Hooking up with the gang (17th June)

Today we headed over to the appartment that Tony, Liz, Joel, Brent and Q were staying at... just managed to catch them before they were heading into town...

We hitched a ride and had a second breakfast, a nice cappa and a patisserre!

Later took Joel out for a short ride... The best ride of his life!

First col (16th June)

Isobel and I checked out the area and rode into Vence and then up the col de Vence. Not a big col but nice and a qood three hour ride to get into riding again...

We think that we rode some of the old Ironman France course and the one thing to note was how technical the descents are...

La Gaude (15th June)

We arrived in La Gaude today. No problem with the flight to Nice, but we did have a bit of a drama with the taxi driver... but after an hour and lots of messing around we finally found out Chamber d'Hotes.

Put the bikes together and went for a short ride... shoulder was not too bad. This was the first ride since coming down about 6 weeks ago...

Off to France!

We are off to Europe and will be in France for a couple of weeks! First though we have to head to England and see some of the relies...

Disappointment to the extreme...

Needless to say the IM that wasn't. I did not do to well and was not in great mental shape afterwards for quite a while...

Have joined a bike club and doing a bit of bike racing as a good break from everything tri like.

T-Minus five days...

Well in less than 5 days we'll be at the start line of another IM race. A few months ago I was looking to go for a personal best, but now I am just hoping to finish the event in one piece.

In the last couple of weeks a number of things have happened that have caused more and more concern.

First of all lately swimming has been differcult and I have not been as fast as a couple of weeks ago - in fact I have been find the pool very cold and after 40mins I have had to get out.

The cycling has had problems too. My top end power has dropped and my bike intervals have shown a drop in average power. The classic 10x4min interval set that Tony get us to do has dropped from a total ave power of 320W to more like 305W...

Then there has been a number of other things that have just caused head aches... Like battery on Polar watch going. Not being able to get the new seat post for the bike. Kestrel make a specific post for the Talon SL. I have tried to order this to no avail...

On the positive side though the running has been going well. I think possibly what has been causing the good here could be causing the bad elsewhere, that is I am about 3Kg lighter that I was before IMNZ last year...

IRONMAN NZ Here we come!

Well I had another good weekend of training! Not as much as in previous weeks but still a good volumne. Saturday started out with a good solid 45min swim followed by a 2hr plus ride with 40mins of steady big gear hill riding and finished with a solid hour run including 30mins at average of 3'45" min/Km pace! about 16km total. Very pleased. Ate and drunk heaps too including using coke on the run - part of the race plan.

Sunday was the last of the longer rides but very easy. Decided to go out with the slower bunch and then turned off with Kevin and Gary to ride nice and easy at 30km/h pace for most of the day. Left shoulder is getting a bit sore bit otherwise all good. 25m run after was mostly at race pace (sub 4'30" pace) and felt easy...

I really am tappering now and starting to feel quite good. Time to get the bike serviced check all the gerar and make sure everthing is OK. Also starting to think of a race plan.

Taper time?

Well another crazy training weekend is over and I'm quite fried as a result!

Saturday turn out fine and after a short 20min swim we headed off for a two lap blat of the bike course. Both Tony and Joel were on fire and I had no chance to keep up when legally drafting... Did the first lap at an average of 230W including one 20min effort at 300W. Very pleased. The second lap however was a different story... Coming back from turn around I was supposed to do another 20min effort at 300W - but that lasted less than 5 mins! Then I was in survival mode... Ended up with a 198W average for the lap.

On the plus side I did come right on the hills (220W ave) and the 35m run off the bike was at 4min km pace!

Things I got out of that little exercise: Going over 300W for me is the fastest way to sap the legs - not be done casually! On the first lap I could not drink enough to stay hydrated. But on the plus side when I eased off on the second lap and ate and drank, the legs did come back a bit.

Sunday turned up another great day and this time we started with a decent 60min swim which I covered at least 3.5Km - a good part of the course. Then another lap on the bike, this time with 4x15min efforts with 10mins rest... 299W, 277W, 270W, and 272W respectively, very pleased. Carried it on up the climb back to Taupo. Then onto the run... Another good effort. Running a good part of the course - to the turnaround at 5 Mile Bay and back - about 17Km in 65mins that's at 4min Km pace!

Feeling very please with training now and really strong on the run. Swimming is better that ever too what with records dropping everywhere. Just not too sure about the biking at the moment... Earlier I thought I was going well but seem to have lost a bit of power of late. Could be due to newish lower bike position or maybe that I have lost a few kgs of weight?

It's not quite all tapering yet as this week is a key run week with another 2 1/2 hr run to do and at least 4 other runs, but from the weekend the long rides are finally getting shorter!

Monday, the last day of the camp was quite windy and cool. Thankfully not a big day. Most of the group did a longish easy run, but I opted for an easy 2hr bike of which I rode the last half on the front into the wind! It was not hard though and I kept the group together without smashing anyones legs.

Training smart?

What with the Half IM last weekend it seems as if this week and last week was wasted. I'm not sure, yeah I know that having a break is a good thing, but last week we were resting up a bit for the race and this week we have spent the half the week resting up from the race! I have not done anything hard since the race.

I guess on the bright side I am pretty fresh for the camp this weekend! And next week is gonna be tough with another 2 1/2 hour run added into the mix...

I guess we'll see shortly.

Half hearted?

Did the Auckland Half IRONMAN last weekend. went very well but punctured for the first time in a race and lost 13 minutes!

What a stuff up. Thankfully it was not Taupo IM. Why did I take THAT much time? Well, I changed the tube quickly and all was going well. I would have been on my way very quickly but for the decision to take the valve extender off. As I unscrewed it, it also unscrewed the valve! As I only had one CO2 canister I then started to pump the tyre up using a hand pump, this broke the valve extender! I then had to wait for wifey (she was racing too) to come past with another valve extender and for someone to stop who had a foot pump.

If it was not for that, I may have finished close to Scott Molina!

Oh well, all in all a good training day though and on target for Taupo.

See http://www.aucklandhalf.co.nz/ for details

Taupo training camp

We are all heading down to Taupo this weekend for a camp. Monday is a holiday this year and I think we are planning to swim - bike - run each day.

Will be very interesting to see how I stack up to the other guys namely Joel and Mad dog... Tony might be around to for some of it but more than likely he will be off looking after the rest of his charges...