Tri / Triathlon / Triathlons - do they float your boat?

Nice one Ed! I also did an Olympic - had a MAJOR panic in the swim, spent a very long time in both transitions, but really enjoyed riding my bike around in the sunshine and finished off with a 10k PB (probably says more about my PB to be honest). Quite a few people from my club were there so it was a fun day out.

Oh yeah, and despite taking forever in T2, I forgot to take my bike gloves off and had to do the run wearing gloves. I told my mum and she said "well at least you remembered to take your helmet off", showing what faith she has in me!

I ran most of an ironman run wearing an extra pair of thick padded cycling shorts. I took them off when I noticed, but couldn't find anyone to pass them to so ended up carrying them the rest of the way.

Nice work all!

@Sainsburys_Ed - Sweet bike time - Are you going to focus more on TT'ing for 2016?

this is always one of my tri highlights, always cheers me up to see people so in the zone that gloves aren't noticeable!

yes, to an extent, my bike has become a strength this year, and i am pretty upright at the moment, so will change my position on the TT bike this week and work on adapting to it, and perhaps took as at an aerocoach session to refine it further...

i've spent too long learning to swim though so they will always be second to tri, especially as i have entered IM 70.3 Mallorca and IM UK for next year already!

Anyone know when they open the Windsor tri? Or in fact when it is going to be next year, a friend is trying to get me to do it... Would be good if I can be busy that weekend. :)

It opened this morning at 9am.... its on the 12th June and clashes with e WTC tri in Leeds and the Deva tri which is a qualifier for GB age group world championships....

Or so my emails tell me..

Is everyone thinking about next year's races then? Should I be doing this? What races shall I do?

its that time of year when a lot of the big events for next year are opening up, combined with the weather being pish last week and people thinking the summer is over so wanting something to look forward to over the impending winter!

What types of races have you enjoyed most this year and do you want to build on those or find some new,crazy different ones to take part in...?

Was about the Wasdale Tri - supposedly the hardest iron distance race on the planet - Swim in the coldest deepest lake in the country, then do the Fred Whitton Challenge then run a marathon up to the top of Scafel Pike

http://www.wasdalex.co.uk/

Lost any competitive interest, so just looking for personal challenges now. Currently deciding whether I can commit to a winter swimming programme with sufficient volume to do an A2A.

Wasdale X only had 5 places available when I checked a couple of days ago... which sucks as it's my backup in case I don't get into Norseman (lottery opens end oct and seems to have c. 10% success rate for non Norwegian males). Celtman is already sold out.

** Edit... just double checked and there are only 5 discounted entries left. There will be another 200 full priced entries released at some point.

A2A would be cool. Would you do the swim as an officially ratified 'Channel swim' attempt or would you wear a wetsuit etc.?

Good question... this year I've done a sprint, a standard and a half, with swims in a pool, river and lake. I genuinely really enjoyed the race yesterday, apart from the first half of the swim, so I'd like to do it again, as well as another half as well I think. I only like fairly low key events as big crowds stress me out.

Aims for 2016: remember how to swim sometime before the last 200 metres, learn how to take a wetsuit off quicker, be a bit faster at everything, pull better faces in photos.

Probably won't (ever) be doing the Wasdale Tri, it's a bit much for me.

the Marlow middle distance (rebranded as "the fugitive") is a great event with a swim in a relatively nice bit of the Thames, a decent bike and a lovely run course, as is the Vitruvian, although both are a bit bigger than the Cotswold they are both less than 1000 competitors and quite big courses so you don't feel squished!

Don't really know any sprint races worth doing.

Olympics Dorney is a bit crap, the dambuster is lovely and Windsor is too crowded, that's the limit of my experience there as well!

Having spent out on aero kit for the bike. Im thinking of sticking to mountain tris. So it doesn't get dirty.

Riding and running up mountains may be tough. But it's simple. Watts in = speed up. Same for running really, hold target HR and push on.

So trollstigen, selje, aurlandsfjell xtreme.

Might do Oslo because it's easy to get to, and know people doing it.

Unless I join the local styrkeprøven team. Then all bets are off for tri events.

surely if you have aero kit you're better off doing flat triathlons, the fact that you currently find it easier to put power out going up hill is just a mental/adaptation issue...

Very much this.

Going to spend more time with the bike in tt mode next season. So I can get used to it. I've started doing z2/3 intervals on the flat too.

After a stressful swim, a slow arduous climb is kinda nice though.

In all seriousness, do Challenge Rimini, 5km of warm up after a sea swim in the med, then 40km of slow arduous climb followed by 45km of down hill, then the flattest half marathon course ever made!

Wetsuit for sure - too skinny to do Channel without putting on a lot of weight otherwise, especially after a long run.

apart from anything to adhere to channel swimming rules and regulations it would be make A2A even more logistically challenging so if you did do without a wetsuit it would likely be purely for mentalist hardnut points....

Yeah, or to go for the non-wetsuit A2A record. Which would be pointless for me, and probably for anyone as Trent Grimsey (Channel record holder, 6h55) has signed up to give it a crack.

So, how do you go about designing a (power) pacing plan for a course like IM Wales?

If my FTP is c.270w, and assuming that I aim to average 70% FTP then that gives me an average power target of c.190w for the bike*. My difficulty, given the course profile, is how to actually deliver that power? There don't seem to be any flat points where I can tap out a consistent effort. Presumably I want to keep things as consistent as possible, but I'm going to need to increase my power on the climbs and I'm going to struggle to put the power out on the descents.

My best guess is to show 3s power and NP on my screen and then aim to keep NP as close to 190 as possible. I'll probably aim to limit my climbing power to about 250w and then just see what I can do on the descents.

@Sainsburys_Ed what did you do?

*This sounds low, but my only HIM this season was raced at AP:205w/NP:211w which seemed about right, and I was able to run afterwards, so maybe 190w is an OK target.

That does sound awesome.
The med is like mad warm no? Over 5C and stuff. Sounds weird.