Follow your nose Nigel

With the Olympic Distance Triathlon World Champs only a few weeks away, I probably should have been doing intervals on the bike and gone for a run today but the weather was screaming 'Go for a long ride.'

Last week I created a 'Bucket List' of training rides and runs I'd like to do this season and saw today as the ideal opportunity to tick one of the rides off.

The ride was into Wellington, loop around climbing all the major hills and back out through the Western Hills (Belmont).
I did it today, 125km/ 5.20hrs/ 1940m of climbing, all safely in the bank.

I didn't have a clear plan on where to go, I just followed my nose and as long as I was climbing, I was going in the right direction.  I had no idea there were so many steep streets in Wellington!!!

Route:
Up and over Mt Vic, around the Prison, up Hungerford Rd through South Gate dropping down to Berhampore, up Britomart St to Brooklyn and carried on up to the wind turbine, up Aro Valley and finished off by climbing up Wrights Hill in Karori.

Wellington Scottish Athletics Club 3 Peaks, Event 1

The Wellington Scottish Athletics Club holds a series of races where you are given a map and three hill tops to reach. Any route can be taken. For event 1, the hill tops were Johnstons, Chartwell and Tinakori.  Click here for the results and information on the next two races. 

Crazyman Race Report -Chasing My Own Shadow

I had a few issues with my new toy (Gopro 2 Outdoors).  As they say, never try anything new on race day, guess the same applies to digital gear as well :)  Hopefully have the fogging issue sorted now so looking forward to the next race.  I can't imagine the Wellington Marathon will be as exciting though.

Race Report

I grew up reading about Steve Gurney and how he was willing to try new things during multisport races, so when the new course was announced for the 2012 Crazyman, I’d thought I’d push the boundaries.  To cover myself, on the Thursday before the race, I emailed Michael Jacques (the Race Organiser) asking if I could switch bikes, he was very supportive of my idea.  He replied, “No rule against it Ed... Yet  :-)  I like races that leave things open to a bit of tactical manoeuvring...”

Hmmm, wonder what I can do next year?

I knew I didn’t have the leg speed on my mountain bike to stay with the front bunch as they raced up the Hutt River Trail, so I decided to start on my cyclocross bike and switch bikes at the start of the hill climb.  There was no point in using the cyclocross bike for the entire race as my mountain bike would be both faster and more ENJOYABLE on the downhills.

The 2012 course was switched to the other side of the Hutt Valley.  It started in Petone and returned through the hills of the Belmont Regional Park.  The bike leg started with everyone spread out across a soccer field which soon narrowed to a gap under a bridge.  A great way to start a race and it must have looked impressive for the spectators.

I don’t know about everyone else but my heart was red lining right from the start.  I managed to slowly work my way up to the back of the front bunch just in time for the first major obstacle, a sty.  There were a few of these, on one hand they were frustrating as they allowed the bunches to split, on the other they gave us a chance to catch our breath.  These little stops worked out perfectly for me because it gave me a chance to get my heart rate down.

At the bottom of the Dry Creek climb, Greg was waiting with my mountain bike and ready to attach my new camera to my helmet.  It was a smooth transition and the last chance to catch my breath before the most challenging climb of the day.

While climbing up Dry Creek to Boulder Hill the weather was stunning!!!  The views were fantastic and the downhills were superb.  I spent most of the ride chasing my shadow.  Sadly the ride had to come to an end and it finished with a fast descent then a short ride beside a creek to transition. 

As I neared transition, runners were going the other way.  A few people that I didn’t recognise shot past.  Then I heard those spine chilling words in an American accent, “Go Ed!”  Bugger! Matt was in front and he was looking strong.  How far was transition?  How long would it take to get my running shoes on?  How long would it take to run back to this spot?  These were all questions that were running through my head which was crazy.  Matt and Jeff were a team and were a sure bet to beat me, yet I still hoped Matt’s, ‘lack of fitness’ would slow him down.  It didn’t, we ended up running similar times.  Next year boys!!!

The run started off by going down the same track that I had just biked up.  It was a nice warm-up before we had to start running up the Belmont Trig Track.  Luckily it only went for 1km, the whole time I was thinking, don’t walk.

Once we turned left, we were running along a narrow walking track, mainly downhill to Korokoro Dam.  It was a fantastic track to run on, beautiful forest and lots of small creek crossings.  From the dam I thought we just had to run out Mills Stream Track (a track the follows Mills Stream until it almost reaches the harbour).  Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware that a detour had been included.  It meant that about ¼ of the way out, we took a right and had to scramble up a hill face.  It was a fun detour, one I hope no one else was able to run as I found it difficult.  The descent was great, a fast open track with slightly wider stream crossings.  We popped back out on Mills Stream Track and it was a case of holding my position.  There was one person in front of me that I tried to run down but we seemed to be going the same speed. The gap remained the same until the finish line which was on Petone Beach.

Wellington Contact Triathlon Race Report

It’s Funny How Things Work Out!



The Great Arthur Lydiard



I spent the best part of a year training for the NZ Ironman, focusing on a slow and consistent pace which incidentally led to my fastest Olympic Distance Triathlon and landed me a spot on the New Zealand Triathlon team.  Maybe that ‘Kiwi’ guy, Arthur Lydiard was on to something.

The big question for me was, ‘How do I recover from a half ironman in 5 days???’  I came up with, CCCD - (Chocolate – AKA Easter Eggs, Coca Cola, Compression tights and lots of Deep Heat), rest was a given.

I had a very easy week and didn’t start easing into exercise until Thursday morning which consisted of a 5 x 100m swim followed by 100m of aqua jogging.  In the afternoon I went for an easy 45min spin on my road bike.  Friday, repeated Thursday’s pool session and in the afternoon a 15min spin followed by a 15min jog.

Saturday morning (race day), the weather Gods decided to come to the party and everyone woke to a still calm day, the harbour could have been mistaken for a mirror.  It’s true what they say, “nothing beats Wellington on a good day!”

 

I arrived at the transition nice and early, racked my bike and headed back to my car to ‘suit up.’  As the competitors were putting their wetsuits on, the announcer informed us that the water was a fresh 13 degrees.  I don’t know where they took their reading but thankfully the sea felt a lot warmer than that.

Age groups went off in 5 min intervals. As usual, I was on the FAR right.  I don’t know what happened in the bunch, but I had a clean swim and made sure I was aiming for the correct buoys.  Dear I say it, I was actually enjoying the swim until about 100m from the finish when someone’s heel collided with my eye.  Luckily my goggles took the impact and stayed on.

Transition was smooth with no one in my way.  On the bike, it was business as usual, to make up for lost time during the swim.  There were two guys willing to push the pace with me until we caught our age group’s front bunch.  It seemed people were happy to sit on BUT not let anyone ride away.  The bike ride felt like a PNP road race.  A few of us even caught the lead bunch from the age group that started 5 minutes before us which had Luke in it.  Luke and I prefer cycling to running and the last thing we wanted was for a big bunch to arrive at T2 together because we knew it would then come down to a running race and no one wants that!  

The bunch got whittled down to about 10 of us from 4 different age groups (25 – 29, 30-34, 35-39 & 40 – 44) as we rolled into T2.  Putting on tight socks was a mistake as I was easily the last person out of transition.

On the run, I was feeling good and knew I had to limit how many people in my age group passed me.  There seemed to be quite a few and unfortunately, I had no control over how fast they could run.  At the 7.5km mark, Luke shouted out some words of encouragement and something went off in my head.  I knew I could run faster than I had been and survive the last 2.5km so I went for it.  The finish line couldn’t come soon enough! Only one other guy in my age group passed me on the way back (he ran 36min)!

The big question was, was I still in contention of qualifying to make the worlds team?

At the finishing area it was great talking to people from all over New Zealand and hearing how their races went.  One guy did mention how rough the roads were around the bays – you mean there are roads out there that don’t have potholes every couple of hundred metres?



Since I had a few hours to kill, I went home, packed away my TT bike and dusted off the mountain bike which I’ll need for the Porirua Grand Traverse in a few weeks.

4 o’clock finally rolled round and it was time to see if I made the team.  There, in the last slot for my age group was my name. 



Arthur Lydiard and Peter Snell

In the finish, it was my run that got me there, 10km in 40.16.  I don’t really understand the science of how I was able to run that fast (fast for me and by far a P.B) without doing any speed work, but I will certainly be spending some more time researching Arthur Lydiard’s training principles, they work!!!!