Stumbling Across Your Limits - Recognising those Junk Miles

Today Coach Dave made a rare discovery.

He finally found my limits and gave me a session to do that was a bridge too far.

My current block of training, leading up to Ironman Cairns, is all about the bike.  With Taupo out of the way for the year, and goals for that race well and truly met, the pressure is off for Cairns and I have the luxury (!) of experimenting with the race plan and trying something new.  During our Taupo de-brief I identified a prime goal for Taupo in 2014, and that is to try and crack 6 hours for the bike leg.

I've done some analysis of my relative performance in Taupo this year compared to the other girls in my age group and identified that I'm only around 2km/hr off the pace in terms of achieving a 6 hour bike split.  And, given my love for the bike, it's something that I'm pretty comfortable with hammering myself on in order to achieve that goal.

So Cairns will be a bit of an experiment this year - I will go completely against the current ironman wisdom of pacing the bike (holding back, even) in order to maximise the run leg.  In Cairns the plan will be to hammer the bike and accept that it will likely mean I'll suffer on the run.  We're only going to be interested in the bike split result and whatever happens on the run, happens.

Instructions sorted!

This training block, then, is all about building my strength and speed on the bike.  To do this, Coach Dave is starting to play around with sessions focusing on low cadence, high gear, hill repeats, and 1km high cadence sprints.

We started it off, then, last Sunday with a 4 hour ride at Kurnell.  The routine was on each half hour I would do 5 x 1km sprints in the big ring with 90+ cadence and an easy 3 minutes between each sprint.  It was a good session, and hard.  

On Thursday morning I did an early morning ride to Taronga Zoo where there is a popular stretch of road that cyclists use for hill repeats.  It's around 1.5km long and climbs 73m, providing a steady gradient of around 5%.  My instructions were to do the first rep in the big ring on the front and lowest gear at the back.  The next three reps would be in the next gear up on the back.  Considering that my instinct whenever I hit a climb is to drop to the bottom gear, and spin with as little load on the legs as possible, this was a noticeably more difficult exercise and I was definitely feeling the burn by the time I got home.  

On Friday evening I did a wind trainer session with the instructions to focus on the glutes and hammies and, to achieve this, I lowered the cadence and used a higher gear thus making sure I was engaging my legs for the full pedal stroke and using strength and power rather than relying on cadence.  Again, it was a tough session.  

Saturday morning arrived and it was our club run, a 13km jaunt around Chatswood and Artarmon and about 500m of climbing.  With my return to NRG I have moved up into a faster group and so, for me, there isn't too much "social" about this session.  And, in St Pete's words, I was "killing" the hills - so, again, the legs weren't getting much respite!

So those sessions, plus bootcamp and a couple of swims, added up to a reasonably tired irongirl heading to Cronulla this morning for another 4 hour bike session of 1km sprints.

And it showed.  

As I did the first 30min warm up I could tell immediately that my legs didn't have a lot of spark in them.    In fact they had no spark in them whatsoever.  I was determined to give it a go, however, and so got stuck into the first sprint.  Did that, although didn't feel 100%, and set about making sure my next 3 minute break really was "easy".  Into the second 1km sprint and it all turned to custard.  After 500m I blew up and just had no gas left in the tank.

At that point I realised that there was no way I was going to be able to manage any quality sprints for the next 3 hours and so I started tossing around the alternatives.  And this is where it can get tricky to figure out what to do.  Do you tough it out and do the time on the bike, i.e. do the 4 hours so I've got the distance logged, or do you write it off and go home?  There's a fine line between the two and what you don't want to do is log junk miles.  

I initially decided to carry on and try doing the 4 hours so I could at least get the time logged on the bike.  However as I pedalled over the two small rises on the lap, I realised that even this wasn't going to be a goer.  I was feeling flat and lethargic and all I wanted to do was head back to the train station and go home.

So I did.

And because I'm a bit of a data freak I couldn't resist looking at the Garmin download to see if there was any possible explanation.  What it showed is that my average and max speed for the first sprint was almost identical to last week.  However the telling statistic was that I couldn't get my heart rate up to where it should have been.  My max and average heart rate were both around 10 bpm lower and my cadence was about 15 rpm lower than last week.  And that trend repeated in the second sprint as well.  So it confirmed to me that I was simply too fatigued to get any benefit out of the session and I did the right thing by closing the door on it and coming home.

And while I was disappointed that I couldn't nail it today, there was a positive in that I recognised continuing the session would have likely set me back.  And it helped Coach Dave identify my current limit so he could adjust things accordingly.

The moral of the story, then, is to remember that you can't expect to nail every session 100%.  There will be ups and downs along the way and the key is to trust your gut instinct and go with it.

Black Beauty Joins the Household (Part 2)

So I have a flash new bike.  Should be simply a case of jumping on and going fast, right?

Wrong.

Riding the Shiv is like jumping into a Ferrari Testarossa after you've spent your life driving a Corolla.  Well, maybe not that extreme - we're still dealing with the same engine (me) after all.  But the handling characteristics and operating rules are miles apart, and it's been a bit of a learning curve.

I have to admit I did fall into the trap of heading out for my first ride and expecting to do some blistering fast times that would make me very excited.

In reality, I came back with one of my slowest average speeds for a long time (26.2km/h over a 4 hour ride), burning and aching shoulderblades and neck muscles (requiring constant dosing of Voltaren for a couple of days afterwards) and an incredibly sore saddle area.

Not the sort of christening I had expected.

But I could sense the potential and, if I were to be really honest with myself, I knew a 4 hour ride first up probably wasn't the most sensible introduction to my new steed.  Afterall, who in their right minds takes a brand new pair of running shoes out for a marathon distance run the first time out?  You're just asking for trouble in that situation.

So the last few weeks has been spent riding the Shiv exclusively.   And it's paying off.  My average speed is coming up and things are now feeling more natural.  So natural, in fact, that my first ride on the Avanti for several weeks last weekend felt decidedly odd!  To give you a feel, then, for the sorts of things that are different, here's an outline of what I've changed or adjusted to:

1. Positioning over front wheel:  The first thing I noticed when I rode her for the first time was how wobbly up front it felt.  Talk about a danger to traffic!  Thankfully it was an early Sunday morning and a relatively quiet road, so I wasn't about to give any drivers a heart attack.  However you are positioned further forward and over the front wheel and with the extra weight the wheel is much more prone to turning.  When on the aero bars the weight becomes more stable (than when you are holding the bars where the brakes are) but it did take a bit of time to get the feel for tracking in a straight line and compensating for any shifts in position (i.e. when getting a drink etc).

2. Gel management:  With Black Beauty I have had to say goodbye to my trusty Bento Box.  The Bento Box was the little container that sits on the top tube of the Avanti and holds my supplies of gels during races and any other paraphenalia when I'm training.  On the Shiv a Bento Box isn't possible if you need to refill your water during a ride as it would sit right over the top of the rubber lid of the water bladder.  So, an alternative way of holding gels was needed and that has been answered, so far, by the introduction of a gel bottle.  A gel bottle simply holds several single serve gels so that you're not having to bother with individual serves and the associated rubbish that goes with it.  The idea is that you transfer the contents of 4 or 5 gels into the bottle and then carry it with you, running or biking, or whatever you're doing.  In my case I picked up a Fuel Belt gel bottle in a bike holder with the idea that it velcroes around your top tube just under the saddle.  Problem was, the velcro straps weren't long enough to go around the top tube of the bike!  So another solution was needed, and found.  My anatomy.  Yep, we women are graced with natural gel bottle holders and so my gel bottle now sits happily nestled down the front of my top while I'm riding!  It works best when you're wearing a tri top with a shelf bra rather than a fitted bra, so there is a natural gap front and centre available for the bottle to nestle into.  That takes care of five gels but for an iron distance race I'll need double that, so I'll be carrying a spare gel bottle on race day and that will most likely sit in my back tri top pocket.  When the first gel bottle gets emptied I'll simply throw it away and move the second one around to the front.

3. Gear changing:  So, no more gear levers sitting next to the brake levers.  I now have buttons.  Yep, four of the little blighters sitting at the end of the aero bars.  My hands sit right at the end of the aero bars with the thumbs resting on the buttons and so when I want to change gear all it needs is a press of the top or bottom button and next thing you know it's done.  What I've had to get used to here is which button to press!  I spent a bit of time trying to work out how to remember which button to press and then figured out it was actually dead simple.  If you're going uphill you press the top (up) button.  If you're going downhill you press the bottom (down) button.  All I have to do, then, is align what I'm doing to either the effects of uphill or downhill riding.  And it works both sides!  So front and rear sprockets change the same way - uphill uses the up/top button and this changes into an easier gear and downhill uses the bottom/down button, to go into a harder gear.  Confused?  Hopefully not!

4. Taking in Water:  Drinking water is now a nifty arrangement whereby a bladder sits inside the frame of the bike, thus reducing drag.  It's also easier to drink out of rather than fiddling around with a bottle.  So a drinking tube emerges from the frame and sits on your aero bars, held there by a magnet which you can shift around according to your own preference.  While I'm riding in aero position, then, I can pull the tube off the magnet, take a drink, and move it back to the magnet and not change cadence or position.  It took a bit of practice to get used to that movement and get used to moving the tube back to the magnet without looking down or weaving across the road (!), but I've got that sorted now.  I also did a couple of practice runs with St Pete, picking up a water bottle and refilling the bladder on the fly.  It works really easily - genius.

5.  Taking in sports drink:  Normally in an iron distance race you have two bottles on the bike - one holding water and the other sports drink.  I've got the water sorted and, for the sports drink, I've retained  that bottle and moved it to a bracket sitting horizontally between the aero bars.  The latest thinking is that this is more aerodynamic than the set up I've got on the Avanti where there is a bottle hanging vertically between the bars.  Again, then, this was a balance adjustment as I had to adjust to riding in aero position and holding the aero bars with one hand and pulling out the bottle, drinking, and putting it back in the cage all while staying in position.  Again, it took a bit of practice to do this without weaving across the road but I'm pretty good on it now.  Thank goodness for Captain Cook Drive at Kurnell and it's fab bike lanes!

6.  Aero position:  You might be getting the impression that there's a big emphasis on riding in aero position.  And you'd be right.  The whole bike is engineered for 100% aero riding and that in itself takes a bit of adjustment.  Those of you who have ridden with me will know that I was always comfortable in aero and took every opportunity to ride in that position.  Realistically, though, on the Avanti, I wouldn't spend much more than 50% of any ride on the aero bars and so Black Beauty has been a real shift because it's actually awkward to ride off the aero bars.  So I am now doing 4-5-6 hour rides that would be 99% aero and the first time especially took a bit of getting used to.  The great news is that the position I've been put in has eliminated all the back pain that I had been getting after around 3-4 hours.  My shoulders and neck, however, did have to adjust and I suffered badly for a couple of days after that first ride.  As I said before, though, 4 hours first time out probably wasn't the best idea!  This video, though, gives you an idea of the new regime.



7.  Braking:  The most important thing to remember is that if you're braking there aren't any gear levers alongside the brakes for you to change down easily while you're slowing down.  If you need to brake you have to change down beforehand, or you brake with one hand and (awkwardly) change gear with the other.  It's not an ideal position with one hand up on the aero bar pressing a button and the other hand down on the bar with the brake lever while maintaining a straight line...  All of this reinforces the fact that the Shiv isn't designed to stop!  And she isn't really suited to riding through the city, either, through lots of stop/start traffic lights and intersections.  Kurnell is her ideal playground where woman and machine can get into the groove and motor for hours on end.

8.  Saddle:  Last but not least, the saddle.  I've heard of pros putting their scungy, well worn saddles on their brand new bikes and I can now understand why.  When you get used to one saddle it's definitely a challenge adjusting to a new one!  The saddle I've been fitted to is wider at the back - measured for my "sit bones" and it also rises at the back rather than being flat.  I imagine it's to help you with rotation onto the aero bars and to stop you moving backwards.  The result, however, was great initially, but there were obviously different pressure points to get used to, which I hadn't gotten used to!  Again, it's been a time thing, and comfort down below has definitely improved over time.  It has also brought to mind, however, a piece of advice I read on a forum somewhere that said "if your saddle is sore it just means that you're not putting enough pressure on the pedals!".  i.e. you're not pushing hard enough and resting on the saddle too much.  Don't know how much truth there is to that - I'll leave you to consider it for yourself.

So, all in all, lots of little things, lots to learn, but a month on it's coming together and I am really beginning to feel as one with Black Beauty.

She really is something special.

Upping the Ante - 5 Weeks to IM Cairns

It's starting to feel like a long season.

I knew this time would come - and it has.  That stage where you are just ticking over your workouts, not feeling like there's any improvement, wallowing in a big sandpit of blah.  It happens every year and it happens to everyone.  Which is why it's so important to take time off after ironman - to refresh, replenish, refocus and repay (...your family for all the support they've given you!).

Before ironman, though, is not the time to be taking your foot off the pedal.  And so when I emailed Coach Dave last week and warned him that I needed a change he took notice.  I knew I was just going through a low spot and so my way of getting through it was to map out the final six weeks of training.  Just one more four week block, I told myself, and then a two week taper.

You can do this.

Coach Dave understood immediately and set to work mapping out my next four weeks, starting out with a solid three day training weekend designed to reacquaint myself with some long, solid stuff.  Friday, a 3.5km swim, Saturday a 120km bike and Sunday a 25km run.

You can do this...(eek!)

No, you CAN do this!  One day at a time, tick each one off and don't think about what's ahead.

So, Friday night.  End of the working week, and I'm down at the pool.  The sun has long gone and so have most of the crowds.  It's a great evening to be doing laps - great water temperature, the bridge and Luna Park shining down on us and I'm feeling strong and strangely fresh.  Lots of pull buoy drills and pull buoy/paddle drills and my shoulders are feeling the burn by the time I haul myself out of the water at 8.30pm.

North Sydney Olympic Pool - Perfect night for a swim

But it feels great and I have time for a quick dinner and brief chill out on the couch before heading to bed early.  Swim - nailed!

Early Saturday morning (and I mean early!) - the alarm goes off at 4.00am and I'm up, getting some breakfast down, and by 5.00am I'm riding across the bridge to Town Hall Station to pick up the train down to Caringbah.  Ahead of me is 120km of steady riding at Kurnell.  Focus on 90+ rpm cadence and getting nutrition right.  It's a bit chilly, although still not cold enough for arm warmers, shoe covers or gloves (read that and weep, Christchurch!).

Out at Kurnell I have plenty of company in the form of other triathletes - last weekend and this weekend it's been noticeably busier with tri bikes out in force, and fully kitted up with aero/deep dish and disk wheels.  Given Ironman Australia is now only a week away it seems everyone is out testing their race gear and Kurnell is the destination of choice when you want a decent stretch of time trial riding.

Watching the bike porn, however, didn't end up being the highlight of the day.  No, that came in the form of a scooter pacing two cyclists who obviously weren't out for an early morning cruise.  I first saw them heading in the opposite direction and then a little while later they flew past me like I was standing still.  One of the guys was in Specialized gear and on a Specialized bike and I figured that, with the motor pacing, it was obviously a pro - Macca or Crowie maybe?  I toyed with the idea of getting the phone out to try and get a photo, but they were going so fast I decided it would be a futile exercise.

Post-ride reward - a latte and slice of banana loaf for the train ride home

A quick website search when I got home, though, confirmed it was most likely Macca (triathlon and ironman legend, Chris McCormack).  He had tweeted about his training ride, and being motor paced for 70km at 55kmph with Paul Ambrose.  He also commented "#empty", which I thought was hilarious ... come on, he's a pro and getting to draft off a scooter - should have been a doddle!  Me, in comparison, did 120km solo - none of this wimpy drafting nonsense!!!

The ride went really well - great pace with an average of 29kmph which I was really happy with - with the race wheels on I am hopefully on target to achieve an ironman average of 30kmph and nail that 6 hour target I dream of.

And so dawned this morning.  A 25km run.  You can do it...

St Pete and I were up at 5.00am and in good spirits, ready to do a good steady run, focusing on finding my IM pace.  We had sorted out a good route, starting on the harbour bridge and heading across to the CBD, up to Hyde Park, up Oxford St to Anzac Parade.  Into Centennial Park for a lap before continuing back south along Anzac Parade to the University of New South Wales where we would head up the road to the top of campus and then come back down the middle back to Anzac Parade.  We would then retrace our route back home, excluding the loop around Centennial Park!

It was a great morning for a run.  We started just after 6.30am and by the time we got to Oxford St I had found my "pace" - slow and steady and hopefully a pace that I could hold for ironman.  Heart rate was good, around 145-155 - again, ideal for race day.  It wasn't all easy-going, though.  By the time we hit the 20km mark everything from the waist down was starting to hurt and so it was a bit of a grovel for the last 5km back over the bridge to the finish.

Grovelling is good practice, though.  Working through, and learning to ignore, the discomfort is part of the "fun"of ironman ... did I say fun?  Man, I'm sure going to curse those words at around 5.00pm Cairns time on June the 3rd!

In any case, as I lay on the floor with legs up on a chair, feeling ever so slightly shattered, I knew I had nailed the run.  And yesterday's bike.  And Friday's swim.

And that felt good.

No, it felt fantastic.

35 days to go and feeling iron-tough.

Dead Irongirl after 25km

Cycling in Sydney - Centennial Park

For the cyclist in Sydney there are precious few areas where you can safely ride without feeling as though it's you against the rest of the traffic. There is, however, a gem of a spot perfect for cycling almost in the heart of the city.

Centennial Park is located just a couple of kilometres from the CBD and provides a safe 3.8km circuit for cyclists, runners, rollerbladers, cars and horses.  It achieves this by providing 5 concentric circles around the park - a one way road is marked into two, the outside lane being designated for bikes and rollerbladers, the inner lane for cars.  Inside that is space for parking and then within that is a footpath for walking/running and inside that a track cross country running and then the innermost track for horses.

The route is relatively flat (for Sydney!) with a total climb of 26m around the circuit.

If you head there early in the morning, say before 8.00am, you will be inundated with bunches of cyclists training, more generally the hard core road cyclists and triathletes.  They tend to ride with broken speedos on their bikes, or no speedos at all - there is a 30km/hr speed limit in the park which few of the more serious cyclists seem to adhere to.  Later on in the morning the area will be frequented more by the recreational cyclists and beginners, travelling at a more sedate (and legal!) pace.

Early morning in Centennial Park

A number of triathlon clubs do brick sessions there as it's a perfect spot to do a few laps on the bike followed up by a run.

The only downer is the fact that the course is so short.  It's difficult to imagine doing your 6 hour long flat ride for ironman as laps around Centennial Park - the person who first told me about the ride claimed that he was using it for his flat training in preparation for IM Western Australia.  I personally think I'd be ready to chew my arm off with boredom after about an hour and, in fact, that's about the longest I've managed before getting so bored I had to ride out of the park and go explore some hills in the area!

However for rides of up to an hour it's an ideal spot.

Flat Training Rides in Sydney - Kurnell Loops

Training for an ironman event such as Ironman NZ or Western Australia, which have relatively flat courses, can be a bit of a challenge in Sydney.  The terrain is generally hilly and finding a stretch of road that is relatively safe from traffic and not littered with traffic lights is nigh on impossible.

The answer to this is a circuit out towards Cronulla called Kurnell loops.  If you are reliant on public transport like I am then, no worries, it is easily accessed by train.  Just jump on the Eastern Suburbs and Illawarra line to Cronulla and get off at Caringbah, two stops before Cronulla.  It takes 50 minutes from Town Hall station.

Go up the lift from the platform (or carry your bike up the stairs) and start riding, heading left away from the station.  Veer left at the first lights and you will start heading down a hill.  At the next lights turn left and you will go under a bridge, through another set of lights and then soon after reach a roundabout at Captain Cook Drive.

Turn right at the roundabout onto Captain Cook Drive and you are at the start of your first lap.  The road takes you out to Kurnell, a suburb of Sydney on the edge of Botany Bay and right under the flight path for Sydney International Airport.  Heaven for a plane buff, but reminds me of the opening scene of The Castle!

At Kurnell you will arrive at another roundabout where you can go right or left and do a small loop around the suburb, ending back at Captain Cook Drive at which point you head back out to the start.

The road is relatively flat, with the exception of a couple of small rises, and about 90% of the route has a decent sized bike lane alongside allowing for decent stretches of time trial riding without having to worry too much about the traffic whizzing by.

The full loop is around 20km and there is generally enough two-wheeled company around for any cars to have to take notice of your presence.  After you complete however many laps you need to do it is a relatively easy ride back up the hill to the railway station.