Trains, Travels

So here I am a few days into my next 3 week training block and to be honest I’m stuck for things to write about. Well technically I’m stuck for new or different things to write about and I’m lacking in new pics for the site. Really this is just to warn you now that you may experience a sense of deja vu during the course of this post.

It’s funny how training ideas evolve during their execution. I came out here with a notion of a basic week of training week in, week out. Then I planned in bigger weeks, along the same structure, but doing more. Which led onto a weekly timetable for the whole of the next year. Now as I execute the first basic week of this training block I find myself planning my daily hours and how this fits around the races I have each weekend. It’s not quite as simple as I imagined.

It has however left me with a lot to consider over the past few days. I’ve advocated a plan of racing a lot, believing it helps eliminate my race nerves, provides good intense training and is a chance to see new places. The flip side of this is it disrupts the training program. You obviously lose a day or some aspect of a day to a race, but what you really have to factor in here is the travel. For example the Port Macquarie Half requires a 7 hour car trip each way along with spending the weekend there. When I plan a big week straight after it I’m losing 7 hours on day 1, that’s hard to make up (though the extra rest time is perhaps a bonus).

It looks like Port has become a solo trip too with the others I knew who were doing it pulling out. Work and life easily make it hard to train and race, I’ve experienced this myself, but you start to forget this when your full time. After all training and racing pretty much is life, if it’s not those it’s eating and sleeping! Being a solo trip also is a reminder of the financial cost of racing, motel rooms, travel expenses, food… It soon adds up to an expensive weekend away.

I think I mentioned a article by Gordo a while back on what was needed to live the pro-athlete lifestyle. He talked of the travel and time impact of races on training and how this can disrupt consistency. Similarly the financial impact involved and the money needed to live as a full time athlete. It’s an interesting read and over a month into the life style I’m starting to appreciate the points much more. I’d regard the Gold Coast as my perfect training location, whilst back home in the UK is the cheap training base. I’ve developed a schedule aiming at consistency over the long run and now I’m reviewing my race and travel plans.

Taking the training disruption and the financial impact, especially as travel cost spiral I’ve slightly altered my schedule. I’m dropping the two Challenge Series Olympic races, as each would provide a weekends interruption to my training and a fairly expensive trip. A more difficult choice, but ultimately sensible one is to also drop plans for the Busso Half-Ironman next May. Financial and logistical issues of moving all my stuff to WA then flying home from there for Lanza aside, with 7 weeks separating Ironman Oz and Lanza I don’t need a race in there. This probably means I’ll come home a bit earlier and head out to Lanza 3 weeks before the race now.

Whilst I’m lightening the load of my racing here I’m still considering what I do with the summer back in Europe. After Lanza I have the whole of June to train in before Roth in July. Then if all has gone to plan it’s time to recover and build towards Hawaii. I’m thinking of a training trip to France, 3 weeks out there in the mountains would be good. Nothing definite in mind yet though. I guess I’ll see how things are going, but if anyone has thoughts on doing some big training during the June and August period I’d be interested to hear. I am considering the Ironman Germany 70.3 in August just to see how I’m going, but if I have the Hawaii slot I’ll not compromise training for that race. I might consider a UK Half in that time if there are any, it should work out cheaper.

As scheduling seems to be the topic of the day I also noticed that the ITU World Long Course is on the 25th of October, far closer to Hawaii than I thought. I may have to start reading up on approaches to doing two long course races in quick succession, I think TeamTBB have some views on that. Not ideal, but if things work out I’ll be doing both. I vaguely entertained the idea of going for a slot for the ITU Worlds on the Gold Coast too, but I’m not sure I can compete with those short course guys! There’s time to reconsider that next year though, I’m likely to be here when the race is happening.

What do you know, a lengthy post anyway. I was going to write up my long ride from the other day. Back through Murwillumbah, down through a place called Mooball and back up the coast. Some quiet roads, beautiful scenery and nice little towns with enticing coffee shops. Plus a vicious headwind and some of the worst road surfaces I’ve been on here. I’m going to save it all though, my plan is to redo the ride when I’m back from WA and take my camera. There’s some fantastic views, not just on the coast but inland in the cane fields. A long ‘easy’ ride with stops to take pictures and definitely checking out a coffee shop or two along the way.

We are out of coffee here, well there is instant if you count that! I may have to squeeze a coffee shop detour into today’s plans and probably a trip to the stores to get some more. Some things are essentials to the endurance athlete!

No, I’m not quitting the 1 year plan and heading back to real employment, but today is the last day of easy week. From tomorrow it’s back to the basic week for 2 weeks and then another big push week before I head into my taper. So I’m trying to make the most of it before I get back into solid training. I think a final cruise to a coffee shop in the afternoon may be in order. It’s a beautiful sunny day here and the whole week promises more of the same. Can’t wait!

I’ll keep this post relatively short, been blabbing enough lately as it is. Recovery week seems to have worked. I’m having to hold myself back on the bike a little at the moment reminding myself I’ve 3 weeks of hard work to come. My legs don’t feel entirely dead on the run, which is a bonus in itself. I have plans for a lot more running over the coming weeks so it’s good they’re at least starting out fresh. Swimming continues much the same as before, my fitness is improving as I can knock out 4K sets day in, day out. My aim for the next few weeks is to take that improved fitness and work harder in the water.

One of the challenges of the next 3 weeks is that each week ends on a race. So to hit the goals with a race and some travel in there will be a bit trickier. Next weekend I race at Noosa, one of the more famous olympic distance races. However like many of these big races numbers are so high that drafting is a big issue. For me it’s a C race I’m doing to experience the event and be able to say I’ve raced Noosa. As such I’m going to race on my training wheels and take the opportunity to collect some power data from a race. Who knows where I’ll come, but I’ll enjoy a weekend away, training on the Sunshine Coast.

Following Noosa I then have Port Macquarie Half-Ironman, as with the Gold Coast Half I don’t intend a proper taper. I’ll cut volume a little on the Friday and Saturday so I’m not entirely exhausted. I’ll race Port in full race set-up as a practice run for Busselton. My goal? Not to have a flat and so beat my time of last year! Breaking 4:30 would be good though, if I was greedy maybe a top 5 in my age group there. Travelling back from that race will be a bigger issue, it’s a 6 hour journey and likely to happen on the following Monday. Effectively taking 1 whole day out of my big week! I’ll sneak in a workout before we leave and something when we get back, then it’s hard training everyday.

I’ll finish my big week with a local sprint race. Should be good fun. That’s fun in the sense of hurting a lot! A part of me was tempted to race it old school in speedos! Fortunately a bigger part of me has more sense. It’ll start the last big day of training with a really intense session, which I’ll follow up with a few hours on the bike and a bit more swimming and running. If all goes to plan I’ll hit over 40 hours again in that last week.

So some challenging times ahead, but that’s what I’m here for. There’s a few things I’ll be working on to help support the goal.

• No internet in the morning - I waste too much time when I could be getting to the pool.
• No more Klondike - stupid solitaire game on the ipod! Once I hit $10000 that’s it I’m done!
• Get to the pool as soon as possible after breakfast - by not doing number 1 this should be easy
• Take an afternoon nap when you can - yeah, I know it’s a tough life
• Afternoon stretching sessions before that nap - really tough.
• At least one 5K swim set a week, with more in my big week.
• At least one 6 hour ride a week, with 2 in my big week.
• Lots of running, but a little bit more quality each week.
• Run (more) off every bike - it seems to be working.

There’s plenty to do and lots to achieve. I hope that I’ll come out the other side of these 3 weeks in better shape than I went into Switzerland. Then I execute a good taper and on race day in Busselton it’s good-bye 9:40s, hello 9:20s.

Not so short after all! Easy week has been good, I’ve indulged myself a lot as I know it’s back to the ‘monastery’ for the next 3 weeks. Lots of food, a few kit treats and back to work to earn them. I’ll just mention my first trail run from the weekend - it was great fun. A lot more than on the road, even if I did manage to trip up once and cut my hand! All good though and it really works your leg strength. The plan is that once I’m back from WA, Pete and I will be regularly hitting the trails to work on run strength. A bit more variety is always good and if it makes me stronger, even better!

P.S. New shoes number 2!

Something different to usual, no training a straight day off and a bunch of pictures to accompany it. Thursday was my full recovery day, a chance to relax and forget about training (well mostly). So I headed off up to Brisbane for the day for a little bit of shopping and to see the sights.

The great thing about a recovery day - I got to have a lie in and didn’t set the alarm for the usual 5am. What isn’t so good is you become habituated to waking at certain times anyway so I was still up pretty early! We’d had a massive storm yesterday afternoon which stopped me going out on the bike and originally I’d planed to make up for it before I went to Brisbane. It’s easy week though so that plan soon got dropped, the weather has been surprisingly cold of late (for the region) - a bit too British for my tastes. Instead a leisurely breakfast and then walk to the station.

I spent the morning shopping. I had a couple of specific items I wanted to get hold of. Firstly some trail running shoes ready for the weekend, my current pair of Salomon shoes are pretty much on death’s doorstep so a nice new pair of XT Wings was in order! They’re surprisingly hard to get hold of over here, I don’t know anywhere on the Gold Coast that stocks them. Fortunately there’s a store in Brisbane which carries them so that was my first stop.

I don’t know what it is about the store, but it seems to attract staff who like to tell you how good they are at racing. Last year I had a long discussion with a kid which mostly involved telling me how my race bike wasn’t that good, how his sponsored bikes were amazing and how good he was at racing (somehow without giving any specific results). This time another kid told me about some of the amazing races he’s done. To be honest, could be the same guy, I don’t remember him that well. Anyway the net result was a new pair of bright red shoes!

Shopping done I treated myself to a big lunch which did involve New York Baked Cheesecake. My last experience of lunch in Brisbane had not been so good, at least this meant I knew which restaurant to avoid. I tried a place called Milano’s in the middle of the main pedestrianised street in Brisbane. It’s pretty good, not that cheap, but the food and coffee was excellent. Especially that cheesecake!

Then I walked over to the South Bank to exercise off the food and do the tourist thing. Brisbane South Bank is very nicely developed with an attractive Arbour walkway stretching from its museums to the attractions of the South Bank.

I did deviate off to visit the 2XU store. Yep, a whole store just for the 2XU brand, all very boutique like and a little sterile to be honest. Still I got a new race top whilst there which will get a test run in Noosa next week.

Given it’s a few kilometres out of the city to the nearest beaches they decided to build one on the South Bank. Seems it’s pretty popular too, though really if you want the beach that much you’ve got the Gold and Sunshine Coasts on your doorstep.

Ever since London built the London Eye the whole ferris wheel thing seems to have really caught on. So here’s Brisbane’s answer to it. I didn’t go for a ride myself, instead I opted for the budget tourist attraction of a City Cat Ferry ride. $5 for as may hours of riding the ferry as you can take.

I travelled east towards the mouth of river, a 90 minute round trip roughly. There’s plenty to see, though I’m sorry to say I didn’t take photos of the nude woman on the back of an expensive boat. She didn’t seem at all embarrassed to be caught naked, in fact quite pleased. However I want this blog and my flickr stream to remain PG!

Like most city riversides there’s a lot of wealth on display and living right on the bank doesn’t come cheaply.

The CBD is modern with lots of tower blocks in metal and glass. Like most of the eastern half of Brisbane I just passed through on the boat, not stopping off. There looked to be some quite upmarket restaurants in the region though, it out of my price league now!

Once schools were finished apart from numerous children commuting home by boat you started to see groups of rowers out training on the river. A few got a little close to the ferry dock prompting some choice words from the ferry pilot.

I finished the day with a second helping of Cheesecake at a coffee shop. Have to say I was slightly disappointed with both cheesecake and coffee this time. Partly I think from a bit of an overload of sugary foods that day, my body isn’t used to that! Then it was back home on a packed commuter train with no free seats, just like the old days!

It was good to have a change and I’ve come back from it feeling refreshed and eager to get back into training again. I slept well last night, in fact I overslept my late alarm! Once I was up it was quickly out for a run to the beach in the new shoes. They’re designed for off-road and certainly felt a little stiff for the pavement, but they went well. Can’t wait to give them a proper trial in the trails around Nerang tomorrow, should be great.

There’s something about easy weeks where my mind seems to relax and rather than having loads of time to get on with everything I drift along. No pressure to train hard equates to just no pressure at all. So much as I thought I know, I’ll post a months review exactly 1 month into my trip here it gets slightly delayed.

But here it is.

So far so good… The positives massively outweight any negatives I might have. During my big week with the additional stress of fitting in long hours of training and just keeping going I’ll admit there were times I missed my home environment. Without the added stress all of that just goes. When it comes down to it I’d much rather the stresses of endurance training than office life anyday too!

Whilst it’s more than a month since I left work and became an athlete, it’s only since I’ve been in Australia that I’ve fully been ‘living the dream’. As a lifestyle I love it, my time is my own to manage (note to self - need to get better at this), I spend many hours outdoors and I get to eat loads! Sure I also spend a lot of my time worn out, suffering on the bike as mates put in attacks or staring at a black line on the bottom of a pool.

Day to day life is pretty easy, partly because of the excellent homestay I have here. When I’m not training there’s the usual things that need to be done, but a lot of concerns like food shopping are taken care of! I help where I can, but when others go off to fulltime jobs and I have many hours of the day free you can’t help but feel a little guilty!

My life really does come down to just swimming, biking and running. I don’t see this becoming boring anytime soon. In part this is what the recovery weeks are for, it’s not just my body that needs to recover, but the mind too. Stepping away from obsessive tracking for a week and indulging a little allows me to reset ready for the next big block of training. Once I’m in that block life is a little monastic, leaving the house to train otherwise simply eating or resting. I love being in that highly focussed state, working towards my goals. I love logging the workouts and tracking results and slowly seeing (and feeling) the effects of training. Probably the greatest return from this lifestyle is the sense of achievement when hard training translates to greater fitness.

It’s not all isolation and vows of silence though. I was fortunate enough to meet some great guys on my last trip out here and to have a fast track to training groups. I love training with others, especially if they’re a little bit stronger than me. It pushes me along and keeps me honest. When you ride with somebody else you don’t want to be holding them back so I’ve been dragged up the side of mountains when my legs didn’t really want to go. Then again I also enjoy the lulls that occur where you chat whether it’s just more training talk or something else. Riding 500km a week solo gets boring at times whatever the scenery.

Of course one of the reasons I chose Australia was the scenery, you have the beaches and the bush. All of this with a nice sunny climate so I could leave all those UK layers at home. Whilst last week presented a few more grey skies than I like to see largely it hasn’t disappointed. Things are still warming up too, summer is only just arriving. I am considered a bit of a freak by my family for my love of hot weather; I can’t wait for the temperature to reach the 30s!

If I’m going to mention negatives here than it has to be the glass on the roads. It’s a bit of a Gold Coast thing, but it’s everywhere here and sooner or later you’ll puncture. On a personal level the affinity mosquitos have for my blood and my reaction to their bites is a pain too. And there’s the Magpies, how could I forget them, I’ve even had the pleasure of an attack as I walked back from the coffee shop. I guess I should be pleased that so far I’ve not encountered anything venomous or that can eat me.

Whilst I’m a big fan of all things Australian one conclusion I have reached is it doesn’t necessarily have to be in Oz. In terms of my training the most important aspect of this trip is removing myslef from the distractions of my old environment. More than anything else this has facilitated the changes necessary to train to the best I can. I’m not wasting time on TV anymore and the internet is still time consuming, but nowhere near as much. I sleep longer hours getting to bed early and up with the sun. It’s hard to make these changes if you stay in the same environment as before, moving away makes them seem trivial in comparisson. I’ll be back in Europe next year and I hope that good training habits will stick and some long training camps abroad will keep things going.

To save you all from too much rambling I’ll draw things to a close. It’s going well, training and life in general. I’m loving every minute of it and feel very fortunate to be in a position to do this, especially as you watch the news of recession and economic crisis. I don’t think about it too much, but right now it’s hard to imagine returning to an office job sometime in the future. Discussing it over massage yesterday I know realistically I can’t reach the level of a top pro, I’ll never make money from just being a triathlete. It’ll be interesting to see how close I can get to the pros when I live and train like them though. I’m not going to regret taking the chance on finding that one out.

P.S. New race shoes!

Yeah this isn’t the one month review I said I’d be posting, that is coming honest. However I came up with a fairly smart way to get my training plans online for those who like that sort of thing to see. Google Docs spreadsheets! I’m sure I could come up with a better route, but it seemed a reasonable way to go. So here is my basic week, recovery week and weekly structure for 2008 and 2009.

Hopefully the ironman training geeks will enjoy this post at least.

The big week is over. My first 4 weeks of training here is done and I’m looking forward to the easier load of a recovery week. If you don’t have much interest in reading about my training, this isn’t going to be a post for you. As it’s one month here tomorrow I’ll be writing a more general one month in post in the next few days. Having just completed the first big week of training, a satisfying 40 hours of swim, bike and run that’s today’s focus.

A while back I wrote about the basic week and how I’d be sticking to that as the core of my plan. I spoke of not fussing too much over the details and intricacies of the plan. Since then I’ve plotted a basic week (and adjusted so it’s not quite the same as the last one I posted), then I’ve planned my training from my arrival in Australia, through to the World Long Course Triathlon in Perth next year. I broke training down into cycles of roughly 2 basic weeks followed by one push week. Each cycle then finishes with a week of recovery to let the training sink in. When I come up with a better way to get all this online than PNG files I’ll put a page up with it on. If anyone has some decent HTML for year and week planners I’d love a copy.

Back to the past week. It’s had its ups and downs both physically and mentally. I’d mentioned how previous big volume efforts had worn me down and the same happened here. It takes increasing discipline to get out the door when you’re tired. Fortunately with Kona having just happened I’ve got a lot of motivation from reading athlete blogs and listening to podcasts. In fact as I finished up my last run of the week I thought how I want it more than ever now. For all the mental lows, which to be honest weren’t that bad, I’ve finished this block more motivated!

Weather this week has been a little mixed. Always warmer than back home, but with showers and storms interrupting things. That in itself can be demotivating, I came here to get away from all that and train in endless sunshine! However I somehow managed to dodge the worst of the rain, never really getting wet except at the pool. In fact the only time rain had an affect was one swim session where the temperature dropped and it tipped down. I kept on going to my 4K goal for the session, got out and discovered the shelter I’d put my bag under wasn’t so sheltered. A soaking wet towel and trainers full of water aren’t the best when you’re freezing!

All that said when the sun has been out the weather and environment can be a great source of motivation. Saturday morning’s group ride soon became a solo effort as everyone cancelled. Nothing to do with me honest! So I decide to ride out down to Fraser Drive and then take a right which I’d been told led to some good rides. The first hour riding into the wind was a slog and I really didn’t want to be out there. Turn right at the top of Fraser Drive, descend and suddenly the wind didn’t matter so much.

I rode alongside a large, winding creek and over rolling hills towards a town called Murwillumbah (I have trouble with that name!) The sun was out, the roads were quiet and when I got there Murwillumbah turned out to be a picturesque little town rather than the bland designer village with strip mall I’d imagined. Unfortunately whilst long training rides let you see lots of an area, you don’t often have a camera to share what you see. Try to imagine an older, picturesque little town with nice little coffee shops that I might have stopped in had I not been alone and focussed. I rolled out of town and into the sugar cane fields to the south until I hit the half time.

So retracing my route should be straight forward right? It would also give me a decent ride without too many hills in. However just the other side of Murwillumbah I met 5 guys working together and playing sprint for the bridges. I picked up the pace and hooked on the back till we hit a hill and then I went for it. A burst of power and I was leaving them behind. A few minutes of climbing and I was thinking that I didn’t remember this descent coming the other way. A few more minutes and I was certain I was climbing up to Tomewin, which would get me home, just with a few more Ks climbing than planned. Having attacked these guys I couldn’t let them catch me so it was a tough hill climb all the way as the lactic acid burnt in my calves!

Let’s just say I felt the effects of that little bit of showing off today. This time I wasn’t alone having arranged to ride with Pete. He’s a solid biker and will attack climbs head on; also he had fresh legs having ridden twice in the last 2 weeks! On the other hand I was on my seventh ride in as many days and pretty tired. He dragged me up Springbrook, well to be honest I didn’t see much of him on the climb! I couldn’t match his attacks and just worked at the best power I could. Having up the road help motivate me to work the climb and after 15 minutes my legs started to get into the swing of things and I picked up pace. We rode up to the Fudge Shop rather than all the way to the top then headed back home.

I was glad to have made myself push through the fatigue and get something out of this. Chatting with Pete about training and how our heart rate responded on the bike was interesting. I’d found as the week went on proper, long climbs were the best way to get my heart rate up above 120 beats on the bike! Otherwise on the flats it was hard to get my legs to do the work needed to go beyond that point and it’s not like I was dawdling all the time. Pete will be helping in my recovery with a massage next week and then hopefully we’ll be running some local trails next weekend.

That’s the start of ‘The Loop’ as I’ve imaginatively dubbed it. It’s a 2.7 km hilly circuit just outside the house that now forms the basis of my brick runs. All this week I have run 2 laps of The Loop off the back of each bike (well, 1 lap on easy bikes) no matter how tired I felt. I’ll be going to 3 laps for my basic week from now on and 4 laps in the next big week. After a couple of weeks of adding brick runs off every bike I think I’m starting to feel the benefit. Just one other thing to say about my running. Combining these bricks with my normal run training has led to a massive 140km of running this week! I’ve not done mileage like that in a long time and my legs held up fine. We’re not talking sprinting here and I’ll admit the quality may have dropped towards the end. It feels great to have put down that much distance though and to come out the other side still feeling pretty good. It’s another confidence boost and motivator moving forward.

Bringing this all to a close it’s been a really positive first 4 weeks of training. I’ve raced twice and done quite well even without full tapers. I’ve kept the hours up well and executed a good push week. You can look back on things and think I could have gone harder here or I wasn’t trying there, but that’s always the case. There’s been the volume I wanted and in that I’ve put in some decent intensity. It’s been challenging in places and I’ve been pushed at times but it’s all good. I’m entering recovery week feeling fitter and more motivated than before. I get a week now to refresh and take on board what I’ve worked at so far.

It’s either my equipment or me. I was going to moan about some of the more negative aspects of life at the moment, then realised I’d essentially be a whinging pom. I’ll leave the whinging to the Aussies I think and stick to the cost and effects of training at the moment.

I vaguely remember grumbling that having switched to full-time all of a sudden equipment seemed to be failing. I’d not really be so bothered, but the more it goes wrong the more I have to spend! Next week sees the bike go in for a service, it’s done the mileage and needs it. The service itself is cheap and having a real bike mechanic look over it gives peace of mind. It’s the parts though, new chain and brake blocks at the least. To be honest before I left I’d noticed some teeth on the chainring were starting to show signs of wear. A new chainring is a bit more than I’m budgeting for though!

Off the bike and the temperamental Powertap USB connector has gone from temperamental to deceased. I did partly contribute to it’s final state a few days of complete failure getting it to work drove me to hack it apart to check the connections. Those USB plugs are pretty neatly packaged I can tell you, you really have to hack at it to get in there. So now I ride with power, but can’t download or track the data. Frustrating, but not much I can do about it, a new cable is on the way from Wiggle (it’s cheaper and easier to import from the UK!)

Whilst I had my credit card to hand I ended up ordering a new pair of shorts as well. There’s a hole in the pair I crashed in, nothing too bad, but I’m not convinced my repair skills are up to the job. I relearnt to stitch up in the mountains when I kept sticking crampon points through expensive trousers. Sewing lycra though is a whole new game! I’ll give it a go, I’m not wasting a decent pair of Assos shorts over a tiny hole.

So there’s been a bit of spending I’d not really anticipated, but I’m fairly happy I’m still comfortably within budget. Life is pretty chap for me right now, outside of rent and food I spend maybe $4 a day! That’s the pool entry fee and I can sign up for a 6 month membership which will work out at less than $1 a swim the amount I go. Coffee stops on rides are rare and somehow I’ve yet to have to pay for one; my turn will come though. I’ve yet to indulge in that New York Baked Cheesecake I got so addicted to either. On my way back from the pool yesterday I was listening to an old interview with Jonathan Vaughters, Director Sportif of Garmin/Chipotle. He described the life of a procyclists as a bit like a monk, it occured to me that’s how I’ve been living the past 4 weeks.

Today is day 5 of my first big week. It’s early in the morning and it seems pretty clear that my mate is not going to the pool as was planned last night. I had some vague notion of tagging along for a double swim day, but looks like that won’t be happening. So far I’ve hit 24 hours of training in my first 4 days and I’m pretty happy with that. It didn’t start out easy, the 10k race sat in my legs for the first 2 days along with soreness from my road rash. Even now I’m getting twinges in my right leg more from the bruising than anything else. I’m having to be wary with running though, just in case the higher volume triggers any injuries. My right ankle was a little sore by the end of yesterday’s brick run.

Fortunately day 5 is a relatively easy day. Still my plans for the day add up to over 4 hours training, but no big cycle, no big run, no big swim so no problems! I need it right now both physically and mentally training like this gets on top of you. I remember back at Epic Camp how I found keeping the mental drive and remaining positive harder as the week went on. Funnily in a small way just going for more on my own has the same effect. This is where I’m glad for the timetable and plans, it helps get me out the door doing what I need to do. Otherwise I remind myself that this is my job now and it’s what I’ve chosen to do. I didn’t come here to slack about so I’m not going to waste my time, it’s not like I have anything else to do in the day (Ready, Steady, Cook?)

Next week is easier though, I can relax a little then, I’ll even have a whole day off! I’ll be indulging myself with some new Zoot race shoes. Yep, I caved in to that one pretty quick and checking the budget there’s room to buy them. So a new pair of trainers with enough time to try them out in the run-up to the next batch of racing. If I can get somewhere to try them I’m after some new race kit too. If that wasn’t spending enough I think I’ll treat myself to that cheesecake.

Or just if you’re lucky enough to win a spot prize in the random draw at the end. I did get a medal for 2nd male in my age group though, but no prize there. First place got a visor so I didn’t miss out massively, my spot prize is worth more! It’s about the taking part though, not the prizes!

The 10K went pretty well despite a lot of running in the lead up and a bit of road rash. Once you’re racing the pains and discomforts of a massive bruise on your hip soon vanishes. You focus more on the pain in your lungs instead. I discovered at the finish line my race shoes had rubbed off some skin on my Achilles where I’d used short socks. You should note this down as the first excuse for buying new race shoes. Countdown to a pair of Zoot shoes begins now! I was 4th overall, 3rd male and 2nd in my age group. That’s right, one woman beat me! She was going pretty well though so can’t go complaining. I was about a minute off my 10K PB on an easier course. I could come up with plenty of reasons for that if I wanted to, but that’s how it was on the day.

Salt Village where the race took place is an odd place, though not uncommon here. Basically a newly built town in a nice locale. Roads are laid out and facilities put in then slowly houses pop-up on plots of land. All well spaced out and modern, just not something you see much of back home in the UK. I guess Milton Keynes was a designed town, it’s just not got such a pleasant beach location.

I’m healing up from my little accident quite rapidly. A combination of not really doing that much damage to myself and the magic of Papaw ointment. Papaws it appears are magical fruits with pretty much any property you care to think of. I tried one for the first time at the weekend and it has quite a distinct taste. That’s not a polite way of saying bad, it’s just different and hard to describe. Reminds me of mango and melon, but not. Aside from being good for your digestion when eaten, when applied to wounds it apparently promotes healing. So I have some Papaw ointment liberally applied to mine and I watch the healing process with interest.

Apart from slightly derailing my weekend’s training plans I’ve found my motivation a little low. I’m glad I’ve developed my training plans now as if nothing else they make me get out and do my job! Particularly important as this week is a big week, going beyond my normal basic week and looking to hit about 40 hours. Next week I can cut back a little and have an easier recovery period. With my plan to guide me I drag myself out of bed at 5 in the morning following a heavy nights sleep. Then just get out there and do it. Riding has particularly suffered, I’m tenser on the bike right now and having to work on relaxing back into it. It’ll clear, but it does make it a little tougher to get out there when you’re tired.

Today’s ride was a revisit of Springbrook after I managed to lose the power file from last weeks ride. Particularly annoying as I definitely rode it much better last week. My legs were a little stiff to start off today, but I struggled up there, stopped off an admired the view before descending back to the coastline. By which time my legs had warmed up enough to put in a decent session over some smaller hills and out on Currumbin Creek road. I’ve not ridden that one since the last time I came out here. It’s not a particularly difficult ride, unless at the end of 3.5 hours of tougher roads. I’ve also had my first Oz puncture, which given the amount of glass on the roads here is a bit of a miracle. Seriously, there’s glass everywhere on the roads here, chucking bottles from cars seems to be a local pass-time. So 1500km in and one puncture is actually pretty good going.

And just to add some more pictures to the blog, I’ll finish with the Bond Uni Pool. Eight 50m lanes to choose from, typically allowing me one all to myself. Something you can only dream of back in the UK.

I promised just the facts and up till today that was looking pretty boring. After a few weeks of sun it’s a far more British grey skies and rainy period. So 2 cancellations for this mornings ride as they might get wet. Three of us still went out though and the riding inland to the north was going well. A couple of high volume running days had left my legs feeling pretty shattered, but an hour into the ride and things started to pick up.

The route we’d taken was a nice hilly circuit with some decent bumps to negotiate. I’ll be heading that way again next week and taking an alternate big loop that promises 5 or 6 hours of riding. Back to today’s ride and conditions were actually pretty good, no rain to speak of just a bit damp. Rolling into a roundabout at high speed and suddenly I’m sliding! Five or six foot later and I stop at the kerb.

First thing I do is check my clothes, having slid out or crashed 4 or 5 times now I’m fed up ruining good clothes! Slight, small tear to the Assos shorts and a rip in the arm warmers too. Bit annoying but they can be patched and saved my skin taking more damage. Bit shaken, but back on the bike and riding along notice that the rear derailleur hanger is a little bent, so it looks like it’s small cogs all the way home! Irritatingly that was a replacement hanger changed only a matter of a month ago at the Worlds.

We rode back on the flat fortunately as without my easy gears hills would have been a real slog. By the time we’d reach Surfer’s the skies had opened up a fair bit and now we were really getting wet. Worst things with the rain on the beach front is all the sand and salt that comes up in it, the bikes get covered. The rain running down your face and into your eyes is pretty salty too which adds a nice sting to it.

All I was thinking about though was the coffee stop that wasn’t too far away. By the time we’d reached there the rain had stopped as had my plans to add on another 2 hours riding after this. I’ve yet to ride over 4.5 hours out here and I feel it’s time to get some long rides in. Not today though, my grazed hip and elbow were a little sore and needed attention and with the bike knocked about I didn’t fancy riding it too far. Still coffee and a chat was essential and it gave an opportunity to check the wounds under my clothes. My right hip looked a bit like raw meat!

After coffee it looked like I was sorted for transport to Port Half-Ironman and should be sharing somewhere to stay down there too, so that’s all good. We stopped off at the local Tri shop, Gold Coast Triathlete to get my bike looked at. They were great as usual and within about 15 minutes the mechanic had straightened out my rear mech and tightened up my brakes (apparently the back one was close to falling off!) Cruised home at this point with the excitement of scrubbing the wounds in the shower to look forward to.

I’ll spare the details, but I’ve come out of crashes worse than this. The scrubbing wasn’t painful, the wounds cleaned up fine and all will be well within the week I expect. My training plans are a little aborted for today and tomorrow a bit. I’ll not be swimming today for sure and I’l make a call on how the wounds look tomorrow. Don’t really want to take many risks of infecting them, even if it hampers the 100k October challenge. Tomorrow’s run race could be interesting as my swollen hip will make that leg sore. Still these things happen and fortunately not too frequently. I’ll be taking in the bike for a proper service in the next few weeks, the mechanic advised it and thinking about it it’s been about 4000km since its last one.

Other than this? Well as I mentioned lots of running, nearly 4 hours in the past 2 days! But feeling pretty good for it, if I don’t try and push the pace I can do quite a lot of running. I did a long run from here, down to Miami beach and up to Surfer’s Paradise. I’m keen to extend my long runs if only to get that little bit further up the coastline, I wonder how far I can get and back in the time. My limit is around 2.5 hours though, but maybe later I’ll push that to 3 and see if I can get up towards The Spit. My crash today breaks the run off every bike rule unfortunately, but I’ll let this one go I think. Back to normal next week.

Well those were the facts, that’s it for now. Next time how I went at the 10K and anything else that happened on the way. Hopefully less ‘exciting’ than today’s events.

My reputation for coffee consumption has followed me around the world. My ability to consume large quantities of strong coffee has been noticed and received comments. My mate even brought back a second Cafetiere for me, it’s about right for 2 large mugs of black coffee at breakfast. I’m not sure whether it’s obvious or it’s just cyclist thing, but Adam, the Kiwi I rode with the past 2 days has promised to send me some local coffee from Wellington. Apparently it’s very, very strong and good stuff. Hopefully you can actually send that through to Oz, not sure if they destroy that sort of thing for not being Australian! I’m looking forward to it, anyone who offers me good coffee can ride with me anytime.

Back when I was training full time in the UK I grumbled a little about the lack of people out riding. Out here it’s really not been an issue. Apart from the guys I know I’ve ridden with a local roadie, a guy from Melbourne on holiday here and of course most recently Adam. There are plenty of friendly cyclists out here and often of a good standard too (watch them drop me powering over hills). It all helps the time pass on the longer rides and you can get some decent training in at the same time. Showing Adam the route up Springbrook was a case in point, it’s not really steep but it goes on for a good few Ks, reminds me a little of some of the climbing I’ve done in France. The reward at the very top, after a nasty sting from a 10% section, is some fantastic views back towards the coast. Or alternately you could reward yourself with coffee and cake at the cafe, but not this time too early focussed on training.

This weekend a group of us are heading Westward for rolling hills. Based on the last time we went out I expect my legs to be spent by the end of it. This could all become much more interesting come Sunday when I’m now entered into a 10K run just over the border in New South Wales. I don’t expect to be up to much after a week of training, but we’ll see. I’ll be heading down with Michael, another Brit who lives out here. Queensland doesn’t operate on daylight savings either which means the 8am start in NSW is the same as a 7am start here. I’m used to being up at those times now though and it gets it out of the way early so I should have time for a ride and a swim too! It’s another training race, just this time really off the plan.

Two days seems to have been enough to get the race out of my system and I’m feeling largely back to normal. Normal meaning tired, but getting through the workouts. Swimming is picking up a bit again and whilst 4K sessions can get a little boring I’m getting through them OK. In the pool I genuinely feel more comfortable in the water than I have in a long time and the higher volume is working for me. It didn’t translate to much at the half on the weekend, but I think it’s early days. I’d say I’m swimming as well as I was when I felt I was at my best 18 months ago. Hopefully I can make the next step up from this and get faster still. Western Australia may be too soon, but next year I’d like to see a 55 minute Ironman swim.

I’m having to be patient with my cycling, it feels a little stagnant right now, a little plateaued perhaps. Looking at my data from the past year I’d say I’m in a similar condition to what I was in April. Probably not a bad place to be now as by late May I was getting to be my strongest on the bike. The Gold Coast offers a variety of riding, from flat to long climbs so I’ve everything I need to train here. I am sticking to the principle that consistent high volume cycling with an amount of hard efforts will get me back where I was before. If I look at the first half of the year, a number of trips to mountainous regions were key factors in boosting my cycling. Regular hill work here is going to be a mainstay of my regime.

I use some of my free time and my walks to and from the pool to listen to a number of podcasts on endurance sports. There’s some really good stuff out there, ranging from general advice through to interviews with coaches and athletes. I’ve heard a few people refer to being a student of the sport as part of the process of reaching the top levels of endurance sports. I like to think of this as my attempt to be a good student. Certainly it gives me a lot to think about, hearing what top coaches and athletes do in their preparation. Deriving principles from the specifics can be tricky though, there’s so much variety and no one way to approach this.

This is where a coach can help. Being coached means you put your training into their hands and trust that their approach will deliver the results you want. Being self-coached means I’m putting my trust in my ability to choose a training approach and to evaluate my own performance. Evaluation can actually be the trickier part, drawing out a program isn’t so hard really, adjusting it based on performance becomes much trickier. In part this is why my approach favours a basic week and a high training volume. In terms of structure these are easy to do, there’s nothing more sophisticated than a principle that you do something a lot and your body adapts to be better at it.

In my opinion when you listen to top tier athletes or coaches you find a couple of things, they’re consistent in their training not losing much to injury or external distractions. They either have done or currently do a lot of training or a sufficient level of work within their plan. I know a lot is said about training smarter and junk miles, but when you have a lot of time available for both training and recovery it seems to me a lot of people just simply train a lot. I can’t say it’s for everyone and certainly it’s a road to injury and fatigue when you start out, but with long endurance events there comes a point where you simply need to be training a whole lot.

Originally I was going to write something about running and the plateau I feel I’ve hit there (along with possible ways past it). Somehow that transformed into my thoughts from being a student of endurance and I guess a degree of justifying the program I’m following. To wrap this one up my approach is volume based. A high amount of training week on week, not at Epic Camp levels, well not often at least, but the odd really big week is no bad thing. As a self-coach I’m watching that the level of stress and fatigue I put on my body is enough without making me too tired to put in the effort needed. I’ll freely admit I have my doubts at times, but consistency is key and you can’t keep chopping and changing.

On that note I’ll end this post with a promise that next time I’ll simply stick to the facts of what I’ve been up to. No navel gazing about my training plan or ponderings on whether the training I’ve done this week has been any good. Just the facts.