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!

winter is here...

Nothing too exciting on the training front in the last week - which is not a bad thing! Although I have been officially sacked as weather reporter/predictor. For two Sundays I have said "no long ride on the road - rain is coming". And twice it has been fine. There was rain, but it did not really arrive during the ride time! Of course if I had gone out, it would have poured down! I have been caught a couple of times in the rain - and it is very wet rain at the moment!

Winter temperatures have certainly arrived. Going to training in the early mornings is certainly cold now, with 4 degrees the lowest so far. Even had to bring the thermal gloves out for a run! I am OK with the cold - I just don't like the wet and cold! In fact I think I just don't like the wet. Minor aches and pains of training appear to become more than minor with the cold too - which I am not liking!
I have sort of missed a couple of sessions in the last week or so - mainly rides. A couple of school rides ended up being wind trainer sessions instead of road rides - so I get to yell instructions for an hour or so instead of sitting at the back of a bunch riding... It can be a tough life being a coach. Work got in the way of a couple of days as well - giving talks and going to events. Nothing too stressful at all, just time consuming and I get quite tired with lots of standing.
A few weeks ago James (swim coach) asked for a few harder swim sessions from us. I put forward one that was pretty solid, with some trepidation, as I figured it was probably going to pop up in the near future. The guts of the session was that you started at 50m on 1:30 (plenty of rest), and then you add 50m to each subsequent rep and 30 seconds to the send off, and keep doing that until you can't make the send-off time. So you basically have to start swimming quite fast to make the send-off times at some point! The time I got given this session (many years ago), there was then 8x100 fly after you didn't make the send-off time! I was first to start the fly back then! Friday rolls around and I start to receive these abusive text messages! It does not take too much to work out that my little gem of a session popped up on Friday (I was not there - I was doing run intervals). I arrive to swimming on Monday morning and I get greeted with "You Fcuk*#@ pri##! And you didn't even turn up for your own session" and a couple of other less friendly comments! There was no love in the lane - I can assure you of that! Dean Kent (Olympic swimmer) shows up on Wednesday - and we get introduced, and I get "Oh - you are the guy that made that session up on Friday!". It obviously affected people quite severely! James did alter the session slightly - from what I can gather - He started at 100 on 2:15 and I think they all finished on 500m which would have been on 6:15 - which is a solid pace (you have to average better than 1:15 per 100m). But they didn't have to do the fly! They all appear to be over it now...
I have been meaning to write a bit sort of loosely based on the swim squad experience - more along the lines of "Raising the standard". I have been swimming at the Glenfield squad for a few years - off and on, and it ha certainly been through a few changes. But most of the changes have been the people that have passed through. James (the coach) is pretty old school, and his swim programs are pretty standard. If you go on a certain day, you know pretty much what you are going to get. That is a good thing for me - it makes putting the sessions into a plan much easier. The current group in the faster lanes are mostly older athletes that "have been something" is their sporting pasts - at least NZ reps, and a few Olympians in there too. Everyone pretty much gets on, and the sessions get done in some shape or form. Negotiations are often enacted without much coach decision involved, and it all works very well. What has generally happened is that the standards have gone up and become the new expectations - and there is not really any complaints, it is just accepted that "this is the new standard". For example, Wednesday usually has a 1500m swim in it - not a time trial, just a swim. Sometimes people give it a good go, and it is usually a solid pace. I usually swim just under 20 minutes (pull) and get lapped between 2 and 4 times! Last week I was a bit over the idea of doing a 1500m - so I suggested 15x100 instead. Pretty much everyone was happy with that. A few years ago, that would have been 15 on 1:30 (send-off time), perhaps the last 5 on 1:25. But the lane leaders (not me!) quickly decide it is 5 on 1:25, 5 on 1:20 and 5 on 1:15 - and I just quietly gulp at the back of the lane, knowing the last 4-500m will be continuous! We did the same again this week. Many other squad I have swum in, with this sort of set there would be plenty of complaints - it is solid, and a challenge to get through! But there are no complaints (I don't think I said mine out loud anyway...) - and at the end, someone comments in an excited voice, "we should try going on 1:10 next month!!".

That is crazy!!! I have seen numerous times where good athletes have really worked together in training in a very positive manner to help each other become far greater athletes. I also had a similar experience cycling in Dunedin when I lived there. In many cases it is training with one of your greatest competitors - and helping them to become better - possibly to your own detriment at the next race. But if you are looking at the bigger picture and see that on the big stage you have to be far better, then that is certainly a risk worth taking. If you are only interested in being the big fish in your local (and usually quite small) pond - then perhaps it is not worthwhile. I have also witnessed training situations where athletes are competitive in training in a very destructive manner. Rather than try to help each other get better, they try to crush each other and break each other. The end result is very poor results on race day and the only results that count are the first 4 x 100m reps at swim squad on Wednesday (even if the set is 12x100). Not really helping improve the standards at all.

challenging moments...

A few things to report in! Woody and Tam are now married - very nice. The weather was great before and after, and we made good use of the roaring fire during! A very nice wedding, with no broken bones on the dance floor (apparently!). I also hear Nana Kirk (Reuben to most) made it past midnight at his stag do - most bets were that he would not last after 9! Well done Reub's (and you should be married by now too!)!  
I snuck in a bike time trial this past week. It had to be done - just to check where I am at and to actually practice doing the darn things. I pretty much knew where I was at - and I was pretty much right on. But it still needed to be done. It was around a minute slower than my best and around 30watts lower on the power, which I think is OK for current fitness. End result for 25km on the trainer - 30:28 and 337w average. 
A few days after the time trial I also have my first real explosion. Wednesday morning at the pool I was absolutely dead! Was a bit tired getting up (well, REALLY tired actually, but this is not that unusual on Wednesday morning), and the warm-up felt pretty average, but I don't usually feel good then anyway. Then we had the standard 1500m swim - which we usually do pull. I went out normal steady, and there was nothing there - not even vapours in the tank. I was lapped at 200m (usually I can hold off to 400m on these), so I stopped and took the pull gear off and thought I would just plod along and try to get a bit of recovery going (make the most of the session since I was there). Well, I was almost stalling in the water and was really just an obstacle in the lane. I could tell pretty quickly it was not going to get better, or even not "not get worse" - so pull the pin and went home and ate! You need to know when to cut your losses - and I am pretty sure staying in the pool would have just dug a deeper hole. Then post explosion there is usually a little bit of soul searching - a bad day is one thing, but when it is this bad, it does make you wonder what the heck went so badly wrong. I am pretty sure it was a combo effort - the bike TT on Sunday night, hard bike on Tuesday and not enough food on Tuesday particularly after the harder ride. 
The next bigger happening on the training front this week was the first cross country running race in many years. I think cross country is great for running strength - very hard to equal - however, they are also bloody hard work! You cant hide (eg mass start bike races), there are usually hills, soft and/or uneven footing, and competition - you will no doubt have you own little battles within the race, no matter where in the field you are! After really only one week of consistent run training, it was not going to be pretty - and I was really questioning the point of even doing it on the way there (not helped by the fact it was a 70km drive to get there!). I had convinced myself that even an hour on the windtrainer would be at least as beneficial. I was clutching at straws! I was not going to race in spikes for the first couple of races - so as not to risk injury - no need to blow a calf at this point. Of course a week of rain made it ideal for spikes, and not really that good for the old trainers. A very short warm-up, as every thing was pretty sore and I felt I only had 8km of running in my hamstring, so a 1km warm-up would leave me 500m short of the finish line, plus I did not want to start out fast. the plan was to start out slow, build a bit and then survive, with no hard charging finish if it came to a sprint. The gun goes, and so does everyone else! I think there were still a couple behind me at the first gate, but most were in front, although it was still pretty crowded. Then step in something a bit squishy - oh that's right, you have to look out for cow patties when running cross country - forgot about that. The rest of the race was reasonably predictable - build through the fast starters a bit through the middle, and was quite thankful to pass at least a couple of 60+ vets. On the last lap (of three), the hamstring and calves started to tighten up a little, so eased back a fraction, but still kept a solid pace. Down to the last 500m and a couple of "runners" sprint past, but they can have their glory - this time at least! One down...
Some days you wonder why you got out of bed - or you should have just gone back to bed and forgot about the training. Sundays longer ride was going to be a tricky one - the weather forecast was terrible, and I had the school team time trials on early - so the long ride was scheduled for a bit after that (30min later than usual). Just as I woke up it was pouring down, so at that point I decided there was no long ride on the road option (although it was 5am and the ride would be starting around 8am). Do the team time trial coaching thing (which went VERY well), and the road is very wet but it is calm and blue sky (although there are a few clouds and no doubt there will be a couple of good showers). No gear with me, so I have limited my options to a windtrainer ride at home. Later in the day, hop on the trainer, and after 15min the effort feels quite hard for the speed, check the power - OK that is quite high. Which means the tyre is going flat... Two punctures and two pieces of glass removed from the tyre and we are back going again (should have looked for that second piece the first time!). 20 minutes later and the tyre is going soft again. OK, I think it is time to call it quits! It was just not meant to be!
Next week better have a few less hiccups in it!


Here is the cross country. There is a nice hill in there - 3 laps so you got to do it 3 times! I tried to keep the effort mostly even. The HR fell off slightly in the last 10 minutes, as the hamstring tightened up quite a bit and the achillies was protesting on the up hills - but in a good way.

Here is the 25km TT - started off a little conservative, and finished with a little bit in the tank - which is a little unusual - as I usually have little left at the end. So perhaps a little left to give - but not too much. All good!

phase two...

Had the New Zealand secondary school triathlon champs last weekend. I was there officially as the Dio team coach, but also had a couple of other athletes competing that I coached. I really find these events quite scary - from the aspect of there being SO much talent in young athletes - but that hardly even seems to kick on. My guess is the boys find beer and the girls find boys. But I digress... The school racing is quite varied and the younger generation have to cope with a variety of racing styles, courses and pressures - particularly if they are good. They have drafting races, non-drafting, and team events and no doubt many are roped in to other sports too. To add to that - this season had the athletes required to be in peak shape in November, February and at the end of April for the "big races". Not really feasible, and quite poor planning if there was any planning going into the race calendar.



watch out here comes Bex - that is all the start you are getting!!

It was a pretty good weekend. The water was a bit "crisp" I have to say - and my recommended early morning "check the course out" swim did not feel like a great idea in the cold drizzling rain at 7:30am. In hind sight I think it was a good idea (when in the van with the heaters on full!). Some great racing, and I think even a good time was had by some. From my end, young Alex did well, but was probably not quite the race course for him. He probably wanted a better result than what he got - but he raced the best he could, and I don't think he could have done anything better. Horses for courses and all that. Bex had a great race - also for fourth - from a runner who could survive the swim and get through a bike to start running - to carving up the bike and pulling through strong on the run! The Dio Team also did fantastic - 2 wins and a 5th for the senior girls (few to many injured athletes!).

This week sees a new phase in the training for me. I have moved from school triathlon coach to school cycling coach. So two mornings per week on the bike for the next two terms. I have had the first week of training - which was a little better than expected after the training camp. I got a little lucky and ended up taking the better group of the senior riders. They know pretty much what they are doing and you just let them go to it and sort them selves out (at the moment anyway). There is also some healthy competition to get into the A team - so I think that will help motivation. I did end up being tail end charlie on the way home on the first ride, which was a little less fun - I am not sure how they manage to go so slow and not fall off their bikes! Add to that early morning Auckland commuter traffic and the last 2km takes about 15 minutes with a few sets of lights to negotiate...


The training implications are now that I have more cycling automatically added to the program, and less opportunity for swimming. This month (May), I need to move from recovery and introductory training (all pretty easy) into some more serious training. So the training is going to hopefully turn into something along these lines:

Swimming: Monday and Wednesday morning squads, and I need at least one other swim, preferably two, even if they are just an easy 2km plod. That is one of my challenges to sort out this month. Swimming is definitely going down with the very erratic and low amount of sessions being done. What I do get done is good - it is just not enough!

Cycling: I have two spin classes to take - so that is a hard ride and a reasonably easy one. Two early morning rides (most weeks) with the school girls. These will no doubt involve some solid efforts now and then (well - they better do!), but will be easy-ish overall. Long rides are sort of back underway for Sundays but these too are under threat from a few sources. There are a few early morning school team time trials to contend with on Sunday mornings - but I think I will just ride a little later. There is winter weather to cope with too. A little further down the track I also want to do a few long runs in the waitak's on a Sunday morning instead of long rides. I probably need to add in a steady/strength ride at least every second week at some stage for "my training", which might be tricky to fit in. That will also mean probably more cycling in a week than I have done in a very long time. I am sort of interested in what will happen in this regard!
Running: I have been doing stuff all! Friday morning run intervals and one or two other very short easy sessions. That was sort of the plan - get the strength training going and then slowly get into the running. Well the strength training has been sort of there (not perfect, but getting done), and now I think it is time to start running a little more. This year I do want to get some running form back. I have signed up for the cross country running season - which starts next weeks (eek!). I am sure the first few races will be very sorry affairs, but hopefully will build some form a little down the track! I think the first step is to get in at least 3 hours of running in a week and build that up to 4.5 to 5 hours in the next 4-5 weeks. The long run needs to get up to 1hr30min pretty quickly too. Then hopefully I can survive a Waitak's run or two.

Weights: have been doing them, and I am getting stronger, and I am still getting sore muscles after - darn it! I have missed a couple of sessions here and there and I think that is what is making the muscle soreness worse.



No mucking around - go big or go home (oh my poor legs...)...

I do enjoy getting into a routine and ticking off the training and seeing the results that that usually gives. It can be easy for obsessive personalities to let training become the single focus in life - to the detriment of other things in their lives, and usually then their training too. Life often throws a few curve balls just to test you, and also opportunities pop up that may never pop up again. I have a few which can probably fall into the latter, coming up - as weddings. Young Woody is off up the Isle this weekend, and my dear friend Pete from Germany has just invited me over in June for his wedding.