Less than 200 days to go

Even though I have been mainly focusing on my run training, my form on the bike appears to be very good, whilst my running is still slightly below expectations. Maybe it is just the affect of having new bikes. Unfortunately I have been neglecting my swim - only 10 sessions in the last 19 weeks, something I'll definitely need to improve upon.

The weekend saw two ride sessions.  I have started joining a local ride on Sat morning that leaves at 6:30am from the Seaford bike shop (Cycling Obsession). This is an earlier start that would I would like, but the ride is over by 8:30am leaving me free for the rest of the day. And it is very convenient with the bike shop being just 1km down the road. On Sunday we did a run/bike/run session at Kew Boulevard as a practice for the Duathlon in 2 weeks.  My average power for 2 laps of the boulevard was 254 watts with a HR of 145bpm.  This compares well against a similar distance at the Somers Duathlon - 270 watts/163bpm (you always go harder in a race).

I love the Kew course, but Elaine, Jan and Brady were a bit daunted by the steepness in parts of the run. Elaine will still do the Duathlon, but after seeing the course Jan thinks she'll give it a miss and Brady is undecided.  Whilst walking down to the boathouse for a coffee after the session (most important part of the session), Elaine spotted an owl sleeping in the tree.

In a move to further improve my running, on Tue I decided to do a Moneghetti Fartlek Session (click here for a PDF version). I decided to run the efforts just above my 1500m pace (3m30s/km) and run the recovery float pace at around 5m00s/km. Despite my best efforts I tended to run between 3m35s and 3m40s (the last 2 efforts blew out to 3m50s pace) and while the recovery float pace started at 5m00s pace, it slowly stretched out to 5m30s pace. This is a deceptively difficult session and I was close to vomitting on my cool down run. In fact it took 3 or 4 hours after the run for my stomach to finally settle down. But if the session worked for Mona, it should work for me and hopefully it will get easier (and/or faster) over time.

After the run session I considered wading out into the bay to give the legs a bit of cold water treatment (like the footballers the day after the game), but unfortunately the weather conditions had turned the bay into a surf beach. I drove down to the Ironman swim start at Frankston and took the following photos. Hopefully the water will be calm on race day, because I do not look forward to swimming 3.8km in those conditions.

Tonight I'll be attending my second John Van Wisse swim session for the season.  I doubt I will last for the full 3km, but the important thing is that it will be the first week this season that I'll do 2 swims in the one week.  I was going over my notes from the Triathlon Coaching course I did 2 years ago and they suggest 6 swims a week when preparing for an Ironman.  There is no chance I'll get to 6, but 4 swims a week is a possibility, but that will be a while off.

This weekend Elaine and I will be doing the Kinglake Ride with a group from our Triathlon Club.  Elaine, Martine and I will do the shorter 70km option, whilst Jeff, Lee, Jeremy and Los are doing the longer 120km and Jan is still undecided. Last year I did the 120km with Peter and really struggled over the last 40km so opted for the shorter distance this year.  However I'm in much better shape than expected and am now regretting not opting for the longer ride, especially when I need more kilometres in my legs in preparation for Ironman.

Bill and Peter are currently over in Beijing for the Age Group World Championships.  Peter is doing the Aquathlon and Olympic Distance and Bill is doing the Sprint Distance and then flying to Spain to do the Duathlon.  I wish them both the best and although podium finishes against the world's best are extremely unlikely, I'm sure they will place well.