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