What a back drop!

I am sitting in the lounge room this evening, thankfully with air conditioning as its still bloody hot outside, with Aus Idol on (sssshhhh....my wife loves it, I just enjoy being in her company!) and boy, what a stage those guys have to sing on. With the opera house, bridge, harbour, darling harbour etc all around, it must be a huge night for all the singers there, from being pretty much no one 6months ago to be signing in front of millions with that back drop.....pretty lucky! They are just lucky the construction of the stage on thursday did not ruin Allan's (ALM) and my run because then there would have trouble!!
Talking about back drops and heat, we had the Central Coast Triathlon monthly race out at Summerland Point. That is also a pretty nice spot to be able to go up to and race at. Having not done too many triathlons and venues, I guess its a pretty uneducated opinion, but I still think its pretty good. Going on the number of competitors today, one has to wander if the venue is sustainable....if the club races continue to sell out and be in the demand they are. There were 150 today at least, a far cry from the 40 or 50 there 12 months ago, and the quality of those racing was pretty good to I think. The morning was pretty hot, although thankfully the sun really cranked it up more towards lunchtime, so by the time I got home it was 40 degrees.....Jase, Andrew, Tim and I rode to the race from The Entrance (35km), did the race and rode back again, and it was humid but not like this afternoon heat wise thank God! Vlad attended the race today, smashed it....come in 1st, he rode and ran like an animal! The only other person remotely close to his effort on the run was some young bloke who run me down with about 500m to go or so, and he flew past me....must have been running close to 3..20min per km splits. I kept seeing him gaining on me on the run, and I was hoping to hold him off, but he blew me away...strong! I think with the way Rollo is training me, the bike for me is only going to get stronger, and thats good, because it means I will come off the bike stronger and fresher...today I was hurting again, which in a sprint distance triathlon you expect that, but I was pretty tired and struggling to get into a rhythm....hopefully the brick sessions will continue to help me with that. Vlad finished in just over 60mins...which is incredible, blew the others away! Good on him!
I dont know the results as yet, but I think the boys I rode up with enjoyed themselves which was good. The other thing to note, is Jase, Andrew and I ran 22kms on Saturday as well, so its not as if we were fresh, but once again, it shows that the programs Rollo gives us work, there was no way 6months ago I woudl have been able to do a run like that the day before a race.....let alone ride up to the bloody thing in the morning!! The other thing to think about is just how tough Kona must be. If you asked me to go out and run just 10km at lunchtime today, i will have told you exactly where to stuff that idea! The race in Kona this year was way above that, and those poor buggers were riding and running in that heat....shit, its a wander so many finish to be honest!

This week was another great one in terms of training. I did some interval training with Vlad, jeez that guy can run....he was doing 2km efforts and I could hardly keep up with him doing half that distance....it will be good to see how fast he can really go when he focus's on one discipline only...he'll smash it! wednesday was an awesome brick session, did a good 2hours on thursday on the bike and then a great swim on friday morning with Vlad and his mate (his mate smashed me in the 800's....ah well)

I am off to Melbourne this week, so its going to be a bit of a disturned training week, whcih for someone like me who thrives on routine is going to be a menace, but hey, I'll cope! I'll just take my running gear and swimmmers with me (note to self, find a pool close by in Melbourne)

So, to sum up this week :

Swim : 9km (3hours)
Bike : 130kms (4hours + 2.5hrs TT)
Run : 45kms (4hours)
Total : 14.5hours

Again, another quality week of training for me, thoroughly enjoyable (most of the time) and ended in a great day out today with the boys at the race....

Thanks to the guys who organised the day today, it was pretty smooth and simple given the number of competitors, and the new Sprint distance was awesome!

Until next week!