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