Mutations

I like to think myself as an endurance beast, although the reality is that I am more of an endurance puppy. This came out of the realization that I’ve been ‘in the sport’ for 5 years. 5 fun years of pounding the asphalt, threading the water and rolling over all sort of terrain in all sorts of weather. From the time when I swam in the sea-year round, to the wettest cycle tour in history with my mate Gordon, there’s so many stories to tell. I will sound like an old man, but there’s so many snapshots of different training rides, or races that provide plenty of motivation to get out there an do it all again.

A common treat of these endurance mutations is the moments of solitude and isolation (even when around a lot of people) and the moments of lots of laughs in good company. I don’t remember feeling more alone than when racing against 3000 others in Budapest, a day to remember for the wrong reasons. Both extremes (solitude and great company) are the backdrop of some learnings I took from these 5 years. On the one side, I’ve learnt a lot about self reliance and resilience, backing myself to achieve a given goal. On the other side, I’ve enjoyed many winters with great people with common goals and great races with lots of camaraderie.

Someone said that the only thing constant is change. And while I continue to enjoy change, I’ll enjoy these endurance mutations.

This is comeback 3.0

I guess comebacks are another constant too : )

Stay safe out there.

Race report – Tarawera Ultra 100km solo - Race report - Even splits my arse!

making sure it's all going to be allright

I got to the Humphries bay aid station thinking about a spreadsheet that was doing the runs on facebook with split times for each aid station. The spreadsheet was calculated on even splits, which I thought was weird given that there was a decent amount of climbing to be negotiated. I still naively adopted it in the hope that it will make me faster.

How did I get to the Outlet thinking that? here’s the story

I signed the Tarawera Ultra by Christmas, which was about 14 weeks out. Since my sporting interests are many, the proper race training wouldn’t kick in until I got the Auckland 70.3 triathlon out of the way which was right after  3 weeks holidays tramping in the South Island. I made an attempt to do the Hillary trail with the Huia bush runners in early Jan, but had to give up at 30km to save the knee for later races.

So… by late January I was ready to dive into the lore of running. The preparation included lots of running at some speed in net downhills, to prepare the quads for the 40km dash from Tarawera Falls to Kawerau. It also included new nutrition strategies which involved ordinary food (burritos, ham and cheese croissants and my very own chia bars) both the speed running and the nutrition worked great in training.

happy trails

Came race day we had to adapt to the fire course, so I thought I’d use some speed to start out relatively fast and enjoy ‘clear track’ between the start and Okareka. Paul sent us off in style, and a bit of a drizzle. Surprisingly, though, the track was dusty from the speedsters up the road and I coughed my way out of the first couple of k’s. Keeping the gas on but the ticker at low bpm’s I reached the Blue Lake aid station 10min ahead of schedule my chia bars proved a great success for nourishing me through the first leg. That was part of the plan, now it was time to slow down a bit and get to Okareka within the 1:45 mark. There was chocolate milk and croissants waiting.

Okareka was a flash, so much of a flash that I forgot to drink my Milo. Got the pack on my back, loaded with chia bars and burritos for the road ahead. The idea was to get through the savory stuff before mid-race and then switch to sweeter stuff from aid stations. I didn’t count on the 3km uphill to Millar Rd aid station, whatever I ate at Okareka was now trying to come out to daylight. It all got better at Millar and a nice group formed. I made a point to stay with this group, as they were pacing to get to Okataina in a similar time as me, somewhere in the 2 hour mark. The group was the lead 60km woman and a Darren, a guy I knew was much faster than me in the only other trail race I did. We chatted a little during this leg, Darren tipping Steph about the steep descend from the western Okataina track into the lodge and aid station. She flew down the last 5km and I decided to take the foot off the pedal and not to race wildly to the aid station, used the time to get half a square mea.l down the trhoat. Got there in 2:03 wich was OK but not great.

Nat being briefed about the race ahed

My wife, love of my life and the greatest crew ever was arriving to the aid station as I stepped out of the bush. I did get my chocolate milk and ½ burrito and  was off. I struggled a bit in the technical trail with unsettled stomach, and lost the plot for a few km, which should had been run faster. That was the first turning point of the race. I realized that I could not continue to slow down to digest the food that Nat and I put so much love and attention to prepare. I cogitated about what to do for a couple of km and it became overly clear that I could run the next 6 hours the same way I did the Auckland 70.3 race: Gels, sweets and coke and electrolytes to stabilize. I started with oranges and apples at Humphries. I also realised that the splits were getting waaaaaaay our of the plan, and not in a positive way. That’s when I though “even splits my arse” I was not letting a spreadsheet get in the way of my good mood and the finish line.

When I got to the Outlet aid station I was already in a different mood. Not only have I passed the halfway point in a relatively good time. I was already much lighter, clear in my mind and sure that I’d get to the end even if I had to walk. What is more, I was hanging on relatively comfortable to a guy that I knew was much more experienced than me. This leg was 2:08, a good 15 minutes over the planned time.

The next leg was for me to run free. I left my pack at the aid station, ate a few pieces of nectarines and left for the trails. This is where I would start counting the pros coming my way. Sage went in and out in a flash. Tim followed a good 12 min behind and Vajin was running happy 20min from Sage. All of them cheered us back, which was uplifting. The turnaround at the Tarawera falls was another milestone. My plan was to start with coke from 60k, and what a difference that sweet shit makes!.  I was back to Okataina in 2:18, again, a few more minutes than originally planned. But it was quite clear at this stage that not only my planning had been optimistic, but everyone was going slower than usual. The pit stop at Okataina was very long, I realize in hindsight that I was losing a bit of concentration and should plan better for those moments. Left the aid station as fast as I could, knowing that a- I was 14th overall and b- It was a matter of 2 hours to get to the finish. I also knew that the steep downhill of this morning was now a bitch of a hill to get through and that I would have to walk it as fast as I could.

Finishing in style

It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t pretty, but once it was over, there’s a net downhill to the finish and a 3km downhill on the road to the aid station. I was doing the same kind of pace in the last 3km as I did on the first 3km. Nat ran the last 600m with me, and we crossed the line just below 11:50. Not the grandiose sub-11 I had planned for, but still within my top 15% target (just)

A few days later the itchy question of what would have been the story on the faster course is stuck in the back of my mind. Can't wait for next time.

\(^-^)/

As the saying goes... what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. It was not a nice one to take on the chin when they announced the cancellation of my first ironman race. It was a messy couple of days, there were a few hundred others racing for the first time. And a particular one racing for the last time. A guy who raced every IMNZ race since the beginning.
And it didn’t happen.

But there was the Half the next day, and a race is a race and you have to race it. ‘Nuff said that I was there but my heart was probably pounding somewhere else. In hindsight I should have taken the race waaaay more seriously than I did. Anyway, here’s the report.

Swim: 32:10

Not a flash swim. Got a good start and then started getting a fair bit of traffic to get through, above, aside and over. Slower guys that killed the first 400m and then settled into a snail pace. All in all I batlled through and cruised with a group of about 10 guys from the 1km marker. I got lost at the last turn and swam the last 200m very wide.
A good mate gave an inspiring yell as I got out of the water: “Nice level 1 Swim, mate!”

I swallowed a bit of pride and continued on.
Transition 1: 6:54

We have to run 1km from the lake to the tent, get our things from the bag and move to the bike and leave. It is a minimum of 4 and a half minutes. But it was cold in Taupo, so I went for leg warmers, bike top and wind jacket. I also had my pump in the bag and don’t remember what else. But I know it was a long transition. I did not prep the transition well enough. Even for IM it would have been a bit long

Bike: 2:30:00

The bike course is rolling to start with, then is flat and tailwind and the end is a bit harder with a headwind and a couple of hills to negotiate. I had a troublesome first 10min and then settled into a good pace. In that window of time two guys from the squad passed me. One of them I would catch up later, the other was cougth by the draft busters.

Speaking of drafting: there’s very little to do when you have about 1000 people in a stretch of road of 45km. In the best of circumstances it would allow for 45metres between each one of us. In a more realistic case, and provided that we all leave the swim with a 1sec split you’ll have about 3 or 4m between people. Throw in a mix of abilities and motivations and you have a real hard race to police, self police and penalize. I was part of a 12, 15 strong group after the 10km mark. I did my bit to get away from them and I failed. I did my bit to stay at a respectable distance and many around me did. I did commit to start passing people when they got too comfortable for me. All in all it was a group that would have pedalled the same time as I would in the longer race (5:30:00) though we’ve been more spread out from the swim start.

Anyway, I must say I drafted at times and at times I carried a few on my slipstream. Only when we hit the last 10km and hills and headwind things got really in order.
By then the damage was done.
My nutrition was as planned, although it didn’t work as I had a stomach cramp from halfway on the bike until the end of the run. The plan was: one gel every 30min, 1/3 protein bar every 30min, water, bananas.

The run: 1:33:00
When I said the damage was done I am speaking about myself. I had gone harder than I planned on the bike. But it was intentional, to see how tired I can get and how bad it would be to have stomach cramp and run a decent half marathon.
My heart was not in the race and you can tell by the body language and the wardrobe malcfuntion : )
I went through the motions and finished, getting better by each 5km split, but not too good to avoid getting chicked and bet by a few that I would usually leave behind on other races.

The balance:
It was a bad race, no one else than me to blame for it. On the bright side, I now know what it feels to be doing the race from a pretty dark place. It can only be better from now on, so looking forward to a few more half IM’s and the big race on March 2 2013.

IMNZ 70.3 on tomorrow

It's gonna be cold, a bit windy and pretty cozy with over 1000 of us on the road. 

But, hey!, it's a race and races are always fun. Stay tuned for the race report and great photos from Nat.

Closed until further notice

Last training session

It's a bit cold in the lake, but we managed to have some fun

Then it was off into the speed machine, winds are not a problem for the deep rims. We finished up with a quick run on the lakeside. Now I'm off to leave the bike at transition, buy a new bottle holder, a couple of warm layers and back to rest. Stay tuned for forecasts (both weather and my race performance)

HERE NOW

There's only one more hour of training to go. Tomorrow (Friday) we'll be getting together with a few Ironrookies and doing a 20-20-20 of each discipline.

We got to Taupo at midday today, just in time for a nice meal @ Body Fuel, a coffee shop popular among visitors and full of triathletes at the time of our stop. 

I made sure I packed everything, Including my wife

The town is buzzing big time.
For those who don't know it. Taupo is a 20.000 people town next to the biggest lake in the middle of NZ's north island. Major holiday spot and very well served.
Anyway, got registration out of the way, visited the expo to spot some bargains and went to our rental to set up and put the feet up.
I am as ready as I can be. There's a few things that are likely to happen

Leaving home with a happy face

Wind - Rain (not showers, rain) - Cold (low 10's C). I have trained in worst than that. Rotorua half was a cold race and I got the best bike split in an half iroman. I am as ready as I will ever be.

A bit more to come later today or tomorrow morning (incl. some photos)

The view from our living room