Mooloolaba Camp day 3 and monthly update

Well as I sit here with a glass of wine (I know I seem to always have wine with me, but it helps provide motivation to write) I've just completed the day's events. The details

3 hour bike ride 5:30am start for a total of 88km. Heart rate was good and felt good throughout the ride.

2.4km open water swim in the salt water lake here at the resort. Yes I wore my wetsuit and I don't care. It was warm and I was cooking, but I went, I swam, I conquered. Time was 45 minutes.

To end the day it was another 60 minute run, and you know what, I'm Mr. consistency. 150 HR average and topped out at 161, but I think that is skewed by almost stepping on a snake. Yes a real snake. I did better than yesterday with 10.6km total distance in the 60 minutes.

As for the week, well what can I say. Over 20 hours of training and my monthly totals looking like this:

Swim: 20.95km for 8:26 hours
Bike: 930km 34 hours
Run: 104.6 km 10:50 hours

Throw in some core in there and I've got some serious time training this month

That's about it for now, we're going out (the IMA group) for Chinese tonight to celebrate Chinese New Years. Gung Hay Fat Choy

This is it for the camp updates, just a 20km ride and an ocean swim tomorrow to end it off then back to regular training.

Happy training y'all
Richard

Mooloolaba Camp, Day 2

What can I say...good day, for the most part.

The morning started at 4:30am where we met up with some local riders for a 5.5 hour ride. After about an hour of riding, I got a really good flat. So good, the side wall of my tire was shredded. After the first tube blew up because of the side wall cut, one of the guys came over with some duct tape (Red Green would have been proud) and it seemed to hold. I couldn't put the whole CO2 cartridge in because the duct tape was coming out. I did allot of praying and it held up for the entire 145km ride. One thing though.. We hit some major hills (they call them mountains here) and the only question I have is how steep is the grade when the 'red sign' says VERY STEEP. It's not 10% grade, because we went up one of those, and it's not 12% grade because we went up one of those too. All I know is the 'very steep' section was only a 1km long but it might have well been Mount Everest. I nailed my nutrition which was a first for me on a long ride and I kept within my means. Very happy with the ride.

The swim in the afternoon I missed (went to the wrong beach) and when I did get there, the group had left so I didn't give it a go. It was an open water swim (about half the size of Lake McKenzie for my Calgary friends) and it was made clear to me, no wetsuits. Tomorrow I will go but I am wearing my wetsuit.

The evening run was an out and back to the main highway. I wanted to sit with my HR at 150 again and did exactly that. While I kept the exact HR, it was considerably slower than yesterday.

time: 52:04
average speed:5:40
distance: 9.2km
Average HR: 149
max HR: 159

A BBQ to finish the day off was good and I'm enjoying a glass of wine just before bed.

Tomorrow is only a 3 hour ride, a swim and another 60minute run.

All good and catch you tomorrow.

Richard

Mooloolaba Camp...Day 1

Well after leaving work a bit early, I raced home to make it out to tri camp up at Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast. Over the next few days, I'll be putting in some serious miles. But here you go.

Friday.... After the stress of long weekend driving, we made it up but a little late. I had given up on making the training run, but as I was just about to go for a shortened run, I got a call, the group was waiting for me at the front gate.

The run was simple, out and back run for 1 hour. Temperature was 24 and light rain, much better weather than the following days run. My goal was not to let testosterone get in the way and wanted to keep my HR no higher than 150.

Here's the stats:

1:00:09
Average pace: 5:18/km
distance:11.37km
Average HR 149
Max HR 157
Effort: moderate
Feeling: Good

I had made my goals by letting the others go ahead and my HR was perfect. I felt I could have ran allot farther today, which is good considering my 18km trek into work yesterday morning.

Tomorrow:

5hr ride (starting at 4:30am)
45 minute lake swim
60 minute run

Just a bit of stretching and then off to bed to recover for tomorrow. Day two update to follow then.

Cheers
Richard

Strength in numbers

Week 1 of 12 was to put it lightly....strength. Strength on the bike, on the run and in the water.

A whole bunch of different sessions, but the toughest would have to be the Wednesday/Thursday combo. Wednesday, I was on the bike at 4:10am to meet up with the IMA group at Mount Cootha. The ride was just over an hour and then I got to hit the mountain. The ride consisted of 4 loops up and around while all the time sitting in the saddle, no standing on the pedals while ascending. Each loop took between 20-25 minutes and was a hard effort. Once the session was done, it was off to work, so the whole time on the bike was 3:20. This was followed up with a 5:30am trail run through, you guessed it, Mount Cootha, which was up and over twice for a total time of around 1:40. Throw in a good stretching session right after and off to work. The tough part came Thursday evening when at the squad swim, it was drills, drills and more drills. The main focus was on a strong kick..AHHHH! This was not good, but I held on and got it done. Friday morning, which I had off (weird feeling that was), I went to get out of bed and my legs were screaming, not just a tiny scream, but one which could have been heard in the vaccuum of space! I stretched and got the roller out to ease the battered muscles, and it was enough I could make it to work without hobbling....much.

Our long ride of the week was one from just outside of the CBD (downtown) and out to the base of Mount Glorious, back through Samford, then out through Dayboro and up Mount Mee. While Mnt. Mee isn't a big one, it's a constant rise for just over 10km. Once we were at the top, it was a turn around back to the cars. Total time was 4:40 and a distance of 120km.

This morning I attempted to swim with the group out at Sutton's Beach, but I called it quits after 10 minutes and turned around. It was too rough for this flat lander, with waves of around a meter. It wouldn't have been bad if the surf was consistent, but there were waves coming from every direction it seemed and no matter what you did it seemed each time you came up for a breath, you had a wall of water smacking you in the face. Oh well, I gave it a go, and considering a year ago I wouldn't have even put on my wetsuit, is a small victory. Off came the wetsuit, throw on the running gear and a good run along the beach to finish the week off. Around 15 hours in total this week with the monthly tally looking like this:

Running: 55.4km
Swimming: 15.45km
Cycling: 615km

Total training time: around 36 hours for the month.

Oh ya, 9 out of 10 session made...you guessed it, ditched the core and played Wii with Alyssa. (Family time is important, and besides, have you ever tried to play Wii and not break a sweat? This really should count as a half session so 9.5 out of 10 for the week).

Not much else to say this week, but to expect more of the same in the coming weeks. Next weekend is Australia Day weekend and what better way to celebrate it with...a triathlon camp,, WOO HOO!

My training is taking up a bunch of my time, so I'd better get moving on my "honey do list".

Cheers and happy training.

Richard

Cheaper by the dozen?

Well, today is the day...12 weeks to Ironman. 12 people for 12 weeks....or 84 days, or 1008 hours, you pick, either way, it's now crunch time. The past week was a "recovery week", but not sure for who. I know I've been putting in the miles before this past week, but 12 hours over 10 sessions seems a bit much. How much? Well, I swam 10kms, I ran about 15km and rode about 200km. I missed out on two sessions, but made up two others which gave me 10 sessions for the week. So is that 80% with a 20% bonus or is that just 100% completion?

Starting this week, I'm taking Wednesday mornings off work to free up some extra time to train. I'll be looking at doing another 4-5 hour bike ride so I get 2 good long rides each week. I'm sure I'll have a bunch of everything, but I'll find out my schedule on Tuesday sometime.

On the horizon, I have a 4 day training camp at the end of January where I'm sure the miles will stack on. It's up at Noosa and the family will be coming up (it's Australia Day long weekend). I just hope I get to play with the kids on the beach a little too.

After the camp on February 8th, I have another 70.3 in Geelong, Victoria (just south of Melbourne). I know I've already confirmed my entry for IMA, but I need to do this race to put a solid one together before Ironman. I know I can do both, but if I haven't felt good at a half, I'm sure to have doubts going into the big day.

One of the biggest pickups for the week was Saturday morning for a squad swim. I rode in as the group had a computrainer session right after swimming. As I got out of the pool, the swim coach (who I haven't seen for a few months) commented to me on my swimming. She said I've come a long way since she last saw me and I look very confident in the water. That was really good to hear.

I'm going to start a mileage log somehow/somewhere on the blog, so you can see my totals for the weeks leading up to IMA. So far:

Swim: 10km
Running: 20km
Cycling: 350km

That's about it for now. Keep your fingers crossed whenever possible as I really want to stay as healthy and injury free as possible over the next 12 weeks.

Cheers
Richard

A week to build from

Bike. One word says it all. After my ride this morning, I've done over 1100km in the last three weeks on the bike. No need to worry about saddle butt now, as I think I've got a permanent groove on my ass now.

A good week all around with attaining a 100% completion rate on my program. Which is a great way to go into a recovery week. In all I was on the bike 5 times this week, with a run and a core workout thrown in. Now this is not a big week session wise, but in all 16.5 hours of training is still a big week no matter how you look at it.

This week had a few surprises in it, first the Daybro loop that Tim took us on...Extremely hilly for the first 50km of a 90km ride. Not fun, but what they say doesn't kill you, only maims you... Well I was maimed. By doing hills like that, I has to make you a stronger rider.

Friday I took the car in for service and decided to throw the bike on the roof so I could do my ride instead of sitting around in the waiting area. I hopped on my bike and started following the road. Through Redciffe, out into the boonies, and next thing I know, I'm north of Caboulture where I took a quieter road and followed that for another 20 minutes before turning around. The cool thing about this road was it was large trees on both sides of the road, then it opened for about 100 meters where a small residential development was. Looking down the street, there were two large kangaroos jumping down the street towards me. How cool is that!! I slowed down, watched them hop accross the road and into the trees.

The other surprise was another member joined out Ironman group. We are now up to 13 of us going for the glory of cruel and unusual punishment. That got me thinking, with so many of us doing Ironman, does that mean it's easier than one thinks? I thought about this and wondered, how tough is this race if so many people are doing it? Having this many people from the squad doing Ironman cannot mean it is easy, it just means there are that many crazy people in a small concentration of triathletes. No matter which way you look at it, Ironman is difficult, but with the right training it can be done. I'm not looking to smash the course and get a spot for Ironman Hawaii (as there is no way in hell I could do that as I'm in the toughest age group category) I want to see what is attainable by the human body and to also take in the whole experience. Who knows, this could be my one and only Ironman.

A week of recovery to go and then onto the 12 week program where the coach basically controls my life. I just hope it talked to Colleen first ;-)

Cheers
Richard