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Headcase Ironman

~ Raising funds to help find a cure for Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) brain tumours.

Headcase Ironman

Tag Archives: russell

Dynamic Dan’s Dauntless Determination……

22 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by Editor in Blog, Dan

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Tags

Abu Dhabi, GBM Cancer, race, russell, triathlon

Dan “Ever since I took part in my first triathlon back 2010 at Blenheim, it had never crossed  my mind that I wouldn’t complete the race even in the most darkest of times during the run. That was until November last year.

It was the first ever half Ironman distance in Dubai and Dad had flown over to race even though deep down we both new he would never complete it. This was solely due to the fact he had about 6 degrees of movement in his hip before the involuntary electric shock manuovere was activated. If you spent any time with him towards the end of last year you will know what I am talking about. It’s funny now but at the time it definitely wasn’t.

With that taking up most of the conversation prior to the race, never did I once think that I could also be in danger of not completing it. To be honest, I wasn’t confident in having a great day as I hadn’t put in enough hours, but having raced in Mallorca earlier this year and leaving a bit disappointed, I was determined to leave everything I had out there and try and nick a result.

IMG_5550My wave started and we began the swim but around the 1k mark I was beginning to feel very sick. I am not sure whether it was nerves, the sea water or the jel I had just taken before the race, but it wasn’t enjoyable and cost me a bit of time without a doubt. I exited the swim around the 36min mark and relatively happy all things considered.

I really enjoyed the bike course as it was on a road I use when driving all the time. Up and back down Hessa street 3 times with a tail wind going up and a headwind back, I had a lot of fun. The only issue was that I felt the need to consume 6 – 7 gels over the 2 hours and 47 mins I was on the bike. There are millions of different articles and pieces of advice you can find on the internet about best practice and rule of thumb when it comes to nutrition, but I can tell you right now, that is way too much.

Completely oblivious of what I had done, I entered T2 in a pretty strong position with my only worry being that I may of gone too hard on the bike and if my legs would hold up for the 21kms ahead of me. “you’ll be fine’ I said to myself. “Just go off steady and build in to a rhythm – you’re way ahead of schedule”

FullSizeRenderSo off I went running at around 5.10min k pace which is slow but I was very happy to stay at for the first 5k. Its worth pointing out at this point that it was around 10.30am and the weather was around 32 degrees C. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that is bloody hot and not ideal when you’re about to embark on a half marathon. Even less ideal when you’re unaware of what is just around the corner.

The first couple of k of any run off the bike is tough while you get your legs used to the change in motion and your heart rate a steady pace. But by 3k I was still not feeling good, and by 4k I was feeling worse. Then my stomach started playing games and by the 5.25 turnaround point it had enough.

I spent the next 15.25 kms following a clockwork routine of Run, Puke, Walk, Run, Puke, Walk. To say it was rough would be a rather large understatement.

IMG_5558Even in the best conditions that is not something you want to go through, but when its beaming sunshine and every bit of energy you had stored is now plastered across the crescent of the Palm, it’s actually quite dangerous. I was unable to consume anything aside from water and even when I did that, I saw it again moments later. I still don’t know how I managed to get to the end but I stumbled across in 5hrs 43 mins and 46 seconds. 23 seconds slower than Mallorca earlier in the year and a 2:15:55 half marathon split! Ouch!

IMG_5561

It took me a good while to recover from the race and that gave me time to reflect on what happened. This sport is bloody tough and if you want to do it well there are no shortcuts at ANY level. Although the nutrition issues played a key role in my day, I was 100% guilty of showing a lack of respect to the distance and I said to myself the next day that will never happen again.

Its a bit of a cliché but how often do you hear people say that you learn more from disappointment than success? It’s thrown around all the time particularly with sport but in my case it couldn’t of been more true. I looked at what I was doing and what I wanted to achieve in the sport and decided that I needed a complete overhaul. I realised I wasn’t happy just being a middle of the pack athlete and needed to do something about it particularly with training structure and planning. My answer was simple. I needed a coach.

I found my guy and met him 2 days later. 3 days later I had my first assessment session and by the end of the week I had started my personalised training plan all structured towards my next race which was 4 months away – Challenge Dubai. We looked at my weaknesses and technique and worked out how I could get the most ‘bang for my buck’. Like most age groupers I have a pretty unpredictable job which means I have to be flexibile and plan my sessions in order to get the most out of them. Before I would just rock up to the gym with no plan or just head out on a 10k run at one pace not knowing if it was really helping me improve. Having a weekly plan allowed me to plan around my work and social life and gave me the confidence that what I was doing was working. This proved to be pivotal in my improvement as it relieved the mental stress I was putting on myself regarding training – one of the biggest issues age groupers come up against in this sport.

Aside from the Christmas period I pretty much trained everyday in one shape or form but averaged around 6 hours a week in the 4 months – almost half the average when I was training for Ironman. Obviously its worth noting that I was only training for a half so that would make sense but I knew deep down that this was the fittest i’d been for a long time and was only really lacking the endurance needed for a longer event which you can only get from hours and hours in a low heart rate state, or what’s otherwise know as f***ing mind numbing training!

Training Peaks

February came and I got my usual chest cold 3 weeks out from the race. This was another bonus of having a coach as he helped me understand that it wasn’t going to effect my fitness level enough to make a difference and that all the bulk of the work was already done. The stress I put myself through before Ironman France when I thought i’d lost all my fitness in the 2 weeks leading into the race was actually probably more detrimental to my performance than the illness that I caught. Stress is literally the number one evil and the more you can limit it the better you will become.

We put my plan together which included my nutrition and HR zones and I was ready to go which was something I had never done before, particularly with nutrition. I removed gels altogether from my plan and stick with solid food and high calorie chews.My relationship with jels has now come to an eternal end.

Feeling excited, I woke up on the morning of the race and the weather was like nothing id seen before in dubai. The wind was blowing at speeds up to 50kmph and the sea was like something you’d expect to see on the coast of Australia, not in Dubai. As such the swim course was moved inside the bay and became 2 loops. I was actually really relaxed for some odd reason, perhaps it was that I knew I had done the work and stress levels were low I don’t know. The pro’s went off first and were thrown around like rag dolls in the 3ft waves. I was still very relaxed.

The swim was as rough as it looked. So much so that I came out in over 40mins and way off my target time. While I was annoyed I knew there wasn’t anything I could do apart from bike hard and run harder. So that’s what I did.

By the time I had reached 45km split averaged around 39kmph. Granted there was a pretty big tail wind for about 30km of that but the other 15km was made up of horrific side wind that actually blew people off the bike. I knew that was fast as it was way beyond what I planned but I was well within my HR zones that I set out with my coach before the race. Happy days!

The way back wasn’t so enjoyable into huge headwinds but I managed to hold on and get to t2 with a 2:37 bike split and an average of 34.2kmph, whilst also nailing my nutrition. Buzzing!

It was at this point where I told myself to just stick to the plan on the run. Stay in my zones planned and if I have anything left at the end use it. And that’s exactly what I did. Looking back at my data my HR pretty much stayed between 3 beats of each other the whole way (155 – 158 between zone 3 &4). That might not mean much to you but to me and my coach that was amazing as it allowed me to stay just below threshold and at the same pace for the whole 21k. I had executed my plan perfectly and as a result ran my fastest ever half marathon off the bike (1:42:32) and was over the line in 5:06:34 (9th in AG).

IMG_5557As always, when you look back at a race, you ask yourself could I have done more here and what if I did that there, its inevitable and this was no different. But for me, this was my first real breakthrough race i’d had and it really showed me what I could acheive. In all honesty, I hadn’t really changed much in terms of hours trained or types of exercises over the 4 months, in fact, I probably did less and kept it simpler than before. The real difference was that I highlighted what was the real factor in the way of me improving and resolved it. I worked out I needed a structure to suit my life and eliminated the mental stress I was putting on myself. The result speaks for itself.

I’m now planning the rest of my year and working out what races to do. Last weekend I did a sprint where I managed to get 8th place (out of 71) which was really fun – 1 hour 20mins of full on pedal to the metal. Sadly though that was the last triathlon here until October but in truth there is a lot I need to work on before I race again later in the year.

The race in Dubai managed to raise another 90 quid for Headcase which was brilliant but we need CAN and MUST do more. We’ve all put so much into this over the last few years achieved great things. Now is the time to evaluate where we are going and and what we need to do in order to take this to the next level, we can’t stop!

The triathlon bar has been raised and new targets have been set. Let’s all analyse what we can do to raise the fundraising bar and make 2016 the year of breakthroughs.

25.204849 55.270783

Ok so you thought it was all quiet?

22 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by Editor in Uncategorized

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Tags

Brain, Cancer, GBM, GBM Cancer, hip, race, russell, triathlon, Tumour

We are still here and still working hard, and we hope the loyalty in following has not been lost. the new season is unfolding, operations, training changes and a new reset of race ambitions are in place, and the challenge to defy the obstacles of life and body.

So dear followers we would like to know you are out there and that the story is still to tell and the fight against GBM Brain Cancer is still going strong.

What’s it all about ???

21 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by Editor in Tony

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Tags

Brain, Cancer, Cycling, fundraising, GBM, headcase, Mallorca, russell, Speirs, triathlon

Here is our 200th Blog Post.

So here we sit just under eight weeks to go before we take on Mallorca. The training appears to be going well, but someone has to tell Peter that the event commences with a swim…….so a bit of water time is required…

The good news is that with Gift Aid we are now over the 40k mark which is just sensational…thanks to everyone who has helped achieve this, but you know what’s coming….we need to keep going.

It perhaps is worthwhile just reiterating what the money has been used for, the key fact that every penny contributed goes directly to the charity, not one penny is spent on anything else in terms of expenses or other costs.

So where has your money gone…..well we are helping to fund a two year patient trial which is being run as a joint effort between the University of Portsmouth and the University of Bergen in Norway/ This is using a drug that has been found to help increase the survival rate of the patient from the 14 months average to in some cases 10 years…what would Colin have done for that extra time…..seen Chelsea reach the quarter final of the Champions League the other night for starters !

begging_cat-img-647

AND THAT IS WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT……giving hope and finding the cure…..I have no doubt that we are on the way to that great day and having been a part in this is a great feeling, as I said before a promise to Colin was to keep finding ways of raising funds to help achieve this.

So having raided your banks and savings last year I want you to consider doing it again,

COULD YOU CONSIDER DONATING THE SAME AMOUNT YOU DONATED LAST YEAR AGAIN?

I appreciate we all get many request for this kind of thing but I am NOT going to stop and therefore would ask you to consider re-visiting our Just Giving site http://www.justgiving.com/tonyanddanironmanand donating whatever feels right, it would be hugely appreciated by all.

In addition any ideas of ways we can achieve extra donations will be gratefully received…THANKS for taking time to read this.

We thought we’d lost him…

07 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by Editor in Dan

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Tags

Cancer, GBM, ironman, Mallorca, russell, triathlon

Having had what was without a doubt the busiest January of my entire life, I can finally say the journey to Mallorca has begun. A combination of work and play (a balance that’s hard enough to grasp without throwing in training!) has meant that the majority of this years training has been high intensity, strength and core. While that’s not enough to reach my goals come May, I have felt that its kept me at a decent level of fitness to build from… maybe?

photo[3]

Today marked the first race of the year (last weekend was a write off) and the usual thought processes of ‘can I be bothered’ and ‘its bloody freezing and I don’t even have a wetsuit’ (don’t ask!) were flying around my head. If I had to pick one thing that I took away with me last June, id have to say a set of solid mental balls. Yes, the fundraising was huge and will always be the real achievement, but on a personal level, whenever I’m finding something tough, either personal or at work, I just remind myself of one thing…. “you’re a f***ing ironman”! So far that’s always managed to do the trick 🙂

Ok so back to the race. Once I pulled myself from my bed at 4.30am and overflowed my car with petrol half asleep whilst filling it up at the station (they don’t do it for you before 6am – how rude!), I made my way to the venue. All I could think of was how cold it was and not having a wetsuit was really playing on my mind. This feeling that was amplified when I was literally the only person apart from 2 kids in the junior race going skins! “if they can do it then I can surely?” was my immediate reaction followed closely by… F**K!photo

A quick 1km run to warm me up followed by 40 Burpees/40 Squats just before the race started meant I was nice and warm and prepared for the plunge.  Suddenly… Ooosh I was in, and all that drama for 2 and half hours prior to that moment suddenly became a waste of time. Yes it was cold but id somehow managed to forget I live in the middle east and cold here is close to a heatwave in the UK. Ironman my arse!

This was my first swim of 2014 and I was fairly happy with how I felt but know there is a lot of work to do. Technique and strength have gone since Nice so pool 

sessions are top priority now for sure. Out the water and on the bike I was excited to see how i’d do having done a lot of speed work since Xmas. This definitely showed as on a pretty windy day I still managed to average 34km which I was happy with. Off the bike and into the run I was as comfortable as I’ve ever been, hitting a decent pace and feeling really good from start to finish. I don’t know officially but I’m pretty sure it was a negative split 5k* which was another positive.

With an extra 4km added to the bike and an 800m swim I managed to clock a time of 1.20.04 which, considering the month I’ve just had, I was more than happy with. The race didn’t really tell me much I didn’t already know and now its about kicking on from here and building for the Olympic at Tri Yas on the 28th.

Its great to see the updates coming in from the rest of the squad (my favourite still by far is Tony: Sore ankle) and hopefully we can continue to build a picture of everyone’s journey to Mallorca. Its crazy to see how far we’ve come from a few loose emails and drunk conversations but that’s what its all about!

Have a good weekend and those of you that are training… train hard!

Cheers

Image

Strategy Planning

07 Friday Feb 2014

Tags

Cancer, GBM, headcase, ironman, russell, triathlon

SONY DSC

Posted by Editor | Filed under David's Posts, Editor's Posts, Peter's Posts, Tony

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Its all about balance

02 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by Editor in David's Posts

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Brownlee, Cancer, GBM, headcase, Mallorca, russell, triathlon

balance
So end of another week, this week needed a little more planning regarding the balance between, Family, work and training.

People think that Triathlons are made up of 3 disciplines, well it’s not true the reality is that its made up of the Swim, Bike, Run, Family, Work, Nutrition its all about finding the balance. Lets have another go this week.

Team Summary for dry January

31 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by Editor in Tony

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Tags

Brownlee, Cancer, GBM, headcase, russell, triathlon

So as we say goodbye to January we have just the three months and a little bit of tapering until the big day.

sports-redHowever things are well underway….the group seems to have split in two with the oldies putting in the km’s and the younger members of the team going for the high intensity approach. I have reviewed this approach and have decided that with two knackered knees and a shoulder if I attempted a high intensity approach to my training I would line up in May missing vital parts of my body as they would have dropped off and this would then make the event even tougher……

We have seen Peter get pissed off with British rail and start training twice a day, David is now cycling quicker than the British cycling team, Andy has begun to realise taking on the Russell’s is perhaps a little dangerous, and an apology was almost evident in his last message and Dan, well all I can say is his desk at work must have eaten him…..having secured a massive deal he is having to deliver it, well that’s is in between drinking with his mate Robbie who is visiting.

130222_Brownlee-brothers-choose-Huub

So with just six week to go before we take on the Brownlees in Abu Dhabi training will have to sharpen up…and some good news, while the team have been training, admin has been working hard as well and has arranged for Dan and I to meet both Alistair and Jonny before the race in AD…..should be good and who knows we might even get them involved.

The fund raising stuff also needs to begin and we are meeting this coming week to see how we can encourage you all to part with your money, so any ideas please let us know.

And finally it’s very important to know that all the money we raise goes to Headcase, and I mean ALL….in addition over 98.2p (£1.05 with giftaid) in the pound then finds it’s way to the research programme, Colin Spiers who set up and runs Headcase takes nothing from the money at all, that is a true charity…..isn’t it ?

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