a little late...

This is a bit old - I wrote it all up and then didn't post it, so here we go from a few weeks ago...

This weekend I am away with the school cycling champs - which marks the end of the school cycling. We had the last of the waterfront team time trials at the weekend. I have to say I was mightily impressed at how the girls stepped up in the last 2 weeks. They had gone through a "I can't really be bothered anymore" stage - and it was getting hard to get them to do more than roll along at a social speed. A couple of weeks ago, they got all motivated, trained really well, and really got their heads around doing a great last TTT - with a shot at setting the record (they were 1 second off at the first TTT). The junior A team was also fired up, even though one of the star riders has been out for the last few races.

One of the things that I think have really made the team I mainly work with (senior A) go really well, has been the fact that they really work well as a team. There are no rock stars, no crazy training demons, and everyone in the team just works together in a positive manor. There is a diverse range of individual skills and personalities, which can be very entertaining on the early morning rides. But I don't think I have ever heard blame for things going wrong, only discussion on solutions and how to make things go better. This maybe luck, or that is the environment that has been fostered. What ever the reason - it is just great to see! I think they have developed great skills here (whether they know it or not) that will set them all up for great success in many future endeavours.
Hopefully we come home with some more silver for the cabinet after this weekend!
A conversation with one of the parents from one of the other teams summed up quite well why some of the other teams don't go as well. It was something like: "the whole is less than the sum of the parts - why is the team less than any of the individuals?". This particular team has major political issues within the team environment, and most of the team members could probably ride faster on their own, than they do as a team. That is a real shame - although good for the other teams! It certainly shows, as with any team sport, that you can have great athletes, great coaching and support, and the team is still a flop from what they could potentially be.
Right - well back to me! I thought a bit of a summary of where I am at, as I have just relented and gone to the physio with a list! Nothing that has stopped me in my tracks, but a few niggles that have made training less than what would be possible without the niggles.
Here is a bit of a list of the current good, the bad and the ugly.

The good:

swimming - I have really only been doing 2 swims per week, and have only managed to slip in a 3rd swim 3 or 4 times in the last 2-3 months. The good is that I have maintained my swim fitness over the last 6-8 weeks on this, rather than slide backwards. Normally I need 3 swims to maintain fitness. I guess the other good is that I am around 10sec faster per 100m than when I started training for IM '09 a little over a year ago.
Cycling - I think my mid-range power output has improved a fair amount - and certainly the HR at the mid-range powers has improved (ie is lower), and I feel much more comfortable at mid-200 watts than previously. The top end has not really changed much - I only have one record power output from this year (10min). But I also have not done many races where high power outputs would be expected either (eg bike races).
Running - has being quite consistent, and reasonably injury free. Plenty of niggles but have managed 3 or 4 runs per week most weeks. Just ticking along quite nicely. Nothing super special - but the most consistent than it has been for many years. The waitak's runs have been very good. They have hurt a fair amount, and probably did the first one on a little too little running, and the last on a little too old shoes. But the endurance is certainly better, and as with the bike, top end is not any better, perhaps slightly off what it was at the start of the year.
overall - I think I am in OK shape - in fact probably in good shape to kick into a solid 12 week block of training that would get me in really shape! Pity worlds is in a month...

The bad and the ugly.

While it is probably easier to focus on the negative, there are a few "annoyances". Every morning I wake up I wish I could have a sleep in - there have not been many sleep-ins in the last 2-3 months. Then I wonder what is going to hurt the most when I put my feet on the floor. It is usually a competition between ITB, quads, lower abs, and glutes. Sometimes the shoulder is quite sore, but that is before I get out of bed! The lower abdominals have been a bit of an on-off issue since the first hit out in the Waitak's - and while it is OK, I finally went and saw Deno to make sure it was not a major, and what to do. Surprise, surprise, I have to do as I say - more core and a bit more stretching. My left leg (from hip to foot!) has been giving issues for a while too. I can't sustain high power for a prolonged period without my butt beginning to scream - nothing to do with fitness or strength - more of a tight/pinched nerve. My left leg (lower I think) has also had a bit of a habit of failing on me - both bike and run. This has meant that I cant really do any longer time trials at the moment (slight issue with a 80km one coming up), and I occasionally buckle on the left side - which might not be obvious, but has sort of affected the run intervals a bit. I was sure it was glutes and a nerve issue (previous problem), and Deno pretty much confirmed that. So Deno has Wednesday and Friday visits from me for a while...
Swimming - the ugly here is really not getting to the pool enough! My swimming is quite a bit slower than when I put the paddles on. While not a biggie, I would like the difference to be less. Must get to the pool more...

Cycling - the glute issue has been quite a hamper on the top end efforts. The other major is long rides. The week just been is the second long ride in 8 weeks. While they have gone well, it is a bit of a case of lost opportunity I think. I haven't really been able to test where I am at with a time trial, so we will have to wait and see!

Running - no great improvements, and I feel I am really teetering on the injury front - which is a bit frustrating. I would like to step the training up just a little, as I feel it would bring on a new level of performance. I if I do, I will probably crack, and then not be able to run at all.
I do get the occasional grumpy attack, although Liz tells me it is more than occasional. To be fair, the dog next door is the cause of most of my grump's - it has decided it needs to bark most of the time, or all the time I am outside - at me. I am almost ready to get it assassinated....

A picture tells a thousand words - so here are a few more thousand words!




This is from Bex at World triathlon champs - she had a great race!













This is from my trip to Germany - post ride Pretzel - should really be standard food!!! It does not get much better than this...














More from the same trip -post ride dinner - and it really does not get any better!! Thanks Pete!!!

trying to make progress plus new toys...

Right, time to get back to training! World champs have approached very quickly! A quick wave of nervousness sweep through me, and then I thought - shivers - I better get training! Well, I may have used different words! 

The last week and a half have not been too bad. I think ideally I would be getting 2 to 3 solid training days in, but have really only been getting one in, and a few reasonable sessions in, but nothing startling. I am still missing at least 1 or 2 key sessions per week, which is quite frustrating. I would feel much better if they were not key sessions I was missing.

Last week I did get a new toy - a Garmin 310xt - which is basically a GPS heart rate monitor. I was quite keen to get something to measure running speed reasonably accurately, and the polar RS800 was hopeless. So after a few hiccups, I got my hands on one of these. I have had a few runs with it now, and my initial thoughts are that the speed is accurate in the open and reasonably flat/ rolling terrain (as I would expect), the web-based data analysis is quite good at a basic level, and has some quite "fun" features. Trying to drill down to the details is a little frustrating - I have not quite figured that one out yet. The altitude is not very accurate - the first run I did was an out and back, and the altitude profiles (by distance) should be a mirror image, which they are far from. I am not sure why that is the case with GPS - as pretty much the same maths is required for vertical change calculation as horizontal. The initial HR's are also a bit erratic (unrealistically high), but then it does settle down and appear to be good. Polar has the same issue, so I suspect that is that the initial water is not as conductive as good old sweat. I was good to do a run interval session knowing that the pace displayed was accurate. It will also need to play around with the display a bit - as it will be good to be able to have a more instantaneous speed display, rather than the default lap average, but I have not opened the instruction book yet!



this was 6km out and 6km back, even pretty much running on the same side of the street each way. As the bottom graph shows, the altitude profile is quite different for the first 6km and the return 6 - which should be a mirror image.



So that is where I went...


Last week was a reasonable week on the bike - well it was what most weeks "should be", but I did get the sessions in that needed to be done! That included the first long ride out doors in at least 6 weeks. A glorious day it was too! In an ideal world I would like a 3-sessions-in-one-day day, but with my current schedule coaching wise this is not really feasible. However, last week I had Thursday morning off - so I could - and I did! So this day went like this: swim squad - started out pretty easy and rolled through 3km at a pedestrian pace, then got roped into doing some sprints with the surfies so there was a few hundred meters of solid at the end, and went home with 3.5km done. around lunch time I jumped on the trainer with the TT bike set-up, and did a solid steady state ride. This was 9x9min steady with 1min easy between. This was about the third ride on the TT bike, so there was a bit of adjustment, and I ended up doing around 2min aero/30sec non-aero during the efforts. slightly less as the under-carriage got a little "distressed" toward the end. The first effort felt a little bit of a struggle and the perceived effort was quite high relative to the power output (slightly under my target), leaving me wondering if I was pretty stuffed. The second effort I went a gear harder and into the power zone I should have been in and the perceived effort was probably slightly less, so I stuck with that gear! This session pretty much went as planned after the first effort, although the legs did protest a bit toward the end, but not in such a way that I was going to drop off. The HR responded as I wanted to - increase over the first few efforts then slightly dropping off. If I did not get the drop-off, I would think the power was too high for the "steady-state" session I was after. Then early evening I took the garmin out for a test run, and ran out 6km and returned. This also went quite well. In the previous 3-in-1-day I have only got to 30minutes in the run and really felt like crap! But I felt comfy on the run, and ran 4:45/km on the flatter terrain through the middle. I finished wondering if I should have pressed on a little more, but as I sat on the floor in front of the TV, the hami cramped up quite nicely, so I figured that was certainly enough!


Here are the bike intervals - there were two sets - with the main efforts a 5minute hard effort and a 3minute hard effort. the other shorter spikes are 4x40sec hard/20sec easy.


Here are the 9x9min steady efforts - just under 300w. Not the best "steady-state" session I have done, but one of the few on the TT bike. So I was quite happy the way that ended up.

Fridays run intervals were 6x1km, which was after a solid Thursday, and these went OK. Speed has not really been forthcoming on the running front, even though I am sure I am getting fitter on the running front. They did start out a little slow, but did manage to get some semblance of pace toward the end (still by no means anywhere near fast!).




Saturday was long run day - which ended up being sabotaged. I was at school cycling champs for the hill climb through the middle of the day after taking the morning training session. I was then reminded I had a birthday dinner appointment that evening, so basically only had just over an hour to get in some exercise. I did what I could.

Sundays long ride was a pearler. Nice to be on the road and feel the sun you your back. There were a couple of un-anticipated efforts at the start and end of the ride. the pace was on a little more at the start as we tried to avoid being intertwined with another cycling group. Toward the end we also had to contend with an angry Ginger - not sure what Hannah said to upset him, but he was angry at us! So after being attacked a couple of times I apologized to the group and made sure he was not going to attack us again (hence the steadier pace at the end).


The average power was quite high for the speed, and the HR was a little low for the power - but that has been a trend...

Today was probably the best swim I have had in a while. Wednesday is usually a struggle after Tuesday night bike intervals. But I think I was sort of blessed with a combo of not-quite-so-hard a bike interval session, swimming improving a little, and my lane leader Jo feeling pretty average and swimming like crap (for her - which is still faster than me). That basically meant I could just keep up, and get a bit of a draft, rather than flounder along at the back on my own. It did make the session a little harder, as I tried to continually keep up, but it was good.

blah blah blah or a rambling rant

Training wise I have had a tough couple of weeks, and not because I have been training hard, but because it was hard to get training in! One was always going to be a little tough, as I was away with the school team for duathlon nationals in Palmerston North for one weekend, and had to try and get most of the "fires" out work wise before I left. I missed a couple of sessions through the week in my vain attempt to get on top of things - and the weekend was shot training wise traveling and looking after the team. But that is fine - it is an easy week (well that is what I made it)! I do have another one coming up - in a couple of weeks time, with road cycling nationals (secondary schools) - back to mighty Palmerston North for a little longer weekend! 

The Duathlon went very well for us - with two second places - very well done to Amelia and Bex! The trip down was not too bad - for being in a van for 7 hours. Straight to check in on getting to Feilding and try to decipher the courses - which was quite a challenge, and also a moving target, as they were constantly being changed! We managed to get a couple of houses very close to the race start as our accommodation - which worked out very well. A jog around the race course after we were sort of checked in, and then a few transition practices. Quite amazing how much time you can save making the transitions a little better - far more time effective than running or cycling training I am sure -at least initially! 


Most of the team - Sam and mum (Morreau), Bex and Dad (team management!), Amelia and the coach!



Sam on his way to an excellent victory at Duathlon Nationals. Racing with a maturity that many don't have when 10 years his senior...


The racing went very well overall, and great to see some good athletes front up and race hard in nice weather. There were a few classic battles, and races within races. There were also a few very dominating performances. The Morreau Family came away with a win, two seconds and a third - not too bad a haul for the medal cabinet. It is quite interesting watching races -I would usually rather be racing of course - but you see some athletes just step up and race, giving it their best shot. While others, who maybe fitter and/or faster, just go into self destruct mode when races come around. A bit of show boating and chest beating before hand, then execute a pretty dumb race plan which opens the door to the opposition, and when they come through that door the self doubt kicks in and the steep downward spiral begins, and usually ends with the proverbial tail between the legs.  
As with all the other school level events I have been to over the last year, I am amazed at the level of ability. That is tinged a little with the knowledge that in all probability over half of these promising athletes will not be involved in the sport in a few years time after they leave school. 

I thought I would comment a little on national sporting bodies, and the politics a little this week. This could be a rant, but I will try to avoid too much ranting. It is easy to be negative and derogatory and take cheap shots, and in many cases that is not helpful. But when it comes to sporting bodies - why do they more often than not shoot themselves in the foot (repeated in many cases) when there is no need to, or worse, when they are (quite) well paid to "do a job"? A few examples...
At the recent World athletic champ's, Caster Semenya quite convincingly won the woman's 800m running race. The poor unfortunate "girls" result is currently in the air, awaiting sex determination testing. This really should have been sorted out a year ago, when she burst onto the scene running around 1:56 for the 800m. Why put her through far more than just the pressure of racing at the top level, when it all could be sorted with far less drama. Of course the other side of this is sex determination, which you can quickly discover is not very clear cut at all. Athletics South Africa are quite happy with the "pants check", which as it turns out is not very reliable. Chromosome tests are not that reliable either - a few have already been tripped up on that one ("what do you mean I am not female??"). So there is a barrage of testing, and I am not sure that it is a very clear line after the test are in either. Through no fault of their own, those with a sex/gender "hiccup" are stuck between a rock and a hard place - they may have an little bit of an unfair advantage over "pure" female athletes, with a little more testosterone and other male traits, but they cannot compete equally with the male field either - as they don't have the full male strength traits either. But whatever way it should go - it should be sorted before the main event on the big stage! 



Glad I was not running in the womens 800m...

Swimming has also made a total hash of things in recent years - with the introduction of the new "speed suits". In a sport that is really quite pure - they have tried to make the playing field as uneven as they can - well perhaps they could have done worse - but I wont challenge them to that. It really should be quite easy to say - you swim in a standard style swim suit, made of standard type materials, with pretty standard goggles and an optional standard swim cap. That way the best swimmer, who races the best, wins on the day. With the current generation of swim suits - the results are affected by which suit you wear. There is significant cost associated with that ($700+ per suit, that may only last a few swims), which will surely also impact on some swimmers - even at the top level. On top of that is the impact on the record books - those that have set impressive marks previously have had their records broken by far lesser athletes with better technology. If in doubt - KISS - keep it simple stupid! 

You could probably write several volumes on the stupidity of cycling administrators over the years. But, while they still do make big mistakes, I really think they are close to leading the way now. Cycling at the top level is probably one of the cleaner sports from a doping point of view - perhaps more at risk now of failing athletes with false positives. They may get a lot of negative press, but they do far more testing and far more intensive testing than most other sports. They have tried to control the technology explosion, perhaps over-reacting sometimes (eg one hour records now on a standard road bike with drop bars). But most of the rules are more about making the playing field level. I guess one of the things that has really raised my eyebrows in the past is that you can push someone off there bike deliberately or hook them in a sprint (usually causing the victim to crash at speed - never nice) and possibly incur a place penalty (still get the bunch time)- but often get away with it. Then if you wear the wrong kit in a race and you get fined! The incorrect logo on your shorts is far worse than breaking someone's collarbone and writing off their bike? I don't get that...

I have certainly struggled with triathlons governing bodies over the years - probably more so because I have been more "into" triathlon and have really only "dabbled" in cycling and athletics and have only been to one swim meet (and that was only a club night - getting whipped by 11 year old girls!). I have been on the other side - club committee member, even a club president for a while, I have also been involved with TriNZ - as a regional delegate (when they were the "in" drivers for the sport), and as a selector. The club stuff is usually pretty good, and it is social and things just get done! At the national level there is always politics involved - and it is typically more about those in the organisation looking after their own interests rather than doing what they are either paid to do or "volunteering" to do. Those that are there trying to do their job to the best of their ability are usually "used and abused" until they break - which is usually pretty quickly. 

The overall direction that Triathlon NZ is taking maybe commendable, and on the surface sounds good - but if you skim over the recent performance and think for a moment about what they are trying to achieve, you soon realize they have conflicting goals and are at the very least, highly over ambitious. A bit like the guy who has a 10km PB of 42 minutes and starts his half marathon with the guns, running the first km in 2:54 and then struggles through the last 5km averaging 6:52/km. A bit more realistic approach at the start would result in a far better finishing result. I would much rather see realistic goals and far less spin doctoring - just get on with the job! 

What would I like to see from triathlons national body? I will say that I have communicated my ideas to TriNZ - to the CEO and relevant authorities within (usually over a semi-civil cup of coffee!). I suspect mostly what was heard was blah blah blah, as the promised follow-up has never eventuated from any sources. The main thing I would like to see is get the core business sorted and running the best it possibly can. Forget everything else until that is sorted. I see the main tasks of the national body as being; technical - the administration of the rules for the sport, selection - national teams both elite and age-group (primarily world championship - but there are other aspects), and administration of the sport (membership and some high performance stuff requires a fair bit of paper pushing). Forget about organizing races - TriNZ has proven resoundingly over the last 3 years that it cannot organize races. TriNZ has made a total hash of a number of events including a few national championships. Sort out the junior development program so that you keep the talent in the sport and enjoying the sport. The current scheme of identifying one narrow skill set and putting all the effort into that small basket of eggs is simply not working. The high performance program (including junior development) has had one athlete come through in over 8 years (Debbie Tanner), all the other Elite athletes that have performed on the world stage would have done so without the HP program, and perhaps done even better! Isnt there a definition of insanity that goes along the lines of "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result"...

bit of intensity and fun...

The tour de France is over for another year, and now I should be getting more sleep, but I am left wondering what to do at 11:30 at night - with no tour to watch. It was a funny tour - and a few reports, forums and podcasts have been debating the excitement level. Contador was by far the strongest cyclist. One of the best at the time trial, and in the mountains. He was also in the strongest team - despite Astana trying its best to implode on itself and attack their own riders all the time - but I suppose you are going to get that - when you have at least 4 riders with a chance of winning the tour. If half the news reports are true, Mr Armstrong was doing his very best to undermine Contador - of course he was saying the right things, like "the team must win" etc etc. Now post tour the ugly war of words is on. I thought the number of stages that finished down hill (rather than hill top) affected the outcome significantly. Rather than attack with a few km's to go and gain a few seconds, riders were just riding solid tempo, as any gains on the uphill would probably be nullified on the down hill. The other subject that must come up is doping. Not many failed drug tests during - a couple from test prior to the tour though. I don't see this as necessarily good. I do think doping is far less prevalent than previously - but there will always be those that will try. So a few failed tests here and there is a good thing - it shows the testing is working! 
The last two weeks training has sort of gone a little pear shaped. I knew there were going to be a few challenges - just fitting things in - but I was a little disappointed that I really let it go far more than I should have. The biggie was swimming. Two squad swims only, and I really should have got my ass to the pool at least one other time each week - even if it was just a cruisy 1km of dog paddle. I did make one other trip to the pool for a swim and a gym - only to find it all shut down due to a bomb scare! Blimming heck! Don't these people have any consideration for my training?? It is hard enough to get it done anyway- stop making it harder! In fact that was the start of a couple of days of "this is just getting too hard". Plan to go for a run, at the planned time it is just bucketing down - not just heavy rain - you are actually worried about not dissolving! Go to jump on the windtrainer - flat tyre. Fix the flat, get started and the computer connected to the trainer crashes after 10 minutes. Get off, reboot, start warm-up again. Sigh... 

The big plus side was that we had a fine Sunday - and we could get out for a long bike! The cold of winter is not so bad when the there is no rain and no wind. I actually really enjoy riding on those crisp mornings - especially when the sun is on your back!  

At the weekend The local triathlon club organised a duathlon and a time trial option at the (almost) local motor racing circuit. It was a pretty casual affair, and my input from casual consultant to race day director felt a little like a hospital pass - but it was OK really (the race organiser did all the work!!). I think the days events turned out pretty well, a few things I would like to improve on organsiation wise, but it was a good change, and looked like most people actually enjoyed slogging it out around the race track! I had tried to get a few of the girls from the school cycling out there to run around there as a team - but only two turned up (all the others appear to have moved into slack mode). And both of them did the duathlon before. So I managed to convince a couple of the school boys that did the duathlon to also do the team time trial thing. Unfortunately we had to send Bex home - nice dose of the flu getting much worse, so our 5 person team was now 4. We were last to leave in the teams, and the two boys took off very strongly and poor Amelia was already on the back foot (or pedal?) after less than 100m. I called "easy" to get things back together and told Amelia just to sit at the back and look after herself as best she could. Daniel and Sam are both very good athletes in their own right, and were riding strongly. As it turned out we each ended up leading very much the same part of the course for each lap. Daniel pretty much do the back straight (awkward cross wind), Sam did the ugly head wind section (with a bit of each straight either side), and I took all the glory doing the tail wind and past the crowds at the start-finish line. Still can't believe they let me get away with that for a whole hour! We had to ease a couple of times for Amelia, usually when someone lapped through really hard (I think all the boys had a go at doing that!). For our hour of riding - we ended up averaging 39.9kph. I was on my road bike (drop bars - no aero gear), and averaged 315watts for the hour. That means it was pretty ugly conditions - as I would expect to average over 40kph on that road surface on my own with aero bars at around 275watts. So I was getting a fair bit of draft, and for that power should have been more like 42-44kph - even on the road bike setup. But it was good fun - no one caught us and we passed plenty of others! It was fun actually lapping out with others that are really good at doing it - rather than sitting at the back watching and yelling (as with school coaching).

The solid hour on Sunday rounded out a very solid week of training really - not a great deal of volume, but quite a bit of intensity. I don't usually cope that well without my easy training - so if there are 4 plus very solid sessions I usually get a little turned inside out. Monday was a solid swim - with 18x200 as the main set with a mix of freestyle, IM and kick (all the freestyle on 2:45 - which is just making it for me!). Tuesday was a Kick the school girls in the butt cycle session - an hour and a half with solid hill reps, then Tuesday bike class (hard) that night. Wednesday I thought was going to be an easier swim, as Anna was not going to be there - but she was! And it was decided that the 5km swim that was planned for Friday was now going to be done on Wednesday (which I was not planning on doing!). That was pretty much 4km in the first hour, and then another km just to round out to 5 - all at a solid steady effort. I was a bit tired after that! I took Wednesday bike class a little easier. Thursday morning was crack the whip and more hill reps with the school cycling training. Unfortunately a couple were riding quite well, so that made life a little more difficult. Friday morning run intervals were a little more on the shorter and sharper side - and I was not that sharp to be fair. An easy run on Saturday was good - although the loop I did took about the same time as the week before but was almost 6km shorter... So a solid week in the end...


Here is the power graph for the team time trial at Pukekohe race track. Most of the spikes (400+watts) are after I have done my lap and Sam is lapping through really hard - thanks a lot!!



Me playing with the girls at cycle training while doing hill reps - took a fair amount of power to drop them on a few of the efforts - 420+ for a minute and a half is quite solid...

change in focus and school racing...

Well it has been a few weeks - and the training has had a bit of a kick in the pants. Nothing dramatic, but there have been a few significant shots in the arm - most that were needed! Running and swimming have had a big step up. Swimming in that I have doubled the number of sessions for the last couple of weeks - which would normally be quite dramatic, but in reality is just up to where it should be. Running has had a couple of solid hit-outs, and one good week of reasonable volume too. As a consequence of the swimming and running increase, cycling has taken a fairly significant hit, but I am sort of just trying to maintain that at the moment, and when I (hopefully) get over the swimming and running shock, the cycling can come back a little.
Next week is the start of a new school term, so it will be back to cycle training for a couple of mornings per week, which will make swimming harder again, and increase cycling by 1 or 2 rides per week. So I will have to be a little more diligent in getting the non-squad swims done, and ramp up the time management a little more.

Swimming has been in "maintenance mode" prior to going away, then had a couple of weeks off. Needless to say my swim fitness was at a fair reflection to the effort than had been put in! Not that good! The swim sessions I was doing were good, there just were not enough of them! So with school holidays - swimming went up to four times per week. It was a shock to the system and quite a struggle, certainly for the first two weeks. This week at least some form is showing signs of re-appearing - not there yet, but there is some hope! Everything pretty much aches, shoulders are very niggly, and I just feel like hitting the alarm in the morning and going back to sleep - but that is the easy option... I think that if I don't give the swimming a kick in the pants, I would be a broken man at swim squad very soon! That may still happen, but at least I will go down with some resistance, rather than just a whimper in the corner of the lane...

The running had a solid week a few weeks ago. A good volume of running (almost cracked 6 hours for the week), included a cross country race on the Saturday and then ran the waitak's on the Sunday. So ended up with run intervals on Friday, 4 runs on Saturday (total of 50 minutes, with Saturday training, warm-up for cross country, cross country and a warm-down), and a mega hill run at a solid tempo on the Sunday. The long run was a bit over 2 hours 10min, and it is around 28km. The cross country was a flat and fast 4km, a little short for me, although about perfect for terrain and footing - at least as far as cross country goes! For the long run, the up hills were far better than the downs, and it was pretty much the sore leg city on the first major down. It did not help that is was almost 40 minutes longer and a fair amount steadier, and hillier than any other long run I have done for a long time, but it was good to knock off, and kick my ass into gear.

The waitaks loop has a good hill in it..


Cycling form was certainly a little off after my short trip away. There was a bit less power on the hard, and a bit higher HR for the normal easy and moderate efforts. All of which was a bit more than I thought would be the case after 1 ride in two weeks - not really a big break, but perhaps enough to start a bit of a slide after more maintenance training than hard out "improving fitness" training. It has come back through the lower end efforts, and I think the upper end efforts are now a bit more affected by what has been done in the previous 24-36 hours. I have had a good hard ride after an easy day, and a couple of pretty average interval rides after a moderate day the previous day.

A couple of weeks ago we were away for the secondary schools north island cycling champs. Liz and I were there as the designated team coaches. I thought that this would be a fairly relaxed weekend, with a lot of standing around, and not much "doing", perhaps a 2 minute talk before the team time trial and then just standing around for moral support. It did not quite end up that way! The days were a bit longer than expected (plenty of divisions to race), and a lot more running around and nervous tension than I expected. The Saturday was team time trials and Sunday was individual road races. Dio cycling has a lot of pressure to perform, and the A teams (junior and senior) are expected to bring home the trophies! Not a bad thing in an overly politically correct world.

Both the junior and senior A teams were a rider short, with the last rider not really at the same level as the others (not really their fault). So this added to the pressure a little more, as the other teams were certainly gunning for a Dio scalp - and not bashful about telling everyone. So a little different game plan was required, with the weaker rider required to just sit-on the back and hold on, try and save themselves, and if they can - help on the way home. Checking everyone knew what their job was and settling some very frayed nerves took a fair amount of energy I have to say! Added to that, I was the team "mechanic" as well. This adds a little more stress too - as the bike checks are done as you go to the start line, so if any bikes fail - you only have a couple of minutes at the most to sort it. School gears are limited, and this is what is the focus of the check - so if you fail the "roll-out" (your bike goes too far per pedal stroke), there is not-so-minor panic. We check these before, but we have still previously had a fail, so it is a nervous wait. My anticipated casual weekend of watching cycling was definitely becoming a little more stress filled than I had anticipated! But the girls rode well - almost exactly to plan. The juniors were third, then second after a DQ. My rough timing gave the seniors a win by a couple of seconds, so it was a very anxious wait for the official results - in the end a win by 5 seconds. Whew. The big day out of the way with one trophy and one podium...


Those blurs that are approaching are team time trial riders - in the "good" weather the weekend gave...


For the individual races - the weather was a shocker - cold and wet! School racing is pretty hazardous under ideal conditions, add water and wind, and the recipe for disaster just got moved a bit closer to the front of the book. I naively thought that most girls would have their own ideas for the individual races, as many have their own coaches. Let's just say there were many discussions on race plans for many girls in the morning, and a bit more settling of nerves. Some were quite basic - like stay out of trouble and don't crash. For the seniors - I made more of a team plan - one attacks on the hills until she gets in a break, one covers breaks on the flat, and one sits in the bunch and looks after the designated sprinter - who just had to stay in the main bunch. I was pretty stoked when the designated break-away person won from her break-away partner, and the designated sprinter won the bunch sprint for 3rd. Watching and running around was definitely far more stressful and tiring than racing myself! The only training in the weekend was a 45min "tempo" run with Ant's. In the wet, dark cold of Hamilton, I quickly discovered Ant's preferred pace was almost the exact pace that really aggravated my tender ITB's. So it was either run faster or slower - and unfortunately it was faster for about 40 out of 45min... Oh well - good to catch up with old mates anyway :-)

This is as good as my photography gets with a cell phone while running to the finish line (Bex with a great ride to hang in the front bunch)

Away and back again...

I tried to work my butt off to get at least on target work wise, optimistically thinking of getting a little ahead. Of course I knew it was always going to be tough to get away without a few mid-night candle burning, and still being a little behind. But I tried! I made sure I did a fairly good back-up of the computer before leaving, and was planning on doing a few little tidy-up jobs early in the morning before heading off. My flight was at lunch time on Sunday, and did have to look after the school team time trial teams before going - which is a 6am start. So the plan was to go to the TTT, and then pop off to the airport. Well, the quick tidy up of a few chores before leaving for the TTT in the morning quickly went out the window, when there was the shrill call "it is 10 to 6!!!". I wake to find my self holding my watch, after having turned the alarm off around an hour earlier. Deep breath, and 10 minutes later, I have finished packing and we are heading off to the water front. Oh well - I have probably forgotten something! But I am on my way. 
The girls do a good job at the TTT - apart from one not making roll-out (failing the gear restriction) - tut tut! Nice to be seeing the teams do so well before leaving.
The flight over was pretty good really. The first leg I had an exit row, window seat, but unfortunately a screaming baby for 6 of the 10 hours. Singapore airport was not too bad for a 6 hour stop over, and the second leg was good - with an empty seat next to me, and sleeping for over half the 12 hours of flight. Arrive to 16 degrees and showers (at 6am), but a pleasant 20-somthing degrees and clear skies when we get to home base! 

The first couple of days were pretty low key. There was a thorough investigation into the relative merits or German, French, Colombian, and NZ red wines. The end result was me sleeping on the couch (and NZ wines faired far better than the all blacks...)... A few pre-weeding things to do on Wednesday - like getting food ready! The wedding was probably the German equivalent of a registry wedding - however it was in a nice little chapel/meeting room (a few hundred years old, semi-underground and very quaint). It was a little different to the NZ format, with a long chat by the celebrant - of which I managed to understand around 10-15% of the conversation, and around 20-30% more as random words. Then a quick "I do" at the end and a glass of Champaign to finish with. Nice The evening was a nice relaxed party, and no formal speeches. The Colombian dancing is certainly different, and the kiwi "towel dance" did not fit in that well - but I am sure was good for a laugh! However at around 2am I did get a salsa type dance lesson, and I think I only injured around 5 others in do so. Dance idol contestants will not be quivering in there shoes...
Training for the week was always going to be limited, but did get a few runs in. The first day there I did actually get taken to the local gym - jumped on the spin bike for 20 minutes, 3km on the treadmill and did a few weights too. Quite a good way to start the "get in to German time zone", and recover from the flight. The running was great - 5 minutes and you are in forest tracks - nice hard pack dirt/fine gravel tracks, absolutely perfect for running on. I find this running environment very relaxing, and it was great to be running in a T-shirt in a nice temperature too. Probably could/should have done more, but there was catching up with old friends to be done, and a bit of sight seeing too. On Saturday went to the black forest which was about 120km away from "home base". I borrowed Petes old bike - steel frame and forks (that old!), about 5 sizes too big and weighing in at around 12kg. After a visit to the home of the cuckoo clock the the black forest cake (samples included of course), I headed out on a bit of an adventure ride. A few hazy instructions and a borrowed iphone with gps and mapping facilities and I was off. After around 4-5km of gentle down hill I made the first turn. I thought that the instructions were to take a gentle route around the base of what was described as "not a mountain, more of a big hill". I think there was a translation issue here, and I think at this early point I took a wrong turn. as around the corner there was the dreaded gradient sign - reading 19%. Not quite what I wanted so early on - on a borrowed bike, twice the weight of mine, and with 42-23 as the easiest gear. A bit over 20 minutes later I get a bit of down hill - after a very solid strength workout! Another longer more gradual climb through some nice quiet roads in the middle of forestry, and a nice 26 degree day - fantastic. The rest of the ride was flat, on nice cycle paths and an old road, that is pretty much just cyclists (had a main road running parallel). I did end up going a little the wrong way, but in the end it did not matter too much as I just back-tracked and got picked up. A bit over 4 hours out there, probably around 3hr20min riding (didn't stop the clock for a couple of the stops). I squeezed in another run in the forest before heading back to the airport! 
On Sunday there was a classic car show in the village - so I popped down and had a look there - primarily Italian classics - most of which were Alfa Romeos - Perfect!! A couple of really nice cars were there - which made the day totally worth while. If I was a little more training focused I should have gone for another longer bike ride - but it was nice to look around some nice old cars (hobby number 2). 

I almost managed to bungle the flight home. I thought it was at around 10:30pm, and we were planning on leaving for the airport around 5pm (normally a 2hr drive), and of course 5pm leaving becomes 6pm, and then we managed to get stuck in a nice traffic jam for an hour. A nice BMW M5 had a little fire trouble by the looks! Check in and the plane is already boarding, whoops, it is a 9:30 flight! A brisk walk through the airport and I am straight onto the plane, about 3rd to last on! Don't think I need any closer than that!

Back to the cold, and nose now firmly attached to the grind stone...


Family Mueller - Ma Mueller is one of the best hosts ever. I am sure she is part of the "get tony over 90kg" conspiracy.


A nice little alfa to run around in! perhaps not quite the thing for the longer autobahn trips, but good for the summer!

leaving the cold...

The end of this week I am off for ten days to Germany - for my good mate Petes wedding. It is a long way to go for 10 days - and I probably should have tacked a little more "holiday" in, but as I thought about it, it quickly went in to the "too hard" basket. So a quick trip it is - with 61 hours in a plane there-and-back. It will be good to see old friends, but they better not get me reading out the telegrams at the wedding! With a German-Spanish wedding, my international language skills will be shown to be poor at best! And apparently I am meant to know how to "salsa" (dance not sauce). On the bright side - it was 34 degrees there last week...
Training has been going OK, have missed one or two things per week, and there have been no spectacular sessions. The harder sessions are a little slower, and the longer sessions not really than long. Swimming is still on a downward slide (2 swims per weeks is just not enough), and I have cut back the weights a little as they were just hammering me too much (probably a little too keen to start out with in reality). But the overall volume of training is pretty good - for this time in the build-up. I have given 15hrs (weekly training hours) a scare, and don't feel too bad for it. I think as a basic - "get out and do some training" block, it has been a good 3-4 weeks. Hopefully after my little trip away I am in good enough shape to actually start some proper training! 
Weight - well the OHagan-Goer house hold had their first weigh-in this week just gone by. I have written about weight before - and personally I don't mind putting a bit on at the end of a season, and when it comes time to lose it - I eat a bit less and/or train a bit more. But I don't live alone, and sometimes there are compromises... Recovery phase is pretty much over, and the few kgs extra sort of went toward 6kgs extra. It does not worry me much - yet, but I don't need to add any more! For Ironman this year I was 74-something, and now I am 79.5 (officially). With the weights I would think that I have had 1-2kgs of muscle added on, but I can definitely feel some "non-functional baggage", particularly running at the moment. For Worlds (in October) I want to be back to 74-ish, and if I kick on to Ironman again, then 73-ish would be the goal. The trick is not to lose any strength with the weight loss. In fact I still plan to increase strength quite a bit! So steady as she goes. For a bit over 1kg per month, or around 300grams per week of weight loss, I need a deficit of around 3000 kcal per week. So that is either around 430 kcal per day less going in (a couple of big slices of toast) or 4 to 5 hours more training per week (easier effort for me). Should be quite doable. The main obstacle to this is a 10 day trip to Germany next week - for a Wedding. Pretzels and beer may not be the ideal, second week in to the plan... 
New shoes - A few weeks back (well - a solid month really), at the first cross country, I had a really sore hip and the legs were pretty tender after. Of course it was the first cross country in almost 10 years - what did I expect?!? Later the week after, on the second run of the week, the hip really flared up after it had initially settled a bit. Click - I had used the same shoes for the cross country and that run, and an alternate pair in between. So those shoes got the heave-ho (ie are now the new "casual" shoe). In the last week the legs have been feeling pretty hammered, and I have not really been ramping up the running, so shoes #2 where getting past their prime too. Bit the bullet and went and got 2 new pairs of runners, and start this week with new shoes! First run, and "aahhh" - much better!!! Probably left it a week too long! Sorted now, and hopefully ready to start some proper run training too! 


We made a stop on our long ride to remember the chickens that lost their lives at the top of Twighlight Rd last year. The natural selection process has meant that they no longer "live" in the middle of the road...


Down town Saulgau - fond memories for me here. I have enjoyed my various stays and the people I have meet. Looking forward to going back - even if it is for only a week. The local village "Kirche" use to have a couple of cranes (of the bird variety) living around the steeple. Who would have thought!