Some of the athletes have been out taking on single discipline athletes, with both Graham & Dan mixing it up with runners.

Dan was out at the Fast & Flat Southbourne 10k on the 27th April when he headed not only the wheelchair athletes but recorded the fastest time of all the athletes taking part. Dan finished the 10k course in 31.49. Quite a bit outside his PB time so maybe the course wasn’t as fast & flat as advertised… Great to see a couple of Martin Cook’s wheelchair athletes on the start line.

Graham on the other hand was still playing with his own “brick” sessions as an early season assessment of his fitness:

On 27th April while dan was at the Fast & Flat 10k in Southbourne, Graham had a dilemma about whether to take part in

(1)  Lymington Tri; or

(2)  MTB race in Ringwood; or

(3)  Southbourne Fast & Flat 10k or

(4)  Fordingbridge Fire Station 10K

I plumped for Option No. 4 after a lot of head scratching & conversation with Nikki (Coach 2).  I decided to do a 2hr bike ride prior to the Fordingbridge 10K race.  The ride was very (very, very) wet with 4 really heavy downpours and I managed to incorporate in the ride a reccie of the run course.

I met Coach 2 half an hour before the start of the race.  She’d already collected my number so I had a quick change in the back of the car into dry clothes & headed off to the start of the race. 

This was a low-key race but well organised with about 130(ish) runners.  The first mile was out through a housing estate then out onto the back roads of Fordingbridge.  Not the quickest of starts but gradually I got into the swing of things.  Just after mile 2 there was a sharp left turn, only to be confronted by a 20mtr ankle deep puddle which we had to go through & this lead to a serious climb, but by now I was starting to enjoy things.  I went easy on the descent to protect my niggles.  The next 2 miles were on an undulating road which I know well & just felt I was running well & started to overtake people.  The final mile was a reasonable downhill stretch to the finish.

My splits are:

(1) 6:37

(2) 6:49

(3) 7:14 (the serious climb)

(4) 6:37

(5) 6:55

(6) 6:39

The last little bit 1:09

Total: 42:03

Position:  Coach 2 said I came in 17th.

Conclusion:  After a hilly & vey wet 2hr bike ride & a tough 10K, I went away happy, especially with the last 3 miles of running.

 

It can be seen that Graham is mixing and matching his training and on  Saturday 19th April he started off at 7am in the Ringwood Recreation Centre with a 3000mtr swim session, followed by a not so dynamic transition, here is the rest of his training day:  

I got onto the bike & did a 30 mile trip from Ringwood to Boscombe Pier via the New Forest where I met up with Coach 2, deposited my bike into the back of the car with another not so dynamic transition, & went down to the seafront for the start of the Rotary Quarter Marathon.  This is based on a run along the seafront, around the housing estate at Southbourne & then back to the finish via the Overcliff.

The race stated at 11am and the first 3 miles along the seafront was into a very strong headwind, so I just used the people around me to my advantage.  Around the housing estate it started to break up a little bit but once we got onto the top of the Overcliff, with the tailwind & a few evenly matched people around me, I started to feel like I could get down to some proper work & felt like I was running quite well (all things considering).  I took it easy down the final steep descent towards the finish as I didn’t want to do anything silly & finished the race feeling quite happy with myself.

Splits are:

(1) 7:08

(2) 7:00

(3) 6:54 [21:02]

(4) 6:50

(5) 6:50

(6) 7:02 [ 41:45]

(Last little bit) 3:34

Total time 45:19

Final conclusion:  Worked hard on all three disciplines & came away feeling happy with the result.  Roll on Austria.