Big day out

Sunday is the annual club race.

The format is 5km run 20km bike 2.5km run and this year look like we'll be having the weather in our favour.

I am part of the club committee but I have been a bit absent lately, so I will turn up and help here and there, but mostly I'll turn up to see how people make it happen and have another great day at the races.

If you're in Auckland or close by, come along and have a crack... it is really good fun. We hire a car racing track and and do 2.5km loops there. It's one of the few chances of having a super safe environment to bring the flash bikes.

more info on the club's page

What a month! I am a newbie in following the tour on a regular basis. I used to read about it in the Indurain era, but I was brought to it thanks to the big tall Texan guy about 7 or 8 years ago. Anyway, being the most important race in the cycling calendar, there is always the expectation of a great show. And what a great show it was. After a week of withdrawal, I realize that there are many things that kept bouncing in my head. I call them lessons in absence of a better way to describe them.


#1 Patience
There was a certain desperation in the peloton in the two big escapes of the last week (Andy Schleck and Contador) only one man did not panic, and he won the race. It takes a lot of guts to sit on your bike and keep rolling, knowing that the race will be yours in the end. Chapeau to Evans for the patience he showed in those two occasions. When translated into the more mundane world of an amateur triathlete and wannabe ironman, patience is a good thing to have. Specially when the miles start stacking up and there is no race in the calendar for over 20 weeks. One has to have patience that the time will come to use all that fitness in a race. And that all the hard work will eventuate in a great result.

#2 Pride

The way an outside rider from an outsider team drove the peloton while in yellow was a proud display. Voekler rode beyond his ability to keep up with these superstars, and one always like an underdog punching above its weight. It comes to show how sometimes these superstars are not that far away and anyone can achieve extraordinary results with a bit of self confidence.

# Take it on the chin
Literaly, like poor Ten Dam or Johnny Hoogerland. Races can be a real she-dog, but there’s nothing better than going through the finish line. I may not be a pro guy that does this for a living, but I will be betraying those long hours on the saddle or out running if I don’t get to finish just because I’m in pain. I mean….pain is when you get barbed wire in your balls after coming off your bike at 50km plus. A sore knee can’t be that bad.

After reading the above I realize that I am becoming another tri preacher, so I better stop it there.

Anyway, it was just to show that I am alive, although quite quiet due to lack of time.

Keep training, and racing hard.

lots of news

Even though it was a quiet week for me, it was entertaining enough with the news from Le Tour, the crashes, the sprints and winding up all the Cav-hating troups here and there.
What is more, 4 guys ran sub 8 hours iron distance races in the past 8 days. And Chrissie wellington broke her own record yet another time.
This blog is not going to top those news.
Ever.
Even less in the grey Auckland winter. It's only the last two weeks that the weather got really wintry and the roads are becoming less and less friendly. In the past 4 weeks I went through 6 tubes and 2 tyres (one of them I rode onto for 200m going down a hill at 50km/h). One still has to tick the boxes, so it has been kind of hard.
ACCIDENTS:

I've decided to do hill reps on the windtrainer. Out of three times I was on the road I got two accidents, none of which was serious, but still a bit scary. The first one was a car vs. bike, but as I was going up hill I dodged a right turning car and hit it very slowly. The second one is a puncture at speed, where I stayed upright thanks to my great bike handling skills (and a bit of luck again)

HOURS:
The days are getting like 30 seconds longer each day, which sucks, because it doesn't make any difference if you're going for a 1.45 or a 2 hour run. But all in all I've found the rythm of how to organize my training weeks.

TIREDENESS
For the first time in over two years I had a "hit the wall" week, a combination of stress and fatigue was all too much. I didn't miss a single session, but I was looking forward to Saturday afternoon and a big siesta. I am told that there are points during the IM training where more training is the best way forward. I will try that avenue and seee.

On my TdF I am still quite on track for Cadel Evans. Gessink seemed a bit tired the last two stages. And hopefully Hushov will get back to fight for points instead of trying to keep the YJ.

Enough for today,

happy training to you all

Late tour de France prediction

Mind you, I wrote this on Friday and didn't post it.

Yellow: I am guessing Cadel Evans will have his moment this time around


Green: Thor “world champ” should prevail, he’s got a whole team to support him – no doubt about it

White: Gesink

Polka dot: Andy Schleck

after 2 stages I agree it was a great prediction already... this can only get better
 

Controversy in the ETU champs

This is the link to the article, but I’d imagine triathlon forums may be talking about the issue. I haven’t got much time to read them, though.


What happened? If you check the video, it appears that the guy in white is blocking the guy in blue. The guy in white is the Pom boy, the blue boy is Gomez. The blue guy is not doing any visible effort to dodge the obstacle and swim towards the rest of the field, but the video is not great quality.

Gomez was not happy about it, and referees have given him some credit, as the brit was disqualified.

The matters opens the question, though, of where do you draw the line. Races at the elite levels are about medals, points for the athlete, points for the country and a bit of argy-bargy about who’s top dog. Wether the purists like it or not, there's obvious team tactics involved.

Drafting races see many times younger guys sacrificing themselves and working hard for the big boys who can later run a sub 33, which is where you need to be these days. Not many breakaways succeed, and when they do is because someone didn’t pay attention or the race was not that important. Is the drafting part of triathlon becoming more of a team sport and this incident is just one symptom?

So, I ask, where does the line need to be drawn? An athlete is penalized for blocking another athlete. Doesn’t that happen at any race at some point or another?, doesn’t it happen often in a 30 or plus guys bunch riding or running into a 180º turn?.

Updates, TdF and the Ironbunch

The two weeks of stress are finished. I was getting ready for my final exams and I had a “moderate” week in the middle. And plenty at work. The results? I think I ticked all the boxes in rather good shape. The exams will be on an 80 to 90 % (I think); the work stuff is back to semi-normality and training I missed only one session.

The ironbunch is the group of my training buddies who are doing IM next march, they run a group ride at the civilized hour of 8am on the Sundays. And I join them every now and then. The last time was Sunday a week ago, in a horribly wet Auckland winter day. I started my thing after 6am and was at their meeting place by 8.15. It followed with a flat 15km into their ride (by now I was over 3 hours). I decided to peel off at one intersection, and head back to the city. The rest of their circuit was great training, but I had no more spare tubes and no much food.

10 minutes before the city I got another flat. Although I didn’t panic, I was quite unhappy about the prospect of calling Nat to pick me up. I decided to inflate and ride, and then inflate and ride and then inflate and ride until I got to a bike shop 5km up the road. The strategy worked quite well, the only problem was that the shop was closed. Lucky for me, another training mate was just stopped at the lights, and I got a free tube to keep going. When I finished it was 6.15 hours and 5.40 of riding.

I’ve also finished the first block of base prep. for IM, a total of 36 hours of cycling (‘bout 900km) 13 hours of running (close to 150km) and 11 hours (28km) of swimming spread in 3 weeks. The body is OK but I am in serious need of stretching and core stuff… next big thing is to get a membership for a gym running back.

And the TdF is finally here!, only a week to go and a month of joy… pity I don’t have satellite TV to see the full stages.

Ciao!

nice surprise

Dear Secret Friend

Thank you very very much for the cool book about Le Tour you left on my letterbox yesterday. It certainly made an impression and I am very humbled by your words. I did not know that I was an inspiration for anyone, let alone that I deserved to be recognized with such a cool present.

it's the shape of a bike wheel!

I must add that my wife is not very impressed and I had to face an inquest about who was the “lady friend who left you a book on the letterbox”. It was all clarified when we did a thorough examination of your handwriting and concluded that it is a male. (that seemed to give her some peace). It is now a matter to narrow down the list of people who knows where I live and we’ll get there (remember I work as an investigator and I never miss). Once I find you, I shall invite you with a good ol’ flat white and a muffin at some fancy place. Alternatively, send me and email. I am very thankful, though.

As I was saying, the book is really cool and it’s sitting on my bedside table already. My training programme demanded a 1hour55min run yesterday, and I was coming home thinking to shorten it to 1.30 and be happy. Then the discovery of a present put a bit of a cheer on me and it helped me finish what was on the programme. This time around it was a case of mind over body. We had a hard VO2 set on Monday, and my calves, and hammies were quite sore. I thoughed it and went for the 115min run with a big smile on my face.

I was tired, but the rainbow made it good

Thanks!