Getting into gear… cross country gear…

Motivation to kick some change in form has been quite high for the last few months. I decided that the running needed a good kick in the pants – as I have not really done any proper run training for almost 10 years, I was very much on borrowed time for reasonable performances running wise.

Last year was similar. I registered for the cross country season, and did two races – the first and the last! I think the season was interrupted with a couple of injuries and a couple of trips over seas. This year will be different (he says with fingers and toes crossed). I even took the spikes out at did a couple of short runs in them, just to get use to them, to try to minimise the injury risk. The first was out at Pukekohe, a nice undulating course. I still felt well under done on the start line– a little bit like the fat kid that gets picked last. I thought I had managed to hide well in the middle of the pack at the start, and with about 10 seconds to go, the guy in front of me panics as he realises he is at the front and should not be there. I was quite funny watching him turn and barge through the pack in the opposite direction. However, the funny side soon turn to dread as I was the one that was shoved out of the way, and was now right up the front. My plans for a building effort were now radically changed to “dam – I better get out of here fast or I am going to be trampled to death!”. I did manage to see the front runners at the first corner, and then it was slowly drift back through the field, to my rightful mid-pack position. As the race progressed everything was hurting. The lungs were burning, the legs were screaming – especially the calves, and it felt like I was just plodding along. Normally I feel like I take corners and gradual down hills quite well, but on this day I was struggling to run around the corners and the down hills got slower and slower. The frustration level went up a notch when the guy in front of me had his spikes fall apart, and he was still running faster than me with the sole of his shoe flapping all over the place! The torment finally ended, but the pain did not subside. The legs were at about the same pain level as post Ironman – it was ridiculous! The only redeeming features were that it must get better and I found out I had somehow burgled 3^rd place in the younger vet category (would have been 4^th in the older vets category!).

Race 2 of the cross country series was a flat and faster affair, but at 8.6km, and reasonably soft underfoot it was not going to be easy. Especially when my longest run has been around 14km (eek!). I managed a more sensible start this time and settled in to a small group. I quickly decided I was the weak runner of the group and should sit on the shoulder of the best wind break there was. I was probably the biggest pain in the butt of the group, sitting really close in behind. I ended up with a few cuts in the knees where I got clipped by the spikes of those running in front of me. A couple of times I had to pull the guy up in front of me as I half tripped him up. He was pretty good about it – I think if it was me I would have said something! I felt a lot more in control and felt I did have a choice in speed – it was not just survival. When there were surges, I could react, and I was happy going a bit slower when the pace did drop a little (in fact I was quite happy!). The last 1km was always going to be interesting. Our group was down to three, and one took off with a good 800m to go, and he was gone. I was still sitting on the shoulder as we turned the last corner and preparing to launch what sprint I had. The guy in front slowed a little, so I went full speed – with a slight feeling of guilt as I had sat on him for the last 7km or so. But that guilt was soon cleansed, as he then rolled me with 50m to go with easy! It was actually good fun – we had a great little race within the race. I managed another 3^rd – so in the money again – so to speak!

I missed race three – as I was full of the flu. Which basically took me out of action for 2 weeks. And getting back into training was a fairly slow. So rather than progress forward in June, it was a case of back up a couple of steps. The first few runs back were pretty ugly to be fair.

Race 4 of the series was a flat and fast race at Long bay – just 4km this time. I was only just starting to recover from the bugs, so was net expecting too much. It was a little soft underfoot, and there were a few good down pours during the warm-up. I was going to be a fast start and see how long I could hold on for. The gun went off – and I went out strong – but not too silly. Could see the front of the race, and was even in front of a few guns in the first km. But then went back a little and settled into a solid pace. The top end was certainly missing, better than it had been even earlier in the week, but when I pushed on the gas pedal – the body just laughed and said “– yeah right, who are you kidding…”. Got a bit ass kicked, and had the lungs well and truly cleaned out. But it was motivating to get out and do more run training. So not all bad…

So where is the training at now? Well, here is a summary:

Swimming – 2 swims this week, which makes 4 for the month of June (ouch), and the local pool is closed for 5 weeks to do the maintenance that they should have done last year when it was closed, rather than just tile around the edges! So fair to say it is quite a sad state of affairs.

Cycling – two class rides and a couple of rides with the school girls (weather playing its part). The last long ride was February. Power levels at the interval session where dropping, but appear to have stabilized a little. Cycling is at a maintaining minimal level of fitness to “do the job” at the moment. I think 4-6 weeks of long rides and one other easier ride and that will come back a bit. So not too bad.

Running – have tried to do at least 4 runs per week. This is going OK. Long runs are still lacking, and struggling to get over an hour and a half. The flu certainly knock me around a bit, but with a good couple of weeks of running I think I can start to lift the running up a little. I am almost at a point where I can now run fit enough to do some good run training. I would like to get in a few 70+km/week training weeks. Mostly just need to organise my ass into gear to do this I think.

seminars...

I have been to a couple of seminars in the last couple of months. Last weekend was a power training seminar by Hunter Allen - co-author of "Training and Racing with a powermeter", and before that was by Jack Daniels - Author of "Daniels running formulae". Both were good talks, although if you have read the book and associated literature on-line, there was nothing new at the talks/seminars - for me at least.
Jack Daniels comes from a modern Pentathlon background (Olympic level) and is well in to his seventies now. He has a huge coaching reputation, and certainly knows his stuff. He told a great story, and easily transferred the mostly information the clearest in the time he had available. He seamed to be a really nice guy too!

One of the opening anecdotes that Jack gave started with a Q & A he had with an athlete. Something along the lines of: What is the biggest training run you have done? Bit over 100km (did this more than once). What is the biggest training week? 600km (yes - running!). Highest average mileage for a 6 week period? 500km per week. Greatest average mileage per week for a year? 400km per week. This person was an Olympian, and only had one injury as a runner - which was when he was hit by a car while out running. The moral of this story was that everyone is very individual and you can't just copy what the good guys do! Thank goodness! Does put hard weeks in perspective though.
The big thing I like about Jacks book and philosophy is the Mdot tables. These are basically forcing everyone on to a VO2 max line based on your current performance. You put in a current performance (any performance over a range of distances), and the tables give you an Mdot value. This is basically an estimate of VO2max. Your training paces are then set from this value. The training zones that he uses are easy, marathon pace, threshold, intervals, and reps. He basically recommends a mixture of intensities in a training program for everyone. What mix you use depends on what you are training for

Hunter Allen was a very different presenter, and came from a different direction - a little more commercial angle (buy my book and software), but still presented plenty of information, and he did it quite well. He was quite focused on a “training is testing and testing is training” mantra. It was almost to the point of what can we test and how many ways can we test things. This is all very interesting, and I am sure plenty of people love to see where they stack up on the various tables and rankings. I have found the power profiling table interesting – and this is a table of power-to-weight tables for power outputs for 5sec, 1min, 5min and FT (functional threshold). You can see if you are world class, very good, or just plain unfit! They have also just developed a table on power drop-offs for the various energy systems.
I don’t think the absolute numbers are that accurate – good for general trends, but from my experience, the numbers are a little off. I would guess that the data used to develop the tables is quite selective (from those associated with training peaks and with power meters), rather than a true representation of the population. The other issue for some, is that there actual peak powers for different times may not be that representative. Certainly for the shorter power outputs, motivation is a key component to getting good numbers. A bike race is going to get different peak powers to a bike leg in a triathlon (well – should do anyway!). That aside, you can see where your relative strengths and weaknesses are, for the different energy systems.
There are plenty of graphing options, and one of the bigger things promoted was the performance manager. The aim here was to “quantify your training load and plan your season perfectly to maximize your training”. The formulae behind this comes from Form = Fitness + Freshness. The more training load up put in the fitter you get, but you reduce your fitness. And the more you rest, the better your freshness is, but may compromise the fitness. Fitness is from training stress, which is made up of “chronic training load” (longer term – workouts up to 6 weeks ago) and “acute training load” – which is the more recent sessions (up to 14 days ago). Then the “training stress balance” is the balance of the total training stress and rest, and trends in this should indicate whether you are looking at performing well or a bit tired from a high training load (or potentially overtraining). My feeling was that this does give a good indication of training load, but does nothing to indicate how you are actually adapting to the training load, or what training load is optimal for you. So in short, you still have to decide on what you think will work. I guess over a long period of time with a few results in there, you could get a good idea of how the training load correlates with various performance. However I would suspect there are many other factors that also need to be considered, and not only training load dictates performance.
So overall it was great for those that love graphs and to analyse as much data as they possibly can. How ever this can lead to Paralysis by analysis – especially when you spend more time analysing than actually training. Next on the problem list is the quality of data – garbage in and you get garbage out. If you have low quality data going in, the results you get out are also low quality.

From a philosophical point of view, I think too much testing and too much “best possible effort” is not optimal for the best increase in fitness. Then if you follow on from that point, the data you are putting out (best powers) are not truly representative of your current fitness. If you are using that data as if it is your best, the analysis based on that data is incorrect. Finding the training mix that that does give the optimal increase in performance that you want is the tricky bit!

back on the wagon

Last week was a little attempt to get back into a training and work routine. The last few weeks leading into ironman was quite busy, and after ironman was worse! Thing are usually a little quiet after Ironman, but there was a lot of school stuff on this year (races and organising the year ahead)- and a little more post race reviewing than usual (not a bad thing - in fact good!). So from a training perspective, it had gone out the door, in fact so far out the door and down the road, that little signs were left of a regular routine. I was pretty much just doing coaching sessions that involved exercise. 

Anyway, as I have been slack on the blog - here are a few events, points of possible interest, and landmarks over the last 6 weeks:
The review of the season been for a number of athletes, and from my own perspective as a coach, did pop up a few things that required a re-think coaching wise for myself. I have a number of athletes that have reached a level where a little different approach and different training sessions are required. They have just advanced to a stage that they need something different to continue to progress. As a general "need", I felt anyway, that another run session was required. Just to narrow in on a specific steady state session and on shorter efforts also. The other biggie was to get better organised and use video feedback far more. For so many athletes (myself included), what they perceive they are doing and what they are actually doing is far different. Simply looking at a video of what you are doing is far more effective than telling them what to do repeatedly. 

We had the school cycling camp a week ago. Last year it was pretty hard work - with a lot of pushing girls along and there was a fair amount of "do we have to do that", and resistance to getting A into G in general. This year had far more new athletes, and more younger riders too. The training program this year was much tougher and more challenging, and rather than one big group, we had smaller groups of similar ability. So in the end everyone got challenged, most to their current limits. The amazing thing was that the attitude was more along the lines of "I really want to try to achieve this challenge", as opposed to "I don't really want to be here". It was just fantastic to see the vast majority take the challenge of a hard week of training on! For me - it was a lot of time in the saddle, but I am not sure on the training value. Some was good for sure, but as an example, I averages 89 HR for one ride (32km), with 23 minutes of no pedaling! There was a couple of TT's, same as last year. For the 8km TT, last year I averaged 380w, this year it was 340w. Most of that is a difference in fitness, but I was a little more motivated last year - trying darn hard to catch Scott! 

The body has been sort of holding together. I have been getting a massage pretty much each week, and I think that has helped settle down the calf issue significantly. It is just plain torture for an hour, but appears to be getting results. I have let myself get a little anemic. It is just something I am prone to - and it can sneak up on you. For me iron supplementation is the only thing that I have found to work. The tricky thing is getting the supplements in without turning you insides out (they are a bit rough on the guts!), and I tend to get sick if I go too hard on the supplements too. I just pick up any bug that is even slightly close. Last week I hit the supplements quite hard, and I think they had an effect after only 5-6 days, which is pretty quick! I did get the sniffles after 5 days, so stopped for a few days. I will just cycle a few days on and a few days off for another 10-14 days I think. The other usual things - need to stretch more and do more core...

Had an end of season hit-out at the weekend, with the last of the peoples triathlons. Sprint distance of course. I was pretty sure I was going to get my ass kicked, but I just enjoy getting out and racing. As it turned out, I had a good day out - good result and good fun. Got a bit hammered on the first leg of the swim, to the first turn, then clawed my way back through the chaos. I think I exited the swim just off the first main group. had a pretty good transition, and came out with a solid ox who took off like he was doing a 4km TT. I did all that was required to hang on, and ended up riding to almost the first turn around (~2-3km) with my feet still on top of my shoes. By the turn I had my feet in (just) and we were now a leading group with a few standard course guys too. It was a very solid group, and the pace was pretty solid too. Solid enough that a few of the quite good juniors got dropped. I pretty much sat at the back and made sure any weaker riders were dropped and stayed dropped. When asked to come through for a lap, I showed the old man card, which was readily accepted for some reason. I did managed to dismount first, and then managed to lose that advantage by not finding my spot in transition! That did make me a little angry with myself! First became fourth by a good margin. For the first time in quite a while I actually felt OK on the run. And I even passed a couple on the run as well! I will take a second!   
Next on the list, is to sort out actually where I am at fitness wise - which means a few time trials....


From the Tauranga half IM - giddy up old boy!!

Tauranga half report (very late edition!)

Right - it is time to get this Blog back in action!!! I wrote the vast majority of this a while ago (obviously - the race was in the beginning of January!). But I am turning a new blogging leaf over - and getting back into action!

Well - Tauranga has rolled around again!! My my how time as REALLY flown! I have just rolled through some semi-consistent training. nothing spectacular, but also no major hiccups - which I think has actually made more difference than spectacular training alternated with breaking down injured on a semi-regular cycle.

The race report!

When I entered, I had slightly grander plans - figuring on training quite well for world champs in Perth, and then kicking on to the Tauranga half. The build-up to Perth was quite injury interrupted, and then I decided to leave the running for a month after Perth, to let the legs settle down a bit. So I did end up going in a fair amount under-down than anticipated, but the aim was to just go out and enjoy the day and enjoy racing! Hopefully not too much groveling.

I was pretty relaxed getting into the water, and headed out for a good warm-up and to check to see what the tide was doing. after a couple of minutes of swimming out to the first buoy, I had covered 3-400m. Hmmm - might be a bit of an out-going current running. I decided to head back to the swim start - still 15 minutes or so to go, but it was not quite so simple. I was not making much headway! Might have to put a bit more steady effort in - or swim to shore, walk along and swim out to the start! After around 10 minutes of swimming, I am back at the start line. Definitely the left side is good to start out with that current running!

Lined up on the start line, and only Walter (thorburn) and myself were out to the left, and everyone else was lined up on the right. The usual Pro start line drift started, with the usual - "get back behind the start line". Then to add a bit more spice to my race, what sounded like 200 of the age group men (lined up behind for their start 2minutes later), a chant of "OHagan get back behind the line - you cheat"... Which was followed by the race starter searching for "OHagan in the green cap". Thanks guys! The gun goes off and everyone takes off fast! I got a bit dropped, but I also headed well to the left, for the current, while everyone else was going right. By the time I hooked back in to the first turn buoy, I was in the middle of the main group - great! swimming across was a bit of a chore, as you were at right angles to the current, but OK, and then for the leg back (first lap of 2) I basically swan as shallow as I could (less current to swim against) - and managed to swim past a few that were swimming a straighter line out in the deeper water. Coming out of the water to start the second lap James Bowstead absolutely sprinted through the water on the run out and back in. There was a small group just ahead (10-20m), but again taking a right line. Rather than follow and go with the group, I decided to follow my own line and went more to the left. As it turned out I swam quite straight, perhaps not quite enough to the left for the "good" current, and ended up at the turn buoy a little further back. Next up was the first excitement of the day. About the second sighting stroke around the turn buoy I found myself pinned against a boat! A combo of the strong current and a couple of waves swept myself and the swimmer next to me onto the boat and the waves really did pin us there. We looked at each other with a "WTF - and what do you do now??". The water pressure relented and we were off again. I ended up swimming close to shore back, pretty much alone, and not sure why others were swimming deep, as I did make up a bit more ground. Out of the water and Walter was just in front - good news! A couple of the leading women contenders were also around (Sam Warriner and Jo Lawn), so that is pretty good news on the swim front too.

Walter had 3-400m on me after the transition, so I stomped on the pedals pretty hard after I was sorted, and caught up to him after 3-4km and sat in behind and had a drink. there was a small group another 2-300m up the road, so I jumped away from Walter and rode up to the next group of 3 riders hoping is was a couple of strong riding pro's. Unfortunately when I arrived, there was a pro male, and an age group guy tucked in behind a female Pro - that was probably not the combo I was hoping for, so I sailed on passed and kept going. I was sort of hoping not to have to do 90km on my own, but at the first turn-around the next proper groups of riders were a bit too far to catch-up, when I saw who was leading the groups. Too hard without absolutely killing myself getting there anyway! Killing myself on the bike was not in the plan today! A little further down the road I did get some company - Michael Kelly and a friend - I rode most of the Ironman bike leg with Michael last year. So I sat back around 10m behind, and got a little assistance with some legal draft, but also some good pacing motivation. The wind was a little fluky which made getting a good legal draft not so effective. It was still good riding with someone else. I stuck with these guys until the start of the second lap, and felt fine. We were making good progress on those in front as well - which I considered a bonus. Early in the second lap there were a few surges, which I am usually fine with, and while I could go with them, I did feel the efforts were a bit above what I wanted to do. I think it was a little bit of me going through a flat patch and the pace going up. It would have been good to have the power meter on at this point - so I could know if it was one of the other - that would make the decision to "let them go" or "harden up and get on with it" a bit easier. I decided to go conservative on the bike, so I did not really suck on the run! I was riding alone again! Around halfway though the second lap another group caught me - being dragged through by Robin Reid - a pretty handy cyclist! He was obviously the only one doing any work, and the others (a few names that should not have been behind me!) were really hanging on for dear life. I sat in behind, and shortly after Robin put in a solid little attack, and normally I would have jumped up and on to him, but everyone just decided to sit in behind the next sap (me!). To be honest - he was a bit like drafting behind Ant Gardiner - pretty much no draft at all! So I literally sat up and forced the next riders through - I really was not in the mood to drag a few other elites through to burn me off in the run. Toward the end I did jump away a bit, as they were going pretty pathetically slow.

The run - I had not do a heap of run training - about 5 weeks worth. It had gone quite well, and the calf had settled down quite well too. I decided to wear the garmin, to get a reasonably accurate indication of pace. I did feel pretty good on the flat, and was cruising at around 4:15 pace mostly. I did have to calm myself down a few times - and I think that paid big dividends in the end. the first time around the base track the legs felt a bit average, and the pace did drop off a fair amount on the up-hills. But I continued to look after myself and try to get along as quick as I thought I could. The only person I was keen to beat really was Walter, and the first time we crossed over (after I had turned at half way), he yelled out "how is the calf holding up", I smiled and replied that I was "nursing it home". He looked quite motivated to catch me! I still had a good advantage over him at this point, and felt that if I kept a solid pace going - I would be fine. I did manage to keep going well to the far turn around (~6km to go), and headed for home. I was getting pretty tired, and was having to do a fair amount of teeth gritting to keep the pace solid. I tried to relax a little and took a few deep breaths. When I spotted Walter approaching I picked the pace up to around 3:45/km and tried to put on the "I am just cruising now" face. I worked, and Walter snapped! His shoulders dropped and he began to drag his butt on the pavement! I loved it! The next goal was to try and beat the leading woman home. Unfortunately they looked far better than Walter did, and I had my work cut out holding them off. Starting around the Mount base track and the upward slope really hit me and I started to creep. Then the leading woman mtb went past. Damn it! Sam Warriner then flew past, and I made a comment along the lines of not being that happy about being "chicked" - but good on you. I got no reply. Then the next female went past about 5m behind - so that explained the silence. I would have liked to been able to go with them, but I had no chance - the legs were pretty shot on the ups and downs. I was still running OK on the downs - but it did hurt. I was happy to be on the flat heading to the finish.

I managed to finish in 4:18, with a 29:52 swim, 2:17 bike, and 1:29 run. It felt way faster than last year at 4:19 - but this years swim and bike were a lot harder/slower. I would be one of the slowest bike times I have ever done on the course I would think. Might need a slightly different plan for next year!

Pics from worlds

Here are a few pictures care of Charlotte - from worlds in Perth.


The wind was quite strong for the swim start (as seen in the spray being blown off) - but these Elites got it easy compared to the poor old buggers in later waves! Oh - and the water was a VERY different colour up close - almost looks like it has a blue tone to it here.



Hold the smack talk for 20 seconds guys - and smile for the camera! How much head start are you giving Creampuff Scott? How long before you sit up on the bike Craig??
















Ant Ham running toe to toe (almost) with young Mr Bowstead - who had a nice win in the young fella's category. Nice work - both of you!
















Hannah looking quite relaxed in the run, after a spectacular bike for her!

















Maybe I did need those salt tablets after all... But then I was hoping for 22 degrees and not 36! And running with the gay calf sock was not enough to save the day - sigh....















After the smack talk, and then the legs (and arms I guess) have done the talking - it is time for the penalties. The little black book comes out and all those little embarrassing moments that you thought you had got away with - come to light for everyone to laugh about!

World champs - triathlon long course 2009

I flew in on Wednesday, arrived later in the day, and pretty much went to bed after a brief look around the establishment. The accommodation was pretty average - I have stayed in a back-packers that was worse - but that was $60 per week rather than $195 per night. I had set very low expectations for the TriNZ side of the organization, and the race organisers - due to previous experiences and the general feel from information prior to the event. Also it is better to be pleasantly surprised when it is better than expected, than to be bitterly disappointed when expectations are not met.

The laptop died on the trip over - well the power supply did. This caused a bit of stress, but after spending most of a day trying to get a new one, I realized there was little hope of getting any work done - it was hotel room, with a terrible TV and a book - oh dear. One hyperactive athlete with a short attention span that is bored going to be quite bored quite soon...

The training build-up was quite relaxed - a swim on Thursday, and a bike on Saturday morning. It was actually quite windy on Saturday early in the morning - and the prospect of a windy race was not that exciting. a few weeks prior to the race, the Perth weather was looking very mild, with some daily highs under 20 degrees, so I was optimistic of a calm morning with quite mild temperatures. However the week before saw temperatures rise over 30 degrees - which really was not in my plan or my favour.

The course was a mostly out and back swim in the swan river. Water quality being just below poor - with visibility around 20-30cm in the clear parts. My only swim in there was going to be race day - I didn't need anymore pathogens or radioactivity than I already had. The bike course was 4 laps of 20km, on effectively 3 out-and-back legs, with the middle leg on a 3 lane (each way) motorway. I was pretty sure that with just under 700 athletes on a 20km circuit, and of quite different abilities, that there was going to be some large 'groups". After the drafting farce of the gold coast shorter distance world champs, the race organisers had decided on a 12m draft zone and that drafting was now prohibited (presumably this is worse than illegal). The run course was 4 laps of 5km - which included 3 out-and-backs, so you were never very far away and you were likely to see the people just in front and just behind at very regular intervals!

Race briefing the day before was a bit of a shocker, and I quickly realised that asking questions would be futile as no one in the organization had a clue what was going on. The briefing instructions generally followed along the lines: "there will be no [insert vital information here]", a pause and someone from the organising committee comes up to the speaker and says something to him, then "sorry, there will be [vital piece of information]". The athletes handbook - with all the course information and rules etc had only come out on the Monday before the race, and the main thing we got from the briefing was that most of that information was incorrect.

Race day dawned and I was pretty relaxed. The first glitch of the day was that the milk for the breakfast cereal was frozen! Even turning the fridge to very low (ie higher temperature!) the day before was not enough to solve this little issue. A few of us popped down to transition early to set everything up, and then back to the hotel, which was not too far away from race start. The races had wave starts - elites starting at 8am, and various age groups - in a very random order and time interval there after. Transition closed at 7:30am, and my wave did not start until 8:45 (the last wave!). 45minutes of relaxing in the hotel room was pretty good - and I even had a shower just to feel a little fresher. I really wanted to go or a warm-up run - but the injured leg was not going to allow that.

I went to the start and just caught the elite start. The wind was quite strong and the first leg was straight into the wind. I got in the water and had a good warm-up and tried to sort out a few land-marks to sight off, but there were none really. The first main marker buoys were also a fair way away.

After the warm-up you had to get out and walk up to a holding pen, and then were allowed in the water just before your wave start. I was in the biggest age group apparently, and there was around 65 in our wave. Most at the start line were a nervous relaxed, and the main sentiment was "we can all swim out own line and don’t need to bash each other up" - which was great! I started on the left of the main group, with a few very nervous guys to my let - who looked like they were ready to breaststroke 3km if they had to. They started a count-down from 10sec to go - and I piped up "do we go on 3 or 2?". I went on 3 and I think everyone else went on about 2.5! I took off quite fast, and it was pretty hard to see where we were suppose to be going. I headed or what looked like some buoys - and tried to check where I was in the bunch. There was no-one to my left, and I could see a few to the right, but they were back a little and quite a long way to the right. I might be leading!! So I ploughed on, and then after around 400m I came across a paddle board obstructing my forward progress with a chap pointing to the right and yelling "go across, go across...". OK - not ideal, the first buoy is around 100m directly to my right, I have been heading for the return leg buoys. Damn it! So I adjusted my line a little and headed or where I thought the far turn marker was, and started gently heading back on course. Around another 4-500m later I had a group of 5 swimmers just to my right, and I figured I was swimming slightly on the inside line and they were slightly on the outward. Plan B - get in the group and go the same speed for less effort. So I went over and slotted myself into the group - in around 3rd spot. This was all good, although the leading two were not swimming that straight, and being pretty rough, it was hard to get a reasonable draft. But I felt there was a bit of advantage, and they could do a bit more work sighting too - which was tricky in the conditions. A little further along the first leg, I did have a little "bumping into" incident, very mild, but the clash of arms did manage to break my watch strap and I felt the HR monitor slip away to the bottom of the swan river. Bugger - that was expensive. The first leg felt very long, and after we turned at the top we were starting to swim through a lot of those that had started in the earlier waves. So it had gone from battling the head-on chop to weaving through plenty of obstacles. The group of 5 was now a group of two. I was following mostly, although did take my own line a few times when I thought it was better. I was happy to get out of the water, it felt like a very long swim, and it was certainly more than 3km - even if I did go off course a little.

The first shorter leg of the bike I did go at a reasonably solid effort, just to get passed some slower traffic - feeling it was much safer to pass when I am going 10-15kph faster than to just cruise past gradually. You could certainly pick out the northern hemisphere athletes - they were very uncomfortable riding on the let hand side! The first turn around came very quickly, and it was quite tight (one narrow lane each way). I accelerated quite strongly out of the turn, as I had just passed a couple before the corner, and there was another rider just in front. Unfortunately the rider in front decided to dart from the left to the right side of the lane, and I was already going a fair amount quicker than he was, starting my passing mauver. I quickly dove to the let and passed on the let (a little illegal), and just missed clipping his rear wheel. About a km further up the road I hear a whistle blowing - not a good sign, and glance to the left. Mr draft-buster is beside me, and starts yelling "drafting, drafting..!!!", but he is looking just behind me - whew (not that there was anything in front of me). Mr "chop-me-off" must have been sitting right on my wheel. Enjoy your 5 minutes in the penalty box! I did have a couple of riders go passed - most I would stick with for half a lap or so, but decided after around 10km to ride a comfortable steady, and try to save as much as possible for the run. I was passing quite a few on the bike, and just kept eating and drinking, and trying to stay comfortable. The longer out-and-back on the main motorway was actually very good, easy to pass people, and not really that much drafting at all. It was far better than I expected. My second scare came at the end of the 3rd lap of the bike (4 laps of 20km), and I was overtaking on the off ramp from the motorway. As passed and began to get back to the left side o the road, I managed to drop my front wheel into a small metal channel that was running across the road on an angle - it was just wide enough to fit the front wheel in, and I couldn’t get it out! The back wheel decided it wanted to pass the front wheel, and I am now thinking this is going to hurt a bit (I am doing 45+kph). After a little fish-tailing I managed to ride out of the end of the channel and somehow managed to stay up-right - a big whew! I was reasonably happy to get of the bike, although I did feel pretty comfortable - and felt I had plenty in the tank. The let butt had given me a bit of grief at around 45km, and then did tighten up quite a bit at 60km, so I new the run was not going to be great unfortunately.

Made myself comfy in transition and headed out on the run. It was starting to get hot -mid 30's now. I had gone through over 4 bottles on the bike (in just over 2 hours), and still felt a bit dry. I took the first lap of the run very conservatively, although did start to feel pretty good after around 3km and started to lift the pace a little. I walked each aid station, more to give the legs a break that to get the fluids - but getting the fluids in was certainly a bonus. Then at around 7km my leg popped, a crampy tighten and it then a bit of a pull. Bugger - I was optimistically hoping to nurse it through. Then it was pretty much walk-run. Just run where I could and find a pace that settled everything as much as possible. It was a little weird - as the entire left leg just stopped working really - so it was a nerve issue rather than a muscle one - which at least is probably better for longer term recovery. So now rather than the occasional person passing and going past the occasional runner, it was everyone going past - fast! I managed to limpy my way up the finish shoot - happy to be done - legs were pretty toast, and the butt was killing me. No finish T-shirt, towel or anything like that, just the 50 cent finishers medal. A few bananas and apples were available and that was about it. Trading war stories was all that was left!

So all in all it was good to see where I was at. I was where I thought I was! Still very frustrating at not being able to give it my best shot with the injuries, but them's the breaks! After sifting through the results, I managed 8^th in the old buggers category and around 146^th overall. For my age category; 2nd in the swim, 4^th fastest bike and 35^th fastest run. Now I just need to get over the sunburn and chaffing! ouch...

Pre world long course champs

Bit of a computer hiccup prevented this post going up prior to worlds - but here you go!

My vain attempt to keep the body together has failed! A couple of weeks of physio to try to cut off the impending doom was just too little too late. A few issues stabilized and a few improved, but the main root issue - tight nerve through the left butt, has been very up and down. It has seen some improvement , the regresses back to previous state. Then on a longer run, it finally manifest itself as an injury - calf popped again. Came on with little warning when running pretty slowly. A walk home in the rain as it was getting dark did not help the mood either. So going into worlds injured is not ideal, but I just have to make the most of the situation. Physio plays around with the butt a couple of times a week, and it will be going into Worlds with a couple of 15min runs under the belt in the last 2 weeks.

What am I going to do at worlds? I have just found out that my wave will be the last to start. That does alter tactics a little, as our wave will have to contend with passing slower athletes from the waves ahead, and as we start around 45min behind the elites, we may become entangled in other waves as they come through for their second and third laps when we are on our first/second laps. There is a 12m drafting zone, and with a 4 lap bike course, there will be a certain amount of chaos, on the bike in particular. With only 40-44 year males in our wave, there will probably be a small group of fast swimmers, then a reasonable group of solid swimmers - of which hopefully I am one of. Second main pace would be good, perhaps 2-3 minutes down on any very faster swimmers. The wave in front starts 10 minutes before us, so hopefully clear water for the first half of the swim, and then just passing a few stragglers on the return. If I come out on my own or in a very small group I will do the first lap of the bike at a steady pace, and then into the chaos as we mingle with the other waves. If I come out of the swim with a reasonable group, then it will be a solid effort at the start of the bike and try to clear out a little in the first 5km. I am sure that on the second lap onward, there will be a lot more traffic issues, perhaps even on the first lap. Once there are more people around, from different waves, and going at different speeds, I will need to be quite focused on riding tactically as well as metering out the correct effort. There will be the issues of not getting caught up in a big group and being busted for drafting, safety of riders of very different abilities on the course at the same time - so you could be passing a slower rider while being passed by a faster rider at the same time. Some riders will not be able to hold a straight line very well, and will be use to riding on the other side of the road. Then there will be negotiating the aid stations - which you have no idea how busy or well organised they will be. Hopefully I will be able to ride a solid first 40-50km, but at some stage I am expecting my butt to tighten up a little and lose a bit of power out of the left leg, and might have to have a few breaks from the aero bars. Hopefully this does not time in with a tactical need for a good solid effort. I am planning on getting in a good amount of fluid and gels on the bike, to make sure I am in pretty good shape for the run. I am planning on starting the run quite easy and building into it, trying to really focus on faster leg turn-over and really looking after the calf. Hopefully I can run when I want to. I am prepared to do a few shorter walks in the run, even if it is 4-5min run with a 30second to 1 minute walk between run efforts. I am planning to walk most of the aid stations - more to give the calf a rest, but making sure I get fluids in is a bonus. The short walks will probably allow me to run better when I do run, and allow me to run for more of the run overall. I am hoping I don't pull up lame on the run, but there is probably a reasonable chance I will (40-50%), and then it will be more walk and less run.

I think my performance will be significantly determined by the fragile-ness of the butt and calf. But if all goes reasonably well I figure I can go similar time wise to a half ironman. The swim is a bit longer (3km instead of 2) and the bike is a bit shorter (80 instead of 90km) and the run similar (20 rather than 21). So around 4 hours 10minutes on a good day (maybe just under if the leg actually behaves) and around 4hr20min if it is a bit of an average day. I would think that under 4hr10min will give a top 5 and under 4hr25min will be around top 10 in my age category. There will be some very fast old buggers no doubt!