Winter, Forster, Yarrawonga

I just created a personal blog page for those of you out there interested in my musings! I hope to make this an interesting and informative page and not one dedicated to self promotion. If you don’t think I am achieving this let me knowJ!  

Last time I put the fingers to the keyboard to bash out a personal update was 10mnths ago after a performance at Ironman Western Australia I was not content with. Over that time life has been fabulous as usual, a new addition to our family Mischa Mary Kate (now 7 months), house renovation, bucket loads of SBR and few races thrown in the mix.

My focus since Busselton has really been on improving my riding ability. Training with power is marvellous in that the numbers don’t lie and tracking my progress has been easy. It is conclusive that I am a lot better bike rider now than 10 months ago. The process designed by coach Kristian Manietta at Tri Specific has been enjoyable, challenging and most importantly it works. I won’t get all bike geeky and rattle of the figures, which proves this (but if your interested let me know).

BUT I am interested in results and how I transfer this improvement into better race performances. Over the winter I raced a couple of events to break up the training and enjoy myself with some success. Two duathlons for a 2^nd and 1^st and a Half Marathon for a 1^st and pb of 69:30. It was fantastic to get some good results, improved performances but at the end of the day these events are not the focus of my training.

I have finished the first two races of what I am calling my spring carnival. Forster Ultimate Triathlon 2/120/20 and Yarrawonga Olympic Distance (Victorian Championships)

Forster: Not the swim I thought I was ready for and came out of the water over a minute behind the chase pack who were three minutes behind leader Clayton Fettell. I rode well and caught the group in front within 15km then continued with a group of four others to work to catch the remainder of the chase pack Michael Fox and Tim Van Berkel. My power numbers indicated vast improvement from previous seasons and I felt in control. However once catching Tim and Michael the surges started to happen as Tim, Adam Gordon and Michael tried to get a gap, which they where successful in doing. This hurt me a little, I lost focus descending just after the last turn around got inside the 12m draft zone of the guy in front then drifted out as the rode flattened out. Bang I was given a minute draft penalty. Livid at the time I argued, lost my focus even further and proceeded to lose more time in the last 20km back to T2. Feeling sorry for myself after a mental lapse cost me the chance I had created. For the first time I could have been in an ideal position to try and run for a spot on the podium. After serving my penalty I was 9minutes down on 2^nd, starting the run in 12^th position. I ran ok but not great and finished in 7^th.

Results: http://www.multisportaustralia.com.au/RaceTecResults/Results.aspx?CId=1&RId=753&EId=1

I learnt a lot from this race.

1. I have improved.

2. Mental training is just as important as physical. When you get tired mental lapses cost big chunks of time quickly. Mistakes are made.

3. The back end of long / hard training sessions is where you have to teach yourself to perform under physical stress. Mentally do you listen to this fatigue or learn to be able to operate at the level you are capable of despite it?

Yarrawonga:

I got sick on Tuesday before this race, not too bad just blocked sinus, chesty cough and really flat feeling. When you train all winter and only have a few key races you have targeted it’s hard to make the smart decision not to race. I decided to race and thought I would feel a lot better than I did. Once you are on a start line there are no excuses your racing or your not.

I was forced to eat my humble pie on the weekend coming out of the water 2 and half minutes behind the chase pack, my swim is a struggle at the best of times and on Sunday I was not good enough. Having a renewed confidence in my ability on the bike I set about trying to bring back as much of this gap as possible and I was pegging back time on some of the younger blokes, holding the 4:30 gap to original race leader Peter Kerr the same but losing time to Leon Grififn who had ridden into the lead by T2. I had no bike computer for this race as I stupidly left my charger in Melbourne, which was kind of a blessing in disguise as it allowed me to race by feel and not be dictated to by numbers, which I am sure would have been down.

My run was steady and I managed to work my way into fourth position by the end of the run just 30 seconds behind Jamie Huggett. However Leon and Pete smashed us to Timbucktoo, having a 6min gap at the finish.

Results:

http://www.triathlon.org.au/Assets/Triathlon+Australia+Digital+Assets/VIC/PDFs/Activites+by+Tri+Vic/Yarrawonga+results/Yarrawonga+Olympic+Distance+Results.pdf

It’s time to put these’s performance behind me. At the end of the day I have had a couple of great weekends away, with great people in beautiful country Australia towns. Lucky Tarryn ended up racing in Yarrawonga to pay for our weekend. She was 3^rd Female overall in the Olympic Distance Tri and 3^rd Female overall in the Australian Aquathlon championships J. A big thanks to thelocal Shire in Yarrawonga for putting up such great prize money. We will be back.

Time to re-focus and turn this improved form into improved results. Next stop Shepparton 70.3.  

Busselton Ironman

My wife Tarryn, son Oscar and I ventured west to a quaint little town called Busselton to race the annual Western Australian Ironman. This is a great event and continues to get better with help from the continued efforts of WTC who run the event, but mostly because of the culture created by a bunch of quirky tri geeks (myself included) and the beauty of Geographe bay. We are all there to achieve a common goal and that is to place ourselves well and truly out of our comfort zone and take the challenge of getting the absolute best out of ourselves under massive duress.

1600+ participants took the plunge into Geographe bay, some there to try and win the race, some qualify for kona, some beat a personal best, or just hear those sacred words "you are an ironman". I was there to achieve a top five or better finish. I had trained for this, it is a realistic goal and to cut a long story short I didn't achieve it. I finished 9th in a time of 8.54 and was out of the race after the bike ride. I swam average, started the bike well but tried to stay with a bunch of guys who were far better than me on the day and I paid the price of risking too much early. I was beaten physically and perhaps later on mentally finishing the last 60km at an effort that wouldn't even suffice for an easy training ride. I suffered despite feeling like I was doing everything within my power to ride at my goal pace. (Would I do this again? The short answer is yes! In order get what I expect out of myself I have to take risks, push myself to the brink and get through the other side, but to do this I need to develop my cycling further.) I then went about trying to salvage the race with a decent run. I did this until about the 30km mark, when the wheels fell of and my pace slowed significantly. My day in a nutshell swim 53min, bike 4hr57min, run 2nd 59min total 8hr 54min.

Now this brings me to the point of my blog, I had access to the best equipment through my fantastic sponsors, Trek bikes, Champion system clothing, Saucony runners, Ryders eyewear, Winners sports nutrition, Cecil Walker cycles and Nashypix. I had exceptional support from my awesome wife Tarryn, coach Kristian Mannietta, manager Dan from DTR. At the end of the day nothing was left to chance and I couldn't deliver my expectations on race day. It is now time to look at the whole process, analyse my performance with honesty and integrity, then do what is required to achieve what I know is possible.

You may be thinking I am being hard on myself but I must add that I am exceptionally grateful for the opportunity to race ironman, I still embraced the day and in 10+ years I will look back at all my Ironman performances and be proud. I still immensely enjoyed crossing the finish line, the sound of my 20 month old son yelling "Go Dad" at the top of his lungs, seeing my wife each lap of the bike and run, the joy of being introduced to the start line as a pro, burger and chips post race and the comaradarie amongst fellow athletes pre/post race. I still enjoyed hurting myself, pushing myself and wanting to give up. We had a great 9 days in WA and I cherish every moment I get to travel and race.

Driving to the airport on the way home I was listening to ABC national (showing my age) and the lead singer of Gotye was being interviewed. A week or so earlier I had watched what I thought was a great performance ‘live’ at the Aria music awards from Gotye. I was even imagining how good it must feel to be able to belt out a tune like that at the top of your lungs having your fans, peers etc looking on in ore. In his interview he spoke of how humbling that performance was, he found it incredibly difficult in such a big venue (he was not used to performing in such massive spaces). He listened to the performance the next day and was ‘embarrassed by what he knew was a poor performance’. Despite me the tone death musical enthusiast thinking it was incredible. He was objective and spoke of having a lot of work to do as an artist to be able to handle gigs in such venues. This reminded me of my feelings on the race a few days earlier. Several of my friends, family and colleagues could not understand how I could not be satisfied with my performance. Top 10, sub 9, sub 3hr marathon, "your kidding that's awesome". My good mate Beau Miles even dedicated a space on his blog to what he described as a “laypersons take on elite performance” http://www.beaumilesfilm.com/blog.php . I am grateful for the experience and am grateful for anyone of those around me who might be inspired by not only my performance but my dedication to the process. For me however, the minute I am satisfied with repeating the same performance over and over (my last four ironman's I have finished within a 4min window), stop challenging myself and ultimately tell myself to be content with a performance I know I can do a lot better than is the minute I should find a new challenge. Plus at the end of the day I just love to Swim, Bike and Run