My winter of contentment.

Before IM Cairns I sat down and mapped out the rest of 2012. My thoughts at the time were finish IM Cairns then stop swimming & running straight away, but continue on with cycling. I had originally planned to do the Northern Combine 3 day tour the week after Cairns (Queens b’day long weekend) but this was knocked on the head as my sister had a baby girl not long before Cairns so the long weekend was probably the only time I’d get to see my new niece for a while. Active recovery was the key word for July, I continued on with base bike miles with the longest ride being 100km’s. The events I had mapped out over the winter period were ‘A’ races – Melbourne to Ballarat, Alf Kimpton memorial at Broadford, Pop Stewart Memorial at Balliang & Brunswick club champs (Masters). Followed by ‘B’ races – Northern Combine ITT champs at Balliang, Vic club TTT champs & Sunbury Trophy race at Pastoria. All these were part of my macro/micro training cycle for my big A+ event, The Melbourne to Warrnambool to be held on Sat. October 13th.

I’ll go through my winters races below and give a brief description how each panned out.

• Northern Combine ITT Champs: 23 June, at Balliang circuit which is just outside Bacchus Marsh, I lined up in Masters 1/2/3 which is basically from 30 to 45 year old age groups, these are measured in the same year increments as Triathlon. It was a sunny but cool & windy day just 3 weeks after Ironman Cairns. The distance was 24km’s (I think) so it was on the rivet the whole way. My time of 34mins 23secs ave speed 41.9km/h was enough to secure 1st spot in Masters 1/2/3.

• Alf Kimpton Memorial Handicap – Broadford : 7 July. I love this race, I have placed 2nd in it previously & with no road racing in my legs for this season saddled up for this years edition off a generous mark of 15 minutes. The race is a 3 lapper which has some solid little climbs, quite luckily I was in a very good group who were quite organised, our task was made easier with the majority of riders in my group all doing their fair share of work. We worked hard to pull in the later groups but on the final lap the 12 & 9 min groups caught us so the group had swelled to approx. 50 riders. The last 10km’s is quite hilly, my legs felt good so I tried a few quick bursts to join in on a few attacks, knowing the pack wouldn’t let us get too far away. Then with 3 km to go I launched a solo effort which no one matched, I didn’t know how many were in front of me so it was just a matter of making sure I didn’t get caught. 2km’s out I passed 2 riders, in the last 300m before the hilltop finish I passed the rider sitting in 4th spot. This is where I finished out of a field of 120ish so I was quite happy about it. BUT, I finished & felt REAL GOOD, on hindsight I should’ve attacked 2 km’s earlier as I reckon the time difference between me & the winner was achievable given how good my legs felt. Oh well, that’s road racing - you live & learn.

• Brunswick Club Champs: 14 July, Another cold and wet day just outside Lancefield on a multi loop circuit where I again raced Masters 1/2/3. A small field assembled for the prestige of being called BCC Champion ’12. The race started well with all riders rolling evenly until we caught the Elite fellas who had stopped for an organised ‘nature break’. We rolled with them for a couple of laps then just before the biggest hill on the course on the last lap with approx. 20km’s to go we started to race. The elite fellas hit the hill REAL, & I mean real hard. I tried to follow but just missed their wheel and tagged on for 5km’s an agonising 50m behind through some seriously undulating terrain. The turn of pace was enough to drop all the Masters 1/2/3 dudes so it was solo time to the end. I ended up winning comfortably with a massive hail storm hitting me which was hard as I had nobody around me to whinge to about it ! Still it was an honour to be called the BCC Masters 1/2/3 RR Champ for ’12.

With Elite BCC club champ Luca Giacomin

• Melbourne to Ballarat: 21 July, This race starts at Rockbank & goes straight up the Western Hwy finishing at Lake Wendouree. It's another handicap race & jeez I love doing these ! I snuck under the radar of the handicapper and saddled up in the 24 minute group. Markers were off 33mins and scratch featured the likes of NRS Pro teams such as Drapac, Genesys, Budget Forklifts etc. My group was super keen until we got to the Pentland Hills just past Bacchus Marsh where the majority of my group of 30 odd riders developed a dislike for doing any work up hill. It was up to 6 of us to do the most of the work with an occasional hanger onner doing the obligatory 1 turn up the front every 5 mins..... SOFT, and not helping us A) win & B) keep away from scratch or later starting groups. We were slowly making up time until around the Gordon turnoff where myself & the half dozen fellas up the front were starting to tire a bit from all the work. A few of the 21 min. group caught us which was great news as it breathed new life into the pack. An even bigger bonus was all round good guy, fellow Rapido rider & solid athlete Brendan O’Loughlin had bridged across and I now had a partner in crime. There was still only 6 to 8 of us doing the hard yards up the front with the rest wheel sucking wheels or ‘hanging on for dear life’. Brendan & I orchestrated an attack with 10km’s to go with 1 other fella which lasted all of 3 km’s as the lazy sods in the pack had decided to work & not let us get away. The frustrating part was we put our effort to bed & retired to the pack, only for them to stop riding again............ The rest was trying to get to the finish line as quickly as possible until about 800m from the finish the Genesys boys flew past us like a V/Line train. It was pretty impressive, there was no chance for the win so they were riding for the fastest time on the day. It turned real messy from here on with a couple of nasty little 90 degree turns and a short sprint to the line which saw the possibility of a top 15 finish fizzle out to 39th out of 260 odd riders thanks to the Scratch riders mentioned above catching us. This is one of the things that frustrates me about road racing – short sightedness by your peers and the lack / willingness to put your balls on the line to ‘race’ to the line for a huge possibility of a win or place. As I said above.... Live & learn

The workers in the 23 minute pack - Melb to Ballarat

Inflicting pain with Brendan O'Loughlin, trying to break away.

• Victorian Club TTT Champs: 22 July, This one is a pretty tuff gig. This year was no different as one of our team members called in sick, so all team plans went out the window and it was a matter of looking after each other as the time for the team is taken by the 3rd out of 4 riders to cross the line. If you have a strong team, generally you’ll all finish together, if not the team will sacrifice your weaker rider at ½ to ¾ distance and roll over the finish with 3 riders. I’m unsure of our time, the TT course which starts at Buninyong is a very tough course and not conducive to fast times – Bummer !!

• Pop Stewart Memorial H’cap – Balliang: 18 Aug, I had a small spell so that I could start punching out some miles for the Warnie, after that it was back into an intensity block so what better way to do it than another handicap ! I saddled up in the 7min group which had several strong riders, notably Brunswick boys Rich McCorkell, Steve Duggan, Jarrod Peck & the eventual winner Nick ‘Spiro’ Edwards. Outside of the Brunswick CC road champs, this is the race the BCC boys most want. It was tough from the start with flooding on the roads, heavy intermittent rain, 3km’s of potholed gravel, a brute of a southerly wind and some gnarly hills. Steve Duggan was quite easily the ‘alpha rider’ in the pack, controlling things & upping the tempo to shell out the weaker riders when they looked like they may hang on for a shot at our glory. Unfortunately he punctured on the 2nd last lap which left the above BCC boys, a St. Kilda CC rider and myself. The last lap was difficult as we caught the markers in the crosswind and had to work real hard to ditch them. The rest of the lap was spent going hard so scratch wouldn’t catch us, at one stage they were only 45 seconds behind. We worked hard to keep them away and once things looked good, the tactics started. I stopped doing turns for a minute with about 4 km’s to go. We were on the dirt road so rolling was quite difficult and once off the dirt it was about 2 km’s to go. I sized Nick up as the probably the strongest looking sprinter in the pack so was very weary of what he was doing. Unfortunately Jarrod rolled around me and had a slow gear change which Nick heard and bolted. He started his sprint with 800m to go, by the time I slowed because of Jarrods mishap then accelerated around into 2nd spot Nick was already 100m up the road. Try as I might I couldn’t reel him in, 2nd it was for me. Fortune favours the brave – Well done Nick !

Racing - Northern Combine style ! Pop Stewart H'cap - on the front

2nd place - Pop Stewart Handicap

• Sunbury Trophy race, Pastoria loop, Kyneton: 8 Sept, A pretty good field assembled up near Kyneton for the Sunbury Trophy race, a 3 lapper on some undulating, typically slow roads with a touch of wind thrown in – very Northern Combine !! The race started with an instantaneous attack by a few fellas, then ½ a lap later a solo rider took off to bridge across. One of the original attackers was caught at the start of lap 2 but there were still 2 riders up the road. We caught another of the attackers 10 minutes later which meant only 1 up the road. Nobody was doing much work, so I took it upon myself to close the gap down. Richard McCorkell must’ve had the same idea as he came thundering past me and it pretty much lit up the B grade peleton. There were a few dummy ‘attacks’ by some weaker riders who had sat back for the majority of the race, these didn’t last long as they couldn’t sustain the pace. We caught the last break away rider with about 10km's to go, he was still trying hard but looked spent, gutsy...... On the preceding laps I worked out where I wanted to attack and throw it on the line for the race win. About 3 km’s out there is a pretty solid hill, it would’ve been pretty predictable to attack at the foot of that hill. 300m before the hill was a good downhill section where I noticed on the first 2 laps riders were relaxing a bit before the 1.5km climb. So it was on this downhill section before the hill where I launched a big attack which caught all but one of the pack napping. I hit the foot of the hill doing 52km/h and carried the speed up until half way up it when things started to burn a bit. I jumped out of my seat to keep my pace up then sat down. David Ransom (StKCC)was the rider who wasn’t napping and he had bridged across. He passed me easily, even giving me a push and telling me to keep up as he passed me. He kept his momentum up all the way to the top where he was about 50m in front. At the crest I looked back and it was safe to say the pack wasn’t going to catch me. It was about 1.5km to go to the finish, a 500m downhill run then a 1km flat. David was still 50m in front of me when we hit the flat but I started to reel him in. I caught him with 400m to go and went straight past him. I was praying that he wasn’t foxing and then latch onto my wheel, but his body language suggested he was spent. I rolled through real hard and a few hundred metres later I crossed the line in 1st place. There was no time for a salute, a ‘Call me maybe’ telephone handpiece with my fingers a la GreenEdge & a lot of other Combine ridersor even a Luca Giacomin piece of brilliance. It was just steamroll all the way to the finish. I was the strongest & this is how I roll – all the way to the line, flat out.

Powering to the line for a B Grade win at the Sunbury Trophy race

• All the above races were of course all part of the BIG PICTURE – The Melbourne to Warrnambool. Many thanks to Rapido Cycles for maintaining and helping out with the bike – a great bunch of blokes, XOSize for equipment and nutritional help, Rudy Project – the best glasses to sit on your face & very comfortable and stylish helmets as well, and also for John Quinn - He got me here.
Also very special thanks to Jo Upton Photography, a very loyal and handy photographer who catches great images of us racing in the Northern Combine.



IM Cairns piccy time !

Swim exit..... Thank god for the Rocket Science Carbon wettie which kept me afloat - 1hrs 9mins >>> Hmmmm

On the bike, post puncture. You can see the green/yellow tape around my draft box behind the seat post, holding it up due to the bump in the tyre from the valve stem. This was part of the race where I was absolutley flying, I'm pretty sure it is around Ellis Beach and I was trying to make up for lost time.

This is typical of the scenary & terrain that you'll encounter along the ride. It has very similar gradients to the Great Ocean Road, the road surface is far better and the tropical foliage obviously makes for an awesome setting. My race number was flapping around here and giving me the irates, I was just trying to tuck it away

Turnaround at Port Douglas. The crowd support here was quite amazing. It had a bit of a Hawi feel about it, a good sized and enthusiastic crowd at the furtherest point of the course.

Probably around the 28km mark along the Esplanade in Cairns. You can see the famous mud flats where the croc was resting in the top photo of my race report. The swim was held further in the background where you can see the boats moored. It was getting quite hot at this time of day, I reckon Dave Dellow would have either finished or been very close to finishing at this point.

Yeah BABY !!!! Ricky Jeffs just let me know that I had won my Age Group. I felt pretty good, the feeling of winning is something that doesn't happen too often but when it does............

You just can't wipe the smile off your face ! There is something intrinsically satisfying about training yourself, then coming up with an Age Group win. Self doubt doesn't enter my equation and I reckon I'm brutally honest with myself and my training performances. Still, just one thing lags in my mind - IF I got a coach, COULD he/she ???? Maybe, just maybe.

IM Cairns 2012 race report.

Hallelujah !! My first race report for a while.......

IM Cairns, what a race, I wouldn’t rate it an overly hard course, but, there are a few bits and pieces that add up to make it a difficult day. First up the swim – this was interesting, a lot of pre race athlete talk regarding the swim centred on the fear factor due to the local marine life which consisted of stingers, crocs and sharks. The sight of boats and jetski’s buzzing busily across the swim course helped ‘add’ to the atmosphere. Apparently this is done to scare the shit out of any ‘wildlife’ that was lurking in the depths - check the image above, this croc was spotted not far from the swim course a week later !! The main concern I had was lack of vision in the water which had a milky coffee like consistency. Vision was low, even lower than Shep’s infamous 70.3 swim course, which made collisions unavoidable and worse still, drafting off feet impossible as you couldn’t even see bubbles in the water.

The road surface also came into effect. It was very changeable, one minute you are riding on smooth as hot mix, the next minute you are dodging pot holes. The heat also came into play. I personally loved it and had no issues, a lot of competitors out there looked to be really struggling with cramp & hydration, hopefully a lot of lessons were learnt. Overall I give the course a massive tick – THIS IS A MUST DO RACE !

My race week started as an expensive one, I rode part of the course on Wednesday and punctured 3 times. These were on race wheels (GSP’s Zipp disc/808 combo – thx again mate !!) and trashing 3 x Conti Competition tubulars was bitter, insult to injury was I had to get a cab back into Cairns from 40km’s away – Ouch. I also got pinged by a speed camera after dropping T2 bags off to Smithfield with Dazzler Knight on the Saturday – 75ish in a 60km zone, I was getting a bit animated in my discussion with Razzle and didn’t see the speed camera – Double ouch. Apart from this it was a fairly entertaining week. I helped out Scotty & Cam at the XOSIZE & Rocket Science Sport marquees at the expo. It was pretty busy there but hopefully I managed to play the ‘bitch’ real well. My wettie sizing and fitting techniques needs a lot of refinement but hopefully I managed to grab a few sales for the boys. I was probably on my feet a bit too much in the days leading up to the race but I quite liked helping the fellas out, Scotty has given me such huge support over time & this was the least I can do to help him out. Special thanks to XOSize & Rocket Science Sports.

After a solid 5 days of drizzly weather, a cloudless sky and next to no wind greeted us all on Sunday the 3rd, absolutely awesome triathlon conditions. I had slept really well and woke up at 4:20am then onto brekky which consisted of 3 x 220g cans of Choccy creamed rice & 3 x English muffins piled high with strawberry jam. I usually feel a bit heavy after this but felt like I could eat more, so I did ! I threw down a few bananas on the walk down to T1 while yakking to Marie & Fiona. ‘Team Lewis’ had a stand in ‘Team Manager’ in Fiona as regular Manager & guru Stevo was given this race off as he was still recovering from a bout of alcohol poisoning from his 2011 Hawaiian IM campaign. Bike kit up went seamlessly, I met back up with the girls & wettie’d up ready for the swim.

The swim course looked well laid out with large buoys at regular intervals. Getting into the water was a challenge as there was only one small gangway to walk across onto a pontoon, then down some steps into the water. The 70.3 race which started 20 mins earlier was bearing down on the last of the IM competitors to get into the water but somehow it managed to sort itself out. I positioned myself ¾ of the way back, preferring to start slow and well....... finish slow..... The start was bizarre, a heap of athletes made a ‘hooter’ like sound and then the front guys started ??? So sheep like I followed. I had a cruisey swim with minimal contact all the way through and just concentrated on keeping comfortable. The murky water made it hard to draft, I managed to grab a look at my time at the ½ way point, it showed 32mins which I was happy with. My pace felt good until the last 800m which felt quite hard. Apparently a bit of a swell had picked up, I didn’t notice this at all, just putting my slower pace down to a lack of swim fitness as I had only done 2 months of squad swimming. Swim time = 1:09:32

T1 is a 400m run and takes a bit of time, I picked up an easy 12-15 spots here as some people dawdled through. I had an OK T1 then set off for the ride in ‘heaven’. The sun was out and could be felt as we headed out of town. I got into rhythm quickly and settled into a pace that was comfortable with my HR at 145-150bpm & speed around 37-39km/h. The first hour went past, downing my usual Choccy Powerbar, choccy gel and full bidon of electrolyte (Infinit). I reached the Port Douglas (PD) turnaround (75km) right on 2 hrs. The road surface in PD was awesome after the previous 8-9km on the Capt’n Cook Hwy which was best described as rugged and patchy. As I turned back onto the Cook Hwy I thought the rear of the bike felt a bit doughy, a quick look down confirmed that the rear was down on pressure. My HR was climbing & speed decreasing as I pushed hard to cover 15km’s back to where I saw a service van on top of a hill called ‘Rex Hill’. I wanted to use him as I thought this would be a safe option as I was only carrying 1 x CO² canister. I didn’t quite make it & had to pull over 2km short as the disc was starting to bottom out on the roads. I quickly recharged the tubular and pushed on to the service vehicle. When I arrived there some old fella was having enormous trouble with his aero bars, he was quite pedantic about a few things and was clearly getting in the way of the mechanic who was working feverishly to get him back out on the course. Whilst waiting I peeled off my rooted tub & started to try to put the new one on but my hands were really sweaty & I struggled. I waited while the mechanic finished off with the silly old coot who still didn’t look to be happy, then he started on my wheel. He got it all fixed up, refilled it with air then put it back on. There was another issue with the tub not being pushed on fully at the valve stem which caused a small bump in the tub that rubbed against the ‘draft box’ behind the seat tube. We had to lift this & tape it up so it didn’t rub against the tyre & slow me down, all up I lost 10mins 38secs, maybe I should’ve just changed the thing myself at the first opportunity – Oh well, live & learn. The rest of the bike went really well, I felt strong all the way through, my nutrition was spot on, downing 2 x gels, 2 x salt tablets and 1 x bidon of High 5 or Coke which was available on course per hour. In fact I finished that strongly I did the last 30km’s which was mostly flat in about 40 minutes. I was cracking along on a great road surface at 45km/h with my HR around 145 bpm. I was wrapt to be able to do this as I was starting to come up to a handful of packs (all legal I thought) and then ride right through them. Bike time = 5:01:55

It wasn’t until I had stopped in T2 to put my runners on that I realised it was quite warm. I started to sweat pretty hard in the steamy tent which made me push to get out as quickly as I could. After 2:15 of playing dress ups I headed out onto the flat run through the cane fields. My first thoughts were that my legs felt pretty awesome and that I could be in with a show for my A/G, all I needed to do was spot up my competitors & chase them down. I really wish race organisers insist on lettered a/g calf markings as trying to sneak a peek at numbers that are in the same sequence as mine on the front of competitors is a real pain. I actually flip my number around at some races at turnaround points if I know it is a close race just to throw my competitors off. I saw Matty Koorey head out of the small 3km loop in Yorkeys Knob and did a split on him which worked out to be an 11 minute deficit. I thought there was one other fella in front of him so at least now I had an idea. I was flying and felt comfortable, I split the first 10km’s in 41:40 and kept the pace up to the 21km where I split in 1hr 24mins. I caught Matty at one of the first aid stations as we hit the Cairns Esplanade, he was looking pretty RS and barring disaster I had this thing wrapped up. I kept my pace up until I hit the first turnaround point located a few hundred metres past the finish line. I couldn’t see anyone of my ‘vintage’ so had to wait until I reached the far turnaround point at the Esplanade to confirm what position I was in. Again the scene was clear, my race then turned to keeping a split on my closest competitor to make sure they weren’t gaining. It was a funny feeling, I sort of switched off, content in the knowledge that I had worked my butt off to get back into the race & was now leading. My pace dropped away and I started to get a bit tardy running through the aid stations, missing drinks etc. Amazingly I kept putting time into the 2nd place 40-44 ag’er. I felt solid and had good form but my mins/km kept blowing out to late 4min km pace. The rest of the run was solid if not unspectacular, a PB was definitely out of the question due to the earlier puncture and I’d lost focus a bit as I was cruising but still putting time into my fellow a/g’ers. The crowd support was pretty amazing, the weather definitely brought out the best in people, it was by far the loudest most vocal crowd that I had come across in all my IM’s. In the end Ricky Jeffs called me across the line saying that I had won my A/G (fist pump time !) and had earnt a Hawaii spot. My marathon time was a 3:14:55 for a total time of 9hrs 32mins 35secs to win my age group by 8 minutes and place 26th overall. I felt good, walked straight through the recovery area to meet Marie & Fee then headed off back to our unit for a clean up. My job was done.............................................................................................................

Some valuable things I learnt from this, my 12th IM are :

• My training time was HEAVILY compromised due to my increased work load. I travelled a lot so had to mix & shorten a lot of my sessions. I kept my intensity higher than I usually do as the hours per week I was punching out was down by as much as 5Hrs in my peak weeks.

• My longest ride was 160km’s x 1, 140km’s x 3 and a heap of 120km’s. I religiously rode on Tuesday and Thursday morning to Mordialloc which is an 86km round trip. I tried to keep my Wattage for these rides above 250 Watts, my PB of 280 Watts with an ave. HR of 146bpm was recorded on a still morning when I was quite fatigued 6 weeks out.

• The majority of my long rides were done in the hills north of the city – Kinglake Mt. Macedon, Humevale, Darraweit. I do enough flat stuff (Beach Rd) during the week & try not to ride there on the weekends due to the poor quality of riders about. I like the high intensity of the hills and feel it conditions my legs and lower back a lot better for TT’ing.

• I did a 1 month stint from week 13 to week 10 where I spent a lot of time on the track. I did this as I was racing the BCC Team Pursuit in the Masters Elite team. We claimed the bronze and I felt the track supplemented my training rather than detracting from it.

• My longest run was 32km’s x 1, followed by 28km’s x 2, then a heap of 20 – 24km runs. The latter being run at or better than 4min/km pace. Every second run was an easier recovery run at a pace of 4:45 – 5:00mins/km. I did no hill repeats this time around due to the timing of these runs in my weekly cycle interfering with work.

• Swimming was done at VU with the usual ETPA squad. I started after IM Melbourne which gave me a 2 month lead in - This was too short. I usually do a 12 week lead in, my shoulder usually starts giving me grief from week 8 in the pool through to week 12. I don’t enjoy this so shortened it this time around. I think I swam comfortably in the race but the trade off of a lack of speed v’s a month of extra pain to go 5 mins quicker – give me the extra month and the pain.........

• My summary of all the above is that my time was spent doing quality over quantity, it very nearly could have got me a PB except for the dreaded puncture.

• My pre race nutrition from 3 days out is near on perfect. I reckon I nailed it this time out. A lot of athletes should put more focus into this.

• Race day nutrition was good. The only bother was High5 – I hate the stuff, it is purely the taste, I went straight to Coke when available on the bike course & had no ill effects. The first hour on the bike was on Infinit which is what I loaded up on for the 3 days before.

• Staying calm when something outside of your control happens to your race is paramount. When I punctured I used the time to grab a drink and eat while the mechanic fixed everything. My HR dropped right down and I even had a small stretch. It all worked as I flew afterwards.



Thanks all for your time !! Train safe, train hard, Matty

PS - I'll post images when I get them.