Trains, Travels

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.

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.

One a day? Whose stupid idea was a post a day this week? I don’t have the time for a proper post today so instead a quick one about shoes…

I don’t know why, but over the past 2 years I seem to have developed a sports shoe fetish… Not in a weird and twisted behind closed doors way. I just find as soon as I’ve got new shoes I find another style I want. It’s not a performance thing, purely aesthetic. And is it wrong that if money were no object I think I’d have different style shoes for different moods?

So my latest pair of bike shoes are the Adidas Adistar Pros. They’re very white which is great (as long as I keep them clean) given my irrational love of white kit. Fortunately as well as looking great they’re incredibly light and very stiff in the sole. Riding in them has been a pleasure so far, my previous shoes the Specialized S-Works were great, but I feel much more connected to the pedal with the Adidas pair. I’ve been racing in a really nice bright red pair of Adidas tri shoes for the bike too, the same lightweight sole, but a quicker entry and fastening system. Again I used Specialized tri shoes before Adidas and they just lacked the feeling of directness and connection to the bike.

On the run I use Saucony, having switched from Asics. I’m currently racing in the Saucony Type As which have worked pretty well for me and more importantly are a nice bright red. That said the Saucony Fastwitch shoes are even nicer, they just feel so fast and light, but should be used with caution for training. The latest version comes in a bright orange, which isn’t bad, but I’d prefer red. I’m training in Saucony Omni 6s at the moment which seem to work well for me (they look dull though), so far no injuries when I’ve ramped up the volume.

I apologise for the pointless nature of this post. It only goes to show I’m a little vain in my race kit choices. In the end however much I like the look of kit if it doesn’t work for me I won’t use it. It took a while to adjust position and get used to Adidas bike shoes coming from Specialized. The latter is a bit more comfort focussed and I had to slightly adjust the bike position because of the thinner sole on the Adidas shoes, it took a while and a bit of discomfort to work that one out though. Tomorrow I will come up with something more interesting.

Or near enough. 9th overall, 3rd in my age group at this morning’s Duathlon. Not too shabby, but it was a pretty small field this year with more significant races drawing away a lot of entrants and the pissy weather putting people off. To roughly quote the conversation with my mate before the race start.

I’m not sure who the fast guys are here. Who am I going to pace myself off?
We’re the fast guys.

I then spent most of the race somewhere around 30 seconds behind him, never quite managing to bridge the gap. Some excuses… I had to wait for a car at the compulsory stop on the bike course and I dropped my arm warmers and started to head back to pick them up, before thinking WTF it’s a race. They’re expensive arm warmers, I can’t just throw them away. Fortunately they were still there so I picked them up as I set off home.

Thoughts from the weekend… Firstly, petrol is really expensive now… Driving round the M25 with a nearly empty tank I was relieved to make a service station then the price of the petrol led me to audibly swear on the forecourt. I could have saved 2 quid if I’d filled up back near home. I spent the evening in one of the more depressing Travelodges I’ve been in, quite an achievement. Things I check in these places - presence of Channel 5 on the TV, biscuits with the complementary tea and coffee, free shower gel and room temperature… Pretty much lacking on all fronts and surprisingly sparse too. On the plus it was cheap by booking early and the bed was comfortable enough. So it was a fairly dull evening in with nothing on TV and only Infinite Crisis to keep me company. It was a guilty pleasure, over the top superhero story telling, really poor plotting, but kind of entertaining.

Woke up race morning and it was grey and drizzling. What crossed my mind is whether I really wanted to be doing this… It’s good to note though that regular early mornings means the race morning early start isn’t too much of a problem now. In an unusual move I was at the race start early and didn’t have to rush about, instead I could spend more time complaining about the cold and the damp. Which once I met my friends I did plenty of.

Getting to the point of things - the race. Overall I’m happy with things, a solid race, nothing spectacular, but starting off the season it’s not so bad. I’m not used to working at that intensity though, largely due to the Ironman focus meaning I don’t often race with a heart rate in the 160s-170s. I didn’t really feel good until I was nearing the end of the bike to be honest, at that point I felt settled in and could have done a couple more laps. That said the wind and the rain was a bit brutal at points and made you work for your speed at points of the course. Running is OK, didn’t feel I was at my fastest though, but a solid pace I could have held for a bit longer.

The issues? My left ITB is playing up a bit, very tight and sore at high intensity, I need to spend a lot of time massaging and stretching it to get the most out of intense training. It was a limiter for a period of last year too so it’s an issue I know of and have to deal with.

Annoyingly the zip snapped on my 2XU top as I tried to open it on the second lap. I really like the 2XU endurance shorts, but have had trouble with the tops on a couple of occasions. The under arm tends to rub and in longer races it’s a bit uncomfortable by the end. This may be an excuse to try another brand of tri suit and see if I can find the perfect race kit. I am liking the look of the Zoot Ultra range, hard to get here, but I might try to import some to try. The retailer at the event had some of the Zoot shoes on display too, looked quite nice and you could have fully matching kit…

For the coming week I think I need to start working on my nutrition, quality not quantity, too much cheap food and fats in there. I need to start getting more sleep and I need to get myself sorted on actually filling in my training diary properly rather than tracking it all in my head. Also there’s planning a mission statement and goals for my year or two as a full time athlete, so many races, so little time and to truly improve you have to focus. More on this sort of stuff another time. Another weekend in Spain is coming up and some nice warm weather to look forward to.

Excuse the random nature of this post, I’ve nothing specific to write about so this should be labelled under tedium.

Third race of the season arrives this weekend, the Cambridge Duathlon. The photo above is from my first time at the race… No I didn’t buy it. It’ll be my third time doing it, though they adjust the course each year to ensure results aren’t comparable it seems. I don’t really know how I’m feeling about it, there’s a bit of pre-race nerves there, but it’s only a C race in the end. I find it hard to get my mind into the first races of the year, really I need to get a good result to give me a psychological boost and feel more positive about all the training so far. You never really know how well what you’ve done is paying off until you race.

A bit of sports psychology is probably going to be next on the reading list as I feel it’s an area that lets me down. I race a fair amount I’d say, comfortably over 10 events of varying size in a year. 2 Ironmans, 4 halfs and a few other races last year for example. It worked well though with a big period of racing leading up to my first Ironman in Austria when the race came I was feeling good off the back of some of my results and comfortable with everything that surrounds a race. Western Australia was a little less ideal, whilst I was still racing quite strongly, my trip became a little too much of a holiday and my preparation wasn’t quite there.

To go back to the initial point though - I do need to work on my ability to focus and maintain effort during long races. Confidence is an issue too, I doubt my ability and plan in the run up to an event and it can take quite a bit of work to overcome this. I’m wary of the field, not enough hard science and fact for my tastes at times, so I’ll cautiously try some of the literature. In the end though if something works I’ll give it a try even if I have to struggle with spiritual/hippy garbage!

In other reading I have quite enjoyed Into the Wild this week, to damn with faint praise it wasn’t bad. It recounts the life of Chris McCandless a young man who abandoned his family, wandered America and pursued a dream of living in the Alaskan wildeness that ultimately killed him. The topic itself is interesting, the writing style is engaging, but at the same time just felt a little bland. There were elements of the theme of heading off into nature, or going off on an adventure I could certainly appreciate. I don’t see myself wandering into the wilderness though and couldn’t conceive of doing so on the back of such little planning.

When I’m in Oz I certainly plan on spending some time in the bush, camping and hiking. But I plan to have all the appropriate equipment and information to support that kind of trip. Reading books relating to mountaineering, adventure racing and survival I definitely empathise with the fast and light approach. Makes sense to me the focus is about preparation, skill and control all things I rate pretty highly. So to me the appeal of hiking, climbing and the outdoors is about going to these places with the right mental and physical preparation and the exact equipment needed. Or maybe I’m just an elitist who doesn’t get why you might do something just for pleasure and not to suffer! Admitedly it’s easy to be elitist when your experience is limited in this area, I may change my mind when faced with it! The Alps, Oz and New Zealand will hopefully provide me plenty of opportunity to test this approach.

I promised rambling and I’m delivering… Training goes pretty well this week, fair bit of all 3 sports though nothing too heavy. Been using the rollers with my bike and seeing some improvements in handling and cadence. More technique work with swimming, dredging the pool doing band work. A good 2.5 hour long run in there too to trash the legs and confirm my trainers need replacing (well it’s been about 1000km). Will be attempting a bit more intensity on the bike this evening, a masters session for intensity on the swim and a race at the weekend to round it off.

New trainers are on the way, 2 pairs to try the alternating approach that supposedly makes them last longer. I suspect running lots on a worn out pair of trainers was a contributory factor to my run injury that plagued the second half of last year. I don’t want to make that mistake again. Plain Saucony ProGrid Omni 6s rather than exciting trainers like the Grid Fastwitch 3. I’ll save the shoe fetish issues for another post…

The difficult part of this is writing something when not much has happened and there’s not much going to happen. Effectively I’m reliant on the mundane events of my life actually being of interest to others… As such this post promises to be an exciting one.

I’ve got straight into adjusting my road bike setup, my first purchase for the changes arrived the other day and is already installed - Oval R910 clip-on aerobars. I’ve titled this post in honour of the strange English of the Oval instruction manual. The Pinky Move is a vital step if attaching the arm rests to the extensions. Well it would be were it actually possible to do this, but my components didn’t bear much relation to the description in that bit of the manual.

I’ve lowered my handlebars a half inch and added the aerobars on and so far I’m mostly happy, some tweaking to do, but I think they’ll work well. I’ve a new zero set back seatpost on the way to move my saddle a little further forward which should allow me to sit more comfortably whilst on the aerobars. Hopefully I’ll get to try the setup out in full this weekend and decide if it’s all going to work for me.

Enough about kit and bike setup, fascinating as it is. Training has been pretty reasonable this week and by reasonable I mean there’s been lots of it. I’ve compensated for the recent lack of swimming with trips to the pool each day and trying out a new drill - bands. Basically tying your legs together so you can’t kick and then floundering in the water as all the flaws in your body position are revealed. I’m pleased to say I did a bit better on my second day with them.

Running is going fine, the endurance seems to be there, I need to do some faster work on fresher legs though. Cycling has happened this week, but nothing too hard, legs have been tired and my left ITB is pretty tight as usual. My mission for the next week is to stretch and massage it out so interval work on the bike doesn’t hurt so much. I’ll be getting in the bike volume at the weekend.

I managed to time starting my blog with a run of weekends away… Well there’s a break in the run now so this weekend I’ll be stuck at home. Out on the bike, sure, but none of that Spanish sunshine or French rain to accompany me. Not much more to be said about it.

Occassionally I think about what to blog and I have vague ideas of writing some kind of insight to my plans, thoughts on relevant subjects, motivations… Basically something profound and clever… When I get here, I end up writing about lowering my handlebars and swimming with a rubber tube tied round my legs…

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Another weekend, another location. This time 3 days training in Almunecar, Spain. I will take the opportunity now to get the obligatory weather commentary out the way - all there is to say is that for a change I am going somewhere where it’s sunny and warm. For a change I have no complaints!

Spain will be a few days of bigger volume training, a first open water swim of the year and who knows, maybe I’ll get a bit of a tan. Getting back into training this week has gone well so far, nothing to strenuous, but some decent sessions. Recovery went a bit out of the window again once I was back home and having to go to work and muscles have tightened up a bit. The past weekend definitely let me recover, but at the same time climbing did stress the muscles a bit and they’re still pretty tight. Plenty of time till Switzerland still, so nothing to worry about.

Segueing massively on the subject of fitness I became an uncle for a second time yesterday. I now have 2 nieces related to me which according to the coefficient of relatedness is the equivalent of one daughter of my own. It’s about as good as having your own offspring, but without any of the hassle! At least from the perspective of my genes anyway.

I’ve bought my ticket to Oz and set a date for departure. I leave the UK on September 18th 2008 and I’ll arrive in Oz on the 20th. Things go to plan I won’t be back here until 2010! Having chosen the date I’ve also produced a number of spreadsheets planning races and training down there. There is so much I could choose to do, suddenly a year doesn’t seem so much time. I’ve broaden my search from just triathlon to adding in road running, ten maybe some crits? How about trail running? Adventure racing? Not forgetting going climbing… The list goes on.

More decisions - bike kit for my trip. I’ve made the decision to take the road bike and leave the time trial bike at home, it’s just more versatile and that’s more important when I’m away for a year. Next up have been decisions about seatposts and tri bars. Bontrager XXXLite seat post is the first choice - reversible so I can adjust my road position for time trialing. Not chosen clip-ons yet, will need to be something that can sit close to the bars and get me low on a road bike. Final big choice was race wheels, and it’s going to be the Zipp 404s going with me, again just more versatile than my Xentis wheels. They were fun, but I think they’re going to have to go to ebay.

My gut feel is this is the set-up I enjoy riding the most. I did well on it at the UK Ironman 70.3 last year and had a good race at the Monaco Ironman 70.3 on it the previous year. I love to ride my road bike and the set-up looks good, which is important. Having made the decision the question in my mind now is should I just go with this set-up now? Rather than racing Switzerland on the Cervelo, race it on my road bike instead. I might try a couple of my upcoming races on it and see how I feel/perform.