I need so, in my crocks and wetsuit ,I run the fastest 2 km I have ever done to the other end of the village to find that all the officials have left! I think that I have missed the event and screwed everything up! I get back to find that my brother has done a Tiananmen Square and stopped them leaving and that the tags have been brought to the bus!! Phew, so now sweating like an elephant seal in a sauna I relax on the bus and try to find a happy place to be. Drama number 1 taken care of…Thanks Ed for stopping them! Arriving at the swim is very strange as it’s a scene I have been watching on youtube for a year! Wow I’m here and this really is happening!! I meet up with my mate Angus and he is just as nervous as me. Photos are taken and off we go…first thoughts…damn this is really very cold!!  I have never ever attempted to swim in water this cold! The weather is rubbish and the tide is pulling us out…to not beat about the bush basically I have a horrific swim. I shout at myself in the water and finally manage to get to the shore and see the funny side of how stupid this whole idea was!

I’m a pretty good swimmer so I wasn’t worried about this section but I paid the price for underestimating it! What should have taken me less than 55 minutes takes me 1 hour and 7! T1 is very funny as I can’t use my hands and all of my clothes stick to me. Bike gloves don’t go on and my brother has to work hard to help me get into my kit. But finally off we go:

I soon settle into a decent rhythm with a strong tail wind and I’m flying. Loving it and trying hard to stay calm and not get carried away. I really enjoy the first 100k or so but when I hit the big hill and headwind I suffer, I look around and I am still over taking so I realise its not just me. At the top of the hill I meet up with my super support team and they give me the good news that I just did the big hill!

How things change quickly in the hills of Scotland. The rest of the ride is truly horrific and I have to work very hard the whole way. I haven’t dropped many places so am thrilled to be where I am which is around 27th overall.

Somehow I make it to the end of the bike:

My team help me change and get on my way again. The whole atmosphere is great in T2 and everyone is pumped. I push myself as fast as I can all the way to T2A as I want to get there within the 11 hour limit so I can get a blue t shirt! I make it with 30 minutes to spare so am pretty thrilled. That is then destroyed by the news that due to the terrible weather the mountain is closed! My moral crashes and I want to quit. My brother comes running up to me ready to roll and tells me it will still be wroth it, white t shirt doesn’t matter, its Celtman and its supposed to be damn hard. Can’t tell you how close I came to throwing in the towel but thanks again to my great crack support team I am on my way. The low course is not easy! Firstly we climb a hell of a trail and my legs hurt but I start to pick up my spirits and think about the end. The track isn’t really a track and we end up throwing ourselves across a bog and rock covered landscape which actually is tough going but really fun.

My brother gets me back to the road and we actually run back to Torridon. I finish in a time of 13:41 and am thrilled to have done it. I cant quite describe the feeling but its really amazing. My body is used but my mind takes over and everything seems great. A few pints of beer and my mind gives up Bed time!

Summary

Loved this event. Hardest thing I have ever done. Loved the format of having your own support team. Loved the number of other competitors too. Really great atmosphere and organisation! The mountain rescue guys are incredible and the support from all the other support teams was great.

The weather only added to the ”extreme” part of this event and made it more special. In the end the Celtman guys and girls decided to give some of us Blue T shirts as we made the cut off which I was surprised about but very happy about too.

Thanks so much for a great day I will always remember. Thanks also to my support team David and Ed who made the whole thing great. Congrats to Angus Bateman who used this as his first ever long course tri! Nutter.

For anyone thinking of doing this event DO IT! I may well come back one day! It’s a tough event but I couldn’t think of a better place to do it. Get up there early on, get into the atmosphere and enjoy the build up. Train like you would for an ironman but just add in hills, lots of hills and swim in cold water at least a few times first! Also, run off road…its mostly off road so get used to it. Read the race info and DON’T FORGET TO PICK UP YOUR RACE CHIP!!!

23rd of May 2012 - back on it!

Its been a very long time since my last post and my year so far has been filled with frustrating lack of time and injuries. I did Ironman Lanzarote last weekend in a time of 12:27 and loved it. I am now back on the wagon and have decided to spend this coming 12 months doing strength and speed work and then in 2013 I hope to hammer some serious long distance fitness and do either Norseman or Celtman...still deciding.
When I get some pics from Lanzarote I'll update the blog and make it slightly more interesting!
Most of my injuries are the results of poor core strength and thats what I'm going to work on. Less injuries will mean a much better training platform.
over and out for now
Johan

8th December 2011

Two weeks of being pretty ill and only managing a hand full of training sessions seems to have helped! Back into training 100% now and have had a great week. Monday was indoor cycling on my turbo trainer, 1.5 hours and it went quite well. Tuesday was 24km run and that went really well, in the eve I did 45 mins on the turbo to losen legs up. Yesterday did 2 km in the pool with quite a lot of speed work and again in the eve I did some turbo training. Today its spinning.

Dog getting bigger and he keeps me busy, do a lot more walking now which can only be a good thing.

I hope I can keep up the training now for a good few weeks without any more illness..damn this winter stuff is dull.

19th of November 2011

Wow, its been a busy few weeks. I now work from home much more but actually have less time for anything! I now have a dog (Vizsla) which will become my training buddy at some point but right now is more of a pain in the butt!

Dont worry, ill just lie here and my new owner will pick up my poo!

I am now fully booked with flights and hotel with my two racing mates for Ironman Lanzaroti! I have done much better training as of late and I feel in better shape already than what I was in for Challenge Henley.

This Tuesday I smashed my personal best for the half marathin by 6 minutes to 1 hour 30. I plan to get  that down to 1:27 before I get to the Ironman. On Sunday morning I did a 10 mile TT ride and did it in 25 minutes so again I was pleased with that. Will try to get that down to 22 minutes (we will see!).

I am finding it hard to find the time to train but am making the most of short periods. I have done very few long training rides but am getting a lot more 1 hour sessions in. For now thats about all I can manage. Will try to up those to 1:30 as soon as I can.

My training is more interval based and more heart rate based which seems to work quite well for now.

I have also been looking into some great multi day adventure races! my top one at the moment is one that is done on Patagonia and looks like an epic, once in a lifetime, kind of experience! just trying to work out how I can convince my Mrs thats its a good idea!! thats probably going to be the hardest part of the whole thing. I already have a team mate sorted out but he is off in Afghanistan right now so I cant rely on him to convince my wife either! doh.

Anyway, im back in it after a little wobble post Challenge Henley and Im back in it to do much better!

18th of September 2011 - Challenge Henley Race Report

Photos will be added when I get the :)

Yesterday I took part in the first ever Challenge Henley race in the uk. Based in Henley on Thames and riding out into the surrounding hills sounded like a pretty beautiful place to be racing. The weather had other ideas but it was still a great venue to race at.
I was part of the 6:30 swim start. It was v cold (5 c) and my feet were freezing just standing around waiting. There was a lot of fog so visibility was pretty bad. I jumped into the Thames and instant shock took over! wow that was a cold start to the day. Anyway we started and I wasnt feeling confident, my swim training has been about 5 swims this year so its my fault. I panicked for a while and got dropped by the pack but it gave me some open water and time to deal with my head. Head sorted, breathing more relaxed I put some power down and managed to catch and overtake most of the pack I finished 18th (I think) with a time of 1:07. I am sure I could have been closer to 1 hour if not less if I had done a little more training and had time to warm up in the water before starting. Anyway I was pretty damn happy to just be out of that water.

I had a slow steady T1 of 8 minutes. The weather was cold so I made the decision to put arm warmers on and a cycle jersey, and socks. Off I went, onto my bike and I felt pretty good. The course was brutal, it was basically one big up hill and then a turn around and back the same way and then an even longer uphill to another turn around, repeat 3 times! man my legs were tired after the 2nd lap. I had a banana at one food stop and I felt really sluggish afterwards. I have had that before so maybe bananas are not the best choice for me. Anyway I did ok on the bike and had a split of 5:50 ish which was ok as it was a hilly course. I would have loved to have been closer to 5:15 but I will need to work on my bike a little more.

Ok, so I hop off my bike at the end and the run starts. I had a decent T2 of around 2 minutes and started my first of 4 laps. After the 1st lap I was destroyed! my stomach was a mess and I just felt totally dejected. My wife and kids were there to cheer me on and I stopped to tell them I was going to call it a day - my daughter who is 5 just looked at me and said "daddy you need to keep going so we can get a medal"...enough said, head up and start running was the order of the day. I somehow managed to focus on what she said and run the rest of the 42k. I have no idea how I finished I really don’t. I hadn’t trained hard enough for this race and I knew it.
I finished 23rd in my AG with a time of 11:30. I am very very pleased with that. I know that here on ST its not much of a time but just to finish that race I had to dig really, really deep. I have done 50 mile runs, marathons and IM races this was my toughest.

The race was very well organized and we had closed roads for the whole 180km, that is pretty cool in my book. I have to say that I think the Challenge team do a great job with their events. I know you pay a price but I have done 2 now from their series and both have been really good.

Lanzaroti is my next race and will now start to really put some training in. I want a 7 min improvement on the swim, 3 mins off T1, 30 mins off my bike split and 30 mins off my run time!! no small task lies ahead!

Wednesday 14th of September 2011

Wow, its been a while since I last posted! I have done a good amount of run training and I feel confident about my running  now. Cycling not so much! I hurt my shoulder really quite bad and was unable to swim or bike for almost a week. I managed to get some short sharp bike rides in but still this year I havent done nearly enough cycling! I know this is going to hurt me in 4 days time. I just havent had the time to do it. Also my swim training has been v v poor. I did do 3k the other day and I feel pretty confident that I will finish the swim. This week I have been feeling low and have no energy at  all so actually I am not looking forward to this race at all. I will be lucky to finish this one.
Anyway, ill go and I will try my best to do it, something deep down says Ill finish it so ill go with that!
Tomorrow I may do another small jog just to keep my legs going and maybe even a small bike ride.
Ill post a race report when I am done! bad or good!!

Tuesday 23rd of August 2011

After Thursday last week I rested until Sunday. Sunday was my 34th birthday and it started at 3am when my family and I flew back to Denmark. After landing I drove like a man possesed to get to the start of the Copenhagen half marathon. A good mate of mine wanted to break 2 hours so I said I would love to come along and help him out. It was a very sunny warm day and I havent ever enjoyed a run more! It was slow by my normal standards but it was sociable and I just felt great the whole way. We did it in 1:56:30 so my mate was also very happy.
Yesterday I went out on my own on the bike and did some hill work. This morning I went out for a fast 56km ride with one mate and I took the front 80% of the tiem so it was great training.
Summer seems to be back in Denmark so I am going to finish early and head out to join my family for some play time! woo hoo.

Thursday 18th of August 2011

Wow, I feel smashed!
My shoulder seems to have developed a rather bad pain so my 2 k swim was quite a challenge yesterday. Did it anyway but will be going to see my doc about it. Its been bugging me for nearly a year on and off and it just seems to have goven up on me! great timing!
24k run this morning! thats why I am smashed. was great to get it done though. Not a bad pace either so quite happy. Next week will be 30k (fingers crossed) and that will mark my longest pre IM training run.
so this week so ar has been good.
Monday 2 hours bike, 10k run
Tuesday 125k bike (110k and a 15k commute)
Wed 2k swim 30k bike (commute)
Thursday 24k run and 15k bike
Friday ...lets see how I feel but would like to get out for a short bike and maybe even a swim...we will see.
Challenge Copenhagen was last Sunday and a guy did the bike legs in 4:20 something! thats is just nuts!!! he did it around an hour faster than I did!!!! then he ran the marathon over an hour faster than me and he swam 15 minutes faster!!