Let the fun begin!

Fun?

Who calls training 20+ hours a week fun??

Honestly I do!!

Currently I am doing 15-18hrs and am loving all of it....Yes some is still hurting, sometimes others more than me ;-) but I am really enjoying it.

The last few weeks have been all about preparing my body for the long winter ahead by getting some quality k's in without the risk of injury or boredom. Andrew has been the architect behind this and he is still getting results from me that I have thought were not maybe possible at this time of year.

My most recent race was a sprint distance last weekend where I was able to turn around a deficit of 1.10min in the swim from the previous race to the most recent. For the first time in my fleeting triathlon career, I exited the water in front of my age group. WAS IT THE ROCKET SUIT??? ;-)

Below is the swim data including some bike data - had a bad day negotiating the garmin.

Swim & some bike data

From there my long course transition speed cost me the lead going into the bike and forced me to work hard on the bike to catch the leader again, which I was able to do 10k into the 20k bike ride. My legs were feeling good and I managed one of the fastest times of the day, by averaging a tad over 42kph.

Bike data

I was first in and out of T2 and ran with Stephane for the first 2k's on the run before his leg speed became more superior than mine and he ran away with the win, defeating me by approx 1 min, (My 3.42 average on the run just didn't cut it!!) The time is not accurate as my timing chip did not register for the race and have no record of my splits.

The following Garmin files shows the race, although it even had a hissy fit and dropped out at some stage. But you'll get the drift of the race speeds.

Run data

So based on these figures and not having trained for any speed I was very happy with the result.

This upcoming weekend is my final triathlon (if you call a teams race a triathlon??) before the real fun begins....

The build up to Kona.

James "superfish" Kuyper should put us in a great position leading into T1 and if I can hold my form, we should still be in a good position coming into T2 and then it is up to Cam Ward to bring us home for a great result.

After this weekend of fun, everything becomes solely focused on Kona and everything to do with Kona.

I am looking forward to pestering all my regular training partners along with finding some new ones during the cold wet winter months to enjoy the fun with.

For Now....

X-Man

Am finally finding some....

Some what??

Some of these:

No, they are not mine, and mine probably are never going to go as fast, but they have changed from these:

No, they are not mine either, but they are some serious cycling legs!!! I am just finding some decent run legs, especially at this early stage of my preparation for Kona!! My legs do not look like anything of the top pictures, however I am glad to say that they don't look like the following either!!

So back to the reason for my post, i did a 7.3k fun run a few weeks ago and punched out a 26min 14sec race placing 2nd overall averaging (3.35min k pace). This is something that I used to be able to do for a 1k max effort but to be able to maintain that pace over 7+k I was stoked. Yes, yes I know, it is not 42.2k or even 42.2k after a 180k ride, but hey we are in March and Kona is just over 200days away (at time of writing!)

After that, back at run squad on the Wednesday, we did a 5k set with 1k max, 1k solid, 1k tempo, 1k solid, 1 k max. My time for the 5k was 18min on the nose, so even with a few solid efforts I still maintained the 3.35min k pace. Following on from this I still managed to turn over 70k of running for the week. Something unheard of for me, but must say that I am loving it!!

First time ever that I would take a run over a ride. I have changed, for the better.

The other fact the I contribute to my running speed so far is my on-running shoes as they are transforming my running style from heal strike to mid foot running. Which I must say that I am loving, it has taken me a while to convert and still haven't completely, however the results are definitely showing for me.

I am looking forward to getting my new pair next week which are a more durable trainer which for a bigger guy like myself will give the shoes more longevity for training and then I can once again have a training on and a racing on, and as the motto goes, it is like running on clouds. They are definitely a shoe to try if you want to learn to run fast!!

I do thank Luke & Florian for their support and look forward to building the relationship further into the future!!

For now...

X-Man

You can keep your Sprint Distance, I am sticking with Ironman!!

So, last weekend I ventured into unknown territory, sprint distance triathlon. I can't actually remember the last time I did one of these races, prob some 10 years ago in Port Douglas....argh the memories of the nice weather, something non existent this summer here in Melbourne.

The 750m Swim, 20k Ride and 5k Run was always going to be tough for me, not as in fitness, but for speed. This rig is not built for speed!!

The new wetsuit was gold and was very happy with the swim, felt really good and was happy where I exited the water.

The ride was the ride, felt like I had nothing in the legs, however still managed an ave of 40kph, something that I do in 1/2 Ironman races anyway.

The run was about the same, broke the 20min for the 5k, but had no speed at all. At GC 1/2 last year I went 1hr 26min for the run including T2 and broke 1hr for the 15k, so it was nothing to be excited about.

I must say that I did enjoy the race for what it was, however would prefer to stick to 1/2 & Ironman distance races. I have another couple of smaller distance races before the season is out, which I will enjoy.

A massive positive that I found from the race, was that after 5min of finishing, I could have easily raced again over the same distance being confident of recording a similar time.

I ended up 6th in my a/g, a couple of minutes from 1st, so probably not a bad result on reflection.

Everything else has been travelling smoothly with nothing to report, just doing what I need when I need to right now. The program is starting to fill up which I am enjoying, getting that fatigued feeling back....

Yes I would rather 9hrs 30mins of racing compared to 1hr 5mins of racing!! I feel like I get more satisfaction from it!!

For Now...

X-Man