No Training This Week

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)

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

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!

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

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!!!

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

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