Ultra Dream

New Blog

2010-08-14T08:24:00.001+12:00

That's right, for those interested you'll find me banging away at a new blog over here

Am I Back?

2009-12-16T21:56:00.002+13:00

Well its been a while, and to be honest I'm not to sure if I really am back. What I do know is that I've spent the last six months sitting around getting my energy and motivation back and importantly healing up from a couple of consistantly niggling aches and pains.

So "where are things at?" I hear you say.

I have no plans beyond getting out and slowly getting some fitness back. Next year may see a half marathon and potentially a 50k off road ultra but nothing to serious I'm afraid on account of an expanding family. As for right now, I'm simply turning the legs over and stretching things out. Without boring you with the details I started running at a 5 min 30 sec per k pace at the start of the week, and have dropped that down to a 5 min flat per k pace now that we're almost at the end of the week. My heart rate, however is way to high and its all just that little bit harder than it was six months ago (no 40k training runs happening this weekend!!).

So am I back? ... We'll have to wait and see ...

Crossroads

2009-05-23T21:07:00.007+12:00

I think I've come to a bit of a crossroads in my life (this happens every now and again). The problem is one of motivation, specifically I'm not sure that I have enough of it anymore.

You see as far as running goes the short stuff doesn't really do it for me anymore, especially given that I run a half marathon in training most weekends and could easily pump out a marathon with only little or no notice. The challenge for me has always been one of completing the event. Winning hasn't really been on the radar so for me, along with the mass of other people who do this kind of thing, its all about the personal challenge - and a big chunk of that has now faded away for me.

So that leaves the long stuff ... trouble is that in going ultra you enter into a whole new level of pain and suffering, and you'd better believe that you need to be highly motivated before ever toeing the line. Which brings me back to the question "do I have the motivation?"

The thing that's really bought this to a head for me today is a niggling injury that I have on the top of my left foot. It feels like a bone or tendon problem. Its doesn't stop me from running but it does cause me a bit of pain if I'm not careful while kicking a ball around with my son. This has made me reflect on the last three years.

In late 2006 I started running in order get some fitness back. I had planned to run a half marathon in May 2007 and maybe try a marathon at some point. Anyway in typical fashion my time frame got accelerated and entered my first race (a 22k offroad run) in March 2007. It was hard but I loved it!

Next thing I knew I'd entered the Rotorua Marathon which was being run the last week of April. I grossly underestimated how tough a marathon would be (or maybe I just overestimated my ability - confused "ambition with ability" as the saying goes). The first half went well but after about 25k's the wheels started to fall off and I blew to pieces ... but I finished it!! The day after my legs hurt to move, I had no energy and I was sore all over - but I was also over the moon and hooked!

Then came my chance to do Ironman and the rest is history (as this blog will attest to).

So in the last two years I've become a marathon runner and over the course of several marathon's have knocked almost an hour off my first marathon time. I've learnt how to swim (in fact this time two years ago I couldn't swim), and have surprise (and delighted) myself by having completed several open water swims including the 3.8k's of Ironman. Not so long ago I would have never thought that would be possible.

I completed my first ever triathlon, being the Rotorua Half Ironman in December 2007, and almost snuck under 6 hours. I probably would have gone sub6 if I'd actually been at the start line on time (yes I missed the start! It's a long story ...), and hadn't spent so long mucking around in transition.

I became an Ironman in 2008 and an Ultrarunner in 2009, by far my toughest and proudest personal achievement ever (excluding the raising of my kids and nurturing of my family, which is an ongoing work).

I've achieved far more than I ever thought I would, in quite a short space of time and on quite a challenging training budget (time wise - no 15 + hour training weeks for me ...). Now I think I'm just a bit tired. I also have a number of other things I want to achieve.

For instance I want to get back to study. I've spent the best part of 10 years getting a couple of degrees, not so much because I enjoyed the topic's, but rather because I thought they were the right thing to do. And do be fair, as a result I have a good and successful career. But now I want to extend myself intellectually in an area which is actually of personal interest to me. I tried starting some study at the start of the year, but in the end had to withdraw as I just couldn't find the time to fit everything in.

So what am I to do? Take a break and do something completely different? Take it easy over winter and then pick some event to target in the summer? Who knows? But I really do feel as though I'm standing at the crossroads, I could go left, or I could go right. Either path would take me to a different place. Maybe things will converge again in the future ...

Random Questions

2009-04-28T19:10:00.003+12:00

Just a quick post today to answer some random questions. Over the coming weeks I'll expand on these a fair bit, but for now here's the short answers.

Question Number One
Do you think the 24 hour race will mess you up as much as Ironman?

The short answer is "no". Slightly longer answer is that I suspect it will mess me up a whole lot more than Ironman did. In my experience of ultrarunning (being all of one race so far), running an ultra (or at least running 100k) is far, far, tougher than Ironman. After Ironman I was excited about doing another, whereas after my 100k ultra I was convinced that I would never want to run again, my feet hurt, my legs hurt, my back hurt, my stomach was messed up, my "weeing" (specifically the colour) was of concern, my shoulders hurt and my arms hurt. Things were a little fuzzy and after "only" 65k I was really not in a very happy place. By the time I had gone past my second marathon and still had another 16k's to go I had been right through Hurtsville and was in some strange land I'd never been to before.

Ironman is easy! (I should qualify that by saying that "finishing" Ironman is easy in comparison to finishing an ultra, "racing" is no doubt quite hard judging by the number of pro's who end up in the medical tent).

Question Number Two
Will you run all the time, or do you have a run / walk strategy?

I suspect that if I were to try to run for 24 hours there would be a big crater in the track after 12 hours or so. My plan at this point is to seriously stick to a very strict 25 min run / 5 minute walk strategy. Given that its on a flat track there will be no natural obstacles to break things up (like hills), and I think that a mix of run / walking gives me the best chance of actually lasting the full 24 hours. I think that a big issue for me will be based around the fact that its 24 hours on 400m track as opposed being a race of a set distance. As while I'm probably to stubborn to drop out of a 150k race (which by its nature has a definite finish line), I think it will be a lot tougher mentally to keep plodding around a track where the finish line is determined by a clock.

Regardless of how the run / walk plan works out, my main goal is to just keep moving forward. To keep me sane I'll be breaking the distance down into marathon, 50k, 50miles, 100k, 150k, and 100 miles (the ultimate goal!). At this stage I reckon that I could pull out 150k in 24 hours - which on last years results would be enough to get me 3rd place (that in itself may be an indication that its actually going to be tougher than I anticipate ...)

More musings later, I got to go run somewhere ...

Another Day Another Race - King of the Bays

2009-04-19T14:24:00.008+12:00

The weather forecast for today wasn't all that great. And in the end the weather was, well, pretty ordinary really. The King of the Bay's is a 2.8k open water ocean swim between Milford Beach on the North Shore of Auckland, and Takapuna Beach, meaning that land is to your right and ocean to your left as you swim. There was a 15 knot easterly blowing (meaning that the swell and chop was coming from the ocean, with the wind blowing over your left hand shoulder. This suited me fine as I prefer to breath on my right hand side which I was hoping would lower the amount of water I was going to swallow.

At the start with the kids

1000 people lined up for today's race with the race starting in 3 "waves". I was in the middle wave with an estimated finish time of just under 1 hour.

The race itself was rough, in every way possible. The start was a surprising free for all. Surprising as I figured being in the middle "wave" there wouldn't be so much hard core competition, but nevertheless there was a lot of jostling and people trying to swim over other people (and then stopping to have a look around!). The race from start to finish was probably rougher than Ironman! I had someone try to break my toes. Someone stop in front of me, just as someone else tried to swim over the top of me (and this at around 2k into the swim). And I got hit in the face three times! I loved it!!!

The sea was really rough with big swells and chop right from the start. At the pre race briefing they were encouraging people to pull out if they were having second thoughts. The rough seas made swimming difficult and sighting really hard. I found that quite a few times, as I was taking a stroke, my arm would only just break the water, meaning my hand was dragging through (this would generally happen was a wave was going over). The end result being that I was swimming with a much high chest and should position than normal (meaning a lower hip and leg position - not ideal.

There were no race records set today, by anyone! I ended up finishing in 1 hour 18 minutes for my slowest swim ever. Interestingly enough I felt really strong and comfortable for the whole swim, so I'll put the slow time squarely down to the weather. (As a comparison, my last 2.8k Ocean Swim was the Harbour Crossing in 2007, I swam that in 1 hour 7 minutes and it just about killed me!).

All done, have just spotted the kids as I'm down the finishing shoot, what's an extra 30 seconds really worth aye?? Not as much as their happy faces!

So all in all I'm pretty pleased with my race. My lead up was pretty poor (I've been quite sick all week, and haven't been swimming a lot at all since Ironman). I'm just so stoked that I can actually swim something like this (I only learnt how to swim in 2007).

Now back to the run training ....

Ours is a Dangerous Sport

2009-04-18T10:01:00.004+12:00

As my little sister has discovered, the life of a budding triathlete isn't without its risks. These come in many shapes and sizes but, in my experience, are most often focused around biking. My little sister is starting to get quite serious about our sport with her focus being on dominating the half ironman distance at this stage (her first serious crack at a triathlon was the Rotorua Half in which (to my shame) she snuck past my previous time and notched up a smoking 6hr 1min 5sec - I'm expecting big things for her this year!).

Over winter she's giving a big focus to becoming a good biker so has been notching up the k's ... until I got a message from her saying she was in hospital getting stitches etc.

There are two versions of the story:

Version 1
"I was riding along the south coast of Makara when I saw a cute little puppy/small child being mauled by a huge pitball I scooped up the puppy/small child and the pitball bite me I then kicked the pitball in the head and killed it."

Version 2
"Was going for a road bike heading towards Karori I stopped for traffic got my left foot out of the pedal gust of wind pushed me over to the right couldn’t get my right foot out bike went out from under me and I sliced the back of my ankle on the front cog of the bike."

I'll let you decide which is the true version ... Everyone I know, including me, has done it!

And then I saw this

2009-04-12T20:15:00.002+12:00

Yes this little event this looks very interesting to this budding Ultra Runner, which is kind of odd as just a few months ago I would have laughed at the suggestion of running around a track for several hours, now I'm thinking maybe its not such a bad idea!

The only question is, do I target 12 hours (given that I now know I can "run" (term used fairly loosely there) for 14 hours plus, or to I front up for 24 hours of running and see just how far I can go???

Decisions decisions, I'll ponder that one on my long run tomorrow morning

So Whats Next

2009-04-10T07:20:00.003+12:00

So whats next???

Thats a really good question and I have a few idea's floating around in my head to answer that question. Next weekend's all sorted as I've entered the King of the Bays a 2.8k ocean swim.

But then what?

The broad plan at the moment is to try and recapture a bit of speed with the aim of lowering my half marathon PB in at the North Shore City Half Marathon in July (a race I've done for the last two years and in which I've lowered my time each year). So that gives me a focus for the winter. Then building into summer I thought I might give the Auckland Marathon a miss this year. The thought of paying $120 to run a crowded race just isn't appealling to me this year. So as I do want to run another marathon this year I'm eyeing up one of two possibilities.

The Legend(probably New Zealand's toughest road marathon)

Or the Macs West Coaster (New Zealands toughest marathon with an average finishing time of around 6.5 hours!)

Or maybe both ...

Which now just leaves the big hairy 12 month goal. At the moment its a bit of a toss up between doing an offroad 50 miler, or giving the 100k ultra another nudge. I have to say that at the moment I'm tending towards the 100k, as I really didn't run it very well this year, although I did learn an aweful lot, plus a good time there would qualify me for Western States (unlikely that I'd go there, but you never know).

I'll be pondering that one for a little longer...

Shore 2 Shore

2009-03-22T19:48:00.005+13:00

Today I ran the best race of my life, not so much in terms of speed (51 min 42 sec of a 5k is probably a tad slower than I could possibly push for), but definitely in terms of quality.

Today was the annual Shore 2 Shore fun run which is a fundraiser for local schools. You enter through the school that your kids go to with a large portion of the entry fee going straight back to the school in the form of new sports gear! An absolutely fantastic idea! This year there were just over 6,500 people doing the race making it second only to the Auckland Marathon in terms of single event participation.

I did the race with my five year old son Sam. We'd been training for it over the last few weeks by slowly building the distance up, however today was still going to be the farthest that he'd ever run.

Sam did great! He managed to run most of the race, although perhaps he went out a little to quick at the start (1st race nerves - we've all been there!). Sam was very stoked at the 2.5k drink station where he was able to pick up his cup while running like a pro, a couple of mouthfuls and the rest dumped on his head to help him cool off.

My wife and my daughter Eve were at the finish shoot cheering us on, Sam was very focused but remembered to raise his arms in glory as he crossed the finish line (m wife got a photo of the but unfortunately someone just got in the way - however the guy with the mic noticed and made of point of pointing Sam out, you can kind of see it in one of the pictures.

It was a great day and Sam is already asking when the next race will be! Enough words from me, here's the pictures ...

Trip to the Beach

2009-03-15T18:57:00.003+13:00

What a great day today was! The sun was shining yet there was a nice cool breeze blowing so it didn't get to hot. To make the most of this fantastic weather I went for a run down to the beach. From my front door to the beach is exactly 10k, its then exactly 1k each way along the beach so I get a nice (and typically hilly - that's the problem with beach's - they're generally surrounded by steep hills!) just over half marathon run.

Today was all about enjoying myself and just running cause I love running, so I simply ran at an easy and comfortable, effort wise it was probably close to my "marathon pace". When I looked at my watch when I got home I was very pleased (and a little surprised) to see that I had cruised the 22k in a sub2 hour pace. I didn't feel particularly taxed and I suspect I could have turned around and done it all over again!

Of course I didn't because there's more important things than running (believe it or not!), I have a wife to love and kids to play with, so 2 hours was all the running I was going to be doing this morning. But, I can honestly say, it was the best 2 hours ever.

Which brings me to one of the many answers to the question "why do you run?" Part of the answer is that "running makes me a better person". I have more energy (which surprises some people), I'm a nicer person to be around after I've been running, I'm healthier, and, in this Xbox / Playstation world that we're building for our kids, I believe I set a good example to my kids about life being an adventure that you need to actually get out and "live!"

On that note, this afternoon I git in my second run of the day (well more of a jog actually, but its all k's in the bank right?). It was trip to the local school grounds to do some run training with Sam (my 5 year old son, we're doing a 5k fun run in a couple of weeks) and we were also taking the training wheels off my (almost) four year old daughter Eve's bike!!! The kids biked there and I ran, then ran some more around the field with Sam, then ran some more chasing the kids around the play ground, then ran home why they biked. Best run EVER!!! I love being a Dad!

Not sure what's on the agenda for this week. I'll probably aim for a couple of speed sessions during the week and then try and get off road and long in the weekend.

Getting lost ... and loving it!

2009-03-08T19:13:00.005+13:00

As I've mentioned before I'm trying to freshen up my running by getting offroad as much as possible. The only problem is ... there's no sign posts offroad!

Todays long run was in Riverhead Forest, a local network of logging roads and tracks, with the tracks being largely built by a couple of the local mountain bike clubs. To give you an idea of just how extensive the track network is I was out for about 1 and a half hours and I saw one mountain biker, one lady on a horse, and one random guy walking along a remote logging access road tossing a rugby ball!!!! Given that the car park was full and I saw plenty of people both as I arrived and as I left this was a bit of a surprise - I thought I'd be spending all day dodging mountain bikers.

The run started with a steady 25 minute climb up an access road to a trig station with a pretty cool view (once I'd stopped panting and got a chance to look up and enjoy it).

Trig Station

View out to Auckland City, the loggers had thoughtful cut a few trees down to improve the view ...

After this it was just under an hour of getting lost on the network of single track which criss crosses the forest. Here's some pictures for those who need visuals.

In more general running news I've started some (kind of) structured training again, with a focus on picking up some speed once more. I surprised myself on Saturday night by running one of my regular 6.2k runs near my house a full 2 minutes faster than I'd ever run it before! Who ever said running ultra's makes you slow!

So after swearing off running at the 70k point in my 100k ultra, normality has now resumed and I'm eyeing up races again. There's a mid year half marathon that I've done for the last couple of years and I'd like to give that another nudge. I've also stumbled across a 50k off road ultra thats run around Riverhead somewhere in April that migt be worth checking out. Plus there's a (growing) chance that I'll run in the Wellington Marathon in June. So plenty to keep me interested!

Back on your feet!

2009-03-01T20:09:00.004+13:00

Just how long does it take to recover from an Ultra?

I have no idea, having only done one its something that I'm still working out. Still I'm not one to sit around and get fat, so it was unsurprising that by Wednesday (after the pain had started to subside) I started getting itchy feet again. This week I've managed to get out for a couple of walks, a jog, and finally ... a run!

Running just feels so good, however at the moment I'm weary of not overdoing it and making sure that I give my poor old body the best chance possible to bounce back. In addition I see this as a great opportunity to bounce back stronger and better than before by really listening to my body and my treating it supremely well.

Happily enough this Wednesday marked the start of lent which is traditionally 40 days of sacrifice, fasting and generally going without in preparation for Easter. SO I've decided to (as much as possible) cut out all refined sugars, flour, processed food etc from my diet and basically eat "like a caveman" (meaning that if a caveman could lay his hands on a particular type of food then I'll eat it, if not, then I won't - in particular if I pick something up and can't pronounce any of the ingredients on the back of the packet, then I'll put it back). So far this has resulted in much better eating (and a few trips to the local fruit and veggie shop). As a result - I think - I'm feeling like I actually have a lot more energy than usual, plus I get to have a certain smugness from knowing that I'm eating well ...

Anyway today's run was my first real run since the ultra. It was a short 8.6k beach / offroad run along a coastal track. One of the things that I really want to do more of is offroad running, so this was a step in that direction.

We had a storm yesterday, however today the sun was out, and combined with a hot wind it was really muggy! The first 5k of the run went pretty well and I felt quite good, however towards the end I was getting tired and I was pretty pleased to see my car after just under an hours running, so obviously still not over the ultra!

I obviously chose a good route as I ended up running the same track as my pro triathlete namesake Kieran Doe (apparently not updating his website at the moment ...) and saw him wizz past looking a whole lot stronger and fitter than me at the moment (or at any other moment for that matter).

Finally I've been giving a bit of thought to my next running goals. While I'm still not going to commit to any more races this year I am starting to fix my sites on a couple for next year. The first one is an 8 hour trail run in Riverhead Forest (just down the road from me), this is generally done as a relay but they're open to individuals, so I should be able to get an ultra distance done in 8 hours. Then there's a 50 miler in Rotorua a month later which is looking really interesting.

And I've just found out about a 100 miler down south which is worth giving some thought to (maybe for my 35th birthday ...).

Here's some photo's from today's run:

New Zealand 100k Ultramarathon Champs - Race Report

2009-02-23T20:11:00.008+13:00

Make yourself a cup of coffee or hot chocolate, this is going to be LONG (a bit like race day as it happens)

My ultramarathon really started at 12.30pm on Friday as I left work early to get the car packed and take the three and a half hour drive down to Taupo. Packing the car was straight forward as I had most things already organised and besides, packing to go away for a race is something that I’m getting quite good at. I ended up leaving home at around 1.15pm …

… I then turned around and came back home to pick up the stuff that I had forgotten!!

I eventually got on the road by 2pm and headed straight into Auckland traffic. This proved to be pretty much the story for the whole drive down to Taupo. I had traffic in Auckland which took ages to get through, then I ran into some major road works about half an hour south of Auckland, the I came across some police cars that had blocked off the state highway and had to go through a detour along a narrow, winding country road along with hundreds of other cars!!! Suffice to say it took me a bit longer than three and a half hours!

In the end I got into Taupo at 7pm, thoroughly worn out by the drive. The plan had been to get into Taupo and have my tent set up by 6pm. I’d then go onto the course and stash some aid while it was still light (this race was going to be completely self supported, not plan “A” but sometimes you just have to go with the flow ..). After that I was planning on having enough time to register, attend the race briefing and get to bed early at around 8.30pm.

That plan went out the door thanks to the slow trip down. Instead I set up my tent, went straight to registration, stayed for the race briefing and then headed out, in the dark to find a place to stash my aid. I eventually got to bed at around 10pm.

My humble abode

At the registration I met another guy who was doing the 100k for the first time and we got talking. He’d done Ironman a few times and, like me was giving the 100k a go as a new challenge. The conversation went something like this:

(Ironman Guy) “so how many Ironmen have you raced?”
(Me) “Just one”
(Ironman Guy) “Oh really, I’ve raced three plus the usual other stuff, what was you time?”
(Me) “Arrr, just under 13 hours”
(Ironman Guy) “Oh yeah, I’m nudging 10 hours. What kind of training have you been doing?”
(Me) “Well actually my training has been a bit weak, but I’ve strung together some long runs and think I can go the distance”
(Ironman Guy) “I’ve been doing 50k runs in training, reckon I’m in for a good time … blah blah blah, its going to be a mental game blah blah blah”

I saw Ironman Guy a couple of times out on the course zooming along in his tri suit (yes, a one piece tri suit).

However the next time I was to actually have a chat with Ironman Guy was at the 75k mark. He was sitting on the side of the road with his head in his hands, looking pretty broken. He told me he had the trotts and had been unable to keep anything down for the last 4 hours (that one piece tri suit was looking like a very bad idea – note for future Ultramarathon runners, don’t wear a one piece tri suit!)

Anyways as I’ve mentioned above, I went to bed at around 10pm. I dozed a little but didn’t really sleep and was steering at the top of the tent when my alarm went off at 1.40am, time for breakfast!

“Breakfast” was a bowl of muesli, I wasn’t feeling very hungry so left it at that. After eating I got dressed and made my way across to the race start. I parked my car fairly close to the start / finish line (and right on the course) and set about preparing what was to be my major “aid station” (the boot of my car). My chillie bin was full of ice and drink, my food was ready, I had a change of clothes, shoes and socks laid out, and my blister kit all ready. I hung around for a bit and waited as long as comfortably possible before putting my shoes on (after using lots of baby powder on my feet).

There were 50 people starting the 100k solo, plus an additional 20 2 x 50k teams making this the largest ultramarathon ever held in New Zealand (gives an idea of how small this aspect of running is in New Zealand). Interestingly enough this was the first time that prize money had been offered, there was a prize pool of $12,000 paying three deep (male and female), just goes to show what a little bit of sponsorship money can do!

The start of an ultramarathon is a strange thing. In most races, there jostling at the front and when the starting gun goes everyone’s off like a shot! In this race however there was a countdown from ten “10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 …” and then everyone just kind of shuffled on off down the road …

We stayed fairly bunched up for the first 20k’s. I kept my pace in check with an average heart rate of bang on 150 bpm, which is about what I wanted. I also got on the shoulder of a guy who had recently won the New Zealand 12 hour championship, so I made sure that I didn’t get in front of him, figuring that my ideal pace would see me on the course for at least 12 hours (the sub 10 hour ultra dream had a reality check a couple of months ago …). Its weird running at night, especially as there was only a crescent moon during the run, so not a lot of light coming from there. It almost feels as if you’re running in a bubble which comprises of the couple of metres lit up by your head lamp. Looking ahead I could see the red lights from the other runners (we were all given red flashing lights to wear on the back of our shorts), but it was quite hard to get a sense of depth, so it seemed kind of surreal.

At 22.5k’s I came across my stash, which was thankfully still safely stashed. My biggest worry up to that point was that my stashed aid would be missing. I was a little concerned when I topped up my camel pack with only 750mL, as this meant that I was not drinking nearly enough (just over a litre drunk as I was also carry a small water bottle, I also picked up a new water bottle from my stash, I was using the camel pack to carry sports drink). From there it was a short little jog to the 25k turn around which I got to in a time of 2 hours 54 min, so far so good.

The 25k mark is right at the bottom of the biggest and longest climb on the course, the famous Hatapi Hill. My plan was always to walk every hill and what I really noticed going up this hill was that the chaps who were trying to run up it weren’t actually going much faster than me, but they were using a lot of energy!

About 30k into the race, looking tired, but thats because I've been running since 3am! - Yes that is a LONG road behind me!

At around 35k my stomach started to feel a little funky, so I stopped to, um, answer natures call … which made me feel a lot better. I’d also promised to call the kids at 7.30am and managed to keep that promise, although it was looking a little dicey for a bit as the cell phone coverage dropped out for about a 10k stretch. Talking to the family gave me a boost and I was able to truck on through the 42k (marathon distance) mark. My stomach was starting to feel funky again so I broke out my “dodgy bag of pills” which included some ginger caps. These were brilliant and settled things down really fast, I wish I had bought some more!

Things were still pretty low key at the start / finish line (which was also the 50k turn around point). The official there took my time (6 hours 3 minutes), said “well done” and “good luck” and I was off heading back out of town again. I was still just about on target at this point, however I thankfully stopped in at my “major aid station” (my car boot) to do some running repairs and try and eat some food.

My feet had started to develop some big blisters on the side of each heal. I had a hollow needle and some “compeed” to fix these so set to work. The trick with draining blisters is to make sure they don’t simply refill, that’s why pricking them is no good. The other thing to be careful of is to not tear the skin, as things are going to get really sore if the skin comes off – hence the hollow needle, it puts and nice round hole in the skin.

Now (and this is a little gross, so be warned), these two blisters on the heals were under a bit of pressure, and when I lanced them they shot their juice out in a fascinating but somewhat disturbing arch. The blisters were to big for the compeed, so I simply smeared them with lots of vas. I treated some blisters on my toes in the same way. It was then loads of baby powder, fresh socks and shoes, and my feet were set!

Next was some more sun block and vas (tip:- it helps to have a list to work to when you’re doing it all for yourself).

Eating was an altogether different problem. I’d forced down some gels on the way in, but my gut really didn’t like it, and the thought of eating anything made me feel quite ill. In the end I managed to down some pretzels, a bottle of Red Bull, a muesli bar and a banana. I also unloaded a bunch of stuff from my camel pack that I now knew I wouldn’t be able to eat. I topped up the camel pack with sports drink again (a bit more than last time, but still not enough), grabbed a bottle of water and headed off.

After about 1 k I realized that I’d left my sunhat behind. It was an overcast day and there was no way I was going to head back to get it trucked on and prayed that the sun wouldn’t come out to much!

I think that after the 50k mark is where the race really starts. This is where things that are a minor pain during a marathon, become big issues in an ultra. One such problem for me was the fact that in 8 hours I’d only pee’d twice, and the last pee did not have a good look to it (sorry if that’s a bit crude). By this time I was 60k’s into the race and just about ready to call it quits. I’d even started to ring a friend who lives in Taupo to ask them to come and pick me up. As the phone was ringing I had a moment of clarity and hung up. I looked up the road and saw a big hill and so resolved to have an extended walking break and concentrate on drinking as much as possible. Which is exactly what I did.

5 k down the road, as I was walking up the hill happily sucking on my camel pack I came across my first ultramarathon causality. It was a lady who had been in front of me all day. She got to the top of the hill, wondered to a grass area on the side of the road and laid down. Her crew were following her pretty closely and quickly came over. They said that she was “having a rest” but it was obviously game over for her.

By this point the relay teams were starting to come through and so the crowds (made up of the teams and their supporters) were building up. One of the neat things that they do for this race is to give all the solo 100k runners a different colour race number with our names printed on it. This is so that everyone knows who the solo runners are on the course, the race organisers make sure that a big deal is made of the ultramarathron runners and they we got plenty of vocal support from the relay teams. This proved to be really cool, especially when the teams noticed that there was no crew following me along. The result being that I got loads of support, cold sponges and drinks given to me, and I got bumped to the top of the queue at the port-a-loo’s.

The last 30k’s of the race was a mix of really high “highs” and really low “lows” that came in quicker succession as time (and distance) worn on. I’m sure that if I had a crew I would have dropped out, the temptation to jump into a car and be finished would have been too much. A 100k ultramarathon is WAY harder than Ironman, I have a whole new level of respect for anyone who does 100 milers!

Its all starting to hurt

By the 80k mark I was most definitely not in a happy place! My feet hurt, my stomach wasn’t happy, my legs were sore and my armpits were getting chaff. On top of that I just was really tired. My eating plan had gone out the door and I was well into calorie deficit. Eventually I found myself lying down with my feet up on a fence just trying to take some of the pressure off my poor abused feet. Eventually I regained a sense of self and got back up and started to chug along again.

With 10k to go I was down to walking and was feeling pretty sorry for myself. Happily I ran (or rather walked) into a chap (Anthony) who was running the full relay by himself (155 k). He had some crew around him who were pacing him into the finish. They invited me to “jump on” and promised to get me to the finish. So the last 10 k went by with more running than walking, with the guys cracking lots of jokes and getting me and Anthony through to the finish.

In the end I finished the ultra without throwing up (or at least my stomach contents didn’t get any further than my mouth!), in a time of 14 hours 40 minutes and 39 seconds. I was the 34th finisher out of 50 starters, (although only 35 made it to the finish line – that’s right, close to 30% of the starters DNF’d). My heart rate monitor records calorie output as well and it clocked out at some point at 9,999 calories, so I had a big deficit to catch up.

Absolutely STUFFED

After my post race massage I hobbled down to my car and made my way back to the camp ground for a well earned hot shower. Dinner was a big fat greasy pizza (super supreme, yummy!) chased down with some sparkling grape juice followed closely by bed. I had the offer of a nice cold beer, but figured that would not be a very good idea as I was feeling kind of weird before tucking into my pizza.

WHAT HAVE I LEARNT?

I’ve learnt that an Ultramarathon (or at least a 100k ultramarathon) is way way harder than Ironman. I really thought that it would be easier than it proved to be.

I’ve learnt that having crew can be a huge advantage. One of the things I struggled with was carrying an extra 3kg plus at the start of every 25k. The end result being that my shoulders and neck got quite tight (in addition to having a world of hurt happening from my waist down).

I’ve also learnt that having good pacers makes a huge difference, and could quite easily be the difference between finishing and DNF’ing.

Lastly I’ve learnt that I have a heap more endurance that I thought I had. I know this because I didn’t have enough drink, I didn’t have enough food, but somehow I managed to push on. Next time things get tough I’ll have to remind myself of just how tough I can actually be.

So what’s next? I’m not sure, what I do know is that I’m going to take the time to fully recover from this weekends “fun”. I’m not planning on anymore races this year, although I do plan to keep up some running. I’m also going to swim more, particularly as we move into winter. We’ll just have to wait and se what next year brings.

Can I do it?

2009-02-09T21:36:00.000+13:00

Today was a special day … primarily because I wasn’t at work!! Yay!!!

Instead I was out running on a beautiful fine summer day while all the other good people of our fair city were grimly fighting their way through Auckland’s nightmarish traffic to spend a day tied to a desk doing whatever it is that people do to keep the world of capitalism turning.

Its been horribly hot here lately, the temperature’s been nudging 30 degrees (Celsius), however with the humidity running at around 70% (apparently) the perceived temperature – whatever that means – has been closer to 41 degrees. So anyways I was hoping to get going as soon as possible to try and avoid the worst of the heat. In the end I was out the door by 8.30am (after getting the kids sorted for school and kindy).

The plan was to run 45k’s today if everything went well, but this was always going to depend at least partly on how hot it got. I was running laps of just under 14k’s so that I could stop at home to refuel at each lap (of course this would still mean only 2 “aid stations” for marathon, which on a hot day isn’t exactly ideal).

The purpose of today’s run was to (in this order):

- See if I still had the conditioning to potentially run an ultra (my training has been VERY minimal over Christmas / New Years).
- Test pacing
- Get some heart rate and calorie data
- Test some nutrition

In the end I ran 40k in just under 4 hours, unlike the ultra I didn’t take any walking breaks (my ultra plan is to run 25 minutes and walk 2 – 5 minutes, as well as walk EVERY hill, although there aren’t a lot of hills). It got too hot to push through for the last 5k. My pacing is still a little quick, although the walking will slow things down a bit. My average heart rate was 157 BPM (my heart rate picked up over the last 20k’s which I think is a reflection of the day getting hotter as much as anything, my aim is to get my pacing down so that my AHR is below 150 BPM.

I was going through approximately 1000 calories per 10k’s, so it doesn’t taken a genius to work out that over a 100k race I’m on track to use approximately 10,000 calories, the trick will be to work out how to get them in. One way or the other solid food is going to have to go in. I also tried out so new nutrition which seemed to work well (the flat Red Bull was sensational!). All of this raises another problem though …

I’m still lacking a support crew, things just aren’t working out on this front, as most people have used up their holiday’s and can’t make it, or have something else planned. Plan “B” (stashing supplies on the course) is less than ideal but I think workable (there are no aid stations!) – it may have to be!

Less than two weeks to go. The next few days I’ll be taking it easy to get in some good recovery, do a couple of swims etc. From then it will be a little bit of easy running then I’ll head on down to Taupo.

Wish me luck!

Remotvated!

2009-01-30T20:59:00.000+13:00

Its been quite a while between posts for a bunch of reasons. These reasons all boil down to a lack of material.

Essentially towards the end of last year I was quickly turning into a stressed out wreck primarily due to work (grrrr, stupid work). As a result I was getting really tired and my health (and training) started to suffer, this was quickly followed by evaporation of motivation. I had a low level virus that hung around for weeks and put a bit of a crimp on my training. By the time Christmas had come and gone so had my motivation, and I was real hanging out for a long awaited holiday.

I’ve now had that holiday, going into it I had just about decided that the 100k ULTRADREAM was going to be postponed for a year at least. However a after a trip to the Blue Lake (home of the Rotorua Half Ironman) and a very relaxed and lazy two weeks, he motivation is now coming back and I’m off and running again.

The break has given me a chance to really re-charge my batteries, I know that sounds kind of cheesy, but that’s exactly how I feel. So the plannings back on for the 100k ultra (21st February). I have a couple of key workouts planned ad I’m pretty confident that I’ll make it to the starting line in shape for a 100k’s of running.

My only real problem now is really I the logistics. I’m not entirely sure if the family are going to be able to make it down to Taupo with me in which case I’m going to be struggling to put together a support crew. The big problem is that there are no aid stations for this race meaning having a crew really is essential. The race itself is a 50k out and back done twice (for a total of 100k), so while it will be possible to leave some aid in a car and maybe buy some alone the way it certainly isn’t the preference.

So I really need to find some poor sap who’s willing to get up in time for the race start at 3.15am (yes AM) – although to be fair I can probably cope through to about 6am – and who doesn’t mind driving up and down the road between Taupo and Hatape for 10 – 12 hours… Any takers???

Real Running

2008-12-07T13:00:00.004+13:00

At last I managed to get out and do some real running. By real running I mean no roads no cars and definitely no traffic lights! I took a little field trip and ran what proved to be a fairly challenging coastal track just north of where I live. I've been meaning to get out and do this for a while, but like all good intentions I've just never quite got around to it. So this morning, on the pretense of checking it out for a possible "family adventure" this afternoon, I hit the trails.

The track itself is quite a popular day walk as it winds its way between a number of rather beautiful bays. Towards the start of the run my time got slowed down a bit as I had to navigate my way past a large group of oldies out for a days walk (bless them). Of course I caught up to them on a big steep hill which I'd normally happily walk, but not wanting to get heckled by the fit looking old folk I sucked it up and powered on up, while tying to look fresh and happy .... Of course as soon as I was out of site I slowed right down and started to suck in as much oxygen as humanly possible!! Coastal hills (I've found out are killers - the views are good though!!)

Although one lot of views which wasn't so good was running past a bay used by "naturalist". I have to say that the idea of a nudist beach seemed a lot more appealing when I was a innocent school boy, the reality was a beach full of old men and it was all somewhat disturbing! Yuuucck ... don't worry I didn't stop for photo's!

The track wasn't as "bushy" as I'd like. I was hoping for a nice run through some of our fine native forest, but sadly the track mostly ran along the edge of some farm land, so I'll have to get back to the map to find some decent forest trails. I'm really keen to get off the roads on run more trails as its a lot better for your joints and quite simply a lot more to my liking as I grew up spending days tramping through the mountains. Also I intend to do this ultra in 2010, so will have some good motivation to run off road more.

All up the there and back run took me just under 50 minutes, so I did it twice. In the process I had a fantastic and hard workout, and managed to pick up a couple of blisters which is unusual for me (I'll be aiming to buy some proper off road running shoes at a boxing day sale somewhere.

Here's some more photo's to finish with.

Long time no post! (Blog about nothing)

2008-12-06T11:12:00.002+13:00

Yes I have been unusually slack doing the blogging thing, so now that I have a few spare minutes I thought I could take a small step in rectifying this sorry situation.

Life has been insanely busy for me lately, mostly due to that pesty thing called WORK, the bane of most modern endurance athletes (except for the few lucky souls who can actually make a living from their chosen sport, and of course those for whom money simply isn't a problem).

Yes work has been crazy busy resulting in my training schedule being tossed out and me being left feeling absolutely stuffed. That being said, two weeks ago was my biggest (running mileage ever) ... and this week was one of the smallest (I did a longish run of 20k's last Sunday and have managed one further run of 8k since then). So I'm really hoping that things will get back on track soon, the pace at work should slow down within the next couple of weeks as people switch off for Christmas and I'll be fully back into training mode.

So I don't really have a lot to blog about, hopefully I'll have something worth reading tomorrow as I'm planning to do my long run along a new coastal track that I've sussed out (on a map anyway) - I'll take my trusty phone and snap some pictures to brighten the post up as well.

Catch ya later!

Its Official!!

2008-11-10T17:20:00.003+13:00

Today is a notable day. Today I received confirmation of my entry into the 100k race. As mentioned before its run in conjunction with the Great Lake Rely, so I was a little amused to see that I'm noted down as being the manager of a team of one!

This week also marks the start of some serious, more specific ultramarathon training. Over the coming weeks its my intention to use this blog to record my training and my thoughts around it. I've never taken on an ultra before so a lot of my idea's a just theory to me at the moment. Using this blog will help me track how things go.

This week is a bit of a transition week while I bed down my training schedule. From next week I'll be recording my intended training schedule and the thinking behind it, and then de-brief on the outcome at the end of the week. My idea is to repeat this week on week.

That's the idea anyway!

Auckland Marathon - Race Report

2008-11-05T23:22:00.001+13:00

Its been a few days since the marathon now and sore / stiffness wise I’m feeling just about back to normal. The plan calls for a restart to some gentle running over the next couple of days. I’m actually really looking forward to this next phase in my training as I’ll be lowering the number of intensity / speed workouts and instead focusing on running at a gentler, more stainable pace in preparation for the 100k in February.

Don’t get me wrong, there will still be an element of speed work in my training. I believe that its important to keep some intensity workouts in a training plan in order to avoid injury, as these workouts, in the right quantity and right proportion, help to strengthen your body as well as introduce a variance in the biomechanical loading of your muscles and joints. The alternative is to plod along at roughly the same pace day in and day out – thereby exposing your body to the exact same stressors everyday. This is a recipe for burnout and injury.

Anyway I digress, its time for a RACE REPORT!!

The Auckland Marathon, while not the biggest in the world, is certainly big for little old New Zealand. This year there was a record 12,000 people participating over what is actually a number of races run over the same course. The course starts in Devonport on the North Shore and is initially fairly undulating and it winds its way toward the harbour. The highlight of the course occur as you come onto the Auckland motorway and make your way up over the Auckland Harbour Bridge – this is the one time in the year that you get to run / walk over the bridge. The bridge is actually the biggest and longest hill on the course. Its just over 13k’s into the course and there’s a cut off time of 2 and a half hours to get to it. Surprisingly enough every year there are people you don’t make the cut off.

Billed as New Zealand’s premier road race you would think that the marathon would have an awful lot of people running it, but oddly enough you’d be wrong. There is a half marathon that runs at the same time as the full marathon and follows the same course over the bridge. There’s also a limit of 7,500 people allowed to cross the bridge due to safety reasons. So as I was lining up to start the marathon this year it was interesting to note that there were less than 1,500 people running the marathon, meaning that at least 6,000 people around me (plus a number of “bandits”) were doing things by half – and some of these wouldn’t make the cut off … right or wrong? I don’t know, but I know a lot of people who missed out on getting their entry in on time.

Marathon day started for me at 3:30am after getting absolutely zero sleep! The kids had a rough night, which translated into me having a rough night as well, so by the time 3:30am clicked over on the clock, I figured I might as well get things rolling and eat a proper breakfast. My pre-race breakfast usually consists of two pieces of toast with banana on them and a cup of coffee. Seeing as I was eating so early I felt confident enough to have a bit more this time round as whatever I eat would have three hours to settle before I started running.

At 4:45am I got into my car and headed off to the bus station to catch a charted bus into the start venue. I did this last year as well and its by far the best way to get to the start. There’s only one way in or out of Devonport if you’re going by road and getting stuck in a traffic jam at 5am in the morning, stressing about finding a park and getting to the start on time doesn’t appeal as a good way to start the day. Sitting I got to soak in the nervous energy and had a good chat with a couple of people who were about to run their first half marathon.

The start venue was typical. It was still dark, but not dark enough to hide the long queues to the toilets (especially the ladies loo’s – I’m so glad I’m a guy!). So one nervous pee of own and I was then free to mill around for a bit and kill some time before stripping down to my running kit for the day. It was pretty cold this morning, so I was in no rush. In fact the weather forecast had been really bad, but after checking it before leaving I was very pleased to see that things were suppose to steadily improve as the day went on – nevertheless it was cold and just a tad wet.

With 20 minutes to go I stripped down to my running gear and got some slightly disturbed looks from some obvious first timers as I reached into my bag, pulled out a handful of Vas and proceeded to stick it down my pants – I’m sure they’d understand in a couple of hours.

The race got off to a good start, and I set off at a comfortable pace. My goal was to run five minute k’s and basically see if I had enough conditioning to keep that up for the whole marathon. Not the most scientific approach, but still a pace I thought I could keep up and a pace that would see me make a significant dent in my previous best marathon time.

Unfortunately I ended up running the first 5k a little quick and averaged closer to 4:45 minutes per k. I kept on trying to slow down at each k, but didn’t have a whole lot of success. By 21k’s I had bought the pace down a little, but I suspect the damage was done.

I ended up going through the half marathon mark in 1 hour 44 minutes. And kept running a pretty good pace from there through to around 26k’s … at this point the pace started slowing.

The big question for me was always going to be whether or not I had the condition to maintain a steady pace. As mentioned in earlier posts my build up had not been as smooth as I would have liked, combined with the fact that I’d gone out a little quick I wasn’t all that surprised when I started to see the k splits slip.

At around the 28k mark I had a little hurry up as I was caught up by a chap who was trying to break a world record by skipping the marathon (the previous record was around 4 hours 30 minutes I think). Just imagine if I had to write in my blog that I got past by a guy with a skipping rope! Suffice to say I picked up the pace and put in a bit of a surge – I didn’t see him again.

There’s not much more to say really – I ran and ran, my pace slipped a little more, but by the end of the race I had done enough to smash my previous PB by 14 minutes and crossed the line in 3 hours 48 minutes and 48 seconds!

Its been a fairly successful running season for me with a new half marathon PB (1 hour 38) and a new marathon PB set this weekend.

Now all I have to do is nail this Ultramarathon thing and my season will have been perfect!

Quick Update

2008-11-02T13:05:00.002+13:00

Its now been a couple of hours since I finished the Auckland Marathon so I thought I'd spare five minutes for a quick update.

YAHOOO New marathon PB for me!! Not quite the triumphant stroll that I had been dreaming about, but nevertheless I'm really please with my effort and damn proud of the result.

I've finally put 4 hour marathons into the history books. Today I crossed the line in 3 hours 48 minutes and 48 seconds (by my watch).

I ran quite a strong half marathon and got to the 21k mark in 1 hour 44 minutes, so a little quicker than my goal pace. However as anticipated my conditioning was quite up to scratch and I did start to crumble after 26k's with my k splits slowing down significantly, as I re-visited my unhappy place. Happily I didn't blow to pieces and managed to bring it home in a respectable time. Still room for improvement though!

I'll post a more complete race report in a couple of days when I'm feeling more up to it.

Pre-Race Thoughts - Auckland Marathon

2008-11-01T11:06:00.003+13:00

Well its now one day until the Auckland Marathon, the weather looks lousily (strong North westerlies and rain easing to showers! Yippee!). So I thought it would be worthwhile, more as a record to look back on than anything else, to put down my thoughts about tomorrows little adventure.

Tomorrow will be my third marathon (forth if you count the Ironman marathon), and so far they have each been learning experiences. I haven't yet finished a marathon satisfied with my effort or the result. At last years Auckland marathon I finished in 4 hours 2 minutes, which was a little disappointing, mind you I did treat it more as a long training run than as a "A" race and trained right up into it. This year, technically, should be quicker.

I'm currently on track to run somewhere around 3 hours 30 minutes. Does that mean I'll actually go that quick? I have my doubts...

My buildup to this marathon hasn't been as smooth as I'd like. I've gotten (very) sick which whipped 2 weeks of training completely and saw me come back with a lot of my prior conditioning lost. More recently I picked up a minor injury which prevented training for a week and raised a bit of doubt in my mind. That injury seems to be now largely resolved and I've been running freely of late.

All of this has meant that while my pace is still where it needs to be, I haven't been able to really test myself of some truly good long runs, so I have a grain of doubt in the back of my mind. If I run at my goal pace will I get to the 30k mark and start to crumble? Its happened before... Or should I ease back and simply aim to better last years time by two minutes?

I've been tossing these questions up over the last week and have largely decided on which route I'll take. I figure that if I go out conservatively and finish the race feeling quite good I'll be very disappointed in myself. So instead I'm going to back myself and go out at my goal pace, and if I crumble at least I'll do it spectacularly and will have something to write about tomorrow! On the other hand if I hold it together for the whole marathon the I'm going to be giving myself the opportunity to really knock a good chunk off my PB. And I think, for someone like me, that's a risk worth taking.

Watch this space, I'll update how things went tomorrow afternoon

Long Slow Distance

2008-10-26T21:08:00.003+13:00

Today is exactly one week out from the Auckland Marathon. This isn't really an "A" race for me, but never the less I do have some unfinished business to attend to with it. Last year I finished with a personally disappointing 4 hours 2 minutes, this year I'm hoping that my finishing time this year will have the 3 in front of it. Whether or not that actually works out remains to be seen. I haven't exactly had a smooth build up this year.

My last big workout before the marathon was scheduled in for today and was a little different to what I'd normally do. And just as well as otherwise I probably wouldn't have gone.

The difference was that today I ran with a mate of mine. He's a guy who got all inspired after coming down to support me in IMNZ this year and has now picked up running. He finished his first half marathon two weeks ago and now is amped for something bigger and better. He hopes to have a crack at IMNZ in 2010. It was actually really good, its not often you get to spend three hours chatting to a friend (at least in my rather busy life its not often!)

This morning was cold wet and windy, with squally showers blowing over on a regular basis. I probably would have opted out of the run if I hadn't been going with someone else. Generally I do most of my runs by myself, this is primarily because with a young family I find it hard to commit to a set time. However today was different!

Today's run (30k) was going to be the longest my friend had ever done. For me it was scheduled as an easy run (as I've just gotten on top of an muscle strain and didn't want to set it back this close to the marathon) and was more about spending time on my feet. In the end my friend ran really well and we finished the run just shy of 3 hours. I found the pace pleasantly easy and came through without any aches or pains, which is encouraging.

The run itself was 30 very hilly k's. A little mean of me perhaps, but running hills (up them anyway) is a great way to have a god workout without loading up to many stresses on the old joints etc.

It started raining almost as soon as we left and continued on and off for most of the run, gradually getting better as the day wore on. The result of course was that my feet got wet early on and I developed a couple of healthy looking blisters on my little toe - could have been worse.

The run wound it way out into the country and we were treated to some nice views along the way. I really do live in a beautiful place!

So from here its only a short span till the Auckland Marathon, and I think that as long as I can avoid any mishaps I should be in for a reasonably solid race!

Its Done!

2008-10-23T20:50:00.002+13:00

That's right, I've parted with my hard earned cash and have finally actually entered the 100k race! As I type this my entry form is in the post and winging its way to the race director (yes oddly enough no online entry - its done the old fashion way).

So now I really am committed to my first ULTRA, wish me luck (and no injuries!)

Speaking of injuries I had to cut a run short last Sunday as I had a steadily increasing pain on the front of my lower leg. I was terrified that it may have been the start of something serious (like a compound fracture etc - always jump to the worst possible conclusion). Happily it was only a strained muscle coming up the front of my shin (Extensior Digitorum Longus I think for those geeky nough to want to know). And is now feeling just about back to normal after four days with no running and lots of gentle stretching. That will teach me for wearing old shoes!

I'm going to try and go for a gentle run tomorrow, so hopefully that will go without a hitch!

Long Run - But Why?

2008-10-18T12:47:00.007+13:00

Its been a pretty easy week for me this week after last Sundays half marathon. This was more driven by circumstances than anything. I had a rest day on Monday, a long steady swim on Tuesday, a short easy run on Wednesday then I had a conference for work that tied me up for all of Thursday and Friday.

The Thursday night of the conference was an "awards dinner" complete with open bar. I was a little unusual as I was just about the only one who wasn't trying to drink away the year profits, in addition I left pretty early and was snuggled up in my bed shortly after 10pm. I got a little bit of jib from my work mates for calling it quits so early, but I guess thats simply a reflection of where my priorities lie.

Anyway by the time I got back to the conference on Friday morning there were a lot of tired, unhappy people throwing back all manner of pain killers etc. There were also rumors circulating about a mishap that had occurred that night. As it turned out one of the other advisers from my team had gotten well and truly boozed, decided to go swimming, dived into the shallow end of a pool and broken her neck! My decision to a. Not drink, and b. go home early was now not looking so bad with lots of people saying they were definitely going to join me next time. (We got an update during the day, it turns out that she was reasonably "lucky" - which strikes me as being rather subjective - and will now be spending the next week in hospital and a further three months with a halo fitted!).

It was with these thoughts racing around my head that I went out for my long run this morning. Over the last couple of days I've had quite a few people ask me why I run (and interestingly a few people on Friday ask me how they can get started ...). There are a whole bunch of answers to this question, and to be truthful the answers change each year. The reasons why I run now are quite different to the reasons I had when I first started. When you get right down to it I run because I CAN first and foremost. And this is something that I'm really grateful for! I also run because I really enjoy it. I like the way it makes me feel, both during and after (... maybe not so much during ...), and in general life as well.

Me enjoying getting out there

It also gets me out of the rat race and allows me to spend some quality time with myself (and when you have a young family time to yourself is a very precious thing).

The way to the rat race, I happily ran over this today ... and kept on going ...

Todays run was quite hard as I targeted a bunch of fairly descent hills. The course I choose largely followed one I use to use for hill training on my bike. It took me just over 1 hour 40 minutes to cover the 20k's I ran and I was actually fairly happy with this effort. My half marathon season is now over and its time to start to slow the pace down and increase the distance.

Todays run

I've been thinking a bit about my time goals for the upcoming Auckland Marathon (2nd November). I really want to put in a good show which for me means getting home in under four hours. Previously I've had a problem with crumbling in the last 15k's of the marathon and seeing my time goals slip away. However this year my endurance is miles better than it was last year (which is just as well given my "A" race is going to be 100k long), so I'm confident that I will be able to run and maintain 5 minute (or just under) k's. This will see me comfortably get a marathon PB. The trick will be to not run to fast in the first half.

From here on in I will be starting to really ramp up my k's. At the moment I'm doing about 50k's a week, I'll be increasing this to closer to 70k per week by November and then getting up to 100k by the end of December. I don't know if time will allow me to be able to do much more than this.

Roll on summer!!

Waitakere City Half Marathon

2008-10-12T19:21:00.001+13:00

Well that's another race down and I'm actually fairly happy with the result. Not quite the triumph that I'd hoped for five weeks ago, but still a good result considering two weeks ago I was in hospital hooked up on IV drip and feeling pretty sorry for myself.

Now for the RACE REPORT

I had the usual pre-race nerves last night. It seems that regardless of how many races I do, I still get nervous. I think its a good thing as its a reflection of my excitement. If every I lose that nervousness its probably going to be time to re-assess things. Despite the nerves I actually managed to get a fairly good sleep (although I did have to get up at 4am to settle my three year daughter down - bless her little heart).

My alarm was set for 6.10am and as advertised, it woke me up. Breakfast was my usual, two pieces of toast with a banana squished on top washed own with a cup of coffee. Nice and easy and doesn't give me any problems. From then on its just sipping a sports drink until race time. I was a bit spoilt this time as I was getting picked up so didn't have to worry about getting myself to the start line, or that annoying question of "what to do with the car keys?" - someone elses problem today!

At 7.10 (a little later than planned - race start was 8am) my ride turned up. I headed on down to the race with a mate of mine and his friend. This was going to be my mates first race, and needless to say first half marathon. He got all inspired after coming down to support me for IMNZ this year. So this was a big day for him.

It was going to be an even bigger day for his friend. He has literally only just started running after years of boozing and smoking and being a self confessed workaholic. Today marked a big turn around for him.

We got to the start venue and found that the car park was packed out meaning we had to drive around a bit to find a park. By the time we found one, got geared up and made our way to the start line there was about 10 minutes to spear - enough time for a last nervous pee ... Happily the toilets were right next to the start line, and (in my experience) for the first time ever there was no queue. Unbelievable yes, but I'll take it!

After wishing the boys good luck, I made my way a bit closer to the front to await the starting gun. The hooter went and we were off ... for a typically slow start, there were a lot of people trying to get onto the course. I spent the first 5k's working my way through the crowds who really should have seeded themselves further down the starting grid. But never mind, its all part of the fun.

At the 1k mark I was running below 4min 20sec (k) pace and kept that up fairly comfortably for the first five k's. The plan was to go out and run a pace that would give me a shot at a PB. The big question was always going to be whether or not I could keep it up as my training plan hit a big glitch when I got sick (I lost just over 2kg over the course of two weeks while sick and it put an 18 day break in my training plan).

The run was two roughly 10k laps, the first 5k was pretty flat, however the second 5k was surprisingly tough with a lot of small undulations. This ended up slowing me down a bit and put some unanticipated strain into my quads. With 7(ish) k's into the run you hit the major climb. Unfortunately yesterday when I checked out the course we got the wrong hill. The actual hill was both higher and longer than what we saw yesterday - no problem, love the hills!

I went through the 10k mark in 46 minutes. I shade off my goal pace, but still good enough for a PB - but once again the question, could I hold it?

I was still on pace for a sub 1.35 until the 15k mark, at which point I started to suffer - I was about to get my answer. Getting sick knocked my conditioning and my pace started to slip. My quads also started getting pretty sore on the undulations, and just to compound things both my shoe laces came undone, one after the other, resulting in two quick stops to re-tie them. This probably cost me a total of 30 seconds. "No big deal" I hear you say, but in a race like this every second counts!

I got to the 19k mark and watched 1 hour 30 minutes click by on my watch (plus a further 30 seconds) - sub1.30 will have to wait for another day I'm afraid.

Before you get to the finish you run a lap around a track in a stadium, which was a new experience for me. I managed to get into a sprint finish with another guy (which I won - yay) so it was quite a nice way to finish off.

End result was 1 hour 40 minutes and 25 seconds (see the 30 odd seconds I spent tieing my shoe laces may have meant the deference between getting a sub 1.40 - every second counts!).

Once I was finished I went back onto the course to wait for my mate and his friend. They turned up eventually and I ran along with them. My mates friend was doing it really hard and he was not in a happy place. My mate has stuck with him throughout the run to push him through, but with less than three k's to go, running a sub 2.30 half was looking questionable. With such a short distance to go his friend was definitely going to make it so he kicked on and I paced him for 5 minute(ish) k's to get him home on time. In the end he got home in 2hrs 30min and 57sec, close enough. He was pretty stoked and is already planning the his next race. He would have gone quicker as he was looking really solid, but he stuck with his friend - which is a really nice thing to do.

So the numbers (this should keep a certain Sub6 happy).

There were two distance options, being 11k and 21k (half marathon)

There was a good field of 1348 energised people

In my category there were 378 finishers

I finished in 74th place with a time of 1 hour 40 minutes and 23 seconds

My average pace was 4min 33sec k's (shade over 7min miles I think)

All in all a really worth while workout which should give a good kick to the upcoming Auckland Marathon (2nd November).

Pre-Race Thoughts - Half Marathon

2008-10-11T19:13:00.001+13:00

Well its now the night before by next race and I thought I'd quickly put down some thoughts.

I headed out to the course to register this morning with a friend of mine who is also doing the race. This will be his first half marathon - in fact it'll be his first race ever! He only started running after getting inspired by coming down and supporting me for Ironman New Zealand, he's now planning on doing his first half ironman next year with maybe a crack at the full distance in 2010.

While we were out there we drove arond the course (well most of it, part of the course is along a riverside track wich obviously we couldn't drive). The drive confirmed that the course is indeed very flat and looks fast. There's one sharp hill (every good run course needs a hill!) but its not very long. Its a two lap course so I'll get to head up that hill twice, I can't see it being to much of an issue though.

Five weeks ago I had high hopes of going sub 1 hour 30 minutes on this course, and todays course viewing showed that my hopes weren't unreasonable. Five weeks ago I was getting my splits down and sub 1.30 was on.

Then I got sick and couldn't run (or do anything) for two weeks. Since then I've been for a grand total of four runs and I'm not confident of going sub 1.45 let alone sub 1.30!

The plan now is to run the first half as strongly as possible and basically see how it goes. I figure one of two things will happen ... either I'll get a good tempo going and I just might surprise myself, or I'll blow to pieces on the second half and have a horrible time.

Watch this space ...

Feeling Better!

2008-10-04T22:27:00.003+13:00

That's right, after two weeks of feeling lousy I'm finally feeling (close) to normal again and today managed to get out for my first run in just on two weeks! Not being able to get out and moving has been driving me nuts ever since I got sick, its amazing how you take good health for granted until its gone.

But now my health is back, the run went really well and I actualy felt pretty good by the end of it, so there's hope yet for a decent half marathon next weekend. Whether or not that will mean a personal best is something that I'll just have to wait and see what the day brings.

So what does one do when your crook and can't run or do pretty much anything for that matter?

You study our upcoming 100k race of course! The course has changed for 2009. Previously it was a point to point run two thirds of the way around Lake Taupo. Now its a two lap out and back. 25k's out, 25k's back done twice to get you your 100k's. It actually looks kind of cruel as 25k's is just enough to see you over a certain Hatepe Hill. This hill has been made famous thanks to New Zealand's largest bike race, the Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge, which reguarly attracts upwards of 35,000 people each year. This bike race is a 160k ride around Lake Taupo with Hatepe Hill being the biggest climb of the day right when you're feeling your most tired.

To insert this hill twice into a 100k running race seems kind of mean. Here's an outline of the corse elevation. Hatepe Hill kind of sticks out ...

Also today I went out with the kids and hit some trails that are within running distance from home. I've been meaning to check these trails out for a while, but the weathers been lousy meaning the tracks would have been slush.

We had a great day, we were out for a couple of hours and the kids did really really well. The track basically starts at the top of a hill and heads down (quite steeply). You then cross over a small stream and head up another steep hill. At the top of this hill you get some great views before heading down again. At the bottom you cross another small stream before coming face to face with what is apparently the oldest tree in the Rodney district, a rather large kauri. From here you head up again until you get to the end of the track. Then you turn around and head back.

We took our time and stopped at a couple of places for some well earned tasty treats.

Hospital + IV Drip = Bad Training Week

2008-09-29T18:15:00.001+13:00

The last week has been my worst training week EVER. I went for a run on Sunday a week ago, and felt oddly tired and slow. I just figured that I'd been running a lot for the last week and it was time for some rest days. The next day I developed a slight cough, by Tuesday night I had the start of a high temputure. I woke up on Wednesday feeling aweful and then spent the next few days probably the sickest I've ever been.

All this climaxed with a trip into hospital early Saturday morning and me getting hooked up with an IV Drip delivering 2L of fluid plus some drugs to get my temperture down. I also had a bunch of tests down to determine that I didn't have anything to sinister, which thankfully I don't. Just a well developed case of Man-flu.

So where does this leave my bid for a new half marathon record with the race in less than 2 weeks?

I suspect that if I'm lucky I'll be able to get out for a light run later on this week, form there it will be a cae of assessing how much form I've lost. The plan now is to can going for a personal record and instead use the half marathon simpl as a training run. This will mean training right into the race and not specifically tappering for it.

Its a little disapointing but life throws these curve balls at you from time to time. The test is in how you react to the trials, and making sure you come back stronger for the experience.

Sudden High Intensity Training

2008-09-20T20:54:00.004+12:00

Sudden High Intensity Training (S.H.I.T.). This is a training system which guarantee's results. Unfortunately the results that you get are not always desirable - injury, reduced performance, fatigue etc. I remember the first time I heard about this type of training. I was sitting in a lecture theater and told in no uncertain terms to never ever prescribe your clients S.H.I.T. training.

Happily this is a lesson that I took to heart. During the same lecture I also got introduce to the more sensible progressive approach to High Intensity Training (progressive H.I.T).

For my Ironman Training, the focus was all about going the distance. This time around I have the fitness base, so the emphasis has shifted a degree and I've been progressively building the intensity.

High Intensity Training (HIT) is good, and very profitable provided you follow a plan and don't over do it. If you load up on to much H.I.T what you're left with is S.H.I.T and nobody wants that.

Now that I've committed to doing another half marathon making sure that I have a good balance of intensity is taking on increased importance. I've got some definite time goals for my half marathon, and for an upcoming full marathon to for that matter. The only way that I'm going to achieve these goals is to ensure that I train at an appropriate intensity. What this means for me is two specific H.I.T runs per week. One in the form of intervals, and one longer run, at a sustained pace slightly above my half marathon pace.

With a bit of luck this will give me the kick I need to achieve my time goal.

Long and Slow??

2008-09-13T22:53:00.006+12:00

This week marks the transition where I come out of winter and my ultra training starts to get a bit more serious. To date most of my runs have been fairly short with the emphasis being on building speed. Now things start to shift and volume becomes more important.

Which begs the important question, "what's the best type of training for an ultra?"

The obvious answer of course is to run lots, but really, that isn't an answer at all. After all I'm sure a 10k runner will tell you that they run a lot. The reality is that the answer to that question lies in the type of running (and other complementry training) that you do. When you boil it down, I believe (because I've asked it seriously) that the question becomes this; "do I training by running long and slow, or do I continue to include speed work?"

There's pro's and con's to both approach's. On the one hand, by running long and slow you are significantly less likely to pick up an injury, as your body isn't being pounded excessively. In addition its been pointed out that the key to running an ultra isn't so much running fast, but rather not slowing down - so long and slow would make good sense.

However on the flip side, do you really want to train yourself to run slowly? Maybe if you don't have a competitive streak and you simply want to complete. Its also interesting to note that successful ultra runners generally run sub 3 hour marathons - now you don't do that by training yourself to run slow.

I'm convienced that the answer lies somewhere in between. And personally I'll be aiming to keep my splits down. For my part I don't simply want to complete a 100k race, I actually want to do well in it. If that means I mess things up and blow to pieces, then so be it - there's always the following year to get it right. In the mean time I've set myself a Sub10 target (which given I have no experience with that distance, and its a fairly hilly course my be a bit premature) and I will be setting myself up, as well as possible, to get there!

On that note I logged in my first real long run today on a fairly tough course. I headed out into the wops and up a bunch of hills. It was my first time on this course but LOVED it so will probably make this a staple.

This is one of the hills I went up - got rained on again!!

It was a really cool run and I only saw maybe three cars (loads of cyclists, but hardly any cars!!). I to stretch it out a bit though, so will be looking to add a bit more to it.

The sun came out on the way back down

I felt really strong throughout and could have; a. Pushed a lot harder, or b. Gone a lot farther. After doing this I'm really encouraged about both the upcoming half marathon (I've decided to enter by the way - see previous post) and the Auckland Marathon. The course for both are MUCH flatter (therefore easier and quicker) than this course. I'm starting to believe that sub 1 hr 30 min for the half and 3hr 30min for the full are both possible for me this year.

All in all, the sun's shinning a lot more and things are good. I'm planning another long run tomorrow of similar distance to todays (I'm going to be building up my back to back long runs in the weekends followed by a swim on Mondays going forward). Next week will include some technique work as well as some shorter runs.

Spring Time

2008-09-06T21:57:00.003+12:00

Yes at last it's spring. Weeks and weeks of quite possibly the worst weather I've ever had to put up with are now a thing of the past. In fact this morning when I was out for my run I even saw a mother duck and her ducklings following her areound. A sure sign of spring!

But to the all important matter of training. I've run my fastest kilometer splits ever this week (mind you over a 7k course it probably isn't going to do me much good for my Ultra Dream). What this does tell me though is that my plan to break out of my previously plodding running tempo over winter has been largely successful. My leg turnover has picked up noticably and my perserved effort is quite comfortable.

In the past I've been frustrated by an inability to go faster, dispite the fact that I'd finish races feeling fairly fresh. I just couldn't get my legs to turn over quicker. So post Ironman this has been a major focus for me. Now that I seem to have met with some success I'm starting to build up volume again.

The summers racing is now starting to take shape.

- Half Marathon on 12th October (this is potentially a bit of a problem, I'll explain shortly)
- Auckland Marathon 2nd November
- Harbour Crossing (2.8k ocean swim) 16th November
- 42k off road run 22nd November
- Rotorua Half Ironman 13th December
- 100k run 21st February

That should keep me busy enough.

Now the reason why the half marathon in October is potentally a problem.

This has been a bit of a spur of the moment thing, but potentially a good training day. If I truely treated it as merely a training run, then I'd train right up to the day, do the run, and keep on training. The problem is that this particular half appears to be on a very flat course which is a bit of a rearity for me. Earlier on this year I ran a personal best half marathon time of 1 hour 38 mins. I think that given the way I'm running at the moment, and given the nature of this course (the last half I did was a hilly mix on on and off road) I quite possibly have a 1 hour 30 half in me waiting to come out. So do I treat it like an "A" race and really try and nail a good time? And if I do will I have enough time to recover for the Auckland Marathon? (which I have some unfinished business with following a disappointing shoing last year - legs wouldn't turn over fast enough, see my previous comments).

Well any suggestings?

Offroad Running

2008-08-30T14:41:00.005+12:00

There hasn't been a lot of interesting stuff happening in Ultraland lately which is why I jumped at the opportunity to mix things up a bit by finally getting out for some offroad running. To make things interesting one of the guys who I was going to be running with is / was (as he now lives in New Zealand) a top South African Adventure Racer having raced for team Giant/New Balance and more recently team Salomon.

So it was an early sun filled start (which after three or more weeks of rain was a real blessing) and quick trip out to Riverhead Forest.

I have no idea how far we went but we ran pretty hard for just over an hour. I was definitely pushed a lot harder than usual but was determined to put in a good showing. Meaning I sucked up the discomfort, plastered a smile on my face, and tried to keep talking in as normal a voice as possible. I did pretty well to. There were three of us to start with, one chap pulled the pin and headed back after about half an hour, while me and my South African friend kept chugging on. I managed to keep it together, although I did start to feel a bit queezie coming up the last big hill, however everything stayed where it should and I was able to cruise down the other side and recover with my pride intact!

It was a beautiful day, and just so nice to get out and away from traffic and concrete roads etc. I'm definitely doing this again soon. There were no flats and it was either uphill or down hill which suits me just fine. The scenery was fantastic and the workout brilliant!

The only other things of note is that I've started swimming again (and happily it seems that I still remember how!), so the Harbour Crossing (2.8k ocean swim) is on the agenda (16th November). Also I've entered the Auckland Marathon and if all goes well I'll be looking for a Personal Best. In theory 3hrs 30min seems possible, however I'll be happy with anything under 4hrs.

So that should keep me focused for a bit longer. I think I should also enter the 100k race before doig the marathon (as marathon's have a habit of putting me off running for a while).

Hows the Running Going?

2008-08-03T18:58:00.003+12:00

Pretty good actually. I'm fairly laid back at this stage of the game and just really focusing on getting my tempo set with lots of shortish runs. As a result my speed is increasing. I few weeks ago I ran a half marathon PB and I'm now consistently running around 7.30min miles and occasionally dipping below 7min.

All of this begs the question (which has been asked by the way) "what good is improving speed in short runs if your "A" race is a 100k ultra?"

Fair question, here was my answer:

You are absolutely right, running at that pace in a 100k probably isn't going to work out. My plan though is to build up speed in the "off season" and focus on distance from October onwards (essentially starting with the Auckland Marathon - of course there is also the added motivation of keeping the speed up for the Rotorua Half IM, since I'll be doing it in a team I really want to KILL the run course!).

I've found over the last year, and particuarly during Ironman that I got locked into a set tempo which was relatively slow. This was really hard to break out of, so I'm basically trying to re-train my legs to turn over faster. I know fitness wise I can sustain a much quicker marathon pace than I've run in the past, its just a matter of building the tempo and training the legs turnover at the right tempo. For the 100k I'm planning on targeting a pace of roughly 30 - 45 seconds (per k) slower than I'm running at the moment (bear in mind that I expect my "marathon pace" to increase between now and then meaning my 100k pace will in effect be closer to 1 min slower than my "marathon pace" (therefore around 5 min - 5.10 min k's) - well that's the plan anyway. For now its all about building speed and locking in a faster tempo.

At least that's the broad plan ...

No Training This Week

2008-07-26T20:06:00.004+12:00

That's right, no training what's so ever this week!

Why?

Because a fairly typical thing has happened to me. You see a couple of weeks ago I ran a half marathon (in a new personal best time of 1hr 38min 25sec I might add, smashing last years effort by a good 7 minutes!), and then after a week of not really resting from it and staying really busy with life, I got sick.

I've spend a couple of days this week not even being able to talk let alone do any kind of training! And today, now that I'm finally feeling a bit better, we get hit by the biggest storm thats been seen for a decade! Suffice to say, I've stayed safely at home today, and probably will tomorrow as well.

Nevermind, next week's a whole new week!!

New Goal, new blog (title anyway)

2008-07-16T17:14:00.002+12:00

So the question which has been bugging me lately is "what does one do after completing and Ironman?" Obviously there are many many choices.

I could go ahead and do more Ironman races! Only problem is having to focus on three sports (swim, bike, and running) and doing A LOT of each was not going to do my marriage or family life any favours.

I could focus on the shorter half ironman stuff, less training, less commitment. That was a definite possibility. Only problem is I'd still have to put in 3 - 4 hour training rides on a regular basis - and therein lies the biggest problem. With a young family and a VERY busy life, cycling simply takes up to much time (at least if you intend on being on being competitive - and I just can't help myself).

I could always give up on the whole endurance sport thing ....pftttt, like that will really ever happen, I am who I am (a bit like someone else I know but on a much lesser scale).

So with a touch of reluctance I've sold my beautiful bike and have started concentrating on running. Its the one thing that gives the biggest bang for your buck (so to speak). While a long bike would be 4 - 6 hours, a long run (for me) is unlikely to be much more than 2 hours. That's quite a difference!

So having made that step, I needed a goal.

For a while now the idea of doing an ultra has appealed to me. I seem to be predisposed to going long (albeit slowly) and fairly minimal training - you just need to look at my Ironman results. I did a fraction of the training I probably "should" have done, and prepared in a fraction of the time I should have - yet got a very pleasing result.

Now I've discovered a 100k run which is part of a bigger relay run and have made the mental commitment to complete it next February (entries haven't opened yet).

This blog is now going to follow my progress to what is sure to be a very long day. More details will follow shortly!

Cycle 4 Chopper and other stuff

2008-06-04T20:17:00.007+12:00

Attached for your viewing pleasure are some photo's of from my recent charity ride. But before those how about a quick catch on whats been going on.

The most significant thing is that my litter sister has beaten my half marathon record by two minutes. She ran only her second half marathon (which is actually one more than me - adventure runs don't count) in Christchurch over the weekend and came home in 1 hour 43 minutes for 70th overall, which is a pretty good result. To be fair the Christchurch course is known for being flat and fast, but still a family record is a family record and she is my YOUNGER SISTER, so its just not on.

I fully plan on getting the title back in a months time when I run the North Shore City Half Marathon in July, this is actually a fairly hilly course but I'm feeling pretty confident about beating last years effort of 1 hour 45. At the moment my projected time is just under 1 hour 40, with a pinch of luck I'll be able to pull out 1 hour 30(ish) on the day.

Anyway, on with the photo's

Made it to the start, 25k's down 100k to go!

Leading to the top of another climb, where's everyone else?(roadies are soft ...)

Making the most of the "team" car

At the top of another climb, waiting for everyone else. One of the roadies made a good show of hanging on this time.

Dominated the Dojo!

2008-05-28T20:40:00.001+12:00

For me today’s ride ended up being 124k’s and by no stretch of the imagination was it in anyway fast (this was on account of having to keep the bunch together). But nevertheless if I may be aloud to put my humility aside for a wee while, I totally DOMINATED THE DOJO!

Lets have a closer look at this. King of the Mountains went to me as I made the top of every climb except for one first(due to the fact that I was talking on my cell phone – naughty I know … but I managed to pull it back for a close second). I won every stage, and needless to say I won overall. I also biked the farthest by 25k’s (as I biked from home to the start to get a bit of a warm up).

The first 50k’s was from Orewa (north of Auckland) down the East Coast Bays, and was easily the hilliest 50k’s I’ve ever ridden. There was a bit of competition to start with but the roadies quickly popped and I DOMINATED!

The day was fantastic with barely a cloud in the sky and not a breath of wind, it was nice and cool and really just perfect cycling weather. Having support vehicles was something a bit different (even if they did ensure we didn’t go to fast and stopped regularly to make sure the bunch stayed together). It was great having them pass out bottles and Power Bars while on the move, real Pro Tour stuff (in my mind at least).

The total time biking was 5 hours 29 minutes, so as I said, not very fast, but still very satisfying. I DOMINATED everyone, and had a great time, and due to the easy pace I don’t feel particularly worn out. Plus we raised a bunch of money for the Rescue Helicopter, so all in all a great day

Back on the Bike

2008-05-25T19:53:00.003+12:00

Yip it was back on the bike again today in preperation for next Wednesdays "Race". I picked a rather tough route today which was pretty much all short sharp climbs with very little flat stuff. This was really a bit of a test to see how my bike fitness was holding up (given that I've done bugger all riding since Ironman NZ) as well as good chance to ride over some of next Wednesday's course and test out my race strategy. As an added bonus I'd also put my race wheels back on and had to make sure that I'd tuned them in right (although the clusters on my training wheels and race wheels are identical, on the race wheels they're closer to the hub meaning that I have to re-tune the gears every time I change - somethings I'm getting pretty good at)

On Friday I finally got details of the race course. Its not quite what I'd thought and basically involves a number of short stages between bank branch's. With a fair bit of male pride and corporate bragging rights on the line, I have a feeling that this will mean a lot of sprinting to get line honours throughout the day. Sprinting on a time trial bike is not really my thing, so my plan is simple. I don't want to wait to the final sprint at the end of every "stage", so my plan is essentially to launch attacks right from the start until one sticks and then make it stick. I'll be putting the hammer down all day knowing that I'll get a bit of a break at each branch, still there's a fairly good chance that I'll blow to peices at some point during the day. Its going to be fun though!

Also I figure I wouldn't be much of an Ironman without making it a bit more challenging. So I'll be riding an extra 30k's to get to the start line in the morning, and then go from there! I'm really looking forward to it. And if anyone wants to sponsor me or through some dollars my way (the whole thing is for a charity remember) don't forget to check out my fundraising site

It's been a while!!!

2008-05-17T15:11:00.003+12:00

It been a long while since I've blogged anything, but I've decided that I should stop being lazy and start up again.

Why bother? I hear you say!

Basically because it makes me more accountable. I have a couple of goals which are now fairly firmly set (in a loose kind of way), and I figure that in order to blog you should really try and have something to blog about. Hence the restart!

I do however need to come up with a catchy new blog title, KieranMischewskiNZIronman2008 isn't really relevant anymore - its yesterdays news (so to speak). I'll ponder that for a while and come up with something spectular, or failing that just something more fitting.

So what have I been doing since Ironman New Zealand?

Well immediately following Ironman I was all fired up to do more. Thankfully after a couple of weeks that desire subsided, I don't think my marriage would last another Ironman, or at least not yet, and I do really like being married.

So I've spent a bit of time mostly running, with my main and most immediate goal at the moment being to get a PB (or PR for those in North Americia) in a mid year half marathon which I did last year. By the way a PB for me is sub 1 hr 45. 1 hr 30 is the dream goal, so I need to get a bit faster. This is going to feed in well to my half ironman buildup later on in the year, as I simply don't run fast enough, or indeed as fast as I could.

What I've noticed in most of my races is that I ever cross the finish line fully spent. I think that comes down a bit to experence, in that I haven't done a lot of running races (or races that end with a run as in triathalon) so have been holding back to ensure I have enough ounce to finish. This year I'm making a concerted effort to run HARDER. I'm doing this by upping the intensity for short (under 10 k) runs at the moment. The idea being to keep my heart elevated above my normal target zones and hold the pace. The result initially was a very tired Kieran. But as things have progressed the effort has become more managable, and the times have stayed quick (for me). The next step is to increase the distance whilst maintaining the effort.

However, to put a slight spanner in the works, I've just committed to a 100k charity race on the 28th May - two weeks away!(bike race that is - I'm not game enough to run that far just yet). Here's the story:

I work for a bank which sponsors a Resuce Helicopter trust in New Zealand, and every year they hold a fund raising drive which all the bank staff are involved in. In our area one of the things which they're doing is holding a bike race with distances ranging from 10k through to 100k. I am, of course, doing the 100k ride. The opportunity to do a fully supported ride on a work day was to good to pass up. The only catch is that I need to raise some money (by the way, if anyone reading this wants to sponsor a good course you can do so at fundraisingonline ). The thing is though this ride is shaping up to be far from social with a number of roadies working for the bank (apparently cycling is the new golf) making a bit of noise about making the trigeek suffer and crack ... we'll see about that!!!

So this has meant me suddenly switching back to the bike after a bit of a lay off. My heart rate on the bike is a couple of beats higher than it should be, meaning I've lost a bit of bike fitness, but I'm hopeful that this will come back fairly quickly. My aerobic engine is still working fine, so it should be sweet, and after all it is only 100k's! What's more I don't need to run a marathon after the bike so there's no need to hold anything back! The course hasn't been set yet but I fully intend to put the hammer down within the first 10 k's and see what happens(the race starts in a hilly area and ends in a flat area, so there's a good chance I'll be able to get away at the start, problem is I'll then have to do something like a 70k time trial with a pck of roadies following behind). Wish me luck, or better still sponsor me (or rather the charity)

Ironman Blues

2008-03-09T12:34:00.001+13:00

Yep I got them, the post Ironman blues. Happily I’m pretty sure that I’m over them now. For those who don’t know the Ironman Blues are common enough to have their own name and basically is a mild depression that besets the Ironman finisher a few days after the big race. Its not surprising really, after all the better part of a year has been focused on this single big event, every waking thought (and quite a few dream time thoughts to) have been centred on making that day a success. We watch what we eat, keep detailed training logs, and generally have our lives planned out months in advance, and then the big day arrives. As an athlete you become the centre of everyone’s universe as volunteers and strangers go out of their way to cater to your every need, and that’s all before race day. On race day itself you have thousands cheering you on and urging you forward, and then, before you know it, its all over.

Life gets back to normal, the only problem of course is that normal is now very abnormal to the Ironman athlete. All of a sudden there’s no need or driving purpose to training and, almost over night a big hole has been place in what has been a very full and busy life. Friends and family don’t really understand, they’re just happy its all over, that you made it through and that now they get to spend more time with you.

There’s also the equally significant factor of hormone change. After a year of pretty intense exercise you have become addicted to endorphins, that natural drug which produces a “high” and which the body pumps out in vast quantities to suppress pain during your Ironman. After a week of recovery and probably not a lot of exercise (as in my case) you start to get withdrawals which of course add to your sense of malaise.

But now I think I’m over it. I’ve just come back from a 16k run and feel great (that would be the endorphins). It was a fairly leisurely run done simply for the fun of it and the joy of running, although in saying that I did throw in some fartlecks as part of a plan I’m formulating.

After having done Ironman I’m hooked, I would love to do another one. Its going to have to wait though as I don’t think either my finances or my marriage could handle another Ironman year at this point. Maybe as a late 35th birthday present in 2011. This Ironman thing seems to be something that my body naturally agrees with. Those of you who get a copy of the book are going to be surprised a just how small my training volume actually was, probably somewhere between 60% -70% of what the average training program would recommend. And my actual build up time (including some initial marathon training that I did before committing to Ironman) was about 14 – 15 months where most other recommendations that I’ve seen are for a 3 year build up, prior to that I was sitting around getting fat and 9 months ago I couldn’t even swim (not more than a 25m length anyway). It isn’t my intention for this to be a self congratulationary rant but I am very proud of where I’ve come in my Ironman journey, so I make no apologies.

I feel really vindicated in my training philosophy and my training program. I was self coached throughout (apart from 5 swim lessons). The challenge was always to get the best possible training done in the short space of time I had, as I didn’t want to sacrifice my family time, although they did get a little less of me during the year. It turned out that the year of Exercise Physiology that I did all those years ago has finally paid off. The key thing for me was to ensure that every training session had a measurable purpose and that there were no junk miles and no wasted effort. To complicate things this had to be done in a very versatile fashion to fit in with my family demands. A big part of my training philosophy was to be an active dad, and really be high energy with my kids, this ensured that while I wasn’t doing specific training I was being active and getting puffed, and therefore getting some sport specific benefit from good old fashion fun. I think I largely achieved that and I’m really proud of my result. I am left wondering the big “what if”, what could I have done if I had focused solely on Ironman? I suspect that’s a question that everyone who isn’t a professional athlete asks themselves and a question that very few people get to answer. The reality is that its not a question that I want to answer, because to do so would mean sacrificing to much.

So what’s next? Not Ironman.

I decided on my run that the focus this year will be on getting faster over the shorter half ironman distance. Specifically I want to improve on my swimming and my running. The bike can largely stay “as is” for the time being as I’m not loosing time on the bike and as it stands could easily push harder if I had more confidence on my running. So this year will see m do lots or running and swimming drills in training in order to get better and faster, time wise this will largely have to fit in with my lunch breaks.

For events I’m pretty tempted to run the Rotorua Marathon in early May, but probably won’t (due to the expense and the travel required). I will however do the North Shore City Half Marathon in July which is part of the Auckland Run Series (I’ll be targeting that for a PB), I’ll also do a 10k which is part of the same series in May. Next on the list will be the Harbour Crossing, maybe the Auckland Marathon (although it’s a bit naff – to many people) with my “A” race being the Rotorua Half Ironman. I’m tempted to do the Taupo Half Ironman which is the week before as it’ll be a bit of a trip down memory lane and its flat and a good race to get a PB, so I’ll see how we go.

To throw something a little different into the mix I’ve been asked if I’m interested in doing the Mountains to Sea Multisport race. This is a adventure stage race held over three days in October. I’ve said I might be interested in doing it as a team (as I don’t feel like picking up a paddle and doing the kayaking bits again – its been a few years and would involve to much training), so watch this space.

All in all I think this is going to be a positive year. Here’s the goals:

1. Spend more time with the family
2. Get faster at racing

Kieran, you're an IRONMAN!

2008-03-03T15:08:00.010+13:00

Be prepared for a loooonnngg post

I’ve spent the better part of a year visualizing what it would feel like to have Mike Rielly call me in with those words. Well now I know how it feels, and it feels awesome!

I finished my very first Ironman in 12 hours 56 minutes and 21 seconds and I’m totally stoked to have made it home in under 13 hours. I had serious doubts about whether or not that would happen with 10k’s to go in the run, and was desperately doing the maths in my head and coming up a few minutes short every time, but more on that later.

Ironman day started at 4.20am for me, my crew chief Clint and my wife Helen, although I was already awake when the alarm finally went off, in fact I hardly slept at all, and didn’t have a great sleep the night before. My mind was far to busy going through what I was about to put my body through. The rest of my support crew (being my two kids, Sam and Eve, my sister-in-law, Liz and her husband David) were up a bit later to say a prayer, which I think sustained me through some of the dark patches, and to see me off as we left to head down to the start. Steve from Alpegear.com had provided supporters tee shirts to promote the book. These were bright red and I would keep on seeing them on my guys as well as on the other Alpe Athletes supporters throughout the day.

We got down to check in at around 5.30am and the process of getting body marked and checking the bike was a great way of settling things down. Checking the bike was interesting. My bike was fine, everything still worked, the drinks were topped up and the gels attached, but most importantly the tyres were inflated. That was a lot better than some other people. There were plenty of poor folk ripping off tyres which had popped and doing a quick change. I also heard at least one tyre explode as I was walking down the line to my bike. It happens in bike races to and never ceases to amaze me how people who should know better still try and squeeze a few more PSI (pounds per square inch) of pressure into their tyres and end up exploding them right before the race start, certainly not the way I’d like to start race day.

After checking the bike it was down to the swim start. Again we were there in plenty of time, so I had a chance to relax, take a second nervous pee, and soak in the atmosphere. The forecast for the day was rain with some heavy showers and strong northerly winds, however as it turned out the morning was almost perfect. No wind and only light clouds (although you could see the big black ones coming), the result being that the lake as smooth as glass.

Eventually I got changed and checked in my bag for the finish before kissing my wife good bye and heading for the start. In Ironman New Zealand there’s a Maori Haka done before the race (for those of you outside of New Zealand a Haka is like a war dance, it’s a challenge laid down by those performing it). Its awesome and intense, a Waka (war canoe) comes out of the mist with 20 or 30 warriors on board and lands on the beach next to the swim start, at which point the disembark and lay down the challenge. The right thing to do is to stand and face the Haka and accept the challenge, which is what I did before getting into the water. One way or the other I was going to be accepting the challenge of the day emerge from it in glory (even if only in my mind). What a way to start the day.

The swim went pretty much as expected. I managed to stay out of trouble for the first part and found a few feet to swim on as we headed down the first leg of the swim. Things got a bit congested as I rounded the first mark and I took a fairly solid knock to the eye, luckily I didn’t loose my goggles and managed to keep going without breaking stride. By the end of the first leg (its out and back) my time was 41 minutes, which was right on track. The way back was uneventful, this was actually reasonably noteworthy as for the first time in an open water swim I had actually managed to swim straight (I normally veer off to my right, which cost me a load of time in my last couple of swims, but had been working on this over the last couple of months). I came out of the water in 1:25:49 which I was plenty happy with (my goal time was between 1 hour 20 and 1 hour 30). It was then onto the long 400 meter run to T1.

The run to T1 goes along a marina road before heading up a bunch a steps in an embankment. It was at the bottom of these steps that my support made their first appearance with my kids waving signs and yelling support. That gave me a real boost and I flew up those stairs.

It was then into T1 to get my wetsuit stripped and into my bike gear. I took my time and had a much smoother transition than I did in my first (and only other) triathlon. Sure does pay to practice and visualise. By the time I got out to the bikes there weren’t a whole lot left, looking at the results I was well down at the back of the pack by the end of the swim. That wasn’t a surprise and was what I expected, the swim is easily my weakest as anyone who has been following this blog will know this time last year I couldn’t really swim.

After getting onto the bike it was time to get into my work. The bike was always going to be the place where I’d make up time and placings. The bike course consists of two 90k loops out to a little town called Reporoa with only a couple of hills along the way. I’m fairly strong on hills and would have been happy if there were more. The first one is only a couple of k’s from the start of the bike course and I figured that it would set the tone for the day, if I rode that strongly then I’d probably ride the whole course strong.

I passed a lot of people on that hill and I kept on passing people all day. The forecast wind showed up early on in the bike meaning there was a very stiff headwind all the way out to Reporoa. Whilst I don’t particularly like headwinds, it still suited me fine. Its very slightly downhill on the way out to Reporoa, and conversely slightly uphill on the way back, so a headwind there and a tail wind back is probably the best result if it has to be windy.

On the first lap my average speed was a relatively slow (for me) 27kph. But on the way back it was much quicker and I spent a lot of time sitting around 44kph. By the time I was heading back the rain had started. I hate riding in the rain, and in fact the day got quite miserable with the wind really driving the rain, and yet there were still thousands of people lining the course a various points, including one local farmer trying to tempt the athletes with a nice cold beer as they wizzed past. My support crew was doing a brilliant job, popping up a various parts of the course to cheer me on. I really can’t overstate the value of this kind of support. At one point I was going through a bit of a dark patch and they right there, at the right place at the right time to lift me up out of it.

By the second lap the wind had picked up some more and shifted a little as well (meaning it wasn’t quite a tailwind on the way back). At one point I was down to 17kph on a flat bit of road, that lap was hard work. I managed to stay aero for probably 95% of the ride, which was really good, especially on a windy day. Unfortunately by the second lap my water proof bike computer was starting to fill up with water and it was getting hard to read, so I didn’t know what my averages were. I also started getting some stomach issues by the second lap, nothing too bad and not enough to throw out my nutrition plan thankfully, but it didn’t bode well for the run.

Coming back from Reporoa for the last time I really buttoned off on the pace to get some recovery in, as I really wanted to give myself the best chance possible of doing a good run (or at least actually running the marathon and not walking it). The end result for the ride was an average speed of 28.3kph and a time of 6:22:04 (I think that includes the transition time though). This was a bit slower than my prediction of 30kph, but given the wind I was happy enough with the effort. What was really good was that I absolutely ripped the field apart and made up close to 350 places on the bike, I was only past by 3 or 4 people all day. I also finally got to meet Sub6 as he yelled at me when I was coming back into town for the last time, I'd see him again and actually exchange some words (although I can't recall what they were) later on the run course, he's a bit of a celebrity so that was real cool.

The run is what really makes an Ironman in my humble opinion. It’s during the run that things start to hurt, and where you can no longer hide. By the end of the bike I was pretty wet and my feet were soaked thanks to the rain. Fortunately I’d thrown some spare socks into my run bag, they weren’t my best pair (being an optimist I was wearing those on the bike and not planning to change) and I normally wouldn’t have picked them for use in a marathon, but given the situation they were a God send.

Coming off the bike I had a very tight muscle on the outside of my right foot and I was quite worried about this as I started the run. Happily that particular pain eased away and eventually disappeared altogether. The first lap went alright, although I was having stomach issues and couldn’t tolerate anymore gels, in fact pretty much whenever I put anything other than water into my stomach it repeated on me. So I stuck to water, coke and a little bit of Replace from my nutrition pack. I also managed to force down a little bit of banana and some pretzels. The one thing that I had no problem with was some soft lollies I had ducked away in my nutrition pack and some hard lollies I picked up at a couple of the aid stations.

The first lap of the run went alright and I maintained a steady pace, it certainly wasn’t a pace that would get me a marathon PB (personal best) but it was good enough. Leading into the race I’d been a little worried about how the run would go as I hadn’t done a lot of running or brick workouts due to a tight ITB, so I was very pleased to see the legs turning over. On the way back in to town from the first lap (it’s a two lap course) I was beginning to enter into the outskirts of Hurtsville, and it was a huge lift to see my family waiting for me on the course. My son, Sam is still in a wheel chair due to his broken leg so my sister-in-law, Liz, ran next to me pushing Sam along for a short spell. Again this was exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it, and lifted me from a big slump which I was going through.

The second lap saw me go deep into Hurtsville and had me starting to answer some big questions, like how hard could I actually push. At this point of the race the crowd support was phenomenal, I can comfortably say that there is no way that I could do an unsupported Ironman. Without the volunteers at the aid stations and the crowd support along the way I would have just stopped. I kept on thinking how easy it would have been to stop ad sit down. Instead I kept on running. My goal for the marathon was to actually run it (only walking the aid stations), and I kept on thinking about the challenge I had accepted at the start of the day, and how I wasn’t going to give in to weakness. And I didn’t. I ran the whole course and met that goal.

A mentioned above coming back from the last lap I had doubts that I would get back in under 13 hours. I still had doubts until 2k’s to go where some guy, standing by himself went crazy. He was looking at his watch and screaming at me that I could do it if I just kept up the steady pace I was on, and that I was looking really “solid” (I didn’t feel very solid). With that screamed encouragement from a complete stranger ringing in my ears I somehow managed to pick up the pace. Half an hour ago I didn’t think I could go any faster, but it’s amazing what you can do when motivated. Somehow I was tapping into reserves that I didn’t know I had. The last 2k’s from the 40k mark hurt more than anything else I can remember, but somehow it also felt really good, that must have been the endorphins.

Coming around the outside of the domain and going into the last 200 meters is a bit of a blur, I remember seeing my wife and crew chief, as well as Steve from Alpegear.com and his camera man, and then I was coming down the finishing shoot.

At that point it stopped hurting. I could see that I was going to make it in under 13 hours and as I was catching the person in front of me I eased up a bit after making sure there was no one close behind me. I wanted to really enjoy the moment and I didn’t want anyone ruining my finish photo. I went down the finishing shoot pumping my fists and grinning like an idiot. Crossing the finish line I grapped the tape and held my arms up in glory! This was the moment that a whole year had been building up to and it was awesome, one of the best moments of my life, just behind my marriage and the birth of my children.

Hearing Mike Rielly saying “here comes Kieran, a 32 year old father of 2. Kieran, you’re an IRONMAN!” is unforgettable.

Was it worth it? Definitely.

I’ll do another post race blog in a couple of days, but for now I’m still enjoying the moment.

Last "pre race" blog

2008-02-26T20:36:00.002+13:00

Yep that's right, the next time you see I new post I will officially be an "Ironman". The family and I are heading down to Taupo tomorrow afternoon to get all set for the big day. So I'll be spending tomorrow morning packing, unpacking, repacking, checking and rechecking (you get the idea).

I think at this point the thing I'm most nervious about is not fitting everything in the car. That's a bit of an improvement on how I was feeling last week and is largely thanks to a sensational final ride I had on Sunday. It was raining and windy and I spend the first 20 minutes of it sitting on the indoor trainer watching the rain drops fall before toughening up and heading outside. In the end I had one of the best rides I've had for ages. It was 70k's and I averaged 35kph without feel particuarly challenged (I suspect the wind was working for me for a change).

Although I wasn't to keen to head out in the rain, it now looks as though that may have been the best thing. I've just seen the long range weather forcast and its for rain in Taupo (and pretty much everywhere else) on race day. Which is a bit rough when you consider that there's been a bit of a drought lately, still I guess the farmers will be happy.

My preference is for ot and sunny, and I don't normally perform all that well when its cold and wet, but on last Sundays effort it would appear that warm and wet suits me just fine.

So I reckon I'm ready, just need to figure a way to squeeze everything into the car (including a wheel chair which is causing me some logistic problems, but I'll work it out!).

Glad its not this weekend

2008-02-23T16:04:00.002+13:00

I'm so glad that Ironman isn't this weekend. All day its been raining and blowing a gale (well not quite a gale but it is very windy). At the moment there's a storm over half the country which has largely put the breaks on any training for today. Not that I much planned, pretty much all I have left to do is a 70k ride (at some point this weekend - if it doesn't work out I'll resign myself to the indoor trainer tomorrow), and a 2k swim on Monday or Tuesday - and that's it! No more training for me (for now anyway).

So this time next week, assuming everything goes well, I should be well into the run. Of course if things don't go well then .... who knows.

As I'm not doing any training today I've kept busy buy finishing up my bike seup. The race wheels are now on, and the bike computer set up (not as easy as it sounds as the sensor magnet isn't made to fit a tri-spoke wheel, nothing that duc tape can't fix though). I've glued a broken in tubular onto the front and have resigned the old one as a spare.

Tubulars are great, but they're not perfect. On the plus side they hardly ever puncture (in fact I've never had a puncture while using tubulars) and they're generally faster than clinchers. If you do happen to puncture they're also much quicker to change (as you simply peel the flat one off the rim and slap a new one one.

On the negative side they're quite a bit more expensive to replace and if you do happen to puncture then they're basically a write off. Also if you're unfortunate enough to puncture while out on course you need to take it easy on corners as most people aren't in the habit of carrying a pot of glue with them, and theres a reasonable chance they could roll off the rim (for this reason you carry used tubulars as spears so they stil have some old glue on them which will hopefully re-activate). The oher big downside is that carrying spares is a pain as its not simply an inner tube that you carry, but the whole tire.

So the other thing I've been doing today is fitting two spares onto my bike frame under the seat. Originally I was going to carry one in a bottle holder behind the seat and simply use two bottles on course (picking up drink as I go, as well as having a bottle in my special needs bag), but now I'll carry three (two electrolyte and one water) so I'm not as reliant on the aid stations mixing the drinks properly (in my experence the seldom do). I'll still need to pick up drink on course, but I just won't be as reliant and will be able to ride through a couple of aid stations - thus saving a few precious seconds!

I'll be writing down my race plan (both "A" and "B") over the next couple of days. I've got a pretty good idea of how things will go for the swim and bike, but the run could be a bit dodgy. My main aim for the run is to actually run it (barring the aid stations, which I'll walk). If I can do that then my run time will be OK.

One Week to go!

2008-02-21T17:55:00.002+13:00

Well eight days actually.

Just a quick update, so far this week has not seen a lot of training but has seen a lot of preperation in other respects. To be honest there now is very little I can do to make myself physically better equipped to deal with race day, so training is, finally, taking a back seat. In its place I've been busy making sure that the gear is going to be all ready and in tip top shape for the big day. The one thing that I really don't want to have to deal with, and that is quite preventable, is gear failure, or having equipment that is not working at its best.

The one peice of equipment that is perhaps more important than any other, and which has the greatest scope for failure is, of course, the bike. My bike is not new, and stuff does wear out, so getting it in for a service has been a top priority and I finally did that this week. As it turned out there was a fair bit of tightening and twecking to be down, plus a new chain to actually drive the thing along. My chain was very worn, which wasn't a surprise, and the thought of it snapping has been a reoccouring nightmare of mine. So that was happily replaced and now my ride is quitely gliding along again, silky smooth ...

I've also got the bike and helmet check out of the way by having this done at a local accredited shop, so that's one less thing to worry about on race week.

Also it looks like the long awaited book is taking shape. For those of you who may not be aware contributing to a book about Ironman is my part of the sponsorship deal which propelled me to do this whole Ironman thing in the first place, or at least it propelled me to do it this year and not next year (and of course next year, like tomorrow, never really come around). Anyway have a look at the book details (thats me on the bike by the way)

Enough Training Already!

2008-02-17T20:49:00.000+13:00

I have to say that I’m pretty much over this whole training lark! Realistically I’m not going to get any fitter before 1st March, and really the only improvement I can measurably get now is to freshen up and be well rested.

It’s been a long haul, and to know that in two short weeks I’ll all be over is both daunting and exciting. Daunting because really there is very little else I can do, after all these long months of training, to prepare myself any better and there’s still the nervous doubt of just how I’m going to cope on the day. In the ideal Ironman world my training volume would have probably been twice what it has been. But my life is not solely about Ironman. I also have a family who have not seen nearly enough of me as it is, and who are my top priority. As such my Ironman plan has always been to fit training around family rather than the other way around. I think my biggest training week has been 13 hours, and consistently between 10 to 13 hours for the last couple of months. Before that my training was peaking at around 10 hours. So a big question for me is “can you do a meaningful Ironman on that amount of training?”

For me being the type of guy I am, I do no want to finish down at the back of the pack (or at least not to far down the back anyway). I’m reasonably confident that I’ll have an OK race as endurance sports have always seemed to be something that I’ve been able to adapt to fairly easily … be still there’s doubt. I’m comforted by the fact that I’ve run marathon’s, I’ve biked big k’s and swum the distance, so my doubt is tempered with healthy optimism. I guess I’ll have my answer in a couple of weeks, if it all works out I might even patent my training system!

This week has been fairly relaxed on the training front, partly by design and partly due to a number of social engagements. I only did a few light sessions during the week leading up to a typically busy weekend.

On Saturday I finally got around to doing a four k swim. The weather forecast was for a fairly horrid day so it was an easy option (as a side note, I read in our local paper that the North Shore beach’s have been invaded by microscopic jellyfish that are causing stings and nasty rashes, so absolutely no more sea swims for me this summer!). Dragging my way through 160 lengths was rather mind numbing, in the end I did it in four 1k sets with 40 seconds rest so I didn’t go insane. In the end I still got the counting a little mixed up in each set, so I actually swam somewhere between 4k – 4.2k (my theory being that it’s better to swim to far rather than to short). It took me 1 hour 35 which is about where I expected it to be – my pick for Ironman is a 1 hour 20 – 1 hour 30 swim, anything less than that will be a bonus.

My form was fantastic … or the first two lengths anyway. By the end of the swim my form was pretty poor and I’d pretty much had enough, in saying that I didn’t actually feel all that tired (sure my arms were happy to stop moving) so that bodes well. My swimming has certainly come a very long way! I amused myself by chasing after other swimmers feet as much as possible, good practice for Ironman and basically if I go faster than 1 hour 20 it will be because I’ve managed to draft most of the way.

Today was a 100k ride, which actually ended up being quite tough as I had a fairly strong headwind for probably ¾ of the way (don’t ask me how that worked out, it just did!). Still I got in on 3 hours 18 (30.3kph average) and although I was a bit more tired that I would have liked to have been, the legs seem to get to the right pace. One of my worries and consequently something that I’ll be focusing on in the race is keeping the bike under control so that I can actually run the marathon. Assuming the wind doesn’t play a major part, an average speed of 30kph is pretty comfortable for me, and I know I can run of it well.

So with that in mind it’s not hard to do the maths. 1 hour 30 for the swim plus 6 hours for the bike makes 7 and a half hours. My best marathon time is four hours and I’m pretty sure I won’t be running a PB at Ironman, but if I have a good race and the wind doesn’t mess up the bike then a 13 hour race is a possibility. They say you shouldn’t have time targets for a first Ironman and I tend to agree, as there’s so much that’s new. But I do know the course (especially the bike course) fairly well, and I think barring a melt down – which is entirely possible by the way – sub 13 is possible for me. In saying that my main goal for Ironman is to firstly finish, and secondly actually run the marathon (excluding the aid stations and maybe the odd up hill … got to give a guy a break you know), the rest will take care of itself!

Not much planned for next week. My bike’s getting serviced on Tuesday and at some point I’ll get it down for inspection. Other than that I’ll be doing one more swim, one more run and a couple of short rides before a final 70k ride on the weekend. After that the legs go up and the full taper begins in earnest.

Nearly There

2008-02-10T10:57:00.000+13:00

Its not long to go now.

This week as been a little different to what I’d planned due to unforeseen events, but you have to learn to be flexible when you have a family to consider.

Sadly my four year boy, Sam, broke his leg on Monday night while bouncing on the trampoline. His dad (me) may have had something to do with it as we were having great fun, right up until the awkward bounce that did the damage. To say I feel bad about it is something of an understatement. Still as one doctor said, at least I was out there actually playing with him.

The break meant a stay in hospital overnight and me sleeping on the floor next to his bed for the rest of the week. Sleep has been in rather short supply, and uninterrupted sleep is now a distant dream (again). Still he’s in good spirits and is getting more comfortable everyday. I think tonight I might try and actually sleep in my own bed.

Training wise this has lead to a fairly chunky reduction in training for the week (compared to what was planned). For instance on Waitangi Day I ended up doing a ride of less than a hour where I had planned a swim of 4k’s and a run. The rest of the week was a similar story. Compounding matters was the small fact that I’ve been really tired due to a lack of sleep.

Given the lower volumes I’ve been trying to focus on quality instead. So my swims have been all about technique (it sounds awfully grand talking about me swimming and technique in the same sentence), focusing on keeping my hips high, getting a good glide going and not lifting my head. I’m fully expecting to spend 1.5 hours in the water during Ironman. Any time I can shave off that will be a bonus and give me more time for the cycling and running. Conversely if I spend longer than that then I have less of a cushion. So that was alright, you can still have a thoroughly worthwhile swim workout in an hour, but how do you get a worthwhile ride in only an hour? (My ITB has been a little tight again so I’m being a bit curious with the running again and just doing maintenance stuff now).

The only real answer is to find hills and attack them. So on Wednesday I had a one hour slot (my wife was working and I was looking after the kids) and set out to put some suffering into my legs. The route I picked was up Albany Hill and turning off to Albany Heights Road, then onto Wright Road before ending up on East Coast Bays Road then back home. It proved to be a really good test. There are two significant climbs (up Albany Hill and again up East Coast Bays Road), with Alban Hill being the hardest. I usually start off at around 16kph going up Albany Hill and end up at around 14kph as the pitch steepen’s midway through. This time round though I started at 20kph and held that speed for most of the way eventually dropping to 17kph. This was a bit of a surprise and I good reminder that its surprising what you can do if you have the right mental attitude. Heading onto Albany Heights Road gave the opportunity for some shorter “hill sprints” (where you basically click into a higher gear, stand up on the pedals and sprint – the goal being to break into you anaerobic zone, quite useful if you’re a road racer as that’s one way to drop people up hills, but probably not so useful for a time trialling triathlete). The net result was 30 k’s in just under 45 minutes at an average speed of 38kph – which would be great if the Ironman ride was only 30k’s long … or if it had more hills … hmmmm).

Saturday saw me finally do my last 180k ride (actually in the end it was 178.9k’s but close enough I reckon). The first 120k’s went pretty good, but the last 60k’s felt like I was dragging an anchor, and I was not enjoying myself. I think the biggest reason why it was such a struggle was because I was bone tired. I hadn’t had more than 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep all week and had been finding it increasingly hard to keep my eyes open.

In the end I finished the ride in 6 hours 25 minutes for an average speed of 27.8kph which is a bit slow for me (I’m hoping for 30kph at Ironman – the chip in the road is pretty big which sucks a k or so off your speed). On the plus side, I was super tired which I won’t be for Ironman as I plan on being well rested and tapered. Also the course was way harder than the Ironman course is in Taupo (depending on the wind of course – it generally blows off the lake creating a tail wind on the way out, which is slightly downhill any way, but a head wind for the ride back, which, of course is slightly uphill. I’ve ridden that road on some pretty windy days which were hard work!)

By the end of the ride I wasn’t feeling too happy, had just about run out of water and electrolytes (I usually carry a bit of cash with me just I case, but didn’t this time) and couldn’t stomach the thought of another gel. I was using a new gel which had added caffeine. They worked well enough, but tasted terrible. I think I’ll use them again at Ironman as the caffeine gives a good kick, but space them out with some standard gels as well.

Its now less than three weeks to go and time to start thinking about easing things back a bit. For me that doesn’t actually mean a big change in my weekly volume as it hasn’t been that big anyway due to work and family. But no more 3 hour plus weekends. I will be doing one more 90 odd k ride next weekend, and have a 4 k swim planned for some time this week. Spread in between will be a couple of short runs, nothing to big as I think my shoes are about to give out (judging by the tightening ITB) and a new pair of shoes is unfortunately not in this quarters fiscal sporting budget. I’ll also be doing some shorter rides, mostly on hills to keep the strength up. I had wanted to do some flat distance but that’s probably not going to happen, which is ok and that aspect of Ironman will actually be quite nice.

Today I’ll try and get in a short run (after mowing the lawns of course) and get to work gluing some new tubular’s onto my race wheels. Later on this week the race wheels will go back on and my bike will be going in for a service. It’s all coming together!

Quick Update

2008-02-04T20:41:00.000+13:00

Just a quick update on things.

The training is largely going to plan. This week I picked up the running some more and feel pretty with where I'm at. The workouts included a 21k (half marathon) run which I did at just under my usual marathon intensity (by heart rate). The idea is to get use to running a little slower than usual as this stresses the muscles in a slightly different way, and lets face I'm ulikely to be striding out at a sub 4 hour marathon pace on Ironman day. In the end I did the run in just on 2hrs which I thought was a little on the fast side, but then again the heart rate was where it should be ... maybe I'm getting fitter ....

I've made a minor change to my bike setup by raising the aerobars by 5 mils. Not a whole lot, but its made a huge difference. My long ride this week was a hilly 100k's and I finished it in just over 3hrs and felt really really great, in fact surprisingly fresh. I put it down to the new bike position I've also messed around with my nutrition and for the first time in several weeks, had no stomach problems at all. Next weekend is another 180k effort, so that will be the real test.

That will have to do for now as I'm far to short on time.

Update

2008-01-28T09:54:00.001+13:00

I went to bed last night still feeling rather manky, but woke up this morning feel pretty much back to normal.

Looking at the schedule for this week it happily starts off with an ocean swim today, which I’ll do this afternoon. In the mean time I’ll be downing lots of liquids, although as mentioned in my last post I only lost 1 kg (1.3% of my body weight – I weigh around 72 kg, but that tends vary a bit) which isn’t a big concern in and of itself, although I’ll need to slow that rate of loss down for IMNZ – but that’s one of the reasons why we do these big training days.

I the mean time my weights back to where it should be, I’m eating like a horse again and the world is once again a happy place!

38.1

2008-01-27T17:41:00.000+13:00

38.1! That was my temperature one and a half hours after today’s workout. I’m currently not in my happy place! Let me tell you the story.

The day started well enough, with not a breath of wind and not a cloud in the sky. It was shaping up to be a scorcher! However due to some organisational issues and my Sunday obligations (which me and Eve were typically late for) it wasn’t until just before 9.30am that I ended up getting away. Given the rapidly rising temperature I decided to ditch the 2k swim as that would have meant I would have been riding and more importantly running, well into the early afternoon – the hottest part of the day.

The ride went well enough. The route that I rode heads up Albany Hill after just 2k’s of riding, so its straight into it (according to the road sign the road grade gets as high as 10%, I’d always thought it was a little lower). The climb itself is a 3k grind with no let up until you get to the top. As I started the climb I spied a roadie up ahead. He was far enough away that it was going to be hard to catch him, but I’m the kind of guy who just loves to chase stuff down and I caught him just as we were cresting the hill.

Like every good roadie he jumped on my wheel and stuck like glue for the next half an hour (one of the longest “turns” I’ve every taken). To be fair he did come up and ask if it was ok if he stayed on the wheel for a while, and it was nice having someone right behind to keep me honest and make sure I kept the pace up (which I did). After hammering away for half an hour he peeled off and I was on my own.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. I had a good tail wind for a while (for a change) and saw Cameron Brown out with a couple of train hacks heading in the opposite direction to me. All the top guys seem to train out my way – must be because it’s awesome!

As I cruised along my bike computer was telling me that the temperature was creeping up and was peaking at 35 degrees in places (average seemed to be around 30 degrees towards the end of the ride). In the end the ride was knocked off in 2 hrs 59 minutes (but it was only 85 k’s and not 90).

It was then onto the run. This is where I really started running into problems. I’d decided to do a course which loops around my house just in case my thigh played up. That way I could pull the pin and not wreck myself. As it turned out I ended up cutting things short for another reason. By 13k’s I was starting to struggle, and by 15k’s my vision was narrowing … so time to get home. When I got home was the only one there (the family was out somewhere) so I flopped onto the couch and shortly after that started shaking – not a good thing.

I felt freezing cold but my skin was scorching hot. So I peeled myself up off the couch, got some protein down me and headed to the shower to try and slowly cool myself down (the plan was to start the shower warm and slowly get it to cold, I seem to recall that going straight to cold is a good way to bring on shock). This went well to start with until the family came home and the kids were thrown into the bath, suddenly my shower went from warm to freezing cold – again, not good.

By the time I got myself out of the shower I was shaking with my teeth chattering and quickly curled up under a blanket.

A bit later my lovely wife thought it might be a good idea to take my temp which at that point was 38.1 degrees Celsius. Far to hot and I was officially not in a happy place.

Being self inflicted there’s not much sympathy for me around here (apart from my two year old girl who is taking good care of me) and as we all know blokes like nothing more than sympathy.

So what are the positive? Well the ride was good with a steady average speed over a hilly course. And I found out that I can push myself if I really need to (and hopefully I won’t). On the down side I haven’t felt much like eating, although I have forced some grub down. In saying that I lost 1kg during the days activities which actually isn’t to bad considering the conditions, and m stomach held together until right at the end of the run , so I was able to get gels and food down throughout the day (something I’ve been struggling with lately).

So what am I doing tomorrow? Hopefully lots and lots of sleeping! And rediscovering my happy place.

Much Improved

2008-01-26T12:52:00.000+13:00

This week has been so much better. My strained thigh has been feeling progressively better each day as the week went on, and my training efforts have been much much better this week.

The training program has had a bit of a re-jig as a result of the thigh problem and so the first half of the week was spent swimming. This was actually a good thing as my swim sessions had dropped down to two a week and so I took the opportunity to back up some good distance and focus a bit on technique (that sounds a lot loftier than what my swimming actually is – generally when I use the term “technique” to refer to my swimming the word “bad” more often than not comes first).

On a bit of a side note I saw Kieran Doe out training during the week, he was smashing up a hill with a training hack and going awfully fast considering how steep the hill was. He must live somewhere close as I tend to see him out and about every now and again, usually going in the opposite direction to me which is probably a good thing as having people fly past me doesn’t do my ego any good at all.

By Wednesday the thigh, while still a little tender was definitely on the mend so it got a little, gentle, workout on the indoor bike and came through really well. As a result Thursday and Friday saw the biking come back into the program with a couple of heavy hill workouts over the two days. I’ve stayed away from running so far this week as that’s what triggered the problem initially. Basically your thigh works in an opposite way when you compare biking to running (when running acts as a break – stops you from falling over – in cycling it works the other way around. That’s why cyclists have big thighs and runners don’t, even though they do the same amount of work – its also why pure cyclists are usually poor runners and vice versa).

Today I had a good two and a half hour ride, I kept it low key as tomorrow I’ll be doing a half ironman simulation. I felt pretty strong for the first hour of the ride and smoked it up all the hills, including Albany hill – which is a bit of a grind – where I caught and dropped two other guys preparing for ironman as well as a roadie a bit further up.

On the way back I felt a bit low on power, but the speed seemed to still be there so it can’t have been to bad.

This afternoon I have my support crew coming over to plan for race week, the crew chief is hyper-organised so there won’t be a repeat of the Rotorua Half fiasco.

Only three more big work outs to go, one of which is happening tomorrow, and then I’ll start t ease things off before the big day. I can hardly wait, I think at the moment I could probably do an Ironman, however I think that I’ll be able to do one much more comfortably in five weeks time!

Poor Week

2008-01-20T19:03:00.000+13:00

I'm feeling a bit low at the moment. This week has been very poor training wise, in fact its been a complete non-event. I can't help but feel that its a week thats gone and valuable time that this close to Ironman I can't get back. And thats more than frustrating for me.

To compound matters I've picked up a thigh strain thanks largely (I believe) to a ridiculous team building activity that I had to do for work - which also used up what would have otherwise been training time. I managed to get in a 20k run this week, but was left with a weekend where I couldn't bike or run and due to events conspiring against me, also couldn't get away to go for a swim.

I'm really tired as the work thing I had to do was an overnighter and I got a lously sleep, and as I was bone tired before hand it just made things that much worse, I'm actually quite upset about the whole thing, its really thrown a spanner in the works.

So how did the week go? Well I'm tired, sore, frustrated and in a pretty bad mood. I've had a very poor week training wise, normally the bright light would be that I'd be well recovered, but sadly thats not the case this week.

But trying to be positive I'm replanning next week. I'm going to have to be a bit more selfish with my time, unfortunately there's no way around that as I just have to get the workouts in or else Ironman will be one of the worst days of my life. To help with my leg I'm planning on hitting the pool pretty hard for Monday and Tuesday, hopefully by then I'll have the strain sorted out and can build to next weekends key workout - a half(ish) ironman simulation.

Fingers crossed!

Active Rest

2008-01-15T12:42:00.000+13:00

Yesterday was an "active rest" day folowing Sundays ride. I spent the afternoon helping the in-laws move into a new house. Today its bac into it, in an easy kind of way. I think its really important not to smack your body around to much but rather to take a measured approach to things. Key is to give your body a chance to take on board the training that its done, recover and repair, before loading it up with more. For that reason a lot of my weeks now are starting off easy (following a hard weekend) and building up as the week goes.

Things I'm watching out for is a rising heart rate (I need to see it steady at normal resting levels so I know that I've got the recovery right) and staying free of injury (your much more likely to pick up an injury when you haven't reoered properly from a big session).

All in all the plans on track

Big Ride

2008-01-13T22:36:00.000+13:00

Seems to be the day for big rides. I reckon I saw at least 100 other roadies in various bunches out and about today. Plus a scattering of, I presume (based in the TT bikes loaded with up with drink bottles behind the seats in on the frames). And no wonder as it was an absolutely perfect day for a ride. I don’t think there was a breath of wind for the first 110k, and there was hardly a cloud in the sky.

The course I road today took me up Albany Hill (there’s just no avoiding it, although I did notice that there were a bunch of cars with bike rakes – presumably belonging to one of the bunches – parked safely up the top of the hill … weak!), then out into Rodney for a 100k loop. This took me back home where I refilled my bottles and topped up my food before heading back out for a slightly shorter 70k loop.

The first 120k’s went really well, in fact I’d have to say that the first 100k’s was some of the best solo riding of my life. It felt really good and I felt really fresh throughout. The average speed for that initial loop was 29.7kph which isn’t bad given that there’s just no getting away from hilly riding in Rodney, in fact its one of the things that I’m looking forward to in Taupo – a largely flat course for a change.

The second loop was harder. I had some stomach problems from about 120k’s into the ride. I’m not sure if it was my electrolyte drink as I’d run out of my usual powder and had to pick up some Powerade (which isn’t ideal), or if I just wasn’t taking enough water with my gels. Fortunately it settled down however I did have to miss a couple of scheduled feeds. All in all the second (shorter) loop was a bit slower (there were a couple of extra hills and I was starting to feel pretty tired) and the average speed for the whole ride came back to 28.8kph.

The ride itself was 10k’s shorter than I’d planned (must have taken a wrong turn somewhere), but I’ve got to say that I was plenty happy to be done with it. My butt was getting sore, my neck was starting to get sore (I stayed aero for probably 90% of ride, not that you have much choice on my bike) and oddly enough, my wrists were getting sore (stupid big chip seal in the road means loads of vibration shaking its way up the front fork to the handle bars, it starts to add up after a while).

At 160k’s into the ride was the last big climb of the day, it’s a nasty little climb that touches 11% gradient, I find it challenging at the best of times, and I was particularly unhappy today. I used a running trick to get me up. What you do is this:

Pretend you have a big plate of (strangely light) iron attached to your chest and at the top of the climb is a huge magnet which is strong enough to pull you up. The catch is if you think negatively the magnet gets smaller, whereas if you think positively the magnet gets bigger, making it easier!

For those of you who are into stats here’s the numbers:

The total ride time was 5 hours 54 minutes with an average speed of 28.8kph. Mapmyrun estimates calories burnt at approximately 5000. In return I ate the following:

- 2 x One Square Meal Bars (700 calories)
- 6 x Balance Elite Fuel Supply Squeeziepack (gel) (630 calories)
- 1.5 L of Powerade (470 calories)
- 1 x Banana (100 calories)
- 1 Balance Protein Bar – immediately post ride (235 calories)

So 5000 calories out and 2135 calories in. That kind of ratio is probably enough to stop me from bonking on Ironman day, even better if I can get my stomach problems sorted out and keep eating throughout.

Picture of a perfect bike riding day - about 65 k's into the ride.

That’s another thing ticked off the list of things to do before Ironman. The list is starting to get rather short. Only 3 more bi workouts to do, another big ride, a half ironman simulation and a 3.8k swim and then I’m set

Rest Days

2008-01-12T22:30:00.000+13:00

This weeks been a lot more laid back than last week. I even had a complete days rest on Monday. This is a little unusual for me, I normally only have days of complete rest after actual events, but wit getting closer to the big one the plan is now for more intense workouts followed by periods of complete rest.

I’ve had people ask me about this before, and basically my rest days are normally structured in one of two ways. I’m a proponent of “active rest” especially given that I generally work on limited time and so the actually volume isn’t as huge as it could be. So in short “active rest” is basically exactly as it sounds, taking time off training but still staying active. The goal is to use the same muscles, but in a different way. For instance on an active rest day you might play a game of basketball or tennis. Or you might just go and chase the kids around the park, pick them up and carry them, run after the ball – it really doesn’t matter as long as you are being active but in a less intense way than in formal training, and in a way that uses your muscle groups in a different manner. These days are a great chance to have fun and be active with other people for a change.

The other method I use is one of timing, this is actually a surprisingly common approach as I know of at least a couple of other people who are independently doing the same thing. Essentially you structure your program so that once a week you have a workout session early in the morning, with the next session not being until the following evening, meaning you can effectively get in a rest period of around 36 hours without actually forfeiting a valuable day.

But this week was different and I actually took a whole day off and have tried to get to bed earlier to catch up on missing sleep. The kids haven’t completely corporated with a couple of disturbed nights this week, but I certainly do feel fresher now that I did at the start of the week.

That being said tomorrows session is a 180k + long ride. While this won’t be the biggest ride I’ve ever done, it will be the biggest ride done solo, so another milestone of sorts is almost in the bag – not many to go,

Hard Week

2008-01-06T22:36:00.000+13:00

I’ve been tired this week, staying up for New Years, plus getting up a couple of times in the wee smalls to settle kids (bless them).

This week has been all about intensity for me. The volume has increased as well but the biggest change is in the intensity of the workouts. In a nutshell, the swimming has involved sticking on the feet of people who are much better than me to increase the intensity of those workouts, and running and riding loads of hills, doing repeats, hill sprints and trying to catch any roadie that I catch sight of (and there’s plenty of them about at the moment).

The end result is … my legs hurt! Its been a great training week, tomorrows a rest day, which I’m really looking forward to, followed by a marginally easier week (similar volume but lower intensity) but building to 180k long ride on Sunday, which will easily be my longest so far in my buildup. I’ve been conditioning my butt this week by having several bike workouts in the schedule (two long ones) so hopefully it’ll go well.

Saturday’s ride was unusually hard, it was frustrated by a sneaky and steady wind which conspired to be continuously in front of me. So while I was slogging it out riding over massive chip, slightly uphill, into the conniving wind and unhappily watching my speed creep down to a lousily 20kph, it appeared as if the whole cycling world was merrily whizzing by in the other direction (yes down hill, with a tailwind, and I’m sure that road was smoother in the otherside!). It broke my heart. In the end my 110k ride got cut down to 90k’s and I got home absolutely drained (weak isn’t it, but to be fair my time allowance was running out and I had to totally flog myself to get back in time as it was – as much as I like training, and I do like it, I have a family to attend to as well, and I like them even more!).

Today’s workout was a swim, bike, run brick with a big emphasis on getting the transitions running smoothly. It started with a 1500 m (ish) ocean swim at Long Bay. A mill pond it was not! There was a petty good, mostly wind blown swell coming in which was really mushy. I was the only idiot out in a wetsuit trying to do anything other than body surf today and it was hard work. On the bright side coming back into the beach was good fun as I caught a couple of good waves to speed things up.

T1 went much much better than it did in Rotorua, so some lessons were happily learnt. I was in and out of my makeshift T1 in just over 2 minutes and didn’t forget anything yay!

The bike was a 20 k effort over a very hilly course and (once again) into a stiff headwind, with the layout of the course such that I didn’t really get a tail wind.

After that it was into T2 (1 minute 30 sec) and out for a 14 k run (again into a head wind and up a long stead hill). It was hot and hard – but oddly good, with a negative split (on account of the hill unfortunately).

So a good week down, and a slightly easier one planned for next week. I’ve got a bunch of key workouts to get in before now and mid February (where things will be eased somewhat), including a half ironman simulation, another 180k ride and a 3.8k swim – fortunately there are some public holidays coming up so I should be able to log them all in time.

It’s getting close!

New Year

2008-01-02T08:30:00.000+13:00

Well its now the second day of January and a whole new year is underway. This time round I greeted the new year with a combination of a great big bonfire, a bunch of friends, loads of excited kids who couldn't believe their luck in staying up so late, with absolutely no alchole and was promptly to bed shortly after midnight. Our new years celebrations were held at a riends place who lives out in the county, so of course, making the most of every opportunity I biked and met the family there (the long way) - my wife was a little amused that I was going to show up well after most other people and would most likely be the only one clad in lycra ... to her credit she didn't duck and hide when I finally rolled up.

On New Years Day I had loosely planned on going for a long ride in the morning, figuring that the roads would be empty as half of the country would be nursing hangovers. But as it turned out there were much MUCH more important things to do. For the last few weeks there has been a mysterious box in our garage, inside of which was a trampoline for the kids. We hadn't put it up earlier as if we had the kids wouldn't have wanted to leave for our trip down to Christchurch. So in the morning, up it went.

And once up it wasn't long before the neighbourhood kids started arriving.

So my ride got postponed till the afternoon. By the time the afternoon came along it was stinking hot and the wind (a good sea breeze) had picked up. We were all invited out to my sister-in-laws place for afternoon tea, she lives in Gulf Harbour (Whangaparaoa) so I started my ride from there. For those of you who don't know, Whangaparaoa is really hilly and exposed to the wind, meaning the first 15 k's was basicaly a series of short sharp climbs. All in all with the wind thrown it the ride was actually quite tough, and I loved it!

Here's a profile of yesterdays ride:

This morning I got up at 6am (which is very unusual for me) and headed out to Long Bay for an early morning ocean swim. It was the first time for a while that I'd been there and the beah was largely empty. There was a small swell rolling in so it wasn't quite the mill pond that I'd hoped for, still a good way to start the day. And I managed to get back before the kids were up, so my wife wasn't left sorting out breakfast for them all. This afternoon there's a 15k run scheduled in so its all good.

Here's hoping the year continues down a similar line.

Christmas Training

2007-12-30T21:57:00.000+13:00

Christmas week was always going to be an interesting affair. How do you squeeze in training when one has so many family commitments to keep. To complicate things for me was the small matter of a plane trip to Christchurch and an uncomfortable few sleeps in a cabin in the same room as two rather excited kids both under the age of 5.

I’ve had a little bit of feedback regarding one of my previous blog entries (basically around the length), so for those of you who are pressed for time here’s the short version of my Christmas training experience.

My family and I arrived in Christchurch. I put on a kilo, got sick and only managed a total of two hours training over the course of six days.

Actually that pretty much sums things up. Training wise it wasn’t a great week. I went off for a run on Monday past the Christchurch airport and down to my brother’s place in Russley. There was a nor-wester blowing and it was stinking hot. My heart rate was unusually high and I was starting to suffer by the end of it. I had a fairly bad sleep that night and right on queue I woke up with what was either a cold of really bad hay fervour. Given that I felt like rubbish for most of both Christmas and Boxing day and the hay fervour pills didn’t seem to do anything, I guess I was actually sick. By the 27th I was starting to feel better, which was just as well as it was my birthday (yay to me, 32 years old!). I went for a nice easy run on a mix of road and off road around a near by lake, and felt really good for it. That afternoon I went for a half hour ride with my brother. It was an interesting affair. My brother is a top kayaker, having represented New Zealand for several years. He also has 5 kids with another one on the way, so time for him is even more precious than it is for me. As a result he uses a hand bike so that he can get in extra upper body workouts (it also means that people give him heaps of room on the road as no one wants to hit a cripple (which is what he looks like on his hand bike)). So off we went, him on his hand bike, and me on his mountain bike complete with his wife’s pink helmet – cool! It was a bit slower than I’m use to but it was still good to turn the legs over.

Aside from the training though things were really good. I got to hang out with my whole family which doesn’t happen very often, my kids had a very exciting time and really enjoyed hanging out with their cousins, plus there was a reasonable haul of presents to both take down and bring back. Plus there was the pervading joy of celebrating the birth of Jesus which, after all, is the whole point of Christmas in the first place.

I’m back in Auckland now and feeling much better. I got in an ocean swim of around 2.5k’s at Long Bay. The beach was packed as it was a beautiful day. The sea was calm and quite warm, meaning I had a lovely swim. And this afternoon I also managed to get an easy half hour run done.

As of next week the in-laws (bless them) are going to help out where the can to allow me to get in some bigger training days. This will be really great as my wife works on a Saturday so doing a long ride, run or brick is very difficult and as a result my training load at the moment is probably only just adequate. So hopefully the next two months will see a final “rush” of quality training that will really build on what I’ve done already and see me in good stead for 1st March.

Post race week

2007-12-22T07:00:00.000+13:00

This week has been fairly laid back with recovery being the name of the game for the first half of the week.

After the long drive home on Saturday it was straight into playing with the kids as my wife had to go out that evening and was working on Sunday. One endurance event finishes and another one starts, but thats my life and I love it. All the running around after them ment that my legs didn't have a chance to stiffen up and I actually felt pretty good.

Sunday evening sore me back on the bike for an easy and short ride just to get the legs turning over. Mondays session was a 2k swim in the pool followed by a 40 minute ocean swim on Tuesday (I'm guessing that was around two k's as well). By and large the workouts have all been fairly easy with the hardest being a 40 minute run up a hill (The Avenue) on Thursday. Today's plan is to get in a short bike (I have time working against me today as I have to be back by 9.30ish and won't be able to get going until around 8ish - but its all good - and tomorrow I'll be trying for a run (in saying that we're all off to Christchurch tomorrow night so I think it will be a bit manic with packing and excited kids etc).

Next week is planned as being and "unstructured" week, where basically I'll train whenever I can as we'll all be down in Christchurch with the rest of my family enjoying Christmas. My birthdays actually on the 27th December so I as a present I told my brother he could go for a run with me - I'll be nice to have the company, although he normlly leaves me really suffering over any distance up to 10k, so it'll be interesting. My sister who has recently discovered triathlon is also coming down so I'm pretty confident that it will be a reasonably active Christmas.

Below is my one and only photo of the Rotorua Half Ironman. I obviously wasn't too stuffed as being the true professional (at heart anyway) I remembered to zip up the top to show off the sponsors product.

Have a great Christmas!

1st Triathlon - Rotorua Half Ironman

2007-12-16T11:36:00.000+13:00

Yesterday I was down in Rotorua putting myself through a reasonable amount of pain and suffering in the Rotorua Half Ironman. The motto for this event is “The Pain is Never Far Away” and is pretty apt as its raced over a tough course. The bike has two particularly sharp climbs, the last and longest being, cruelly, right at the end, and the run starts off on a trail through the bush around the Blue Lake. The run is beautiful but tough, and includes a stairway to no where – I’ll explain later.

For those of you who don’t know (and I suspect that most people who follow this blog probably do know) a half Ironman, as the name suggests is exactly half the distance of a full Ironman (actually that’s not quite right as the swim is 2k’s not 1.9k’s which would be half the Ironman swim), so it was a 2k swim, followed by a 90k cycle and finished off with a 21k run.

This was actually my first triathlon and so was very much a step into the unknown. I have done some multi-sport events in the past but this was significantly different as you have no support crew sorting you out in the transitions. And in this case I had no support crew at all as unfortunately Helen and the kids couldn’t make it down with me, which meant that I had to sort everything out and get myself ready by myself. Doesn’t sound to hard I hear you say… unfortunately being a first time triathlon for me there was an awful lot of stuff going on in my head, and a lot of it I was working out as I went along. This, predictably, lead to some issues on race day.

Anyway I got to Rotorua on Friday afternoon and after only one wrong turn I managed to find the registration venue. I always get nervous that my name will somehow have been left off the list when I et to registration time, but thankfully, once again, everything was where it should have been and I registered without a hitch. It was then off to the Blue Lake to check out the course and get my tent sorted (I was staying at the Blue Lake Camping ground which was very convenient). I got my first look at the big climb (bike) it didn’t actually look to bad as I regularly train on tougher climbs at home, the difference of course being that I’d be running a half marathon immediately after this climb (literally, as you basically come up over this climb, and then have a short decent into transition). My first real challenge was setting up the tent (by the way thanks Rice’s for the use of your tent). It took me a wee while and a sneaky look at someone else’s tent which was the same kind as what I was using, but I got there in the end (hopefully) without looking like to much of a clueless idiot. The camp ground was a strange mix of bemused looking German Tourists and super fit triathletes, it was quite strange, you could almost feel the pent up energy. I then set about checking out the swim course and transition area, before setting up my bike and going for a short ride to make sure it all worked properly and to stretch my legs after the long drive.

Dinner was the endurance athletes staple of pasta (tasty little chicken parcels in my case) chased down with some creamed rice. When I was making it in the kitchen I was chatting to another guy who was doing the team option (ride). He said that I looked as if I had been doing this for a while, which is the perfect kind of complement for my fragile ego. Walking around the camp ground it was funny seeing everyone checking out each others legs, you get that a bit when you hang around the cycling scene, so I guess triathletes are no different. I eventually called it a day and went to bed at around 9ish and actually had a reasonable sleep.

5am I was up again and munching on breakfast before taking my bike and gear up to transition and then picking up my timing chip. It was amazing how fast time flew past and I found myself running a bit short while I was busily pulling down the tent and getting the rest of my camping gear packed away (and I use “packed” in a very very loose sense). While I was doing this I noticed that I’d left a gel bottle that I was going to be using on the run behind, as well as the spare car keys which I’d planned to leave in my running belt (so I could actually get back into the car afterwards – things will be so much easier with a support crew). After a quick look at the watch I reckoned I had enough time to whip back into transition to drop it off while I drove the car to the car park (unfortunately I couldn’t leave it in the camp ground). So after dropping off the gel bottle and car keys it was quickly off to the car park to change into my wetsuit and then hurry on down to the swim start.

I was just about at the swim start when I looked down at my ankle and realise that I had left my timing chip in the car! I had 8 minutes to o until the start (3 minutes before the final briefing) and had to decide if I really needed it or not – I decided that I probably did and so ran to transition (again!) got the car key, ran to the car park, grabbed the timing chip and some sun block (which I’d also forgotten), and then ran back to transition to put the key back in the running belt and throw the sun block into my transition bin. After that I ran (some more) down to the swim start. On the way I ran in Steve Guy from www.alpegear.com and gave him my goggles and swim cap while I put the timing chip on. As I was doing this the race got underway, so while everyone else was in the water ready for the start, I was still on the beach fumbling around – better later than never I guess! I threw on my swim cap and goggles and sprinted into the water (slightly off course) and got underway. In my rush I hadn’t put my goggles on properly and had to stop after a 150m or so to empty the water out and put them on correctly. Not the ideal start, I was puffed, late and flustered.

It didn’t take to long before I got into a rhythm, it also didn’t take to long before the women (who started 5 minutes after the guys – but only a couple of minutes after me …) started passing me. Predictably I was smoked in the swim by the bulk of the field, I came out of the swim with 49 minutes showing on the clock, one leg down. The first transition was SLOOOWWW, something I’ll defiantly need to practice, it probably took me close to 10 minutes to get going. Once on the bike though I started doing some smoking of my own, passing a lot of people going up the first hill, going down the hill (where I hit 80kph) and onto the flat section pass the airport. I passed Kathy Miller (http://www.kathymillernzironman2008.blogspot.com/ ) going out pass the airport, I gather she had a bit of bad luck with punctures, check out her blog to catch up on her day). Speaking of bad luck, on the way back I past a guy walking he rather flash looking bike up hill. He didn’t seem to have a flat, and normally anyone who spends that much on a bike knows how to ride it, I was talking to a team rider after the race who said that that chap had lost his pedal and ended up biking the course (apart from the hills) with only one leg! Throughout the ride I was super conscious of not over doing it and making sure that I’d have enough left in my legs to put in an ok run. My main was of doing this was to keep my heart rate in check and staying fuelled. The eating plan was to have two “One Square Meal” bars (one at the start of the ride and the other two thirds into it) and a gel every half hour. This all worked out well and over the course I averaged just over 30 kph to give me a three hour ride.

The transition into the run went much more smoothly and I was quickly onto the run course. The run was a mix of single track through native bush (which was tough but beautiful), dirt road and sealed road. It consisted of a lap around the lake, followed by an out and back past the “buried village” with a 4 k detour down a dirt road to the Rotorua Gun Club, followed by another lap around the lake. There were a couple of hard parts to this run, including the bush track (ran twice), the stairway to nowhere, and a long sharp climb coming back from the buried village it was heading down this climb that I passed Graeme MacDonald ( http://graememacdonaldnzironman2008.blogspot.com/ ) going the other way, he must have been a good hour ahead of me and was looking really strong.

The stairway to nowhere needs some explaining. At the top end of the lake is a lookout, and the run course goes up to this across the lookout and down the other side. You could very easily simply stroll around it but no! You have to go up a bunch of steps (trying not to use the hand rail) take the 4 – 5 steps across the lookout platform and then down the other side, so basically a stairway that goes nowhere and is simply there to course you more pain!

The run itself was reasonably slow for me, I took 2 hours 5ish minutes, but kept a steady pace throughout which was always the goal. Unfortunately for me I ad some “gastro intestinal” problems for most of the run, and was constantly trying not to throw up (I think I may not have had enough water with my gels thus messing up my stomach) as a result I ended up doing most of it with just taking on board water – not ideal. So that’s something else to sort out before Ironman.

End result was 6 hours 9 minutes. I had hoped to go sub 6, and probably would have if it wasn’t my first triathlon (i.e if I had started the swim on time and did a half decent transition) and if my stomach behaved itself. Nevermind all in all it was a good outing and I learnt plenty from it.

I’ve found that I tend to get quite emotional doing stuff like this, it’s a mix of the effort and the corresponding endorphins floating around. In my first marathon I spend a lot of time after the 30k mark thinking about my kids and having to choke back the tears, in my second marathon it was my lovely wife who took my attention. This time round I found myself thinking about the pain and suffering I was putting myself through and the general pointlessness of it. This was followed closely by the pain and suffering that Jesus went through and the total worth of that and then I realise, like Paul did, that there’s redemption in suffering, at which point I got teary again (its funny how your mind works when you’ve been going hard for several hours).

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and thanks for your prayers and best wishes. I’m now about to head around the bend and get on the home stretch towards Ironman – not much longer to go.

Mountain Biking

2007-12-13T13:14:00.000+13:00

or something a little different I went out mountain biking yesterday evenin with a mate. It was a really refreashing change and just great to get away form sealed roads and do something different.

The forest that we went to (Riverhead for those in the area) was a mix of single track and forestry road. The forestry road a fairly dry with loads of good solid uphill and nice long downhill, but the single track was muddy and slippery due to the better part of a weeks worth of rain.

I took it pretty easy as I was a bit worried of crashing and breaking myself with only a couple of days until the Rotorua Half Ironman (I have a habit of crashing when I go mountain biking). It was great, I didn't crash (which was more than I could say for my mate) and had a blast, I'll diffently be putting in some more mountain bike sessons in the near future (its acually quite good for your riding technique according to some studies I've seen).

Next up is the half ironman, I'm a bit nervious about this as it will be my first actual tri. I've done some multisport stuff before, but in multisport you have someone else (your support crew) taking care of the transitions for you. Plus I've never run a half marathon off a 90k ride before - so I guess I'll see how I go.

Another week down!

2007-12-09T14:47:00.000+13:00

Another week down and now my countdown clock tells me that its less than 90 days to go! With December and summer here the training load is finally going to start to build up. To date most of my weeks have maxed out at 10 hours of specific training (I can't really count running around after the kids, running them to the shops / park / grandparents) or biking to the shops / church etc, although I'm sure it all helps!). That's all about to change as somehow I'm going to have to find time to get in around 15 hours of training a week and still put in the time as a father and husband.

I had a little bit of a taste of what things would be like if all I had to organise or be responsile for was myself, earlier on this week as my wife and kids went off to Taupo to spend a couple of days with a very pregnant friend (she's since had her baby by the way). They were away during the week (otherwise I would have gone) and in the space of a couple of days I managed to cram in 6 hours of training after work including one really great swim / bike / run brick session. If left solely to myself I'd be training like a manic all the time - but my life would be very empty and one dimensional.

Yesterdays ride was sensational and signifiantly better than last weekends for several reasons.

a. I'm off my antibiotics so the powers coming back
b. It was hot and sunny - which is exactly how I like it
c. I just generally had a better frame of mind
d. I had my race wheels on! (see picture of deliriously happy looking Kieran)

The ride felt great. There was a strong wind blowing and it was a very hilly course, so it was a real power workout, and I loved it. I have no idea of top or average speeds etc as I'm still trying to work out the best way of getting my bike computer wheel sensor attached to the tri-spokes (it normally clamps onto a wheels spokes), I think duc tape will be the best solution. I normally just motor on without knowing but I think, given that I'll be running after the ride, it would be best to know what I'm dong so I can work to my plan better. Anyway I did an 80k hilly ride in 2 hours 40 min which isn't bad at all.

The Rotorua Half Ironman is now under a week away, its a "C" race for me as its going to be my first actual triathlon and I have a bunch of things I'll be trying out (including a slightly new nutrition strategy - following yesterdays ride I've had to re-think things and don't have ime for a practice run). I'm a little apprehensive about how the run will go as I haven't done a lot of brick workouts due to being to worried about straining my ITB band again, so that part will be interesting (especially given as I'm inclinded to go pretty hard on the bike). I'm really looking forward to it though and it sounds like the course is going to play to my natural strengths. Watch this space for the race report next week.

In the meantime here's some more photo's of a happy rider!

Rubbish Ride

2007-12-03T12:33:00.000+13:00

Ever had a day where your training just wouldn't work? Yesterday's "long ride" was like that.

I had planned to do a 110k ride but it got slashed to just 75k's as I felt like rubbish. The legs just wouldn't fire, it felt like I was constantly bashing into a head wind and I got rained on several times! I suspect that it was probably the antibiotic's messing up my energy system (they do that) but knowing that didn't make me feel any better about things.

I eventually got home in a bit of a grump after 2 hrs 20 min on the bike. So to make myself feel better I dusted off my tri-spoke race wheels put them on and tuned them into the bike. They're beautiful and I felt better just looking at them. I took the bike for a quick spin in the afternoon to make sure that I had tuned in the cluster correctly and that all the gears fired where they should, and came home with a big grin on my face. The wheels are FAST and make a cool wop wop wop noise when they start spinning.

I had my last antbiotic last night and am ow largely well again. So with the flash wheels on the bike I'm all set for the half ironman in two weeks time. My first propery triathalon, I'm so excited

Feeling Better!

2007-12-01T15:14:00.000+13:00

I woke up this morning feeling MUCH better, in fact it's probably the first time in over a week that I've actually felt good. I still have a bit of a "rattle" in my chest but the antibiotic's ought to deal with that in due course.

I've been eyeing up a new run run lately and today was a good day to try it out. Its 17k's long and takes just over an hour and a half on account of the fact that it has a couple of pretty decent hills along the way and is "undulating" in between. As a special treat the family showed up about an hour into the run to cheer me on and snap some pic's. There really is nothing like the voice of a 2 year saying "go daddy go" or the beaming face of a four year old to push you along.

It was a really good run and I was just so thankful to be out doing stuff again. It's a great course that see's you out into the country within 15 minutes, and I had a fanastic time. The four days resting must have been worthwhile as I felt super fresh throughout the run and wasn't particuarly tired at the end.

I had a good mix of music in the MP3 player, including some good old "crunch crunch" rock from Skillet as well as some deeper more searching stuff from Shawn MacDonald which got me thinking. One of his songs asks the particuarly deep question of God "what am I?" (as in "what am I that the creator of all this should go to the trouble of redeeming a broken soul?"). The answer of course is a love given without condition - it was at that point that my family turned up and it all made sense to me. Its amazing the revelations you get in this sport.

Alright that's my deep and meaningful for this week, I've got a bunch of things to do today (including mowin the lawns and cleaning the toliets - life doesn't stop for an Ironman wanabe). Tomorrow I've got a long ride (110k) booked in for the morning, and in the afternoon there's talk of my wife and kids heading down to Taupo to catch up with a pregnant friend who's due any day now ... which means that I can train selfishly, so there will probably be a swim at the beach followed by another long run - When you have a busy family you have to make the most of the opportunities which present themselves, even if it does mean throwing the plan away.

The only other things that have happened this week (its been quite as I've been sitting around feeling sorr for myself - as only blokes can I'm told) is that I've booked a tent site at the Blue Lake for the 14th Dec, so as soon as I find a tent I'm all set for the Half Ironman on the 15th. (Due to ciricumstance I'll be heading down alone and the family will be staying up here - hence I can be a cheapskate and get away with a tent ... assuming I can find one that is!)

Also being the first of the month I need to finish off my regular journal entry for Steve at www.alpegear.com to keep to my side of the rather generious sponsorship agreement (thanks Steve by the way).

It's good to be (mostly) well again.

Grrrr Stupid Illness

2007-11-28T21:48:00.000+13:00

Sure its only been a couple of days (actually three, four if you count Saturday as I didn't do anything then either cause I was feeling a touch manky), but I'm staring to get grumpy and jumpy. The last couple of days have been beautiful in my part of the world and I've been forced to sit around and watch the sun transverse the sky rather than get out there and sweat in it.

It's driving me nuts! I'm still not quite right, but I'm much improved from where I was which is good.

Our family was heading out to a friends place, which is out in the country, this evening, so naturally I suggested "hey I could bike out and meet you there!" Sensibly this idea was met with a dissaproving look and a firm "NO" (which was of course the smart thing to do - wife always knows best).

So I'm havng one more days rest and tomorrow I'm going to run into work (which is now only 3.5 k's away), hopefully that will relieve some of my grumpiness!

Health and Wellbeing

2007-11-26T15:27:00.000+13:00

Anyone paying attention may wonder how it is that I'm doing a blog entry at 3.30pm on a work day. The simple reason is ... I'm not at work.

The bug that's been doing the rounds of our family has fnally gotten the better of me and after getting up to settle down the kids a few times during the night I found that by the time morning came around I just couldn't make myself get out of bed. So I'm home sick.

My lovely wife, bless her eternally, made me go to the doctor. This is quite an achievement as I almost never go to the doctor (last time was around three years ago and I only went after I had fainted in the kitchen, and the doctor rather promptly sent me on to the hospital to get put on a drip!). The doctor was rather surprised that I'd managed to start the swim yesterday, let alone finish it. It turns out that I have something which I can't pernounce but involves a rather enlarged lympth node in the back of my mouth. My wife asked what would have happened if I had just left it and he said I would have got sicker and sicker to the point where my tonsiles may have needed to come out due to the likehood of an absess developing behind the lympth node. Needless to say that would have been really REALLY bad news as far as Ironman preperation goes.

As it is, I simply have a course of antibiotics to take and have been told to take a couple of days off work. I asked when I could start training again, the doctor said I was mad, but reckoned I should be right for a bit of training again by the end of the week.

So lucky me, I think I dodged a bullet thanks to my ever caring wife!

Harbour Crossing

2007-11-25T22:16:00.000+13:00

This week hasn’t been the best week by a long shot. The whole family, bar me, have been sick all week (actually longer in my poor wife’s case). This has resulted in me slimming down a number of my training sessions so that I could help out more (breakast’s, dinners kids to bed etc), which is cool as on my list of priorities family comes first.

What was more of a concern was that despite holding out all week, on Friday I woke up with a sore throat and croaky voice. That didn’t bode well for the Harbour Crossing on Sunday, so I spent all day Saturday eating fruit, thinking healthy thoughts, and praying that the sore throat wouldn’t be followed by a runny nose and a chest infection.

So when I woke up on Sunday the first thing I checked was whether or not I could breath through my nose. It was OK. I certainly wasn’t 100% but good enough.

The day was beautiful and the water warm. This was my first mass start swim and it was quite an experience. There were over 1200 people entered so the field was pretty close to what there will be at IMNZ. I seeded myself safely towards the rear as I’m under no illusions as to my swimming abilities, even so the traffic was pretty heavy going for the first half of the swim. I had planned to it on peoples feet as much as possible and had some success in doing so, but the water was pretty murky and I gave up trying after a while.

I think in the end I must have swum well over 2.8 k’s as I kept verring to the right and had to repeatedly come back on course. In the end I finished in 1 hour 7 minutes, but most importantly I beat Rodney Hide! It was a really good day, I got to start next to Ian Johns (ex-All Black) and survived my first mass start open water swim.

Short Ride - Max Effort!

2007-11-17T22:28:00.000+13:00

This week has been better than last training wise. Still not where it needs to be, but better neither the less. The highlight during the week was a good swim on Wednesday. I managed to get in 2.1k’s in around 40 minutes which is a blistering pace for me! So that gives me some confidence around next weeks harbour crossing.

I managed to get my runs finished before 10pm this week, mind you they were all short. At this point I’m planning on cutting down on the volume a bit, mostly to avoid injury, and basically just do maintenance workouts. Once a month I’ll do a run up to 20 k’s but not much more than that (unless I can find some good off road trails nearby – easier on the joints). I’m being pretty cautious as my ITB still feels a little tight every now and again and I really don’t want to have a reoccurrence at this stage of the game.

For the same reason I’m not doing much in the way of brick workouts (running off the bike). Mainly because I’ve heard somewhere that biking can tighten up the ITB. It makes sense as running essentially reverses the loading on that particular muscle when compared to biking. The Rotorua Half Ironman should show up how much of an impact that this has (in saying that I am doing the odd short run off the bike just to get use to how the legs feel).

Today’s workout was a bit of a rejig of what I had planned. My beautiful wife has been a bit sick lately so today she got a sleep in before starting work at 10am. This meant that my 6.30am ride got canned in favour of a short hour long ride in the afternoon.

Me and the kids had a good day by the way, we mowed the lawns, hanged out some washing, biked (well they biked and I jogged) around to the in-laws for morning tea. Then it was off to the Santa parade in Orewa, then back home to help dad fix his mountain bike (I mate of mine has just picked up a new mountain bike so some alternative bike training is likely to be happening soon – mountain biking is great, its different, fun, and really improves your climbing technique (actually there are plenty of studies to show that mountain bikers have much better technique than roadies, interestingly enough)), tidy the garage and house – phewww, it was a very full day!

As this afternoons ride was going to be short I decided to pick a fairly tough route and ride it as hard as I possibly could. By the afternoon the wind had picked up (which is typical – every time I think about riding the wind picks up!) and was blowing a pretty steady north easterly. I’ll walk you through the ride (so stop here if kph details bore you!)

The ride starts with a gentle climb up out of my street and onto Albany Highway, pass Massey University (old campus) and into Albany Village. This part is flat to undulating so makes for a good warm up before things get going. My average speed through this section was 34kph. Once you get through Albany Village you hit the first of three “honest” climbs on this route. This is up “Albany Hill.” I’m not sure of the length of this climb, I think it’s around 3k – 4k, but I have it on good authority (namely a roadie friend of mine – who’s a machine on the bike – and who’s also a surveyor) that the gradient varies between 7 – 8 percent. So its generally a long, steady grind. It’s a good test on a time trial bike like mine as these bikes are not made for climbing (the seat tube’s the wrong angle, and you tend to sit to far forward). My speed up this climb varied between 14kph and 15kph and saw the average fall to 24kph.

Next is a bit of a downhill, today it was directly into the head wind resulting in a top speed of only 55kph, which is a bit rough considering the effort it took to get up. After the downhill the road veers north and the wind eases to not as much of a head wind (still enough though). On this bit the route is generally flat (with a very slight rise). My speed through here varied between 33kph and 46kph with the average somewhere near 38kph. This part pushed my overall average up to 27kph.

The flatish part finishes with a short but sharp climb at the top of which you turn off Albany Highway and head towards the North Shore Aero Club, east, again somewhat into the wind. This bit starts off undulating before veering north (so that I was then travelling north east, directly into the wind) and starts to gently, but steadily, climb. This bit of the route hurt. If pain is weakness coming out then I lost a lot of weakness on this bit. My speed got down to 25kph and my average dropped to 26kph.

Once pass the aero club you turn right, cross over the motorway, and head up to East Coast Bays Road. This is the second “honest” climb, and gets very sharp around a couple of bends. I really wanted to attack this so clicked up a gear and climbed out of the seat towards the end of it for a hill sprint. That predictably saw me shot over my lactic threshold and had my legs hurting real good. I also almost threw up, which for me means I’m not holding back.

After this hill it’s right onto East Coast Bays Road and you start heading south again, meaning that I at last got rid of a bit of the headwind (the road does swing around to the east at a couple of points so the wind still got to tug at me. This bit of road starts with a short downhill on which I got up to 71kph (my top speed ever on a bike was 89kph – that was on a tandem, very unaero, but you have weight working you favour going down hill, of course it sure works against you going uphill!). From there its undulating with a series of ups and downs, my average speed came up to 27.5kph through this part.

At the end of this section are three steep climbs, the first one being called STEEEEEPPP! My speed over this first hill dropped down to between 10kph and 11kph, so that was tough, and I almost threw up for the second time.

Once those climbs are out of the way you’re home free. It’s a quick downhill back into the metropolis to a set of lights (I hate lights), then onto my favourite bit of road, a smooth, initially down sloping then flat stretch of tar seal. The speed limit through here is 50kph, I started off at 56kph before settling down to 48kph for the duration. It’s Oteha Valley Road and runs down through a couple of roundabouts, under the motorway and past the new Westfeild mall, Mega Centre and North Shore Stadium. From there it’s back past the university and home.

So total distance was 31k’s with a time of 1 hour 5 minutes (there were a couple of stops for lights and I had to slow down twice for cars). Meaning the overall average speed was 28.9kph. It’s a great workout and to put it into perspective, last week I road 110k’s with an average speed of 31kph. Today’s ride was shorted and I was at max effort for much longer, but only averaged 28.9kph.

Tomorrow I have an ocean swim booked in followed up with another shortish bike.

Now I’m off to bed!

Night Time Running

2007-11-11T22:28:00.000+13:00

Alrighty, back from my run. It's now 10.24pm and I'm eating a bowl of Movenpick Icecream (yummy and only 154 cals ...).

I think I almost got Maced by a couple of chic's walking on the footpath. I guess I can understand why. It's dark and suddenly you hear heavy footsteps and heavy breathing and see some guy rushing up on you ...

Night time running's full of damgers!

Have a great week all.

Sunday 11 November 07

2007-11-11T20:55:00.000+13:00

Well Sunday has been another lovely day. It's been mostly spent with family and friends which is definitely a good thing. My wife's out at the moment so I've just got the kids to bed (although by the sounds of it they're not sleeping yet). She should be back soon and at some point I'll head out for a short 6 k run (hopefully before 10pm this time!).

This afternoon I also managed to get down to the beach for another swim. It was actually quite choppy which made things interesting (lots of up and downs and waves splashing in my face as I was trying to breath). But it was all good, coming back into the beach was fun as I caught a couple of waves and got a bit of a ride. I'm still loving the wetsuit. The swim was about 40 minutes and I'm guessing around 1.7 - 2 k's. Every now and again I'd try and count my strokes to get an dea of how far I was going, seems to be a lot easier without all the turning around that you do in a pool.

Loving it! Roll on Harbour Crossing!

Rubbish Week – But it’s not all bad!

2007-11-10T20:43:00.000+13:00

It’s been a bit of a rubbish week training wise this week. On account of the new job my schedule has been thrown out of wack resulting in a bit of a waste of a week. I did manage to sneak in a short swim on Monday and also got in a pretty solid run on Wednesday (although I didn’t actually get away until 10pm! – I made it back before midnight and managed to get a solid 6 hours of “recovery” sleep, whippee! But it was a good run, I was feeling fairly fresh so thought I’d test my limits and smacked out 10 k’s in 42 minutes, which is easily a record for me. I’ve heard about “reverse periodisation” and I’m toying with the idea of tying it out, I don’t think I have enough time though to do it properly though, still a bit of speed work isn’t going to hurt – makes you tough).

The week hasn’t been a total waste though. I went for my first open water swim in a wetsuit on Friday evening. It was a short swim and really just to see what it all felt like, and I’ve got to say … I like it! At first it was kind of weird as I waded out into the water and felt like I was bobbing around. Then once I started swimming something quite surprising happened. My normal horrible body position (I drag my hips to much) suddenly came right and I was much flatter through the water, resulting in a good pickup in speed. It’s awesome I love it! Following that short swim I’m now a lot happier about doing the Harbour Crossing in two weeks time, I just need to find the time to get a little bit more pool time somewhere and I’ll be set.

Today was a real ray of light as well. Both figuratively speaking, in that I had a great ride, and actually speaking in that it was a really nice sunny day (at last!).

Today’s ride was actually a bit of a treat. My wife was working today, which would normally mean I could perhaps sneak in a 1.5 – 2 hour tops ride if I was lucky, before she started. However today was different. My wonderful in-laws offered to look after the kids this morning, meaning I had the chance to do my first proper long ride (with summer just about here there should be more to come).

It’s been a hectic week so I wasn’t really prepared for a long ride food wise, but when the opportunity comes you make do. There’s a big “undulating” course that I’ve ridden in my roadie days which normally takes around four hours so that was the plan for today. I managed to scrounge up a fist full of squeezies and one of my kids “fruit bars”, plus the normal two bottles of Enduro Boost and a bottle of water and of I went.

The ride was sensational. The weather was near perfect with very little wind and lots of sun. There were loads of roadies out plus a couple of fellow trigeeks. I felt pretty strong for most of the ride but the inadequate nutrition took its toll towards the end. Three squeezies and a “fruit bar” just don’t cut it for a 3 and a half hour ride. Still it’s good for eating up your fat stores as well as improving mental toughness. Just for the record I lost 2 kgs (from 73kgs this morning to 71kgs by the end of the ride) on today’s ride, but I reckon I’ve pulled some of that back again now (he says while munching on some Pringles). I was starting to suffer by the end. Just to prove how tough I am I ran off the bike to the in-laws to collect the kids … Did I mention they’re only two k’s away? (Weak, I know).

I had a couple of roadies in a pace line pass me 80k’s into the ride. Normally I don’t mind that, I figure good on them if they can, but this time the buggers rode up, drafted off me for a minute or so before taking off! Now that’s just bad manners! I kept in touch with them and smoked them o a hill though, so that cheered me up no end.

The actual ride itself was 110k’s and took me 3 hours 30 minutes (and a few seconds) for an average speed of 31 kph. That’s good enough for me, but what was really encouraging was my average speed of 35kph along a longish flat part of the course (with horribly huge chip) which was 50k’s into the course. That particular bit of road was a lot like the road on the Taupo Ironman course so that bodes well for a good Ironman ride.

So what’s on the agenda? With a bit of luck I’ll get in both a run and another open water swim tomorrow. Then next week will hopefully be more settled and I can get some solid work (by that I mean training) done. I’d like to do at least two swims, but I still need to sort out a pool and find a good time to actually go, plus four solid runs (with one long run of 20k’s) some indoor biking and a long bike next weekend (that might be replaced by a long swim session depending on how things pan out – Harbour Crossing is on the 25th November!).

Train Smart!

Post Marathon Week

2007-11-04T21:28:00.000+13:00

It’s now been a week since the Auckland Marathon. I was a bit stiff and sore for the first couple of days following the race, which was to be expected. I was also really tired for a couple of days, putting the kids to bed was a struggle as I found myself falling asleep with them (or before them on at least one occasion).

However the soreness was gone by Wednesday and the tiredness was largely gone Thursday (actually it would be more correct to say that I was back to my normal state of tiredness – I have kids …). So training started again on Thursday after a whopping three days rest! Unfortunately I had to fly down to Wellington for some training as part of my new job. As a result Thursday’s training was done in a hotel gym. It was brick session using a treadmill and a stationary bike, not the best quality workout but I’ll take it.

Friday was a bit better. My work training finished really early as I already knew a bunch of the stuff that I was going to go over. This meant that I got a bit of a treat. I had plenty of time before my flight (which I couldn’t bring forward) to get in a really good swim session. I headed down to Freyberg pool which is a 33 meter pool. It was the length of the pool which was the real treat. I’m use to swimming in a 25 meter pool and I found swimming an endurance set in the longer pool a heap easier, as I got a better grove going and didn’t have o worry about turning around as often.

This weekend’s training was scheduled as being fairly light and was based squarely on the bike. The plan for the next few weeks is to build towards the Rotorua Half Ironman so that I can get the most out of it on the day. So I’m going to be doing a lot of bike work to build both my endurance and speed. The bike is where I believe I can make the biggest impact in both the half ironman and ultimately the full Ironman race, so I really want to make sure I can maximise this strength. The bike has really been taking a back seat all year, so I’m quite excited to how the speed builds up between now and December. I’m also aware that I’m going to be inclined to go too hard on the bike if I’m not careful and suffer on the run, so endurance and pacing is also going to be a big focus along with some runs off the bike.

Saturday’s ride was a shortish two hour 62 k ride over a fairly hilly course. Due to a range of circumstances (and the fact that my lovely wife needed a well deserved sleepin) I didn’t go for the ride until the afternoon, which turned out to be a real stunner after a gloomy morning. The ride went really well, it was largely into a building headwind and I managed to keep an average speed of just over 30 kph throughout. (To put that into perspective when I was riding the same course in my roadie days my average speed was around 26 – 27 kph just before I rode the old Rotorua – Taupo Flyer course (which included a big chunk of the Ironman course) in 3 hours. It’s unrelentingly hilly which drags the average speed down a fair bit. I reckon if you try to translate the speed from there to a flat course you should add around 4 kph – I’ll be testing that theory later in the year, but for the mean time it works for me).

There’s one really nice flat section about 5k out from home that I really enjoy. It’s one the few truly flat bits and it have a really nice smooth tar seal with a slight downhill leading up to it and goes for about 2.5 k’s, so I can really wind it up and give it everything knowing that I’m really close to home and blowing up isn’t going to be a problem. On Saturday I was rally looking forward to this bit of the ride as always, and once again it proved a highlight. I managed to jump in behind a 4WD with a somewhat surprised driver, and with the benefit of the draft got up to 65kph and held it for most of the way (the speed limit is 50kph and I think the driver was trying to get away, don’t worry mum I was being careful …).

I love my bike!

Auckland Marathon

2007-10-28T17:17:00.000+13:00

This week has been the week of the Auckland Marathon and has been a pretty busy week for me. While I definitely had targets to achieve in the marathon, this diffidently was not an “A” race for me. It still seems kind of weird to me to see a marathon slotted into my training schedule as a “long run”, but there you go.

There were a few goals that I wanted to achieve and a number of things that I wanted to practice with, so doing this run was very important to my overall Ironman plan. The marathon itself is held at a really convenient time. It’s at the start of the season, and gives plenty of time for recovery. Plus if I’d picked up an injury then I’d still (probably) have enough time to recover before March. This will be the last time that I run this distance before the Ironman.

So what did I want to achieve?

Firstly, a big reason for doing the run was to remind myself of what running a marathon feels like, especially as the first one I ran ended up being such a suffer fest for me. And in case you’re wondering, finishing a marathon feels good, running one doesn’t.

Secondly I wanted to experience the distance again in order to work on my pacing. While I can run a half marathon fairly well, I simply haven’t had the experience of the full distance to know what my body should like at each part of the 42 km course. That poses some pretty obvious problems when it comes to judging the correct pace (or effort). I know that it will be a bit different during the Ironman as there’s the small matter of a 180k bike to factor in, but that’s why I’m doing a half ironman in December and a half ironman simulation in January. I’ll come back to how my pacing went later on.

Thirdly I wanted to make sure that my nutrition plan was going to work for the run. Primarily because I bonked in a big way during my last marathon. So today I carried 20 oz of Leppin Enduro Boost and 5 Leppin Squeezies in my Nutrition Pack, plus a Leppin Slingshot (which holds another 3 serves of gel) in my hand. I also picked up 5 (I think) flat cokes on the way – this was the first time that I’d tried drinking coke on a run and went fairly well. The last couple weren’t completely flat and I almost threw them back up. But on the plus side they certainly do give you a lift. Immediately post race I had a banana, two OSM bars and a free bee “brunch bar” sample as well as some more Enduro Boost. Once I got home (about an hour later so the “window” was well on its way to closing) I had some “Endurance Athlete” (which is a protein, carbohydrate and creatine blend) and a Subway foot long Italian sub (yummy!). I still managed to loose two kilo’s, so there’s obviously some work to be done. But I didn’t bonk and I ran the whole race (aside from walking the aid stations on the second half of the course.

So that all said how did marathon week shape up?

It’s been a bit of an odd week, with labour weekend on Monday and my last day at my old job on Thursday (I start my new job on Monday – so depending on how I’m walking tomorrow – if at all – will determine just what kind of impression I make).

On Monday I went for a long swim, which for me mean’s anything over 2k’s, in this case it was 2.5k’s which is a new record for me. On Tuesday I went for 13k run, this was planned as my last substantial run before the marathon and meant that I had a (running) build up exactly four weeks (whippiee) for this marathon. On Friday, seeing as I wasn’t at work, I made the most of my being unemployed and went for a 70k ride. I had planned for it to be longer but it was unrelentingly windy and I didn’t want to smack myself to much before the marathon (weak I know).

And the actual marathon?

Sunday was suppose to be fine and sunny. It wasn’t though, which was just as well because I’d forgotten to put sunbock on in the morning, I’m a little surprised that that was the only thing that I’d forgotten as I had to get up at 4.30am to catch a bus leaving Albany at 5am in order to get down to Devonport for the 6.30am start. The morning was freezing cold and I put off getting changed for as long as possible.

Once the run started it didn’t take very long to get warmed up, which was good because it lightly rained on and off throughout the day. I prefer the heat myself but I think that most people quite liked the cooler conditions. It was a little surprising how many people were out to watch. The first part of the marathon course, on the North Shore, goes through residential suburbs, and there were loads of kids in their pj’s who had obviously dragged their parents out to watch.

Running over the harbour bridge was a novelty, it’s a long way up and a long way down, but didn’t feel as step as I’d expected.

The half marathoners run at the same time as the full course runners, meaning that it felt really crowded for the first 21k’s. It’s actually a little rough as you can see the finish where the half marathoners turn off, and you know that you are only half way there!

I was conscious of not running to fast, and tried to keep my pace down for the first half. In the end I ran the first 21k’s in 1 hour 50. Given that my best half marathon time so far is 1 hour 45 min I don’t think I did a very good job at controlling my pace. A good lesson to learn.

A couple of k’s into the second leg of the course and Steve Guy from www.alpegear.com road up to me on his bike. It was cool, we had a little chat and he shadowed me for a big chunk of the course snapping away with his camera, I’ll have to try and get some photo’s off him.

While the first 21k’s were easy and I think I could have got a great time if I was doing the half marathon, during the second 21.195 k’s I definitely suffered more. My pace slowed down, but I didn’t walk at all this time (excluding the aid stations) which was good. In the end I came in at 4 hours 1 minute (by my watch – 4 hours 3 minutes by the official course clock). My goal was 4 hours or less so I’m a bit disappointed. If I’d been a little tougher and knew the distance a bit better I could have easily got in under 4 hours. Maybe next time.

So anyway, that’s probably enough for now. I’m off to put my feet up.

Gear Failure - 21st October 2007

2007-10-21T21:58:00.000+13:00

The countdown is to the Auckland Marathon is now well and truly on. If you have any doubt that there’s going to be a bunch of people doing it then just have a look along the waterfront near the Auckland CBD and you will see increasing numbers of people with shiny new running shoes and last years “finishers” shirts on. Interestingly enough I’ve meet loads of people who are going to do the half marathon or quarter marathon (11k’s? come on that’s lame, might as well just make it a regular 10k run and call it what it actually is!). But I haven’t actually met anyone else doing the full marathon yet.

I’m a little nervous as I’ve only really had a two week build up as far as specifically preparing for the marathon goes (thanks largely to my ITB problem). So cardiovascully I feel like I’m better than I’ve ever been (and I have the stats to show it), but I simply haven’t logged the k’s that I had planned on. I’m running faster than I have before, today I ran an 8k course at 4 min’s per k, and still felt like I had plenty left, but there’s a big difference between 8 k’s and 42k’s. My longest run recently has been 20k’s and that went fairly well, so I guess we’ll see. I’ll either have a great run and log a good time, or (and I think this is reasonably likely) I’ll run a good half marathon and then blow to pieces at the tail end. Either way it should be exciting.

The basic plan, for those who are interested is to sit at around 155bpm (I haven’t actually done a maximal heart rate test for years, but I know my max heart rate is currently above 190 and I know from experience that I can hold an effort of between 150 – 165 for hours, I don’t get anaerobic until I move up to 170+ bpm. My resting heart rate is currently around 45bpm, it’s kind of hard to tell though as I generally can’t check it in the mornings on account of he fact that I’m normally woken by my high energy kids, doing high energy things, which doesn’t help you find a resting heart rate! I can’t remember the figure, but the last time I did a lactic test I was comfortably above average – I also threw up but that’s another story. But I digress, and apologise for the boring technogeek rant). I’ll also carry my Nutrition Pack (like a fuel belt) this time and throw back a squeezie every 30 minutes. I’m using this as a bit of a test for my Ironman nutrition plan, especially as I messed up that part of my last marathon so badly. So it’s exciting time’s I’ll try and post a report next week.

My long ride yesterday didn’t quite go according to plan. I was about 25 minutes into it. It was a beautiful sunny, calm (but really cold) morning and I had only really just started to get into my grove when I hit a bump as I was flying down a hill trying to catch a roadie who had just humbled me going up the same hill. I heard a bit of a clang which was the sound of my bottle coming out of the cage behind my seat. So I got off the aero bars and turned around to retrieve it, thinking how lucky it was that I wasn’t using my race wheels, when I heard another clang and almost ran over something. I didn’t think much of it until I’d picked up my bottle and started off again. It was as I was about to settle back into the areobars that I noticed that one on the forearm pads wasn’t there anymore!

I went back and found it, so that was OK. Unbelievably the bolt holding the armrest onto the bars had sheared off! Now given that it cut my ride short (as being soft I turned around to came back home and change my long ride into a brick session), you might think that it was a bit of bad luck. But in actual fact I think it was a stroke of incredibly good luck, providence you might even say! Just imagine for a moment if it had snapped half an hour into another ride, say one scheduled in five months time. Just imagine if it had snapped 15k’s into a 180k ride where I could simply turn around and go home!

So I reckon that I had some really providential gear failure. I’m so glad that bolt snapped now and not during something that really mattered. So one trip to the hardware store later and I now have a bunch of shinny new bolts to put in. I’m going to replace the bolts on the other aerobar as well just to be on the safe side. Unfortunately they aren’t as sleek as the old ones, but at least I’m confident that they will actually hold together.

So what’s up for the coming week?

Not a whole lot actually. I’ll have my last long run tomorrow of approximately 2 hours duration, and then largely take the rest of the week fairly easy with a couple of swims planned, a shortish bike (either on the road or inside depending on how time goes), a short speed run and an easy run.

Running Legs Are Back!

2007-10-14T21:51:00.000+13:00

It’s happy times in Kieranland. With whooping two weeks to go to the Auckland Marathon my running is firmly back on track again without the faintest sign of ITB tightness and with the pace and endurance as good as it’s ever been! Needless to say I’m very relieved.

Since my last blog I’ve done two long runs of half marathon distance (actually that’s not quite true, one was a shade over 20k and the other a shade under 20k, but hay, what’s a k and a bit between friends …?). On both runs I had the pace locked in at a smidge above 4 min 30 sec’s per k, that’s a little faster than I’ll be targeting for the marathon but it certainly gives me confidence.

Aside from that the middle of the week’s been reasonably low key. In fact I felt completely shelled Thursday and Friday with one of my workmates commenting on the way I looked on Thursday. But that’s OK, and easy day on Friday, a scheduled day off on Saturday (it was my wife’s birthday, and although it was bright and sunny in the morning I don’t believe swanning off for a 3 hour ride in the morning would have been a good idea – correct me if I’m wrong), and a good part of Sunday watching Kona has seen me right.

I also finally hit the submit button for the Harbour Crossing in November. At 2.8k’s it fits in quite well with the grand plan. Also it’ll be good to do a mass start swim before the Rotorua Half Ironman in December.

The kids made me do some skipping on Saturday. Let me tell you, skipping’s a hard workout. I seem to remember reading somewhere that 10 minutes skipping is a really beneficial thing to do, and something which is pretty easy to fit in to a busy schedule, so I might look doing more of it – after all every little bit helps when time is precious.

So what’s on the agenda for next week?

The main thing is that I’ll start biking into work (as soon as there’s a nice day). I live in Albany now and work in Auckland CBD. I’m not entirely sure on the distance but it should be a fairly good workout as I’ll need to ride into Devonport to catch a ferry across the harbour. Apart from that I’ll also be swapping one swim session for a run session (this week only) before easing off for the week before the marathon.

Me and the Kids

2007-10-06T20:23:00.000+13:00

Its been a steady week this week. No mishaps, or glitches apart from a couple of thunder storms causing me to can some runs - weak I know ...

So what have I been up to?

I've spent a fair bit of time stairing at the black line at the bottom of the pool (on account of me beig afraid that the torrential rain outside would melt me) and feeling genuinely amazed that I can now quite happily splash my way through lap after lap after lap after lap after lap ..... I've pretty much decided to enter into the Harbour Crossing in November. It's a 2.8k mass start swim and is timed pretty well with regards to my build up to the Rotorua Half Ironman in December. I've told a couple of people that I'm going to do it, so now I just need to part with my cash and hit that submit button to make it real.

I've also lowered my aero bars again. It's been progressive and I've been concious of ensuring that I have the flexability in my back to make it worth the effort. For those cycle geeks out there (you know who you are) I've now got approximately 15cm - 17cm seperation between my seat and my bars, which makes my back fairly flat. As for the difference that it makes, I've only had a couple of rides 1.5hrs plus, but I'd say its about 1 - 2 kph quicker.

And lastly I've acknowledged that I'm 31 and not 21 so have taken some advice and got myself some Glycosaminoglycans (google that!) in the form of Leppin's "Ultimate Joint Formula" which will hopefully help to keep the knees going.

Which brings me to this weeks title.

My lovely wife has finally taken some time for herself and has gone away for three days with a friend of hers for some girly pampering (I gather it involves facials, hair, something called a Vinchy Shower blah blah blah) so me and the kids have been hanging out and having a blast.

Todays training was a little shorter than usual and involved my 4 year old riding his trike saying "you can't catch me!" and my two year old sitting in the pram yelling "faster daddy faster" as I ran along pushing it. It was very cool. They also helped me with some strength and speed work at the park (which involves them seeing how many pullups their dad can do with a two year old and then a four year old hanging onto his back, and sprinting around the playground chasing them). They're great training aids. For the last couple of days if ever we've had to go somewhere, Sam's run to his trike and Eve has popped herself in the pram, how much more motivation do you need! And as an extra bonus they've both gone to sleep earlier than usual and quicker than usual!

Life is good.

Stupid Lane Ropes!

2007-09-29T22:52:00.000+12:00

I used to believe that swimming was low impact. That was until I started repeatedly scraping my left hand against the lane ropes in consecutive swim sessions. I tell you what, it starts to hurt after a couple of goes. And of course as I’ve been doing it day after day, the sore on my hand doesn’t get any better. I think I’m finally getting on top of it now though, and have worked out that lane ropes are bad!

Training wise this week has been a maintenance week. Last week I worked on building up the training volume a bit, this week has been focused on keeping at the same level, with next week planned as a big week and another volume build.

I’ve started running in to the Albany Park n Ride to catch my bus into town, rather than catching the bus that stops at the end of the street. The bus from the Park n Ride is a good 15 minutes quicker (as it’s an express bus that goes down the motorway bus lane) so I get to work in an extra 40 minute run without actually adding a lot of time to my day, its all good. As is my knee still, so fingers crossed that I’m well and truly on top of it. Tomorrow I have a 1.5 – 2 our run scheduled in so hopefully that goes without a hitch, and I can start counting down to the Auckland Marathon with confidence.

Back on Track!!

2007-09-23T16:28:00.000+12:00

What a mixed week! The kids have been sick, as a result they’ve been waking up in the night, and generally been pretty grumpy. That means that I haven’t been sleeping well (or rather I have no problem sleeping, its staying asleep for longer than 4 hours without having to settle down a sick upset child which has been challenging). However they’re all on the mend now, and just as importantly (although I can’t help but think that it sounds somewhat selfish), I didn’t catch what they had!

But of course there’s still the small problem of no proper recovery sleep resulting in generally feeling SHELLED all week. But its not all bad, because this week has been significant for two very big (for me) reasons.

1. I can swim! I went over 1.5k’s continuous this week, which is pretty fantastic for me. I still find it somewhat strange to think that only three months ago I could barely swim to save myself, and now I can quite happily splash along for length after length. It’s still not pretty or fast, but I’m happy and I can see the improvements happening all the time.

2. My knee, or more correctly my ITB band, after weeks of stretching, massage, new shoes and more than a few prayers (mostly by my kids) is now officially 100% again – completely fixed! So the full program’s coming back into play again.

Coming from a period of essentially no running its interesting to see how the body copes. The fitness is certainly there, in fact my heart rate is couple of BPM lower than it was when I was running, but the muscle conditioning isn’t. My calves have been telling me to take it easy, and my lovely wife has been working overtime to ease the knots away.

But its all good, things have come right in time for the final run up to the Auckland Marathon. I still find it odd to look at my training schedule and see that I have a Marathon marked down as a “long training run”. Not so long ago something like that would have been my pinnacle event. Providing I can get a few more trouble free k’s under my belt before the end of October, I’m really looking forward to it. It’s going to be a test for the nutrition plan that I’ll use in the IMNZ run, and I also want to confirm that I have the pacing nailed down over a full marathon distance before the big day. I just don’t believe that you can probably prepare for those two area’s without having trialled it by going the distance – something I learnt in the Rotorua marathon where I basically added an hour to my time by getting both the pacing and nutrition wrong.

So now with the ITB Band problem hopefully sorted, combined with a new found stretching compulsion, the grand plan is about to get back on track. For the time being that means that a lot of the evening wind trainer sessions have been replaced by evening runs and instead I’ve reassembled my mountain bike (long story) and 20 minutes to a park and ride to catch the bus (rather than getting it at the stop just around the corner). Once day light savings kicks in (in a couple of weeks) I’ll start biking the 40 – 50 k’s (I haven’t measured it yet) to Devonport and catch the ferry across the harbour to work.

Things are certainly gathering pace, and training volumes are heading up, so the trick now really is making sure that the family doesn’t miss out.

16th September 2007

2007-09-16T21:49:00.001+12:00

This week is now officially the lightest week I’ve had yet. The schedule had factored in a slight decrease in training volume for this week on account of us moving house. But still my actual figures were well below target. And yet I feel really tired. Still the week wasn’t a complete loss and there were some good points along with the bad.

So what went right and what went wrong? I’ll start with what went wrong (because its always best to end on a positive note).

The week started with me getting up at 5am in the morning to drive for two hours to get to Auckland airport (which interestingly enough involves me driving through three cities to get there – North Shore City, Auckland City and Manukau City – who would live in Auckland?). I then caught a flight down to Wellington to spend two rather full on days relearning the art of “selling”. It was then back up to Auckland for one day in the office clearing emails, before taking a further two days off to shift houses from Whangaparaoa to Albany. The weekend has been largely spent unpacking. Needless to say this hasn’t left a lot of time for training. While I did think about asking my understanding and saintly wife if it would be OK to duck out for a few hours on Saturday, happily sanity prevailed and I kept my mouth shut (love you honey).

On the plus side, the workouts that I did get in were all really good. On Tuesday morning I managed to prize myself out of bed bright and early and got out for a run along the Wellington waterfront on what turned out to be a stunning Wellington day. The change of scenery was inspiring and the numbers of other people out running was great as well. Always having someone out ahead of you to aim for, catch and drop is very motivating for someone like me (who is pathologically competitive). My swim lesson with Hayden Woolly was really good and I’m making some definite progress, particularly in technique and efficiency. I also managed a couple of short runs (1/2 hour) and had no problems with my ITB, which is very encouraging with the Auckland Marathon just around the corner, also, even though the runs were short, I felt really strong (probably a reflection of the rest). Still early days, but it looks like the rest, stretching and massage is paying off. Hopefully I’ll be able to stretch out the distance and running time of the next few weeks.

The other positive thing is that now I’ve had a number of fairly easy weeks (unintentional, but sometimes even the best laid plans don’t work out) I’m super motivated to have a big, positive week next week. Happily next week just happens to be scheduled in as a big week, so being super motivated and super rested I’m confident that its going to be a cracker! Watch this space.

12th September 2007

2007-09-12T21:02:00.000+12:00

I started September with big plans of a fast building schedule that would peak with the Auckland Marathon in October, carry through and reach another peak at the Rotorua Half Ironman in December.

So far the plan hasn’t quite worked out. Last week was a bit disappointing as I lost two days due to work commitments, and this week is going to be a bit light as well because we’re shifting from Whangaparaoa to Albany tomorrow, which will take another couple of days out. Nevermind, its all good, I’ll just be a little more rested than I’d planned.

Monday and Tuesday this week saw me in Wellington learning how to “sell” Trusts (in a strictly ethical, needs based way of course). It was actually quite good as I had a big chat with the facilitator about sport psychology, which is something that I’m quite big on. For instance, despite any doubts I’ll never speak them out loud, and I make a conscious effort to phrase things in a positive way. Eventually you believe your own hype and its amazing what you can do.

I’m also big on visualization. When I was doing a lot of competitive white water kayaking, I would visualise every move that would be needed at each point on the river for any given event. I try to do the same kind of thing now by visualizing specific techniques and the things I need to be doing to get the most efficiency.

Wellington was nice, the weather was great and I managed to get out for a run on Tuesday morning. The sun was just coming up and I couldn’t believe how many people there were going for a jog along the waterfront at 6.30am in the morning. I don’t blame them as it was stunning. I ended up making my way up to Mount Victoria lookout which was well worth the effort. Coming down was a bit of a worry though as my ITB is still not quite right. The run lasted for 1 hour and by the end I could certainly feel the ITB again. So more stretching, more massage and more taking it easy. I really want to get it right in time for Auckland Marathon, as doing that distance again before Ironman forms a linchpin in my training plan. But there’s no point in blowing my leg to pieces, so if it’s not right I’m prepared to either not start or drop out.

The highlight of the week was catching up with the other www.alpegear.com athletes on Saturday. It was so good being able to put an actual person to the photo and blog entries. And hearing what everyone’s up to was very motivating.

Anyway the boxes aren’t going to pack themselves …

Easy Week:- 1st September 2007

2007-09-01T17:41:00.000+12:00

This week has been a very light week for me, which was quite nicely time in hindsight as it means that I’m now well rested to get into some serious training for the start of Spring (it would have been nice to think that I’d thought of that when I drafted my training schedule … but I didn’t and its just coincidence).

I started the week feeling stiff and sore, so have given myself a good telling off and committed to getting into a proper stretching regime. One thing I have been stretching though is my ITB Band. This week (on Tuesday) was the end of my three week running break that was forced on me to try and get my ITB Band right. Anyway I went for a light and short run and things seemed to be OK (although I was pretty stiff afterwards – again not enough stretching and the result of three weeks of no running).

Today I picked up some new Mizuno Wave Inspire running shoes, they’re the same as my old pair so I know that they work (when they’re not worn out that is), I got my stride re-checked anyway just to be sure. The good news was that Mizuno have upgraded their Wave range, so my shoes (being the old stock) were going cheap. The guy at the shop told me that the only real change was the colour (changed from blue to red) and the price tag. Luckily they had one pair of the old stock left in my size, so I picked up a nice new pair of shoes for $120 which is fantastic!

I’ve had a few people (mostly cycling geeks from the office next to where I work) ask me what kind of bike I use and what setup I have, questions which only a true cycling geek or trigeek would ask. The bike is basically a built up XLab time trial bike, which most people haven’t heard of, in fact I’m reasonably sure that it’s the only one like it in New Zealand. Anyway I’ve recently had cause to take a photo of my stead, so for your gear geeks, here it is and here’s the setup list.

Built up Xlab Time Trial bike
· Aero tubing (with rear wheel cutout) and 76 degree seat tube
· Specialized Carbon Tri Spoke Wheels
· A Class ALX280 rear training wheel
· Campagnolo front training wheel
· Cavello Carbon Seatpost
· 175 mm Carbon cranks with Wellego pedals
· Dura Ace Front Chainrings
· Greg Lemond Carbon Time Trial Forks
· Profile Carbon X Aero Bars with Dura Ace Shifters
· Ultegra front and rear derailer
· Sella Italia seat
· Dia Compe brake levers and Xlab brakes
· Shimano 105 bottom bracket
· Campagnolo Chorus head set
· Specialized bottle holder (on down tube), Probike Kit bottle holders behind seat
· Wireless bike computer
· Shimano Carbon tri shoes
· Full range of Alpe d’Huez cycling gear

Break Through! 26th August 2007

2007-08-26T19:56:00.000+12:00

I finally cracked it this week. At last the swimming thing seems achievable. On Monday I swam a non-stop 1000m, and really the only reason I stopped was because I had to get back to work. This is pretty big for me, as I was starting to get down about not being able to get any real distance. Now its not hard to picture myself going the full 3.8k’s, whereas previously I had a private fear of my whole Ironman experience falling over at the swim.

My knee is now much better, and I only have a few days to go before I can start running again. I’ve been resting it and doing my stretches (something which I’ve always been pretty slack at – which I have no excuse for considering my background). Its been frustrating not getting out for a run for the last week so I can hardly wait. I’ve canned my planned entry into “The Legend” run in September as it’s not very far away and my build up has been terrible.

So the next big event is the Auckland Marathon in October. This is going to be a really important test, as I messed up my nutrition fairly badly in my last marathon, and I really need to get this right before Ironman. My only real concerns at the moment are my lack of running and the possibility of my knee problem reoccurring (however I have a plan in place to stop that from happening). I’m also now planning on doing some of the “Stroke and Stride” races and the Harbour Crossing to get use to swimming in the open water with a pack of other swimmers.

This week has also been notable for the fact that I’ve finally seen some sunlight. It’s still been pretty cold, but I seems so much easier when the sun’s shinning. On Saturday I got early for a ride as the family had to be in Albany by 8.30am. The ride was a real struggle and I couldn’t understand why. I wasn’t terribly windy but I just found it really hard to get moving, to the point where I was going around 5 kph slower than my normal cruising pace! I thought that I must have just woken up weak for some reason. Anyway after about half an hour I finally heard the rubbing noise (I was going through a sheltered area with a slight tail wind so there wasn’t much air rushing past my ears). It turned out that my rear break must have got knocked or something because it was rubbing, quite solidly, against the wheel. Once that was fixed things went much better!

Today’s ride went much better (apart from the squeezie incident and sticky Leppin all over me and my bike). I past several roadies again, which always makes me feel good, but had a good dose of reality when some guy, decked out in full aero gear, including race wheels and helmet came screaming past me. I paced behind him for a while at mean 47 kph, which is a much hotter pace than I can keep up for any length of time, especially at the end of a long training ride. Common sense took over after a couple of minutes and I eased off and watched him disappear around a corner. Maybe next time I’ll get him …

Life Without Running - 19th August 2007

2007-08-19T20:16:00.000+12:00

So I’ve just finished my first whole week without running (11 days down, 10 days to go – so over halfway there). Out of interests sake my knee now feels fine, but I’m going to be good and do my time as recommended.

So now that I’m not running I’ve found myself with loads of time on my hands. I’ve managed to fill up a lot of that time with swimming, which is now finally starting to click. But in saying that I’m still struggling to get my target training hours. Never mind I’ve still got lots of time before Ironman.

Speaking of swimming I had my best session yet on Friday. As I’ve mentioned before, swimming is something pretty new for me, and is really going to be something to be gotten through more than anything else. I’ve been told however that I can string together 250m of swimming I’ll notice a quantum leap in performance and distance. And sure enough that’s what I got on Friday. I swam 250m and the only reason why I stopped was because I had to get back to work. Previously after doing a couple of laps I’ve been left feeling absolutely buggered and in fact quite down about the whole thing. But that’s changed now. For the first time I’m really confident that 3.8k’s is going to be quite doable. And with just over week of no running to distract me I’ll hopefully be able to really push the distance out.

My ride today was really good. The route I took lead me into a stiff headwind for most of the way, so while the average speed was a bit lower than usual, the work out was fantastic, and, for the first time in a long time it was actually sunny! I caught and dropped a bunch of roadies again on some hills again and I reckon I’ve got my bike setup petty much nailed (although I’m aiming to lower the aero bars down another ½ - 1 inch over the next month). One of today’s goals was to try out some new food while on the bike, so I planned the ride to climax with a series of nasty hill climbs (up Wright Road and on to Albany Heights Road for those who hang around Rodney or the North Shore). It’s basically a good 25 minutes of really solid climbing with next to no respite. I’m normally a fan staying in my saddle as much as possible (unless I’m trying to drop someone), but this certainly sees me up in on the pedals hanging on for dear life at least a couple of times.

I’ve been toying with the idea of using “One Square Meal” bars as they are packed full of carbs, protein and fats and seem like a convenient way of getting these things on board. The big question of course being “will it stay down?”

The answer, happily, is yes! So I’ll try them out some more, but with a bit of luck I’ll be adding them to my nutrition plan.

Gammy Knee

2007-08-12T14:19:00.000+12:00

In some ways I guess that its not actually all that surprising. During the last three runs (all of them 10 k’s plus) I’ve noticed that my right knee has been feeling a little sore (or rather the outside of the knee, right on top of the femur as it runs down to the knee). I pretty much ignored it the first time, as it wasn’t really all that bad and generally little aches and pains go away as I warm up. The second time was a bigger run and the knee got quite sore, to the point where it still hurt to walk the next day. So I took a week off running before going for another big(ish) run last Tuesday (I was in Christchurch for work, so ran out to see my brother and his family one night). The run started off really well and I felt really strong (as a result of a weeks running rest), then after about 2 – 3 k’s the knee started hurting again. It got a little better as I warmed up, but was pretty sore by the time I got to my brothers house.

After I’d had dinner it was down right painful to walk. It was much better by the next morning, and back to normal the following day. Anyway it turns out I’ve managed to develop Iliotibial Band Syndrome.

Iliotibial Band Syndrome is basically pain and inflammation on the outside of the knee, where the iliotibial band (a muscle on the outside of the thigh) becomes tendinous, and results in a friction syndrome by rubbing against the femur (thigh bone) as it runs alongside the knee joint. My old exercise physiology notes tell me that it’s usually caused by overtraining, worn out shoes, excessive hill running and running on a cambered surface. I’m guilty of a lot of these things. I run a lot on hills (as it gives you the best bang for your buck time wise), and I generally just run a lot (as the cardiovascular work out of running is far superior to just about everything else – again giving more bang for your buck time wise), meaning that my shoes have logged a lot of k’s and are no doubt a bit worn.

So its at least three weeks off running for me. Which actually isn’t too inconvenient at the moment, as it gives me the incentive to really focus on my swimming and log in some more rides in place of my weekend long runs (which will mean 1.5 – 2 hour TT or hill rides rather than the usually run). In some ways it’s probably better that this as happened now rather than two months down the track – which would have put a major spanner in the works and messed up my schedules.

In saying that, if anyone has a magic cure, let me know!

5th August 2008

2007-08-05T22:13:00.000+12:00

This week has been pretty good on the training front. For the first time in a while I’ve gone an entire week without being sick or tied up with work. As a result I’ve managed to get in a number of solid sessions.

In some ways this week has been targeted as a bit of a “rest” week in that for the first time in about 10 months I haven’t been for a run. Those normal run slots have been replaced by swim and bike sessions. There are a couple of reasons for this.

1. My running has really come on lately, and I’ve experienced some great gains, but it’s been 10 months and my “running legs” are well due a rest.
2. My bike’s been fairly neglected and I really needed spend some time on it especially as I’ve recently picked up some new gear, lowered the aero bars, and I need to nail down the setup.

So no running this week. I did however participate in a sack race. Yes that’s right, a sack race. It was all part of a “professional development day”, don’t ask me how sack racing fits in with professional development, cause I’m just not sure. However, never being one to miss a training opportunity I gave it my all. And I have to say that its actually not a bad workout, I’m kind of surprised that I hadn’t come across it in any of my sports coaching textbooks from when I was studying exercise physiology. I haven’t added it to my training log but maybe I should?

The week was finally capped off by an 80k ride today. We finally had some sun, and the ride was awesome. I felt really strong throughout and wasn’t overly tired at the end, I could have easily kept on going but time’s always my enemy as I have kids to entertain!

I picked up a couple of roadies about 20k’s into the ride. We had a good chat and they asked it they could jump on, so I ended up towing them along for 25 – 30 k’s. I dropped them twice going up hills (I waited once, cause it’s nice having the company). My average speed for the whole ride was 29.7kph, and my average for the flat(ish) section (about 20’ks) was 33kph, which is pretty much where I want things to be for NZIM, there’s still plenty of time so I’m pretty comfortable that I should be able to nail that down.

It’s also been a busy week on a none training, but Ironman focused front. I’ve entered the Auckland Marathon, which is a key event for me. I think that it’s really important to go into an event like NZIM knowing that you can go the distance, and do it well. So Auckland Marathon will be my second marathon. I’m not to thrilled with the idea of running with several thousand other people, but it’s the best marathon at the best time for my needs.

I’ve also entered the Rotorua Half Ironman, which again is another key event in the lead up to NZIM. I want to get in at least two half ironman distance events before NZIM. This is so that I get to go through the motions but at a slightly reduced stress level (and therefore reduce recovery time).

And lastly I got fitted for a wetsuit.

So providing I get this swimming thing sorted, everything’s on track for a great 1st March.

29th July 2007

2007-07-29T21:38:00.000+12:00

The week got off to a slow start thanks to the lingering effects of last weeks dodgy buttered chicken. But came along quite nicely in the end. My fitness has definitely moved up a notch. This is pretty common for me, I find that I plateau at a fairly well defined level, before having a sudden clear jump in fitness to a new point where I plateau again for a time. I’ve found over the years that for me, what causes the jump up to the new level is a combination of steady training climaxing in a big event or training day. And for this reason the events that I’ve got pencilled in over the next few months are really important for my overall plan. I don’t have the time to log huge k’s or big training hours, which makes getting in the events key for me.

The swimming is slowing getting better, I don’t quite get the same slow drowning feeling that I was enjoying last week, so that’s good. I also had my second lesson this week, and have been given a bunch new drills to work on. I’m a bit more confident now that I’ll get there in the end.

This weekend has been good. I have a great hilly ride on Saturday. What was really cool was that it was in the sun!! Anyway after a good warm up I rode an old 30k loop that I use to do a lot when I was road racing. It’s basically a series of steady hill climbs with one flat section about two thirds of the way through (followed by another long hill). I’ve just put my bike computer back on as I was quite curious to see how the figures would stack up. I ended up averaging 28kph for the loop which I was pretty pleased with given the constant climbing.

Sunday I had another ride planned, this time with a mate who’s also doing NZIM. Unfortunately the torrential downpour which lasted all morning put an end to that (yes I know I’m soft). It cleared up in the afternoon though, so me and the kids headed down to the park. It was cool, I spent about 30 – 45 minutes chasing my kids, as well as half the neighbourhood kids around. Really, who needs structured speed training when you have children! To make it even better I had to pick up and carry my little girl around after a while as she was getting tired and left behind, but still wanted to play. So not only did I get a speed / sprint workout, but I also got some resistance work thrown in, and my wife got to have some quite time to relax at home (as well as a couple of other parents who seemed quite happy to sit back and let me do all the work!). We certainly had some tired kids tonight, who both went to sleep very easily.

I also managed to squeeze in a more sedate 16k run later on in the afternoon, down and along the beach front. So all in all very good.

Campylobacter: 22nd July 2007

2007-07-22T20:44:00.000+12:00

Campylowhat? I’ll spare you the details suffice to say that it involves a dodgy buttered chicken and a fair amount of time in the bathroom.

The week was largely OK training wise. I’m starting to plunge into the whole swimming thing (did you spot the pun?) and got three lunch time sessions in this week. I’m still pretty bad, but feeling more optimistic that I’ll get the hang of it reasonably quickly. I also got in a run on Wednesday, although I was still a bit smoked from the half marathon last Sunday and as a result it was slower and shorter than normal. And to round things off I had the usual late nights on the indoor bike.

So all was looking good leading up to the weekend … that is until I met my wife and kids up at our local mall after work for a quick and easy dinner. That’s when the buttered chicken happened, and I only had a very little bit of it. The weekend was largely a right off with both my wife and I not great (on the plus side the kids were fine). On Saturday afternoon the in-laws offered to looked after the kids, and not being one to ever let an opportunity pass I convinced myself that I was feeling much better and headed off for a “gentle” run up the local hill.

It actually wasn’t to bad (that’s if I ignored the urge to vomit – which I managed to do). It was a fairly short run as I was feeling pretty wasted energy wise (two dry toast a cup of coffee and a sausage roll just don’t power you very far), but interestingly I ran to the top of the hill about 2 – 3 minutes quicker than normal and my heart rate was 5 – 8 BPM lower than normal, so go figure.

I’ve had of being sick, and can’t wait for summer to come around (I like the heat so much more than the cold) this week was disappointing, still there’s always next week. On the plus side I did have a bit more time than usual on my hands and finally managed to find myself a rear training wheel for my bike so I can stop stressing about wrecking my race wheels. I also had the time to replace and glue up some new tubular’s, so I’m also set for some worry free training rides.

North Shore City Half Marathon 15-07-07

2007-07-15T18:36:00.000+12:00

Just a short post to report on how the North Shore City Half Marathon went.

I have to say that I’m absolutely over the moon with how the race went. I tend to set myself three goals whenever I race, or compete in an event. The first is a basic achievement goal (say finish the race, or in this case finish in under two hours) the next is a bit more of a challenge (finish in under 1 hour 50 min) and the third is the real challenge goal (which today was to finish in under 1 hour 45 min). Lately I’ve been pretty solidly running 5min or slightly under 5 min k’s, but not for any longer 15k’s.

Anyway I was really pleased with how I’d controlled my race. I’d stayed within my target heart rate zone and the few time I went over (mostly going up hill) I picked up on it fairly quickly and managed to being the heart rate back under control. Normally (like lots of guys) I have a tendency to go out to fast and fade towards the end of an event, today was different. I ran I slightly negative split (I think, I lost track of the k’s at the start and the half way point wasn’t very clear). But the real buzz was when I got to the 1 k to go marker.

Looking down at my watch it said 1.40.20 making 1.45 possible. However the last k was over a beach front (with pretty soft sand) so it was going to be close. So with renewed focused I sucked it up and largely maxed out my heart rate. I stopped my watch at 1.45.05, close enough for me.

So I’m pretty stoked, all in all a good training day.

Swimming 14-07-07

2007-07-15T18:20:00.000+12:00

This weeks been better training wise. I’m starting to feel much better after being sick for the better part of two weeks and got in a couple of good runs during the week.

The week also saw me having my first swimming lesson. While I swim to save myself, I currently can’t do much more than that, so I figured its going to be a good idea getting some proper instruction.

I have Hayden Woolly as a swim coach and told him that I’m a blank canvas. My technique is none existent, and in general my swimming can be summed up as being terrible, so he’s got his work cut out for him. On the plus side I’m really competitive and have no doubt that I’ll get the hang of this swimming thing in no time. Also I’m old enough now that I’m largely over the fear of looking like an idiot while getting the basics right.

It was surprisingly hard and I was absolutely knackered by the end of the 50 minute session. I got filmed about half way through and Hayden asked me to do 8 lengths while he videoed me … anyway thanks largely to the worlds must inefficient stroke I just made it 6. On the plus side the major flaws are clearly obvious on the video, so hopefully I’ll be able to correct those sooner rather than later. (And no Gemma, I will not be posting that up on Youtube – it’s not pretty).

While it can only get better I have to say that the swim is the one part of the Ironman that worries me the most. In saying that I had a good chat with a guy at church today who did Ironman last year. He pointed out that you have to put tings in perspective. The swim will last between 1 hour to 1.5 hours, whereas the bike will last around 6 hours and the run between 4 to 5 hours, so really it is only a small part of the whole thing.

Still I’d better figure out how to do it.

7th July 2007 - The trouble with getting sick

2007-07-07T20:53:00.000+12:00

Well it’s been a bit of a rubbish week for training this past week. The trouble is that when you're sick, its usually a goo sign that you need to ease up (that and it just makes it down right hard to actually doing any training). I eventually managed to get out for a run on Wednesday as I was feeling much better by then. I tried to take it easy and left the heart rate monitor behind (I’m way to competitive, when I take stuff like that with me I keep trying to up the intensity), but even that easy run was a bit of a struggle – meaning that should have probably left it and instead spend another day getting better. And just to comound things work committments meant that I couldn't do anything on Thursday or Friday.

This weekend’s shaping up better. I still have a bit of a cough, but I feel 98% there. I was also lucky enough to have my sister-in-law offer to look after the kids this afternoon (my wife works on a Saturday). Meaning I had the best part of the afternoon to get some training done!

The weather wasn’t great, it wasn’t raining, but it was cold and windy. As mentioned in a previous post I’d sold a bunch of cycling gear a couple of years ago so I’m a bit short on winter gear. That’s not so bad as I can tough it out, but what is a bit of a pain is that I only have racing wheels now for my bike. They’re Specialized Carbon Tri Spokes, which are awesome wheels and super fast, but I’m paranoid that I’m going to wreck them, and on a windy day they catch the wind where there’s a cross breeze blowing. Meaning that today my plan of having a good 2 ½ hour ride was revised down to a one hour ride backed up by a one hour run.

Also as a side note I’m desperately trying to get hold of some training wheels. I’ve managed to pick up a pretty good front wheel, so just need to track down a rear wheel, I know it’s out there somewhere.

So while I haven’t been doing much training this week, I have been doing lots of entering. My grand plan involves doing a bunch of events prior to Ironman, the first one’s the North Shore half marathon next week, so I’ve entered that and I’m really looking forward to doing it – watch out for the race report next Sunday.

Entries for New Zealand Ironman itself opened on Monday, so that was the other, somewhat more exciting thing that I entered this week, things are definitely getting serious now.

30th June 2007

2007-06-30T11:20:00.000+12:00

Its been another week with highs and lows. The week started off well with a bit of light hearted competition thanks to my sisters little challenge (see previous post). I managed to get in a number of good running and bike sessions early on in the week. However I've been feeling like I was on the verge of getting sick for a couple of weeks now, and I think with the colder weather and increased training load it tipped me over and I started feeling run down and developed a sore throat by Thursday.

From experence I know that this is a pretty good sign that I need to ease up (given that I do a number of my bike sessions fairly late at night after the kids have gone to sleep and all the good TV programs have finished, meaning I often don't finish until 11pm(ish) and I'm not in bed until just before midnight, coupled with the kids not sleeping all that well lately - I've been quite tired. Yes I can hear the violins playing ...) So a couple of days off and 1 and a half good sleepin's and I'm feeling much better.

On a more amusing note my wife Helen and I went out for a "date night" on Tuesday. Helen was talking to a friend before we headed off and mentioned that we were going on a "date night". "Where are you going?" was the natural question .... "to the gym" (I take Helen to all the best places. To be fair we did go out for a nice dinner afterwards).

The gym class we went to was a "body balance" class which combines ti che, pilates, and yoga. This focused on core strength and flexibility both areas which I tend to neglect (I've spent some time as an exercise physiologist so I really have no excuse - I'm just being lazy).

So apart from getting sick tings are still going well and generally according to plan.

23rd June 2007

2007-06-23T19:28:00.000+12:00

It's been a fairly easy week this week with a couple of rest days on Tuesday and Friday. It was been good as I've been quite tired this week (partly due to my 4 year old son waking each night at around 1pm and taking some effort to settle this week).

I was up at 6.30am this morning with the kids and managed to get away just before 8am for a run. The run was a pretty good 15k hill run this which felt refreshingly easy, I was back just under an hour and a half later which was the target.

I haven't been using my heart rate monitor while running or a while, I think sometimes its good to have a break from the gizmo's and just run. One of the good things about taking a break from the monitor is that when you put it back on again you notice fitness imporvements straight away. It's one thing to for the workouts to feel easier and another to actually see the numbers.

During my run this morning my heart rate was between 5 and 10 BPM lower than what it had been previously during the climbs.

Also out of interest I had a go at getting my resting heart rate last night before going to sleep (my kids normally wake me up so checking it in the morning isn't generally going to give a true resting heart rate result - especially when you're woken up by a little hand tapping you one the eyelids and a voice saying "I've woken up daddy"). Anyway my resting heart rate is currently around 48 BPM.

Gemma's Beat the Ironman Challenge

2007-06-22T20:15:00.000+12:00

Gemma is my little sister. She's going to come along to Taupo in March to head my support crew. Being the competitive (and motivational) person that she is I found the below challenge in my email inbox this morning at work, and in the space of less than a day (thanks to the interconnected email world) there's people from Christchurch to Wellington to Auckland taking up the challenge and it all kicks off next week.

Watch this space to see how it goes, below's the challenge:

"OK so this is how it works:

We take each ironman stage; swimming, cycling and running and for every k you do in these disciplines you get a point so:
1k of cycling = 1point
1k of running = 2 points
1k of swimming = 5 points
The primary aim of the game is to get active and feel good about yourself but the secondary objective is to get more points then the ironman (no pressure Kieran).

So the whole family can play walking is included as well. However, you must be walking for at least 30mins in order to start ticking off ks. So for example, 3 trips from the office to the local cake shop to get a pie, custard square and can of coke doesn't count. For this first round I will also allow gym entries so for every k you do on the treadmill etc you get the same points as if you were outside with the rest of us non pussys pounding the pavement.

The game starts 6am on Monday the 25th of June and ends 6am on Monday the 2nd of July, everyone should be aiming for 10 points and if you get up to 25 points then you are awesome. For those who are in it to win it and beat the ironman I guesstimate you will need to clock up around 100 points.

Dean because you are special you get special rules:
1k on the hand bike = 1.5 points
1k kayaking = 2 points
No sure if this is fair but my game my rules J

I am happy to make this game a global phenomenon so feel free to forward onto any of your sports billy friends. You can also keep abreast of the ironmans progress throughout the week and post comments on his blog:

http://kieranmischewskinzironman2008.blogspot.com/

So who's in?

Gemma Deputy Vice President of Ironman 2008 supportcrew"

17th June 2007

2007-06-17T21:36:00.000+12:00

Sunday gives me another chance for some solid training, with a second fairly regular window of opportunity during the mornings between 9.30ish and 12 noon. Helen normally heads into Albany for church with the kids (I go on Saturday night to make this work). Her father’s the Pastor of a church there and they hold their morning service in a school hall, which just happens to have a shower... So I normally either run in and meet the family there, it’s exactly 20k’s, and with a good number of hills thrown in usually takes me just under two hours (my record, done the week I hurt my foot is 1 hr 50 – as a side note I’m doing the North Shore City Half Marathon next month, strictly for training of course … and I’m really interested to see how it goes). I used to get a few funny looks, but I think they’re use to my sweaty dishevelledness now.

Well the plan today was to do a bike / run brick, riding for an hour and leaving my bike at the in-laws and then running for another hour to meet the family. It was a good plan and I was looking forward to it.

Unfortunately things just weren’t going to go my way, starting at 2.30am when both my son and daughter decided to wake up at the same time. Because I know that the kids can be a handful during the day for Helen I normally get up for them during the night, and first thing in the morning. So I was up at 2.30am (4 hours after going to sleep), Eve, my 2 year old daughter settled down alright, but my 4 year old boy Sam didn’t really get settled again until 4.30am, I was back up with them again at 7am, meaning I didn’t really much of that all important recovery sleep.

Sunday morning was COLD, which again left me cursing that I’d sold most of my winter riding gear two years ago, so no leg warmers, no arm warmers and for some reason I could only find one shoe cover (I did have some other gear so I was alright once I hardened up). On the bike it was straight into a stiff southerly headwind, and my legs wouldn’t work. Cycling’s my strong point and I knew that as soon as I warmed up things would come right. Unfortunately I didn’t warm up.

The ride was an energy sapping grovel. So as I was working to a schedule I cut it short by taking the direct route, meaning that just over an hour later it was into the run.

The run was interesting as for the first few k’s I couldn’t feel a couple of my toes. After a while I started warming up and my legs began to work again which was nice. I managed to get to where I needed to be in time, but certainly not the greatest work out, and I've been sore all day since.

This evening I've spend a bit of time doing a gentle session on the indoor training and a bit of stretching, so I'll come right.

Never mind, there’s always tomorrow.

16th June 2007

2007-06-17T21:33:00.000+12:00

I got up bright and early on Saturday morning to feed and cloth the kids (or rather they got me up early …), letting my wife (Helen) have a well earned sleep in. By the time 7.30am came around you could tell it was going to be a fantastic day, cold, but fantastic.

Helen got up just after 8am (which is a pretty good sleep in at our house) to take over with the kids, and shortly after that I was out the door (I have a small window of opportunity to get out and do some training before my dear wife has to head off to start work at 10am on a Saturday).

Today was going to be my first run in 10 days following my running break due to the sore foot. The foot was feeling good, I’d just had a complete rest day on Friday so I was feeling good and revving to go. The plan was to spend around an hour running hills, which literally start with the jog up my drive. I’m a bit spoilt when it comes to hills, once I get to the end of my street the road goes up a fairly steep hill for exactly one k (I’ve measured it), then a little further on is a further climb of just over 2 k’s and then there’s some more climbing depending on which way I go.

The run was sensational, the day was cold but crystal clear, and I felt super strong. Even better my foot gave me no trouble. So 1 hour and 30 seconds later (it’s all about pacing) I was back from what worked out to be round a 12k hill run and home in time for a shower before Helen had to head off to work, and me and the kids got ready for what was sure to be a great day.

From a training point of view the run was great. With juggling family time and training time, it’s really important for me to get the most out of every workout. Today I really wanted to keep a 5 minute per k pace, to make sure that I had an even “there and back” split and that I stayed below my lactic threshold (given the first two goals this last one was just going to be a bonus due to the hills). In the end the run was so perfect that I go all the goals, and I wasn’t feeling particularly tired when I got home.

The plan seems to be working and things are on track.

14th June 2008

2007-06-14T21:45:00.000+12:00

I had a bit of a sore foot last week following a rather hilly 20k run that I normally do each Sunday. It felt a little sore after the run but nothing to bad, so I took it easy on Monday (Queens birthday weekend) with a gentle bike ride. Come Tuesday and I went out for a 40 minute run during my lunch break at work. Afterwards my foot was sore again, so no more running. I spent the rest of the week on the indoor bike trainer (yay).

This week I managed to get my bike into work (I work in the Auckland CBD). I had a few funny looks riding up the lift with my time trial bike, but then again it was one of the few times that people actually talked in the lift. At work I had a few people ask "you didn't seriously ride into work today did you?" (I live about 50k's away from work, the answer was "not yet" - it is winter afterall, so it'd be dark when I left, but I do plan on riding in when the days get longer, all part of the plan).

So I've had a good week of riding during my lunch breaks. One of my weaknesses when I was into road cycling was riding with to low a cadence, so I don't have a bike computer hooked up at the moment (because if I did I'd be too hung up on the speed and distance, and not concentrate on technique). Instead I'm just using my heart rate monitor and focusing on staying in my zones and keeping the cadence high. Seems to be working, I'm looking forward to putting a computer back on and seeing what it has to say.

Foots back to normal again as well.

21st May 2008

2007-06-14T21:44:00.000+12:00

"Hmmm Ironman's pretty expensive, and I sold most of my cycling gear a couple of years ago, maybe 2009 ..."

That was pretty much the thought that was going through my mind. I really wanted to do Ironman but its not an inexpensive undertaking. And then my wife rang me up with the great news. Alpe d'Huez New Zealand, a cycle apparel company, had selected me, along with four others, to sponsor for the 2008 New Zealand Ironman.

So no more excuses, I've got a plan, and its time to put it into action ...