Last weekend's Sunday morning ride was all about the 4 Cs: control, cadence, cuisine and celebration.
Coach Dave had set me a 3 hour ride to do and the focus is now on simulating and practising actual race conditions. And this is where the Cs came in...
Control was all about maintaining a steady pace. I needed to find a pace that I will be able to maintain for 6 hours without trashing my legs or the rest of the body. I've traditionally focused on maintaining a particular speed and, in particular, look to aim for a pace as close as possible to 30km/hr. What happens, though, is that if you are on a slight slope, or if you hit a head wind, then you tend to trash yourself while you focus on maintaining your desired speed. So I have to get out of that habit and ignore my speed.
Dave suggested that a better measure would be maintaining a consistent heart rate range. If I work out the heart rate range where I'm comfortable at then I'll be able to maintain that consistent effort all day and then come off the bike still in good enough shape to run. I'm thinking at the moment that the optimal range for me is about 145-147 beats per minute, so the first focus of Sunday's ride was a controlled ride, keeping my heartrate in that "green" zone.
The cadence aspect had a similar goal. Again, my habit has been to have a low cadence and this just loads up the legs too much. So, again, the instruction was to forget about what speed I'm doing and focus on maintaining a light, high cadence of around 95 rpm.
Cuisine sounds like some sort of Michelin 3 star meal, but in reality this is simply nutrition on the bike! (Just trying to keep to the "C" theme!) One of the big mistakes you can make in ironman is not eating enough or eating something that you haven't tried during training. These long solo bike rides, then, also provide the opportunity to practice your nutrition on the bike. It's important to trial different foods and make sure they agree with you and to get into the habit of knowing how much and how frequently to eat in order to maintain optimum performance on the bike.
My favourite cuisine on the bike has been One Square Meals (chopped into bite sized cubes), Gu Chomps and cheese and marmite sandwiches. The One Square Meals are a Christchurch product (bonus to be supporting a local business!) and are easily cut up and eaten on the bike. The Gu Chomps are like oversized wine gums, but chewier and stickier.
And the cheese and marmite sandwich? I came across that idea last year from another blog and while it sounds like an odd thing to have, it provides a great alternative to all the sweet stuff you usually end up having. It is made with white sandwich bread, crusts cut off and cut into four bite sized squares. I don't know what it is about it but I always feel noticeably better after I've had a couple of bites of the sandwich.
And then there's the liquid cuisine... I have two bottles on the bike - a Profile Design aero bottle that sits between the aero bars right in front of me and one below in a cage on the frame. The aero bottle has a straw sticking out of it so I can slurp up some water without getting off the aero bars. In the bottom bottle I put some hydration fluid so I get some extra sustenance rather than just water. The first couple of times I tried it I used Powerade and that seemed to work really well. What I'm doing now, though, is moving to the isotonic sports mix that will be provided at the support stations in Ironman, and that is Horley's Replace. Again, the key is to get used to it so that when you get given it on the course it doesn't upset the intestines...!
So I had control, cadence and cuisine all sorted out and headed out early Sunday morning for a solo jaunt around the Sefton block. It was a gorgeous day - sunny, virtually no wind and not too much traffic. As I headed back into town the fourth C came into play....celebration.
Andi is due to celebrate a significant birthday soon and so a social coffee ride was organised for the bike crew and I duly met up with them and we all headed out to sumner, via South Brighton, for a social coffee and muffin.
By the time I got back home I was pretty stuffed but very happy with the effort. My solo ride, focusing on control, cadence and cuisine had produced the following stats:
Time: 2 hours 44 minutes
Distance: 77.4 km
Av cadence: 82 rpm
Av heartrate: 148 bpm
Av speed: 28.3 km/h
The coffee ride was another 55 km so my total distance for the day was 132km. Fab ride and the lazy-boy nap was well deserved....and enjoyed!
So September and October have been a little quieter on the blog front, but there is good reason. Mid-September saw St Pete and I head to Rarotonga for an extended break - a wedding (ours!) and the Round Rarotonga Road Race.
In line with the fact that our lives seem to revolve around being active, challenging ourselves and leading what we hope is a relatively healthy lifestyle, we picked our wedding date to fit in with the running of the 2010 Round Rarotonga Road Race. This event has been going for over 30 years and is the main event of Rarotonga's Week of Running, a festival that includes a Hash House fun run, a Cross Island run, a relay and the race itself - a 31.5 km single lap around the island.
We had heard about the event from previous trips to Rarotonga and from Leigh and Paul who had travelled to the week of running a couple of years earlier and had returned positively raving about it.
This time around Leigh and Paul were coming over for the wedding, as was another running mate, Ang and her husband Willie. Leigh, Paul, Pete and I therefore entered for the full 31.5 km event while Ang decided to do the 10 km option.
I'd have to say training for this event, for me, was slightly unorthodox this time around. Because of my swim/bike/run training schedule I didn't have the run-focused buildup that I would normally have and so I was determined simply to get round the course and enjoy it as much as was possible (given the likely temperatures!).
Pete and I headed over to Rarotonga about 10 days prior to the event, and I'm so glad we did. While our main reason for going over so early was to relax and get ready for the wedding, it also provided a great opportunity to acclimatise a little to the heat and humidity. A couple of days after our arrival we went for a 5 km run and then a 15 km run as our final build up and boy was that hot! It was so nice being able to walk into the lagoon at the end of those sessions and cool down, but I wasn't going to have that luxury on the day of the race.
Cooling off in the lagoon after our last 15 km training run
Race day arrived and at 5.00am we found ourselves down to the Punanga Nui Market waiting for the start. The gun was due to go off at 5.30am and it was pitch black but still warm, probably mid 20s (celsius). There were hugs and good wishes passed around our group and then we were away.
I started out the first 5 km nice and slowly - it was really humid and the heat was a bit sapping but I also knew I had a long way to go and the worst thing you can do is go out too fast. Once we got around the end of the runway and had turned to head through Nikao towards Black Rock we got a bit of a sea breeze and I started to get into a good rhythm. Which lasted about 3km...
At about the 8km mark my old running enemy made itself painfully known to me - my quads. The blighters had seized up and that familiar feeling of having hot pokers jabbed into my muscles with every step was back again. I had first experienced this just after the halfway mark in my first marathon and in the latter stages of my second marathon, but to have it happen so early on in this run was gutting to say the least.
While I nursed my legs through the next few kilometres I searched for a possible explanation, and quickly found it. During the previous week I had hired a mountain bike so I could do some laps of the island, to maintain some sort of training. Of course the mountain bikes had standard pedals rather than the toe clips or clipless pedals I have on the road bike. As a result pedalling becomes a pushing action rather than a circular action and the pushing action requires force from your quads rather than the circular motion which is more balanced.
I had done about 4 1/2 hours of biking around the island and they hadn't been leisurely rides either! As a result my quads had gotten loaded up and so by the time I got a wee way into the run they made their displeasure well and truly known!
The run, then, became a fantastic experience in the art of mind over matter and an excellent opportunity to live the grit and determination that is going to be needed to get to the ironman finish line. My legs would be screaming at me and so I would alternate walking and running. I was able to concentrate on managing my nutrition intake, taking a Gu sachet at every alternate drink station. And I was able to practice the self talk that is needed when all you want to do is stop and, in this location, jump in the lagoon!
By the time I got to the last kilometre it was stinking hot but I didn't care. I knew I was almost there and the pain was irrelevant. I jogged into the market to the sound of the drummers and practised my ironman finish as I crossed the line. Not that it was an act - I have never been so pleased to see the end of a run!
My finish time wasn't so bad - 4 hours 13 minutes. It was around my marathon pace so, while I had hoped to go better, it certainly wasn't a disaster compared to previous events and I've taken away some great experience from it. And despite the challenges I look back on the event and remember it as one I definitely want to go back and do again.
I think Pete and I will be adding it to our calendar of annual events!!
The Christchurch Team - Leigh, Paul, Ang, Pete, Toni
A new city, a new training plan. This weekend's trip to Auckland necessitated a couple of tweaks to training.
Of a more minor nature was the need to take a day off work on Friday so I could do the 4 hour bike ride that was scheduled for Sunday. More significantly was the need to make sure I could do a couple of swim sessions. Dave had programmed a 1500m time trial (gulp!) for earlier in the week but when he found out the pool I was planning to use in the city of sails, he immediately said I should do the time trial in Auckland.
And the reason for that? I had found that the closest pool to where we would be staying was the Olympic Pool in Newmarket, which is 50m in length. Dave was excited about the prospect as the great benefit of a 50m pool are the fewer stops and turns, and therefore less interruption to your swim stroke.
What swimmers will also tell you is that it does take a bit of adjusting to the doubling of distance between turns. Intentional or not, each turn provides an opportunity for an extra large gulp of breath (my favourite!), an extra push off the end of the pool and the opportunity to mentally "reset" for the next length.
The marathon was on Sunday, so that was set as a rest day for me and I therefore jumped on a bus and headed to the pool on Saturday and also Monday for the time trial.
I turned up on Saturday and surveyed the new surroundings. It did indeed look quite a bit longer than I am used to and there was a lane on the far side which was being used by scuba divers. What I also noticed, but didn't really pay any attention to, was that people in the lanes tended to be congregating at one end. I didn't pay much attention to it as it's not overly unusual as there tends to a one end of a pool which is favoured as the start/finish point. However this was significant and I would soon find out why.
So I jump in (at the popular end) and start on my first length. I had sorted out a programme that used predominantly 50m sets rather than the typical 25m sets I had been following at Jellie Park. That plan was soon to go out the window though. The depth of the pool at the start was a friendly 1.1m and it gradually deepened to 1.5m at around 30m.
At that point, though, it started to feel like I was swimming uphill... It's amazing how the brain plays tricks on you, and the reason for this is that the bottom of the pool suddenly plummeted away from me, down to a depth of 4.4m. And down in the depths were the scuba divers. Of course there was no need to stay within their allocated lane down there, so they proceeded to blow big bubbles across the width of the pool - an interesting experience to swim over, that's for sure.
Once I got to the end of the first length I found the reason that no one was congregating at that end. Although the bottom of the pool did come back up at the far wall, it was still 2.7m deep and there was no ledge for resting on. So there was no option but to push off and head back, and my session that day ended up having to be 100m sets. Exhausting when you're not used to it!
The pool's website briefly mentions its history. Apparently it once hosted the British Empire Games (now the Commonwealth Games) and, based on the floor profile, I guessed that diving towers must have been located at the extremely deep end rather than the current practice where a separate diving pool is built. And indeed it does appear that this was the case. A couple of photos held by the Auckland War Memorial Museum Library archives, taken in the 1950s, show that it used to be an outdoor pool and, indeed, the diving towers were at the end of the pool.
Back to my swim session, though, and getting used to the 100m sets was great practice. And it does make me look forward to the opening of Jellie Park's outdoor pool for summer, as that is also 50m long. I'll be making full use of it as soon as it becomes available!
One of my favorite events over the last few years has been the Auckland Marathon. Well, the half marathon to be precise. It's a scenic course that starts on the north shore in Devonport, winds its way over rolling terrain through the northern suburbs before providing a unique opportunity to run over the Auckland Harbour Bridge and finish almost in the heart of the CBD, at Victoria Park.
The event is becoming ever more popular and entries sold out in record time this year. St Pete entered the full marathon and, instead of entering the half marathon for what would have been the fourth time, I was detailed to be support crew.
The reason for that is that, with just over 4 months to go to ironman, Coach Dave decided running a half marathon at this stage in the year would not be a good idea. The logic behind this was similar to his instruction that I not complete the half ironman at Lake Hood next month. Basically the problem is with the recovery time from running those distances, which could compromise the quality of the rest of training at a time when I am starting to do some big distances on the bike and in the pool.
So I played support crew and Pete had a great day. And it definitely felt good to see that two of our top ironmen, Jo Lawn and Terenzo Bozzone, were also on the sidelines for the event. They were probably recovering from Kona but, I didn't mind, I was in good company!
Yesterday the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC) announced the launch of an exclusive program for ironman athletes. It's called Ironman Access and, according to the Ironman Access webpage, it allows ironman athletes the opportunity to register for popular ironman events worldwide before online registration opens to the general public.
Part of its supposed appeal is the popularity of ironman events these days and the speed with which they have been selling out. The program, therefore, shunts you to the front of the ever extending queue of people willing to submit themselves to the ironman challenge.
But get this - if you want the privilege of committing to an ironman event a week before anyone else, you have to fork over the princely sum of $1000 to the WTC for a year's membership to Ironman Access.
And that's in US dollars!
So what does $1000 give you? In addition to the privilege of entering your selected ironman event(s) a week earlier than everyone else there are a number of additional benefits that are supposed to make this an appealing proposition. Here's a quick run-through, and actual cost outside the program:
2 entries into the Kona Lottery (available already through the lottery and passport program for US$90)
A year's subscription to LAVA magazine (US$19.95)
The 2010 Kona DVD (estimated at US$34.95)
A 20% discount on shopironman.store partner merchandise and on-site event retail stores (of no value unless you spend more money, but good value for money if you're planning to fork out over $5,000 on ironman stuff.)
2 VIP passes per registered event
Membership ID card.
The actual value of those products comes to $150. So, for another $850 (US) you get 2 VIP passes for each event you enter, membership card and a 20% discount on merchandise. It doesn't pay your entry fee to ironman - that must be paid in addition to the Ironman Access Program fee.
Oh, and the privilege of committing to ironman a week before everyone else does.
I don't think that represents particularly good value for money.
In fact I struggle to think why anyone would want to take up this deal. Yes, the WTC are in the business of making money, and all power to them. But to my way of thinking they’ve got this decision around the wrong way.
As far as I know, ironman events, while popular, aren’t yet selling out in seconds the way tickets to rock concerts do. It’s not a situation where you sit on your computer, connected to the internet, waiting for entries to open and hoping you’re going to be lucky enough to get in and secure a spot within the first millisecond. Even if that were the case, bands and ticketing agencies don't charge exorbitant amounts of money for people to secure tickets prior to general release. At worst you'd pay a nominal amount to be a member of the band's fan club. At best you simply join the mailing list for the ticketing agency or it can be even as simple has possessing a credit card.
The people that are missing out on an ironman entry are those who wait a few days or weeks before being ready to take the hit on their credit card. If they are that keen, then, and they know it is an event that typically sells out, then they will be ready and will get their entry in in plenty of time. Being a member of Ironman Access isn't going to help that.
What the WTC should have done is reserved places at each event for later entries and make the Ironman Access program available for those spots. That way people who don’t/can’t/won’t enter early still have a choice of paying an additional premium to use the Ironman Access program to secure their spot.
Whichever way they do it, though, $1000 is still excessive and anyone who goes for it needs their head read.
So we survived the earthquake and what better way to get back into training than with another overnight bike ride. This time to Methven, the weekend after the shaking events of September 4. My training had gone out the window over the previous week so this was a welcome opportunity to get out into the fresh air and get the heart and lungs working again!
Damage to roads around the region meant that the route had to be slightly altered, and two of our team had to pull out - Kate had been relocated to Auckland as her Christchurch office was out of action and Marcus was heavily involved with the earthquake recovery as part of the Police comms team. However the rest of us were not to be deterred!
Anna and Chook contemplating the day's ride
Dave, Chook, Anna and I loaded the bikes onto the trailer and headed just out of Christchurch where we met Alicia, Budgie and Curly for the start of the ride.
Alicia and Anna
My steed, ready to go
The peloton made its way inland, first stop Oxford where we sampled some of the fine muffins and coffee on offer at Jo Seager's cafe "Seager's at Oxford". Of particular note was Jo's hot chocolate, of which Alicia appeared to be a connisseur, and the rest of us looked on green with envy as the tray of decadence was placed before her. A large glass of steaming hot milk plus two shot glasses. One shot glass contained warmed, liquid milk chocolate and the other glass contained white chocolate buttons. You could then mix the two types of chocolate according to preference. Many of us were vowing to return at a later date to sample what looked like a divine drink.
Toni and Curly enjoying the ambience by the fire at Seager's at Oxford
Much as we would have liked, we couldn't sit around the fireplace all morning so back on the bikes it was, next stop Hororata for lunch.
On this leg we saw some more of the effects of the earthquake. For instance the damage suffered by the historic St John's Church at Hororata.
After lunch it was my turn to drive the support van while the peloton completed the final leg into Methven. My total ride for the day was a shade under 80km and 2 hours 44min riding time - pretty cruisy.
Next stop, Methven.
One of the great things about heading uphill on your outward journey is that the homeward leg is .... DOWNHILL!
Home was 110km away and Sunday morning we were out bright and early. The Rakaia Gorge was the only blip in the otherwise steady descent and we got a great pace going. Andi rode out to meet us and so we had a welcome addition to the peloton for the rest of the journey.
Google maps in use - out in the middle of nowhere...
We rolled into town mid afternoon - another great weekend completed.
Over the weekend I had planned to write a blog reflecting on the week's training and celebrating the end of a couple of weeks hard out swimming with swim camp. Those plans, however, were thrown by the wayside at 4.35am on Saturday morning when the entire population of Christchurch and Canterbury region were violently shaken awake by an earthquake, measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale - comparable to the recent devastating earthquake felt by Haiti.
The epicentre was only 40km west of Christchurch and the experience was like being in a roller coaster but without the safety harnesses. It was pitch black and when it hit I immediately half sat up in bed, hanging on to Pete and frozen in place, but also ready to run, and waiting for the worst. The noise was incredible. Some have described it as like a train coming through the house. For me, I was sure I could hear every piece of timber in the building moving and it went on for so long and so violently I was convinced that the house would collapse. Growing up in the Bay of Plenty, I've experienced a lot of earthquakes, but they have all been short, maybe 5 seconds at the most. This one felt like it lasted a minute, although later reports put it at around 30 seconds - still an interminably long time when you are frozen in bed waiting for the walls to collapse around you.
As the noise and shaking continued I started going through the thought process of the best place to be. Pete had called out not to move and I wasn't arguing. We were on the 2nd floor of a two storey building and while we were obviously getting more movement than we would have on the ground floor I figured that, if the building were to collapse, it was much better to drop down one floor (and be cushioned by the mattress of the bed) than to be downstairs and have the top floor drop on us.
Thankfully that theory was never tested.
The shaking finally stopped and we gingerly turned on the light switches to see if we still had power and to survey the damage. Luckily the lights still worked and we got up and did a quick assessment. In the bedroom drawers were hanging out and clothes were on the floor. In the ensuite a couple of bottles had fallen down in the shower. In the study my bike had fallen over and an old collector's plate had fallen on the floor and broken. The filing cabinet was OK and the computer also remained upright. The wire holding a picture on the wall had snapped and it had dropped to the floor but the picture was otherwise undamaged. The spare bedroom was also fine - bookcases hadn't tipped over (amazing), just a few of my soft toy zoo had fallen down.
We headed downstairs and prepared ourselves for the worst. The coat-stand in the entrance way had fallen over and we found later that one hook on it had broken off. Amazingly though it hadn't fallen into the large mirror on the wall or onto the hallway table and both those were completely unscathed. Similarly, in the lounge, my tall china cabinet and large collection of ornamental penguins was fine, as was the TV, full wine rack and every other piece I had fully expected to see in a thousand smithereens. The total casualty list downstairs consisted of a fruit bowl, a tiny swarovski cat ornament, a wooden penguin that had toppled from the top of the penguin cabinet and a plastic jug. A box of couscous had emptied its contents onto the floor of the pantry but, in the scheme of things, it was totally insignificant.
Into the garage and, again, very little was amiss. Cupboards had survived and the scooter was still upright. Two citronella lamps had fallen down, spilling the citronella into a laundry basket but, again, totally insignificant.
Outside on the deck we noticed that one of the two tall concrete flame pots had fallen over but, in the dark, we couldn't see if it was broken at all. We assumed it would be and we left that for further inspection once it became light enough to see outside.
Over the next hour and a half we alternated between checking out and tidying up stuff inside and running outside to the parking pad whenever an aftershock came. There were several reasonably large aftershocks, and several occasions where a group of about a dozen people from our block would be all standing outside together waiting it out and making sure we were all OK.
As we made our checks inside we kept scanning the walls, ceilings and floors for any signs of cracking or other breakage. Incredibly, there was nothing. As it got lighter we checked the exterior of the building and our block of four adjoining two storey townhouses looked to be absolutely fine. No cracks or any other apparent damage, something I still find incredible. Even the concrete flame pot, which had tipped over and was lying half on the deck and half in the garden, was still in one piece.
By 6.00am we had turned on the laptop to scan the news sites and had started texting family and friends to make sure they were all OK. Good news texts were coming back and, on the internet, news of the earthquake was starting to filter through. By 9.00am TV One had suspended its normal programming and would dedicate the rest of the day to live coverage of the earthquake. By then it was starting to dawn on us that this was major.
Damage to building on the corner of Manchester and Worcester Sts
As the day progressed we came to realise how lucky we had been. At a personal level we had come through it with essentially no damage. Around the region others had not been so fortunate. Eastern suburbs, around the river, had experienced liquefaction and many houses had shifted off their foundations. In some suburbs entire streets of housing look to require demolition. Older houses lost brick chimneys which, if lucky, fell to the ground or, if unlucky, fell through the roof into the house. In the CBD older buildings, particularly those with no earthquake strengthening, suffered significantly.
Since then we have had several hundred aftershocks - I think the current count is in the vicinity of 350, including one on Wednesday morning of magnitude 5.1 and which managed to shatter the nerves of many. They are, however, becoming less frequent and while another large aftershock could still happen, it would seem that the worst is over and the recovery can begin.
As this happens we can all be thankful for many things from this experience. For me, the big one is that there were no fatalities. While buildings and possessions can be rebuilt and replaced, nothing can replace a life and so this is a truly special outcome of this event.
The lack of loss of life can be attributed to two things, the timing of the earthquake and our building standards. It was so lucky that the earthquake occurred at 4.35 am and not 4.35 pm. If it had hit during the day there would undoubtedly have been people in the wrong place and who would have had something drop on top of them with devastating consequences. As it was, 95% of the population were tucked up in bed and, in the circumstances, in the best possible place. With the recent experience of Haiti's earthquake we have first hand experience of the value of our high building standards and the requirements to construct buildings that will weather earthquakes. Older buildings in the city that have been earthquake strengthened did sustain some damage but, on the whole, can be saved. Older buildings without that protection are more likely to have been red stickered and will be demolished.
The last few days, then, we've been glued to media updates of the earthquake. I don't know if this sudden insatiable thirst for knowledge makes you feel better or worse. On one hand it helps me to remember how lucky we are, however on the other hand it has thrown the whole routine out and seeing the extent of the damage and suffering so close to home undoubtedly casts a pall over things.
Training, then, has gone out the window. All of the swimming pools are closed and so there is no swim training possible. For the first few days it seemed unwise to go out biking - we were being advised to stay at home and the state of the roads in many areas was unknown. However even though I could still go out for a run, or do a wind trainer session, somehow I just haven't felt up to it. While I feel OK (not fearful, scared etc) this whole experience has obviously taken a toll on the body. Maybe I am using all my energy just dealing with all this and therefore don't have sufficient energy for training.
As a result I am being kind to myself. I am listening to my body and I am trusting that when it's ready to get going again, it'll let me know.
