34 Not Out!

In cricket terms, not a bad start, I should have my eye in by now and able to cope with what ever comes my way (to an extent), and I think I mostly can! Certainly from a training perspective I have been able to cope quite well with the programs I have had. I have been extremely lucky with injurys, illness and basically time to train. I guess though, I make the time to train, work certainly doesnt make that time for me (although I have not asked for any time or favors). Thats the reason I get up at 4am pretty much everyday. To get the set done and be in the office before 8am. I have been able to for the most part not train at night which is the miniscual time I get with my family during the week, and even then at times it has been hard to get out of the office! 56days to go.....

Friday was my birthday. T hanks to everyone who sent me best wishes on Facebook, very much appreciated. I had the day off (although still took many work related phone calls, and had to respond at various points during the day to about 20 emails...even after I notified staff I was not in the office!!). It was also if you remember the last day of beer drinking for me until after the race. I bought....wait for it...a whole 6 pack! Well, I was tatty after 4.....4 beers and I was on my ear!! Jesus! I remember doing the 'survivor series' at Rick Hunts place with the boys in Zim, we would have well over a case of beer each, plus, if you were Rick, Demon or Riggers probably a bottle of something to top yourself up! Where did we stick all that beer? How did we not get liver poisoning? One wanders at the volume of grog we drank when we were at Kariba, or Vic Falls or Nynanga! Those were some good days! My all time favourite photo from those days is of all the lads (compliments of Dave Clarke). Its below!

How sensational is that?? How dodgey do we all look?? Those Vic Falls trips were some of the best days of my youth, complete mahem for 4 days! Allow me to jog some memories from a certain 'Botts' : "I paid for this land so shut it!" Class! (You had to be there!). The trip Dave and I drove a VW Combi up and then a bunch of lads came back in it with us was pure class to....the nonesense we got up to...one wanders!!

Whats the point of the above....nothing really apart from I was remembering these times during a long run this week. And....there was plenty of long training sets on this week...boy, it was challenging, Challenging from a time perspective really to be honest. As I am sure you realise, the sets can be hard, but because i am so keen on doing well in the race, finishing strongly and having a crack, I dont struggle with motivation to get each set done. Highlights this week was the interval run set on Thursday (15 x 400m efforts and it was bloody humid), long brick session yesterday and an 8hr ride scheduled for today.

I got all the sets done except for today, I left home just after 4am to do laps around Brisbane Waters here in the Central Coast (40km undulating loop), was on the bike for 5hrs when somehow a monsoon from Asia had found its way to the coast here and proceeded to dump a fairly substantial amount of rain on us riding! It was actually rather fun, apart from the fact you could not see and or slow the bike down! So with that, I proceeded home to finish with 1hr on the Turbo Trainer....I was pretty poked this afternoon! So other notable news, Jase's riding has really come along noticeably this week, he was very strong on Wednesday during our long afternoon ride with hill repeats, and again today he looked comfortable out there. Andrew M returned from the UK, ran with us on Thursday, ocean swim with Jase and I yesterday and much of the ride today, he is looking strong and as of today has entered Iron Man! Tim (skinny wiggle) also rode well today, and he has entered, and Matt was in the 'Hell of the West' Triathlon today, and came 4th in the age group...he smashed it!! Told you a 9.15 is on the cards for him!! So, with under 8 weeks to go, here are the lads all doing the race this year (its the 25th anniversary as well so is kond of extra special). Having the guys below will make it really good fun, and maybe I will put some predictions against each bloke nearer the time so we can see how they go (hopefully they wont mind me doing that)

Me
Jase
Matty
Andrew M
Tim (Skinny Wiggle)
Jeff



In summery :

Swim : 11.5kms (4hrs (ish))
Run : 46kms (5hrs)
Ride : 260kms + 1hr TT = 11hrs
Total : 20hrs

Thats a record for me since getting a program...and I have survived it, although I must say, my legs are a little fatigued today, but 2 solid days of training will do that to you I guess! Onto this week, its going to be good, hard and solid again, but we really are approaching the end fast.....loving it and looking forward to the day with more and more excitement and of course nervousness!!

1 more day of Beers!!

Well, its the 24th of January today, which means I have after this evening (i more beer left in fridge tonight), I have one more night of beer. That will be Friday night, and then, just like I did when I stopped smoking.....call it a day! This time though, its temporary (thank god!). Its been over 3 weeks since I have eaten any chocolate, 3 weeks since I have eaten chips, junk food, cake, lollies, ice cream and other lovely stuff. The 29th is my birthday (shhhhh I hate it), but I will have a few beers on Friday night, probably some carrot cake which my mother in law insists she is baking (and my favourite) and then until the night of the Iron Man race, I will not indulge in any more beer. Its bringing a tear to my eye as I type this (sniff, sniff, oh shit, tear drops on the keyboard...*&*HNJUHj (that was me wiping them)). Giving up chocolate and the likes has been easy. Beer will be really hard. Its not so much the health, weight aspect as it is the discipline behind this challange. I want to make sure I am prepared for the 28th, and I have given myself and my body every opportunity to be really really well prepared. They say, the Iron Man is 90% mental, 10% physical battles, I think that stat is probably bollocks, but there is truth in it to an extent. If I cant survive giving up a non essesntial sustnenace like chocolate or beer, then how am i going to deal with the Iron Man when it gets tough going...which is WILL do?? So, I am training my body wiht the help of Rollo, this little sacrifice of mine is training my mind! If I was as mentally strong and determined as Vlad, Matt or Andrew M, then I would not be as worried, but I think I need to work on that mental strength, and this is some of the training i am doing for it. Still, 1 more night of a few beers left is sad.....


ONto the past weeks training, and its been pretty good. Highlights of the week are, certainly the Bobbin Head hill repeats on Wednesday , that brought back some serious memories of Vlad and I training there during winter...and it was freezing which was weird. The brick session on Thursday with Matt was sensational, that boy can ride. I am going to put it out there now...I stated a few weeks ago he was going to do around 9.30........nah, he is going faster I think. He is certainly getting faster every week, and they way he dropped me on the bike on Thursday was nuts...I fought hard to stay within distance of him, but in truth, those chicken legs were making him fly!! Strong!! Matt, sorry mate, dont sandbag, I reckon it must be a 9.15 now!! Anything less and you are not going hard enough!!

Jase, Matt and myself rode on Saturday morning, Jase turned home at 45kms, Matt at about 70km I think, and I continuned into work. I ended up with 125km, slightly above what I was supopsed to do, but it was good going. Very hot, it ended up getting to 40'c in Sydney, so whilst it was not that hot at 10am when I finished, the fluid in my bottles was pretty warm, not very thirst quenching I must say!

Today, and here is the big news, Eddie joined Jase and I for a run. How good is that! He ran 10km, first run since his injury. It was awesome to have him there with us, and show hi commitment to triathlon and training, good on you mate, and welcome back!!

In summery for this week :

Swim : 9km (2.40hrs)
Run : 45km (4hours)
Ride : 250km (8hours)
Total : 16.40hrs (ish)

A good week, and having seen the coming weeks program, its ramping up by what looks like 30% or so...so its going to be very tough! I love it!!!!!

Was that the last dose of LSD?

Again this week rollo had us following a program of long everything, everything slow, and racking up the miles keeping well within the heart rate zones. I mentioned last week I struggled with this concept, but I must also say, I thoroughly enjoy it. Apart from the long hours on the bikes (and seriously, its only because I spent enough time away from my family, so spending half of Sunday away as well is hard), I enjoy doing these long sets. To be out, early in the morning, watching the sun rise most days, most of the time hardly anyone else out there, no traffic, just yourself and your thoughts....pretty good I must say! Jase asked me what I think about when I do the long runs.....I think about and in no order, work, family and the Iron Man race. I try and put my daily tasks together for work, i think about the sacrifices I and my family have made to enable me to take this journey (not just money, but time, sleep etc) and of course, trying to picture myself at various points on the run during the race. What will I feel like, how will I feel when I am 2, 3 or 5km from the end.....how will I feel at 21km (this I think will be a hard moment as its only half way, yet I would most likely have already been running / shuffling / walking for over 2hours!!). I do however, always picture going down the chute at the end....very important for me to believe I will do it, and I do....because I will be prepared...Rollo's programs will definately make that a sure thing, its really down to nutrition and other things out of my control. I am at the moment even starting to put together a list of things I need to take to port Macquaire for the race...I know its a long way away, but I dont want to stress about those simple things I can control. Ithappens, today I left all my nutrition at home for my ride.....WTF! I spent an hour last preparing it all..so how do I then forget it???? Lucky I had other stuff at work to make up for it otherwise I would have been stuffed!

Whilst on the subject of sessions, this week was again sensational! I ran 21km on Tuesday, it was an early start (4.45am from Turramurra), rode long on Wednesday (4.30am start), with Matt and finished with 105km, and then ran 25km with Matt on Thursday! 25km.....bloody hell! Jase and I ran another 21km on Saturday in the hills, we met up with the NUTSAC guys halfway along, then did some open water swimmming in the afternoon, practicing race starts. Rollo organised this and he got a good turn out. Its incredible how hard it is to go balls to wall for 150m odd in choppy water, and then to try swim the rest of the set at a controlled race pace....I reckon it took me 3 sets before I understood how to get it slightly right...makes me concerned for the tough Iron Man start, the jossling and nbashing that goes on in the swim in any triathlon is full on, but I reckon the Iron Man will be something special...like a waterpolo match between Zim and Natal I once played in...brutal and very physical! Hopefully I wont come out 2nd best this time round!

onto the ride today, I had to be at work for a power outage at 6am so I left my bike there on Wednesday, the plan was to ride home from the office, meeting Jase along the way. I think I got going a touch after 8.15am, its a pretty tough ride for the first 50km as its up hill all the way, met Jase at about the 55km mark or so at the famous Pie in the Sky and homeward bound from there, with a number of hill repeats. There was some violent electrical storm brewing, i must admit I dropped a log or 2 halfway up one of the hill repeats because of the sheer anger and volume of the thunder...jesus!! We had it all in the ride today, heat (I am pretty burnt), it was real real hot mid morning, head winds and then 4km from home we got drenched in the rain....race prep cannot get better than that surely!!! Jase had 2 punctures, one of which I changed so we really did get some good practice in.

This week coming is a light week in comparison to the past 2, and Rollo has given another day off ( I had to double check this as I am not used to seeing no training...I get fidgety). I have a feeling the LSD might be finished and we move into strenghtening agian, which I hazard a guess means back to threshold stuff, hills and the like....Love it, and bring it on!! I notice my long mid week ride includes hills this week....back into bobbin head for me again, this time without Vlad :-(, its a pity from my selfish perspective he is taking his running seriously this year, it would be good to have him doing Port with us so we could share the pain, but he has done his time and should focus on running, hes bloody good at it! One day Vlad and I will do an Iron Man together, 2010 is just not the one!

So, to summerise another fantastic week of training :

Swim : aprox 8km (3hours)
Run : 68km (6hours)
Ride : 220km (7.5hours)
Total : 16.5hours (ish)

Another big week down, and as I said, I loved it. I think anyone who reads this blog regularly knows how much I love the training programs I get each week. I look forward to the variation, the friendships you make, the crazy conversations you have and make during a 2 hour run, or a 5hour ride, the things you see (I saw a motorbike which was automatic today...what the hell is that!!), and best of all, the support the guys around give you....sensational! I love it....

Until next week, spare a thought for those poor Haitian people who must be suffering unimaginably both physically and emotionally...and remember how lucky we all are to be here, on the internet, reading my blog, looking at porn if you are the ALM / ALS, having a beer or 5, and appreciating the good life we lead!



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LSD is the choice of the month!

The LSD I am referring to is not the little piece of paper or pill you skip under your tongue to send you into some weird world, no, this is Long, Slow, Distance, and was prescribed by Rollo for the month of January. This past weeks sessions have certainly been all about LSD, and as usual, I loved it! Its really back to the basics which Rollo started us all off with, low Heart Rate, low intensity and slow! Its really hard to train like this for me, asss I tend to find myself pushing hard, or pushing the maximum zone for the session and of course, and I think what most people would struggle with and that is training slow and to low threshholds does improve your efficiency and actually speed! Let me assure you, Rollos programs do work, and they are based on the above methods. Its awesome! Rollo is also a fantastic coach, he does not just set a program for the week, and leave you to it, but actively reviews all the session stats I send through to him. I got questioned this week about some efforts I did around centennial park on Wednesday, the session was supposed to be 3 to 4hrs light and easy, which for the most part I did, but I threw some higher intensity laps in there with Matt for a change, and he picked up on that and queried me...how good is that to have him follow up on each session! Sensational stuff really! That session on wednesday ended up being 100km in a touch over 3hrs.....good fun.
Jase and I have also trained a fair bit with Matt this past week. In all 3 disciplines as well. Matt is so down to earth, happy to go slow with Jase and I, and like most people I have met in the triahtlon community, so down to earth, willing to help and advise! He is also going to do Port in March, he should smoke it.....probably around the 9.30hrs mark I would guess, he is an animal on the bike and can run pretty fast to!
Jase and Matt rode yesterday so I was on my own for the 2 hour run I had. I managed 23kms in 2hrs keeping my HR in the 130's which I think is where it needs to be. It was good fun running that distance, and even better feeling so comfortable throughout. Today was a 140 - 150km ride, so i set out on my own at 5.20isham. I thought I was a lunatic at that time, but I met up with a bloke 30mins in who had been on the go from 4.45am, he was heading the same was I was so we rode together for the next 40km. When he turned back, I continued on through my friend 'Bobbin Head' and then back up the highway to hook up with Tim, who is just getting back into training following Busso. Anyway, I ended up riding 143km in about 5.20hrs with the HR in the 130's again, which was good. That is the longest ride I have ever completed, and it was a breakthrough for me mentally as I was not sure what it felt like to ride that distance and time. I also tested pretty much my nutrition plan for the race, and the result was spot on. I basically went through 6litres of fluid, a sandwhich, a Go Bar, piklets, banana, red bull, 2 GU's (need more of these) and small bottle of Endura Gel. I actually think maybe a little more solids would be good, but I finished up the ride feeling pretty good considering. I was however really hot, as it was 30'c when I got home at 11am! Riding with Tim was great. He went through his Busso experience with me, and it was really good to listen to him talk about how much he learnt about himself, and everything he had done to somehow get to that finish line. He is very strong mentally, pretty much the same as Andrew M, who is an animal as well! These guys certainly know how to open the Pain Locker! Andrew is in the UK at the moment, getting up in the freezing conditions and going for runs.....he is on holiday and still giving it a crack, and has entered a 16km race next week.....hope he can run in those snow shoes...knowing him, he would and could!

So, to summerise this week :
Swim : 8.5km (3hrs)
Run : 75km (6hoursish)
Ride : 250km + 1hr TT (9.5hours)
Total : 18.5hours (ish)

A really solid week for me (and Jase and Matt I would think), and I loved it. The long bike today was the highlight....so happy to have been so close to the full Iron Man ride distance and still felt pretty good. It has improved my confidence a lot I must say, because before I was not sure if I could handle that time on the bike.

I am looking forward to continuing this sort of effort over the coming weeks, its probably around 8 weeks to go with of solid training, which in the scheme of things is not long! Bring it on Rollo, and Matt, Jase, Andrew and Skinny Wiggle, Jeffinator, keep up the good work boys....we will be there at the starting line soon! Phew!

Into 2010 we go!

A new decade has started, but there has been no change to the normal in terms of the focus on preparing for March 28th. We as a family welcomed in the New Year watching the fireworks display in Gosford, it kicked off at 9pm, and I must say it was pretty good! It reminded me of the fireworks display we used to get on the last day of the Harare Agricultural Show......short, sharp and sweet! never the less, the kids all loved it, we did not have Put that in your pipe and smoke it! How good is it living up the coast...we really are lucky in a lot of ways. So, I was in bed at around 11.30pm on NYE, staying up to watch the clock tick over does nothign for me anyway, never really has. I was going to get up at 4am anyway to go to the office as I had some work left over to complete before monday! So, up and out the house at 5am (dosed for 40mins but it felt like 10secs), into the office and then onto my long ride for the week on New Years Day as Sunday I was having off as it was michelle's birthday. I rode 105km pretty much in the hills for the whole time, and the heart rate was pretty much where rollo wanted it, I cooked it in the hills. Its really hard not to push hard up hills, but its something I am going to work on this month.
On Thursday morning (yes NYE) jase and I had a long slow run with 7 hill repeats in the middle. We ran from my office on the City to Surf route, and did the repeats up 'heart break hill'. It was sensational. It was raining a bit, but very humid. The views from some of those houses would be awesome on NYE, I would hate to think of the mortgage on those properties....one had a tennis court with probably one of the best views in Sydney...what a waste, and what an expensive tennis court! We ended up running 21kms that morning which was a good effort.
Jase and I ran again on Saturday morning together, this time from his place heading north towards Tuggerah. On the way back we picked up a new friend, a staffy...he followed us all the way back to Jase's place which was about 8km! The poor bugga was shot. I chucked him in the car and took him back home, and even then he chased the car all the way down the road....must have liked our company!

Anyway, into a new year, less than 3months to go until the race, still loving the training, and I am looking forward to the next 8weeks or training....I think Rollo has got some good sets coming up!

On Monday night, I did a bike test with Rollo to see how the training had gone since the last one back in July. In July I was able to get to 340watts, this time round 400watts! Not that that means so much, but its the differance between the heart rate output to power output which is where the differance is seen, and overall it looks like a 20% improvement in 4 months. To put that into context, 4 months ago, to hold 240watts, my heart rate would have been 150 - 160bpm, but this time round it was 130ish, which is great!


This week in short:

Swim : 7km (2.5hours)
Run : 48kms (4 hoursish)
Ride : 155km (5.5hours) + 1hour TT
Total : 12.5hours

The total number of hours spent actually adds up to a lot less than what the training volume felt like to be honest, but every set was really good quality, in terms of what Rollo set, and the effort put in (with Jase). I enjoyed every one of them (okay, maybe the swim was not much fun, and I am finding it hard to get motivated to swim as well at the moment, but thats only if the swim is at lunchtime).

Until next week.....