End of Season

Nights come early, the weathers cold and winters here. It's the end of the triathlon season. At the end of the year I'll probably reflect on how it all went. But for now, here's a quick summary of how I think my first season in triathlon has gone.

Bluebell Duathlon Relay

Crossing the finish line

On Saturday my dad and I completed our first duathlon. It was a small charity event at the Bluebell Inn in Farnah Green, Derbyshire. Dad, despite being a keen cyclist, hasn't entered many competitions in the past, so I'm glad he agreed to do it. All his falls and metal hip/elbow has made him cautious of pushing himself too much in case he comes off again (as he should be). So Saturday morning and I'm up before 7 for the first time in a while getting ready for the 9am start. Dad being Dad decided to cycle to the event saying it'd be a good warm up. I passed on running there and got a lift off my step-sis Mel, cheers Mel.

Being a final year student is time consuming but here's 4 sport related things I've been doing this week

The last couple of weeks have been busy but pretty uneventful in triathlon terms. So I've tried to sieve out the boring stuff to update you on what I've been doing. If anyone has anything to say about my training leave some comments here. I'm hoping a bit of feedback from the blog might be able to jump-start my training.

Cheap Gear

Don't get excited this is not a blog about cheap drugs! It's just a quick blog to let you know about a site I've found on tinternet. It's called Sport Pursuit and you may see some budget buys pieces coming soon about stuff I've got from them. It's a site that finds sales and puts them in one place (it's on the website how it actually works). I'm putting this up now because there's some tri stuff on there some of you might be interested in. This includes a Pearl Izumi trisuit that I've just invested in for £39. There's also a slightly more selfish reason for advertising this site. Everytime a new person clicks my link to join up then buys something I get £5 to my account. So click on the link, join up and get buying some bargains... https://www.sportpursuit.com

Lessons Learnt The Hard Way

This time last Sunday I was sprinting over the finish line of the Chester marathon (I genuinely managed to sprint!). A week on I'm sat in bed contemplating a bike ride. To procrastinate a little first I thought I'd write a quick blog about some thing I think could have been changed to improve my run. So if you ever run a marathon try not to make these mistakes:

Post Marathon Thoughts

It was good, it was great, it was painful, it was horrible, it was exciting, it was boring, it was inspiring, it made me question myself about almost everything and it nearly made me cry. I did it. Somehow I managed to drag myself round the Chester Marathon in 4 hours 12 minutes and 52 seconds. It might not be under 4 hours as I hoped but I did it! I managed to muster up the willpower to keep running through the pain and can now call myself a marathon runner. I'm not going to give you a step by step account of the race (It took over 4 hours that'd just be boring!) but here's a little post match analysis.

Pre Marathon Thoughts

It's the evening before the Chester Marathon. The night before my last triathlon I was nervous that I wasn't prepared, so after only 3 weeks of training to get round a 26.2 mile run here's what I'm thinking ahead of the big day.

Marathon Moronity

With half a week to go till the Chester marathon I'm not feeling confident at all. Training hasn't gone well and I haven't stuck to my plan. I'm realising just how stupid it was to think 3 weeks would be long enough to train. 

A Grand Day Out

Between my laptop charger breaking and moving house I've not had chance to write a blog for a few days but here's my latest update on what I've been up to. On Thursday I went to Manchester with Alice to watch the National Track Cycling Championships. I've always enjoyed watching the track cycling on TV but I'd never even seen a velodrome before. Seeing as I'm back in Chester and Manchester isn't too far away, we made the most of free entry and went to watch some cycling.

Budget Buys - Speedo LZR Tri Comp Shorts

Does my bum look big in this?

My latest budget buys piece is a review of my brand spanking new Speedo LZR Tri comp shorts. 

It's not every day I go into a tri shop and pick out a bit of proper tri gear (in fact this was the first time) but I was desperate. I picked them up as a last minute panic buy the day before the Derby triathlon because I had nothing to swim in. Luckily it was my birthday recently and I had a little bit of birthday money left over. Seeing as I had to dish out on new swimming shorts anyway, I decided to upgrade my kit to tri shorts. A quick look online found end of season sales meaning the budget buy was on. But was the upgrade worth it?

An Upcoming Marathon, An Unlikely Time Machine and a Random Memory of Stingray

So with 19 days to go till the Chester Marathon I'm going to start training. It's only just dawning on me that I may have left it too late.

Budget Buys - Claud Butler Criterium

A review of my bike which will hopefully explain my new system of scoring budget buys.

My Latest Brain Wave

So I've used the few braincells in my head that seem to be working today and I've come up with an idea. So here goes...

Post Race Thoughts

Well... in the end all the stressing was unecessary. I went out and bought some tri shorts (more on this to come), my knee didn't hurt when I woke up and all went smoothly. In the end I swam, cycled and ran round the Derby triathlon in 1:16:39, not the fastest time but a good 8:37 quicker than last time, therefore my new PB.

This triathlon lark is easy... erm

Pre Race Thoughts

It's the day before the Derby triathlon and all is not going to plan. For starters I've left my swimming trunks in Southport and have no way of getting them before the race.

The View From The Afternoon

I've just been out on a run and it was made much easier by these sights. Running by a beach at sunset completely distracted me from how difficult the run was. So a quip tip on how to make training easier for free... find a nice route and get lost in the scenery.

Scenery to make a run fly by

The sunset over Southport beach

P.S. I was struggling to think of a title so I shamelessly stole one from one of my favourite bands. Well done to anyone that guesses who the band is.

My Mechanic: Part Man Part Bike

My Dad out on one of our rides

I've read a lot of cliche stories about everyone from pro athletes to everyday guys that say they couldn't achieve what they have without the support of friends and family. I suppose thats true. When it comes to tinkering with bikes my knowledge is fairly limited. Luckily my dad can spend hours on end fixing any kind of problem. This is why he's become my mechanic. Whenever I'm home he finds something to fiddle with and improve on my bike that I wouldn't have the patience or know how to fix. He's been a keen cyclist for years and I was recently describing his multiple cycling injuries to my girlfriend and her brother which resulted in them describing him as part man part bike. Despite his crashes resulting in him having a partially metal elbow and hip he's still a better cyclist than me and always willing to go out on rides. The odd endurance ride has helped no end with my training and its always helpful to have someone who knows loads of local routes. My dad has possibly been the most helpful thing when it's come to money saving. While free bike repairs are pretty helpful the hand me downs are even more money saving. Recently he bought me gloves and a jersey for my birthday as well as giving me an old jersey, a pair of shorts, gloves and even a turbo trainer (the list goes on). These things have been really helpful for training and freebies are the grail for a budget triathlete like me. So I suppose really I'm just saying cheers Dad.

Cavendish, Constipation and Crashes

Not a bad way to spend a Monday, I went with my girlfriend and her brother to see stage 2 of the Tour of Britain. We couldn't get to the finish line due to logistical problems (i.e. not having a clue where we were going and a police man telling us we couldn't walk down the dual carriageway to the finish) but we got a decent view of the peloton flying by with 2km to go. Watching the pros fly past was pretty inspiring but it wasn't till I looked at the pictures afterwards that I realised just how funny the faces were. Half of the peloton pulled faces that looked somewhere between determination and constipation. After they passed us we found a way to the finish to look round as the crowds poured out. I tried to get into the background of Ned Boulting's interviews (it didn't work but I did see myself on the highlights at 2km to go), saw Wiggins signing autographs (sadly not for me) and tried to catch a bottle thrown by Cavendish (Yeah I didn't get that either). Alright, I know I was like a big kid but I was having fun and a got a freebie in the end anyway some driver chucked me a free hat! And the funniest part of the day? As we were leaving an expensive looking jag bumps into the back of another car. To a big cheer Dave Brailsford gets out the car and appologies to the driver infront ooooops not the usual kind of crash you see in cycling. O well don't worry mate, everything Dave Brailsford touches seems to turn to gold so your car will be winning the F1 soon. In the end it was a good day and great to see some of the heroes of cycling in the flesh. Who knows, maybe one day it'll be these guys turning out to see me race!

Wiggins and Cavendish in the peloton

Cavendish behind the race leader

Me and Alice at the finish line

Thanks to Thomas McCoy for the pictures.

Birthday Presents

The other day I turned 21. For some reason unkown to me that seems to be a big deal. While I don't particulalry feel any different it did mean I got some good presents. I used the opportunity to ask for a few bits of tri gear I couldn't afford to splash out on myself. For example I've stepped up from my battered old pair of nike running shows to a sparkling cushion like pair of asics. I've never owned much cycling gear other than a bike and helmet but now I've got some gloves and a jersey. I also got a book about running that I'm hoping will help motivate me through my marathon... my marathon which yesterday was a month away. I'm running regularly but only a few miles at a time. O well. On a brighter note I now have a bit of birthday money that I'm thinking of spending on a budget buy, I'll let you know what I get.

Motivation

Since starting this blog I've started training more. That was one of the main reasons for starting it and it's worked, so I'm happy. I've been looking a loads of stuff online and that's motivated me too. Also I've started logging all my workouts and what I've eaten on map my run and it's been encouraging and also enlightening about the food I eat. If anyone else is on map my run and wants to add me it's ebrindley1 I've only got 1 friend so far :(. But one of the biggest motivations has been from that 1 friend, my girlfriend. Because it's summer which means it's hard for me to train consistently. This is because I've been spending my time between Derby (home), Chester (uni) and Southport (where my girlfriend, Alice, lives). All have their own benefits. My bikes in Derby so I can ride there, but not at the other two. The pool at uni in Chester is free and right by my house, in Derby or Southport I have to pay and travel. Until now in Southport I had no idea where to run or swim. Now that's changed. 

Alice's mum, Sheila, is trying to lose some weight before an operation so she's been swimming with a friend of hers every other day. While I'm in Southport me and my girlfriend have been tagging along. For me that means swim training every other day, so looking good thanks Sheila. Even better than that Alice has started running. Since we started going out she's come swimming with me but always said she'd never go running with me. Happily that's changed and now we're doing a gentle couple of miles every evening. This makes for a nice easy run for me and I love that we now have a hobby in common. One final great thing for me about training in a new place is that, being from Derby, normally the seaside is hours away. But now I can get up in the morning and go for a nice long run across the beach just staring out at the sea. That sight, along with the latest improvements generally, is all the motivation I need and now I'm determined to smash my time in my next triathlon and, somehow, complete my marathon!

The World Wide Web

My latest top tip is make the most of the internet. Much to the annoyance of my girlfriend I regulalry spend my free time scouring the internet for useful sites. Some sites offer useful tools to help with training. For example I often use mapmyrun.com or mapmyride.com to work out the distances of my training runs and rides so that I can make the distances specific to my event and the type of training I'm looking for. Even googlemaps can be helpful to plan out a new route when your bored of the same old training rides.

I also like to enter competitions online, cause there's nothing like winning free stuff! Sadly I haven't won any competitions yet but sites like 220triathlon.com regularly have giveaways that are free to enter and sometimes the prizes are more than half decent. The great thing about the web is that there's hundreds if not thousands more sites out there just as good as these if not better. Here's where you can help. I've just added a new page to my blog called links. I've put a few sites up already but would love to know what sites people out there use and why they're so helpful. Whether it's useful for training, has competitions, interesting tri reading or your own blog full of motivating stories and top tips I wanna see it. So leave me a comment with a link to the site and I'll add all the best ones to my page.

Entry Prices

There's one thing holding me back from entering triathlons left, right and centre, the amount it costs to enter. Well that and not having a car means local races only! The fee for my first sprint triathlon was £39, that might not seem a lot to some of you but for me that's 3 weeks food. This means that for me even entering 1 a month would be way too expensive and the bigger the race the more expensive it gets. While that seems obvious to me I nearly dropped my laptop the first time I saw the entry fee to some of the Iron distance races. Is it bad that I thought it'd take me longer to save up for than to train for?

But I think with entry fees the organisers are limiting themselves. Most people inviolved in triathlon seem to be a lot richer than me, middle aged with nice cars and even nicer bikes. But most people that participate in sport in this country are younger and often still in education. So why is there no student entry fees? Or cheaper entry fees for younger people? after all get them hooked now and when they're 30 and working full time they'll have the money to keep paying the high entry fees. I really think that offering reduced entry fees for certain populations could really increase participation in triathlon which, hopefully, would then reduce the fees for everyone. To find out if any of you agree I've added a poll to the sidebar of my blog, lets see how many of you think that entry is too expensive...

Budget Buys - Can't Swim Ride Run

With my extremely limited funds I've not purchased any expensive tri equipment except my bike. I have bought a few things I've found for quite cheap though. One of those things was Andy Holgate's book, Can't Swim Ride Run. I found it in a sale for a few quid and thought why not? It turned out to be a brilliant purchase. It's an autobiographical story of how an overweight, middle-aged man finds triathlon and becomes an ironman. I really enjoyed the book and it helped motivate me to train. All the way through I found myself thinking well if he can do it, I can! I'd definitley recommend it and here's a link to amazon for anyone that's interested...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cant-Swim-Ride-Run-Triathlon/dp/1848187432/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345654485&sr=8-1

Rating: 4/5

Cost: £9

ETS: N/A

Value: N/A





I'm sure I got it for less but that's the current amazon price and, whilst it might not have directly saved me time in a race, it motivated me to get out there and start training.

My first taste of triathlon

I thought I'd right a report on my experience of my first triathlon to let you know about more about me...

Foremark Hall Triathlon 8/7/12

400m swim, 20km bike and 5km run

Arrival

I had no idea what to expect in my first taste of triathlon or what sort of time I'd finish in. On my way there I felt very nervous not only because I had no idea what to expect but also because of the obscene amount I'd eaten at Pizza Hut the night before and the subsequent pain in my stomach. I was worried about being late as my mum was driving me down and she has literally never been on time for anything in her life. As expected, we were late. This meant that I missed the race briefing before my start time which made me worry even more. Luckily registration was easy to find, registering was simple and so was racking my bike and finding the pool. I got ready and listened to the pool briefing which was nice and simple and they repeated it to make sure we knew what was going on. All good so far.

The Race

My wave consisted of me and four middle-aged women. Instead of feeling confident I'd beat them I was worried as I thought the swim would be my worst leg. Happily, I absolutley smashed the swim and got out almost confused about how I'd gone so quickly, I even started to doubt my ability to count to 16 but everything about the swim felt faster than normal. Transition wasn't quite as fast. I'd done nothing towards training for the so called 4th discipline of triathlon and both transitions took me ages! The bike leg started off badly as after about 2 minutes last nights Pizza Hut popped back up to say hello. This also resulted in everyone that I' beaten out of the pool passing me. I rolled round the bike leg slowly and got in for the run. This meant my legs still felt fine going into the run and I ran pretty consistantly all the way round going passed many people I'd noticed passing me on the bike. Sadly my stomach wouldn't let me push myself anymore on the last lap of the race and I crossed the line in 1:25:16.

My thoughts

I was really unhappy with my time as I knew I could of done a lot better. I was really pleased with the swim but the bike was awful and the run could of been improved. Also sitting down in transition was probably an indication I wasn't gonna get through T1 and 2 quickly. I might not have much to compare it to but I thought the race was really well organised. It was easy to find everything I needed and all corners of the bike and even some of the run leg had officials to help you find your way and everyone was encouraging. It was a great day, just a shame I came 146th! I've always wanted to be the winner when it comes to sport so next time I'm going to come back much quicker and have a crack at the age group winning time. It was also nice to make the most of the free post-race massage. It was at that point I found out that half the crowd seemed to be focusing on our new puppy rather than the race but o well.

For anyone that cares here's my splits so you can see just how bad my bike leg and transitions were.

Pos	#	Name		Cat	Club	Gun Time
146	116	Ed Brindley	M	20-24		01:25:16

Splits

	Athlete			RACE MIN	RACE AVG	RACE MAX
Swim	00:07:09			00:05:02	00:09:33	00:28:17
T1	00:02:47			00:00:33	00:01:47	00:05:09
Cycle	00:49:27			00:32:29	00:46:22	01:20:25
T2	00:01:21			00:00:54	00:01:37	00:03:29
Run	00:24:30			00:16:30	00:27:42	10:10:42

First ever post

This is my first post of my first blog so forgive me if its crap! I thought I'd start a blog to share my experiences of triathlon with anyone that'd listen and, more selfishly, to try and help keep myself motivated to train regularly. Currently it's 1pm and I'm still sat in bed, I've cycled a lot lately but haven't ran or swam for nearly a month and I'm doing a sprint triathlon in 25 days. O and I've got a marathon in 46 days... not a lot of time to train so why am I still in bed? 

The aim of this blog is to let you all know how I'm getting on and how a student with less than no money survives in the world of triathlon with all it's expensive "time saving" gizmos. Can a moderatley fit but pretty lazy student improve and post respectable times on the tightest budget possible?