Are you still here?

Hello...

Are you still here?

It's been a while since I opened one of these blank pages and attempted to fill it with some form of interesting commentary. I had been posting once a week and things seemed to be travelling along nicely, and the fodder for these pages kept presenting itself, then came August. I'd been building up to August and the increased load in my training plan, August also held the promise of a long-course training camp in Apollo Bay so there would be plenty to write about. Right?

So, I went to the camp and upon return sat down to pen my thoughts. After an hour I had a fair bit of writing on these pages but there was a problem. Writing those comments had been tedious, and reading it back confirmed it - this was no interest piece. What I had put down was a blow-by-blow account of the rides and runs I had completed, 5 hours in the saddle is a long time; reading the playback seemed to drag equally.

Furthermore, I couldn't see a way to fix it.

So I shelved it and haven't been back here since.

Let's try this thing again, see if we can't find that spark again.

A quick summary of what's been happening

I knew that I'd be tired in August but man it's been hard to drag my carcass out of bed each morning! To be sure, this is due to latent fatigue that has been building for a while now. Fortunately le Tour and the Olympics are over now and I can get back to some early nights and maybe some training!! Earlier nights now also means morning sessions are not just things I just plan to do, I've actually attended several now.

Camp was good, Apollo Bay threatened us with foul weather but delivered it in only short bursts and largely after the work was done. Two long, hilly rides on my trusty commuter bike (it is a mountain bike so it makes sense to ride it in the hills right?) and one long run. There had been a concern (on my part) regarding how the body would handle the training spike. The body handled it just fine, and a free coffee on the top of Lavers Hill was a bonus.

What did I learn at camp?

• The diesel engine I've got going is still quite capable of coping with stresses I throw at it
• The first kms of a run following a long, hilly bike ride may only be technically classed as "running"  
• I am crap at answering Coach Greg's philosophical questions (turns out I am my own biggest competition)
• It's not a good idea to leave a mess for the wife to clean up on check out day

Ever since I did that run technique course I have seen continual improvement in this area, this was again highlighted today. This morning I ran the Sandy Point Half marathon. During the week I had done a couple of fairly big sessions and had already clocked up almost 25km of running so there was the chance of fatigue affecting the outcome of the race. When asked for a goal time during the week I had been saying I'd love to go under 2 hours again. Last year I had completed the Run Melbourne course in 1:55 and then Sandy in 1:58. This year, my Run Melbourne time was 1:52 so when I crossed the line and checked the Garmin I was well pleased with 1:50:01. I was even happier that the coughing fit that followed did not result in a reappearance of breakfast, this feat of restraint required near Herculean effort.

(The official results actually came in at 1:49:58!)

Sub 4 hour marathon this year....?

Recently I blogged about purchasing only our second TV in 18 years. Now there is another new set in our household, arriving literally weeks after the purchase. Both of these new TV's are "Smart", they are 3D capable, both are LED panels with impossibly narrow frames and both are courtesy of our local "The Good Guys" shop. They differ only in brand (One Samsung, the other LG), oh, and price tags. You see, the second one came without one!
Thank you guys, now I just need to make room for it.

And thanks to anyone still here as well.

And so it begins

The road to Ironman is a long one, and it is a long time to maintain focus and drive. When the goal is so far in the future it can be too easy to find justification to take the relax.

I've known for a while that my program would begin in earnest is August but there was always plenty of time.
It comes as a bit of a rude shock that we are now at the end of July. The road I've been on since I first took to the sport of triathlon has always had a steady positive gradient to it, now things are set to get a little grippy (to quote the great Paul Sherwen) From here on the sessions will get progressively longer and it be all the more important to remain consistent with them.

Looking back over the earlier phases of my training this year I can be happy that I have made some decent head-way. My running has always been my weakest discipline but I am now running consistently well; I am swimming fairly solidly and cycling has always been my strength. More recently however, various illnesses and injuries (seldom my own) have meant that I have been missing training. The Tour de France and its inconvenient late night live coverage also conspired to make early morning sessions impossible. Once off the wagon, it can be difficult to get back on.
So, as we transition into the real conditioning phase of the workload I find I am trying to find my training mojo again and hoping that I've done enough base work to enable me to roll with it.

It won't be long before these questions are answered either, this weekend is the Long Course camp in Apollo Bay. On the menu for the two days is over 200km of cycling in the hills and 30 km of running on tired legs.
Fortunately, I'll be in some familiar territory as it will be my third trip to the region and, though definitely tough, the terrain has been manageable. At a recent evening run session, Coach Ollie called me "a diesel" based upon my ability to put my head down and just keep going. In the past this trait has enabled me to get through the long endurance events and training days. It is also this trait I've been banking on to get me safely though the days in the hills of Apollo Bay. Later in the same evening, Ollie hinted at his intentions for me when he stated that I "can't be a diesel all the time, we need to work in a little speed"

Yikes, my plan has generally been to keep at this game until everybody else got slower...

Apart from the veiled threat of some higher intensity work, this year's camp will also differ in that I am bringing my own support crew, the wife and kids are coming along for the ride so it should be a fun weekend - I hope... Though it is a great place to train and visit, I'm crossing my fingers that the weather holds enough for them to enjoy it!

As I look now at the clock in the corner of my computer screen I note that we have crossed the timeline. August has finally arrived.

Good luck to all who have also set their sights on the same goal, may we all climb this peak safely.
The view from the top will be amazing!