Ironman Melbourne 2013

After the debacle that was my attempt at Ironman New Zealand in 2012 and the infamous “weather bomb”, plenty has happened in my world (he’s called Archie!) that means I’ve not been quite as close to the Ironman crew as I have in previous years. Every now and then I’ve been able to drop in for a ride and have enjoyed watching the Facebook banter as the prep has gone on, but it is still a great community to be part of, even if from slightly further away and I have so many people to shout at on Sunday!

Race day is the culmination of so much hard work and I’m really looking forward to cheering everyone on and seeing some great results, so notable mentions:

Kristy Hallett & Greg Farrell – the two fastest age groupers from last year stepping up to the Pro race this year, can’t wait to see how they go (Kristy had the fastest age-group Ironman time in the world - pretty good stat!). I know Kristy’s training was impacted by the ‘Sunny’ incident but am sure the smiling assassin will still be doing her best to mow down the opposition on the run. Two seriously hard working athletes who are pretty inspirational (when working at IMWA in 2010, Greg was up and out the door at 4am to get a long ride in early – pushes himself to the limit every time)

Graeme Smart – by far the best facebook banter subject/provider for the season, has kept me endlessly entertained. Gra Gra’s ego will certainly get to the finish line in double quick time, hopefully the legs can just hang on for the ride!! Either way the photos will be top quality

Joost van Vliet – I suspect there has been a little more swim training than last year (not sure last year’s benchmark was particularly difficult to beat) so although he will give away a bit of time in the water, I have no doubt he’ll be motoring through the field on the bike, and hopefully can hang tough on the run.

Ollie Allan – Ollie takes a good deal of responsibility for getting me into the sport, going to be difficult to top last year’s performance but he looks lean and mean to me and you can bet there will be no half measures.

Sarah Grove – this has been some time in the making and I suspect that approach is going to pay dividends for the pocket rocket. I can smell a trip to the big Island for her and her little bike!!

Brett Archbold – My facebook feed tells me the hard yards have been done and then some. Have enjoyed following recent races where Brett has got himself in great positions to have a dig at a Kona spot but just not quite been able to hang on to the pace, am sure that this race will see him putting it all on the line again. I have a feeling he’ll go a little better than when he had the pleasure of me shuffling past him in Busso when his back had given up the ghost!

Dale / Greg / Paul / Jeanette – You lot just never stop, plenty of experience amongst this bunch!!

Xavier Coppock – Following any updates about his training just makes me tired, some monster km’s! Knows what it takes to get the job done and as ever I’d expect to see a ripping bike split to get him right to the pointy end of the race, I suspect the windy bike that looks likely could help him out.

Steve Davis – respect for getting to the start line so soon after the arrival of the little guy! Archie is already in intense training for the Ironman Melbourne show down in 2030!

Zoe Ferguson – super mum and hard as nails!! Can’t see any weaknesses across swim, bike or run and I have no doubt that if the day pans out as it should, Zoe will be up there challenging for the Kona slots.

Ralph Glatz – the German uber-biker! And another one who was in top shape for NZ last year and got “weather-bombed!” I hope he has the race that his prep deserves

Stephen Hadley – I have a feeling not many Age-Groupers will see this bloke all day, anyone in his AG who is ahead of him by the run should be looking over their shoulder!

Bryce Leigh – Another who will be racing hard for a top age-group finish, Bryce seems to be a great racer and when I’ve bumped into him recently he’s looked like he needs a good meal (and a shave!) so he must be ready to go!

Dale Martin – another uber-biker, wins the prize for the person who demoralises you most when you are on the velodrome as he just keeps rolling past lap after lap when you are busting your balls!!

Cam Pegg – one of the Busso 2010 crew, have no idea how his prep has been but hope he has a cracking race!

Dean Hawkins – Looked nice and easy on course at Portarlington last week, a decent pb on offer for Deano I suspect.

Roofi – Looking pretty lean from what I can tell, hopefully recent injuries keep away, and always good to see someone rocking out the softride

Brianna Scarlett – Another popping their Ironman cherry! – has clearly done all the hard work and it’ll be awesome to see her get to that line on Sunday evening.

Nathan Sims – another new Dad backing up from a difficult race in Busso – hopefully he can unleash that Melbourne marathon run speed on course on Sunday.

Nick Sissons – sounds like he may be in for a long walk on Sunday given recent injuries so I suspect Nick will be ripping the bike course up as he loves to.

Paul Walker – Ironman is hard, Ironman with diabetes is beyond belief, can’t wait for another to get redemption from IMNZ 2012!

Matt Green – hopefully there is not too much kinesio tape required!!

Rad Kotowski  – wishing that the cramps stay in bed for the day!

Rowdy / Margaret M / Andy Wood-Rich / Evalin Ling – Ironman virgins who have been around the sport for a while, hope you all enjoy the experience!

Sorry to those I have missed, it wasn’t intentional and I will still shout at you very loudly!! As an Ironman fan, there is also the small matter of a great Pro race to keep me interested for the early part of the day, my picks are as follows:

Men:

1.       Marino Vanhoenacker – still have memories of him from my first Ironman, I was convinced it was a motorbike not an athlete – pb of 7.45 says it all

 

      2.       Crowie – I think age might just be starting to catch up with him but still expect him to run most of the way through the field

3.       Jordan Rapp

Women:

1.       Caroline Steffan – will be keeping plenty of the male pro’s honest and expecting her to smash the female race to bits.

2.       Meredith Kessler – did IMNZ a few weeks ago but hard as nails

3.       Britta Martin

So good luck to all, embrace the suffering on race day, you’ll rarely get to push your body to those places so enjoy the experience! And as a fat American once shouted at Pete Jacobs as he was cramping and suffering 30k into the marathon in Kona:

EAT THE PAIN!!!!!!

Quick update

It's been ages since I did an update, here's a whistle stop tour of what has been going on:

'Ironman' New Zealand - The race that never was, 150km/h winds meant that they couldn't hold the full Ironman event, hugely disappointing given the amount of effort that had gone into the prep but just one of those things. The wind on race day would have made the event pretty unsafe, thankfully we got to do something with a half Ironman the day after, I had a good solid race and was fairly happy with the result but that wasn't what I had trained for. Nice to bank another sub 5 hour half on a challenging course. (32.38 swim, 2.30.49 bike, 1.40.21 run - 4.52.36)

Post IMNZ - I had tried contacting race organisers to get an entry into Ironman Melbourne but with no luck so spent the day watching, was great knowing so many people racing but I can't say I wasn't a little bit jealous watching everyone hit massive pb's on a perfect Ironman weather day.

Gatorade Portarlington - Trying to salvage something from my season which has so far consisted of 9 months of consistent training, one Ironman suffer-fest in the 35 degree West Australian sun and spending 3 days carb loading in NZ just to watch the wind blowing, I decided to enter my favourite sprint distance race of the year in Portarlington. It's not really a distance that suits me with 800m swim, 26km bike and 8km run, its a little biased towards the strong runner. I knew that the field would be a little weaker than a 'standard' Gatorade race and had one aim for the day, full gas from start to finish.

Was thrilled to pull off a podium spot with 3rd place, I had a good swim (11th in my age group), drilled the bike for the 2nd fastest time in my AG and then had a great run, with a run split of 31.32 for 8k that has a few undulations in it. I held on to 3rd place by just 6 seconds.

The rest of the season - I had wanted to do some more run focussed work as although I was happy with my Portarlington run, I'm still in the position where I am hanging on in the run rather than using it to gain time on the field. It felt like too early in the year to start focusing on running a fast 5k so when a few of the MTC team were talking about doing the Great Ocean Road marathon, that seemed like a good idea, would give me some run focus and hopeful make use of all of that Ironman training.

Having done the half marathon down there a couple of times, I've always driven the marathon course thinking that people who do that are mental, the first 30k undulates the whole way and the actual event is 45km (although you do get an official 42.2km time too).

So I'm now at the end of a serious block of run training, feeling as good as I ever have running and learning to embrace running in the hills. I'm hopeful of a good race next weekend but trying not to put too much pressure on it, given my luck so far with major events this year, I am expecting driving rain and freezing temperatures for this one, and given that it is point to point run (Lorne to Apollo Bay) I suspect I'll have a headwind for 45k too!!

Future plans - Once I recover from the marathon I'm going to be putting all my focus on sprint distance racing, I'm doing one race when we go back over to the UK which gives me an outside chance of qualifying to race for GB in the age group world championships over sprint distance. In reality I'm only going to have about 4 weeks of training for it and have to race only a couple of days after the 24 hour flight back to the UK so again expectations are low but you never know unless you try.

Final Update!! I've also been helping out with coaching a couple of guys who are trying to do their first marathon this year. Erika was my test subject last year and she had a great result so I've been enjoying trying to help people get through the training. It's somehow more stressful worrying about other people's training but rewarding when they get some great race results.

I'll finish off with a few pictures from 'IM'NZ and IM Melbourne, 8 days until what will officially be my first 'ultra'marathon!! Bring it on!

Nice set of steps up to T1 in NZ

Swim exit - not the fastest swim but well up the field

I was in the hurt locker for most of the run in NZ!

Bikes had to be racked the day before the planned race, these were the only set of wheels I had with me, was pretty nervous of having to try and ride in gale force winds with that front wheel, I think I would have ended up in a field somewhere!

This is what I had expected from Taupo - sadly this was Monday, 2 days too late!

The world champ being put under pressure at Ironman Melbourne, someone please explain how you can run a 2.38 Ironman marathon, simply incredible athletes - good luck Lance, I think you may have your work cut out!!

Getting my 'sprint' on

Hopefully the first of more podiums slots, clearly 2nd place was nervous of my improvement and went straight off to do some more training!



Liz is currently suffering through the last few weeks of her marathon prep for the Gold Coast, this was at the start of the run for the kids, not sure I quite qualified to stand in this section but wanted to get close to the front!

16 days until.....

Wow, IMNZ has come around so fast. It was always going to be challenging backing up IMWA with another race just 13 weeks later and it has definitely been a learning experience in listening to my body and adapting my training to suit.

A short summary since Busso would be that I have found getting through the training hard, particularly running, there is no doubt that Ironman racing takes a pretty big toll on your body so my initial weeks getting back into it were largely bike and swim based.

Essentially since Busso I had 3 weeks of almost complete rest with next to no training, then a solid 7 week block. I’m now into week 8 and starting to ease down a bit before the real taper begins with 2 weeks to go.

Run

I’ve found running the hardest part so have tried to adopt a ‘little and often’ type of approach rather than hitting as many big sessions as I would have done pre Busso. This chart shows my runs over the equivalent 7 week blocks in the build up, I’ve actually run more often for NZ (column on the right) than I did pre Busso but the average session distance has been 11.1k compared to 14.2k. Overall volume is only about 60k less over the whole 7 weeks though which considering where I was starting from is a good outcome.

Swim
I made some huge gains in my swimming pre-Busso and was pleased with my swim time there. I’ve taken a calculated decision to back off the swimming a little in this build, mainly as I think I can generate more time savings through additional bike focus whereas I am starting to get to the point with my swimming where the gains are pretty marginal and the time/effort required to achieve them is significant.

That’s not to say I haven’t been swimming though, I’ve still been consistent in the pool as well as getting some wetsuit time in. A highlight has to be the Williamstown 2k swim on Australia day – one of the roughest bay swims I have done but still managed a decent time.

(As a quick side note – I managed to swim a 1.26 100m during our main set the other day, not sure who was more surprised, me or Ben (coach) but that has to be a good sign that I’m still getting faster!!!)

Bike
If you ask me what my best leg in triathlon is, my natural answer would always be the bike, however, whilst that seems pretty true over the shorter distances, I’ve not really shown it over the Ironman.

So in recent weeks, I’ve dropped a swim each week and replaced it with an extra ride. I’ve also been doing all I can to get the most out of my weekend rides, and doing lots of good quality work at above my intended race intensity. I’ve hit some decent sessions in training so confidence in this part is returning. And 2,360km in 7 weeks is not to bad either!

Ready??

I don’t think you ever really feel ready for these events but I’ve really worked hard over these last 7 weeks and I think mentally, as much as physically I am ready to get into that taper and then execute the race plan.

I’m really looking forward to getting to NZ, I only hear good things about Taupo and the local support for the event and for once my weather concerns are more in relation to cold and wet rather than stressing about the heat. I’ve trained in all sorts of conditions in this build up so feel like I’m ready for what the day will throw at me. Standard conditions over there look to be a relatively cool start to the day with top temperature in the low 20s with a reasonably high chance of showers/rain, I’d take that over 36 degrees any day!

Ironman Melbourne
I had an interesting email from one of my good friends the other day talking about having the motivation to get out and do the hard yards in your build up to an Ironman.

One of the things that I loved this weekend was heading down to Geelong and doing my long run whilst lots of the guys did the long course race out there, many as prep for Ironman Melbourne in 5 weeks time. I was able to be out on the bike course and watch the pro’s, then get back in time to give everyone a good shout as they fought their way around the run course. I know that for me, having people who know what you put yourself through to get to the start line for these events either cheer you on or race with gives you a massive boost and watching the guys that I train with reap the rewards of their hard work was the motivation I needed to see this training program right through to the end.


So post NZ, whilst I have some different racing goals in mind (will do a post on that later) my next focus will be having an awesome day as a spectator in Melbourne. I’ll be looking to pick up a few tips from the professional Ironman supporter (i.e. Erika) but really looking forward to getting out there on the course and doing my little bit to help people get through it.

Crunching the numbers for 2011

Just a quick post with my training totals for 2011.


Swim - 309km (115 hours)
Bike- 8,221km (270 hours)
Run - 2,540km (209 hours)

Whilst the underlying numbers don't really tell you all that much, it's always something I'm interested in keeping track of.

Swim - I did 255 of those km's over a 6 month period! (May-Nov) so although the total was only slightly more than last year (298km) I did two Ironman events in 2010 so was more consistent throughout the entire year 2011 was very slack for the first few months.

Bike - Another year of doing more km on the bike than in the car :-) Numbers were boosted a bit by 570km in the last week of the year!

Run - by far my biggest year of running km's, which is a function of having started out the year with more of a focus on running events with initial ideas to run the gold coast marathon. Pulling out of that event meant that my running was consistent througout the year as I then swithced to the Busso program without any time out for recovery.

This year I pretty much put all my eggs in the Busselton basket and given that didn't quite go to plan don't have too many great results to show for my efforts, however I know that I've continued to make progress and now that I have had a nice rest through December, am getting right back into it with only 8 weeks to go until Ironman New Zealand. Training so far has been very bike focussed, still easing back into running.