Trains, Travels

It’s a beautiful, sunny Christmas Eve in Wellington. A combination that doesn’t work for me. Christmas is cold, dark, and possibly white. A time of staying indoors or wearing layer upon layer if you dare go out. Actually you can keep the traditional Christmas. I like being able to spend Christmas Eve on my bike climbing as many hills as I can with a quick stop for coffee. Beats sitting on the turbo!

You can read a little about the last week over on my blog for Triathlete Europe. I’d planned to do more training than I have, but things are basically on track. I’m riding well and enjoying the new scenery. Plenty of exploring over the past few days with a couple of solid six hour rides. Pleased with how those have gone my cycle fitness is much higher than this time last year.

And that’s it for now. I was going to break the past week’s silence with a review of the year. Proper posts will follow with a look at training past, present and future. Then some pre-Epic Camp thoughts and once I’m in camp we’ll see how I manage to post. Quality will drop (further) if I’m to maintain quantity of posting.

Merry Christmas! Good luck to those having to train in the weather back home!

Today’s post comes from a far colder climate. I’m sat at my parent’s house in Reading and it’s pretty damn chilly far as I’m concerned. I’m not feeling too bad for hours of flying though I do have massive cankles once more. Just hoping that the swelling will have all gone in time for my next race, it’s only round the corner.

After all the excitement of the race I had a couple of days left in Kona. Time to chill out, relax and most importantly recover. Also as this blog will reveal time to compensate for months of denying myself sugars in a mass binge! I’m now more of the opinion it’s important to relax things a little after my races. I know I can get back on track quickly and mentally it’s good.

It’s rare that I sleep well after a big race. My legs are usually just a bit too stiff to comfortably lie in bed. This time I woke at about 3:30 in the morning and was absolutely starving. A midnight feast followed as I raided the fridge along with the remains of the pack of bagels. Once the hunger was gone I managed a couple more hours before I gave in and accepted I was up for the day.

After further essential snacking I headed down to the pier at around 7am and went for a swim with Steven and Jo. Swim seems a bit of a grand term for the 15 minutes of splashing about I did, but it’s the thought that counts. With arms feeling better than legs it wasn’t too bad just not fast.

Far more important than the swim was the buffet breakfast that followed. After the previous weekends two and a half plate meat fiesta I paced myself a little bit better. Mixing in carbs in the form of pancakes along with a lot of meat added a bit of variety too. I did my best to ensure I got my money’s worth at least.

Everyone’s plans largely revolved around relaxing as much as possible. That said Steven, Jo and I headed up Ali’i Drive on our bikes for a spin. It took most of the length of the Drive to actually feel OK and none of us were willing to go up the short, sharp climb at the end of it. We returned quite quickly, not sure if that was a tailwind or the draw of coffee and cake at Lava Java. If you ever want to overdose on sugar I recommend the Tear Cake. It’s massive and coated in toffee and icing. Delicious and possibly enough to fuel an entire Ironman.

The evening brought race events to a close with the Awards Ceremony. As with the Opening Banquet food was pretty good, though I mainly focussed on the cakes this time. I think the caterers were expecting this as they seemed far better stocked than at the opening. I worked hard to ensure I’d taken in a months worth of sugar by the end of Sunday. The ceremony itself wasn’t too bad. With so many age group awards it can drag a little, but none of the speeches went on too long.

As it finished the skies open and rain poured down. Those who’d been here the year before could now smugly break out their rain jackets. The rest of us got wet! We headed down to Lu Lu’s for a while, but by the time it was livening up I felt too tired to do a thing.

Another night of poor sleep led into Monday. At least this time I didn’t need to eat a meal to get through the night! Swimming started my day with another solid 15 minutes of effort! Then it was breakfast at Splasher’s. At this point my aim for the day was to return to Paleo so my usual Meat Lover’s omelette was ordered. We followed a long breakfast with a long coffee.

It was the next coffee break at Lava Java where my Paleo intentions collapsed. I could try to blame Steven for offering to get me a cookie, but the speed with which I accepted makes it nobodies fault but my own! It was delicious I’ll give it that. I made the decision to worry about the diet once I’d got home and relaxed a little. Most of my weight gain is fluid anyway.

An early dinner and a stop off for ice cream was followed by goodbyes to many of my Kona companions. People were either heading home or to other islands. I was definitely a little jealous of the latter group! I had a quiet evening of bike and kit packing ready for my own trip the next day.

What a lazy final day Tuesday was. I didn’t swim and I didn’t make a pretence of being on a good diet. Sure I still had the meat lover’s omelette, but I added a side of French Toast. Splasher’s French Toast is delicious and I’m pleased I could tempt Rachel and her boyfriend John into having some too. It’s better to be bad in company!

A morning of shopping for my nieces followed. I spaced it out by consuming chocolate coated macadamia nuts, delicious! Lunch consisted of two, yes two, incredibly dense Lava Java muffins. Not quite the sugar bomb that the Tear Cake was but filling in their own right. Highly recommended to try if you’re out here. After race day of course!

Sadly all the remained was to head for the airport and home. I’ve grown to like Kona a lot. Sure there’s not masses to do right there in town. I love the climate and pace of life though. Chilling at coffee houses is my thing after all. It’s not the most varied training venue on the other hand so once you’re back to real life and not race week it might be tougher.

It was a fantastic trip and experience. I had a great result off the back of it too. I’m not sure it’s really sunk in yet. Really enjoyed spending my days training and relaxing with so many friends. I know I have to go back again next year!

(For those interested I’ve another Kona race report on Tri247)

Today’s post is dedicated to laziness. After a week off training and so much of everything else I normally do it seems appropriate. It’s also a bit of a mix of content as there’s not too much to tell from a seven days spent mostly laying about doing nothing! I do have a chart though.

Binge Eating! I promised myself a week off and time away from the Paleo Diet. I think I delivered on all counts there. I treated myself to a Domino’s Pizza (Full House for those interested). I know, they’re not the best, really that wasn’t the point. It was all about having some greasy, junk food I enjoy. It ticked the boxes on that count. I have eaten a load of cake and I really mean a load. I ate bread for a while, but found it didn’t do much for me. Completely at odds with the avoiding healthy foods I had porridge for a change! Fish and chips, biscuits with my tea, deserts and puddings with my meals… The list could go on.

Unsurprisingly there’s been some weight gain. I expected as much, but trust in my ability to get to race weight. Being back on the carbs I noticed how easy it is to eat a lot. I definitely found that I was hungrier in general and that despite eating a lot of food soon felt hunger once more. Not so surprising with cakes, chocolate and biscuits, but porridge is promoted as giving long lasting energy. An omelette seems to do a much better job in that regard.

Today marks a return to proper Paleo eating. I’m glad to be back! Some of the foods off the diet are fun in moderation. I can’t deny a fondness for cake. Outside of that though I genuinely enjoy Paleo more. The large meals of salad and vegetables and protein emphasis leaves me feeling much fuller. Hopefully it won’t take too long to undo the damage of my binge week!

Ironman UK Bolton Course For those interested I’ve uploaded the course from my GPS. You can download it from GPSies.com. The route is exactly as ridden, 3 laps of the course on the day. Plenty of waypoints so nice and accurate too. I’ve seen people searching for this in my logs so hopefully it’s a help to them.

The Taper

A little bit of a revisit to the subject of my Ironman UK taper. With the advantage of hindsight I guess I can claim it worked! At the very least I can say I was able to achieve my goals. I’ll never know if I could have done better by another route.

Another of my favourite charts – straight from WKO+. I’ve mentioned them before, but to recap we have Acute Training Load (ATL), Chronic Training Load (CTL) and Training Stress Balance (TSB) corresponding to what might be termed fatigue, fitness and form. I’ve referred to Joe Friel’s blog and his views on tapering using this chart before. The aim is to have as high a fitness and form as possible come race day. Tapering reduces fatigue and improves form, unfortunately it also reduces fitness. So objectively the aim is to maximise the improvements in form and minimise the loss of fitness. Friel suggests that you want a taper to result in no more than a 10% decline in fitness.

I’m mentioning these details because if you look at my chart above and follow the CTL (fitness) from a week prior to Challenge Roth through to Ironman UK you’ll notice far more than a 10% drop. I don’t think it’s surprising to find that I couldn’t stick to that guideline racing this close together.

I tapered a single week into Roth and did stick very closely to the 10% reduction in fitness rule. I’d say I raced well in Roth, though felt I wasn’t as free of fatigue as I’d like. Whilst fatigue (ATL) and form (TSB) would suggest I should be pretty fresh. I think the reality of my months of training and racing weren’t showing through.

Immediately following Roth I attempted to follow a plan that had plenty of light training. There were mixed results and I managed to train regularly, but certainly couldn’t manage much in those sessions. The result was there was no chance of limiting myself to a 10% reduction of fitness over that time. CTL declines pretty steadily over those three weeks. What training I did prevented it completely plummeting. In the final week before Ironman UK you can see it plateau a little as I’m able to train a bit more. At this point though the drop off was so large I was no longer concerned about any kind of 10% rule.

Performance on race day was pretty good. I felt none of the fatigue I’d experienced in Roth and definitely felt able to work well throughout the race. I would be hard pressed to identify a loss of real fitness between Roth and the Ironman UK. If there was it was more than compensated by that significant reduction in fatigue. My view is that after many months of high volume training with little break I needed a solid rest. As it happened a three week period of light training between the two races proved ideal.

More about recovery

So I come to a full week off training for even more recovery. You can look back at the chart and see fitness dropping even further! For the past week I’ve felt terrible. My legs have been stiff and once again I’ve been retaining a lot of fluid. I’m curious to find out potential causes of this reaction. It’s only been Roth and Ironman UK where I’ve experienced fluid retention in recovery. Why it’s occurred for both these races, but not before is an interesting question.

With the week now done I’m looking to get myself moving again and very slowly introduce training. Level off the loss of fitness and then start a gradual increase in a couple of weeks time. I wonder if the extensiveness of the taper for Bolton will help in the overall recovery process. Whilst the past week did feel awful I’m starting to feel good now. Hopefully a proper massage tomorrow will have my legs ready to start some exercise.

Generally I’ve bounced back in two to three weeks after a race. I’m looking to be a bit more gradual about it this time. My focus now is on good dietary habits and a bit of weight loss ready for training. I’ll be thinking through the Kona build in a future post.

Today’s picture is courtesy of Helen, go and check more of Helen’s photography or Tom and Helen’s blog. All good stuff as you can see from the awesome race photo.

After weeks of dedicated focus on diet and weight loss my birthday marked a day of excess. For once I’d say to hell with portion control and hello to cake and sugars! I have to admit I was looking forward to it quite a bit, particularly as I planned to make the above New York Baked Cheesecake. An entirely new venture for me. My favourite dessert, the last thing I wanted was for it to be a let down. I’m pleased to say it was a big success and despite its size vanished that day (in no small part thanks to me!)

Before all that I’ll pick up from the events on Saturday. As I mentioned on Twitter the big picture won out and I didn’t run. This gave me a total of 28 days of running at least 30 minutes per day. A pretty good effort and frustratingly close to my target. However I am pleased that I didn’t allow a personal challenge to get in the way of the smart thing to do.

In fact I was smart enough not to bike or run on Sunday and to completely rest on my birthday. Sure it didn’t make my training graphs look as impressive, but it was the right thing to do.

Sunday wasn’t easy by any means. I started the day with a trip to the lake. I had a big plan in mind. Ten laps of the lake for an 8km open water swim. Pretty epic and excessive, certainly further than I’d ever gone in a single session. A little bit of messing about before hand delayed my start in the lake and as things went I had to get out at 7km. That’s still excessive! So I allowed myself the treat of some chocolate brownies shared with my mates at the lake (thanks to mum for making them!)

With 2 hours of swimming in my arms I headed home for the next bout of excessive behaviour. Something I think far more people will appreciate. Excessive eating. The weather was beautiful and it was perfect for the planned barbecue. During the course of lunch I would estimate I consumed roughly 1.5kg of meat. Yep, that is a hell of a lot of meat. Technically I was still being pretty Paleo at this point. The consumption of cake that followed throughout the rest of the day was definitely off the charts. I would guess I consumed a whole fifth of that cheesecake, a good portion of fruit cake, some more brownies and a bit of a ridiculously sweet birthday cake!

You should have seen the scales the next day! Let’s just say I put one heavily anomalous data point into my weight chart! Still two days later and we’re back to normal and back to losing weight. I’ll be blogging about my success with Paleo and lower carb eating in the future though.

Excess consumption has its place, but once done it’s best to get things back on track quickly. So come Monday and my actual birthday it’s back to being a modern day Paleo man. I ate pretty lightly that day, especially with zero training taking place. I relaxed in the sun and tended to the sore knee which was showing good signs of being much recovered. All in all a very pleasant and relaxing time. The first total rest day in a month and much needed as I realised the last four weeks had seen almost 120 hours of training! My body was and to an extent still is excessively tired. It’s a good job my aim is to be at a peak for Ironman UK and not Roth.

There is one final bout of excess before things return to more normal parameters. My failure to hit 8km in the water frustrated me so Tuesday I went to the lake earlier. I got in and set off feeling a little warmer than I’d like with the fantastic weather we’re having. I stuck at it for the 10 laps to hit 8km! Probably more when you allow for course deviations that creep in. I was pretty satisfied with that!

Once I got home it was straight out on the bike to meet Steven for an easy ride. It was relatively easy thanks to a couple of coffee stops, but he’s riding pretty solidly right now so it wasn’t a cruise. It was good to catch up as always and chew over a few issues. Discuss the benefits of massive over-distance training like my swim. Pleasingly my knee was holding up well. I was aware that something had been wrong with it as I rode, but it wasn’t getting any worse.

The final test of the day was the SAAB Salomon Forest Trail 10K I’d entered as race number 4 in my mini-series. Any thoughts of racing were gone instead I planned a 10km training run with a goody bag at the end! So lining up at the start I placed myself well back mostly concerned with my knee. The horn sounded and off we went at a leisurely pace.

The first 4km I was barely working. I kept to 5 minute kilometres so a real jog! The knee was feeling fine though. Somewhere around that 4K mark I picked things up. I was loving every minute of the trail run just like the week before. This was far too much fun for a race! My run form felt great, really stable above the waist my legs moving effortlessly below me (it wasn’t that hard a pace). I just kept on building towards the end crossing the line in 45 minutes. No kind of record and a little disappointed that if 100% confident of my knee I could have raced well.

Even so it was a fantastic evening. Thoroughly enjoyable and once again I found running trails an addictive experience. I want more of it! Enough that I’ve entered the Rivington Trail Half Marathon race in September! I just wish I had easy access to trails right here on my doorstep. Running the roads gets repetitive and boring, but the forests never seem to.

Here we are. The knee seems to be fine and I’m back into training. I’ve a rough idea of the next few days plans and what my focus will be. I want to try and get some good sessions in on the bike if I can, I certainly feel I need them. Swim and run feel great. I’m enjoying open water swimming so much lately and have plans to go longer still! Running is comfortable and I’m starting to gain confidence for my races. Cycling seems to come and go though, I want some consistent work in there for the next few days.

And then it will be Roth.

[If you read this blog purely out of interest in my training you may want to skip this one. Having more free time and with wet weather yesterday I finally got around to seeing Watchmen. Many weeks after everyone else here's my thoughts and a few comments on comics.

And lame as it is - the title to this post is based off the 'What If?' series of Marvel Comics. The idea being change an aspect of a Marvel story and play out how things might go. Ranging from if Peter Parker's Uncle Ben hadn't died to the more absurd Bull Pen being the Fantastic Four. Personally though I'm a sucker for anything involving World War II heroics like the example to the right!]

A couple of weeks after everyone else I’ve finally got around to seeing the Watchmen movie. I’m surprised to say I actually really enjoyed it. I didn’t find it too slow, nor the sex scene as uncomfortable to watch as others have claimed. It felt remarkably true to the themes of the book even with the alterations to the ending. I would say it was a little bit too violent, I don’t really remember the comic being quite so graphic or extreme. Perhaps I’m just getting old in my opinions?

I encountered the comic in my early teens. A period when my dabbling in comics was largely influenced by what my older brother showed me. To be honest I had little taste or appreciation back then, but could recognise good comics. Watchmen was definitely that and being a young comics geek I also owned the smiley button and a T-shirt. Since that first time I’ve possibly reread it once and that would still be over 15 years ago. Despite the lack of familiarity it left a lasting impression which could have set the movie up for a fall. Watchmen was a significant comic in my comic book geek life.

As a slight aside I just want to vent a little comic geek frustration. It’s not hard to find articles or comments refering to Watchmen as significant, breaking the mould or redefining comics. It’s true, it was an introduction to a wider world of comics at a time when I was new to the medium. It was different to the bulk of other titles out there, but it wasn’t an entirely new concept. Moore himself had explored similar themes in previous works (reading some bits and pieces online reminded me just how good Miracleman had been). Others had touched on the themes too. The significance with Watchmen is that it is read by people who probably don’t read many comics and it show them that ‘comics aren’t just for kids’. Every week in comic book stores there are plenty of titles from the trashy to the intellectual. Watchmen didn’t change that, it was good, actually great, but comics covered the range from trash to treasure long before it was around. Grumble over.

So a classic comic from my youth that left a strong impression vague on details admitedly) made into a movie. That’s aready a big hurdle. Throw in that it’s a long movie and I like my movies to aim for around 90 minutes of entertainment then end. Really I was almost nervous when I went in the cinema potentially I’d paid to spend nearly 3 hours watching memories from my teenage years be trashed. Yet almost immeadiately I was drawn into it and from then on enjoyed every minute.

In my opinion it did a fantastic job of capturing the essence of the comic. I’ve seen complaints about it being slow, but the pacing seemed spot on. Perhaps there could have been cuts, but nothing really felt unneccessary. If anything the slowness worked for the film adding a heaviness as we head towards armageddon. Whilst I haven’t read it for years surely the comic was slowly paced too? Visuals were great though the nuclear kiss dream sequence is far more striking in the comic. That was a moment of disappointment for me, but I admit my Watchmen T-shirt was the image of the skeletons kissing as the bomb obliterates them. I didn’t have much luck trying to find an image of that. Poor google skills and with the movie out most of the images you get back are disappointingly from it.

I won’t spoil the ending. It was changed and I can kind of see why. Perhaps they thought the original events of the comic book finale were a little too ’silly’. They work better in the context of a comic read by people familiar with the medium and its themes. In a standalone movie it would possibly have seemed almost random. I’ve seen it mentioned elsewhere, but Bubastis, Ozymandias’s Lynx is only really relevant to the story if you have the comic book ending. I guess if you’ve got a special effects budget to use though.

To sum up I liked it. It’s an unusual superhero movie just as it was unusual as a superhero comic. I think that may have worked against it a little. Comments I overheard from some audience members after the movie suggest to me it wasn’t what was expected. I’ll catch it again when it’s on DVD with apparently even more film to watch. It’s probably not going to have the same replay value that Iron Man does, but that’s a different, simpler kind of superhero story. Incidentally, during the trailers – a new ‘The Fast and the Furious’! Oh Good! (No really I’ve seen all the others, multiple times in some cases. There is something wrong with me.)

Normal service resumes from tomorrow onwards. Back to the triathlon stuff and upcoming race and I’ll keep the comic books to myself. I feel better for this! Outside of training and racing if you really want to get a long conversation out of me ask about comics. I can cover manga, bande dessinee a little, not too bad on Brit comics, pretty good on DC, OK on Marvel and can hold my own discussing indies!

Two weeks time and should I be making a blog post it’ll be from UK soil. Which having checked the long range forecast means I can look forward to being cold and wet. Whilst I am looking forward to coming home (for a while) I’m using some of the extra time in my taper to appreciate what I’ll be missing here. By that I mean the sun, the sea and the coffee shops.

With it being the second week of my taper training has really been scaled back. I’ve been letting myself lie in each morning, finding getting up when I feel like it leaves me feeling much more rested that sticking to a time. That comes to an end tomorrow with a 6am massage appointment meaning I’m up before dawn. I’d come up with a plan of getting up early in the week leading up to the race to get myself used to it. Just came around a little sooner than expected that’s all.

Some of my extra free time has gone into sorting through all I own and thinning out my possessions. I’ve actually done a good job of not accumulating things in the past 6 months. During the easy part of a bike ride the other day I considered how little I actually spend outside of food and shelter. It’s not so long ago I can remember spending a significant portion of my income on possessions. These days if isn’t necessary for survival I tend not to be so concerned! Ok sometimes I eat more expensively than I need to and it’s not that the basics are so cheap for me. Plus there’s all that flying about and the price of race entries these days! Still if I can take away something other than greater fitness from this trip it’s how little I need to get by.

Whilst I don’t need to own much my love of good coffee incurs quite a cost! Just like my last taper I’m almost planning my training around when best to visit my favourite coffee shops. I’ve four I’d consider favourites in the vicinity. Each good for a different reason and only one I visit for the quality of the coffee alone. I’ve been to them all in the past week, multiple times in some cases. I’ll certainly miss the cafe culture when I’m back home, I have no recollection of such good coffee shops in Reading. At least not the kind where you might kill an hour or two.

In between ensuring I’m suitable caffeinated there has been some training. Lots of easy efforts with judicious doses of harder paces. With greatly reduced volume those hard efforts are much easier and very reassuring. Watching the powermeter once I’ve warmed up on the bike gives me some confidence for the Ironman ahead. At the same time I’m aware of all the little niggles and you do start to worry just a little that there may be issues to come. It’s all part of the game though, not much to be done now!

It’s not all indulgence much as it might sound that way. There are important rules I am sticking to. No unhealthy foods. That’s number one, my diet is pretty simple right now. Lots or fruit and veg, a fair bit of sushi or fish in general. Been off the bread for a while. All those trips to the coffee shops? No cakes and always long blacks no sugar! I quite enjoy sticking to a set of rules. Plus it should stop me from gaining any weight as the taper goes on.

I want to keep this one short rather than the usual essay I dump on the site. I would have liked to ramble less! You’d think with all this spare time I’d have planned this better. I can assure you whilst I admired the views on the beach front I thought about what I’d post and it sounded way better!

I will try and keep this one short as I have embarrassingly little to say! Somehow an intended 3 days off has stretched to 5. Don’t ask me exactly how I did plan to do some training the last day or two, but kept switching things round. On the other hand the fridge is fully stocked and I have new race shoes for the season. It’s not been entirely unproductive even if I haven’t done any swim, bike or run.

Partly I can blame some travel and partly I can blame a little pain in my side. As the days go on though the pain feels more like an excuse. It’s there, but aside from sleeping it’s not that bad. I’m not sure why it’s worse when I’m trying to sleep, but it is. Once I wake in the early hours of the morning I can look forward to the discomfort disturbing me pretty much hourly. Of course worse is when you’re having a strange lucid dream of bike riding and you find yourself moving in your sleep. That just sets it off even more!

This morning I added a cramp in my left calf to the mix. Not had that in a while, but post Epic I occasionally wake to muscle spasms too. I really need my masseur to get over his gastro and get to work on my legs. I think I’ll also hit some electrolyte drink over the next few days. I don’t typically cramp much and last time I was having this problem I found a good dose of electrolytes over a few days fixed things up.

Other than spending my nights twitching in pain I’ve certainly felt pretty tired. Sleeping heavily when I do, catching a nap in the middle of the day. I think those 60 hours of training hit me pretty hard in the end! Who’d have thought? I can’t feel bad about 5 days off as I think my body needed it, but there’s a little guilt there as it’s so lazy. I’m reminded of Bevan’s question in the podcast about how I found off days as a full time athlete. I’ll reiterate on that one – very boring!

The Gold Coast is currently more like the Grey Coast unfortunately. It’s been a little cold today and very wet. It didn’t help encourage me to go for an easy spin. Instead I popped up to Brisbane to sort out some new race shoes. It proved to be a much quicker experience than I expected. I went to a specialist running shop with the intention of trying a few racing flats. A young, unenthusiastic assistant killed that one off. After a brief discussion I tried some Adidas shoes and the Saucony FastTwitch 3. I’ve been using Saucony for a while and the latter were perfect for me. So with little input from the assistant I opted to go for them. In the end I know Saucony works for me and that’s the most important thing. Also they come in a brilliant orange colour and I got some matching elastic laces! Still a disappointing reminder of the quality of some running shop staff.

What’s more disappointing is that’s the highlight of my week so far! It’s no wonder I feel it’s time to get back into it again. The next week or so is about getting back into training, then I’m off down to Geelong for some proper training. That leaves only a couple more weeks before I’ll be tapering. So one four week block of solid training to go and a final chance to build a little more fitness before the next Ironman. There’s going to be a big push on the swimming front. Plenty more of the biking with a bit more intensity worked in. Lots of running and again a bit more intensity thrown in along with some proper long runs.

I promise to try and have done something for the next post. Even if it’s proved Yoga is a dumb idea with a sore rib!

I can be stubborn, very stubborn in fact. Often it can take a while for a message to get through to me. Despite all of this I’ve (so far) managed to take today off as a rest day. You see it’s been 21 days of training now, averaging 4-5 hours a day in that time and those that fell short of that number used intensity to make up for it. The joys (torture) of Yoga have been putting extra strain on muscles all over the place. Sleep has become a lot easier, a lot heavier and despite regular 8 hour nights I never feel I get enough. Then there’s the motivation factor which is usually pretty big for me. This morning the thought of another 3 or 4 hour ride just didn’t appeal at all!

It’s very hard to accept rest as part of the program. I’m very driven in what I do and looking to keep progressing like anyone chasing Hawaii slots and 9 hour Ironmans. When I got up this morning the thought that I could either train as normal or have a rest day was in the back of my mind. This is a very tricky decision to make, potentially I could be being lazy. For me to make it almost certainly involves some kind of bargaining. If I take today off I’ll absolutely flog myself up Trees Road tomorrow (accidentally discovered 20% plus road)! Even then am I just being weak by skipping out on training? I hadn’t scheduled this!

There was a huge mental battle lying ahead of me for the next couple of hours. Chances were it would culminate in me either getting out on a ride or deciding it was too late and resigning myself to not training. All of this was diverted by one simple question from my landlady – “What’re your plans for today?”. I admitted that I’d not decided and was considering a rest day as I was tired and had trained for the past three weeks. When she said then I should take a day off that was it. External validation of the position, qualified or not, was good enough for me. Commenting how I’d yet to visit the beaches pretty much cemented the issue. After all living five minutes from the beach and not having stepped foot on it is a cardinal sin!

Confession finished the plan for my penance was set. No training today. Instead a long walk along the beach with breaks for coffee, some brekkie and probably a bit of cake on the return leg. I’m happy to say I’m now sitting at home, penance completed. I walked further than planned and possibly had a little more cake than planned too! Plenty of coffee, though I now have to wonder how I ever grew to have a fondness for Cappuccinos. I vaguely recall having a very high caffeine intake at the time and switching to Capps as a way to handle more coffee because of their milder taste! I am back on the hard stuff though, if it’s not black it’s not going to work. It’s been a good break, but even now I’m fighting an urge to go and do just a light jog, or there is a yoga class at 5! Instead once this is posted I’m going to have a lie down and possibly a nap!

In fact that rest is pretty appealing so I’m motivated to get this done! Fortunately my weekend was uneventful, more of the same. Read the last two posts and you’ll have a pretty good idea how it went! Training and a few signs I needed more time to recover. At the same time there were signs that my fitness is really taking shape too so I can’t be disappointed. I’m feeling I’ve got myself to the point where I’m ready to really start the training I need to progress. The next 7 days are going to be a big week now, the plan is to get a lot done before I fly out to New Zealand. Not that things get easier there! My first week I’ll keep training up as usual probably with more of a bike emphasis. Then it’s Epic Camp time and I plan to push myself hard and see what happens! After that I might allow myself a rest day again!

(I am thinking I’ll flog myself up Trees Road tomorrow. Not to make up for resting, just now that I think about it…)

In the run up to Christmas you get a lot of 12 days of Christmas or Advent Calendar style gift lists out there. I figured I have a website, why don’t I join in. I also figured that I’m too lazy to reach 12, let alone 25. At best I’ll hit 10 and they’re in no particular order to save me editing them round. A final note before the list, should any potential rich benefactors happen to read this, feel free to get in touch…

New Bike

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with my current bike, but it doesn’t stop me lusting after new equipment on a daily basis. Given I am riding a traditional road bike in a slightly awkward aero set-up (it was never designed to be ridden steep) it’s unsurprising I’m not as aero as I’d like. Pictures from Western Australia confirm this. Limits to what I could bring forced me to pick one bike and I opted for the one I ride the most.

I quite fancy the new Look 596 though. I’m a Look fan and currently ride one of their road bikes. A nice Look Tri bike to go with it for races would be perfect. Alternatively I quite like the idea of a custom carbon frame for the perfect fit. Saw a link to this place in the UK and it looks interesting, not as expensive as I thought either.

Racing with power

Nothing beats power for managing your race. I proved this to myself in Port Macquarie Half-Ironman by riding my training wheels. Ultimately though for my major races I want the lighter more aerodynamic wheels on my bike. That means skipping power and going back to heart rate and RPE. To be fair it worked pretty well for me in Western Australia, but this is an extravagant wishlist! I’ll be reasonable though as I hope to race Hawaii I’ll go for something like a Zipp 808 with Powertap built in and not a disc. I suppose I could solve it with a set of SRMs instead, I have a Garmin 705 so only need the cranks!

Another year of training

This one comes above all the others! Much as new kit is great I would trade it all in for a further year’s extension to this already long project of mine. Currently I anticipate running low on funds late 2009 and almost certainly having to be back to reality in 2010. There may be some options to prolong things a little, but looks like I’ll have to do some honest work sometime around then. In terms of my racing and my goals all the flash kit I mention is icing on the cake. Another year of training is what makes the cake itself (or some other analogy).

Disc wheel

I have managed pretty well without one so far. Maybe it’s just the frustration of so many of the things going past me in Western Oz! Combine that with the sound they make and I’m sat on my bike paranoid about any noise coming past. To be fair only a few actually passed me and I got a few of those places back on the run. I spent a lot of time on that bike course thinking how nice a disc would be.

Damn, I’m running out at 4!

New race shoes

As the ideas run low so does the extravagance. Somehow when packing to come out here I seemed to manage to pick lots of my older more worn kit. I’m getting the impression that my current Saucony Type As are wearing out. Whilst my Zoot experiment didn’t really work out so well I still need to replace my race shoes. Not too interested in gimmicky things like the Newtons to be honest. All I want is something light and fast.

I’m probably best sticking to Saucony as I know the brand, but a trip to a decent run store where I can compare some brands and trainers would be great. So yeah this one I can do myself next year. I have to go all the way up to Brisbane for it as the Gold Coast doesn’t seem to have a proper specialised running store.

First Class upgrades

I fly a lot. This year I have travelled by plane 21 times. So before anything else sorry about the ozone layer and the whole global warming thing. Next year may be slightly better, I think it’ll be a bit less than that. However it’d be great would be if I could have all my flights upgraded. Not having to worry about the amount of baggage I can take. Better food and even proper cutlery. All the legroom I want…

My own Soigneur

Who isn’t jealous of the pro-cyclists when after a race they have someone making sure they get the food they need, massaging them etc. How much easier would life be if all I had to do was train? I’d not even have to worry about all that stretching stuff with massage at the end of each day. Anyone interested in this unpaid position please send a CV detailing past experience and photos.

Failing all that, a pass for two decent massages a week. One is good, two would be better and free is best of all. At least the cost of massage is cheaper here than the UK, that’s a plus.

Funnily as I get into this the list starts to grow. I’ll spare you anymore of my inane ideas though. Two that didn’t make it – to be fitter and a Kona slot. Simply because the first requires work and the second comes from the first. These things have to be earnt, I don’t want a big box of EPO under my tree thanks.

Proper post to come sometime around Christmas/Boxing Day. Back to thoughts on training plans that sort of stuff. Day two of training felt a lot better than day one which has to be a good thing. In a shocking break from tradition and part of the new plan I’m now going to stretch.

I have ambitious plans to complete this in under 30 minutes. No offence, now that more than 2 people seem to be reading this I am trying to be consistent and even interesting. However today is the last day of the 2 weeks of ‘recovery’. A term here meaning doing very little training and a lot of the stuff you haven’t done in ages whilst gaining a bit of weight. I want to get an early night as tomorrow it’s back to getting up first thing and training. I still have more to write up about the training plans for the next year, but today something about my camping trip.

Let’s start with the thanks. Part of the reason to head down to Sydney was to meet up with my friend Asher. Somehow we’d managed to miss each other for something like a year. To be fair it’s probably my fault being anal about my training schedule making it hard to arrange anything! Asher had suggested I come along on his planned camping trip and I’m glad I did, the bush beats the city every time. Biggest thanks have to go to Iwan and Baz though who acted as expert guides and hosts over the weekend. I have now learnt a little bit about canoeing and a little bit about fishing. Far from an expert, but I gave it a go!

It was a relatively short trip as the flights I’d booked didn’t allow me to stay a full weekend. I have to admit I wish I’d had Monday flights now. Fortunately Baz needed to head back home on Saturday too so despite my awkward timings I’d be able to return to civilisation. We headed out to Yalwal on Friday morning. It’s roughly a 3 hour drive south of Sydney though we took the time to stop off for lunch on route. Eating formed a major part of the weekend. Fortunately by now I’d decided not to worry and to enjoy the food, I’ll get back to race shape soon enough! The overall result was I had one large breakfast at my hotel (buffet it’s rude not to eat all you can), a second smaller breakfast when I met the other guys and then an early, large lunch on route to the camp site. This doesn’t mention the bag of crisps we opened in the car either…

We arrived at the dam in Yalwal sometime around midday. Unloaded the cars and put everything into our canoes. I’ve never actually canoed before. To be honest I have this weird discomfort in boats. It’s not that I can’t easily swim to safety, obviously I could. There’s something about the idea of falling in and having all my stuff get wet that makes me uneasy! Unsettled nerves apart a combination of a reasonable amount of power and no technique saw Baz and my canoe zig-zag all the way to the campsite. It was probably fortunate it was only a few hundred metres upstream. I think I’d paddled more like a kilometre by the time we landed though. The truth is you could have walked to where we were camped, but what would be the fun in that?

After setting up camp and a quick swim in the surprisingly warm waters we headed out to fish. I was a little better in the canoe though my technique was great at soaking me through. The waterproof I’d packed in case of rain proved handy here! Fishing was entirely new to me and it took a while for me to cast even half respectably. I think I spent half the first trip unravelling bird’s nests from my fishing line! Fortunately Iwan was particularly lucky and managed to catch us enough to eat that evening. To be fair Asher also caught a smaller fish and kept it so he could eat his catch. Me and Baz however had no luck and came home empty handed.

Dinner was 5 freshly caught Bass and some plain rice all cooked over a wood fire carefully built by Asher. Such keenness to build a fire and burn wood would be unsettling outside of a campsite. The food was simple, but delicious. Probably the freshest fish I’d ever eaten. After dinner we chatted on in the dark. I knew Asher long before I thought that training was a worthwhile way to spend your time so conversation turned to some of my interests of the past. It was curious to revisit some of the topics of old and to find myself moving from my impressions of the Gold Coast to the short stories of J. G. Ballard. His early Science Fiction has some relevance to the way I feel about the place. They also made a marked impression on me as I often find myself reminiscing on their themes. There is something strange in my decision to live somewhere which I think embodies some of those themes. Enough of that as this is supposed to be about the trip.

I slept surprisingly well given the variety of large rocks underneath the tent and my sleeping bag. Not my best night’s sleep, but really not too bad given there was a rock sticking in my kidneys most of the night. Early morning saw Iwan and Baz head out to see if they could catch some breakfast whilst Asher and I had a lay in! We got up on their return having had to do nothing for our breakfast! A combination of tinned fish, bread, noodles and some fresh fish that may not sound all that special but tasted great. Perhaps more importantly some decent coffee made in the Billy Can.

Saturday saw us head out and paddle upstream to the source of the Creek. The first half we paused for some fishing and this time Baz and I had the luck. He caught a Bass worth eating and I at least caught on even if we did throw it back (I will upload photographic proof of this in the future). With something for lunch we headed on up till the Creek became too shallow. On route I spotted a snake basking in the sun, despite warnings about the dire venoms snakes here possess Asher was keen to get up close. Having looked it up since being black with a red belly means it probably wasn’t too dangerous actually. When we reached the end of the creek it was time for another fire and lunch. Fresh fish and bread again, delicious.

That was pretty much it. Baz and I powered our canoe home and started getting ready for our return trip. A final fire and cup of tea, a bit of packing and then back to the car. We opted for the drier luxury of the electric motor to get us back. Well, until 100m to go when it ran out of juice and we carefully paddled to shore so as not to soak the relatively clean clothing (everything smelt like a bonfire by now anyway). The drive home was interrupted by a couple of massive pizzas for dinner. I figured if I was going to enjoy all the foods that were off the menu once I’m training I was going to enjoy them properly.

I had a great weekend away and a complete break from my current lifestyle. It was good fun and I’m glad I spent the time down there. I continued the indulgence of the previous week safe in the knowledge that it all stops now. From tomorrow onwards it’s serious training. Back to the proper hours, the careful diet and a plan to get me my Hawaii ticket in April. Next time I blog it’ll be more on the training plans.