XOSIZE Triathlon 4, Sandringham (State Championships)

Despite it being the State Championships, neither Elaine nor I were particularly excited about this race. We both wanted to do well, but having already finished our target races for the season, it was a lot harder to find that inner drive.

Sunday morning did not get off to a great start, as I incorrectly set the alarm for Saturday instead of Sunday. Fortunately Elaine had wisely set a backup alarm which saved us from missing the race (and also gave us an extra 20 mins of sleeping). Of course we then left home later than intended, resulting in a bad parking spot - long walk to the race (that wasted even more time). We stole back some time by doing much shorter warmup rides than usual (about 4km instead of 10).

Racking my bike in transition, I set my Garmin 310xt watch/bike computer to multisport mode so that it would automatically switch from bike to T1 to run (I don't wear it in the swim). It was all ready to go when I realised I hadn't checked if I'd disabled AutoPause (which can result in inaccurate split times). In my haste I hit too many buttons at once and upset the Garmin. When Garmin watches get upset they just lock up and sometimes stay that way until the rechargeable battery runs out (in 20 hours). Luckily, after 2 minutes of minor panic, I coaxed the watch into shutting down. Once powered up again, it had forgotten the previous incident and was back in a good mood allowing me to set everything up again (ironically AutoPause had already been disabled).

Once at the swim start I was feeling good. I'd survived all my blunders and there was nothing to stop me from having a good race (or so I thought). The first 500m of the 750m went fantastic (best swim ever to that point). I found a good swimmer to draft off and we had pulled away from the main pack with only 4 or 5 swimmers from my wave ahead in the distance. Despite the fast pace, sitting in the draft was ridicously easy and with around 250m to go I was feeling so good I decided to charge off by myself - stupid decision. The last section back to the beach was directly into the sun making it extremely difficult to see the finish arch (even with my new tinted goggles). Now swimming by myself, direction was all up to me. I saw a faint outline of the finish arch and charged towards it. Unfortunately as I reached the beach I discovered I'd swam back to the starting arch (over 100m off direction), much to the amusement of the assembled crowd who were watching the later waves about to start. Comparing my swim split to the other athlete I had been drafting off, my little detour added over 40 seconds to my time.

After a running mount onto the bike I had trouble placing my feet on the shoes (already attached to the pedals), which is usually the easiest aspect of the flying mount. Then the early going felt tough. My legs felt very heavy, no doubt still fatigued from the Geelong race 2 weeks ago, and it was very difficult to get my power wattage up - usually it is an effort to keep my watts down early in the ride. Things slowly fell into place and I got into a reasonable rhythm that allowed me to average over 40kph for the bike leg. But this was slower than my effort at the Elwood race and I think conditions were better this time (wind was almost non-existent).

I exited T2 thinking the run might be better - I was very wrong. In previous races, the first kilometre has been spent trying to hold back and not run too fast. Today I was struggling right from the start and then continued to get slower. My average run pace was 4m12s per kilometre and the run split was a full 2 minutes slower than my Elwood time. The temperature on the run was only 22 degrees Celsius  but after the race everybody reported it feeling a hellava lot warmer. And nearly everybody I spoke to had a poor run (most of these people did Geelong as well).

Most of the Ironman competitors (including Mark and Peter) skipped the race to do more training. With Ironman Melbourne only one month away, their weekend sessions are really ramping up. Yesterday Mark rode 180km and ran for 20 minutes off the bike. This morning he was scheduled to do a 2 hour bike ride followed by a 60 minute run - I'm still waiting to hear if he survived the weekend. However even with the Ironman competitors missing, the Bayside Triathlon Club still had a good turnout including a few team entries and Dale raced despite also doing a 180km ride yesterday.

Most of the club raced at Geelong 2 weeks ago and most of them suffered in today's race in a very similar way to me, but minus all my stupid mistakes (although Leah did swim to the wrong turnaround buoy and was directed back to the first one by the lifeguards). The exceptions were Young Matt who had a great race, Hayley who won her age group yet again (even though she rolled her ankle at the run turnaround) and Nolwenn and new girl Kate also appeared to have very good races. While far from his best race, Martin still won his age group and Elaine, Clint, Aurel and Dale all picked up podiums (and Adam and Sarah just missed out with 4th places).

Usually I only average one good race a season. This season I've had 2 great races (Elwood and Geelong) and one very good race (Mordialloc). So I can't complain about one bad race, especially with it being so close after Geelong. The good news is I won a very nice Soleus sports watch as a spot prize and our detox regime (from red wine) is on hold tonight - in fact I'm drinking a glass now as I type (Cheers !).

Detoxing before State Champs

As mentioned in my last post, after Geelong Elaine and I became more interested in drinking wine than training. Last Saturday Elaine went on a chocolate tour where she not only ate a lot of chocolate (and drank some more wine), but also learnt how to make Belgium style chocolates. Every night since then, Elaine has made a batch of chocolates as she tries to perfect this new art. And of course I've had to help her out by eating these chocolates (life's tough sometimes).

Injuries don't heal as quickly when consuming alcohol and sugary foods. So no surprises that my sore achilles and Elaine's sore hamstring from the Geelong race were still sore. With the State Championship Sprint Race this Sunday, we decided to abstain from alcohol and sugary foods this week.

Last Sunday night we had our usual Lamb Roast, so obviously that required a bottle of red wine. Then on Monday night Elaine cooked up a beautiful steak on the Webber - would have ruined the meal without another bottle of red. Tuesday night we arrived home quite late from training and had chicken for tea - finally we resisted temptation (Elaine doesn't care much for white wine). With this new found will power we survived Wednesday, Thursday and Friday alcohol free. Unfortunately this strength of will did not flow through to our chocolate comsumption as we polished off a batch every night.

Post Geelong

Since racing at Geelong, I have done 4 training sessions, Elaine has done 3 and between us we have polished off 5 bottles of wine (one of those was Champagne). As you can tell, our focus has waned a little. The Sprint Race at Elwood (selection race for the Age Group World Championships) and Geelong were our 'A' races for the season. All we have left is two Sprint races which we are obliged to do as part of our sponsorship deal with Rocket Science and XOSIZE (at least we get free entry). The next race is a week away at Sandringham and is the State Championships. I'm hoping a lot of the faster competitors will miss the race due to Ironman preparation and I might sneak onto the podium.

Elaine, Mark and Peter all seem to have pulled up very well from the Geelong race. I'm still a little sore - mainly in the achilles (that dreaded injury I've avoided so far this season) and my hamstrings. My four training sessions since Geelong have been at the veldrome, a bay swim, a long ride and a short but fast brick session. Everything went well at the Velodrome and bay swim, but the ride on Saturday was probably a little too long (115km) and too fast.

Peter, Mark and all the other Ironman competitors will be enjoying huge training loads for the next 3 weeks before their 2 week taper begins. With the last 2 races separated by only 2 weeks, Elaine and I will be enjoying a very light training load that will either be in recovery or taper mode.

I have to go now, we just popped the cork on a lovely bottle of French red wine.

Geelong 70.3

This was my third attempt at a Half Ironman and I was not fully satisfied with my previous two results of 5h15m at Geelong in 2010 and  4h54m at Torquay in 2011 (I did a Long Course Triathlon at Geelong in 2012, but crashed on the bike and didn't finish). At this race a time over 5 hours would be very disappointing, between 4h50m and 4h59m would be OK, I would be happy finishing between 4h40m and 4h49m and ecstatic with anything under 4h40m. I always believed I was capable of a 4h3Xm time, but seem to always struggle with the longer distances.

Elaine and I stayed at the Vue apartments only 500m from transition. Lovely apartments and one of the closest to the race start. Sunday morning transition opened at 5:45am and I was there waiting for the marshals to let us in (Elaine's race started an hour later, so she was still asleep in bed). Having laid out all my gear I realised I had left my water bottles in the fridge. Whenever I put my bottles in the fridge I always forget them. I've learnt a trick of leaving the car keys in the fridge next to the bottles, but this didn't work when I was walking to the race. One of the key reasons for having accommodation so close is the luxury of having your own toilet - something that gets a lot of use the morning of a race. Once back at the apartment I had my final toilet stop, grabbed my wetsuit, goggles, swim cap and water bottles and headed back to transition. I had just finished putting the bottles on my bike when an announcement came over the loud speaker declaring transition was closed and everybody needed to get out - just in time.

As I wandered over to the Bayside Triathlon Club tent I walked past an enormous queue for the port-a-loos (gotta love having an apartment close to the race). Once I had my wetsuit on I was feeling more relaxed - everything was back to schedule, something that was especially important seeing that the organisers had decided (the night before) to move all the wave starts earlier. After a nice warmup swim, I wandered over to the swim start to discover my age group had light blue caps, but I'd been given a dark blue one. Too late to worry about it now, although I had to convince numerous people (including Elaine and our friend David who came down to watch) that I was in the correct wave despite the colour of my cap.

SWIM 1.9km - 29m25s

It was a beach start for the swim (which I prefer) and I lined up on the left side about 3 people deep (I breathe to the right, so being on the left side gives me the best vision of the pack). Porpoising at swim starts in one of my strengths (hence why I like beach starts), but the shallows at Geelong is soft mush under foot, so I starting swimming much earlier than I needed to just to avoid the horrible feeling on my feet (eewh). Unlike short course races, the Half Ironman swims are generally far more sedate as nobody wants to waste excess energy so early in such a long race. I slotted in behind some good swimmers to draft off and everything went well until a swimmer with a wild left arm swam up next to me. After being whacked 3 times in succession across the head, I decided to move onto this swimmer's toes for safety.

During the initial 850m to the first turning buoy I swapped onto several different swimmers' toes, but made a point never to surge to catch a better draft. The wave 3 minutes in front of us were the 35+ females in pink caps. I caught the first pink cap after only 300 or so metres and then started catching lots of them around 600m. Threading a way through was quite difficult, but made easier when following somebody else. At about the 1km mark (of the 1.9km swim) we starting catching the yellow caps (males 35-39) who started 5 minutes ahead of us. It wasn't long before there were far more yellow and pink caps than there were blue. As a result, the swimmer I was following went quite wide to avoid all the congestion of slower swimmers.

Just before I approached the 2nd turn buoy around the 1500m mark, I saw a swimmer in a white cap go past and mistakenly thought is was Peter. When a couple of other white caps went past (from the wave 3 mins behind me), I jumped onto their toes to get a good draft. I was travelling nicely when I was muscled out of the draft by a yellow cap who decided he wanted the draft for himself. I was flabbergasted than he thought he could hold the feet of a group that started 3 waves (8 minutes) after him. Obviously he only lasted about 3 strokes, but this was enough to ruin the draft for me and now I had to find another blue cap to draft off for the last 400m.

The third and last turning buoy was the most congested because you have 4 different waves all coming together meaning that all the swimmers were of different abilities. We only had about 100m to go, so I was pretty relaxed at this point because I knew I'd had a good swim and anything that slowed me down now would not have much affect upon my time. This is probably the point where Peter snuck passed me, but amongst all the chaos I didn't see him.

Elaine's swim in the Olympic Distance race was 1500m. Her swim split of 33m01s was easily her best ever swim.

At the time I thought my swim went fairly well, but it wasn't until I saw the results that I realised how well. Before the race I predicted my best possible swim time would be just over 30 minutes, averaging 1m35s per 100m. So with an average speed of just under 1m33s per 100m, this is almost definitely my best ever swim. Largely due to the fact that I drafted for 99% of the time. This was achieved by not getting too ambitious and always trying to swap to a better draft. Instead I avoided any surging and held onto existing drafts, even when they were starting to tire, until another opportunity presented itself.

TRANSITION ONE - 2m27s

Transition all went well and was pretty uneventful for me. I ran out with another club member Chris who also started in my wave. We were held up by slower athletes through the transition exit chute, but it was a good excuse to take it easy as we still had a lot of race to go.

Unfortuntately Peter and Mark's transitions were not so uneventful. Running with his bike out of transition, Peter was knocked by another competitor and his chain came off. Usually it is a simple task to put it back on, but this task was made more difficult by a chain guard (ironically designed to stop the chain coming off). It was while Peter was putting his chain back on that I passed him (although I didn't see him at the time).

Mark suffered bad cramps in his hamstring as he entered the bike compound from the swim. He had to stop and stretch it for several minutes before he was able to continue. As a result he had one of the slowest transition times for the race.

BIKE 90km - 2h27m57s

The pre-race plan was to go easy for the first 5km or so. In particular, resist the urge to push up the hill out of transition and ride very conservatively through the winding roads that go through the gardens before you get out on the Portarlington Highway.

Everything went more or less to plan, except that the course changes this year had added a lot more tight corners (I think 12 extra corners for the race). After crashing on the bike leg last year (taking a corner too quick in the wet) I was very gun shy and took every turn extremely slow. Another issue was the packs of riders who were blatantly drafting (which is illegal in the race). I would sit 12 metres off the back of the pack for a few minutes before surging past. However as soon as we came to a tight corner they would catch back up and often pass me back.

The only other problem I had was with the water bottles handed out at the aid stations. I use a 600ml bottle on my head stem and was expecting to receive a 600ml or 700ml bottle at the aid station. Instead I received a whopping 800ml bottle that would not fit into the gap between the cage and the computer. I was forced to move the Garmin 310xt computer from the bike onto my wrist (I use the quick release mechanism), but this meant it was now difficult to check my power, heart rate and speed. I decided I'd turf it at the next aid station, but that was 20km away.

My bike split was a touch slower than what I had hoped for. Mainly due to all the tight corners and the fact that I was very conscious of not going too hard on the bike. If the majority of the bike leg had been on the Portarlington Highway, I would have been much faster. All of my bike splits whilst on the highway were above 40kph. In the end I averaged under 37kph with an average power of 235 watts (243 NP) and average heart rate of 146bpm. I could have gone faster, but I think it would have impacted my run, which was always going to be an issue even without the bike.

Elaine had a better than expected bike split of 1h32m16s for the 40km bike leg, 9 minutes faster than last year. Mark rode well for a 90km bike split of 3h15m, but probably rode a bit too hard on the second lap and paid for this on the run (lesson learnt). With a dodgy achilles and Ironman on the horizon, Peter rode a conservative 2h40m 90km which would leave him in a great state to start the run.

TRANSITION TWO - 1m18s

Everybody managed to get through T2 without incident. I put on socks for the run and had 3 gels attached to my Rocket Science race belt (which carried the race number, compulsory on the run leg).

RUN 21.1km - 1h38m28m

Any prior sins in the race will come back with interest on the run. Unlike sprint races where you just go as fast as you can for just over an hour, long course races are all about pacing and nutrition. Get either of these wrong and you won't be executing a fast run.

My plan was to hold back for the first 2 or 3km. I usually feel great off the bike (even in Ironman) and effortlessly run very fast for the first few kilometres - but this practice will always bite you in the bum in a long course race. The aim was 4m30s per kilometre and keep the heart rate below 155bpm. After a good swim and bike, the only club members ahead of me were Clint and Adam, both of whom started two waves ahead of me. In the first two kilometres I was passed by Andrew, Ray, Swanny and Darren. This really tested my pacing strategy as I tempted to run with each of them, but luckily resisted. Then I found another runner who was running exactly at 4m30s pace and simply ran behind him. It felt ridicously easy, barely above walking pace, but my GPS watch assured me that it was 4m30s pace and the kilometre split times were confirming this, so I continued along at this very easy canter.

The run course consisted of two 8.2km laps over undulating terrain and then a 4.7km out and back lap along the beach front. I wanted to take the first 8.2km easy, then complete the second lap faster than the first (negative split the first 2 laps) and embrace the pain for the last 4.7km. Be careful what you wish for. The first lap was a breeze. In fact I sailed through the first 10km in under 45km minutes - this was a piece of cake. So confident was I, that I increased the effort level after 10km. Sadly the extra intensity added very little extra speed. At the 15km mark everything stopped feeling so easy. I'd pulled away from club member Simon at the 10km mark (he was a lap behind), but not longer after the 15km he caught back up and passed me. I wasn't falling apart, but the speed that was previously effortless was now simply too fast and I had to ease off the pace. As I entered the last 4.7km lap I knew it was not going to be pretty.

My speed was gradually dropping off and my muscles were letting me know that they were not happy. The run out along the beach seemed to go on forever and when I finally reached the turn around - it was a very steep ramp up to the road. The ramp was probably only 50 metres long, but one look at the steepness and I instantly decided this was the time for walking. Once at the top, it was generally downhill to the finish, but I was spent. With 200m to go there must have been 20 competitors who ran past, but I had nothing left.

My target time was 1h35m, but I was prepared to loose up to 4 mins on the last 4.7km lap, so it essentially went to plan. I just under estimated how much pain would be involved. I've only done one stand-alone Half Marathon in my life (in 2009). My aim for this race was to beat my stand-alone Half Marathon time. Unbelievably I got the same time to the second.

With his achilles injury, Peter's longest pre-race run had been only 7km, so the 21.1km run was never going to be good. To his credit he posted a very credible 1h51m run split and his achilles pulled up well. While capable of much faster, this is an excellent sign for Ironman. Unfortunately Mark didn't fare so well. After going a little too hard on the bike, Mark was already feeling flat by the 4km mark. Knowing that he has Ironman in 6 weeks, Mark toughed it out. As he headed out on the last 4.7km lap his quads were cramping quite badly. With 3km to go, the hamstring cramps from T1 decided to join in the party, so Mark had to resort to a repeating cycle of run/walk/stretch. With less than 400m to go you could see that the pain was unbearable, but knowing that his wife and kids were waiting near the finish line, Mark forced himself into a triumphant run down the finish chute.

OVERALL - 4h39m36s

My finish time snuck into my 'Ecstatic' range by 24 seconds. I finally achieved the time I always thought I was capable of. However I don't rate it as good as my last Sprint distance race. I think it's just the nature of a long course race where you are holding back until the last 30 minutes of the run, so it always feels like you could of gone faster. However the main problem is that I'm still getting beaten by people I would beat in a sprint race, but at least they didn't beat me by much this time.

Elaine was extremely happy with her Olympic Distance finish time of 3h06m50s, around 27 minutes quicker than last year.  The finishing time of 5h02m was pretty much irrelevant to Peter, but of great significance was that he ran 21.1km without any major issues to his achilles.

Geelong Taper

After the Brick session on Saturday, Sunday was a complete day of rest and a massage on Monday continued the recovery/taper process.

Tuesday morning Elaine and I did our usual swimming squad. The massage from the night before had loosened me up nicely and I felt great. I also used this session to break in a new pair of Rocket Science goggles - these ones are tinted, as the Geelong swim usually involves one section where you head directly into the sun. Getting the correct strap tension on goggles is easier than it sounds and I ended up making at least 4 different adjustments during the session.

On Tuesday night I went for an easy run, but felt terrible. My legs were heavy and I couldn't find any sort of rhythm. I ended up running less than 6km as it simply wasn't happening for me. I don't think this is unusual during the start of a taper period. Hopefully I'll feel a lot better when I run again on Thursday night.

Due to problems finding the right strap tension, I was undecided about using the new goggles after Tuesday's swim. However they felt really good during Wednesday night's swim in the bay. I had great visibility and no problems swimming towards the setting sun (on a 38 degrees celsius day). By the end of the session they probably felt a little on the tight side, but I tend to wear goggles a fraction tighter for races and open water swim sessions.

I have also ordered a new seat to use instead of the Cobb Max saddle I currently have on my bike - which is giving me saddle sores for anything longer than a 1 hour ride. I'm planning to revert back to the Cobb Plus that I used previously. Ideally I would have used the Thursday morning Velodrome session to dial in the position of the new seat, but it didn't arrive in time, so Elaine and I enjoyed a sleep in instead.

From now till the race on Sunday, we'll do an easy run tonight and a swim on Friday morning. If my new seat arrives in time, I'll probably spend around 15 minutes on the Windtrainer Friday night to dial in the position. In general it should be a pretty easy week of training.

We're both looking forward to the race and spending time away in Geelong. There will be a lot of members from our club racing, including Mark and Peter who are using it as a warm up race for Ironman Melbourne, so the weekend should have a wonderful group atmosphere.

Last Big Session Before Geelong

Since last week's Race Simulation, I've had a really good week's worth of training involving 7.7km swimming, 174km of riding and 49.3km of running. Definitely one of my better weeks. Total training time for January adds up to just under 49 hours.

Tuesday night I ran 20.6km with the Triathlon Club as part of a long run training session. Afterwards I was understandably quite stiff and sore, but recovered reasonably quickly and felt quite good when I ran again on Thursday. Unfortunately Mark was not so lucky. He ran just over 17km and pulled up with a very sore achilles. It was so sore, he missed every other session for the week (which was always planned as an easy week). But worse is that it means he won't be able to race the Olympic Distance triathlon at Sandringham this weekend. Mark tested his achilles with an easy bike ride this morning to ascertain whether his achilles can hold up to doing the swim and bike leg (and skipping the run) - as of yet, I haven't heard how this ride went (fingers crossed).

Talking of dodgy achilles, Peter did his longest ever training ride this morning - 182km to Sorrento and back averaging over 30kph. After riding so fast and pulling up so well, his confidence for Ironman (in 7 weeks) has taken a major boost.

This morning's session for Elaine and myself was a Brick session (ride and run). Elaine rode 50km and I rode 60km and we both ran just over 10km off the bike. The bike ride was roughly 8km at race pace following by 4km of recovery - repeating for the whole ride. I was very happy with my ride efforts. My average power for the race pace segments was 240, 240, 260 & 238 watts (target was around 240). Obviously the 260 watts segment was a touch high, but this was due to trying to avoid getting mixed up with large packs on Beach Rd.

In the last 3 brick sessions I have really struggled to find Half Ironman run pace. Today it just all seemed to fall into place as I averaged 4m25s pace for the 5km out (with a tailwind) and 4m35s pace coming back (headwind). My 10km split was 45m23s - I ran an extra 600m to cooldown. Elaine also had a great run completing the 10km in a fraction over an hour, but the run included a slower cooldown section.

Today's session has given me a lot more confidence for the Half Ironman Geelong. Before now, I had no proof that my planned pacing was even close. In this morning's session, all my effort segments on the bike were done with a average heart rate in the low 140's and my average heart rate for the run was only 152bpm (I had an alert set every time my HR went over 155).