Mission Accompllished

Where to start?

That would have to be the whole Ironman NZ experience.  
The taper into race week was great, the week leading into race day in Taupo went well.  The only issue was the fickle weather which deteriorated significantly all week, and as many will know lead to the cancellation of the full Ironman race on the Saturday and a substitution with a half Ironman distance on the Sunday.  
While it was better than no race at all it was a huge disappointment to miss out on the end goal.  
That race went well given the circumstances and weather, knocking 15 minutes off my race time compared to the December race over the same course.

Coming back to Australia without the tick in the box was very frustrating.  The race organisers had intimated that there would be some avenue made available to put things right.
At this point I was very frustrated with the whole thing and was struggling to plan, train or even think about it.
While waiting to hear what might be provided by race organisers the training levels were very low, partly due to recovering from the shorter race but mostly due to lack of motivation with no clear goal in mind.
A month later and the goal was back in place.  On April 6th the entry to Ironman Australia at Port Macquarie was confirmed.  The race was for May 6th and this did not leave much time to refocus and get the preparation right.  The training software I use calculates a measure of readiness and this reported a level roughly 10% below the level I had going into the Taupo race.  
As such I went into the race with an even more conservative approach than I originally intended.

I had never been to Port Macquarie but it is a lovely spot to race and the day dawned cold but with a beautiful day was in store.


The Swim

The 3.8km swim is in an inlet area and involved picking a way through a number of moored boats.  It was warmer in the water at 21 degrees than out and the swimming conditions were very good, the inlet location meant the conditions were very calm.  There was still the usual mass thrashing in the water, kicks to the head, goggles knocked, legs and arms swamped by people coming over the top.  My focus for the swim was simply to relax and get to the finish of this leg.  It would be my longest ever swim session and there was no thought given to pushing the pace.  Near the end of the first of the two laps the velcro closure on my wetsuit was starting to dig into my neck.  This became pretty sore and messy and was just another issue to deal with.  After 69 minutes I exited the water very happy to have that leg out of the way.  I walked to the transition tent in no rush to save a few seconds getting out on to the road. 


The Bike

The bike leg was a 2 lap ride out to North Haven and back.  The course had some rolling hills in there, including a very steep uphill 200m section on Mathews Flinders Drive.  The road surface was also quite rough due to some flooding over recent months and there were instances where riders crashed simply due to those road conditions.  
There were only 7 riders who broke 5 hours for the ride which is a very low number and shows that the course was far from an easy one.  On the New Zealand course in 2011 24 riders went under 5 hours on a very wet day. I was pretty happy with Lap 1 and went through the halfway mark in 2:49, or 32kph.  Pretty good going that was not to be maintained.  The end of this lap was the first chance to see the support crew.  My wife Deb, and her sister and niece were about 2k from the turnaround which meant I got to see them twice in very close succession.  A great pick me up at that point.

Just as for the swim this was to be my longest single bike ride and fatigue started to creep in from around 150k onwards.  During the last 30k, which included the main steep uphill sections, I was reduced to an average of around 28kph and this brought the average for the full 180k ride down to 30.5kph.  While tired I did get off the bike feeling pretty reasonable given that over 7 hours had elapsed and was ready to get out on the run.  Total ride time - 5:54.
During the ride I made sure to eat and drink as much as I could and this was to prove important later in the day as I never felt thoroughly drained.


The Run

It is many many years since I last ran a distance greater than a half marathon and 'glass' heels have certainly curtailed my ability to put in the distances required to run properly.  Running is the most demanding of the triathlon legs. It generates the highest heart rate levels and does the most damage to the body. The Ironman does not really start until the run gets underway and it is always intimidating to know that even full time professional athletes can be brought to an abrupt reckoning by the demands of the day topped off with a full marathon.

I started the 4 lap 42.2k run just after 2pm and by now the day was pretty warm but after training in the heat and humidity of Brisbane it was quite pleasant.
The first 4k of the run went through pretty comfortably at a rate of 5:40 per k.  After that initial burst the pace dropped off to about 6:30 per k for the next 17k.  This is terribly slow but understandable,  the problem was that worse was to come.  The race provides splits at various points on the run when timing mats are crossed.  The next two splits were 4k at 7:03 per k and then 6k at 8:39 per k.  There was a fair bit of walking in these sections.  With a lap to go I realised that if I did not buck my ideas up I was not going to break 12 hours.  Going into Taupo my goal was to get as close to 11 hours as possible so this was a real wake up call.  With the help of the support crew who gave me plenty of support throughout the run I managed to pick myself up and drive through with 4k @ 5:40 again before reverting back to around 6:30 per k through to the finish.


End result:  Hearing the race announcer announce those magic words : "Keith Sherman, from Hawthorne, You are an Ironman" was just an amazing feeling as I ran down the raucous finish chute to sneak under the 12 hour mark with a finish time of 11:57:46.  The feeling of finally crossing the line after such a long day and to just stop moving forward was just indescribable. 


After ten odd minutes in the recovery tent, having a bit of a drink and some food I wandered out wrapped in my foil emergency blanket to find the crew waiting patiently.  Stumbling and shivering it was great to see them and know that I was on my way to a spa bath and a glass of celebratory champagne.  

A big thank you to the support crew Deb, Megan and Charmaine for all the support and cheering on the day and to all the followers via txt and web.

More to come soon.
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THe Final Countdown

You know like that terrible song by Europe from the 1980's.  

Well there is now just over a week to go. Last weekend we had a couple of nights ar Palazzo Versace palazzoversace.com.au.  This was a great way to start the taper into the race.  It really is an amazing place.

It gave me an opportunity for a lazy 2k swim on the Saturday and then a ride back to Brisbane on the Sunday.  I was tossing up how to approach the Sunday ride, schmooze off for an easy 130-140k and just enjoy it, do some hills or what?

On the day it was very hot, and of course one has to take full advantage of the buffet breakfast and late checkout.  By the time I wheeled out of the hotel it was 11:45 and close to 32 degrees.  I had 3 full water bottles but that would barely be sufficient, so it only took about ten minutes to decide that this would be an effort ride for as long as I could hold it in the heat.

Now I did have problems with my right hamstring which has been playing up of late.  It is a dull and deep ache rather than a sharp pain and takes some power away when it is affecting me.  But even so I maintained something like a 35kph average for the first hour, and 33-34 kph through 2 hours.  This is better than it sounds, firstly it was really getting hot, but also because in the first hour there are a lot of stops required, traffic lights, roundabouts etc.  Every time that happens, particularly early on, it takes the average down about 0.2 kph.

All in all it ended up a 90k ish ride at about a 32kph average.  Was happy with that.

I am now in serious wind down mode, trying to do just enough to keep the muscles in synch while recovering through to race day.  I fly out to Auckland on Sunday 26th and into Taupo the following day.  So about 4 days to get into the groove and soak up the atmosphere.  I guess the big question is how is it going to go?

If only I knew.

The whole point of the day is first and foremost to finish.  I will be focussing all day on rationing out the energy reserves so there is still gas in the tank later in the day.  The race will consume about 12,000 calories or about 3-4 days fuel.  A major factor of races this long is keeping up a steady and non disruptive intake of food and fluids.

So to put something out there as a guess?  Maybe a soft target.

For the swim I will be taking it very easy, I would hope to be out in 1:10 or slightly less.  

So from a 7:00am start this will point to be being out around 8:10 am.

Onto the bike after around 7 minutes changeover.  Again pacing will be key, and I would look to try and hold back for the first lap and maybe pick up just a little on the second lap.  The hamstring will play a part here but I am confident it can be controlled.  At the Taupo half I managed 2:48 for one lap, for the full I will target 2:55 on the first lap and maybe push for 2:45 on the second lap.  That would get me through the ride in 5:40 and I would be happy enough with that.

So that is just under seven hours elapsed back to the run.  The run is a 3 lapper and certainly the last lap will be interesting.  I really would like to get close to 4 hours which would also bring me in close to an 11 hour total.  Again pacing will be key, and if my body gives me a choice I will be trying to hold back to 1:20 a lap.  Now in the context of running this is slow.  But it is the end of a long day.

For anyone interested the race cab be followed on ironman.com.  You can search by name or by my race number 1379.

I may get a final pre race post in but certainly will be posting as soon as possible after race end.

Whew.

Big Day 2

Down to the last 4 weeks to race day. 

The last week of January was terrible for weather here in Queensland, with pretty constant rain for the whole week and localised flooding.  I'm usually pretty happy riding in the rain but here the road surface and the number of cars just seem to throw up a lot of spray and visibility is too poor for safe riding.  I had just finished two weeks of reasonable training so just took the opportunity to have a bit of a recovery week. Recovery is actually where the body gets stronger not during the training.  Being an older athlete only makes it more important and I have been very careful not to over train.  Certainly from a swimming and running perspective this has not been difficult as any decently long session will have me sore and stiff for a day or two anyway.

So after a week of waiting for the rain to go away, last week was right back into it with my second Big Day Training to get through as well.  The weekdays were just ticking over and getting back into the groove.  A couple of hilly rides, a lunchtime run, a swim/run session and feeling pretty good about the weekend.

The Big Day again started at the Valley Pool with a 3300 metre swim in just over the hour mark.  Kicked off a bit earlier this time at 6:20AM.  I was tempted to carry on to the full race distance of 3800 but they were preparing the pool for a water polo tournament and I was the last one in the pool as it was.  Felt pretty good at that point and would easily have managed the extra 500.  Home for breakfast and a read of the paper.  

The day was warming up quickly and was nearly 30 degrees when I set off at 9:30.  I ran a bit over the 90 minute rest between the swim and bike after I decided to grab a triple shot long black to get the system lubricated before I headed out.  After the issues I had with planning a route on my last Big Day I had decided to take one of my standard loops and just add on a bit of a loop at the turnaround.  This was a lot more successful, basically I rode halfway to the Gold Coast (45k) added a 40k loop out to Jacobs Well, and returned back the same way.  This was a really nice ride through canefield countryside which was pretty much deserted.  With the temp getting up to 33 I had drained my 3 large water bottles after 4 hours so stopped to top up with another 2 bottles of water.  These only just saw me through the last hour, at least race day should not be anywhere near that hot or humid.  Even with an intake of around 3.5 litres I was still down over a kilogram in weight when I got back home, which is another litre required.  So the bike effort ended up as 5 hours on the bike, moving for 4:35 and 130k.  Really wanted another 10 k but not really crucial on this day.

Another 2 hour rest for lunch and a cool-down in the pool and then it was off for the last part of the day.  It was still 31 deg plus even at 4:30 so no respite from the heat for the day.  I recorded a high temp of 33 on the run.  I followed the same course as the last big day, I decided that if I felt up to more distance I could just vary the route once off the main road back from the city.  As it turned out I didn't feel up to that.  With it being so warm I carried a water bottle with me,  I couldn't find my usual run bottle so used a standard bike bottle instead.  This was wider around the neck and was a lot less comfortable to lug along.  I kept getting crampy feelings in the fingers so was constantly changing hands.  The run went pretty well for the first hour then I started to struggle.  I had already decided already to use walking as a means to ration out the energy, it is what I will be doing on the day so may as well get used to it.  I had a few walking stints after the hour mark, honestly more than I intended, some due to tiredness and some just to guzzle water with 1.5 litres downed in the last 30 minutes.  Again the price of training in the heat, and I should also have taken some energy gels with me for a boost.  The run ended up at just over 21k and took 2:03.  If I could double that on the day and run a 4:06 marathon I think I would be pretty happy.  Wait and see but I think I might well be a bit slower than that.  Hopefully not too much slower.

So the last big day out of the way before the Ironman.  Those big days certainly do give you a degree of confidence around the amount of time you are going to be out there.  After both the swim and the bike I felt that I could easily have trundled on to nail the race distance.  Less so on the run but certainly getting some running under the belt when already pretty tired has got to be a good thing. 

So there is now only 25 days to go.  Two weekends of decent mileage before I travel over on the 26th Feb.  

Big Day Training

I know I  had intended to get this post up quickly after my big weekend.  And I sort of did.  My usual mechanism for getting a post up is to send my blog an email with the draft.  This is largely because I can do this anywhere and there is not a lot of overhead.  I wrote the draft and emailed it last Wednesday.  SInce then every time I have tried to get to blogger to tidy it up and insert a map or two, I have had technical gripes.  Anyway here it is....

As I mentioned last post the Saturday previous was my first run through of what is called the "Big Day Training".  This sort of training is designed to prepare you for the sensation of performing when you are already pretty fatigued.  The day has two rests between sessions to allow for refuelling and a slight recovery.  The point of the day is not to destroy you, that is what the race is for. :)

I had a rough plan laid out along the lines of:

Swim at Valley Pool 6:30 AM to 7:20 AM 

Breakfast & Recover 7:20 AM to 9:00 AM 

Long Ride 9:00 AM to 1:30 PM 

Lunch & Recover 1:30 PM to  3:00 PM 

Run 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM

As always these things don't go 100% to plan but the effort was still there.  I started the swim just on 15 minutes late and managed to clock 2.8k in just a fraction over 51 minutes.  The Valley pool in Brisbane was just great at that time of the day:

I then drove home for breakfast and coffee before setting off on the bike at 9:15, still only 15 minutes off schedule.  I had set a course on my Garmin to follow for a bit of variety but I made some errors in the way I created it and this quickly became a real pain in the butt.  In the end I was out riding for about 4:35 but only moving for 4:10 and 108k.  Some of that dead time was spent at traffic lights etc but also a chunk was spent on the side of the road trying to figure where to go next,  lesson learnt on that one.  The ride effort was pretty ordinary but the time on the bike was there and that was the main objective.

Back from the ride and straight into some lunch, coffee, liquids, protein shakes.  Basically anything I found in the house.

The final leg, the run, kicked off just before 3:45pm.  So this last recovery ran a little over schedule, maybe 20 minutes or so.  The total run time was 1:56 with 20k covered.  I followed a course I have run a few times into Brisbane city with a waterfront loop based around the Kurilpa & Story bridges.

 One advantage of this route is that there is a very good drinking fountain population scattered along the way.  I had expected the run to be really painful but in reality it was not too bad.  It was certainly easier to get through than the Taupo Half IM race.  It was a slow run but it was a very warm and humid  day in Brisbane and my fluid intake was a lot higher than it would need to be in Taupo.

The end result for the day was 7 hours of training, which is about 90 minutes longer than the race time for the half IM.  I have another one of these scheduled in a few weeks where the time will push out to about 8:30 so another 90 minutes added on.

The Festive Season

Well just for a change it has been a long time since I last posted.  But hey it's the Xmas season and of course I'm slack.

After the Taupo Half Ironman I wrote about in my last post I was pretty washed out for quite a few days, all that fatigue just to get a finisher medal.

Even the following Saturday an easy 70k ride was a real battle just to meander around the countryside at a very slow pace.  But work is always a bit frantic in the lead in to Xmas so having a bit of a break from training fit in nicely with getting 'stuff' done.

The Xmas break itself was great.  Obviously pressie time is always good.

But no these aren't all mine but hidden in there were some very cool things coming my way.  It was a lovely Queensland day on Christmas Day and the family had a great time. My personal pressie highlight was a new Garmin Edge 800 unit, courtsey of my lovely wife.  This is a GPS based cycling computer, heart rate monitor, course follower and so on.  It is a lovely unit as shown in the middle of the "cockpit" here. (Also the cool Profile water bottle was a gift from my daughter Courtney)

The Edge has some really cool features.  You can create a course using something like MapMyRide and send it to the unit and it will guide you around the course just like a car GPS. It will also let you ride against a "virtual partner"; now this can be you from the last time you completed the course or just an average speed that you want to maintain.  Either way the system calculates the time and distance that you are either ahead or behind your virtual partner.  The first time I used this was an easy 40k loop I do out around the bayside suburbs of Wynnum & Manly.

This map was actually recorded from that ride. Anyway I set the virtual partner to 30kph and set off.  This course has the hills at the start and also the ride out to the coast is usually into the wind.  So the potential is there to be somewhat behind by the time the coast is reached, but having the system tell you that you are 30 secs or 300 metres behind is great for keeping focus and while there were points when I was behind I ended up the ride something like 3:45 ahead.  It was great fun.  I have also used it to compare one morning ride against another.

So far this year has involved no travel for work and that has been just great for getting better consistency in to my training.  Now that it is down to the last 50 days this is going to be important.  Certainly I can feel it in all 3 sports so far, so the next few weeks will be telling.

Tomorrow morning I am setting out on my first attempt at a BIG days training.  This idea comes from two world renowned coaches Joe Friel & Gordo Byrn.  Tomorrow will involve a 50 minute swim, 90 minute rest, 4:30 cycle, 90 minute rest and a 2:00 run.  All up just over 7 hours of training for the day.  I will report back promptly.  Promise.

Dress Rehearsal

The weekend just gone was the 2011 Taupo Half Ironman.  This was a big deal for me in a lot of ways.  Firstly it was a big race and very much beyond anything I had done for over 20 years.  It was also held on the same location as the real deal next March so it was good to get a feel for the course.  As an indicator of how the training has gone it would pretty much prove what my feelings were prior to going in. 

The weekend started off flying out from Melbourne with bike bag in tow.  A hearty breakfast in the first class lounge was a great way to start and at least allowed me to ignore the normal airline slop on board.  Then a quick call in to Mt Eden Cycles for supplies on Friday morning before the flight to Taupo.  Best bike shop in Auckland if you ever need it.

The Taupo weather was fantastic on landing and my fears of shivering through the race seemed baseless.  Friday afternoon was spent re-assembling the bike, registering at the event centre, and general nervous  nothingness.  Jim & Anne, the in-laws, were very accommodating with running me back & forth to the race and putting up with getting woken at 5:00 am on race day.  This was another concern for me, to fly in pretty much at the last minute and have to get up at the equivalent of 2 in the morning Brisbane time to try and get the body moving.  In the end it was not that bad and a reasonable sleep was had.

Anyway to the race.

After a lovely day on Friday, the next morning was cold and drizzly.  I had worked backwards from the race start, accounting for race briefing, transition setup, eating, driving and so on.  I was a bit lucky because I didn’t pick up that transition was closing at 6:00.  I walked in with six minutes to spare, so a bit of a rush but it all worked out.

After race briefing the time had come to get in the water.  It sure was cold but the wetsuit seemed to be doing its job.  This was my first real swim in it and thankfully it worked out ok.  The swim went reasonably well, I always knew that I had not done enough training in the swim to push for a time but also knew that the distance was not really going to pose a problem.  The franticness of it all was something I had forgotten about with knocks to the head and people swimming straight over the top of you.  Even so the swim was pretty comfortable and even though the time, officially 35:03 was slower than I wanted I was never going to push too hard so early on.  Happy so far.

The next stage of the race, which took me by surprise, is the transition from swim to bike.  Now obviously this has to happen, but at Taupo it involves running maybe 400 metres in your wetsuit, across a ribbon of fake grass on asphalt.  Before being aware of this extended run I had expected transition to take 2-4 minutes and ended up taking seven.  So while I wasn’t panicking there were an extra 5 minutes on the clock.

So onto the bike.  The weather is still cool, it is just after 7am after all, and there is still sporadic drizzle and even rain to keep the temperature down further.  At the last minute I had chucked a thermal top into the bag and so that went on before setting off. The ride goes out to Reporoa and back, and apart from the initial climb out of town of about 100m is reasonably flat.  Again I was trying to not push too hard too early here and a number of riders passed me, many of whom I would pass again as we all came back into town nearly 3 hours later.  It was a bit of an eye opener to see the number of packs that seemed to be pretty blatantly drafting (slipstreaming) as they went past.  There were also plenty who got nabbed by the marshals for a 3 minute stand down so there was some justice.  I found the ride to be my best segment of the day, helped a lot by finding a good layout for the aero bars and thus able to spend long stints in a very comfortable and efficient position.  I had set a pretty mild benchmark of 3 hours, or 30kph,  for the ride and managed to beat that easily in 2:48 for a 32k + average speed, I was pretty happy at that point.  Hydration and gel intake was pretty much OK, perhaps some more water would have been ideal.

The run was always going to be the toughest part of the day, and so it proved.  The day was warming up by then to add to the difficulty.  Heading out on to the run I was feeling pretty good considering I had been out there for over 3 hours already.  After the first lap it seemed that I would run about 1:44 which would have been a good time.  As it turned out the second lap is where it all started to come apart.  On this lap I dropped 12 minutes compared to the first lap and spent a bit of time walking.  It started off with walking through the aid stations to make sure I got fluids in, but then became a bit more frequent.  After having a mental estimate of finishing in 5:20 after run lap 1 I found myself calculating with about 2k to go that I was now not going to make 5:30.  So a quick cup of coke from the aid station and set off to try for my original target time.  The end result of pushing pretty solidly was crossing the finish line in 5:30:05 and I was pretty happy with that in the end.

 I found the whole day to be pretty tough, and the thought of doing twice the distance is pretty daunting.  Although 4 days later and not feeling so washed out, I can be a bit more positive.  The best thing from the day was that it reinforced all the feelings I had regarding where my training was at.  Swim OK but need more distance, Bike comfortable, and the run well short on distance and so it proved.

Big weekend to get back on track.

The last few weeks have been pretty disrupted.  We had a family walk planned over the Tora Walk in the Waiarapa in lower North Island.  While the walk was only 3 days the travelling and preparation put a pretty sizeable dent in just over a week of training.  Then upon the return there is work to catch up on, crises to combat, grumbles to placate.  All in all it adversely impacted on 3 consecutive weeks.  On the plus side the walk itself was great, rubbish weather, but we all had a great time and the food and scenery was just great.  Check out the walk on http://www.toracoastalwalk.co.nz.

Another plus was being back in Wellington and being able to take advantage of Mt Victoria.  For those not familiar with Wellington this is an amazing section of inner city greenbelt, rising to almost 200 metres from the harbour.  It has amazing tracks, soft underfoot opening up to fantastic views of the harbour and surrounds.  When we lived in Wellington this was my favourite training area.  So it was great to get back and flog myself up and over the hills.

Anyway as the title suggests the weekend just gone was a pretty good lead in to getting the training back on track.  With only 2 weeks to go until the Taupo Half Ironman event (http://www.halfironmantaupo.co.nz) I knew I needed to get some confidence over the distances.

On Friday I started the weekend with a solid lunch time swim session with the Red Dog Tri club.  I had considered going running but it was very hot & humid hitting 28C so a swim was a far more pleasant option.   A good start to the weekend with 2k lapped out in the hour.

Saturday morning was even hotter.  I planned a ride down to Tamborine and back which is around 125k, this went pretty well even with the recorded temp hitting 38 deg.  I drank 2 large bottles in the first 3 hours, which was probably not enough and the another 2 in the last 90 minutes.  So it was not an overly fast ride averaging only around 27 deg but it was very hot and there was never any attempt to push the pace along.

Finally Sunday, still too hot, and a solid run just short of 2 hours.  I drank a lot of water on the way and at times deliberately walked for a minute or two.  The focus was to stay out for a long time and by using this as a pacing strategy I managed it.  Again the heat made the whole thing a lot harder and there is no way it will feel that hard in Taupo where the temp will be mid 20’s at best.

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