Duathlon Debut

Well, things are really starting to click in my training.

First I can almost call myself a swimmer. The past few months of swimming 4-5 times a week I think are paying off. Case in point... Friday was a great day in the pool for me during the morning squad swim. Lots of drills (even the darn bands around the ankles, this time without a pull buoy) which went well for me. I was in the middle lane so a good check for me to see where I stand. I stayed with the lane for the whole swim and things were good.

The main set of the session went something like this.

4 efforts of:
50m easy on 1:15
50m Moderate on 1:15
50m Hard on 1:15
100m timed effort

My 100m efforts were 1:28, 1:27, 1:30, 1:27.

Never have I gone below 1:30 and to do it 4 times was awesome!!

This morning was my first duathlon. It consisted of a 4.3km run, 9.6km cycle, 3 km run, 9.6km cycle, 800m run.

My plan was to go out not too hard (just shy of my 10km pace) and build the effort on each leg and to have nothing left when I finish... Well I stuck to my plan and finished with nothing left. I pushed hard on the last 800m to try and catch a fellow squad member who was holding the 10th place spot. If I had another 500-1000m I might have caught him, but not today. I finished 11th overall and 5th in my group (they broke it into under 35 and over 35). I'm very pleased with my efforts and I think I could be onto something really good here. If things keep progressing as they have, I might do my country proud in October.

On Monday, my team Canada triathlon suit arrived and that was an awesome feeling to put it on.

A bit of a slow week coming up then it's 12 weeks out...and time to get serious.

Cheers and see you out there.
Rich

race time

After getting back into it after the GC half.. (and being crook) I've started back into things. Over the next few weeks, it's race time. Not so much to break records, but just to learn how far one can push themselves. The intent of this is to learn more about the race aspect so when it comes to the worlds, I should have a good understanding of how hard I can go, while throwing in a bit of attitude, 'Rusty style'.

So... here's the breakdown leading up to the Worlds in Perth....

Duathlon next weekend (my first even and looking forward to it)
10km race
break
Olympic triathlon
tri camp
Bridge to Brisbane 10km (this is an A race)
break
peoples race at the world sprint/olympic distance champs on the gold coast (sprint distance)
break
break
Gold Coast 70.3
break
break
World Long course championships

Okay...that's ALOT of racing, hope it pays off.

This past week I endured the lovely cold that my son was kind enough to share with me. It peaked with Wednesday leaving me with no voice it was that good. Now with the hacking to a minimum, I got back into the running and cycling again (swimming seemed okay for some strange reason).

Friday after the swim session I sat down with the coach to go through my video analysis of my swim from a few weeks prior. Just when it seemed I was moving through the water with less effort and better results....well, lets just say the camera never lies. I'm moving okay, just a few little things that are robbing me of some power and speed. Now I know how bad it looks on camera, I'll try and use this to better my technique.

That's about it for now, so see you at the races.

Cheers
Rich

Gold Coast Half Marathon

Well another good week of training. I think now I have that permanent smell of chlorine on me from all that swimming... Speaking of swimming, in three straight weeks, my one evaluation swim that I've been using has chopped more time off my swims. The set is 10x50m with 5sec break, then 15x100m on 2:45 with 5 push ups after each 100m, 200m cool down.

Well my 100m averages have dropped like so.. 1:57, 1:52, 1:44!!! I'm starting to think I might be able to swim with the faster group soon.

Today was the Gold Coast 1/2 marathon.

Itinerary
3:45am alarm
arrive at Tim's prior to 4:30am for the drive to the gold coast
find the squad tent 5:30am, then
start race 6:20am

My goal today was to run as fast as I could, for as long as I could, all the while, trying to meet the coach's goal of going sub 1:30:00 hmmmm. Race conditions were PERFECT with no wind, and a temperature of 7 degrees. A very cold morning by Brisbane standards but awesome for a running race.

The start was your typical poorly seeded individuals walking from the start line position behind the pros, then trying out your best dodge and weave to try and find some room....When in doubt, lead with wide swinging elbows, you'd be amazed at the room you can find.

With me and 8,000 of my closest running friends, I was off through the masses and didn't care too much about the slow people in front of me. When I say slow, I mean SLOW, like walking slow, go to the back where you belong people!!

By about the 2k mark I had settled into a good rhythm and settled into my required 4:15/km pace. Things were pretty quite out there, for the first 8-10km as I kept at my pace and had one of my gels along the way. At the 10km mark, I looked at my watch and it read 42:10, perfect pacing. It is true the race does not begin until the second half. That's where I had a motto going, 'fast feet' (in the voice of the coach harping on me) and me following along with 'long breath'. I repeated this over and over for the next 5 km where the pain started to kick in. Not really doing a running focus in my training was tough on me by this point. I kept thinking to myself, it's just 6 more kms, just 5 more kms, all in an effort to keep me at my goal pace.

By this point I almost let it get away from me, I slowed to a 4:30 pace saying I couldn't run any slower than this. then the sign read 17kms, 4 to go... I started to push myself, I had gone 3/4 of the race at the required pace and when would I get another chance like this? I had to dig deep..very deep. I took some sports drink at the aid station and just went for it. I had to go, no matter what..with 4km, that meant 17 more minutes of pain and then I could rest. I could live with that.

By this point I was yelling at my myself (in my head as I didn't want to attract a crowd) and so was the voice of my coach, both screaming to go faster, no stopping, no slowing down, just run!

18km, 19km, 20km, then the finishing area, I tried to sprint the last bit, but there was nothing left in the tank, I mean nothing! I had been red lining it for the last 4km. I crossed the line and knew I had a pb (previous was 1:34:07 set 5 years ago) but was it below 1:30???

I started to cough, more coughing, then a little spew. Not exorcist type spew, but a little one, as there wasn't much there to spew. I've seen these people before and wondered how they could do that to themselves...I now know why.

I hobbled to the food area, grabbing a couple of waters and a banana for later. I slowly walked to the squad tent and slowly changed. My watch was read 1:30:01 as I hit it after the finish line, so I would have to wait. Mark asked what I had run and he seemed happy with the 1:30 result, but quickly added, good, the next one needs to be 1:25 or 1:20. There was my moment, come and gone in 30 seconds. ;-)

Once I told him what my previous PB was, he was quite shocked and responded with a 'good, imagine what you can do if you were in shape.' All good though.

Just before writing this blog, I checked my time. 1:29:58, I broke the 1:30 mark.... But now, how low is low? 1:27? 1:22? 1:19:58???? Time will tell.

I'll now return to the couch, were I'm wearing my skins and cat napping before dinner.

Cheers
Richard