It all sounded good on paper, but predictably my body wasn't quite up to the task. My last 3 training weeks have been 15.5 hours, 13.5 hours and 13 hours. First week went very well and I hit every session. Second week I only missed Sunday's easy 2 hour ride as I recovered from Saturday's Mega Brick. But this week I cut 3 sessions short and skipped the last 2 due to a sore knee.
It started off very well and I was extremely happy with my 20km run Wednesday morning - longest run since Ironman. Thursday was an annual leave day from work to do a 140km ride. Perfect weather and the ride went well for the first 70km, but then fatigue set in and I found myself just pedalling for the sake of it. This sort of training wasn't doing me any good, so I cut the ride short at 100km. After lunch I fell asleep on the coach and ended up sleeping for most of the afternoon before dragging myself up to coach a swimming session in the bay. I was obviously more fatigued than I realised and I was hoping the big rest would set me up well for a weekend.
Something I discovered when getting my bike ready on Friday night was that my rear tire was completely flat. I'd obviously suffered a puncture during the Thursday ride and didn't notice - I'm sure this would have contributed to my bad feeling on the bike.
Head coach Clint had organised a big ride out at Tynong (past Pakenham). He'd mapped out 2 loops (48km and 22km) - all with left turns on flat country roads with no traffic lights and very little traffic. This would allow athletes to practise riding for long distances on the aero bars (race practice). Not doing Ironman, I didn't think I needed to do this ride. So I scheduled Mark to do it whilst I planned something more interesting for myself. Due to ending Thursday's ride short, I starting to reconsider my plans for Saturday. Both Elaine and I were umming and ahhing about what to do, until finally at about 10pm Friday night (after several beers and wine) we decided to ride at Tynong (which meant getting up at 5am).
After the initial shock of the early alarm Elaine and I arrived at Tynong in good spirits for the session. Elaine's plan was do 2 short loops (44km) and then a 15 min run while Mark and I would do 2 big loops followed by a short loop (120km in total) and a 15 minute run. After listening to instructions from Clint (that sounded pretty simple), we all set off together (although Clint stayed behind to deal with the late arrivals). Most of the athletes were training for Ironman, so my Half Ironman training pace saw me ride off the front. As it turns out I was the only one who understood the simple instructions and everybody else accidentally turned early (at Bunyip River Rd) and did the small loop by mistake.
Disappointingly I could not maintain my target Half Ironman pace and ended up resorting to Ironman pace instead. I felt slightly better on the second lap, but started to struggle in the last 10km - it was an easy decision to finish my ride at the end of the 2nd big loop (96km in total). About 3km from the end I saw a runner in triathlon gear and figured it was someone from our group, maybe one of the short course athletes who had done a smaller bike distance. I was very surprised when I realised it was Mark. He wasn't supposed to run until after he had ridden 120km and even then he was not supposed to run that far. My first thought was how could he have misunderstood my instructions so badly. When I got back to the car, Elaine told me his bike had broken. Mark later explained that a bolt had snapped on his aero bars sending him off the road. Luckily the country roads had grassy edges and he didn't suffer any injuries (or damage to the bike). He rode back to the car (holding the aero bar in place) and did a 15km run instead. A bummer for him to miss the session, but Mark has been training really well and I don't believe it will make any difference in the end (thanks to all his other training being so good).
Elaine's session went well. She's been suffering from a very bad back for the last 2 weeks which coincided with me lowering the front of her bike. Hoping this was not the problem, I left the handlebars in their lowered position and fortunately this did not irritate her back any further. Her back injury still exists, but it did not hinder her on the bike or the 15 min run.
I was trialling a new nutrition plan. I had Infinit (280 Cal, 66g Carbs) in my water bottle on the head stem and a 50% concentration of NAPALM (500 Cal, 120g Carb) in my Aero bottle. The NAPALM would need to be washed down with water, so I'd swap the Infinit bottle for plain water after the first lap. NAPALM only comes in one flavour - grape. At first I nearly gagged, but surprisingly got used to the taste after a while. At full concentration, I could get 1000 Cal and 240g of Carbs in the 600ml Aero bottle - that equates to around 3.5 hours worth of nutrition (would be very convenient for Ironman). It certainly simplifies the nutrition plan, but I'm still undecided whether or not I'll use it at Geelong - still time for more experimentation.
After my shortened ride I set out on my run. I was now feeling quite good, but unfortunately that feeling didn't extend to my knee. The patella injury (that I've now had for 16 months) was aching a little on the bike, but I didn't think too much about it. As soon as I started to run it was obvious that all was not well in the patella region and not wanting to risk further injury I cut the run short at only 200m. This not only ended my session, but also ruled out any training on the Sunday as I figured rest was the best way to finish off my big 3 weeks of training.
Hopefully the knee soreness is nothing serious and is simply a result of 3 weeks of hard work. Whilst disappointed I couldn't quite get in the full amount of training, I'm still very happy with what I ended up doing. I'm now looking forward to an easier week leading into the Sprint Race at Elwood next weekend.
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