Merry Christmas

Hard to believe where time goes. Over the past week, it was a mix of psychotic Christmas shopping, training and spending time with good friends who made the journey over to Oz to see us..Okay maybe the Great Barrier Reef's unbelievable diving might have helped, but good all the same to see them. Thanks Kat and David, it was great to have you as guests in our new house, our, 0.00000001% of Australia we now own.

Santa was good to our house with the kids getting spoiled rotten, as to be expected. I looked under the tree but it seems my aero helmet and race wheels I asked Santa for must have fallen out of his sleigh somewhere on his great journey around the world.

My time lately has definitely changed from the swim focus of late and into the bike. Over two weeks, I made it out for 14 and 10 hours respectively on the bike for just over 700kms. Would have been more, but last Sunday my alarm went off at the usual 4am and all I heard was rain...A quick text to one of the IMA group which read "raining good here. going back to bed" It was really nice to sleep in on a Sunday. I pulled myself out of bed around 7am, still raining, but lighter now. I grabbed my shoes and headed out the door for a run instead. I will run in the rain any day before riding in it.

I can honestly say my time in the saddle is starting to pay off as a ride of 2 hours now seems short. I may not have the speed of others out there, but I do feel my endurance is definately on the rise, which is an awesome feeling.

This current week has more of the same, no swimming but time in the saddle, about another 15 hours to be precise. A few libations to ring in the New Year and a recovery week to follow. After that, 12 weeks to Ironman HOLY SHIT! 12 weeks, is that like the 12 step program thing with AA? Maybe, for crazy people who want to push themselves to new levels.

All the best to all and may 2009 bring you everything you wish for.

Cheers
Richard

On the road again

Last week when I typed my blog, I didn't think the title would be taken so literally. The focus of the week was to keep building mileage on the bike which was done. How much you say? Well......I spent over 13 hours in the saddle and rode just under 400km. Throw in some runs and a couple of swims, it was a big week.

With the Christmas week now here, I do get a couple of breaks, Christmas morning I get off, and a self imposed extra break last night. I was feeling tired from a big weekend of riding and the Squad Christmas Olympics.

Olympics you say? This was a continuation of the swim carnival last month and was a load of fun. Again, it was the Aussie's, Kiwi's and the Rest of the World. The Olympics were held out at Redcliffe beach and included:

Swimming, Tug-o-War, Flags, Boogie board race, Ironman/Ironwoman race and beach sprint relay.

Well getting there early this time (learned enough from the swim carinval) I got to choose what I would do. Everyone had to do the Tug-o-War and beach sprint and everyone had to do at least one other event. For me it would include, Boogie board race out to the buoy and back and Flags. The boogie board race was fun, but choppy conditions made it that much more interesting...

Here I am going in.


Not too bad I think, and ended up coming out in the middle of the pack.

Flags..Now that was fun. There were 12 guys and 11 flags. You start chin on you hands and with your back to the flags. When starting, you need to run through the sand and grab one of the flags to continue. No holding allowed but you can put your shoulder into someone if you get ahead of them...Much like a good body check into the boards in hockey. The event goes until it's 2 against 1 flag. All in all I was very impressed on how I did and ended up making it further than the 4 Aussie team members, but not the Kiwi's. Here's some pics from flags.

The Starting position


Heading in for a flag


Success


Later on getting a flag after a group tackled each other


It was a ton of fun with the Kiwi's coming out on top, with ROTW right behind. Congrats Kiwi's.

Hard to believe the way this month has flown by and Christmas just a few days away. Merry Christmas to all and may your New Year be filled with solid training and great finishes....

Richard

Back in the saddle again

Wow!! Who knew moving, painting, reno's and work would get in the way...HA!

I started out the month continuing my mega swim routine, but it quickly came to a head, I couldn't burn the candle at both ends (and in a few other locations too) and keep my sanity. So....strength training it was. Okay you can call it painting and moving, but I challenge you to paint for 5 straight days and have fresh arms..That really hurt. Throw in lugging around more boxes than toes and fingers on a daily basis, and you have yourself one hell of a workout program.

All things considered, I think a few less KM's on the road/trails and water now are much better than closer IMA. I made it out for the Friday morning spin class last week and am keeping up with the program. A good run on Monday in new shoes to kick start the week. (Being the tech-ie I am, I purchased the new Zoot triathlon specific shoes and so far so good). Tuesday was a ride and swim. Swim....

All my program said was squad swim....I said nothing about a time trial! I was already there and changed, so into the pool I went. A good warm-up and a some drills, and off I went. For the first time in a TT, I went out strong and quickly got into a good rythum. Going out with 10 seconds between, I was the last of the 6 going. After 200m I had caught the person in front of me. In another 100m I had caught the next person. I was feeling good, going well and really felt strong for the whole TT. Now not to Aussie standards, but by Canadian standards, I think I did well. 800m in 15:10. The good parts, I feel stronger and more confident in the water, and I know I can go faster. The bad, I now need to transfer this "pool speed" to the open water. Easier said than done, but I know I can get there.

Good bike rides Wednesday 3 hours before work and an hour to get home. More to come this week.

That's about it, so I have to get going on work stuff (working from home today) as we have our benchtop and final kitchen things going in.

Cheers
Richard

Get in, Hold on, and shut up

As I sit here trying to think of a title, this one popped into my head...When you break it down into its three parts it really explains what I have to do.

Get in.....
No not into the car, but into the right frame of mind.

Hold on...
So much will be thrown at me I have to be ready to get ready for the wave of training.

Shut up....
I need to shut up and not listen to the excuses on my one shoulder and listen to the other and and get out there and and train. I also need to listen to my body and know when enough is enough and when to take a break.

Okay enough of the philosophy class and down to what I've been up to.

Just when it seems the month of November was starting, it's over now. Officially I was on program for the last two weeks and I was pleased with my efforts. The month started off with a focus on biking and finished with swimming. (I guess that's what I get for trying to guess what the coach would throw at me.)

For the month it looked something like this.

Biking 615km for just over 22:07 hours
Running 38km for 3:10 hours
Swimming 23.3km for 10:51 hours
Strength 6 hours

or about 42 hours / 10 hours per week. Not bad for getting back into the swing of things.

The good: I actually did 6 hours of strength and core which is one of the things I really need to do. Woo hoo to me! The other good thing was my swimming. Really if you look at my month, the swimming was mostly in the last two weeks so to do so much swimming, I'm pretty happy.

The bad: The weather which did not allow me to get out for some bike sessions. My running, now granted my program only had me running twice a week so I really shouldn't complain.

December, what do you have in store for me?

Kids parties, numerous Christmas libations, a move, a renovation, friends from home coming to visit...oh sorry wrong list... More swimming, Cycle training with a computrainer (technical geeky stuff which measures, wattage output, cadence, heart rate to try and figure out the best way to cycle). Who knows, maybe even a sprint tri for fun.

Tomorrow we pick up the keys for our house and I'll use that time to take my bike in for a tune up. Riding in the past few days it seems I have a creak in my crank. That and I think it's time to put a new chain on.

Cheers all
Richard

The water logged week

Wet and wild this past week has been. Now I know this sounds like it could be a good title for a movie, it really explains the past 7 days.

The weather...now that's a story in itself. 3 massive storms past through bringing with it heavy rains and strong winds. I think when all was tallied, the storms past through Brisbane dropping a massive 300mm+ of rain and winds that took down trees, created land slides and destroyed homes. Most of the damage was west of the downtown (CBD) and didn't hit us too bad, but some 100 houses were destroyed and thousands were damaged. To give you an idea of how bad it was, here is a picture I took while coming home from swimming on Thursday night.

Ironically this picture is actually of "Water Street". With this type of flooding, you can only imagine how bad the roads were for pot holes and debris so riding was postponed by me.

Did I mention is was wet this week? I was in the pool 5 times this week and man are my shoulders screaming! You know you are in the water a lot when you run out of bathing suits and towels. I did learn from this past week, but it's the start of something, so I'm trying to keep that mind set as I got through the weeks.

The week of strength training and swimming lead to what was one of the funnest weekends of triathlon activities I've had. Saturday morning was the start of it, with a squad swimming carnival.... Team Australia, Team New Zealand and Team Rest of the World. What a battle it was.

Each team of 10 put two swimmers in the water at once and points were awarded for each position, 6 for first place and 1 point for 6th place. There were a number of events in which each person must compete in at least 3 event with a maximum of 5. The kicker, all team members must compete in the two team relays. It's all a little hazy from all the water I tried to drink (more on that to follow) but I believe the events consisted of:

100m, freestyle
50m freestyle
100m butterfly
50m butterfly
100m backstroke
50m backstroke
100m breaststroke
50m breaststroke
400m freestyle
100m IM
50m water rescue
2 team realys

I showed up right on time at 6:15am but the games were already underway. Being late, I had to take what was left. 100m backstroke or 50m fly... 100m backstroke it was. 50m fly or 50m backstroke....50m backstroke it is.

I jumped into the pool and got ready for my 100m back. Off I went and was actually feeling good at the first turn. Back to the starting wall and doing okay. Started the third length and running out of gas. It also seemed each time I was putting my arm into the water, I would get a face full of water just as I tried to breath. Got to the wall at for the final turn and I my arms were screaming. Turned and heading for home, I did all I could to make it to the wall.. Where the heck were the flags (for you non swimmers out there, they have flags at the 5m to mark so you know where you are in the pool)!!! There they were, a few more strokes....made it..and I wasn't last, I had actually beat and Aussie swimmer....Now that's never going to happen again, a Canadian swimmer beating an Aussie... Who knew..

Here I am splashing around.


A bit of a break and I was back in the water for my 50m backstroke. Not pretty and my arms were dead off the first stroke but off I went anyways. I missjudged the wall for my turn and ended up having to stop and start which lost me some valuble time. Made the turn and back to the start wall....6th place. Throughout the carnival it seemed either the Aussies or the Kiwi's were in the lead, Team Rest of the World, well we were there but not leading..yet. What's that saying "to have a championship team you don't need a champion team member"? We liked this moto.

We even got to see some good belly flops, better than me.. Here we are caught looking at one..


Going into the relays we gave up our brief lead and were needing some good swims to keep in contention. The first relay started which was a medley relay. As there were 10 members per team, an extra free and extra fly were added, just to mix it up. Teams could go in any order, but you had to make sure you got all the legs in correctly. We determined it was best to go as per the standard medley and mix up the events finishing with a free, fly and a free. This seemed to work. We were off and early on we were in 2nd or 3rd place, but still in contention. I jumped up on the block and dove as hard as I could pushing and dolphin kicking until the 10m mark. Up I came and continued with the breaststroke, which was my leg (thank god, not another backstroke or fly). I think I held my own, or at least didn't put us too far behind and off we went with our final three swimmers. James got us to within striking distance when he touched the wall and John, powered his way into the water. How much power, you take a look at this...



John flew through the water and got us into the lead for the first time in the race...Ky entered the water for our final swimmer and continued on Johns lead and brought team ROTW to the wall first. We made it. Going into the final relay we had taken the lead back, but just slightly.

The last relay was the 50m free that all had to do. A win or second place gave us either the win or a tie breaker. Well, in similar fashion to the first relay, our three anchor swimmers brought us in at second place and it was close. Tie breaker time. 4 best swimmers had to do a medley. An obvious cheering squad member with that criteria, I did what I could to bring our swimmers in. We ended up beating the Kiwi's in the tie breaker which was awesome!


Now Sunday was supposed to be a technical riding session with a short ride there after. One of the squad members was also setting up an enticer triathlon at QUT, the local Uni. She put out a call again to some of the squad members to come out and enjoy a quick triathlon, so I went. I paid my $20 and racked my bike. Unfortunately they did not get near the numbers they wanted to, in fact, I was the only squad member who showed up. Actually I was the only one with a tri bike. Oh well, I was there for fun. I lined up and off we went in the pool. Swim was good and made it out alive. Heading for the bikes, I managed to pass one of the quicker swimmers. Hopped on my bike and get it hell. In fact I managed to ride at over a 40km/hr average. Coming back into transition I was the first one and man, that is such a weird feeling...no other bikes there, was I in the right spot? ya, my shoes were there. Racked my bike and headed out for the run. Off I went and pushed the throttle the whole way. Running into the finish line, I managed to hold the others off. I had won the race. Okay now for the small print...

This was actually a very small race, so small in fact there were only 15 people in it. But who cares I had won my first tri.. Wooo Hoo team me....

Now what? Do I end my triathlon career on a win and walk away? Nah! I have bigger fish to fry, namely me at IMA.

A bunch of time in the water is on the menu for next week, so let's see how I do. All good and a great way to finish the week...Having a blast and not caring about how fast, how many watts I was using, what my cadence was, etc. I think a few more of these are in my future. That and the Aussie's and Kiwi's will be looking to get revenge.

Cheers
Richard

BTS IMA-09 group revealed

The past week has been good for me, just missing out on a couple of workouts, mostly due to rain. I'm feeling better it seems each week in the pool and on the bike, but without a good start to IMA, I'll be suffering the whole way. Sooooo, with that, and the fact I'm back on program, my focus till the end of the month will be the water. Yup, this prairie boy will don a new calonge "Ode to Pool". Actually being on program again which I do enjoy in a morbid way, has me in the pool/water 5 times a week, working on both drills and technique. Before I introduce the BTS team, here's my monthly totals thus far:

Cycling: 381km for 13:50 hours
Strength: 4 hours (notice a trend here, I'm actually doing core/strength work this month)
Run: 27km for 2:10 hours
Swim: 9.7km for 4:05 hours

Running was down but not a big deal at this point.

Last night, my squad coach has all of us who have plans for IMA over for a BBQ and to go over what the next few months will be comprised of. As it stands right now we have:

1 lone Canadian (Me)
3 Kiwi's (Ewan, Nigel & Suz)
4 Aussie's (Jeff, Scott, Rusty & Tim)

It was really good to go over what to expect and ask questions of those who have completed an Ironman in the past. In fact of the group, three have completed an IM before and two of those have even been to Hawaii for the World Championships. Throw Mark into the mix and you have another person who has completed IM.

Different ideas were floated around, but what it looks like is this group of 8 will be training mostly together with the odd session with the main squad. Some of us are looking at taking one day off a week to get a second long day on the bikes, tackling lots of hills to build strength and to get ready for the hills on the IM course. While not as big as IMCanada, the hills at IMA are good enough to make you work hard. The easier one can make the hills are, the better one should be coming off the bike.

The other good thing about last night, is everyone was encouraged to bring their spouse & kids along so they had an idea of what the next 4 months, 17 days, XX hours will be like.

All good mate, all good... so if you excuse me I have to get things ready for all my pool sessions coming up this week....MMMMMM Chlorine.

Cheers
Richard

new month, new focus

With less than 5 months to go until IMA, and the buildup starting to weigh heavy on one's shoulders, I'm off to a good start in November. I want to make sure I train smart and do well at each of the sessions rather than just push through each of them.

So far this month it has looked like this:

Core/Strength: 2 hours.. yes I know scary isn't it
Running: 20km, 1:36
Swimming: 5.3km, 2:05
Cycling: 218km, 8 hours

A good start, but one needs to keep going at a smart pace to get through it all.

The other good thing I've found (so far) is my nutrition. I'm geared up with two watches as I go now (tech geek I know) but it's working. Every 15 minutes, my timer goes off and just like Pavlov's dog, I take a drink. In today's 3 hour ride, I finished up with the freshest legs I have had, which is a good sign. Next week my long ride will extend out by about another 45-60 minutes which will put me in the 110-120km range for the ride. If I feel good again at that distance then I'm going to have a good feeling for the longer rides due in December.

Food for thought....

The other night, as Colleen and I had a glass of wine we were talking about my training thus far in Australia. The one thing that came to the forefront was the number of races I've done. I've only competed in one sprint race (Raby bay in April) and the Gold Coast 70.3 in August. Hours of training now measured in the hundreds and two races to count for it..what the heck, time to change this. With that I'm going to enter a few of the sprint races here and have some fun which was one of the other things I wanted to incorporate into my training.

I guess this month is actually going in the right direction. Let's hope it continues this way.

Cheers
Richard

5 Months to go??

Five more months until IMA...Holy Shit!

I've got a plan together folks, it won't be pretty but it should get me there. November is cycle month. Not sure what to do? Cycle. How to get to training sessions? Cycle. This month the idea is getting ready for December when 150km rides on Saturday mornings will be the norm.

I thought about signing up for the Canberra 70.3 in mid December, but realized it would be a short term gain and right now I need to focus on the long term goal, so it's a no go this year. Besides it's the nations capital and from what I've heard, extremely boring. I will instead focus on some short course races and will try and find an olympic distance race somewhere, maybe Adelaide?

This past week was a bit of a crazy one, trying to get things together for purchasing a new home, which cut into a lot of training time. I did manage to get out for a few bike rides and a handful of runs though. No swimming, but I will be out with the squad on a full time basis this coming week. Each time I went out, I could feel myself getting more and more comfortable with training, which was a different sensation. I didn't realize how quickly one can lose their fitness level in such a short period of time. Either that or I'm getting old.

Something I will be looking forward to in December is some computraining. It's a program which monitors your wattage, heart rate, cadence and speed. The intent of this training will be to help those of us who are doing IMA with some good information about our biking. Are we going too hard, too slow a cadence, etc.? Starting in December we will be going every two weeks which should help out a fair bit.

Not too much else to say this week, but it's been a few weeks since I've put a picture or two in so here are two gratuitous pictures I picked up from the people who photographed the GCHIM last month. Do enjoy and catch you in a week or so.

Richard

Out with the gang

Well even though I wasn't officially on program this past week, I still did manage to get out training. Made it out to a swim session, a good bike ride and a 4 good runs. Not to the same level as pre-race mind you, but having fun doing it.

I guess my come back is one of self reflection. If all I do is go hard at every session, something will break, most likely me. So go out, do the effort required at the session and enjoy. This was probably most true on Thursday night when I went out for my first swim since Gold Coast. We currently have 6 lanes during the sessions and I'm in either lane 2 or 3 (6 being the fastest). Off I went with the 800 meter warm-up and enjoying it. My lane though started to get busier, so I moved down. That lane became busy so I went into lane 1. You know what, I'm glad I did because I had a good workout and it was a blast. I know too that once I'm back on program I won't be able to get away with that :-)

Saturday afternoon, I took Vaughn out in his jogger and went for an easy 30 minute run which we both enjoyed. Vaughn fell asleep and I moved along. The good thing about taking him in the jogger, is it forces me not to go fast, perfect. Back home, I let him finish his nap in the jogger while I stretched and relaxed.

Today was a 20km time trial so I thought what the heck, go out and have some fun with no pressure on me as I have no races in the near future. I rode out to the track and proceeded with the TT. Although they track was double booked, we all moved down the road to a quiet street where we could complete the TT. All good, a little slower than the past few but after we finished, a number of us went for coffee and bagels which was good. It was nice to sit and chat with friends or just listen to the BS and trash talk about Noosa triathlon most of the squad are doing next weekend.

I now have a few choices to make in the next day or two. Do I go train really hard and fit in a 70.3 in a couple of months time down in Canberra, or do I train well and do a few sprint distances for run.....hmmm.

Time will tell, and if training wasn`t enough to take on, with the offer we put on a house going through, I have more on my plate. WOO HOO!

Cheers
Richard

I'm back...look out world here I come

After two weeks of basically nothing, but sleep, prescription drugs, morning breakfasts with the family, evening t.v. it's all back to the reality of training for Ironman again. Over the past two weeks, I ate what I wanted, had wine and beer without guilt hell one night I even ate a 1/3 of a mud cake left in the fridge, and you know what...it was good.

I've gotten over my recent ailments batteries are nearly fully charged and it's time to train again. Not the same as the past 3-4 months, but smarter training. It may be called triathlon, but there are 4 disciplines. I have a couple of races in my sites to avenge my latest 70.3 and I think I have a plan.

First train smart. I'm going to take the training seriously, but still have fun. The big key will be doing what I'm supposed to and no more. No need to be the Tuesday morning hero.

Second. CORE. I say no more on this, other than I WILL do this.

Third. Do some sprint races. This will break things up for me and give me a chance to be crazy and go full throttle without doing it in training. I went from April to October between races and focused only on training. Time to live a little.

Secret weapon.... Next big race, the watch does not go on. Only the HR monitor. Enough of focusing on time. It's about effort and endurance not the all mighty clock. Damn Swiss anyways.

After light runs this past week, back into the pool and into the saddle for me and I'm looking forward to it. I think my next biggie might be Canberra, but who knows.

I'm hoping to update the blog this week and add some new features like training totals, and the lot.

Cheers and look out.

Richard

A week of reflection

Well it's been a week since my first 70.3 experience here in Oz. Not being happy after the race is one of the understatements of the year. But what doesn't kill you...... So I have spent the week looking back at what was good with the race and what desperately needs to be revamped.

Being somewhat of the gadget guy I am (not as bad as some in the squad) I had used my Garmin on the bike as the race wheels didn't have a spot for my speedo sensor. As I looked through it, the thing I noticed was my speed during each of the 30km segments. Well, it seems the last 30 was my slowest where I only averaged 30km/hr. Now there were a few reasons behind that, other than starting to tire there was alot of wind. Interesting to note, my perception of being tired about the 75km mark was bang on according to my Garmin. Interesting.

The other thing I did was break down the race into a number of areas and put it all into a spreadsheet. My god, I'm turning into my wife!!! What it did do was show a couple of things. All this I looked at lead me to a couple of focus areas for the next one... yes there will be more torture in my future before Ironman....

First was nutrition. I need to experiment more on my training rides on different types of food and sports drink. I think I'm done with Powerade after finding out how much sugar there is and with little else in there. Time to experiment.

The next big thing is my biking. I was not consistent with my overall speed. I think if I were to look at my ride with a power meter, I bet I would find my watts would have been all over the place. Time to learn consistency.

Lastly, I think it's time for another bike fitting. I felt okay with the exception of my upper hamstrings. Not sure if it is a function of my setup or something else.

As I have looked back over the last week I realize having a bad race helps you learn. If it was always easy, how would you know if you were pushing yourself enough.

I have good health, good friends and a ton of support in this crazy sport of triathlon, others in life are not as lucky. So enough of the bitching and time to look to the horizon and the preparation for the next challenge, whatever it may be...

Sometime in the next week or so, I'll be sitting down with my coach to go through my schedule leading up to Ironman. With some tweaking, who knows, I may even make it down to Canberra for that 70.3....

Thanks to all who have helped in whatever fashion it may have been. Thanks to all my family, friends, squad members and especially my wife. I know I will be in need of your support in the next 5+ months when I hit the start line for IMA.

Cheers

The humbled and peeling Richard
(very bad sunburn at the race)

ps. if you want to see some more pics from the race, check out http://sportingimages.com.au/current/main.php

Gold Coast Half Ironman...What the hell happened?

The members of the squad who did the half today. Well I did what I thought needed to be done, heck I even put on these fancy race wheels, which by the way look and work awesome.



After leaving the house at 4:15 to make it down in time, I rushed through transition, set things up and headed over to the squad tent to drop off my bag. I headed down to the water where I did my warm up and waited for my heat. After the sprint man people went, I lined up with the other blue caps. The gun went off and I got into a good rhythm and swam what was in my mind, my best open water swim ever. It wasn't as fast as it could have been but I was calm the whole time and concentrated on my form. The next thing I knew, I was at the ramp and made my way out. Wasn't the fastest but it was still a PB by 4 minutes. 43:40.

Into transition and out onto the bike. Did I mention how cool it was to have race wheels? At about the 30km mark, the wind picked up, really picked up. We had head/cross winds in the range of 40km/hr. From talking to some of the other squad members, that's pretty typical in the sugar cane fields. I did what I thought was right for nutrition and drinking, and had a pretty good ride. I averaged about 32km/hr even with the wind which was a good effort. The only problem I ran into was my upper hamstrings were very tight, that and my nose was running like a tap. Off the bike into T2 in a time of 2:56 (that includes my two transitions of 6 minutes).



Now the run....With my nose still running like a tap, it took me a good 5km before I my hamstrings started to feel okay. I was doing the marathon shuffle but moving along at a slow 6min/km pace. The squad members actually managed to take some pics of me on the run where it looks like I'm actually doing well.





I couldn't get anything going and was feeling like I was running on empty, but I was still doing what I could to run as much as possible. Then about the 15km mark, my right foot really started to hurt. I didn't want to look but I knew I had a good blister going. This slowed me down as it really hurt to put any weight onto my foot. How bad was it............



So I hobbled the rest of the way, with my killer toe and legs that were screaming. I finished but it wasn't pretty. So what the hell is going on? I have been training hard and been setting PB's along the way.... Well after looking back at this, race both myself and my coach feel I didn't really recover fully from the flu/bug I had and it shows as I was doing my best farmer imitations all day. Where do I go from here? Well, I'm not going to do Port half in a months time and going to take 2-3 weeks off to fully recover. This was Mark's suggestion and it seems like the right thing to do. No sense pushing through when you are not fully recovered, only to have further dissapointments. So I'm taking a break. I need to enjoy myself while doing this and if not, I will never make Ironman.

Oh ya, my time, a pathetic 6:11 Not happy.

Time for beer and chips and what ever else tastes good.

Cheers

The hobbling Canadian.

Pre-race check in

Well it's Saturday morning and all that's left to do before the race is hydrate, eat well and take my bike down to transition. I've been working on my bike and have the hired race wheels on. I took the bike out for a small brick workout to warm up for tomorrow (and to check out the cool race wheels) and feeling pretty good. A 15 minute stretch session right after and I think I'm ready.

What do I need to do? What does this race hold for me? What do I want out of it?

Well I NEED to finish this race as I have it as my qualifier for IMA next April, so I need to finish come hell or high water!

What does the course hold for me? Well I looking at this course compared to the other half ironman races it definitely looks like a faster course. No big hills to tackle on the bike or the run, which is good. The only thing I need to watch out for is the wind, riding through the sugar cane fields and avoiding the temptation to go as fast as possible. I will be racing with the use of my heart rate monitor to avoid the temptation to go too hard too early.

What do I want out of it? Well a PB all around is what I want. My current best segments in a half ironman are:

swim: 47:19
bike: 3:00:XX including transitions
run: 2:14:XX

I really feel all my training over the past months has gotten me to a point where I can go hard and smash these times above. I want a good overall race controlling what I can and not sweating (too much) what I cannot.

Predictions??? Well one should not focus on a time goal, however there are those out there who have taken the liberty for me to predict where I finish. Some have gone as low as sub 5 hours to people saying I will smash 5:30. Well obviously I want to do the best I can and will be happy with anything less than 5:45. Now don't get me wrong, if I were to knock off the perfect race and go sub 5:30????? well I think I will be very drunk in no time with all the celebrating.

Well time to get things together to take the bike down to the Gold Coast. It really feels weird leaving my bike in transition the day before. A good meal tonight again and good sleep all things should go well.

I'll let you all know after the race how it goes.

With fingers crossed....

Richard

One week to go

With one week to go, the only thing between me and the start line is this lingering post nasal drip.

Last week I had a fever for 4 days and missed some key workouts. Talking with my coach, I have the base there and a couple of missed sessions would not be the end of the world, so I took the time to rest try and get myself mentally prepared for the race. With 5 days off from training, (felt like about a month) I headed out at lunch for an easy 30 minute run, keeping my HR under 150. Mission accomplished! I felt pretty good and managed to keep the HR average down. Friday I repeated this same run and went a bit further in the same amount of time and kept the HR under 150. This is looking good.

Saturday morning, I made my first appearance with the squad since last Friday morning and it was good to be back. Our session was to swim, bike, run, 3 times. The distances were about 200m, 6km and 1.2km for each leg. Out I went and was turning over well, but when I got to the run portion, I was cooking along and an easier 4:40ish pace but my HR was through the roof! This was telling me the mind is willing but the body is not quite ready. So with that, I decided to pull up at the transition and cheer on people instead. I could have completed it all but if I'm stuffed next weekend because I was being stupid the week before I would be pissed!

an unhappy camper with sand is his shoes



This is how one should look (taken at the B2B race a couple of weeks ago)


And how I hope to be running next weekend....


Today will be an easy ride. That is after I have my coffee, bacon and eggs and toast. I can so therefore I will. Next week will be a series of short but intense sessions getting me ready for the start line. If the post nasal drip is still there....well there's always drugs!

The last thing I'm trying to do before the race is rent some race wheels and I should hear on Monday. If I can the right set could knock between 6-10 minutes off my bike so here's hoping.

For those of you back home, here is a picture of the squad at yesterdays training session. A Motley Crew I know, but a good one.



Cheers everyone and here's to a good race.

The earlier taper

NOT impressed! Friday I came home early from work (very unusual for me) and proceeded directly to bed. Saturday, fever of 102.5, not good at all any higher I might have to head to the hospital. Today Sunday, I've moved from the bedroom to the couch and finally have a temperature under 100. The good thing is I got to start my taper early but not the way you want to. I've been drinking electrolites to stay hydrated but I still managed to lose over 5 lbs in two days (about 2 kg for my aussie friends). Once I can get solids down on a regular basis I will start my two week taper into Gold Coast half IM. You can train until the cows come home, but you really need to make sure you are as healthy as possible when you toe the line. That is my sole focus over the next 14 days, ya 14 days sounds much better than 2 weeks.

I have the best training base going to any race I have ever done, now it will be up to me to be heathly enough to utilize it all.

Until later..
Richard

3 Weeks till Gold Coast....am I ready?

This past week was a mixed bag of sorts.. After doing well at the Bridge to Brisbane 10km, I was to run into work on Tuesday morning, keeping my heart rate below 150. This has typically been easy, but it seems I must have been still feeling the effects of Sunday's run as I struggled with heart rate. What felt easy, was not according to my heart rate monitor. I made it into work after my tough run where I did my best but my heart rate still averaged 156. Now part of that increased heart rate could have been due to the fact, I was dive bombed by two magpies. The first one scared the hell out of me, but the second magpie is now short a few feathers.

Why do I keep taking about heart rate? Well it is a true measure of how hard one is working and I plan to use it for my longer races. In my training, it has really helped with the recovery aspect and I can do more training with less recovery time between. In three weeks I will find out how well I can race a 70.3 on heart rate....

I guess one of the better things this week would have to be the 20km bike TT. Our last one I was somewhat sick, but still managed to shave a bunch of time off my last one. Saturday morning though, I wanted to do better and I gave it a full on effort.. Well it seems to be paying off as my time improved from 31:18 four weeks ago to 30:47. What that means for me is I still have room to improve despite completing the past TT at just over a 39km/hour.

One of the other big things was finding out how well I actually did in the 10km race...Out of the 26300+ who did the 10km I finished 171st overall. That means I beat 99.4% of the people who entered WOO HOO!! and as a bonus, I get to enter next year into the elite category. Who knew, I ``qualify`` as an elite athlete... too funny.

With one more solid week of training before my taper going into Gold Coast, I`m tired but can actually say, I have done what I think it takes to give this 70.3 my best effort. I will over the next week, sit down with Mark and determine some KPI`s for the race. Some people in the squad believe I can go sub 5:30 hours for the race and some think I could even flirt with 5 hours, time will tell. The good thing about this is in discussion with Mark, he did say that if I didn`t go below 5:30 hours I could fire him as coach....hmmm. pain and suffering gone if I go 5:31....just kidding.

That`s it for me this week, so catch you next time.

Cheers
Richard

A good way to end the week, the Bridge to Brisbane 10km run

Well another solid week of training, with work only getting in the way a couple times. You know you are starting to train more and more, when you think to yourself, if I only worked a little less, I could really get another training session in... Man am I in trouble.

A little adjusting this week as I had to head to the Sunshine coast on Tuesday morning. I was supposed to run into work but was being picked up at home at 8am. When in doubt, get up earlier and run...so I did. Out of the house at 5am and got my run and was able to spend a little bit of time with the family before they headed out the door. Unfortunately I had to miss the swim that evening as I got home about the time the swim session was wrapping up. Wednesday morning though, I had work, so missed my bike ride. Other than that a good week, that is if you forget about Friday morning when it seems, both sets of car keys were in my possession and Colleen couldn't get the kids to child care nor to the train...ooops. I cycled back home as fast as I could and picked her up at Alyssa's before and after school care, then drove her to work, a very busy morning, but don't want to do that again. A good ocean swim Saturday morning and all good.

The Bridge to Brisbane 10km run is one of the big races here in Brissie. So I toed the line today with 35,831 of my closest running buddies. Talking with Mark earlier in the week, I asked about a lack of taper in my program leading up to B2B race. His intent (and it seems a good one) is to have me run on tired legs. By doing this, I will be better prepared for my triathlon races. Well it seems his theory is working... too well maybe.

After our crazy double cab ride to the start line, we managed to make it to the race with 7 minutes before the gun was to go off. Have you ever tried to get through a group of 35,000 people??? not fun. I managed to weave my way through, but it seemed I could only make it into the green pen (50minute +) and not the 40-50minute pen I was in. Then I was saved by two of the best triathletes here in Australia. I could hear the announcer asking people to open a path for some elites to get through and the honorary race starters...Emma and Emma. That's Olympic triathlon gold medalist Emma Snowsill and Olympic triathlon bronze medalist Emma Moffat. When in doubt, follow your kind. I ran behind the two ladies and made it to within 20meters of the start line, thanks ladies.

With the 1.5km warmup to get to the start line from where the cabbie dropped us off, I was somewhat ready to run. Off went the gun and away we go, up and over the bridge and then into the valley. I could see both the 40 and 45 minute pacers and stayed somewhere between them, but making sure I could see the 40 minute pacer. Running strong, I looked up and we were already at the 3km mark, all good. I looked down at my pace and was right on a 4 min/km, perfect. I kept running slowly gaining on the 40 minute pacer. I was running well, but it seemed like I was running slower than I wanted to. 5km marker and all good. Pace was steady and creeping up on the pacer...7km to go with the pacer now only 15meters ahead. 8km marker and I was now shoulder to shoulder with the pacer, now was my chance, I turned it up a bit more, but the pacer caught up to me the little bugger! Enough was enough, 1.5km left and I turned it up as much as possible, if the pacer wanted to catch me, he'd have to work is ass off. Under a km to go and I was pretty much gassed, but knew I had to go, then the magical sign came into view, 200m to finish, that was all I needed. Time for a finish for the crowd. Full sprint and into the chute stopping the clock in 39:22 WOO HOO!! I haven't done a 10km for so long, I was really happy with my time a new PB. What a great start to Father's day. Ya I know weird, hey this is Oz!

One more week of solid training then I have a recovery week, which will then follow with my taper going into the Gold Coast 70.3. Oh ya, forgot to tell you, it looks like I do get to wear my wetsuit with the current water temperature at 19.4 degrees and the race actually using the 24 degree wetsuit rule.

That's this week in review, until next week, keep you fingers crossed the water temperature stays below 24 degrees.

Cheers Richard

Another month down, 7 to go..

As the body is recovering from a 4 hour ride this morning, I must say, I've been pretty happy with my training and my commitment level thus far. I have been on program now for two months (no not training freaks version of AA) and really progressing well. Even with being sick this month, I still had a solid month again with some big totals. Here she be.

Running 112.5 km, total time: 10:05 hours
Cycling 727km, total time: 26:02 hours
Swimming 21km, total time: 8:55 hours
Core strengthening: 1:30 hours

roughly 46.5 hours of training this past month, not too bad..

The biggest thing I have to work on is my core exercises. This is the thing that can help put me at a higher level of fitness, but for some reason, I seem to miss the odd session. How can I get my 4 pack (not even thinking of trying for a 6 pack unless it's in the form of beer) without core workouts?? This is something I will try and work on over the next month.

As I head into week two of four in program, I have some big miles this week and top it off next Sunday with the Bridge to Brisbane 10km road race. Just me and 15,000-20,000 of my closest running friends.

My first "A" race of the year is coming up in just over a month, the Gold Coast 70.3. I really want to do well, but today as we were riding, I learned some terrible news... Triathlon Australia has changed their wetsuit rules from 24 degrees down to 22 degrees. This means my first big race of the season will be a non wetsuit swim. YIKES!! I've just over the past month become comfortable swimming in the ocean and now I have to learn to feel comfortable without the wetsuit. Lots of training sessions at Redcliffe will happen in the next month then. That or I have to purchase an entire truckload of ice and dump it in the water just before they take the temperature, but that might be a dead giveaway with all the ice cubes floating around.

Pretty boring post this week but hey, they can't all be good ;-)

Until next week.

Cheers
Richard

The best part of program....Recovery week...and a sign up

This past week was truly welcome....recovery week.

With the cold I had, seeming to want to stick around, I was really happy to see this past week as a rest week. I wasn't fully up to par but I did take is somewhat easy, not doing a few of the scheduled events in lieu of more rest. The better part of this week was two fold, the Tuesday morning 3km running time trial and Noosa on the weekend to cheer on Colleen (and sneak in a swim or two).

The Tuesday morning time trial was one I was hoping would go well. My last running tt was in a time of 10:57, or just around a 3:40ish min/km pace. I really wanted to see if my feeling well running would account for a good time. Well, I headed out after our warm up and was quickly out front. I had a couple of people hot on my heels but it was about running my tt not worrying about the others. The course was a two loop course with a slight up hill to start each lap. At the first turn around point, I still had someone hot on my heels but I was running how I wanted to. At about the 1km mark there is a bit of an uphill and that was enough for me to break away and be on my own. By the time I hit the end of the first loop, I had opened a good 300m ish gap. I heard my split, 5:18. I didn't want to slow down so I kept the turnover the same. As I rounded the turn around point, I knew I was moving. Up the little hill and then down the 400m small hill to the finish. Mark was screaming for me to pick it up so I could break the 10:30. I picked it up and ran hard in...10:32 was my time. I had negative split and had ran my last lap in 5:14.

I was very happy with my time.

The other big this was going to Noosa to watch Colleen in her first 1/2 marathon since having Vaughn. I have never seen her train so well before for a race, so I knew she was going to bust a good time. Out the door she headed out at 6:15 for the 6:30am start, our resort was 200m from the start line. As soon as Vaughn got up, me and the kids would head down to cheer her on. Unfortunately today was the day he slept in. As soon as he was up, a quick feed and milk for him and out the door. He had slept until 7:15. Colleen was hoping for a pb (current one was 1:53) so we rush over to the turn around area. We got there just as the 1:50 pacer came by, we had missed her. Some of the squad were there too, so we joined up and waited for all to cross the line. With 1:45 on the clock, I told Alyssa to keep an eye out for mom, as she could be coming through anytime. Waiting nervously, I was watching the clock, 1:46, 1:47, 1:48.. I had guess she was good for a 1:49 so I crossed my fingers. Just then, I hear them call her name out, there she was, arms raised and looking strong, 1:48:5X, she had smashed her PB by 5 minutes!!! 5 minutes, holy crap all her solid training paid off. I don't know who was happier, her or me? She went through the shoot, and met up with us, were we gave her a huge hug!! She wanted a coffee and a shower, fair enough. We went back, she changed and off we headed for some breakfast...A 5 minute PB, holy crap!!

While up at Noosa, I did mange to get an ocean swim in on Saturday and Sunday with Rusty from the squad. These were great for me, building my confidence in the open water and allowing me to experiment with what does and doesn't work in the water. Two 2200m + swims in under 45 minutes, all good.

Now then.. last week with my head in a fog I forgot to tell all, I am signed up officially for Ironman Australia.... Here's the e-mail..

2009 IRONMAN AUSTRALIA Registration Confirmation

Richard
CONGRATULATIONS! Your entry has been fully processed
and accepted. You are in the race! We look forward to welcoming you to
Port Macquarie for the 2009 event. Please ensure that you read and fully
understand the contents of the Competitor Information Booklet - available
on the website.

This was followed up by going through over 200+ places to stay, finally finding a place for the week, all good.

That's about it for now, back to some solid training over the next few weeks.
Catch you all soon!

Richard

The good, the bad and the ugly

From the title you can tell is was a week of mixed emotions. This was was week 3 of 4 in program, which means one last week of hard training then a recovery week next week. Man do I need that recovery week.

Might as well try and throw a positive spin on the whole thing and go in reverse order.

The Ugly.......
Vaughn was kind enough to share his wicked cold with the entire house. I have not had so much snot production in my life!! (okay gross, I know but now you get the idea of how ugly the week has been). It started about Tuesday and last night was the first night I've actually slept fairly solid. Apparently Colleen got up a few times last night with Vaughn I didn't even hear them. Thanks for letting me sleep dear! With this lovely head cold, I have been drained of energy and had to cut back some of my training this week :-( which brings me to the bad....

The Bad......
I fought on Thursday to stay at work because that night was the first swim time trial I have done with the squad so I really wanted to see how I was doing on my swimming. Some good drugs to clear the head a bit and I survived long enough to make it to swimming. Saturday I stayed home and didn't ride the brick workout that was in the plan (3 hour ride and 30 minute run) and then today I was to ride to the time trial and then another 90 minutes afterwards. All I managed to do was the Time trial.

The above was in response to my running on Friday, when out at lunch I hear "Hey you Ruddy Canadian!!". It was Mark, the head coach of the squad. Finding out I was sick, he gave me what for and told me to head back to work, shower and take it easy. I wasn't to burn myself out with a time trial on Sunday. I did a little more workout and headed back to the office (Mark didn't know where my office was..hehehe)

The Good.......

I guess you could say the best part is my cold is starting to subside and hopefully be gone in a few days as I have a 3km running time trial on Tuesday morning... time will tell....

My swim time trial was probably the thing I was looking forward to the whole week, hence me staying at work. After a good warm up it was time for the 800m TT. We were 5 to a lane, which surprisingly worked out okay. I went out strong but not full out as I didn't want to crash 200m in. I kept a strong pace and tried to pick it up just a bit every 100m. With 100m to go, I was pushing it hard while trying to keep my heart from exploding....touch the wall, look up at the coach in anticipation....14:20 he calls out. I had to look around he wasn't talking to someone else... Nope no one else stopped at the wall. Holy shit I smashed my anticipated target of breaking 16 minutes! This was totally worth staying at work for!

This morning, I had the 20km bike time trial. I've put alot of km's on the bike since my last time trial back in early April, where I managed a respectable 31:41 time (37.8 km/hr average). I was hoping to drop some good time off this goal, but was conservative with my expectations due to how I was feeling. After a warm up, we lined up at the start line in groups of 3. I was in the second group with John (aka powerhouse) and Tim (aka Mr. Ironman). We started 30 seconds behind the first group and wanted to ride strong and not get passed by some of the other riders playing possum behind us. This was a non drafting time trial so we had to do this on our own, no cheating.

16 & 3/4 laps around the track would mark 20km for us. My goal was to ride strong, but not blow up by lap 3. The three of us were fairly evenly matched today, as we rode fairly close together through the 20km. I'd be out front, then John, then Tim, all within 50 meters of each other through the ride. Feeling somewhat okay, (other than trying to cough up a lung a few times) my goal was not to let the others get away from me. 16 down, 3/4 lap to go. Stay aero, high cadence, and push through it.. I kept saying this to myself. As we made the final turn I was spinning well and made my break from the others, I was behind them but wanted to go hard. As we turned onto the straight, I was in a good position and gear, now time to hit it as hard as I could. I swung to the inside and kept my head down. Someone called out "sprinter left" which caught John's attention. He stands up and I thought to myself, I'm done now, but I had a good head of steam and managed to hold him off. Total time, 31:18. I had dropped 23 seconds off my last time for an average of 38.3 km/hr. Not too bad.

Even though this week has been rough, it did give me some snap shots that my training is paying off. I really want to do well at the Gold Coast 70.3 in October, so keeping my fingers crossed, I have a chance at setting a new PB.

Until next week, from the runny nose Canuck in Brisbane.

Cheers

Noosa camp

This past week was a build up for the Noosa camp this weekend, a weekend of mileage.

The weekend started at 5:30am Friday morning with a spin class. Follow that up with a weekend on the bike and in the ocean. Here's the weekend in review.

Saturday
5:15am start for a century ride taking about 3:40 hours
11:30am meet at the Noosa surf club and head out for a 2300m swim 47 minutes
4:00pm a 10km tempo run 45minutes

Sunday
5:15am start for a century ride taking about 3:40 hours
11:30am meet at the Noosa surf club and head out for a 2300m swim 48 minutes

Yes, for my friends back home take heed "Janice, I'm hot on your heals now in the water!!"

The two ocean water swims were, for me, a great turning point in my training. The water has been my nemesis and now, I'm actually winning the battle. For comparison, last June at the Prestige 1/2IM, I had my best open water swim in a total of 47 minutes for 1900m. Now I've done that but added 400m. That would put me at just under 39 minutes for a 1900m swim. Things are on the right track!

Here's the swim course

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2155001

Things are getting better with the bike too, with back to back 100km rides and feeling good on both. Now don't get me wrong, I was feeling tired in the legs for the second ride, but it was totally within my capabilities.

This next week will be a good one with a time trial in the pool on Thursday night, a 20km bike TT on Sunday morning and a 3km running TT the following Tuesday.

Totals are getting up there too, with already 40+kms running, just under 10km in the water and over 350km on the bike, a good start to the month.

Boring post this week, but I'm very tired and need some good sleep.

Catch you all later.
Richard

8 more months to Ironman

Looking at the countdown clock, this week will roll over the 8 months to Ironman. Lots has happened in the past few months, but things are progressing well. The next few months will get me ready for my first Australian half ironman in early October.

July was the first full month of me being on program and as I look at my totals for the month, I cannot believe the totals, both for time and distance. For the month of July, my totals were as follows:

Swimming 16.3 km 6:45 hours in the pool
Running 135.1km for just over 12 hours
Cycling 934km for just over 34 hours
Core workout 2:40 hours

roughly 55.5 hours for the month

Throw in some inline skating too and you have a busy month.

For cycling, that is the about the same distance as riding from Calgary to Vancouver, and I even think I had the elevation in there for a couple of the mountain passes.

The highlight, if you want to call it that, was today's ride with the squad. Program had me cycling to the ride, which meant I was up at 4:30am and out the door at 5 to make the 45 minute cycle down to the Chaulk Hotel where we typically meet. Our ride was out to Samford again (NW part of Brisbane), but for shits and giggles, Byron, the cycling coach, took us around the back side of Mt. Nebo and up a trail called Goat Track Road.

Now with a name like that, you know it is going to be fun. The worst part of the ride today, was the fact that there was only 4 of us out there and I was the weakest rider. By the time we started the hills, the extra time on the bike was starting to show. When we actually turned onto Goat Track Road, we regrouped and had to read the signs...

Can't ride down, but up is okay? What's with that? Can't they read the other points on the sign?!?!?!?!


Then there was the powerhouse gang I rode with.....I don't know if it was coincidence but they were all Kiwi's...hmmm. Does that mean Aussies know how brutal this road is, or are we the only crazy ones????



I did manage to survive, but only with the others stopping to let me catch up. Darn those Kiwi's are fast. I had to ride to training and home again, with a combined time of 3.5 to 4.5 hours. I did manage to, but it hurt like hell. All in all, I managed to survive and road approximately 120km today. Not bad, but need to work on a few things... The first I think, would be to get some of those lightweight Aussie's out there to share the pain on a ride like this ;-)

All good. This coming week is another strength week, with the weekend being a training camp up at Noosa. Sad, that I am training to train. Man am I nuts.

That's about it for now.
Until next week

Cheers
Richard

Program week 4, the recovery week

After a very busy week 3, this was my recovery week. Man do I love recovery weeks.

With a very easy week to recover and help the muscles out for the coming weeks, program consisted of only 7 events. The lazy ass I am, I missed a core workout on Friday but still made the rest.. 6 of 7 isn't too bad. Now before you get on me about get on me about missing one, in the 4 weeks, I have missed two training events, 38 out of 40 is above my target threshold of 85% of training events made.

After enjoying beer and greasy food at the footy game last weekend, my week consisted of all afternoon workouts, NO MORNINGS!!! Did I mention I love recovery weeks?? It was a real treat to sleep in until 6am and have breakfast with the family...(Does anyone else see anything wrong with the last sentence??? 6am sleeping in??? I've become a training addict)

My week in review:

Monday: 20 minute core workout
Tuesday: 1500 meter TT swim (31:21) a new pb WOO HOO
Wednesday: 1 hour run keeping heart rate below 140 (11km)
Thursday: 1 hour squad swim (2700 meters)
Friday: missed core workout :-(
Saturday: Trail run through Mt. cooth-tha 1:45 / 14km (easy run)
Sunday: Fun ride for 2:45 and 75km

Not too bad but I know the coming weeks will be big ones. With now 10 weeks to go until Gold Coast 1/2 Ironman I'm feeling strong and have a goal now within sight which will help keep things in perspective.

Until next week.

Cheers
Richard

The full 360....and 3.8 too

Wow, if you need any form of inspiration two words...Mark Turner. As I write this week's blog, he is currently on his third leg of his 3 Ironmen in 3 days. I had the pleasure of joining him for the swims and rides on the first two days. A little long, but enjoy.

Thursday night Colleen and the kids dropped me off to join some of the squad members as we headed down to Palm Beach, just north of the NSW border. Some were volunteers for the weekend, some were crazy fools like me helping raise money and helping Mark. A short sleep (or so it seemed) and we were out the door at 5am to setup and get ready for the 6am swim. My task for the day was a 1900m swim and the full 180km ride. As you see from the photo above, there was some good surf we had to get through before starting our swim. The route had been changed from a "M" style course to one paralleling the shore. Apparently there were some good rips out there and supposedly sharks (this comment may have been just to welcome the Canuck but taken all in stride). This was my longest ocean swim so I was cautious and took it easy, trying to figure out a good rythum. It took a while but I did find one. The group passed me but all good. I finished my 1900m swim and body surfed in on a good wave. A hot shower and change of clothes, and we were soon off on our ride.
The group before our swim on day 1.












Heading out on the bike, it was going to be a bit of work as there were only 12 people cycling for the day. Our goal was to keep Mark in the 3rd/4th or 5th group so he could draft and conserve some of his energy. Drafting properly can save a good 30% of your effort. I wanted to help out so being the good "domestic" I took a number of turns up front.





















Rolling south we made a quick jump over the NSW border and headed north towards Brisbane, right into a good headwind.

A number of little rollers made the first leg fun and we pulled into the Aussie Outback experience parking lot (ride beside Wet and Wild waterpark). A restock on supplies, and eating a bunch of food, we were off after a good 20 minute break.


For the second half we dropped off two of our riders and picked up one more. Our peloton was now 11. Lots of wind, but we did get to enjoy a nice tail wind for about an hour as we headed east towards Redcliffe. Easy effort and we were hitting the high 30's low 40's. All good.

A quick toilet break around the 150km mark and off again towards the City were a police escort would bring us through the CBD (central business district) to the end of the bike leg.

A ride of just over 7 hours including stops, not too bad (28km/hr average).

Remember I said inspiration, Mark after all this knocked off a sub 4 hour marathon on day one.









Day to was much of the same, but for me two things happened. The first, I was able to swim better with a few tricks I learned the day before. The second was nutrition, I missed my routine and really felt it during the last portion of the first leg. I had to eat like a man possessed. I was able to recover and that with my redbull at 140km's helped too. Another 7 hours on the bike with stops, not too bad.

Here's some pictures from day two. Colleen likes the one of me coming out of the water. A little James Bondish without the chiseled body.















What did I get out of this weekend?

1. The human body has limits yet to be discovered as Mark is proving.
2. I can ride 180km and feel somewhat good for a run, even considering it will have to be a marathon.
3. My swimming is coming along as I was under 45 minutes on both days in the water.
   
4. Nutrition is key to long distance events.
5. I can swim in the ocean with confidence.
6. There are a number of people who are not selfish and can work long hard hours because they believe in something. Thanks to all who put this on.

Now a recovery week is in order after my week of

360km biking 14hours
5.8km of swimming for 2.5 hours
15.5 km of running for 1.3 hours
core workout for 20 minutes.

A good week.

Until next week.
Richard

Week 2 of Program

After a good race last Sunday, I had a bit of a break Monday and Tuesday only having short easy 30 min runs. Lots more time on the bike too and made it through all 10 training events and even an extra ride because I couldn't read the spread sheet right.... For the week:

Running: 34km for 3hours 5min
Cycling: 264km for 9 hours
Core: 30 Minutes
No swimming this week as the pool was closed.

Total training time: 12 hours 35 min.

The long run on Saturday was again at Mt. Coot-tha, which was tough. A ton of hills but came through it okay. I did feel it though this morning on our long ride. Every time we hit a hill, the legs were a burning. Getting stronger though which is good. With Tour de Tri next weekend, I have a few days to think about what I'm doing so I can muster up the will power. For the weekend, I have:

Friday: swim 1900 meters followed by the full 180km ride
Saturday: swim 1900 meters followed by the full 180km ride

If I don't fall asleep as soon as I get home Saturday afternoon, Colleen has a babysitter booked and is taking me to my first AFL (Ozzie rules football) game with dinner before to celebrate my birthday. GO LIONS!!!! Brisbane Lions that is, still cheer loud and proud for my beloved Eskies

Sunday, the last day of the Tour de Tri, I get to run a short 20km with Mark to finish off the event.

That's about it for me, just a closing thought for you now....

If getting up at 4am so I can train on the way to training feels normal........where is the line between healthy lifestyle and obsession and when did I cross it?

Cheers
Richard

tour de tri

Sorry for another post, but this one was worth it.

As part of my Ironman training I will be participating in a fundraiser called Tour de Tri. Basically the head coach of my squad, Mark Turner, will be completing 3 Ironman in 3 days. It is all part of his way to raise funds for Queensland Epilespy and Special Olympics.

I am trying to raise funds for this too, but more importantly I want people to know what I'm doing. I will be riding all three days and most likely swimming and running on the weekend too. If you want to see more check out my post.

http://www.everydayhero.com.au/Richard_Fairhead

Cheers
Richard

Gold Coast Half Marathon

Well today I ran my first half marathon in Australia, so I knew it would be a PB (personal best). It was just a matter of an Australian best or an all time best.

Out of the house at 4:30am to make it to the start line at the Gold Coast for a 6:30 start. My plan was to run it as a 4:45min/km pace. This would bring me in close to a 1:45 half, by no means a pb but with all the training I did last week I didn't want to be disappointed with my results. I went out as per plan trying to make sure I stuck to my pace, if I was feeling good, I would turn it up with 10km to go. The gun went off and 6900 of my closest competitors were off. I wanted to make sure that I hit every water station and keep hydrated. The first few km's were a duck and weave approach, trying to dodge the people who have no clue how to seed themselves properly. The best part was the Japanese runner who stopped, opened her purse and took out a camera for a photo. Tourist and runner all in one. Never seen that one before.

As I came to the turn around, I was feeling good and realized I went out a little too slow. I stuck to my plan though up to this point and ran the race well, so I turned it up and ran a bit faster. With 5km to go I still had gas in the tank, time to turn it up. Feeling tired, but strong, I was picking people off one by one. With 1.5km to go I turned it up again. With the music at the finish line getting louder, I could see the finish, 500m to go turned it on again, 400m to go, faster yet, 300m, faster, 200m left "we need more power scotty!!, I'm givin ya all she's got captain!!" I turned my hat around which was flapping in the wind and went into a full out sprint. Nothing Ben Johnson would do (even without the steroids) but still impressive. I crossed the line in 1:37:39.

As I looked at my splits on my garmin, my last 10km were in just over 42 minutes, with my last km taking 3:27!! SMOKIN!!!

I was very happy with my result, but realize even though I stuck to my plan, I knew I went out too slow. Yes Janice, I didn't pull off a male 30ism I stuck to the plan.

Now as I enjoy a good glass of wine before dinner, I'm feeling good and looking forward to week 2 of program.

Cheers
Richard

Week 1 of Program

My life is now controlled by my wife and my coach. My only request is I actually get to see my family from time to time ;-).

For the next nine months, mornings will start at 4am 3 times a week and others about 5:30-6am. sigh.... Week one was good but a little tough getting used to. My week

Monday am nothing
Monday pm 1 hour Swim 2500m

Tuesday am up at 4am, rollerblade to train and training, 1 hour running for 12km
Tuesday pm 30 minutes of core workout

Wednesday am out the door at 4:15, ride to training and join the squad for a ride. 2.5 hours and 70km
Wednesday pm 45 minute Swim 1900m

Thursday am run to work.. yup run to work 1:20, 15.5km
Thursday pm 30 minutes of core workout

Friday am out the door at 4:20 and ride to spin class and into work. 2:20 and 70km
Friday pm ride home from work 50 minutes and 22km

Saturday am 25 minute easy run 4.5km
Saturday pm NOTHING!!! WOO HOO!

Sunday am will be the Gold Coast 1/2 marathon with an aim of a 1:45ish time.

All in total this first week of training will be:

Swim 4400 meters for 1:45
Run 48.6km for 4 hours
Cycle 162km for 5:35
Core workout for 1 hour
Roller blade 10km 0.5 hours

Total training time: 12:50

Going into tomorrow's half marathon, I don't know what to expect as this one had no taper what so ever. I'm hoping for a good run, but will enjoy the day. I plan to go out at an easy 4:45min/km pace and see how I feel. If things are good with 10km to go, I'll open it up and see how things go. With 5km left, if things are still good I'll drop the hammer and go until I run out of gas, which might not be pretty but will surely make for interesting race talk.

Looking forward to what I can achieve with this level of dedication in my training as honestly, this is the most stringent training I have ever done, and I'm feeling good about it. I'll let everyone know how my 1/2 goes tomorrow once I get home.

Till then
The crazy training canuck down under

The Plan.......

Well another busy week and a return trip to Mt. Nebo, two weeks in a row....

I managed to make it out for 3 runs 2 swims and a long ride this week. My focus was more for the run than the bike as I'm doing the Gold Coast 1/2 marathon next weekend. All in all a good week, but I'm starting to wonder what's in store starting Monday. I start my official training through my coach where we lay out what's up for the next set of 4 weeks. The training plan is geared towards 3 hard weeks followed by 1 of recovery, by who's definition I'm not sure, but time will tell.

Saturday's long run was a return to Mt. Coot-tha but a little farther, 19km. More hills as one could expect, but a good run all the same. Saturday night Colleen and I actually went out without the kids, yes I think it`s called a social life. A nice bottle of wine with great food and great company, followed by meeting up with our friends Trevor and Shelley to see Chaser (Australia`s closest thing to Royal Air Farce and This Hour has 22 Minutes). Lots of laughs but a late night. After dropping off the babysitter I crawled into bed at midnight. Next thing I knew the alarm was going off, 4:55am. I fought with myself to get out of bed, had my oatmeal and headed down to meet the squad for our long ride of the week.

With the return to Nebo, I wasn`t too sure what to expect, being tired and my legs were feeling the extra km`s from the day before. Similar to last week, I persevered and won round three. It was a battle on the way up, but I managed to dig deep to make it up.

Once I know what my `plan`is I`ll send out an update as I no longer control my life, it`s in the hands of my coach and my wife.

Cheers
the very tired but happy Canadian down under.