In Full Swing in July

Training was now generally following the plan below (other than recovery every 4th week).

Monday
  PM - 60 min WattBike in Altitude Chamber @ Bodyology
Tuesday
  AM - 75 min Swim Squad
  Noon - 60 min Easy Pace Run
Wednesday
  AM - 2 hour hard ride
  PM - 75 min Swim Squad
Thursday
  AM - 60 min Treadmill in Altitude Chamber @ Bodyology
  PM - 45 min Run Technique Session
Friday
  AM - 75 min Swim Squad
Saturday
  AM - 4 to 5 hour long run
Sunday
  PM - 90 min to 2 hour long run

Nothing ever goes completely to plan. But in general I was following the program pretty close.

Originally Tuesday's run was supposed to contain threshold intervals, but I found the double run on Thursday, long run on Sunday and hard bike on Mon & Wed was too much to combine with a hard run on Tuesday. So Tuesday just became an easy run - often 2 laps of the Tan so at least it contained a steep hill twice.

In general this is the most intensity I can ever remember doing. Getting back from overseas on 23rd April (after a 3 month break from training) with the 70.3 Worlds on 4th September was simply too short to do a full length program with a big base. Instead I designed a much shorter program that is a little light on distance and duration, but heavier than usual on intensity. Over 12 years of training (more or less non-stop) should account for a fair bit of base.

Hoka One One Trail Run - Plenty Gorge

This series was previously called the Salomon Trail Runs, but Hoka One One have obviously taken over the naming rights. Otherwise everything else is still the same, still being run by the folks from Rapid Ascent. Although I did notice that the numbers were down a little, especially in the Long Distance. In previous years the Long Distance race sold out at every event, now it looked like it had the least numbers of any event.

This was the 4th year Elaine and I were doing the Trail Series. First year we raced Short Course, second year Medium Course and last year the Long Course. I found it took too long to recover from the Long Course races and Elaine is not really training this year (taking a season off from Triathlon), so the Medium Course looked the wiser option.

Plenty is Elaine's favourite course, mainly because of the river crossings. Medium Course only have 2 crossings (Long Course has 4). Days before the race we learnt that the Medium Course now only has one river crossing (Elaine was devastated). Part of the course is on a Mountain Bike track and apparently the mountain bikers had got together and placed a long plank across the river (ie. a bridge). Not only was there now only one river crossing, but the makeshift bridge was across the deeper part of the river (again Elaine's favourite). The good aspect of this bridge was that it removed the bottleneck that always occurred at this crossing, meaning I didn't have to push the pace in the first few kilometres to beat the crowd to the river.

We had a good turnout at the race - Steph M, Shaune & Tania racing the Short Course, Renee, Steph G, Sarah, Elaine and myself doing the Medium and Sonia and Lee racing the Long. It was Steph M's first trail run and she was wearing normal runners. After a lot of encouragement we finally convinced her to make use of the free trial Hoka One One runners. Plenty is a course where proper trail runners make a big difference.

Under 10 degrees celsius, it was still much warmer than the below zero temperatures of last year. I wore shorts and a t-shirt (no gloves), but soon wished I had selected a singlet instead.

A combination of the slightly smaller field and the knowledge that the first river crossing had a bridge meant the pace at the start was not quite as ridiculously as previous years. There were still plenty of people who went out too fast, but the I didn't feel too crowded and generally had plenty of space to pick my own lines. Among the other competitors I noticed a young girl (about 16yo). Sarah had pointed her out pre-race as she had been first female in the last race. Within the first kilometre she was almost out of sight ahead.

After a sensibly paced start, I started to pick off other competitors (who didn't pace so well) about the 2 to 3km mark. A small pack formed, including the young girl and we started to distance ourselves from the rest of the field (with the leaders now well and truly out of sight).

The Plenty course has a bit of everything - single track, rocky sections, winding bits, open fields, technical descents, long open downhills, very steep climbs, long sustained climbs and of course river crossings. As always happens, different terrains and gradients suit different people. Sometimes I thought I had successfully broken away from a competitor only to find they passed me when the course changed. Just over half way and our small group of 4 had come back together as we entered the section of single track. The pace felt a little slow, but I decided I would sit behind the others, get a little bit of recovery and then really push the pace with about 2km to go. Great plan, but while I was daydreaming about my great finish, the leading two runners were starting to gap me. Initially it was just a few metres after a twisty section or short technical descent, but before I knew it they were 50 metres ahead and barely within sight. Not really sure how that happened when the pace seemed to so easy.

Now it was just the young girl and myself. She obviously was not in my age category so she was no concern to my overall result. I asked if she wanted to pass, but she preferred to sit behind and let me to the pacing and navigation.

About 3km to go, another very fast looking competitor raced passed. Confused how he ended up behind us, as he passed I asked if he missed the start, but he replied that he went off course. The front end of the field tends to thin out pretty quickly and it is not unusual to end up alone with nobody in sight ahead or behind. There are course markings, but they are certainly not abundant. If walking, they would be very easy to see, but running with the heart rate approaching red line and sweat dripping into your eyes it can be easy to miss a turn. His spurt of speed must have been fuelled by anger from getting lost, because he only gained about 50 metres on us and then stayed within sight for the rest of the race.

Despite lots of puffing and giving every indication she was struggling, the young girl managed to stay with me for the rest of the race. The last kilometre contains an extremely steep climb straight up the side of the hill which is then followed by a long climb up a 4 wheel drive track to the finish line. As you get nearer to the finish line the crowd of spectators gets bigger and of course they all cheered on the young girl. Nobody wants to see a middle aged man out sprint a young girl to the finish, at least this is the excuse I used when I decided to let her win. The fact that I was really tired and the finish was uphill had nothing to do with it. Unfortunately she finished in 10th overall which meant I missed out on my pre-race target of a top 10. I also missed the age group podium, as the two runners who pulled away from me with 5km to go were both in my age group.

Sonia and Lee did the Long Course. Sonia could not believe how the obstacles just kept on coming, she described it as like the amazing race where you never knew what was coming next. Unfortunately Lee went off course which cost him an age group him, so he was not in the best of moods after the race.

Steph G was also not happy. I suspect this was the 2nd longest race she has ever done (after the Olympic Distance Triathlon in Jan) and by far the longest run (time wise). The continual hills were definitely not to her liking and she was mumbling and grumbling for the next 15 mins after the race. Luckily time heals all and she was able to recognise the great achievement she had accomplished and her opinion of the course slowly improved.

Steph M did really well in her trial runners and was happy with her race, as was Shaune, Tanya, Renee and Sarah (who scored a podium in her age group).

Getting into Tune in June

After the slogging it out in May, things started to fall into place in June.
- easy run pace dropped close to 5m00s per km
- biggest weekly run mileage 51km
- longest run of 2 hours (20.7 on Trails)
- lots of crap weather meant longest ride was only 106km
- starting adding extra swim and bike sessions

Still feeling a long way off peak fitness, but with over 9 weeks till the 70.3 Worlds I feel I'm in a reasonable position to put in some good training blocks before the race

Dragging the Body Kicking and Screaming Back to Fitness in May

Some people had suggested that 2 weeks hiking at high altitude would do wonders for my training - they were wrong. After 3 months break from all Triathlon training, it was a very hard slog back to fitness.

We arrived back in Melbourne Saturday night, 23rd April. Sunday morning I went for an easy 55km ride - unfortunately there was nothing easy about it. This was followed by a very slow 2.9km run (6m45s per km). Everything was stiff.

Monday I ventured for a 4.4km run. This time I managed 6m38s per km, but still stiff.

Tuesday I went for swim. My last swim was at Geelong 70.3 where I posted my best swim time ever, so I entered the pool full of confidence. I nearly drowned. Just making it to the other end of the pool was a matter of life or death. When I first started triathlon I could not swim at all, but even then I don't remember it being this difficult. Determined to claw back my fitness I went for a 6.8km run at lunchtime, this time as a blistering pace of 6m14s per km.

Wednesday was time to drop back to a recovery run. 3km at 6m49s per km - I didn't actually know I could run that slow.

Motivation growing I ran 9.4km on Thursday averaging 6m04s per km. Still not feeling anything like good, but things seem to be heading in the right direction.

Friday, back to the pool. Would I survive? 1600m, felt like I swam the English Channel. Followed up at lunchtime with 3.4km run at 6m50s per km - a new record slowest pace.

Saturday long ride. With a lot of members training for the Cairns Ironman, the club ride was 170km including hill repeats. I managed 72km and got dropped by the girls on my first and only lap (they were doing 3 laps).

Time to get ambitious with the Sunday long run. 13km at 6m24s per km pace. Extremely slow, but happy to get in a long run so soon into my training.

From here it was a slow build. I tried to run 6 times a week (usually managed 5), swam twice and did a long ride on the Saturday.

By the end of the May I had achieved:
- longest ride of 119km to Sorrento
- longest run of 17km (5m59s per km pace)
- biggest weekly run mileage of 48km
- two consecutive training weeks of 11h55m

There was nothing fast, but I was loading up the body with mileage and so far nothing had fallen apart. Only 14 weeks to the 70.3 Worlds in Mooloolaba.

All over in February (Geelong 70.3)

After the Two Bays Trail Run in mid January I had been barely able to run at all. I would start off very slowly, but after 1 or 2 kms I'd have to turn about walk back. Not really what you want before a Half Ironman. But like the Two Bays Trail Run I had already entered and paid for Geelong (there was a minor discount for entering two 70.3 races - so I entered Mandurah & Geelong). Elaine and I had also booked accomodation and taken the Monday off work. So it was a long weekend holiday that included a race on Sunday morning.

The original plan was that I would qualify at Mandurah, expecting a soft field and use Geelong as a backup in case my race didn't pan out in Mandurah. With Geelong being a late season race I was hoping a lot of competitors would have already qualified, meaning the slots would roll down further in the age group.

Obviously Mandurah was a mini disaster and with my inability to run, qualifying at Geelong was pretty much an impossibility. However Ironman had introduced club slots and with Bayside having the most entries of any club, we were guaranteed 3 extra slots. So if I finished I was still a chance, but the chances of actually finishing the 21.1 km run leg was very slim.

Anyway, Geelong would definitely be my last race of the season, then a complete break from all training as I let my body recover.

Geelong 70.3

Another advantage of Bayside having the most entries was a special VIP transition rack for all club members doing the race (the same rack as the pros).

The photo to the right shows that we each had our name plate and about 3 times as much space as the other competitors. What you cannot see in the photo is that we also had carpet all the way down our aisle (rather than running on grass). Just another reason why it was worth doing the race.

We specifically chose accommodation with cooking facilities. Not many places serve breakfast at 5am, and I like to have my normal cooked breakfast before a race (following the principal of nothing new on race day). Elaine bakes up frittatas (eggs, vegetables, cheese, etc) and we divide them into small parcels and freeze them. They are perfect to defrost at work after a morning training session, or as a pre-race breakfast when racing away from home.

After quietly creeping down to the kitchen careful not to wake the other guests, we discovered that the microwave was broken - disaster. A continental breakfast was also supplied, but it looked very carb based and I like limit carbs before a race.

Looking out the window we could see a McDonalds across the road. At 5am, not many other establishments are going to be open, so we decided to compromise on a Egg and Bacon McMuffin and take away coffee. Maccas was surprisingly busy for so early in the morning. Some of the customers were race volunteers getting group coffee orders, others were the type you'd probably expect to see - presumably on their home after a big night. Or maybe they were lost having forgotten where they lived.

After a much longer wait than expected, we finally got our order and wandered the kilometre or so to transition, eating the McMuffin and coffee along the way. Luckily Elaine was available to help carry stuff (she was not racing), because it is surprising difficult to carry a transition bag, pump, helmet, bento box, two bidons, McMuffin & coffee while walking.

Due to the unexpected breakfast hassle, I was running a touch late. Not great when I was in one of the early waves. With limited time I decided not to bother taping a spare tubular under my seat and instead decided to rely on a cap of pitstop in my bento box. With my legs unlikely to finish the run, risking a puncture did not seem like a big deal.

Swim

In short, my best swim ever, hitting the sand in exactly 29 minutes for the 1.9km swim. Upon exiting the water I looked at my watch and saw 28:xx and was extremely excited. But it took half a second for me to hit the lap button, so was a little disappointed to see my split start with a 29. Still my swim split was faster than Clint's, and he always makes fun of my swimming inability. The fact that he was recovering from a broken thumb had absolutely no impact on that result.

The first few hundred metres of the swim I was sitting on the feet of what I originally thought was the perfect swimmer to draft off. He was just slightly faster than me, so I was working a little bit to hold his feet, but not so much that I would blow up. Unfortunately as we moved away from the other swimmers I found that he continued to go off course. I've never swam in a better marked course than this, so I could understand why he couldn't swim straight. Then it occurred to me that I'm swimming in the Male 45-49 age group and he probably has bad eyesight. Enlightened by this revelation I left him and swam the rest by myself. Which makes me even happier with my time considering I did most of it without a draft.

Just like in Mandurah my age group was split into two waves, with me in the second one. Of the 60 odd competitors in my wave I was 5th out of the water, and 10th fastest swimmer out of the 124 in my age group across both waves.

T1

Whether just the mental factor alone, having a VIP transition appeared to make a difference and I was 9th fastest in my age group.

I would have been faster, but got caught behind some slow competitors from the wave before. I yelled out passing as we ran with our bikes out of transition, but some people like to just dawdle side by side. One idiot got annoyed at me and actually started to say 'it's not a race you know' until he realised that it actually was and didn't finish the sentence.

Bike

Looking at the bike data from Mandurah, I decided I probably went out too fast. So I took a conservative approach to Geelong and decided to start conservatively and look to build. The fact that I knew a good result was impossible made it easier to hold back.

My bike split was 2h26m, 7th fastest in my age group. Not a fast time, but the Geelong course is not fast. In peak condition I could of shaved off a few minutes, but not on this day. In fact even with the conservative start I still faded a little on the second lap.

T2

As I ran into T2 I saw 5 times World Champion Craig Alexander standing next to his bike. I later discovered he had a bike mechanical. Not such a good thing considering he had just changed bike manufacturers.

Despite my VIP spot, my second transition was quite slow ranking only 36th in my age group. At this point I think I was placed 5th or 6th in my age group but knew it was all about to fall apart on the run. So the motivation to race through transition was not really there.

Run

First kilometre felt great. Being an early wave I had actually ridden past part of the female pro field and was now on the run with some of the pros. It was great to feel like you are at the front of the race, just a pity my legs were not in any condition to make use of this opportunity.

As expected I felt good for the first few kilometres and then things quickly deteriorated.

It was surprisingly hot. Every aid station I walked taking several drinks, throwing cups and buckets of water over my head and ice down my top and shorts. This obviously helped as I whilst I felt it was hot, I never felt affected by the heat. But I suspect the bigger reason was that I was simply running too slow to be greatly affected.

Every lap I felt like pulling out. But it was like I was too lazy to stop and walk off the course and somehow just continued my slow progress.

The final run split was 1h49m47s (5m14s per km), 42nd in my age group. At least I ran under 1h50m.

My overall result was 4h51m47s, 18th out of 124 finishers in my age group and 221st overall out of 1237 finishers in the race. Still under 5 hours which is something I suppose, remembering that my first Half Ironman (on the same course) back in 2009 was 5h12m.

Worlds 70.3 Rolldown Ceremony

9th place at Mandurah did not get me a World's slot (it only went down to 5th), so even though I expected more roll downs, 18th place was no chance. My only chance was a club slot.

Andrew, Ray, Siim and I sat on the lawn for the Ceremony. Ray (8th in M45-49) was a good chance and Andrew (12th M40-44) an outside chance of an age group roll down, but Siim and I could only hope for a club slot (Siim doing his first ever Half also had a slow run).

The Age Group roll downs took forever. Andrew missed out by only a couple and Ray missed out by 1.  During the ceremony, there was a query over the M75-59 results. The winner had passed on the slot, so the second placed competitor (of 2 in the age group) was asking why the slot had not rolled down to him. They finally worked it out in the end, because although he had finished the race and received his medal, he did not finish it within the time cutoff, so was not eligible for a Worlds slot (a little harsh for someone over 75 finishing a Half Ironman). I'm not sure what the cutoff is, but he took just over 7.5 hours. Anyway, this meant there was now one more slot to roll down. Because M40-44 was the biggest age group, they got the roll down. Whether the competitors ahead of Andrew had gone home or just didn't want the slot, it rolled down to Andrew who got the very last age group slot.

Now the Club slots. Important to note that the ceremony didn't start until 4pm. The majority of competitors had already left to drive back to Melbourne. With the age group roll downs taking well over an hour, the crowd was even thinner now. Andrew had left with the slot, but Ray, Siim and I still lay on the grass (with Elaine) in hope.

Bayside were awarded 3 slots. One Male, one Female and one junior. The male slot went to another club member in a higher age group - he was much slower than us, but closer to the time of the winner of his age group. Numerous female names were called out until they came to a delighted Moira who happily snapped up the slot. Then when it came to the juniors, none were there (you have to be present to collect the slot). Ray, Siim and I though it would roll back to the males, but instead they rolled it on the next club. Disappointed Siim left, but with nothing better to do Ray, Elaine and I hung around to see what happened at the end.

It was around another hour before they had gone through all the clubs. There were a lot of names being called out, but not many present to collect. When we thought it was all over, the announcer said "That is all the clubs and we still have 3 slots left. So we will go back to the start - are there any members of Bayside present in the crowd?". Despite being too sore to move for the last 3 hours, Ray and I shot up and raced to the stage. Another club member (who we had never seen before or since) also turned.

Three club members - three slots

70.3 Worlds at Sunshine Coast, Mooloolaba, here I come.

Much the same in January (& Two Bays Trail Run)

I am now 47 years old and around this age your body is suppose to slow down. Are my training results lack lustre because of an underlying injury or is old age simply catching up with me ?

One of my pre-season goals was to post a personal best time at the Olympic Distance triathlon in St Kilda. In fact this has been a goal for the last 3 seasons, but every year my body has let me down.

There was no way my body could handle an Olympic Distance triathlon and the 28km Two Bays Trail Run on consecutive weeks. In my current condition a good Olympic Distance time would not be possible, so I would just be disappointed with the result. A wise man would have probably skipped the Two Bays Run as well, but I'd already paid for the entry (it sells out several months in advance) and Elaine was keen to race. So all focus continued towards Two Bays.

One of many famous features of the Dandenongs is the 1,000 steps. So popular that it is almost impossible to get a park on weekends, even though the carpark is quite big. Far less well known, much closer to home and without any parking issues is the Frankston 1,000 steps.

Rather than one big set of steps like in the Dandenongs, the Franskton steps are spread across about 7 different stair cases. They are all within a few 100 metres of each other on Nepean Hwy just before Olivers Hill. Elaine had discovered a Facebook group that ran the steps every Tuesday night and convinced me to tag along.

The group was very friendly and the majority of people were training for Two Bays. I enjoyed the session, but we only did it once because I don't think my legs (in particular my calf and achilles) could handle too many of these runs.

But of course now we know where all these staircases and hills are, we can do them anytime. Especially handy with them being around 6km from our house.

You can almost see our house from the view above.

On a clearer evening the city skyline would probably be visible (about 35km away).

The photos either side are of a ramp, but most of the hills were stair cases.

I don't usually run with my cap on backwards, but some of the hills were so steep I could not see the steps with my hat the normal way around.

Two Bays Trail Run - 28km

Ready or not the race was upon us.

The first kilometre or so is on the road, but it is pretty steep up hill. Lots of people running way too fast for the start of a long race and I could hear lots of puffing around me. How are these runners going to survive over 2 hours ?

Arthurs Seat is the main hill. What it lacks in height, it makes up for in steepness. The road is a very popular cycling route with classic switchbacks where you can pretend you riding up alpe d'huez. With the switchbacks, the road has an average 8% gradient for 2.5km. The trail we were running on goes pretty much straight up the mountain and I suspect is closer to 20% gradient.

With my conservative start I found myself behind a thousand people walking up the hill. Elaine and I had done several training runs up Arthurs Seat and I knew I could easily run up to the top, but now I was faced with people walking 5 or 6 abreast which made it close to impossible to find a path through. What seemed like stupid pacing from some of the other runners at the start now made a bit of sense. If I was to do this race again, I think I would try to push a little further to the front before the base of Arthurs Seat.

By the time I reached the top of Arthurs Seat I had made my way through most of the walkers and was amongst better runners. Unfortunately the descent the other side of Arthurs Seat is single track and most of the runners ahead of me were not good descenders. This was very frustrating as I was loosing out on free speed. But I placated myself in the knowledge that my legs would fall apart long before the end of the race, so any time lost here was really immaterial.

After about 2km of single track, mostly downhill, the track opens up. But then comes a short, but terribly steep, bone jarring descent down to the reservoir. My descending improved after the Marysville Trail Running Camp, but not when it gets that steep. The next 5km is mostly on roads, some bitumen, some dirt which some short trail sections in between.

By far the best part of the run is the 10km through Greens Bush. Beautiful Rainforest teeming with kangaroos and wallabies (and snakes, but didn't see any of them). Most of the track is two people wide, so no problems getting stuck behind other runners. The terrain is undulating, but not technical. I wore trail runners, but normal runners would be fine on this track. In all my training runs and during the race I found this area just made you happy.

The photo below is me near the beginning of the Greens Bush section

By the end of Greens Bush I was completely spent. Just 7km to go to the lighthouse at Cape Schanck, but I knew this was going to be ugly.

This last 7km is more of a sandy coastal track and has numerous roots sticking out just far enough to trip you over. By this stage, lifting my feet was quite a struggle. How I didn't end up face first on the ground is miracle (plenty of others including our friend Christian did suffer this fate). Maybe it was because I walked a far section of this last 7km that saved me.

A lot of people say how tough this last section is. When we trained here, we ran on fresh legs. Elaine commented that the big staircases you had to climb were easy and couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. No surprises that she very much changed her mind after climbing the stairs with around 25kms in her legs.

I limped across the line in a very slow time of 2h47m. The cut off for the race was 4 hours and you had to qualify by completely an earlier race that indicated you were a chance of meeting this cut off. Elaine qualified for the race (Salomon Trail Run at Silvan) but just missed out on finishing within the cut off. This meant her name did not appear in the results, but she still got her finishers and in general loved the race (despite how much it hurt).

I think we were both much happier once on the bus ready to go home. The T-shirts were supplied by Morgan from Physio+Fitness because we ran as part of that team.