Ben Griffin Classic

Apparently this is the 7th annual Ben Griffin Classic, but only my 2nd (previous report).  Still recovering for Saturday's Bayside KOM (only 4 days ago), I didn't really rate my chances.

There had been a lot of trash talking on Facebook before the event, mostly directed towards Clint and how his days of dominance were at an end.  Tom, who had just earnt his Triathlon Pro licence this year was particular vocal - all in jest of course.

Like usual I rode from my house and joined the ride when I spotted them approaching. I figured it would be very easy to recognise the group on Christmas Eve (a work day), but was still surprised by the size of the group. I'd estimate at least 80 riders in the peleton, possibly more.

Seaford Sprint

I'm not a good sprinter at the best of times, but with my legs still feeling dead I knew I was no hope. However even without being a chance for a win, it is hard not to join in the fun, so I took off with the lead pack on the first sprint. I saw Tom tucked in nicely behind Clint and told him I would act as his lead-out man. Unfortunately I misread the pace of the pack and ended up at the front way too early. Jason and I were riding side by side out front knowing full well our efforts would die well before the line. Seems like my lead-out abilities are almost as bad as my sprinting.

Predictably Clint won the first sprint, Tom came in second and I'm not sure who scored 3rd place.

Oliver's Hill KOM

Legs still feeling crap, but like usual I decided to race the KOM anyway. Half way up what is a short but very steep hill, it was obviously not happening for me, so I cruised up the rest of the hill.

Stephen won the KOM. I'm not sure, but he looked very much like last year's Red Rider, but on a new bike - he certainly rode up hills just as fast. Young Martin was second and Andrew third (note that this is a different Andrew to the one that dominated the Bayside KOM).

Balcombe Hill KOM

There is a fair gap between Oliver's and Balcombe and my legs were starting to loosen up. I was always going to race the hill, but now I felt I had a whisker of chance to score points.

It started out unusually slow. I don't think Clint had any intention of contesting the climb (he was concentrating on the sprints), but the slow pace seemed to annoy him so he jumped on the front to pick things up. As soon as Clint backed off a few riders made big attacks near the bottom of the hill.

At 2.4km, Balcombe Hill is reasonably long and has two sections with a small false flat in the middle. It is very common to see riders go way too hard in the first half and completely die way before the end. With this in mind the lead pack let to attacking riders go and set on a nice tempo pace for the first half of the climb. Andrew (from the Bayside KOM) set the pace out front. It was not particularly fast, but e was conveniently protecting the rest of us from head wind, so we were more than happy to sit on his wheel.

Once passed the false flat Tom took over the lead and I jumped on his wheel. Another rider followed by Andrew dropped away. We quickly rounded up the attacking riders, the last of whom was Stephen who actually seemed to wait for us (probably catching his breath before the final onslaught).

Looking who I was riding with, I felt I was outgunned and would not win a final sprint up the climb. With this in mind I attacked early about 200m before the summit. Unfortunately the fatigue in my legs meant my attack was no where near as powerful as I wanted, but was good enough to dislodge one of the riders. This left Stephen, Tom and myself. Predictably Stephen and Tom rode away from me with Stephen claiming the full points whilst I held on for 3rd.

Dromana Sprint

Starting from the Dromana Drive-in and ending under the Freeway overpass, I once more decided to continue my futile efforts at winning a sprint.

Sitting 4 wheels from the front, I felt I was in perfect position. Unbenownst to me, the two riders in front had decided not to contest the sprint, so when everybody shot off I found myself completely boxed in. Once I had manoeuvred my out I tried to catch back up, but to no avail.

Clint picked up another Sprint win followed by Tom in second (no idea who came third).

Sorrento Sprint

The Sorrento Sprint has a steep uphill finish. Maybe this would help overcome my pathetic sprinting talents. Unfortunately the start point was over 1km before the end and I was badly positioned when the pack took off at a very rapid pace. I would surge to catch up, but each time the rider in front would drop off requiring me to surge again. After happening a few times, I backed off and saved my legs.

Maybe it was the uphill finish, but this time Tom prevailed over Clint with Andrew (from the Oliver's Hill KOM) scoring another 3rd place.

Once at Sorrento we stopped for a toilet break, refilling of water bottles and to allow all of the riders to regroup. At the stop Clint announced a change to the Beleura Hill KOM. The start point was moved from Main St to the Mt Martha tunnel - so the racing section of the KOM had increased from 1km to 11.5km.

Beleura Hill KOM

The new extended KOM now included the twisting and undulating roads through Mt Martha. This is one of my favourite bits of road and usually a section of road where I would do well. But my legs were not feeling good, plus I would have 100km in legs before hitting this section.

I knew the exit from the tunnel would be a critical piece of road. It is extremely steep and I usually suffer greatly on this small section of road. Moving to front before the tunnel and then pushing very hard on the exit I successfully lodged myself within the lead pack. Once the Mt Martha twisties the pace was hard and fast. I locked onto the back of Clint's wheel and hung on for dear life.

The twisty, undulating section along the Esplanade between the tunnel and round-a-bout is 6km long. About 5kms in, a few riders managed to extend a gap to Clint. I waited for a bit to see if Clint would close it down but nothing happened. Suspecting he may be suffering I jumped out front to share to pull a turn. Unfortunately my power left me when we started to climb the next hill and Clint and Ben flew past leaving me in their wake. Knowing I was on a good time for one of my favourite Strava segments I continued to push the pace to the round-a-bout and smashed my PB by 1m40s for the 6km segment (only 90s off the overall KOM).

The leaders were still in sight but I was feeling very flat and just cruised along the Esplanade towards Mornington. Previously dropped riders flew past, but I wasn't tempted to jump on until a small pack of 6 or so riders came past that included Jason and Brent. They were riding well and were slowing picking  up the riders ahead. Starting to feel better and jumped on the front and pulled a few turns as we maintained a good pace into Mornington. In fact the pace was so good that when we crested the final Beleura Hill the leaders were just ahead of us. Even more impressive, I have placed 7th overall on the 38km Strava segment from Sorrento to Mornington - this includes me stopping at Rye to fix my chain and the few kilometres along the Esplanade where I stopped trying.

Once again Stephen won the KOM - 3 out 3 making him King of the Mountain. I don't know who got 2nd, but Tom snuck in for third.

By this stage I felt terrible, but Tom looked even worse. The ride was to regroup at the Frankston BP and we both got dropped along the way.

Seaford Sprint

After regrouping at Frankston, the next Sprint starts almost immediately and you need your wits about you to get into position early enough. Knowing this, Ray launched a massive attack and quickly established what looked like an insurmountable lead. James headed off with the intention of securing 2nd and I sat on wheel planning to jump him just before the line. Stephen flew past an incredible speed in chase of Ray, leaving James and I to fight out for 3rd place.

I knew I had nothing left in my legs, but I figured if I sat in James draft all to the way to finish it should be pretty simple to overrun him at the end. With about 300m to go several other riders started to pass on the outside. Thinking they would easily outride James (and therefore me), I gave up and cruised to the line. Surprisingly James maintained his lead and took 3rd (surprising because he rode so far solo, not because I doubt his ability). Even more surprising, Stephen caught and passed Ray for the win.

At 140km I ended my ride completely exhausted. This has been my longest ride since Ironman in March 2012 (20 months ago). Initially I was a little disappointed in my efforts, but after looking at the Strava results I was pleasantly surprised. Not only did I post big PBs on nearly all the segments between Sorrento and Mornington, I also scored a PB on the Balcombe Hill climb.

Last Two Sprints

As I'd already left the ride, I didn't see any of the last 2 sprints. Parkers Rd Sprint was won by Daniel, followed by Clint and Laurence. And the Overall winner (final sprint) was won by Clint, followed by Swanny and then Dave. King of the Mountain went to Stephen and Clint won the Sprint points.

Bayside KOM

Another special ride event added to the calendar by Clint. This one is purely climbing focused, hence the KOM (King of the Mountains) in the name. It takes place up in the Dandenongs, involving the '1-in-20', Perrins Creek Rd, The Wall and Inverness to Olinda. Of my athletes only Stef and Elaine were missing. Stef had scheduled a hangover for Saturday morning after her work's Christmas Party on Friday night and Elaine was too tired and instead chose a flat ride to Port Melbourne and back.

The official ride started on the corner of Dorset Rd and Mountain Hwy, but most club members decided to set off from GESAC and make the total ride over 140km. I was much kinder to my athletes and had them start a kilometre before Dorset Rd as it had more convenient parking and the extra kilometre of warmup riding would be beneficial before the first climb. Plus I didn't want anybody holding back their efforts on the climbs because they were worried about the long ride home - I tend to keep my long ride and hilly rides separate. If I did decide to do a long hilly ride, the climbs would be taken much easier than normal.

All up there must have been around 50 riders as we gathered at the Basin listening to Clint's instruction.

1-in-20

The first climb was the '1-in-20' - Mountain Hwy from the Basin to the Mt Dandenong Tourist Rd, about 7km long at a fairly constant 5% gradient (thus the name 1-in-20) with a small false flat in the middle.

Andrew immediately rode off the front, but there no reaction from the other contenders, in particular Clint, Griff and Swanny. So I settled in behind them and bided my time thinking that someone would eventually make a move to close the gap. It was a reasonably easy tempo for the first section of the climb, Andrew increased the gap out front but never really got out of sight. Clint jumped out front on the false flat and picked up the pace, which dropped about 10 riders off the chase pack leaving just Clint, Griff, Swanny and myself. The gap to Andrew was reduced to less than 50 metres, but as soon as the false flat finished, Clint relinquished the lead and left it to me to close the gap.

Pulling back 50m with about 2.5km left to climb was not a huge task, but I was reluctant to dig too deep this early into the ride. Andrew looked to be riding very well and if I did pull back the gap, the others would simply ride past when we got close to the top. This would mean expending a lot of energy with no benefit to me, plus the 4 points for first across the top would be better with Andrew than Clint (Clint wins everything). So I maintained a reasonably fast but comfortable pace and Andrew slowly edged further ahead. With the others all wanting somebody else to do the work, nobody volunteered to take the initiative and Andrew slipped away to a relative easy win on the first climb. As we neared the top I could hear Clint changing gears in preparation of a sprint for 2nd place. I decided to charge early with 150m to go hoping this would discourage Griff and Swanny from contesting (nothing was going stop Clint). I held the lead for a while, but Clint timed his effort well and surged past with 50m to go. Looking across I could see Swanny on his wheel and decided I would just cruise the last 50m and finish in 4th place (no points for 4th) with Griff doing the same in 5th.

Once at the top we took it easy down the Tourist Rd and The Crescent to let other riders catch back up. By the time we reached the bottom of the Perrins Creek Rd climb, we had a group of about 15 riders. I've only ridden Perrins Creek Rd once, about 10 years ago. I was fairly new to riding then and the climb was so difficult I think it mentally scarred me. Now it was time to see how much I have improved.

Perrins Creek Rd

It didn't take long for Andrew to ride off the front again and once more nobody else made an effort to follow. Not wanting to fall into the same trap, I attacked from the main pack and rode straight past Andrew when I caught him. He immediately jumped onto my wheel and stayed there for the whole climbs. There were a few sections where I could sense him starting to falter, but he never drifted more than a few metres and was always pretty quickly back on my wheel.

The total climb is about 2.5km long with an average gradient of about 8%. I've always thought it was similar to Arthur's Seat in Dromana, but having now ridden it a second time, I've found it keeps a much steadier gradient than Arthurs Seat and also doesn't have any hairpin corners (Arthurs Seat is all hairpin corners). With about 1km to go, we had ridden out of sight of the chase pack, so I knew the winner was going to be out of Andrew and me. By this stage I was feeling terrible, but I was sensing Andrew was not feeling great either so this gave me hope. The last 100m was an all out effort (I won't say sprint because at 8% gradient it was not very fast). I just held off Andrew across the line, who then told me he wasn't going to pass me after I led the whole way up, but going by how much effort he gave and how hard he pushed me, I'm not sure I believe him.

Behind us, Clint made an attack to secure 3rd place, but unfortunately his timing was not so good. He thought he was closer to the top and died well before the end allowing Swanny to grab third place.

Along the Tourist Road and down The Crescent we once again allowed the group to reform. This time the numbers swelled to about 20 riders before we reached the base of The Wall. My efforts up Perrins Creek Rd had burnt a lot of matches. My legs felt like jelly and I didn't really hold much hope for any more decent climbing efforts.

The Wall

Swanny was leading the pack as we approached The Wall, but unfortunately he missed the turn and had to double back which disadvantaged him a little. True to form, Andrew once again took off straight away, so I immediately rode up to his wheel but this time I didn't pass. Still feeling crap I thought I was no chance up the hill, but if we got away there was a possibility the others would not bother chasing us and instead fight between themselves for the 3rd spot. Unfortunately Clint was soon on our wheels and now the lead pack was 3 riders big.

The Wall is just over 5kms long and has a few steep pinches. The rest of the climb is still pretty steep, it is just that the pinches are even steeper. Once we reached the steep pinch in the middle, Clint started to drop off the back. Sensing weakness I immediately moved to the front to try and open a gap. At this stage I passed Mark (who on my instructions had skipped the Perrins Creek loop) and was feeling surprisingly good. Andrew and I worked together through the steep sections, but once the gradient eased off a little Clint was soon back on our wheels. With Clint back in the picture my motivation dropped a little and I again realised how crap I felt, so I dropped off the back and let Andrew and Clint fight it out between them.

I kept a steady tempo for the rest of the climb feeling confident I had 3rd place (1 point) sewn up. Every now and again I checked behind to make sure no one was creeping up, but each time the gap to 4th place was significant enough to not bother me. As we approached the final stages of the climb I must have become complacent, because when I checked behind there was Swanny making a late charge (he was previously not the rider in 4th place). I immediately changed up a gear and tried to surge, but was instantly treated to a massive cramp in my left calf - no doubt the legacy of my efforts up Perrins Creek Rd. So I watched Swanny fly past to score his hat-trick of 3rd places and later discovered that Clint had just pipped Andrew for the win (they were completely out of sight by then).

With 3 climbs down and 1 to go, each climb had been won by a different rider. The leaderboard saw Andrew out in front with 8 points (4+2+2), Clint in second with 6 points (2+0+4), myself in third with 4 points (0+4+0) and Swanny in fourth with 3 points (1+1+1). Nobody else has troubled the scoreboard. Griff (the reigning King of the Mountain) had been near the action all day, but hadn't actually fired shot. He was complaining about problems with his new bike, but I suspect he was keeping his powder dry to improve his chances in the 150km Ben Giffin Classic (named after him) scheduled for the Tuesday (4 days away).

After The Wall we descended down the Tourist Rd to Montrose, one of my favourite descents. There we waited for 10 or 15 minutes to let the group rebuild to close to over 30 riders. During this break I didn't really know how I felt. I was quite sore in parts, but the easy descent followed by a decent break has restored some of my energy.

Montrose to Olinda via Inverness Rd

I've ridden up the Tourist Rd back to Olinda which is a relative long but not overly steep climb. However I've never been on Inverness Rd before, something I was about to experience. Inverness Road sort of undulates upwards ranging from mildly to very steep, although the severity of the gradient seemed to increase with each undulation. Each time the gradient eased off I started to feel good and thought I was still a chance, but sensing my arrogance the gradient would quickly start to steepen and bring me back to reality.

The steep sections soon narrowed the riders down to a select few. Griff was missing this time, but Ray joined the party hoping to snare the final climb. I suspect Ray had been taking it easy up till now hoping we would all tire ourselves out and then planned to jump in fresh and ride away from us on the final climb. Andrew and Ray led the group up Inverness Rd, both looking very strong. Clint, Swanny and myself started to struggle each time the gradient got steep (we are talking around 15%). Both Clint and Swanny had 39-23 as their lowest gear, I had 39-25, I'm not sure what gearing Ray had, but Andrew's 34-27 gearing was definitely giving him a huge advantage through this section (a good tradesman brings the right tools). I knew the gradient would ease off once we got back on the Tourist Rd and could see it just up ahead - 'up' being the operative word, as while it seemed very close, it was worryingly much higher up. Looking up at the road felt looking up at a bridge that you were about to sail under in a boat. My fears were well founded as the gradient in the last 250m continually rose in sections to over 20%. With my legs feeling every the affects of every pedal stroke from the previous 3 climbs I was finally gone. But the mental relief of giving up on the race was spoilt somewhat by the fact I still had to finish riding up the 20% gradient to get back on the Tourist Road.

Andrew, Ray, Clint and Swanny soon rode out of sight, whilst I sauntered along at a leisurely pace. At one point I saw two riders ahead and thinking some of the guys had blown I picked up the pace to fight for third spot only to discover they were different riders not part of our group. Mentally and physically flat I laboured my way up the hill until riders from the chase pack (that included Queen of the Mountain, Naomi) caught up with me and we rode the rest of the way together.

Unlike the previous climbs, this last one ended with a few kilometres of rolling hills. Clint described it as 'being like the finish in one of the Spring Classics'. This type of finish would definitely suit Clint, which is no surprise seeing as he decided upon the course. As good as Andrew had been riding, I was convinced he would be suffering from the efforts of the last 3 climbs. Clint himself would have been very confident of taking the win, but like the other climbs, Andrew simply rode away and the others could not catch him. Clint was counting on support from the other riders to help in the chase, but one by one they dropped off with fatigue.

To put Andrew's effort in perspective, not only did he ride away from all the other riders. Even with what must have been extremely fatigued legs, he still posted an overall top 10 Strava finish on the last climb (Inverness to Olinda - 9.9km). To get a Stava top 10 on a popular climb in Dandenongs is almost impossible, to get it near the end of a particularly hard ride is unbelievable (I suspect Clint still cannot believe he lost).

I don't know who picked up 3rd on the final climb, so I'll just assume it was Swanny. This means the Final standings were: Andrew 12 pts (4+2+2+4), Clint 8pts (2+0+4+2), me 4 pts (0+4+0+0) and Swanny also on 4 pts (1+1+1+1). I believe I beat Swanny in a countback - a win supersedes 4 x 3rd place (it's my blog, so my rules).

Mick, Laurie, Merryn, Jen and Mark all did extremely well. There instructions were to hammer it up the hills - I wanted to see high heart rate averages for each climb, and that is what I saw (happy coach). Mark conveniently forgot his Garmin and had to use the Strava app on his phone which meant no heart rate data. But the speed and derived power figures indicate he pushed pretty hard on all hills with the possible exception of the ridiculously steep section of Inverness Rd where he averaged only 3.7kph. Possible walking involved there, but he would not have been the only one as others admitted to me that they had to walk sections. In fairness, if I had previously ridden that section I would have not have asked any of them to ride up it (it was truly brutal). And finally a special mention to Merryn who not only rode well on this ride, but then raced at the Western Suburbs Tri Club Sprint Triathlon the next day and finished as 2nd female overall - outstanding. This follows Jen's age group win at the Canberra Half Ironman the weekend before.

Back Online

It has been a long time since my last blog post.  One week after Noosa, I injured my back and had 10 days of no training. After 5 physio and 3 chiropractor appointments I am now back to full training, but a lot of fitness and conditioning has been lost in the meantime.

Elaine has also been out of action due to a skin cancer removal procedure performed the day we got back from Noosa. Amazingly the scar is already invisible but she still cannot swim for another week because the goggles would press on the exact spot where the skin cancer removed from. She also missed over a week of riding and running to avoid sweat getting into the wound. While she is back to full running and riding now,  the break has certainly put her fitness back.

Another reason for the break in posts is that I now have 6 athletes in my stable (8 if you include Elaine and me). I am definitely at capacity in this regard and it makes it hard to find time for other things such as updating blogs (I'm currently writing this on the train using my new Samsung Galaxy S III phone).

Last weekend Elaine and I along with Mark and Stef completed the Kinglake ride. When I signed up I had very ambitious notions of posting the fastest time up the Will Walker Climb and being first rider to complete  the 115km distance. Disappointingly my body was not up to the challenge. Even on the smaller undulations before the main climb my heart rate was spiking much higher than expected. Once on the Will Walker climb my perceived effort was telling me it was easy, but a heart rate of 170bpm was indicating otherwise. I resisted the urge to charge off the front scared that I would blow up after 2 minutes and just look silly. sure enough, even sitting in the pack I soon found myself struggling and dropped off the pack after only 2.5km of climbing (the hill was 7.5km long). With 6 riders in the lead pack I ended up only being 7th rider up the climb. After the climb I regrouped with a second pack of 4 riders, with 2 or 3 riders in the lead pack ahead of us. With the pace my group was setting, it seemed like they were determined to catch back up. This was eventually too much for me and at 70km mark I dropped off and continued on riding solo. S couple of riders from behind caught and passed me with only a few kilometres to go, so I am guessing I finished in about 10th place (out of 800 or so riders). At first I was very disappointed in how much fitness I had lost, but overall my effort was not too bad. After being completely wiped out for the rest of the day, it was fairly obvious I gave it all I could.


Elaine did well in the shorter 66km event even with the break in training, with Strava showing it was her fastest ride on that route. Although like me, she was wasted for the rest of the day. We both went to bed early and had a rare sleep in on Sunday morning. Mark (115km ride) and Stef (66km ride), both did very well. I didn't see Stef on the day, but Mark had a very big smile on his face as he rode down the finish shute. I'll write more about each of my athletes progress and season goals in a future post.

Noosa Triathlon

To give you an idea of of how many competitors were doing the race, my age group was split across 3 wave starts (some age groups had 4). The Elites kicked off at 6:15am, my wave was 7:22am and Elaine's was 8:02am.  So the Elite Winner had finished the race before Elaine started. However it could have been worse with some of the team waves starting as late as 9:30am.

Transition closed at 6:00am, so we arrived at the race site just after 5am (it opened at 4:45am). Unlike the slow queues at Registration on the Friday, the Transition Bike Check-in on Saturday and Transition Entry on Sunday morning were very quick. Kudos must also go to the Bag Storage arrangements and number (and quality) of toilets provided which greatly reduced unwanted queuing before the race.

In fact the only real wait of the morning was when we ordered our pre-race coffees (long macchiato). We figured it would be a while before we had a chance to have a coffee after the race, so decided to remove any chance of suffering a caffeine withdraw headache. Obviously plenty of other competitors had the same idea.

At 6am it was already quite warm and after our coffee there was no problem storing our gear in the bag check-in and continuing for the next 90 mins (over 2 hours in Elaine's case) in just our tri-suits and bare feet. By the time we got to the race start location, the elite men had just left, but we got to watch them come in out of the swim. Apparently just before the elite women started, a snake reared its head out of the water a metre or so in front of the group illiciting a few shrieks. Probably lucky Elaine and I didn't see this, nothing like adding to the normal pre-race nerves.

Swim

It was a deep water start and I positioned myself in the front row. Once the gun went off, I got a good start and immediately found some feet to draft off. It turned out the feet I was following were not particularly fast. In fact none of the swimmers near me at the start seemed to be that good and I could see the lead pack ahead slowly pulling away.

In general the swim was very easy as I cruised along drafting off other people's feet. Visibility was often very difficult, but there were plenty of marshalls sitting on boards who did a great job of keeping everyone on track. About half way through the swim I experienced a nasty pain on my neck. At first I thought is was chafing, but it was ten times more painful than any chafing I'd felt before. After the race I discovered it was a nasty jelly fish sting. The pain lasted for about 24 hours, but 2 days later I still have distinctive marks on my neck where I was stung.

Elaine's instructions for the swim was to take it easy and avoid expending extra energy. Despite getting a nasty whack to the mouth resulting in a very bloody lip, Elaine managed to hold her form and had one of her better swims in 39m19s. My swim split was 29m35s. In general I've been told swim times were about 2 minutes slower than usual due to a combination of unfavourable currents and a slightly long swim.

Bike

Onto the bike I discovered my Garmin computer was not working properly. This meant I had no Power Wattage, Heart Rate or Cadence. Very frustrating not to have any pacing tools for the race. I spent the first 5km of the bike fiddling with the computer to try and get it to work without success. I would have normally switched my Power Meter to my road bike for the Bright Camp, but decided it was more important to have it on my tri-bike for Noosa. Now I have no power figures for either, and my first 5km of the bike was much slower than usual as I wasted time playing with my computer.

Elaine fared even worse. Her bike was stuck in one gear. After 5km she hopped off the bike to see if she could fix the problem, but the gears would simply not budge. After investigating the bike after the race I discovered my mistake when re-assembling her bike. Everything on her bike had been setup and tested before I put her aero bars back on. When attaching the aero bars, I accidentally trapped the gear cable under the clamp which completely nullified the effectiveness of the gear lever. This problem was have been instantly detected if she did a warmup ride, but seeing me experience a puncture on Friday probably deterred her from this activity.

The Noosa bike course is very fast, assuming your bike isn't stuck in one gear and you don't waste time fiddling with a computer. It contains a 3km climb, but at around 4% gradient it is very easy. After the turnaround there is a steep 1km descent - I hit 80kph and even Elaine managed to crack 60kph down this hill. The rest of the course is pretty flat and the road surface is mostly pretty good.

Elaine and my official bike splits were 1h40m30s and 1h06m04s, but these included times for both transitions (and it was a big transition area). My actual bike split was 1h02m11s, averaging 37.8kph (I can definitely do better).

Run

Onto the run I felt pretty good. But it was already hot and I knew it would not take long for the heat to take effect. My kilometre splits before pretty much tell the story:

  4:01

  4:03

  4:07

  4:18

  4:26

  4:26

  4:30

  4:29

  4:34

  4:39

  0:41

The first few kilometres felt very easy and I was concentrating on not going too fast. Then in the fourth kilometre the heat caught up with me and the rest of the run was a bit of a struggle. You'll notice that the run was measured a bit long as well, a little nasty I thought on such a hot day.

The run course itself was amazing. It is reported that 20,000 spectators watch the race, but it felt like a lot more. I never ran too far without kids wanting a high five as I ran past. Residents also had garden hoses and sprinklers out and I was very appreciative of getting the occasional cool down.

Elaine's run followed a very similar pattern. However she still managed a 65 minute run, an excellent effort after a trying bike leg with only one gear.

My overall time was 2h19m58s. Not a PB and nowhere near what I think I'm capable of. Next Olympic Distance Triathlon is at St Kilda in January. Hopefully the results will be better there.

Days Leading into Noosa

The trip to Noosa was always going to be more of a holiday than a race weekend. All up it would be 7 nights in Queensland. With this coming only 2 nights after our 3 day Training Camp at Bright, we were very much entrenched in the holiday spirit.

There are 3 different accommodation rates at Noosa: Off-Peak, Peak and then Noosa Triathlon week. Not only is the accommodation very expensive, but you are also forced to book for a minimum of 5 nights. We ended up choosing the Outrigger apartments on the edge of the National Park in Little Hasting St, about 500m from Hasting St - the main drag and where all the action is. The resort has a gym and 2 pools (one is a lap pool) and is understandably full of triathletes. Whilst here I have seen Craig Alexander (3 times Hawaii Ironman World Champion), Emma Jackson (Olympian) and Peter Kerr (last year's Noosa winner), so it is obviously not a bad choice.

The race entry and accomodation was booked 12 months in advance of the race, but I held off on the airfares hoping cheaper flights would appear. After most triathletes had booked their flights, the unpopular dates to fly started to appear cheap. Getting a good deal meant arriving 2 days earlier than planned, but the savings in airfare was very significant (ie. $89 compared to $299). Rather than extend our expensive Noosa accommodation  I booked 2 nights at Coolum Beach instead, which is half way between the Sunshine Coast airport and Noosa.

Coolum Beach was very relaxing and it was a shame to leave after only 2 days. We still saw quite a few triathletes, but in general it was pretty quiet and the surf beach was great. The photo on the right shows the view from our balcony. And it was great beach weather the whole time we were there.

We drove the short distance to Noosa on Thursday and the town had already been taken over by triathletes. All cafes on Hasting St were overflowing and there were expensive bikes everywhere. During the Hawaii Ironman in Kona, Lava Java is apparently the place to be. In Noosa it would seem Aromas on Hasting St is the 'It Place'. After being lucky enough to score a seat, Robbie McEwan (Aussie cycling legend) was having morning tea at the table next to us and later on we saw the boys from Bondi Rescue.

Thursday afternoon Elaine and I did a run along the coastal trail that borders the National Park. It is a beautiful run with cliffs overlooking the ocean on one side and bushland on the other. Elaine ran 6km while I continued on for a 10km run. The problem with going further than most people is that you get to surprise snakes sunning themselves on the path. However it was only a very small snake, so nothing to worry about.

Friday morning I decided to ride the bike course. There is a climb and a very fast descent I wanted to check out. We had driven the course on the Thursday, but there is nothing quite like actually experiencing it on the bike. At roughly 4%, the climb turned out to be very easy. Whereas the steep descent (different bit of road) was extremely fast. It was during this descent that I discovered I hadn't tightened the front end properly and the whole bike was shaking as I battled the cross winds (with deep dish wheels) at 60kph.

With just a couple of kilometres left on my ride I experienced a puncture. Being an interstate race we didn't have the luggage space to carry 2 sets of wheels (ie. training and race wheels), so it was one of my tubular race tyres that suffered the fate. Luckily it was the tyre that came with the bike which was of lessor quality than all my other tyres, so one I was planning to replace at some stage anyway. With our luggage weight exceeding our allowances (even after purchasing extra), I left all non-essential items at home - including spare tyres and tubular tyre changing tools like valve removers.

After tracking down a new tubular at the Triathlon Expo, I then had to organise the tyre change with the Event Bike Mechanics. CycleZone Mooloolaba provided the services and did a wonderful job. However with 8,000 competitors, it seemed like every second athlete needed their services and I ended up waiting 3 hours for the tyre to be sorted. But at 15 dollars for switching the valve extenders across (need special tool) and gluing on the new tyre, I'm certainly not complaining - especially as I would not be racing without them.

The Expo also had massage services that Elaine and I had pre-booked. 30 minutes each for $30 (a dollar a minute). My masseur spent a lot of time on my calf and hamstring muscles as he found them to be extremely tight. But was then surprised to discover my quads were in far worse shape - obviously not helped by 3 days of cycling in Bright. Having run out of time, I booked another 15 minute massage the next day.

With seemingly everything sorted I put my wheel back on my bike and then set about tightening the front end. Tragically, the steering tube internals gave way. So not only could I not make it tighter, I could not even screw it in. Knowing this was a problem that could not be fixed before race day, I simply tightened the head steam onto the steerer hoping that would be enough. The other worry was that it would picked up by scrutineering when I checked my bike into transition. Down to transition check-in and they didn't give my bike more than glance, so hopefully all problems sorted.

The expectations for the race are not high. Having missed 2 weeks of swim squad and it being a non-wetsuit swim will guarantee a slow swim split and I strongly suspected the forecasted heat will destroy any chance of a good run.

Bright Camp 2013

As usual I've neglected my cycling over winter, as I usually wait for the warmer weather before logging the big miles on the bike. However my riding form seems to be a little down on previous years, or maybe the other club members have just been improving. Heading to Bright for 3 days of cycling in the Victorian Alps, I believed I would struggle more than I did on the same camp last year.

Mt Buffalo

Friday afternoon and the first ride is up Mt Buffalo. The round trip is 70kms that includes a 20km climb up the mountain at mostly around 6% gradient (a small false flat in the middle brings the overal gradient down to 5.6%). Last year everybody headed off for the Buffalo ride together and I stayed with the group for the first half (10km) of the climb. This year lots of riders took off early and the main pack was much smaller.

The good climbers in the group were Robin and Brent, but they had compact cranks which meant they could hold a comfortable rhythm at slower speeds. With my lowest gear being a 39-25 (as opposed to a 34-28), I needed to go faster to hold a cadence of 90rpm, so I took off alone about 3km into the climb.

I figured it would take about 1 hour to climb 20km, so equilavent to the bike leg of an Olympic Distance triathlon. Therefore a heart rate of 160bpm seemed a good way to pace my ride (my Power Meter was on my Tri bike at home). Halfway up the climb I started experiencing cramps in my calf muscle, not a good sign seeing as I still had 10km to go to the summit. Dropping my heart rate back closer to 150bpm and using less heel drop as I pedalled, I managed to make it to the top. Not quite the Time Trial like experience I was planning, but still managed a 41 sec PB for the climb which was a promising sign for the weekend (those who have read my previous blog post will remember that Elaine posted an 8 min PB for the climb).

At the top it was 2.5 degrees celsius (according to my Garmin) and felt even colder. I'd carried up a vest, arm warmers and long fingered gloves in preparation for the descent, but it was still an uncomfortably cold ride back down. Mt Buffalo is not my favourite descent at the best of times, but being cold, stiff and sore made the experience far worse. I also didn't appreciate the numerous sections of very bumpy road, usually just before a blind corner.

RoseWhite and Tawonga Gap

The second day encompasses the longest ride of the camp. I act as coach for the slower group and we do the shorter 110km ride that goes over the RoseWhite hill and Tawonga Gap (longer ride options are 140 and 170km). As coach I ride sedately with the group making sure everyone is OK. This means I can't really go for PBs up the mountains, but in truth it gives me a good excuse to go easy. With my lack of riding preparation, the 110km in itself (equivalent to around 130km on the flat) is challenging enough and I'm very happy to just clock up the miles (especially when Mt Hotham awaits the next day).

Mt Hotham

Last year Mt Hotham mentally defeated me. I used to arrogantly thing I could climb any mountain on my bike. But Hotham left mental scars and I now shudder any time I hear mention of a climb containing sections with a 20% gradient. Maybe Hotham just brought me back to reality. I wasn't confident that things would change this time around.

A lot of the riders headed off from our camp in Bright to ride the 30km to the base of the climb in Harrietville. This flat warmup didn't interest me. Instead I organised a small group that would drive to Harrietville and take on the mountain fresh. The climb up Hotham is 30km long, add the descent and you have a 60km ride - enough for me (especially since my bum was killing me from the last 2 days of riding).

The Hotham climb is split into 3 parts - each part is 10km long. First 10km is a lovely climb that contains two nasty pinches. The initial pinch is the very first 500m out of Harrietville. Once you survive that you have another 5km of around 5% gradient before you reach the dreaded section called 'The Meg'. After 'The Meg' it settles back to around 5% gradient until the 10km mark where you reach the false flat. This is 10 kilometres of boring frustration that must be endured before you reach the Ticket Office. This last 10km starts with a bang and then just keeps on hitting you. Last year I finished this section a broken man.

With fear and trepidation (and other cliches) I held back for the first 10km and tried to hold my heart rate around 150bpm. It popped up to 160bpm going up 'The Meg', but quickly dropped back down. As I reached the false flat I could see Griff, Swanny and Robin up ahead. I pushed the pace a little to catch up and then enjoyed a nice tow in their draft all the way to the Ticket Office. Robin is an ex-pro triathlete and he regaled us with stories of some of the legends of our sport which took away the boredom of the false flat. Knowing what lay ahead, I made a conscious effort to take on as much nutrition as possible during this section. By the time the Ticket Office appeared, I was fully fueled and feeling good.

Last year the first pinch from the Ticket Office took me by surprise and almost stopped me dead. This time I was ready and even had enough energy for a small surge to get the steep section out of the way quickly. Next comes the infamous 'CRB Hill'. This is extremely steep and keeps disappearing (but not ending) around corners. No surges here, instead in the lowest gear and alternating between sitting and standing - this section was simply survival mode. Last year I was already broken by this stage, this year I was still feeling great. Confidence was returning and I didn't even bother using my lowest gear for the next few hills. Then finally the last hill of the climb - not super steep, but quite long, and made more difficult due to a far bit of fatigue in the legs. I could now feel the effects of past efforts in my legs, but seeing 29km on my Garmin gave me a mental edge and I actually enjoyed pushing up the last kilometre in my lowest gear. End Result, from Base to Summit in 1h40m - a 14 minute improvement over last year.

Catch Up

Life has been a little hectic lately and I haven't blogged for over 2 weeks. My athletes (the ones I personally coach) have been doing great things, so I thought it would be a good time to catch up on their progress.

Mark has been finding it tough to get in training hours lately. Work is very busy, he's had a foot injury since August and just recently his road bike fell apart. Not ideal when you are preparing for the 'Around the Bay in a Day' event (210km bike ride). However he somehow managed to get through the ride without any problems. It was a long day, battling strong headwinds for the last 40km. Mark not only finished the ride but has also pulled up well. Obviously still holding some residual conditioning from Ironman in March.

Mark now has his focus set on Challenge Melbourne (Half Ironman) and seems to have regained his training mojo. On Monday he did his first run since injuring his foot in August and also completed a swim session with very promising times for his 100m repeats. Followed by a ride into work on Tuesday. If he manages to keep this up, we could be looking at a Half Ironman PB in February.

Merryn completed her first Olympic Distance triathlon up at Yarrawonga. Not only did she complete the distance without any problems, but posted a great time and placed 4th in her age group. Her training over the last 3 months has been fantastic, borne out by the great result.

Elaine loved the break after London and took a little while to get back into training. Her first few runs were a struggle, so I decided she should run every day and her fitness soon came back. I have often found that run fitness tends to flow over into other sports and Elaine's swimming and cycling seemed to improve at the same time.

The weekend just gone, we spent 3 days up at Bright at the Bayside Triathlon Club Training Camp. At last year's camp Elaine rode half way up Mt Buffalo on the Friday and climbed Tawonga Gap on the Sunday. This year she climbed to the summit of Mt Buffalo posting an 8 minute PB. Had Saturday's ride cut short with a puncture, but climbed 20km up Mt Hotham to the Ticket Box, including the dreaded section known as 'The Meg'.

Merryn also attended the Bright Training camp. Up til now Merryn has avoided the ride sessions in the hills, but there was no escaping it at Bright. Riding up Mt Buffalo with Sarah, Merryn moaned and groaned the whole way up the 20km climb, but they both looked to be going great when I passed them about 5km from the summit and still looked good when I saw them at the top.

Then on the Saturday Merryn completed her longest ever ride - 110km including climbs over RoseWhite and Tawonga Gap. Even though the tough ascent up Tawonga Gap didn't start until the 80km mark, Merryn was still able to power to the top. Very satisfied, but also exhausted with her efforts, she decided to give the Mt Hotham climb the next day a miss and ran 10km instead.

Jen, who is training for Ironman Melbourne, was at the camp as well. Jen is very quiet, but like most quiet achievers she greatly impressed over the 3 days. Not only with her excellent climbing ability up Mt Buffalo, RoseWhite, Tawonga Gap and the whole 30km up Mt Hotham, but she also descended all the mountains like a pro as well. She rode the same distances as me for the weekend, but unlike yours truly, she also snuck in a 5km run on Saturday afternoon.

Back in Melbourne, Stef finished off her best ever week of training by riding up the '1 in 20' in the Dandenongs. Stef has set her sights on doing the Kinglake Ride. The 'Will Walker' hill in this ride is very similar to the '1 in 20', so she should have no problems completing this event.

Stef's work life has been ridiculously busy lately and training sessions have been haphazard at best. However a few weeks ago we sat down over a coffee and discussed her plans for the season. With a focus on ride events such as Kinglake and the Great Otway Classic, enthusiasm is back and she is training like a champion. Even her swimming is improving.

A new member Mick has also signed on. His official program will not start until a week after the Shepparton Half Ironman (he is training for Ironman Melbourne). However I have got him updating his training feedback now, and he has been training the house down.

The previously mentioned Bright Camp was awesome. But it wasn't all hard work as evidenced by the photo below of us enjoying some of the local produce.

Good Progress

Elaine has been struggling since the London race. She unintentionally started her taper a week or so early and then extended her after race break a little longer than originally planned. This resulted in an ugly surprise when she finally started training again. However things have definitely improved over the last week.

Elaine was very happy to read in one of my recent blog posts that in the base phase, we now train by feel and only keep going if we feel good. What I omitted in that blog post was that this method only works when you train every day. But to her credit, Elaine has trained every day in the last week and the results have been significant. After struggling to run 3km a week ago, she has since easily completed two 8.5km runs. Plus on Saturday morning she did one of her biggest ever swim sessions.

Unfortunately today she was diagnosed with skin cancer and has had two biopsies on her face. The result is that she won't be able to train for a couple of days or swim at all this week. This is a shame in regards to training, but Elaine's health is a 1,000 times more important, so in the grand scheme of things it is not an issue at all.

On a personal note, I managed just over 50km of running this week which is a very good start to my base training phase. However my swim and bike still needs work.

Lack of Endurance

To help make up for my shortened ride at Tynong on Saturday, I decided to joined the Club's Wednesday morning ride for the first time. The start time was 5:55am about 40 mins ride from my house, so I decided to leave home about 5:30am and join up when I saw them heading towards me. Since daylight savings, it is now still dark early in the morning and it was only Peter's Canadian accent that identified the group as it approached.

My previous Wednesday morning rides have been with the North Rd Road, and I'd noticed the group splits at Mordialloc with some heading back down Beach Rd and others continuing along Nepean Hwy towards Mt Eliza. I'd never done the Mt Eliza version of the ride before and always wondered what it was like (the Beach Rd version is a very fast ride back to St Kilda with speeds averaging between 45 to 50). I was cruising along at the back of our Club ride along Nepean Hwy (past Mordialloc) when the North Rd Ride caught us with us. I noticed the faster riders in the Club ride were jumping onto the North Rd peleton, so I jumped on too.

Unlike Beach Rd, Nepean Hwy has lots of traffic lights. Not wanting to be cut off from the peleton by red lights, I moved up towards the front and ended up in the rotation doing the work at the front. It didn't take long to work out that there were only 7 of us doing all the work for a peleton of about 50 riders. Clint later told me that most riders were saving themselves for the Epic Melbourne to Warnambool ride that Saturday, but this didn't make the effort any easier.

The peleton was travelling at roughly 48kph. We had a tailwind, but this was still a lot of effort. As part of the rotation you held the front spot between 5 and 10 seconds. But this also meant that as the outside rider (before taking the front), you had to ride faster than 48kph for 5 or 10 seconds to take your place at the front. Once taking the lead you could slow back down to 48kph. But I found I always had to surge as the next rider took over the lead as they were always travelling faster and I didn't want to create a gap. With only 7 riders doing the work, I was only getting 10 to 20 seconds rest before having to move to the outside lane and ride faster as I lined up to take over the lead once again.

After 30 minutes of participating in the rotation I could feel my legs starting to feel the effects. I managed to slip back two rows behind the rotation and suddenly everything felt so much easier. Unfortunately I made this move too late and only got a few minutes of respite before went hit the Kars St climb as we left Frankston and entered Mt Eliza. Being near the front allowed me to take the climb a little easier and slowly move backwards through the pack, but I quickly found myself at the very back. We turned off into Baden Powell Drive and I started to struggle. I could have turned myself inside out to keep up, but decided to head home once we reached Humphries Rd.

The puncture during the Tynong ride hid my lack of endurance. But the North Rd Ride definitely exposed it. So in summary, I can currently produce good power for 30 minutes which is fine for a Sprint Distance Triathlon (like London), but I need to greatly expand upon this to do well in Olympic Distance and Half Ironman Triathlons.

Good session for some

As mentioned in my previous post, Saturday's session was a long uninterrupted ride (no traffic lights) followed by a run off the bike - all designed to practise race pacing and nutrition. I saw this as an important session and recommended it to all the athletes I am coaching. Stef could not make the session, but Merryn, Jen, Mark and Elaine were all happy to make the long drive.

After a lovely Friday night spent with our neighbours (where we may have drunk a little too much red wine), we were running a little late on Saturday morning. Backing out of the garage we soon realised the situation was much worse as we had a flat tyre. After a lightning quick wheel change the Red Bull pit crew would have been proud of, we were back on our way. The spare tyre is a space saver tyre which means we were not supposed to exceed 80kph. Driving down the freeway to Tynong, I figured 100kph on a nice smooth freeway was probably equivalent to 80kph on country roads (easy to justify things when you are running late).

Predictably most of the other club members had already started the session when we arrived, but there were a few other late comers (including Jen) who were still getting ready. It was quite windy and Clint suggested that Jen and Elaine do laps on the short loop to reduce the time spent riding into a head wind.

Getting my stuff ready, I realised I'd left my Garmin watch at home. Doing a session to practice pacing without knowing my heart rate, power wattage or speed was kind of pointless. Luckily Clint had a bike computer and Garmin watch, so he lent me his Garmin 910. Starting my ride I was trying to get the watch to recognise my power meter when I realised it was on run mode. So I stopped the timer and switched the watch to bike mode and then proceeded to set configure it to detect the power meter on my bike (all whilst riding).

Clint and I did the big loop (48km) and although it was windy, we never seemed to ride into a direct head wind. For the first 30kms Clint and I rode side by side. But then I suddenly started to find it difficult. Looking at the borrowed Garmin 910, it appeared my power output was still good, I was just finding it hard to keep up with Clint. I figured Clint must have started putting in more effort, so I slowly dropped further behind. 10 kilometres later Clint was completely out of sight. It was around this time that I rode over a bump in the road and immediately realised why I had suddenly found it so hard to keep up. Stopping on the side of the road I confirmed that I had a flat tyre. It was a slow leak, so there was still a little air in the tyre (probably around 30psi), so I decided to ride the flat back to the car which I figured must have been close. I tried to find the distance on Garmin, but not being familiar with Clint's setup I could find any value that looked like distance, instead I found numerous fields that were showing zero. Turns out I was about 8km from the car which felt like forever, especially with the cross winds making the bike very unstable with the rim nearly rolling off the tyre on several occasions.

Once back at the car I pushed the stop button on the Garmin, only to see the message 'timer started'. This meant I had not been recording the first lap. After switching the watch from run to bike mode and then configuring the power meter, I had forgotten to restart the timer - I just wasn't my day.

With a new tube and the watch timer now activated I decided to do the smaller loop (22.5km instead). With the late start and puncture, I figured I'd cut my session a little short as we still needed to get home in time to pick up my girls. Thinking this shorter loop was going to be much easier, I was in for a big surprise. Unlike the big loop where we seemed to be mostly protected from the wind, the smaller loop was very exposed. At first it was the cross wind trying to blow me off the road. Then once I turned the corner it was a full on headwind that almost stopped me in my tracks - I was putting out 250 watts, but only travelling at 17kph. I started to laugh when I remembered that Clint had directed Elaine and Jen to do repeats of this short lap instead of tackling what turned out to be the much easier big lap.

70.5km was less than my planned 96km ride, but in such windy conditions it was still a reasonable session. I did a 4km run off the bike and felt good, especially when I ran with a tailwind. All-in-all I was reasonably satisfied that I'd salvaged something from the day, even if I didn't had a GPS record of half of it.

Of my athletes, Elaine was the first to finish her ride - 3 laps of the terribly windy short lap. She was not impressed, but still went out for a 2km run. Merryn and Mark were next. They had done the big lap and then 2 small laps, however both were still in good spirits. Lastly Jen (who started late with Elaine) finished her 4 laps of windy short lap (90km in total), she actually looked like she'd done it easy. Merryn and Jen did a short run, but Mark is still suffering from a foot injury so escaped this last part of the session.

Elaine spent a lot of time complaining, so I knew the distances she had achieved were spot on. But I was worried I made things too easy for Merryn and Jen. However Merryn later texted Elaine that her glute muscles were so sore she struggled to drive home and Jen later reported that she felt sick for several hours after the session. So other than me (who didn't really do enough), everyone else had the perfect session (ie. it was supposed to be really hard).

Slow Progress

It is amazing how quickly you loose fitness and conditioning. I was in pretty good condition for the London race, evidenced by my best ever 5km run split off the bike. However the combination of a 10 day taper (made longer due to the long haul flight) and a 2 week recovery period (where we eat badly and drank lots), has seen all my pre-race conditioning disappear.

I'm still feeling relatively fit, but my legs are struggling to withstand even small amounts of running. Previously it was usually my knee injury that gave me grief. Now my hamstring and calf muscles are pulling up sore after every run. My original plan of running every day has been put on hold until my leg muscles get their act back together.

In Iceland I did an easy 8km on the Wednesday, 5 days after the race. I pulled up OK, but not as good as I would expect after such an easy run. A week later, back in Australia, I went out for a lunchtime run. It felt terrible and I ended up only running 3km. Considering I'd only hopped off the plane at 5am that morning, I wasn't particularly worried. Feeling much better on Thursday I completed an easy 10km run, but felt very stiff in the hamstrings the next day. In fact the stiffness was so bad it stopped me going for my usual bike ride on Saturday morning and I didn't do any running that weekend (I did manage a bike ride on Sunday). Monday was a complete day of rest before doing another run on Tuesday - 7.5km that included 3 x 6km Tempo runs. The Tuesday run felt quite good but my calf muscles starting tightening on 3rd Tempo effort - so I cut the session short (was suppose to do 5 efforts).

We saw our Chiropractor on Wednesday and he suggested my problems were probably due to a deficiency in vitamins B and E, as I'd stopped taking these supplements since the race. Hopefully this will help my situation, otherwise my plans of building run mileage is simply not going to happen.

Since coming back from overseas, Elaine has remained in holiday mode and found excuses to avoid all running until yesterday. Reality hit pretty quick as she struggled to complete an easy 5km run. While my pre-London taper was about 10 days, Elaine's was over 2 weeks. Combined with doing no running for 20 days after the event, she really was starting again from scratch. However I don't believe this will be an issue. The significant break will have mentally refreshed Elaine and it shouldn't take long for her to regain fitness.

Serious training starts this weekend with a long ride out at Tynong. There is nothing to see at Tynong, but it offers country roads with no traffic lights and very few cars. Perfect for practicing long sustained efforts on the bike. The following two weekends will continue to have a bike focus before we head up to Bright for a 3 day training camp involving lots of riding up mountains.

Whilst all of the above mentioned training is designed with Challenge Melbourne in mind, it should provide an excellent fitness base that will see us easily get through the Noosa Olympic Distance Triathlon. Assuming we don't miss any key sessions.

What Now ?

For the last 6 months our training has been focused on the World's race in London. The 3 Trail Running races and the Hazelwood Triathlon in the leadup were all designed to prepare us for the London Sprint Triathlon. After a 2 week break of no training (I did sneak in 2 runs), our focus is now directed at the Challenge Melbourne, Half Ironman race in February. Personally I will also be aiming to set a PB at the St Kilda Olympic Distance event in January (3 weeks before Challenge Melbourne).

Ignoring all the work we did before London, we are now back in a base training phase. Lots of easy paced sessions as we build up mileage. The next 6 weeks will be fairly unstructured as we train more by feel. I'll aim to run most (if not all) days and the distance of each run will be determined by how I feel at the time. Hopefully this will enable me to build my run mileage back to up to around 60km per week - this approach worked well in April, May and June. However this time I will also try to get in some more bike mileage (much easier now the days are getting longer and warmer).

Elaine will probably remain at 3 runs a week, but concentrate on building bike mileage and more importantly getting in consistent weeks of training. Some people get in 1 or 2 weeks of huge training then disappear for a month. The real benefits of training are only seen after consistent weeks of good training. Once you build momentum into your training the results start to appear.

At the moment we have identified 3 leadup Triathlons before Challenge Melbourne:
  Noosa, Olympic Distance (1500/40/10)
  Elwood Gatorade, Sprint Distance (500/20/5)
  St Kilda Gatorade, Olympic Distance (1500/40/10)

Noosa is probably the most iconic race in Australia (and very well known world wide). We are treating this race as more of a Bucket-List event (and QLD holiday), looking to enjoy the atmosphere rather than expecting a good result. So we won't do any Olympic Distance specific training in the lead-up. Instead we'll race off what we get done in the base training phase.

In the past we've tended to avoid the Gatorade Triathlon series, but have changed our minds this year. XOSIZE has pulled out as naming sponsor of the other Triathlon Series (now called Team-Up TriSeries) meaning we will no longer receive free entries. Race 1 of the Team-Up series is a week after Noosa and Race 3 is a week after St Kilda so their events simply don't fit into our race calendar very well (we need more than 1 week to recover from an Olympic Distance triathlon). However race 4 of the Team-Up series has been designated as our Club Championships, so we will probably make an effort to do that race (3 weeks after Challenge Melbourne).

However the Gatorade series organisers are still doing things that annoy us (almost as a way of reminding us why we have avoided their races in the past). Both Triathlon Series are offering a 10% discount on entry for all members of our triathlon club. The Team-Up Series offers this discount for the Series and Individual races, but Gatorade only offers it for Individual races. Guess who is no longer signing up for the Gatorade Series entry. Seems a pretty silly strategy to me, and it means Elaine and I will probably not bother entering the last 3 Gatorade races.

We are also planning several special ride events (all before Xmas):
  Bayside Bright Camp - 3 days of riding over mountains
  Kinglake Ride - 115km ride, 2 big hills
  Bayside KOM (King Of the Mountain) - 52km very hilly ride in the Dandenongs
  Ben Griffen Classic - 120km ride with KOMs and Sprint Points

Post Race Thoughts

It's now been 10 days since the race. Elaine and I have since wandered around London and holidayed in Iceland. The break has been fantastic (Elaine keeps telling me special time outs with loved ones is very important).

Sipping wine in a cafe at Heathrow (with free WiFi) waiting for our plane departure back to Melbourne, it is probably a good time to reflect back upon the race and the event as a whole. I've already documented some of my race leadup issues in previous blog posts, so I won't bore you with these again. And other than frustration with one particular travel company (that supposedly looks after triathletes), there were really no other issues.

I glossed over it in my original race report, but the support during the race was unbelievable. It was pouring rain to the level of almost nil visibility, but still most of the course was lined by spectators. On the bike I couldn't really discern individual supporters, but I could definitely hear chants of 'Go Aussie !!!', and I continually heard it from a large percentage of the course. Once on the run the rain had eased a bit and I could actually see the Australian supporters cheering me on. I didn't know any of them, but seeing me in the Australian uniform was enough to send them off on a cheer louder than any other country. We have our surnames on our uniforms and numerous supporters yelled 'Go McNamara !!!' or just 'Go Macca !!!'. I don't think it was any coincidence that this was my fastest ever run off the bike. In fact the areas of the run where the support was strongest was where I was quickest. With so many people cheering you on, it is almost impossible not to go faster.

My race report contained a detailed account of my event. In summary, the swim went OK, the bike leg was significantly limited by the conditions and my run leg was excellent (possibly aided by the slower bike leg) - I finished 25th in my age group and 2nd Aussie in my age group. I believe perfect bike conditions would have seen me jump around 10 positions (ie. 15th place) and if I had of been able to hold the good draft on the swim it would have given me an extra 5 places and scored me a 10 top and most probably first Aussie (both of which were my pre-race aims). With the dust now settled, I'm pretty happy with my efforts. I may have been pushed off the good toes in the swim, but I didn't panic, my swim time was still reasonable and I used almost no energy. I held back a lot on the bike, especially the first lap, but I finished the race without crashing. Reports I've heard are over 50 competitors crashed and 20 ended up in hospital. So I think my caution was well warranted. And of course finally we are left with my best ever run off the bike. The main focus of my pre-race training was the run and I always had a target of a sub 19 minute run. There were plenty of times I thought this target may have been ludricous, but I kept faith in my training and the result happened. Overall I'm very happy and now very excited about what the rest of the season holds.

London, Age Group, Sprint Triathlon, World Championships

Pre-Race

The race organisers had setup a bag compound to store your gear while you raced. But you could only use the bag handed out during registration which was way too small to carry half the stuff needed. With transition only open between 6:30 and 7:30am and our waves not starting till 10:10am and 11:20am, we had enough time to setup our transition and then go back to our apartment where we dropped off stuff like the pump and picked up more gear like our wetsuits.

We used the London hire bikes to travel between our apartment and the race site. They were a GodSend, not only saving us lots of valuable time, but also protecting our feet that were still sore from so much walking over the previous days. Having such a late race start, we decided it would be wise to have a pre-race coffee to ward off the caffeine withdrawal headaches. So we popped into a nice cafe on the way back to the race site. It conveniently had a hire bike rack right outside, unfortunately the coffee was pretty average.

Once back at the race site the earlier waves were already underway, so we popped over to the transition to see where we would have to run. People can tell you stuff, but it is much easier to remember after watching other triathletes navigate their way through. Then it was time for me to put on my wetsuit and move to the swim start assembly area.

I've made a fair few complaints about different aspects of this event. But the actual running of the race was unbelievably well done - by far the best race organisation I've ever seen. All swimmers were corralled into groups 30 minutes before race start and slowly moved through the different staging areas until it was their time to move onto the pontoon.

We were moved onto the pontoon in single file and lined up against a numbered starting square where we sat dangling our legs in the lake waiting for the race start. I leant down to wash my goggles in the water and the nose piece came apart - very disconcerting with only about 2 minutes left before the gun went off. Luckily I was able to fit it back together, but I lacked a little faith that it would hold for the entire swim, especially if it got whacked by another competitor.

Swim

The swim leg was always going to be vital in me having a good race, it was all about damage control and limiting how far ahead the other competitors got before the bike leg. I actually got a great start and was swimming in the lead pack comfortably on another swimmers toes. Then there was a bit of argy bargy with other swimmers fighting for the same pair of toes and not wanting to loose my goggles I moved sideways and lost the draft. A gap formed almost instantly and continued to grow, my easy ride for a fast swim leg was now gone and I'd have to settle for whatever other toes I could find.

The rest of the swim leg was pretty uneventful. I switched between a few different swimmers toes, suffered the occasional whack from nearby competitors, but generally had a pretty cruisey swim leg. I possibly could have swam faster without drafting, but not much faster and it would have used up a lot more energy. At 12m21s for 750 metres, not the fast draft assisted swim I wanted, but not a bad swim either.

Transition One

Exiting the water, I took off my goggles but still couldn't see properly. At first I thought my eyes must be really sore and couldn't focus on anything, but then I realised it was pouring rain and visibility was very poor.

The grass in transition was quickly becoming mud and I tread carefully so as not to slide over, as many others were doing. Once at my bike everything went well, except it took me a little while to get my race belt on. Other competitors put it under their wetsuits, but I was afraid it would get stuck or tear when quickly getting the wetsuit off. Elaine forgot to put her's on and had to run back (around 300m) to retrieve it before heading out on the bike (as a result her T1 time is very slow).

Bike

As mentioned earlier, it was pouring rain, visibility was very poor and the roads were extremely slippery. The bike course contained numerous speed humps each lap, some gentle and a couple a little on the nasty side. Without having ridden the course beforehand I was unfamiliar with the severity and location of these speed humps. It was very disconcerting riding almost blind wondering when one of these obstacles was going to suddenly appear.

I was also very fearful of the corners. I had already seen people crash that morning, then on the first lap a rider crashed right in front of me. Definitely a day to take the corners very slowly. Unfortunately in addition to the 4 hairpin U-turns there were an addition 26 corners that were very dangerous in the wet.

My first 5km was very slow averaging just 36kph. As I grew in confidence, so did my pace and my average for the next 4 splits were all over 39kph. But the story of the bike leg was passing other competitors on the straights and then getting caught and passed back on the corners - very frustrating.

Overall my average for the bike leg was 38.3kph. Disappointing considering I averaged over 40 kph for every Sprint Triathlon last season (including a best 41.5kph avg). But it would have been a helluva lot worse if I crashed, as so many others did.

Transition Two

As I hopped off the bike my legs felt good and I passed numerous competitors as I ran through transition. My feet were very muddy and for some reason they banned towels in transition, but I figured the mud would just cushion my feet in the shoes.

Run

My calf muscles felt tight at the start which is not unusual, but as normal they loosen up within the first kilometre. I found myself running fairly comfortably at my target pace. Everything seemed to be leading towards a good run leg.

Analysing my run data after the race, I slowed slightly on the far side of the Serpentine when running down Rotten Row on both laps. It is a very gradual uphill, but I suspect it may have been a slight headwind as well. Other than this section I held a pretty much constant pace until the last kilometre when I was able to push to the line.

My official run split is 18m29s for 5km. The run was definitely full distance, but the timing mat was situated a fair way into the run, so the distance of the split is only 4.9km. Either way it would have still been under 19 minutes which was my pre-race aim, so very happy with my run split. Although it was probably helped by the slower bike leg.

Overall

I finished in 25th place in my Age Group out of 107 finishers (there would have been numerous DNFs who crashed on the bike). And I was the 2nd Australian home in my Age Group out of 13.

I figured I would not be able to control factors in the swim or the bike. So the only pre-race time goal I set was to run sub 19 minutes for the run which I achieved. My second aim was to be first Australian home in my age group which I failed by being 2nd. And finally, it was more of a wish than a goal, I was dreaming of finishing top 10.

The conditions conspired against me. In the dry the bike course would have been very fast. And being long at 22.5km would have definitely played to my favour. However the rain and very slippery conditions completely nullified the advantage of my strength on the bike.  Without the rain I think I would have been closer to 15th place in my age group and touch and go whether I couldn't have beaten the other Aussie.

Elaine finished 50th in her Age Group and 5th out of 7 Australians. She's a little disappointed she couldn't go faster, but considering the lack of training she did extremely well. Our friend Martin had a great race and came 18th (and 2nd Aussie) in his Age Group.

One Sleep To Go

After skipping the planned morning ride due to rain, we had a little rest before heading out in search of a good coffee (a very rare find in London). Other members of the Australian Team had recommended a cafe in Soho - a long way from our apartment. We headed off on what was scheduled to be a 45 minute bus ride (on a double decker). However London traffic meant we spent most of the time stationery. After 30 minutes of not travelling very far we decided to get off and go to Harrods instead, surely they'd have to make good coffee. We found a nice little cafe area and were shocked to see a standard cappuccino was 4 and a half pounds ($7.70 AUD). But we were desperate for a good coffee and at that price it must be magnificent. The coffee itself was pretty good, by far the best since we'd left Melbourne. But on paying we discovered there was an additional 1 pound 30 pence service fee, so the 2 coffees (regular size) ended up costing us $17.70 AUD. I would not have expected to pay that much for 2 glasses of champagne.

Once we'd recovered from the shock of the coffee bill, we headed back to the main Team Hotel for the Race Briefing. Unfortunately they went over all the details that were already very clear and could not answer the questions we wanted to know. My race starts at 10:10am and Elaine's starts at 11:20am, but it seems transition will only be opened from 6:30 to 7:30am. So we have to arrive at the race venue over 3 hours (4 for Elaine) before our race starts. There was confusion about this rule in some of the wording, but we couldn't get an answer to confirm the situation. Our friend Martin who is also racing the Sprint starts around 11:00am, so he has the same issue. Looks like we're all in for an early morning start.

While at the main Team Hotel we picked up our bikes that had been left overnight for the mechanic to check over. Anthony from CBD Cycles performs the Team Mechanic duties every year and without fail he is definitely the standout achiever of the whole organisation. He checks over 400 bikes, answers 4 million questions and resolves 1,000 disasters in about 3 days. Nothing is a problem and he always has a smile on his face. Everybody always walks away feeling a little calmer after a meeting with Anthony.

Riding back to our apartment was so much better than walking. This confirmed the need to organise the hire bikes for all future commuting to and from the race site. Once back home we had lunch before riding our bikes to the Race Venue to check our bikes into transition.

The transition area is huge and the routes we have to run are a bit complex. Hopefully tomorrow we'll run the right way (and be able to find our bikes). Having such late wave starts means we'll get a chance to watch the earlier competitors navigate transition which should make it easier to understand. After racking our bikes we headed over to the grandstand and watched the Elite Male Under 23 race which gave us a good preview of where the swim course goes.

On the way home (after another coffee), we signed up to use the London hire bike. The bikes themselves are very basic, quite heavy and often not in the best working order. But again riding back to our apartment was a 1,000 times better than having to walk. And now that we've worked out how to hire the bikes it should be easier to use them tomorrow morning.

Settling in Pre-Race

Tuesday afternoon I had my first swim in the Serpentine. A small section is fenced off creating a sort of swimming pool (100m by 25m) which is known as the Lido. This is the only area of the Serpentine that Age Group athletes are allowed to swim (I have no idea why we aren't allowed to swim in main part of the lake where we'll be racing). At 16 degrees celsius, the water is definitely cold and is quite a shock when you first put your face under. However once started and warmed up it actually feels quite good. And I mentally went to a much better place once I knew I was getting back to some quality training before the event.

Wednesday morning Elaine and I went for an easy run through Hyde Park. They were setting up for the Aquathlon and we couldn't run on parts of the run course, so I checked out some of the bike course instead. There were strict instructions that no athlete was to ride on the course. However on both Tuesday and Wednesday morning the bike course was filled with athletes getting in some familiarisation. There was so much opportunity for the race organisers to allocate time on Wednesday for bike familiarisation. Instead they simply put a total ban - so some people obeyed and missed out whilst others just ignored the ban.

In general I have been extremely disappointed with the Race Organiser's attitude towards the Age Group competitors. The longer distance races organised by companies like WTC and Challenge really look after the Age Groupers. Without the Elites, we would still have all the Age Groupers racing, but without the Age Groupers there would be no Elites. This is a short course race organised by the ITU. Most of their events only have the Elite Races. It is only the World Championship Grand Final that includes the Age Group World Championships. As a result it is obvious that we are just a major hassle despite the fact we are their number one (if not only) customer and in this particular instance funding a large part of the event.

After our run we had a massage and then I went for another swim in the Lido, all before lunch. We had to cram everything in early before Triathlon Australia had organised a Team BBQ in the afternoon and we needed to be at the main Team Hotel by 2pm. The Team BBQ would then be followed by the Opening Ceremony in Trafalgar Square and the Parade of Nations.

Our hotel is over 3km from the Race Site. In the last 2 days we have made 4 trips to the race site, 2 trips to the team hotel (about 2km away) and another unfortunate detour due to a mistake from me (7km). So we have walked 39km in the last 48 hours. The exact opposite of what you would want to do in the lead up to a race - It is no wonder that our feet are killing us. With this in mind, standing around at a BBQ for 3 hours followed by catching the Tube and then standing around at an Opening Ceremony for another 3 hours was way more than our feet, legs and back could cope with.

After the Team BBQ (before Trafalgar Sq) we all gathered in Gibson Hall (photo below) to listen to a few speeches. At least this gave some people a chance to sit down (not obvious in the photo, but most people including me still had to stand).

Standing out in the open at Trafalgar Square getting very wet in the steady rain, time dragging on with nothing happening other than some DJ trying to rev up the crowd, we decided enough was enough and headed home. I suspect over a 3rd of the athletes left early, a lot of them much earlier than us. We were told the speeches and Parade of Nations finally happened around 8:30pm, we'd been at Trafalgar Square since 6:30pm.

A ride was organised this morning leaving from the main Team Hotel at 7am. Elaine and I decided to join in on this ride, would be the first time on our bikes in 10 days. However once outside we discovered it was raining and made the decision to give the ride a miss.

Our feet are still wrecked from the all the walking (and standing around), so we'll probably skip any training today (which goes against my usual pre-race routine). At 3pm we need to check our bikes into transition, so another lengthy commute, but I'm keen to investigate using the hire bikes dotted all over the city and give my feet a rest. These bikes should also come in very handy on race day as well.

Ready or Not

It is Tuesday in London and our races are late morning Friday, so not long now. It has been a very busy week and a half, so there has not been much time to think about the race. But now that we are settled in our London apartment with our bikes finally unpacked and reassembled the event is beginning to feel very close.

Last week was quite hectic with packing, organising last minute trip details and trying to finish off tasks at work before disappearing for a few weeks. On Monday I commuted to and from work by bike to get in a bit of extra training, Tuesday morning we swam and Tuesday night we did a run intervals sessions at the Sandringham Athletics track. My shoulder had been improving slightly but was still too sore to do the full swim session (or put in any real efforts). With my knee still not 100% I skipped a hard ride on Wednesday morning and also skipped the Wednesday night swim due to my shoulder (and the fact we needed more time to pack). The plan was to get in a last run on Thursday, but we were both caught up at work and missed this session as well. After 2 days of no training I managed to swim Friday morning and then get in an easy 7km run before we headed off to the airport (Elaine was too nervous and excited to train). No where near the last week of training I was planning before flying out, especially when we were going to miss a weekend of training due to the flying out early.

Thursday lunchtime I had my last massage. Of particular concern was my shoulder. They worked on this area so hard I now have a nasty bruise to show for their effort (it was a very painful massage). Throughout the flight my shoulder and knee ached on and off. I think the awkward sleeping position was not great for my shoulder, but it was feeling a bit better by the time we landed in Heathrow.

It is not wise to do hard training sessions the 2 or 3 days before and after a long haul flight. Ideally you would have an easy swim and run session each day and otherwise relax. High on the list of things not to do on the first 2 days after a long flight would be to take a long drive across the country. Saturday and Sunday were spent travelling to Nottingham, Northampton, Oxfordshire and then the Cotswolds. It was a very enjoyable and relaxing time catching up with Elaine's relatives and friends, just unfortunate about the amount of driving required to get there (not to mention the very dodgy GPS device provided by the car rental company).

The first two photos are of Nigel's house (an old friend of Elaine's) in Northampton. The bottom photo is the Manor House we stayed at on Sunday night.

Now back in London the situation does not feel a lot better. We need to go to race registration, bike mechanic check up, bike checkin (to transition), Team BBQ, Team dinner, Opening Ceremony and Parade of Nations. We also need to sort out transport for our bikes back to Melbourne (I'm told this involves filling out a 4 page form). All this happens on Wednesday and Thursday before our race on Friday morning - pretty much the exact opposite of a relaxing lead-in to the race with a couple of easy training sessions.