Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category

Last weekend, the Super League Triathlon final took place in Singapore. Katie Zerefes continued her domination of the women’s event while Vincent Luis managed to hang on to his lead, despite picking up a puncture. Jonny Brownlee was the highest placed Brit in third.

It’s a weird system. Vincent Luis won the overall championship because he came first in the final race, but also because the guy in 6th outran the guy in 7th or something like that. Even the commentators didn’t seem to know what was going on. They need to simplify that.

I don’t like it as much as World Series, as sometimes it feels a bit gimmicky, and the racing is over pretty quickly. But it is a fun addition to the triathlon schedule.

Super Bowl III saw the New England Patriots face off against the Los Angeles Rams.

Picking a side was difficult. I don’t like the way US sports teams sometimes just move and leave their fans behind. So, cheering on the Patriots to beat the St Louis Rams seemed the obvious choice. However, a few days before, Patriots owner Robert Kraft came out and said Trump was doing a wonderful job and Rupert Murdoch was the best human being alive. Not sure how to respond to that.

As it was, we were treated to quite possibly the dullest Super Bowl ever. The game finished 13-3 to the Patriots. There was only one touchdown for the entire game. I mean Super Bowl XLVIII was massively one-sided but this was the lowest scoring Super Bowl in history.

Still, every Super Bowl is a chance to party, and party we did. In many ways, it is nice that the sport did not get in the way of conversation.

Earlier this week, I did Leeds Bike Mill‘s introduction to bike maintenance course. It’a four-hour evening session to teach you the basics. Leeds Bike Mill is based in the same building as the Peddler’s Arms, a drop-in bike workshop that is community run.

It met my expectations: it wasn’t as clean and polished as the Evan’s Fix It course, but it was far more hands on. That is far more valuable than watching someone else do it. So, even though four hours seems a long time to change a tyre, do an M check and fiddle around with the brakes, it’s sort of understandable where that time went.

We also covered gears, which both Evan’s and Woodrup didn’t really do, so it was nice to take a look at that because gears are always my biggest problem on the bike. Unfortunately, I didn’t get time to do any adjustments in the workshop itself and on the way home my chain fell off. Still, a chance to ride my old bike has eliminated any buyers remorse about the one I am riding now.

All in all, I would recommend if you want to cover the basics of bike maintenance.

Last month, I attended the Evans Fix It course on bike maintenance.

It was supposed to be an hour’s course and cost £15. As it was, we ended up getting an hour and a half of tuition for our money. It covers the basics: parts of the bike, the M-check, changing a tyre, cleaning and a little bit on adjusting gears.

There were only two of us on the course, so it extra friendly, and we were able to look at specific setups for our bikes. We call ran disc brakes, for example, so could skip over the rim brakes content pretty quickly.

Plus, we got to see the secret downstairs area, and you come away with a goodie bag containing cleaning products, a multitool, tyre levers and a patch kit. All in all, therefore it was great value: 90 minutes of learning, plus a load of useful stuff that I needed anyway.

The only drawback was that it was a demonstration, rather than a hands-on exercise. I was a guinea pig for a course at Woodrup the week before, and in that we got hands-on, changing the inner tube on a tyre. There is no replacement for actually doing it.

I would still recommend the Evans course, though, because it is still a bargain. Ideally, do both. I’m not naturally mechanical, so I’m looking for all of the learning opportunities I can get.

In this video, I’ll review the Lifeline TT-02 fluid turbo trainer. It’s an indoor bike trainer sold by Wiggle. It’s an entry-level model that is perfect if you want to try out indoor cycling without spending a huge amount of money.

Setup is simple, and I’ll show you in the video. Pop the legs out, lock the bike in place and pop the riser block under the front wheel. You’ll need to replace your quick release skewer with the one supplied. If you have a thru-axle bike, see my review of the Kinetic Traxle.

With it being a fluid trainer, there are no controls to fiddle around with. The resistance gets exponentially harder as you pedal faster.

As it’s not a smart trainer, it’s not compatible with Zwift or TrainerRoad out-of-the-box: you’ll need a power meter or speed sensor on your bike to make it work.

You can listen to the noise levels on the video as I ride at 100, 200, 400 and 700 Watts.

It’s been a great year for my personal fitness. I’ve always considered myself reasonably fit anyway, but this year I made an extra effort to take it to the next level. I had three goals at the start of the year:

• Run a sub-2-hour half marathon
• Complete a standard distance triathlon
• Run a marathon

I could have knocked one of the goals off within the first week of January as I was registered for the Sir Titus Trot half marathon. Unfortunately, I picked up a nagging injury in November that didn’t disappear, so I had to do the sensible thing and sit it out.

No worries, as in March I ran a 1:52:24 at the Leeds Liverpool Canal Canter. I also accidentally ran a much faster 1:45:25 in training in October.

Next on the list was a triathlon. I knocked my first race off in April with Skipton, but that was only a sprint. My first standard distance was Wetherby, closely followed by World Series Leeds.

Finally, the marathon. I completed my first marathon-length run in September, and still can’t really work out whether that counts or not. But, in any case, I completed the Yorkshire Marathon three weeks later. Sub-4 hours you say? Why yes, yes I did.

So, all three goals knocked off. But wait, there’s more…

I originally told myself I would stick to those and look at longer events, like a middle distance triathlon and ultra-marathon in 2019. But, having the flexibly to train while I completed my MSc proved too alluring.

In September, I completed my first middle distance (half Ironman) triathlon when I raced Sundowner, finishing comfortably within seven hours, and well before the eight-hour cut-off.

And, two weeks after the Yorkshire Marathon, I completed the Hubble Bubble ultramarathon. Mostly because the idea of going through another marathon training programme did not seem too appealing when I could piggyback of the training I was already doing for the Yorkshire Marathon.

What will 2019 bring?

Probably some more middle distance triathlon. But I’m waiting for the club calendar to come out before I decide. I’ve already signed up for Leeds and Skipton. And my 10km PB is currently the run segment at Wetherby Triathlon so it would be nice to move the chains on that. But, at the moment, I’m enjoying some time off.

My first ever sportive was the Festive Fifty on New Year’s Eve last year. So, it was fitting to close out 2018 by taking part in the Festive Fifty this year to raise money for Children’s Heart Surgery Fund at the Leeds General Infirmary.

It was great to be riding with Bogdan again, as we haven’t had a spin since August. It felt easier than last year. Last year there was a hill. This year, I wouldn’t even call it a hill. It was over before I realised it. The long road back home was once again a massive headwind but didn’t feel quite as long, either.

Doing the 50-mile route was certainly an option this year, but I haven’t dialled in my position on the Bianchi just yet, and with Venla being rather unwell at the moment, I wanted to get back to her as soon as possible. So, I settled for the 50km route, which was nice as it meant my toes stayed warm the whole way around.

Yesterday, Temple Newsam held their 300th Parkrun. With it being a big round number, I decided to head across to test my legs.

It’s been a year since I’ve run Temple Newsam. The last one I did, which was my course PB, was part of the New Year’s Day double at the start of 2018 before I had started my triathlon training in earnest. So, the 27:12 I set there was inevitably going to fall.

In the end, I ran:

23:17

Really happy with that. I’ve only gone sub-23 twice at Woodhouse Moor, so once you factor in the hills of Temple Newsam, that feels like an excellent result. I knew I wasn’t running quite as fast as when I was marathon training, but I’m not far off.

It wasn’t much bigger than usual: 199 runners in total. They did have a photographer there, though, so at the start, I sprinted up the front to be in the photo. And, as you can see below, I made it! (Light blue Go Tri t-shirt on the far left, in case you can’t spot me). Thanks to ‎Phil Bland‎ for taking the photos!

Last Saturday, I headed down to Potternewton Park to try the new Parkrun there. Parkrun like to soft launch their events to work out any bugs, so many of us had avoided event #1. But, now that that was out of the way, 199 of us headed down to give it a go.

Leeds now has a total of nine Parkruns: Woodhouse Moor, Cross Flatts, Middleton Woods, Temple Newsam, Roundhay, Bramley, Armley and Rothwell being the others.

Potternewton Park is hilly. It doesn’t have the endless drag of Temple Newsam, or maybe even Roundhay, but it goes up and down quite a bit. It’s three laps, mostly on tarmac with a bit on some matting. You could get a buggy around the course if you fancied hills but dogs are currently not allowed.

My time was okay. I ran:

23:46

Ten seconds slower than I did at Middleton Woods last week, and a minute and a half off my PB, but you can’t compare the flats of Woodhouse Moor to a hilly course and I ran most of the last lap with Graeme, and it’s very difficult to chat and get enough air in at the same time (worth the trade, though).

Earlier this month, myself, my dad and my sister ran the 33rd annual Abbey Dash.

It’s a 10km road race from Leeds to Kirkstall Abbey and back to raise money for Age UK. I first ran the Abbey Dash in 2014. However, I first attended the Abbey Dash in around 1987 when I watched my dad run one of the first few dashes from the comfort of my buggy.

We decided to run as a group. After all, there are plenty of 10ks, but rarely a chance to run together. And as it was only a week after the Hubble Hubble ultramaraton and my foot was still pretty beat-up.

In the end, we made it home in:

59:24

Comfortably within the hour, so happy days. Well done one and all! After the race, I headed to Headrow House for some drinks with Hyde Park Harriers before moving on to The Midnight Bell for Sunday lunch. Despite some very dubious Yorkshire puddings, the food was good.