Training Log Archive: devil

I was going to do a lake swim as a recovery from the big set last night, but when I got there found I hadn't brought any goggles, so rode home instead. Don't think 20 mins gets above the bar as troggable, so took a rest day.

Another swim session, started off in the medium lane from the beginning and was keeping up until about an hour when I started to tire quite rapidly. Called a halt when a girl warming down was tickling my toes while I was meant to be doing an interval. Lost count of the number of laps, but was at least 4 km. The pool was especially bad last night about the same visibility as LBG, there were shoals of hair floaters and a discarded aussie flag at the bottom of the deep end

Bilbys intervals, still a bit tired and sore from sunday so did a kind of medium set, 2x200m, 2x600, 2x1000, 1x200, 200m between each rep. Spilts nothing to write home about 47, 41, 2.19, 2.23, 4.11, 4.16, 55. but good to do some running.

C • chronicle 5

Big Gaz was leading a ride round the three peaks this morning ..... a lie-in seems like a better idea

Canberra capital triathlon 1.5/40/10


The alarm went off at 5am as the race start was 6.45 and I needed to get some brekky on board beforehand. Perfect morning for it, flat lake, no wind and about 15 degrees. Got down to the start with plenty of time, pumped up the tyres etc and got the bike racked. The crowd had gone for the end of the rack near the bike exit, but the gorilla (have decided that there is more than one gorilla, but this guy is a definite nemesis from last year) was on the other end near the swim exit, decided this was a good place as there'd be no hunting round in the crowds to find the bike and there was an easy exit through the racks for the earlier waves.
As predicted it was a wetsuit swim, with the water at 23. The 35-39 age group was the biggest and had a start wave to itself, must have been 30-40 in it. The swim start wasn't too bad, I'd ended up closer to the middle of the lineup than I'd usually do, there was a bit of bumping off the start but it wasn't too bad finding space. I concentrated on getting good lines between the bouys, and this worked fairly well, had some sections where I thought I was swimming technically well. Arms tired a bit in the last 500m from the wetsuit, but got a good run in to the exit steps.
Had a bit of trouble finding wetsuit strap running to transition then got cap and goggles off before wetsuit arms, then slipped on the grass entering transition, the timing chip got caught up in the wetsuit leg too, so may have lost 30-60 sec here.

C • top work 2

Got settled onto the bike quite quickly and picked off a few 35s early on, also went past Trent who was in the wave in front so figured I was going quite well. Tried to keep an even pace, partly to avoid overdoing the ITB and to have a bit left for the run. For most of the course was having a duel with this 60 year old on a flash tt bike, I was stronger on the hills and he had better flat speed. was good having him there as his pace was about right. Was pleased to overtake plenty of riders on v.expensive carbon wheel machines and also bagged 2 sperm helmets. Ride time for the first lap was 30 min which was better than I'd expected. Tried to get some fluids in, but was finding it hard to take much, maybe 300ml of water, couldn't face an energy gel. Kept up the pace on the second lap, the draft busters had a look at the 60 guy, who was drafting a bit but didn't pull him up. Did the feet out of the shoes trick at the finish, not sure if this saves time as I slowed a fair bit to do it. The total ride time of 1.04 includes transitions. think the ride time was about 62 mins.

The run was two laps of 5k out to near the boathouse restaurant; in a piece of great planning the NCA had allowed the triathlon and a walking race to both use the same bit of bike track so about one k into the run there were a load of walkers, some overtaking the slower triathletes. Was still overtaking 35s, but did get overtaken by Michelle Wu, who was running very well. At the end of the first lapsplit was 18.33, I spotted the gorilla about 100m ahead and soon cruised past. Checked the time with about a km to go and saw 2.06 and realised a sub-2h10 was on which helped to me to lift the pace a bit and come in at 2h09.45, about 10 minutes ahead of where I'd been aiming.
This was only good enough for 10th in my age group, although the field was pretty close, with third 2h06. Very happy with the result, ITB feels a bit worse but not as bad as last week.