Now seems as good a time as any to throw down a few random thoughts about my lead up to Kona. There’s been plenty of time to ponder over things as we’ve now been flying for nearly 10 hrs. The flights have been pretty non eventful, apart from Tom’s inevitable travel sickness and a cracking storm about 30 minutes out of Sydney en route to Hawaii with bulk amounts of lightning, spectacular to say the least. Bloody warm in Sydney though – 36 deg C when we landed!
Back onto training! It probably started in earnest about 4 months back, and it didn’t start that well. A crash at speed down the bottom of Waverly St. in Essendon in the wet saw me hit the deck in the high 40’s (km/h) according to the trusty old Polar, and slid right through the Holmes Rd intersection on my side. It was a good thing I had the green light otherwise things might have been a bit scary. Damage was limited to a stack of bark off the legs and elbows – luckily very little damage to the bike.
On the bike it was a tough winter, bloody cold and even though the Victorias water levels don’t really indicate it, it was always raining. It made it pretty hard to sometimes muster up the courage, put 4 – 5 layers of clothing on and hit the road. The track wasn’t really an option this time around, time is getting scarcer, even though I did go a few times and as usual enjoyed it. Amongst all this there were some great rides – The WSTC Bright training weekend where we (GSP and I) climbed Hotham, Falls Ck and Mt. Buffalo on successive days. It had a bit of a Giro d’Italia feel about it – pounding away at the pedals with metres of snow right beside you, absolutely awesome!! GSP is a marvel, he hadn’t trained since coming back from Ironman Switzerland and despite being on blood thinning medication for the deep vein thrombosis that he suffered from the flight back from Europe, he was nipping at my heels the whole way. The Rapido ride on Sunday mornings was also a ride I really looked forward to. Robbie’s plucking of destinations ie: Kinglake/Humevale climb in the pouring rain and single figure temperature, Wildwood during Magpie swooping season and various others kept us on our toes. The endless sledging that goes on during this ride is what makes it, Pete & Shane baiting each other, Rob Taranto doing his best Muslim impersonation wearing a burkah on the cold mornings, hanging it on Robbie Bell about his ‘Dancin’ shoes’ – shiny black leather Nikes, setting up the young fellas just to watch them explode later in the ride. It all takes your mind off the numbing amount of miles that you need to clock up and makes training a lot more enjoyable.
Running was a joy, I really enjoy this pursuit and relished my long runs along the Maribyrnong River to Brimbank Park. My longest was 2 ½ hrs and that was at a solid 4:30min/km pace, well above race pace. Even though the volume has come down on my running, it seems to be going from strength to strength, last Saturday (GF day) I rattled off a brick (3Hrs ride/1Hr run) and was sitting comfortably at 3:40 –3:50km/h pace with my HR sitting at 150ish – Promising signs indeed.
Swimming – well that was swimming, still like a brick with no style or technique, just muscle through the water. My left shoulder that was dislocated at the start of the year flared up about a month out but it should be fine. I’ve got an Orca skinsuit to use for the swim, they’re very similar to the BlueSeventy brand and the claim of the material being 50 times slipperier (is that a word??!!) than skin is big and the time saving of approximately 4-5 minutes over an IM distance will be most needed.
My fears for the race are probably the usual – not enough training. I look at my last months training and it has been erratic to say the least. During September I was in Warrnambool for 3 days, NSW for 1 week, did not train for 1 1/2 weeks due to the flu, to say training was interrupted would be an understatement! In the end I missed 3 weeks out of 4 for my BIG VOLUME month. It’s unfortunate, but work has priority and the flu was unforseen. How this will effect me will only be known this coming Saturday 11th October.
Until my next bit of waffle, Chill !
Mahalo,
Matty
No comments:
Post a Comment