Thursday, November 19, 2015

Pedalling the boards

Out of the three disciplines, cycling is my favourite – I just love to get out on my bike and escape the city to get into the countryside. My only issue is that I suffer from a lack of balance or perhaps confidence in my balance, so I can’t really signal very well or reach for food during a long ride. I don’t ever ride on the drops and my hands are always placed firmly over the brakes!
The only time I’ve ever ridden a fixed wheel was somewhere in Mexico which I didn’t really enjoy and was quite glad to get off the bike at the end. This was an extremely short trip up to the top of the river on a mountain bike with no brakes, only the fixed wheel to stop you.
So the prospect of getting onto a fixed bike with no brake, and having to ride on the drops was extremely daunting. It was only the thought of getting to cycle in the Lee Valley Velodrome (where Olympians have raced!), Thea signing up and several people telling me that if they could do it, so could I that made me change my mind. I guessed I could give it a go and see how I got on.
Having to get up at 5:30 on Sunday morning wasn’t brilliant, as we were due to do another event that morning – my first duathlon. So Sunday was a day of firsts, a duathlon (which I didn’t really enjoy, and I don’t think I’ll be taking up any time soon!) and then the track session in the evening.
Things didn’t start particularly well. I’d been watching a movie at home and thought I still had time to make some lunch for the next day before I left my house. I didn’t, and ended up leaving home a little later than I should have. By the time I got to the station I was starting to panic a little and decided to take the tube where I had to change as opposed to the direct tube, which wasn’t going to arrive for another 10 minutes. I had to change at Canning Town and reckoned that if I caught the Jubilee line I would be faster getting to Stratford. Unfortunately, at Canning Town, I ran down to get the Jubilee train and all I saw was “St” at the front. Jubilee trains going the other (wrong) way go to Stanmore, and I ended up at Canary Wharf before I realised my mistake. Finally I got on the right train and ended up in Stratford, with about 10 minutes to go and about a 15 minute walk to the Velodrome (why is it soo far away from the station?!?). This ended up being a run/fast walk through the dark and gloom (it had been foggy all day) which was a bit scary on my own. I made it, a couple of minutes late, but the lady still let me through. Everyone was still getting ready and getting their bikes from the hire area so it was OK in the end. The guy I hired the bike from even said my shoes were OK, even if I might need to change my thoroughly worn cleats sometime soon! 
I viewed my fixie bike with apprehension while Darren took us through the format of the evening and a few safety notes – we were going to start off with a couple of loops around the track, getting ourselves used to the bikes. We had to alert him if our cleats came out of the pedals at any point – spinning pedals and loose feet not being a good combination! We watched the other riders with a mixture of awe and disbelief – apparently this velodrome has the (if not one of the) steepest banking in the world!
We started off all in line hanging grimly onto the rail that separated the riding area from the central area. Darren was trying to explain to us how to start – get your arm as far ahead of you as possible and pull hard to “launch” yourself out onto the track. I was really unsure about this, and as it came to me I almost got off the bike and walked off without even trying it. But Darren said “come on, miss” and essentially pulled me off the wall and got my momentum going. I spent a couple of laps cycling around the inner loop, trying to get used to the bike, and going nowhere near anything that looked like banking or wood! By the time to come in, I was a bit worried about coming to a halt, but I found stopping a lot easier than starting all the way through, just grabbed the side at a slow pace and it was fine. My heart was going 60 to the dozen and I still really wasn’t sure.
We watched the more advanced riders again, and just as they were ramping up two riders fell on the steeper part of the slope. Everyone on the track was instructed to ride above the blue line until the fallers had been scooped up. There had been a bit of slowing down, and of course when you’re on a fixie you can’t slow down quickly, so you fall off. Luckily both riders were fine and got up and started off again.
We were off sooner than we might have liked, and this time it was time to brave the wood. Darren once again got me moving away from the wall and I took little bites off the flat to move onto the wood and then back onto the safety of the flat, only going onto the wood where it was at its “flattest”. I started to enjoy myself a little more and when Darren told us to go past him on the wood I made the effort to try. I made it past him the first time, when he was just a little off the flat, and got straight back onto the flat blue. The second time around, he was a bit higher up and I just completely missed him. The third time around, he was almost at the top and I just decided to go for it and go past him. What I didn’t realise was he’d positioned himself at a point where I would have to go right round the top of the steepest banking before I could come back down to the flat! I shot past him, and he was shouting at me to keep pedalling round… Suddenly I was on the steepest part of the banking right at the top! I kept pedalling as he told me and I finally made it round to the flatter bit, whereupon I immediately got off the wood and onto the flat. My heart was absolutely off the scale! I think that was the round where I ended up doing the “ride of shame” where if you don’t manage to slow down enough you have to do another loop before you stop. That was the only ride of shame for me.
Thea and I in the velodrome!
 By the third go, I was well and truly on the wood, although Darren was still helping me get started. I did get stuck behind one rider at one point and had to pull off onto the flat to stop myself from riding into the back of them! We were supposed to be doing an exercise where the front person goes higher and the rest of us ride underneath, but as I got closer to the front I wussed out and escaped back onto the flat to slow down again… On the fourth go, I managed to stay on the wood for the majority of the session, even getting enough bravery up to overtake someone (on the flatter bit of the wood, not the steep slope!) and tried my best to keep up with the rest of the line. Lots of riders went past me going “Stay!” – instructing me that they were coming past and not to weave, but it kind of made me feel like some kind of dog! I started to feel the wind coming at me and really got into riding round the track, trying to go faster and then, when we had to slow down, trying to slow my pedalling so that I could come to a smooth stop at the end. I never did manage to keep up with the faster riders but maybe next time when I haven’t been cycling in the morning!

I came off the track for the last time exhilarated and wanting more. I think I went home and signed up for the next session straight away! I never thought I would enjoy it that much and actually not be that bad at it either, although I know I have to at least try to start off myself next time. I spent the next day almost walking on a bed of air (even though it WAS Monday) and as I went past the bike shop I even stopped to look in the window hoping to see a track bike… 

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

New Forest Middle Distance - the top of the triangle

A few facts before I start:
- 5 years ago I was technically obese
- 4 years ago I started the "Couch to 5k challenge" to relearn how to run further than a few metres
- 3 years ago I did my first ever triathlon, the London Triathlon, where I did the Super Sprint that involved a 2.5 km run "because 5k was too far". It took me an hour.
- 2 years ago, after taking a few months off to get married, I did my first two Sprint distance races - Bewl was my first, and as anyone who's done Bewl will know, quite a challenging course. It took me two hours (Leybourne, later on in the year, and much less challenging, took around 1 hour 40).
- Last year I decided to up the distance to standard/Olympic. I decided I needed the help from a coach so I was coached for a couple of months before completing my first (Dartford, a great course) and second (London) standard distances, both within 3 hours.

So late last year I caved to what I describe as "triathlon peer pressure" and entered my first middle distance triathlon in New Forest. Oh, I thought, I've got a year to train, and everyone keeps telling me it's not that much more training than doing a standard. I even did a half marathon in preparation as I was worried I wouldn't be able to run that far.

My preparation went OK I guess - I tried to follow a plan of sorts, but half the time I kept missing running training or swimming due to being exhausted or simply just busy. I could have done more, but I didn't. The date got closer and closer and I did consider pulling out, but I'm just one of those people where once I've committed to something, I go ahead with it. I did manage a couple of 90k bike rides and rack up over 200k of cycling over a week a few times, but I never managed a complete continuous ride and certainly not one with a run straight after it.

The day arrived, freezing cold and dark. I'd kind of forgotten that it might be dark at 5 am as we wound our way from the B&B to Sandy Balls (a silly name for a lodge/campsite!) through the narrow country lanes. One of these lanes we encountered a very furry mammal running away from us. Stu was trying to encourage me to go past it as it had got out our way but I realised it was a badger! I'd never seen a real live badger ever so I watched it scamper away. I hoped that was a good omen for the rest of the day. We also saw a deer as well. I completely missed the turning for the car park and then managed to get myself stuck in very deep grass trying to park (thanks Stu for pushing me out!). As we were driving along my car put up a red warning snowflake on the dashboard - telling me it was 0 degrees outside. Pretty cold!

I dumped my running bag in transition 2 (two separate transitions), we got on the bus and made our way to the lake. The lake I had been to the day before, first to have a swim first thing in the morning to check it out, and second to rack my bike. I'd thought it would get dew over it during the night so I'd just racked the bike up and not left anything else, which was a good thing since there was loads of dew everywhere. I now knew why a couple of the competitors had racked their bikes up covered in plastic! The organisers decided that they would have a mass start so that nobody was waiting around in the cold to start. This was good because we didn't have to wait, but bad because there were over 200 people all waiting to be started off on the race! I got myself into a real tizz before the start and there was a tear or so and I was so glad for Stuart giving me some much needed support.

I'm really not a fan of mass starts, especially when there are people trying to kick you from all sides. The water actually felt warmer than outside, but it was still pretty cold for the first lap. I spent my first lap attempting not to get kicked or hit in the washing machine that was the mass start. It was cold but I tried to concentrate on getting to the next buoy, which never seemed to get any closer! I have a tendency for my mind to wander when I'm swimming and I started to think about writing this blog as well as going through the things I'd used up to get here: my wetsuit, one swimming cap, one pair of goggles, trainers, socks, hundreds of energy gels, Shot Bloks, Trek bars, peanut bars, at least a couple of swimming costumes, trisuit bottoms, cycling shoes, my sanity... The list goes on. I also thought of Paul, the poor bloke who lost his life at Leybourne, and although it might sound a bit odd I felt he wouldn't want me to give up and stop swimming.

Eventually I rounded the last corner and the last buoy finally came into view and I struck out to the shore. Out into the still-freezing morning and on to transition, trying with freezing hands to get my wetsuit on, my compression guards (aka leg warmers) and socks on over wet feet and my cycling top on. I got out of transition and I was onto the second leg. The cycling leg involved two and two thirds of a loop round the New Forest, navigating a long grinding hill to start with, then a long section that just went on forever, followed by another couple of straightish sections before we got to a mainish road which got us into Godshill and past Sandy Balls, the highlight of the loop as that's where the majority of the supporters were. After that was a bit of a nasty fiddly technical section involving some blind corners and lots of turnings. I managed to power through the first loop but after that it just ended up being a battle against the agony in my legs and hips. The third loop also brought a super lovely headwind which felt like I was going nowhere fast. I had to stop after the second loop to fill up with water which gave me a couple of minutes of respite from the agony. There were almost tears because of the pain. I was watching the clock all the time. My watch kept auto-pausing annoyingly through most of the ride, so I was hoping it wasn't too far behind my time. Part of me half hoped I didn't make the cut off time so I didn't have to do the run, the other part of me wanted to finish what I'd started. It was about the first time I'd been on my bike and actually able to feed myself without stopping, a real accomplishment for someone who doesn't have any balance! I'd learnt that if I break everything up into bits then I can just grab something from the 'bento box' and shove it into my mouth. I had a real mixture of Shot Bloks, cashew nuts and a Trek bar all broken up. I'd get salty Bloks but with the amount I was sweating it didn't matter.
By the last lap I was following a guy with Hope for Heroes kit on. He was suffering - I think more than I was - and had cramp. I mentioned to him when I passed we were getting close to the cut off point and he seemed to think he had lots of time left. I could see from my watch that we had about 10 km and half an hour to go - which is approximately the amount of time it takes for me to do 10 km when I'm commuting to work! I finally turned the last corner and made it back into Godshill.I was so glad to get off my bike but I couldn't run into T2. The marshal told me to take my time but I knew I didn't have much before the cut off. I zipped through T2, almost forgetting to take off my bike top in the process, grabbed some water and finally found a place to have a comfort break - I'd been completely unable to go for four hours! The BTF marshal told me I'd just made the cut off point (I reckon by a minute!) so off to the run I plodded. As I started the run a lady came past me who said "Can you believe we now have to do a half marathon?" I couldn't really but I had to try. I'd taken a small water belt with me that I struggled with for the first 5k or so until I got it and my number belt to agree and stop jostling round my waist. There were also the hills, Oh those hills! My poor legs were tired by this stage and I just struggled, so I walked uphill. One of the people coming the other way encouraged me to swing my arms and powerwalk it which did help. I tried my best to run on the flat bits and downhill, even if it wasn't much faster. I knew by this stage I must be last, even when I said this to one of the supporters who said there were masses of people behind me. At the turnaround point I knew this to be a lie; there was no one behind me. Figuratively speaking it was true due to the number of people who dropped out after the swim/bike, but in reality it just felt like a big fat lie. Ah well, I thought, someone has to come last. I was spurred on by the thought of the next aid station and as much water as they could offer me, as well as the fantastic marshals offering encouragement. By this stage it had gone from absolutely freezing to surprisingly hot and blindingly sunny. I was very glad for my little bottles of water and the aid stations, as I get very thirsty! I was expecting something exciting at the turnaround point, but instead it was just a table for the aid station and a cone in the middle of the road to mark where to turn! I caught up with the lady who'd overtaken me earlier, she was suffering with nausea. The medics also wanted to check I was ok, the only issue I had was exhaustion! I was so glad to be heading back. Even though there weren't runners coming in the other direction, we were still cheered on every now and then by other walkers and the marshals on the way. I did eventually pass two other runners and the girl in the blue top and I exchanged places several times, because she was a faster runner but kept stopping to walk. By the time I crested the last hill I was so glad to see the road again. We'd been running on gravel tracks most of the way, which didn't help. Half way down I spotted my husband who'd come to see where I was after getting worried about me. The strap to his folding chair had broken so he was having to lug it around under his arm. It was still another mile to the end so he then ended up clomping after me in a very distracting way as I was trying hard to finish this race! Trying to run with someone thumping right behind you, especially when once upon a time you had your handbag snatched by someone running up behind you, is a little freaky!
I was so glad to get into Godshill and finally Sandy Balls hoved into view for the final time. There was the end, the finish, and after nearly 8 hours of exercise, sweat and pain, I crossed the finish.
I did it. I can't quite believe it. And no, I'm not doing a full on ironman next year. I've decided to focus on the standard/sprint distances and see if I can get my 10k time to below an hour.

Monday, August 03, 2015

Ride 100 - it's behind you

Well after last year when I couldn't enter the Tritons team places due to not entering the original ballot, I was hopeful of a Ride 100 spot this year. I didn't get a spot in the ballot this year so I began organising the Tritons team. After some list building, endless patience waiting for confirmation and a bit of last minute stress, we were in!
So began the 'epic ride' training. For some reason I seemed to be the only 'intermediate' rider who actually knew any routes so those who were faster than me had to wait for me to give directions. This plus my inability to signal ended up in some interesting rides! We conquered Cudham, Toys, Ide and Star a few times!
Thea and I agreed that we would ride together, as we have a similar pace. So the morning arrived, a little chilly but sunny, and I met Thea in Greenwich after only managing three quarters of my porridge. We seemed to take a bit of a magical mystery tour to the start through the Blackwall tunnel and up and over a few East London pavements! We met up with Bern and Elaine in the holding pen and waited for the off. After an hour or so of shuffling round the Olympic Park it was finally our time to go to "We will rock you".
We wound our way through east London through what would normally be busy main roads and into town. The first few miles seemed to go really quickly, crossing the bridge three times before we were released into Richmond Park, my first experience of cycling there. As we went past Kingston we saw cyclists coming the other way on their way back. Some looked really tired! Further on we saw Thea's parents who'd made signs saying our names. I'd never had a sign made for me before so felt a bit emotional!
We made a pit stop in Pyrford. I overheard everyone saying the hills were next so we steeled ourselves. We shouldn't have worried. The only big problem was the number of people - on Leith Hill this became a real issue as someone just stopped in front of me, almost giving me a heart attack, and then the only place to cycle was a very narrow path on the right hand side, with some bloke behind me telling me to "keep pedalling!" I was trying to get through the crowd without any accidents! Box Hill was almost as bad with people everywhere and I think someone shouted "Slow down!" But there's only one speed I can pedal at, someone else encouraged me to "go for the gap"... I'd like to do those hills again when maybe the world and its wife aren't trying to do them at the same time. I did come a cropper myself one time further along when I didn't change down in time and got stuck in the wrong gear! I made a couple of drink errors along the way by topping my energy drink up first with tropical flavour and then with mojhito flavour - I really wanted something savoury by the end! We started to flag and everything hurt by about 80 miles but seeing the crowds on our way back in to town lifted our spirits. Going through Kingston again lifted our spirits and we made it up the hill back into Wimbledon. Then we knew it was flat back to the finish. The only problem with flat is there's no respite from pedalling and the last few miles just seemed to drag on and on with no end in sight! Finally we turned the corner into the Mall. That was completely awesome as everyone was banging on the boards cheering us in. The finish came and we'd done it! I couldn't quite believe it!

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

The cold really bothers me anyway

I have a problem with cold. See, when it gets cold, my hands go like this:
 This, I am told, is Raynaud's phenomenon. All I know is it's bloody painful and my fingers can stay like that for ages if I don't warm them up again properly. And, once the blood starts coming back to my fingers, it burns like hell. Like, a hell with chilli sauce and extra wasabi.
Since I am currently working at home (hooray, my old work sent me stuff to do for freelancing!) I get to spend my entire day in a very cold house. I've had to take to turning the heat up otherwise I find that at lunchtime I've got really cold. I've started having to have hot drinks instead of cold water just to try and warm myself up. Plus we have laminate floor so my feet are cold and I have to find myself a spare bit of rug or the table leg to lean my feet on!
The problem with exercise is it's supposed to warm you up. Unfortunately I've discovered that you have to be warm to start off with, otherwise it's infinitely more painful. As doing exercise involves changing into more sporty-appropriate clothing (read Lycra, and no, I'm not going to wear it round the house all day to make sure it's warm), I end up putting cold clothes on to an already cold person. This appears to create a chain cold reaction where I'm cold to start off with, then make myself colder by changing and, just to top it all off, go outside to do the exercise. The average temperature over the last few weeks has been close to freezing. So I start running with frozen hands. Eventually, they will warm up, but - did I mention the burning pain when the blood returns to my fingertips?
Cycling is almost worse. I can get away with more padding and fluffy clothes, so I can start off OK. However, I nearly came a cropper the other day by cycling up Cudham (it's a famous hill near here) whereupon it started to rain. This normally wouldn't be a problem, but the combination of cold and rain meant, when I stopped at the top and started to cycle back down again, I almost froze to death. See, cycling downhill meant I wasn't exercising as much and the cold air was going straight into my damp gloves. Bad times. I had to stop at the bottom of the hill and had a funny five minutes where I had to get any extra layers I might have (small pac-a-mac and bonus Buff) and find some food for myself to eat. It almost felt like the cold in my hands had spread into my core and I could feel its icy fingers round my stomach. It taught me a valuable lesson in keeping local, especially if I'm out on my own in the cold. Since then I haven't really ventured outdoors on my bike, apart from to show a friend the way into town.

So, how do I "fix" or solve this problem? I'm still not sure. I've bought some new shoe covers for my bike shoes (as well as new shoes, but that was a different problem of overuse!). I also wandered into an outdoor shop the other day (as you do when you have a random desire for Kendal Mint Cake...) and found some heat pads. I am going to try these out and see how I go. They even had ones that stick in your shoes. If they work, then I'm sorted. Perhaps I should find my hot water bottle for my feet when I'm working as well... now that's an idea!

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Looking forward... to what?

Most people start the new year with resolutions. Mine are less resolutions, more... I don't know... thoughts? Plans?

So, I've finally warmed up to take off the second jumper and the duvet (it gets pretty cold in this house, at which point all you want to do is hide under the duvet) to give you my thoughts for the year ahead.

Last year went pretty well until about half way through the year, we moved into our first owned house, I managed to do my first and second standard/Olympic distance triathlons, and unlike previous form (1 hour to finish the super sprint, 2 hours to finish a sprint) it didn't take me 4 hours, instead just less than 3.

Then things got messy. My work decided to completely change its structure and thus we were out on a limb unless we could get one of the "new" jobs. A couple of months later, I and a couple of my colleagues were out. Since then, I've been looking for new work (so, if you know if someone who needs a nice editor who has 7 years of expertise in the STM publishing industry, why not contact me?). I am bored out of my brain and what interviews I have had I find really difficult [Think of an experience where you've influenced a decision... How would you motivate someone (something tells me that bribe them with food is not the answer here!)]. Plus I've found all that experience of working in the STM industry hasn't really provided me with the experience that people are looking for... I've never had to manage anyone or had a journal of my own to look after (apart from when someone was on leave). So I'm frustrated and bored. The first part of my "plan" or hope for this year is to find a new position. At the moment I've just set myself up as freelance (Tallscientist Editorial) to keep my "eye" in while I try and find something new. So what does 2015 have in store for me? Who knows. I really don't like the fact that I can't see where I'm going. But then again, when I started 2014, I had no idea that I would be in this position.

On the exercise front, however, plans have most definitely been made and are in place for the busiest/craziest year yet. So far, I have a 120 km sportive, a half marathon, a training week, a "non-standard" triathlon and, to finish off my year, the big one - a half ironman in the New Forest. This is not including the sprint and standard triathlons that no doubt I will be entering at some point.

The sportive and training week both are likely to have some serious hills in them, so I started to ask about whether there was any way to modify my bike to make getting up there easier. Trying to haul 15 stone plus up a hill (either on a bicycle or running) is really hard work! Unsurprisingly, the answer seems to be train, train and train some more... so I'm already running up hills anyway, so I guess I am going to start adding more cycle hill work and really trying to push myself up. So if you see me doing reps of Greenwich Hill, up and down, up and down... you know why. I'm trying to improve my power to weight ratio. More power and, hopefully through training and a sensible diet, less weight.

Although I enjoy training during the day when there is actual light, I do long for the structure having a job brings, so I hope this new year brings new opportunities with it.

Edit - after I wrote this post I then spent the next couple of hours worrying about what I'm going to do. I can't help but get stressed about these things. I don't know what I'd do without the support of my husband, friends and family.

Monday, January 12, 2015

I need to start writing again

I keep reading all these running and triathlon books, and I get filled with the urge to exercise and write. So why aren't I writing? It's time I put down the Candy Crush Soda and took up the keyboard again. Plus I've just discovered Blogger has an app for that. Brilliant (although, not so much now, as I discover it doesn't work all that well. Grumph).
 So, let me take you back to late last year. It was a cold Sunday, the last before Christmas, and I'd signed up for the Greenwich 10k merely because there was a Christmas pudding medal and mince pies at the end. Many of my Triton friends had signed up for the same reason, so I wasn't alone in wondering exactly what I was doing. I'd never really done a 10k properly before, the standard distance triathlons I'd done earlier in the year fell a bit short at 9.3 k. I'd also done a 70k bike ride the day before (why not?) .
So there we were, freezing in our Santa hats (there were others in reindeer, snowman and even frog onesies!) being assaulted by Maria Carey telling us all she wanted for Christmas was you, hoping that we could start soon before we froze to the spot. Caroline was having her now usual moment of panicking that she'd be really slow. I did keep telling her I'd be behind her all the way but she didn't seem to believe me.
We finally lined up - a little nearer the start than I would have liked - and set off. I tried for the first few km to keep up with Caroline, and we even had a comedy sing along to Fairy tale of New York, but soon it became obvious that I was holding her back, and I started to think that she was wasting energy checking I was still behind her! Eventually she listened to me encouraging her to go on ahead and I ran on my own. It really helped that Greenwich Park is where we train during the summer so I knew most of the paths we ran along. Plus the big hill I ran up thinking, if I can do this on my bike with loaded panniers I can bloody do it on two legs! I'd also picked up the technique of swearing at the hill after a hill repeat session a week or so before. What I said to the hill in my mind would probably burn this blog and is completely unwriteable!
I couldn't believe that we would have to do another circuit of the hill after the first one and worse that members of my tri club were coming back down the hill when I was only coming up it! I came round the 5k mark just after 30 min so I reckoned I wasn't doing too badly for me. I'd managed to offload my hat and gloves after warming up over that lap! The second lap was hard. There were so many points I wanted to walk, but I managed to convince myself to just keep running, otherwise I'd be disappointed. I tried to cheer everyone I saw from the Tritons on. Even some others who looked like they were suffering up the hill.
Somehow I managed to keep running up that last hill, swearing all the way, promising I'd never complain about it again. I made it up and ran for the finish. There was a bit of a mad sprint off with another runner but I just didn't have anything left. I'd made it! I looked at my watch and had finished in 1 h 3 min. I was overjoyed, I was sure that was faster than anything before and a new PB for me.
The next hour or so was a bit of a blur for me - we found the medals and eventually some mince pies, said our thankyous to the great supporters who had cheered us on, and finally I could get on a bus like a creaky old lady and go home to my sofa.
Me after the race with my pudding medal! I'd managed to put my Santa hat on as well...
When I got home, not only did I discover I had done a PB, but I'd managed to beat my previous time (which I'd inadvertently set a couple of weeks before in training) by a whole 3 minutes!