Friday, January 05, 2007
The year of living dangerously
A life in pictures...
1. Morning of Around the Bay in a Day: cold cold cold, with my trusty Road Runner mojo. 250km later, we stuffed ourselves with a big fry-up.
2. Ending a bit of cross-training fun at the finish line of the Mt. Macedon TEVA Sprint AR: Brendan, Mark, and me. After a lay-off of 8 months from adventure racing, i still had it in me!
3. In-between laps of the Australian 24 Hour MTB Championships: checking the team's progress through the field of 3000 other riders.
4. One thing i didn't like about Ironman: the pre- and post awards ceremonies - aka the mutual masturbation sessions. =(
5. Doing the comic-book superhero gig at the transition area of Ironman Western Australia 2006.
Monday, January 01, 2007
The journey so far...
Well, i am back in the thick of training again - this time for the Speight's Coast to Coast multisport race in New Zealand next month. Which is good.... I'm just not into the whole road triathlon thing at the moment. Give me off-road anytime.
One thing that i have not been able to escape has been the road cycling. It is one of the most stressful disciplines, and i do not relish the thought of having to commit long periods of time at it. Riding in packs is not something i look forward to, but then again i have been pretty much of a loner all this while when it comes to training. Also, I'm just not sure of my time-trialling pacing on my road bike... and as i've mentioned before, i think i rode too conservatively on my debut Ironman to fully exploit the gains i have made in this discipline.
Well, the good thing is that i can back up my performance at WA with Coast. Always learn from past shortcomings. I'd like to see a more decent effort on the bike sections.
The key to this race is of course the mountain running and whitewater kayaking. So far i've been working at hill strength (both up and down), and the kayak fitness is coming back up to the point where i can maintain 60% HR for 3 hours+. Still got to get comfortable with the cramped cockpit though, and getting out onto the bay to paddle in chop is also a high priority. The canoe polo has stopped for a couple of weeks now, which is bad, so i have to back up with alternate training.
In the meantime, i'm really holding on to my swimming technique now. An easy swim once a week for maintenance really does help the overall Coast campaign in terms of loosening up and avoiding upper body tightness and injury.
OK, i've dropped my weight from 67kg to 63.5kg over the past 8 months. Spent a bomb on a digital bathroom scale (measures to 0.1kg accuracy), so it is commitment on another front to aid race performance. I'm intent on getting rid of 0.5kg more to boost the power-weight ratio and help the mountain running fitness along. The VO2Max value will benefit too.
On other fronts, i'm gearing up for some serious downtime (with an eye on aforementioned bathroom scale of course) after Coast. I would like to keep my weight at 64kg for at least a month, but it is gonna take some work on the nutrition, especially with me gorging on all the fantastic food i so very much like! I'll think of other activities to do to keep the calories burning. After that month... back on the job again, lose the extra kilo (again), build some semblance of hill strength, then tackle my first AR of 2007!!! Which event will that be...???
