It’s been two months since a proper post, in the back of my mind I’ve been planning a post on the ’20 things I learnt at Boulder,’ a myriad of reasons, namely laziness has prevented thought bubbles turning into a meaningful post. I put a lot of time into these posts, there’s no point writing a blog if its going to be short (this will easily be over 1000 words), riddled with grammatical errors and clearly written on the fly. The last two months have been a ‘challenge’ to say the least. Obviously there was going to be some ‘coming down to earth’ following Boulder. The contrast in weather alone was enough to challenge the soul. Moreover its quite easy to get a little blasé about being able to train with some of your triathlon idols. Probably the biggest challenge was re calibrating myself from midday swim squads in Boulder to the 4:15am alarm back home. Regardless, the quality and quantity (especially the latter) of my training has been really positive, with the swim and bike improving nicely….although the same can’t be said for my run.
Injury
I’ve been running for four years and have been fortunate enough to avoid any injury actually requiring time off. My only serious injury was in December 2009, (about one month into my triathlon journey) when I went over the handlebars 100m from my house and did a Level 3 AC separation.
The shoulder 3.5 years on
High as a kite on morphine
This experience was entirely different, my emotional engagement with training, especially running (my favorite of the three sports), is considerably greater. In short, injured me=grumpy me.
I had some residual pain through both my calves, being slightly naïve I ran through the pain. On my last run before my injury I felt absolutely shocking during the warm-up, stupidly I decided to try my hand at the efforts. The efforts actually felt quite good, even the recovery was fine. It wasn’t until the next day that when I tried to run I felt a sharp pain in the lower posterior of my calf. Following a visit to my physio, GP and MRI (all in the space of one day!) I was diagnosed with a low grade ‘stress reaction’ in my tibia and a low grade strain in the ligament. The upshot was I had two weeks off running and another four weeks of gradual building (in week three now) until I can resume full training. It’s been very frustrating! Fortunately the recovery is going well, and (much to my families relief) no one was harmed in my injury-induced grumpiness :)
Bendigo
This past weekend the EnduranceTeam squad gathered in Bendigo for a triathlon camp with a local club race thrown in. This camp holds special memories for me as it was where my journey with EnduranceTeam started two years ago. With PBs of 18.21 for 5k and 6:05 for 400m, I knew I stood no chance of being accepted into Jarrod’s squad, the only other coach I emailed gave me a flat ‘no.’ Under the pretense of wanting some swim filming I got in contact with Jarrod, somehow this morphed into asking if I could come to one of his camps. Long story short, I went on the camp and had (at that time) the race of my life, one thing lead to another, since then I’ve been with EnduranceTeam.
It was good to get some training in on unfamiliar routes, and get in a bit of playful banter (well I enjoyed it) with other members of the squad. The two days prior to the race were a mixture of some riding (with hard 15s efforts thrown in for good measure) swim filming and (for me) running around in circles on a grass oval.
Group ride….photo courtesy of EnduranceTeam
The morning of the race dawned cold and wet, fortunately though the sun came out, making the hilly and technical course a little less forboding. I decided that since I’ve only ridden the TT bike once since March I’d take the cautious approach and stick with the roadie, (that and I hate riding TT bikes with a passion only matched by my dislike of kick-sets).
The Race
The swim was unique in the sense that it was a pool start, the idea being people self-seeded so as to avoid too much argy-bargy. Our lane had both the Huggett’s, Chloe and I. After a frenetic start and a little contact with Chloe (apologies) I settled in on Ben Huggett’s feet and enjoyed the draft his two-meter frame provided.
Into T1 there was a distinct group of four, Ben and Jamie Huggett, Nick McGuire and I. Ungamely I mounted my bike in second, having not done any transitions since March I was very rusty. The early portion of the bike was frenetic, with Jamie moving to the front and me trying to regain time lost from my pedestrian transition. I struggled to find good power in the first few laps, evidenced by my peak 5min power coming in the last quarter of the race (on that note, getting a powermeter is probably the best investment I’ve made!). Nick and I were the only ones at the front riding on roadies, this was a blessing up the hills and around corners, but on the flats we struggled. Midway through the second (of four laps) I passed Nick and Ben. Knowing that I wasn’t going to run, I was happy to really bury myself. By this stage Jamie had built up a 20-30s lead on us, my goal was simply to have a good ride and preferably be the first in on a non-TT bike.
In the last lap Ben passed me, I was happy to sit back a legal distance and let him pace me over the last two K’s. I entered T2 in equal second pleased with my day, especially since I didn’t have to run :)
All in all, it shows that my prep towards Noosa and the draft-legal series races are heading in a really nice direction.
Not the best picture of me…..even with a slammed 140mm stem (front-door brag) I always look a little cramped on my bike (long arms)
Highlights and Lowlights
- Highlight, getting a Strava KOM on ‘Bendigo Tri Loop’
- Lowlight, it was done two days before the race
- Highlight, getting lost on the way to the race, to find that I actually took a shortcut.
- Lowlight, 8 watts of all-time max watts on the Saturday
- Highlight, Beechworth Bakery, MaCafe, JoeJoe’s
- Lowlight, over-indulging at Beechworth and spending the drive-home feeling sick.
- Highlight, Club Races, love the relaxed atmosphere of these things (along with the Benalla Tri), also getting away from the pancake flat Beach Road!!!
- Lowlight, wishing the course was ‘pancake-flat’ during the latter portions of the bike leg.
Til next time……
