A Triathlon Diet and Tracking Weight Loss vs Run Speed

I competed in the White Oak Tri back in June and was more than a little miffed to discover that I hadn't really improved my times since last year's race, while my run was actually slower.

I had a good hard think, and decided that it was finally time to start shifting a few pounds. I lined up at White Oak, about two stonea (28lbs) lighter than my heaviest ever weight (in my late 20s), but still some three stones (42lbs) above the twelve and a half stone that I'd guess would be my ideal triathlon weight. I've tended to use the biking and running I do as an excuse to eat and drink whatever I felt like, rather than taking the more sensible approach of using my diet to improve my performance. Time for a change, right?

So since early June, I've been cutting the booze, the fatty food, and the calories, and upping the protein (lots of cottage cheese, beans, and Quorn), the healthy carbs, and the training miles.

From doing a little research on the internet (e.g. here) I've discover that for every pound of weight lost, I should be able to expect about a two second improvement over the course of a 5km run. As I usually track my runs with Strava, and have been tracking my weight with DailyBurn, I thought it might be interesting to track how my run speed improves as I shed a few pounds, and find out whether this gain is realistic or not.

So here, courtesy of my wife, is my tracking for the first month of my triathlon diet.

Weight Loss vs Run Speed: Month 1

Weight in pounds is on the left, average run speed for the different runs I've done are on the right. Dates are along the bottom.

My run times are up and down of course, as run routes, distances, and running effort have varied, but the graph suggests a steady downward trend: if anything, the two seconds per pound over 5km might turn out to be a little conservative, though I suppose it's hard to tell after just four weeks and ten runs. Subjectively, I feel like my running is improving as I get lighter. Instead of making progress on the bike (my strongest discipline), and then just watching people go past me on the run, I'm starting to more or less hold my own, overtaking roughly as many people as I'm overtaken by.

Stay tuned, as I keep tracking my progress over the next couple of runs. Any comments more than welcome!

Annoying Things Car Drivers Do (no. 1,312,851 in an ongoing series)

Why do motorists insist on overtaking me on my bike only to immediately stop dead because they're turning? Happened to me last week: car overtakes me, seconds later starts tuning left into his driveway (so it's not as if it might have caught him by surprise!), causing me to slam on the brakes to avoid piling into the back of him.

Just bloody wait will you?!

Canterbury Sprint Tri

A pic of me at the end of a wet Canterbury Sprint Tri. Finished in 1:16 and a bit, which is not a bad result for me.

The Armstrong Lie on Channel 4

Channel 4 is showing the film The Armstrong Lie on Monday 7th July:

When [Lance Armstrong] announced his intention to return to the fray in 2009, after a four-year retirement, the prolific, Oscar-winning documentary-maker Alex Gibney jumped at the chance to  film the maligned Texan's attempt to win the Tour an eighth time.

Given unprecedented access to Armstrong and his team, Gibney's documentary The Road Back was about to be released when the truth about Armstrong's systematic drug-taking broke.

Gibney shelved the project for a couple of years, and then began to transform his film, via the addition of interviews with Armstrong's detractors and footage of the cyclist's own admissions of guilt, from an upbeat observational piece into something altogether more critical.

What emerged is an absorbing and fascinating study of a monumentally arrogant sportsman's determination to do whatever it took to win and his equal willingness to do or say whatever was necessary to cover up his less savoury actions.

Should be a must-watch.

Damp Squib

I was planning on kicking off this blog with a review/report on the Tunbridge Wells sprint triathlon, but unfortunately the race got turned into an aquathlon thanks to the rain, and I opted to defer my entry instead of taking part in an aquathlon. Forty quid is a bit pricey for a 10 minute splash in the pool, and the bike is my strongest discipline.

Best laid plans and all that...