Brooke, my new BFF

Have decided to rejoin a gym. I think lapsing with the gym a month ago was one of the factors contributing to my body seizing last week, and the resulting achilles business.

I’m going to try New Dimensions at Leonay this time, given its proximity to home. When you walk into New Dimensions you are greeted by two impossibly happy, impossibly upbeat girls, who speak so loudly that you suspect their only physical imperfection is that of being somewhat hard of hearing. The type of girls that make a middle aged man feel even more self-conscious than is already attributable to merely being a middle aged man.

“Hi I’d like to join for 3 months”

“Hi, I’m Brooke. We have a 12 month special that might be better for you”

I’m still not clear if she was trying to ensure I received good value, or had already sized me up and thought that the task ahead was simply not going to be achievable in 3 months. But I stuck to my guns and told her that 3 months would be fine for now. “Sure Sweetie”. Sweetie! Oh please, even my mother doesn’t think I’m sweet. “Oh yeah, and this is Ashleigh, but we call all her Ash”.

Brooke and Ash thought I was hilarious, especially  when I got their names mixed up. “Gaawwd, How could you mix us up, Oh My Gaawwwddd?”. In any case they didn’t hear me say I was actually ready to join, instead seeming to hear “could you please dial-up the sales-pitch-for-middle-aged-guys and smash me over the head with it.” And with that Brooke bounced out from behind the counter, flashed the Shane Warne pearly whites, and waved me on. “C’mon, I’ll show show you around first”. Brooke told me that it was important I know what the gym had to offer. I knew what the gym had to offer, but it certainly sounded more welcoming coming from my new BFF, Brooke.

“OK, so this is the weights room. Have you ever used free weights before?” But before I could answer Brooke had turned and left me standing in the middle of the room like I had asked for a dance, and was motioning me to follow like an already well trained dog. “Ok, so this is the cardio room. Have you ever used cardio equipment before?” I ……… but she was already on the third step waving me upwards, which I dutifully did, up to a room filled with spin bikes. “Ok, so this is where we do the spin classes. Have you ever done a spin class before?” “So do you want to join? We have a twelve month special”.

So through the tsunami of giggles, Brooke and Ash double-teamed getting the paperwork done and the obligatory photo. “Smile!!  Oh come on, bigger,,, SMIII - EELLLL.” I was smiling so big I suspect that when my membership card is eventually issued I will look like the Joker, unfortunately more the aging Jack Nicholson version than the Heath Ledger.

I’m now a member of New Dimensions, but frankly I’m a wee bit frightened of going back.

Time for some witch doctoring

Tried the Achilles yesterday – still no good. Will try again Wednesday. Possibly time to reach into the drawer labeled “Mezza’s 92yo Mum’s Witch Doctor Cures”. My favourite of which being the bicarbonate soda paste applied to the injured area, apparently works a treat in reducing local inflammation. According to Joany, it is also effective for kidney failure, keeping fish fresh and leavening dough.

I think I’m ready to give it a crack, if nothing else my kidneys will feel a million bucks and I am unlikely to start smelling like fish.

Strangely the absence of any formal medical qualifications has never impeded her willingness to recommend various courses of treatments - at times even to the local GP - each prescribed with the confidence and absolute conviction of an experienced surgeon. Given she has lived to 92, and apparently never suffered an achilles strain, I should possibly be more attentive.

Got us semi-lost on Saturday.. Too easy to just enjoy pumping along the shores of the Hawkesbury. Close to being the perfect cycling route, but for the road suddenly turning to gravel. I saw in the Sunday paper Rene Rivkin’s former cedar lodge for sale out there (though it is more Rene that is former, rather than the lodge itself). It didn’t look too austentascious from the photos, so we may have simply sailed straight past, not unlike sailing straight past the ferry port.

Board meeting yesterday, followed by a washout of the Wednesday ride. Had to put up with 60min on the wind trainer, which is as boring as batshit, but still less painful than the Westlink Board. There are house plants that are more capable than the Westlink Board.

World Record for Tubby

A new world record today. 5:32 solo for the 3.9km River Rd course = 42.3 kph.

10 weeks to go. But for the Achilles issue, things are all going OK. Weight loss is averaging 400g per week without dieting, and this week finished with an average of 80.4. (90.3 on 27^th January 2011). If that rate maintained I would go to the line around 76kg, and that would be about perfect for me. (Sydney Marathon 2006 - 78.7kg = 3:06)

Still looking for the first long tempo ride. Hoping for 140k tomorrow via Long Punt – hoping to finish with nothing in the tank.

Sunny weekend forecast – might even be able to sneak in a Sunday afternoon Stand Up Paddleboard with junior at The Spit.

Get into .

A-C-H-I-L-L-E-S

Achilles – has gone foul – a period of as yet indeterminable duration for the ASICS DS Trainers to recover from their recent rigours.

Bike and swim will get a little extra lovin’ for a few weeks.

Argh

Shelley Craft and my headstone

I will quite clearly not be doing “the ideal” IM preparation – thoroughly reaffirmed last week by reading the ancient PIS Gospels.

There will be too little strength work, too few long bricks, no Bell rides, insufficient diet management, not enough swimming, not enough running……………..blah.

Goodness knows there will be insufficient swim technique work to ensure that any digital analysis doesn’t end up on Funniest Home Videos. My fragile confidence couldn’t withstand Shelley Craft hitting the flat screen with a giggling “check out this group of flappers”, of course comprising a tabby who falls into the fish pond chasing the family’s koi karp, a bogan nana sliding down the grand-kids new slippery dip into the deep end in full Sunday best, and Tubby knocking out a set of one-arm swim drills rising above the waterline only briefly to gulp some air and check whether Sweeney is looking so I can sneak a few strokes in.

Self assessment is always hard, so I am not sure whether my reasons are excuses or prudent balance, but I find myself searching for the “enoughs”. Of course it’s bad mental modeling by any assessment. It probably started with “enough” study to get through the weekly Year 5 spelling test, and when you do get through, stumbling only for the eternally tricky HEIGHT, “enough” becomes entrenched in one’s psyche as the habit of lifetime. When I am buried, I want someone to write on my headstone, “He didn’t rise to any great heights in life, but he did enough”. Happy for that to be edited if I die during IM, because clearly it will have been an incorrectly founded statement.

Whether IM ultimately ends up as a distinction or crash’n’burn probably comes down to whether enough, really was enough.

W

Achilles visits, but still on the right track

Twang! – Achilles

First visit from the achilles demon this morning. Not bad in the big scheme of things, but enough to make me limp. A few days off, and some lovin’ will hopefully see it right. Not as if I don’t need some extra swim time.

Big Friday:

Proposed “Big Friday” turned ugly. Woke up sick in the stomach, and only managed to squirrel out 40km in about 90min before packing it in. Horrible ride, no giddy-up and on the verge of a huey for most of it.  

Had a snooze, woke up marginally better, and went to the pool for 1.7k. Horrible

Managed a 9k with Gra in the afternoon, but was struggling to hold his 5:22 pace.

Big Friday was a loss, but if anything, I recovered quicker than I would have if I had slugged it out at work, so probably a plus on the whole.

Saturday Big Brick was only marginally better than Big Friday. Just suffered at the hands of Ads and John. Greendale / Cobbity for a hilly 100k. Wanted to run off, but that was a million miles from happening. Another flat tyre too, which when added to the cost of the gas bomb is really starting to add up.

Sunday – Club “du” due to the lake being high from the recent rains. The little bit of rhythm I could feel coming to the run last week stayed for the weekend. A comfy 5k first leg in 21min. Not sure what the time was in the second 2.5 run, but I pressed pretty much as hard as I could. Nothing to write home about, but it was a massive improvement on recent years. Keen to see the results. Bike leg felt flash, and rode past a few who are generally better than me, incl Richo, Tut and Heidi. Finished the bike leg on the heels of Brendan Smith, which given the lead he had after the run was good going I suspect – but will wait for the official splits.

Monday am: Normally a rest morning, but the only running I did on the weekend was the race, so went out for a recovery run. Far from recovery, it was just slow, and has left me with some achilles pain. See how that goes. Running “weak” I think is bad for my achilles – as most of my historical problems have occurred when dawdling.

All in all – The train keeps chugging.

Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours

80 Days to go. Fogg got around the world in that time, I only need to get to Port Macquarie. S-u-r-e-l-y.

Very encouraging day yesterday. Gave my afternoon run a bit of a punch, and managed to hold 4:33’s without too much trouble for 7.2k. That on the back of the morning TT session also. Just felt brilliant, and only the faintest traces of achilles inflamation.

Brett Dwyer dropped around afterwards and weaved his magic, and but for some DOMS, I’m safely on the other side of a first long(ish) run (Sunday’s 20 Narrow Neck) and now a first tempo. Great feeling, and easily the most optimistic I’ve been along this journey to date. Currently feeling like it is actually going to happen.

Mrs J has to date been an unbelievably tolerant Passepartout, though my balance of family points is quite possibly so in debt as to look like it is being managed by a succession of Greek governments.

In loving memory of lance-corporal Jones

Monday night swim squad is horrible. If you are poor at golf, you lose a few balls and it’s no big deal really. If you are poor at running, you stop for a walk and all is OK there too. But if you are poor at swimming you suffer continual hypoxia, induce your own form of pleurisy by sucking heavily chlorinated water into the darkest reaches of your lungs and, at the extreme, specifically while undertaking the one-arm-swim drills, you start to wonder whether it would be easier to just submarine to the bottom of the pool and stay there awaiting rescue.

That said, I will however cement the Monday swim into the schedule now, as it seems to work well by allowing Monday to be a recovery day after the weekend, for the legs at least.

La Nina largely left us alone for this morning’s tt ride. A bit slippery in the corners, but by and large a good morning. Getting on top of this ride now, as well as the 5:00am start time. Skin protection the most significant residual concern. Planning 150k on Friday this week, which may end up being more painful than a servicing from lance-corporal Jones’ bayonet.

Will keep amping it to drive further adaptations – as I think it is important to make the hard sessions hard and the easy sessions easy. I don’t want to drift into the messy middle where the intensity or duration aren’t great enough to induce any adaptation, but they are hard enough to carry fatigue and injury risk into subsequent sessions.

Gradually working out what works and doesn’t work for me in my schedule. The cornerstones locked in now are:

Sat – Long brick

Sunday am – Long run

Sunday pm – Recovery swim

Monday pm – Pm Swim Session

Tuesday

Wednesday am – Tempo ride

Wednesday pm – Massage

Aside from the smattering of easy session, the glaring omissions at the moment are:

Ø  A mid week medium run 15-18ish

Ø  Some leg strength hill reps on the bike.

Ø  A steady state endurance swim.

Hangin in

W

Looking to the stars

NNNOOOOOO!

Idiot

Have to date resisted any thoughts of wondering what time I might get away with at IM, and equally, have resisted any temptation to find the answer in Excel. Only goal has been “just stay solid all day”. But as I was driving home yesterday I started wondering – what might be possible?

And whenever a life-problem arises for which no possible answer can otherwise be found,  – one turns to Excel.

METHOD

The best indicator of how well anyone will go in a long event is how well they have done over the next longest distance in the past.

For me this is the two x HIMs. Canberra 2011 (Pretty ordinary result – wouldn’t like to do worse at IM) / Port Mac 2006 (Not bad result – probably not capable of doing better)

Canberra Half - Finished 39%  of the way through the 45-49AG field.

Port Mac HIM – Finished 25% of the way through the 40-44AG field

This establishes a reasonable upper and lower boundary for AG outcomes. Hence apply those stats to the IM results from last year for my age group.

RESULTS

39% on last year’s Port IM 45-49 = 11:51

25% on last year’s Port IM 45-49 = 11:21

Baring an episode of my cracking like an egg (certainly possible given the feeble stability of my emotional state) OR somehow pulling one out of my freckle, the numbers above would seem like a reasonable boundary of outcomes.

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

By the end of next week I will have come up with an alternative method that may, or may not, rely on astrological markers for improved accuracy.

In the mean time – will try and refocus on “just stay solid”

W

Tubby's Last PIS

Solid weekend

Sat: 110k + 7.2run straight off – Felt surprisingly good, and this will from here on be the Saturday staple.

Drink bottle (between the aeros) came to grief just past the RAAF base. and it took a couple of minutes to reattach. Shano waited by the PIS Train waits for no man, and we had to chase to get back on – or at least I had to hang onto Shane’s wheel to get back on. Finally caught them coming into Wallacia. Very solid ride, and I wasn’t entirely sure we would get there. Thereafter the ride was solid but not distressing. Got all the way across Greendale without any real pressure. Then flatted. Just let them go – rode back to Penrith and knocked out another 40 flat kms there. Jumped off and ran a lap. Tired by the end, but not completely fried – so either I didn’t go hard enough, or things are coming along – depends on whether the glass is half full or half empty.

Sunday was just glorious on Narrow Neck. Sunny, crystal clear-air round 18 degrees. 20 tough kms. Started to crack over the last 5, but it did a power of good mentally and physically.

PM swim with Luke. 1/3^rd training session, 2/3rds recovery session. Works well Sunday afternoon, and I have woken up in substantially better shape than I would have otherwise. This session works for me, and I will keep it to the finish line now.

I now have some firm cornerstones in my weekly plan:

Ø  Saturday - long brick 110 (stretching with time) + 7.2 run. Won’t attempt to lengthen the run, but will start to improve the intensity/speed with time.

Ø  Sunday – Ready to start doing long runs on Sunday. Starting with 20k will add slowly.

Ø  Wednesday – 70 TT. This is the chance to just practice holding some intensity

Ø  Sunday – PM recovery swim.

Worried about losing some leg-strength, so will add a bike hill reps on Tuesday morning this week.

Tubby has taken his last PIS:

The PIS thing works well, and I can see the popularity – there is a great discipline involved with a big group holding each other accountable for getting there each week, and for not slacking once there.

The bunch pulls out at a steady pace at 5:30 and gradually accelerates. People hang on as long as they can, and the bunch splinters through the Cobbity Hills. But it ain;t for me. I’m not a big fan of riding in the dark, but in the dark in a bunch isn’t my thing. There is no gold plate method of avoiding stacks, but there are ways to reduce the odds. Avoiding big bunches in the dark on pot holed roads is one of those.

I also like the wait and stick together approach. Waiting only ever an adverse issue when there is a big disparity in the quality of the riders in the group. But it just works better for me. I’d even prefer to go solo and sit on the aeros than sit in a big bunch and by necessity ride on the tops.

Monday’s weigh in at 80.9. Unbelievale really.  

Celebrating Rachael Hunter

I’m not sure of the value of a tightly designed training plan for triathlon. I have fastidiously planned my training in the past, but three disciplines, family/work commitments, injuries and weather all conspire to render such rigidity quite pointless.

With all the thought and effort that I put into the structure of my training plan eight weeks ago, this week will end up being the first where I have actually adhered to even the broadest interpretation of its’ design.

IT’s a freakin’ masterpiece of Mondrianism. The designated intensity of each day has been colour coded, and each discipline (including gym and rehab) also attributed a readily interpretable hue - Excel as an artist’s tool. Though in real life Mondria(a)n suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder which drove him to extraordinary lengths of order and tidiness, and in the end distraction. Fortunately the permafrost of disorder that constitutes my desk destroys any notion of my being likewise afflicted.

81.5kg on the scales today’s highlight. It isn’t happening overnight, but it is happening. [Model, former wife of Rod Stewart and celebrated philosopher, R Hunter, circa 1992]

W

In memory of John Denver

“Some days are diamonds, some days are stones”. Which I’m sure is an ancient platitude, though I can only recall it as the equally uninspiring  John Denver song - released long after his halcyon days and marking the beginning of his angry, gun-totin’ neigbour period. Possibly it was the release of that album that drove him to it.

Notwithstanding my being a bat at the best of times, riding in the dark is a dud. Riding on the aero-bars in the dark is even more unnerving, and the chances of “a down” from hitting a hole or rough section of road are really elevated.

It’s staying dark quite late now, worse with any cloud cover, and it will obviously be exacerbated with the passing weeks to May.

Crazy morning ride – pot holes, lights packing it in, flat tyres. Argh!  

Still, we are all in one piece, and boxing on. Contador on the other hand is having a significantly worse day. Mind I am stunned that he would take clenbuterol as it has been detectable for at least 15 years now – even in small traces..

T-88

W

Lovin it at the moment

5 weeks into the pointy end of this thing now. (Is that the “build phase” or the “peaking phase” – oh dear, what an amateur) – 11 training weeks to go.

A couple of good weeks in succession, and there are some bits that I am just loving at the moment.

1.       I’m healthier. Body fat coming down (slowly - oh fuck off), enforced diligence with stretching, strengthening etc. On the whole I’m a healthier 46 year old sedentary bean counter with a vending machine fetish than I would have been otherwise. Which is important, because with the PIGS threatening default, the US spending defence money they don’t have, and the associated global financial market responses, I will be working until I’m 89 years old. Holden Caulfield was less disillusioned than my super fund manager.

2.       I’m running again. Not sure why, but it is still my favourite sport and a great way to find some head-space. It's also the bit that I hope continues past IM. Still holding a bucket list item to run an international marathon – Hopefully one of Bronx, Garda or Luberon – just need to keep knees, achilles, calves, marriage functioning for another year or so until I can make it happen. It’s not unlike devoting the time and cash investment to fully restore a Datsun 180B – it was a crap car in the first instance – it’ll be a crap car once restored. But I just need it to keep getting me from A to B.

3.       I’m seeing Sydney. By the time this thing finishes I will know Sydney’s back routes at least as well as most cabbies and better than the Aussie ones. Mt White, Burragorang, Cobbitty, Wilborforce – try finding any of those in a Lonely Planet index. But being “nowhere” for an early morning ride with a good group is always somewhere worth being, rain or otherwise. Good times.

Goal at the start was just to stay strong all day – time will look after itself. I’m not smashing in a way that would make you want to upgrade that original goal, but making it happen is still within my control. Keep chuggin’.

W