| So it is almost a year since that fateful day in September when I nervously attended the rego night for the 2008/09 Novice Program. I remember wondering why on earth I was about to put myself through this? At the same time looking anxiously forward to meeting the challenge of completing my first ever Triathlon. Well with the 2008/09 series over and done and with an extra six months or so of somewhat erratic training over winter, I now find myself with exactly 80 days until I make my first attempt at what is (at least in my opinion) loosely referred to as a "Sprint" Distance Tri... My aim here is to document my preparations for this 'auspicious' event and to consider the various anxieties and emotions that I am sure will arise as I get closer to 14 Nov 2009. For posterity let's call it F-Day! Of course I would value and welcome any suggestions or helpful comments as I prepare for F-Day from all you veterans out there!I am not alone in my preparations - I know there are a couple of others preparing similarly to me, but having not (yet) gained their consent I won't talk about them here. So with 80 days to go - I have started to ramp up the training and attempt to awaken the slumbering winter beast. My winter training was reasonable without making any real gains - particularly as I spent very little time on the bike! So from last Saturday I have stepped up: For the next two weeks I am trying for one long (70km ish) and two short sharp(30 +km) rides each week (one with a small (2km) run off the bike), one interval session and one long run per week and two swims of at least 2km per session. All in all - I feel that this is a good point to lift off from. All of this of course, will be foiled by the long planned family campervanning holiday to NZ 6 weeks before the event - so my aim is to get to the highest baseline I can before that time - hopefully I won't lose too much with the multitude of adventurous activities that we have planned! On return I will have a month to fine tune and mentally prepare. The accommodation is booked - a luxury Bungalow at the Holiday Park! and the transport is more or less sorted, so all that remains now is the ambitious target of 10 kilos banished prior to race day without compromising my nutrition for training! (Why do I feel that this will be the difficult part!) Already I am feeling nervously excited at what lies ahead... But then - that feeling is one of the reasons I am still here - a year after the novice program - challenging myself to step up to the next level... I say - bring on F-Day! Part 2 Phew - What a week! I didn't achieve all my training goals this week but I took a large step towards them with 5 am starts each morning and training three afternoons. I returned to Dickson intervals and Hammer sessions aswell as working on the overall food intake.Next week I will be trying to refine the program a little - adding a short run off the Hammer Session and increase the intensity a little. I will not rely on being able to get out of the office on a Friday Lunchtime for a long run (FAIL!) and go in the morning instead... Lesson Learned: This week I learned that Apricot Bars - Despite being a good energy source - are really tough to chew when cycling uphill! They can also be a little sticky to get out of the wrappers on the move! Biggest Step This week: I have finally and after much planning acquired my first swimming wetsuit... I can't wait to get down the coast for some practise at surf swimming and to try it out! Bato's anyone?????? Aims: I have one overriding aim for this tri - to finish! Having said that - I think that a realistic time for me is probably about 90 mins. I have loosely based this on 15 min Swim - 45 Min Cycle - 30 Min Run including transitions. To some this is probably not overly ambitious - for me in my first Sprint - I just hope it is realistic! 71 Days till F-Day - Nerves are still in check - work rate not too bad - food mostly good ( a couple of abberations) to echo those great words of Dory: "Just keep swimming just keep swimming, just keep swimming!" (Read cycling and running too!) Bring on F-Day! Part 3 59 Days to go until F-Day… Although with my upcoming holiday to NZ, it is actually more like 45 effective training days! It’s been a pretty good week and a half of training. The only session I have missed was last Monday when the torrential rain convinced me that Hammer wasn’t going to be on… Luckily I was right – when I quizzed Gary on Wednesday he said he went back to bed too! Despite all the flack I copped on Facebook about how Lance Armstrong would have trained (“No such thing as bad weather , just poor clothing choice” etc) I remain convinced that going out in that slop would likely have resulted in me being ill and missing more training as a result! Slowly building a good base and I am feeling fitter each week, although this can at times be counter-balanced by feeling pretty tired by the end of each week! Sunday/rest day is a blessed relief when it rolls around! Low Point Since Last Report: Getting up at 5am, eating breakfast, getting dressed and getting out the door for Hammer – only to realise that had I bothered to look at the weather 40 mins earlier I could have gone straight back to bed! High Point Since Last Report: Finding out from Danny this morning that I covered around 10 km at interval training last night!!! Yeehah! Bizarre Fact Learned: Magpies top speed is about 42km per hour – That’s the point at which I started to outrun the ones that have had a go at me this last week! This week I also got my leave request in for Fri 13th Nov to allow for the drive up to Forster. Things are moving slowly on! Excitement/Anxiety is building! Bring on F-Day! Part 4... This week has been rather disrupted. It all kicked off on monday morning at Hammer when I blew out - not just a tyre - but a whole wheel... Right now my trusty steed is in the stables being reshod and won't be available again until I return from New Zealand... :-( (I am told the new heavy duty wheel should never, ever fail!) Tuesday morning swimming and evening running continued as planned - but on Wednesday morning the heavens opened and subsequently my desire to ride 50km on the old commuter evaporated! I did however make a welcome return to Yoga on Wednesday night (to disbelief from my instructor who couldn't understand how I had tightened up so much...) Thursday morning went as planned and I will be doing a long run tomorrow morning in lieu of my usual ride... It is now one day until our holiday departure - so there won't be a lot of training (maybe a few runs and lots of stretching!) once we head off for the South Island of NZ. We do have lots of hiking and other active adventurous activities planned aswell as some down time at the wonderous wineries of Marlborough Sound. Hopefully I won't lose too much of the base I have built in the last couple of months! When I get back, it will be straight into 3 sessions a week per discipline for four more weeks before final race prep - it is all starting to come up very quickly! As of right now there is 49 days until F-Day - On return from NZ there will be 34.... I will next update the Blog in mid October - see you then! Bring on F-Day!!! Part 5 Well after a very relaxing and somewhat overindulgent holiday in New Zealand... I have now been back in to training for almost two weeks. The first week was pretty hard to find a rhythm but I am able to report that by the end of the second week back things are progressing well. We arrived back on Sunday 11 Oct and since that time I have completed 6 Runs, 3 full rides and 2 half rides (I'll explain shortly!) and 5 decent swims. This all culminated in a special trial sprint distance tri yesterday (Sat) morning during which I (and a mate who is also preparing for Forster) swam 800m in 16 mins, 21 Kms in 39mins and ran 6km in 32 mins. With all of this and noting that I completely forgot my bike shoes and had to ride in my sneakers, (not easy on cleats!) I am now confident of achieving my goal time of 1 Hour 30 mins. The question is now - how will I cope with the surf, currents and in the open water! I plan to find out on Melbourne Cup day when I head to the coast and do a swim session down at Tomakin... Half Rides - I hear you ask? How can you do half rides? - A: ride until you run out of spare tubes!!! Three punctures in the space of one ride will cut it short every time! I never did find the offending item - despite a long night of turning tyres inside out - but I have since completed a couple of full rides and the puncture hasn't recurred. I suspect this is a warning that I need to really give my tyres and rims a good check prior to race day! The other half ride was a gym based spin session in lieu of a ride as I waited to collect my bike with its all new rear rim from the shop! This week - I plan (weather dependant) to get two cycles, two swims and two runs in before attempting another trial run for the sprint distance next Saturday - It is the ultimate brick session! With now only 20 days to go until F-Day - I say bring it on !!!! Part 6 This will only be a short entry as training this week has been a bit short... After a successful trial run last Saturday I was feeling pretty good about my preparation and continued that into Monday and Tuesday getting a good 50km cycle and 2km swim under the belt. Unfortunately disaster struck on Tuesday night... During the run through's I jarred my right knee in exactly the spot where they grafted the Patella Tendon for my reconstruction a few years ago. It was really sore and I had to withdraw from any further training that night. I was now worried about whether I was even going to be able to compete in Forster. During the week, interspersed with regular ice and stretching, I still managed to get another 50km on the bike and another swim session (with band and buoy for the whole 2.7km!). On Friday I went to see the Osteo, and after some fairly painful ITB release work he agreed that I could keep cycling and swimming and that I should be fine by mid week this week to get running again but not to overdo it! Scare (touch wood) over! On Saturday I rounded out with a good 1.5km swim and 40km cycle brick (with an eye to Canberra Challenge Weekend OD) and was really happy with the times and speeds that I achieved. All in all not as positive a week as I would have liked - but I am still on track...12 Days to F- Day - and once again I say "Bring it on!" Training Complete... 2 days to go: Training complete? check, Weight lost? not as much as I would have liked - but it will do! Anxiety set in? ABSOLUTELY!!! So as I look back through the blog - there have been good weeks and bad weeks - setbacks and hurdles - but after 78 days of preparation - I am now almost there. This is where the nerves set in - particularly during the critically important packing phase - do I have spare goggles, race belt, bike shoes, runners, wetsuit, trisuit, helmet,sunnies - the list goes on and on and on!!! Who knew there was so much paraphernalia in this sport???? But the packing is now complete - tomorrow morning early comes the long drive north and then bright and early on Saturday Morning - we are off. I am very glad that there will be several other Bilbies from the 08/09 Novice program coming for the fun and I know that being Bilbies - there will be plenty of vocal support for each other. Thanks to everyone who has read the blog and chatted to me about my preparation. In particular, I would like to mention Terry Dixon for the encouragement at Thursday Morning Swimming and Tim Carlin for his assistance in devising a training plan to fit my routine... The training is now done, no point regretting anything - I figure I have done enough. Now I just have to pull it all together on the day - with hopefully no disasters (touch wood)... Good luck to all those coming to Forster and also those participating in the Triple Tri - but now with 2 sleeps to go - I say BRING ON F-DAY!!!! Race report to follow... |
