Peoples Tri, Mission Bay

1500m swim, 40km bike, 10km run. 2:39:51. Male OA: 99/124, M20-29: 21/23

Pre-race routine:

Breakfast of PB and nutella toast on the drive into the race site. Arrived at 5:50, about 10 minutes before the roads closed. Set up transition, had a technical stop and then proceeded to hang around until the start at 7:05

Swim 1500m, 28:47

Course:

3 Laps of a 500m triangle

Comments:

A good swim, quite a bit of contact for the first lap. Was well and truly in the washing machine until rounding the 2nd buoy, at which point it started to spread out a bit. Got a knock to the head early which knocked off my right eye goggle so swam most of lap 1 with one eye. Laps 2 and 3 were relatively uneventful. I concentrated on keeping my legs high and a nice long stroke, it seemed to work

What would you do differently?:

Swim more. I know that I'm capable of faster times than this. But from the training I've done its as good as I could expect.

Bike 40km, 1:12:42

Course: 

4 Laps of a 10km circuit along Tamaki Dr. Flat course, smooth roads. Other than a 180 deg turn at each end no reason for slowing down. 

Comments:

                     

Not a lot of strategy on this course, just get into the right gear and keep the power on. Focused on keeping my cadence between 80-90rpm, which seems to be a bit of a sweet spot for me. This resulted in speeds in the mid to low 30's. Rode hard, but within myself. Had a first Gu at 15km in, 2nd at about 35km, drank about half a bottle of water throughout the ride.

What would you do differently?:

Drink more, at least 1 more Gu. Pacing was pretty good I thought.

Run 10km, 54:22

Course

2 x 5km out and back along Tamaki Dr

Comments:

                           

The plan was to run within myself, walk thru the water station, and pick up the pace in the last km or so. That's pretty much how it worked. Started out fast, as I tend to do after a bike, was through the first 2km in 10 minutes. Slowed up the pace a bit into more of a jog, and ran most of the way at about 5:25-5:30/km. In the last 1500m tired to 'push the go button' and picked up the pace.

What would you do differently?:

If this had been an A goal race I could/should have pushed harder here. Definitely had another 2-3 minutes in me. But as a build up event to the half Iron, it went pretty well.

Post race

Warm down:

Water, and lots of it.

What limited your ability to perform faster:

Honestly I don't think I could have done much better on my current level of fitness. I beat my best case scenario by 10 minutes. To improve over all, I need to swim much more, run more, spend more of my time biking at a higher effort, and most of all weigh less. I've made progress this year, but I'm still about 12kg away from fighting weight.

10 Months of consistency

Here we have my training log (total hours per month) from January to October for 2011 and 2012 side by side. It's very easy to see why I have improved over the last 10 months.

point 1. The volume is higher. Only one month this year has less than the highest volume I managed in 201. And of course, that was a work enforced rest period in the middle of the year. which was not a bad thing to have, allowing me to refresh a bit before getting in to the serious HIM training in the 2nd half of the year.

point 2. Consistency. 2011 was up and down constantly in the training I did. This year, it's been consistent work, week in week out, that has resulted in a nice and steady training load.

point 3. No injury. It was August/September last year that I developed my calf injury, which is why the training fell away so drastically. Whilst this year has not been perfect, I have listened to my body, and taken a few days completely off, or up to a few weeks off running as required. This has allowed me to better manage my injures and keep a consistent training workload throughout the year.

And what has happened?

Well I am preforming better than ever before in all 3 disciplines.

Swimming, this has been my weakest in terms of training effort. I have not been consistently swimming enough per week. I should be doing at least 3 swims a week, which I have not. As a result I have not improved as much as I should have. What has gone well however is I have consistently swum every week. in 2011 I would go weeks, even months without hitting the pool. That has not happened this year.

Biking, I'm going more often, and further every time. My endurance has improved. I can now do 3 + hour rides without much bother. My speed has also improved. I am a long way from fast, but I can now average much higher speeds than before. My weakness is still hills. That is something I need to address, and in the future will be adding regular hill sessions to the weekly schedule.

Running, I have changed the way I train here drastically since 2011. Going from 3 runs per week, (2x10km, 1x15km) to using the 1-2-3 program. I have also experimented (and continue to do so) with using a run/walk technique to a) help protect my calf and b) help control my heart rate. And the increased frequency seems to be working. My training runs, in aerobic heart rate zones, are now faster than ever. And despite having a much less than ideal build up, and using a run/walk plan, this year I took 7 minutes off my PB half marathon time. As I continue to slowly build up my running volume, I am expecting more and more improvements.

Overall I am in the best shape of my life. My weight is under control, consistently dropping, and the lowest it has been since high school. And my fitness is the highest it has been, and continues to increase. I'm beginning to feel more and more confident about January's HIM. And if I continue to improve at the rate I have been this year I am getting excited about what 2013 will bring...

New Toy!

Need I say more?

Well she's a 4 year old Avanti Kona TT bike. She's an aluminum frame, with carbon forks, and is sporting shimano 105 gear all around.

I'm excited.

October Training Log

Another solid month of training. Up to 40 hours for the month, so over all things are on track.

Running wise, the run/walk program seems to be working well so far. By far my biggest running month ever, (and fastest average pace) and injury free.

Cycling, Well average, I need to focus on ramping this up over the next 2 months.

Swimming, poor. Not enough. Only 6 swims in the month is not good enough this close to the HIM. I really need to focus on increasing my frequency over the next few weeks.

For the next month my goals are:

Running, essentially repeat October. Things are going as well here as they have for a long time.

Biking, More rides, and more effort during rides. Still cruise too much. Also planning to change one of my mid week rides, to a longer, hilly ride now university has finished.

Swimming. Hit the pool more. Swim for longer each time (2,500m + sessions) And start open water swimming once a week. Going form 1000m swims, to 2000m over the next 2 months.

Waitakere Half Marathon, 2012

My impromptu HM on the weekend went surprisingly well (by my standards). The lead in would have to be close to the worst possible I could have devised. Nothing resembling tapering or peaking for this one. The only allowance I made was moving my long bike ride from Saturday morning, to Friday evening. And then Saturday, the night before, was a BBQ for my girlfriends birthday, so late night and a few beers/rums consumed... (carbo loading right?)

Anyway, on race day I started too far back in the field, so lost a bit of time weaving through the traffic. After a few kms was able to get into my rythem. I continued with the walk break, calf protection, strategy I've been using and it went ok. I took a short walk break, about a minute, ever 3km. Until I started to fade in the last 5k where I switched to ever 1.5km. 

Anyway, I ran at a 'higher than LSR' pace, but not an 'all out race' pace, and ended up finishing in 2:03:09. which gives me a new PB of just over 7 minutes. (i think that shows how soft my previous best was, as opposed to how well I went this time tho)

I finished, 127/226 over all, 98/145 males and 17/29 in the M18-29 age group. GPS can be found here

All and all, I'm quite pleased with things, I'm definitely running as well as I ever have, and this was a good milestone on the way to the HIM in January. 

September Training Log

A good solid month of training. Despite missing the first week and a bit of the months runs (due to the calf twinge from the end of August) this was my 2nd highest volume month ever. About 36 hours for the month. Up slightly from 35 in August.

After the short running break I've changed my strategy  and returned to the run/walk idea I was using earlier in the year. And it seems to work ok. I've been doing runs, at average paces that I'm very happy with. It's not ideal, and I would rather run non stop, but I think run/walk might be the best way to get the the start line of Ironman Auckland injury free.

Biking has gone ok, after a relatively light august I'm back up to the sort of volume that I should be doing. And swimming is the same story as normal... I need to do more of it. I'm not loosing any swim fitness, but I'm not improving either. Which I need to do before January 20th.

For next month I'm looking for a bit of an increase. Aiming to be back above 40 hours for October as I continue to build towards the HIM.

A mid month update

Well so far so good for the month of September.

As I said last post I twinged my calf towards the end of August, so had a few weeks off. But I am now back into running (admittedly using a run/walk technique) regularly. And hitting the right sort of numbers. I have found however I have been going surprisingly well using the run/walk thing. So as I'm training for a HIM, where in all likelihood I'll be doing some walking I've decided to play around with the run/walk thing (especially on my long runs) with a plan of using it in the HIM. 

Swimming and biking are going well. I'm still seemingly unable to get myself to the pool 3 times a week, which is something that I need to address. But I'm still heading towards the most swimming for the year. Biking is going very well. Getting in all my workouts (not all as fast as I'd like) but this is also likely to be a years highest.

So bring on the next 10 days of workouts, and lets see if I can carry on with the good work I've started.