Life On Call

I’ve ended up writing this in 2 different plant rooms in to different suburbs while I’ve waited for high temp alarms to clear on systems. One part of my job is being on a rotating after hours on call roster. Not bad for the money if you can bag enough call outs but can wreck your training for not only the week on it but the following week after it if you don't manage your fatigue levels.

Seeing though I’ve had to have my phone on me and be able to jump in the work car as soon as a call comes though, my training is pretty much limited to the wind trainer and weights. With that in mind I made sure i had a few big, for me, swim weeks just before going on call. When it came around my upper body was thanking me for a week off. In those 2 weeks I did end up making some pretty solid gains and improvements so was please.

I was pretty happy with my weekend training block I was able to put together. Wind trainer session friday night, saturday, sunday morning and weight sessions based of what long track speed skaters doing in the gym saturday and sunday arvo. These gym session hurt big time and leave your legs like jelly and end up find some solid gains from doing them without needing to do a great deal of them. Started to find my old bike legs on Sunday which was great coz they have been missing for a fair bit. Hopefully I can get my bike back up to where it should be and not where its been for about the last 6 months.

Race schedule is now pretty much complete with Geelong Long Course and IM Melbourne being my 2 goal races with a few club races thrown in for training. I have been a bit iffy about doing Geelong but have decided to add it in for a number of reasons. One I would like to put together one really good race this summer and get a strong result. Banking everything on a Ironman when its your first time over the distance is a little risky. Two it allows me to build up my results list and gain some more exposure. Three I just love to race. Now there is key thing for Geelong, I will shut it down on the run if I have to if I’m not right. I cant afford to go to deep 6 weeks out from an IM. Swim and bike I’m not worried about pushing but my legs still haven't fully adapted to fast running just yet, they can go pretty hard but it comes at a high muscle damage price.

Thats all for now
Hopper

Getting Back Into The Swing of Things

A few weeks have past since my last update so thought I would give a bit of an update. Trainings been slowly progressing. I’ve been mainly working on my swimming these last few weeks knowing thats the thing I have to work on the most. I’m happy with how I’m progressing at this time, distance is going up and times are slowly coming down with the biggest improvement being that I’m getting more comfortable in the water. I'm not so worried about drowning anymore. These gains have come at a bit of a cost. Fatigue levels at the moment are fairly high and are effecting other sessions on land. At the moment I’m not to concerned as I know what i need to get down and how long it takes to get it done on land. Another thing behind the fatigue and the main reason for suffering with other training has been some changes to my diet that I haven’t quite got right. Diet changes being introduced are aimed at improving my fuel economy. I’ve eating very similar to this way before a few years back with a fair bit of success but this was when I was just a cyclist. I’ve got it dialed for one afternoon session a day during the week. Now that I’m swimming in the morning and then training again in the afternoon and my upper body muscles are currently inefficient which make both fuel volume and timing critical. This is the thing I need to work on and am slowly getting it to where in needs to be.

I'm just putting the finish touches on my program up to Ironman Melbourne and will update my race schedule when finalized as well as updating the rest of my pages. From Thursday I become a slave to the wind trainer and treadmill for a week thanks to having to be “on call” for work. Pretty much a week of waiting 24/7 for my phone to go off and head back off to work.

Until next time
Hopper

The Year Ahead

Well its now 3 weeks since Powerman Zofingen has been run and won which means its time for me to get back into some formalized training. Thesepast weeks have been used to give the body both a physical and more important mental break from the day to day stresses of training. I’ve also used this time wisely by looking over the last 12 months, working out what i did right, what i did wrong, what needs to change or be worked on as well as planning out the next 12 months of racing with some big and exciting changes for me moving forward. 

First of I will be racing at Ironman Melbourne. There is a couple of reasons why I’m doing this race. One is that I want to finish an ironman and when the opportunity comes up in your home town to do so I had to enter. Secondly this will be used as a training day and to gain more experience in long course racing. As an athlete wanting to specialize in long course duathlon and lack of LD duathlon in Aus there is not many chances to gain experience. The Big challenge for me is pretty straight forward, I struggle in the water so I’ll be spending plenty of time in the water in the lead up. I have no goal time for the IM, the aim is to finish. There are objectives that I want to get out of the race but by not setting a goal time allows me to spend the extra time I need in the water without putting pressure on me to fit in enough bike and run work to go “fast”.

My main race for the year will be Powerman Zofingen again. 2013 will mark the 25th year of the race so will be a big one to compete in. This race means the world to me personally and even if I went well enough in IM Melbourne to qualify for Kona I would roll it down. The races are to close together and both deserve your full focus. By doing both I don't think you would be giving ether race the respect the require. With some luck I’m hoping to get TA backing so I’ll be able to compete for Australia in the ITU section this time meaning I can race for an ITU world title. Also I’m hoping to help promote this race and get a few more Aussies to come across this time other than just me flying the flag. Not totally sure on how I’m going to do this yet but am working on a few things.

Training wise I’m going back to basics and keeping it as simple as I can. Working in 14 day cycles built around a few key sessions that are to work on some key areas I need to improve with base sessions filling in the gaps. Ended up picking the 14 day cycle over the 7 as it just allows me to speed things out a little more. I’ll post more on this in the coming weeks.

Thats all for now. at this stage my next race will be the Vic Duathlon Titles in a few weeks time, just depends on how the body’s going once it gets back into training.

Hopper

Powerman Zofingen Race Report

Hey hey, its been a few days now since Powerman Zofingen has be run and won. This is less my race report and more what I’ve learned over here training, racing and observing on course over the past week.

Race morning I was ready to race legs felt good and felt that I had a solid performance in me. I didn't have the best sleep the night before thanks to a bit of pre race nerves but I wasn’t feeling the effects of it. The start rolled around and the bang off straight up the first climb. Started out on the first lap just a fraction to quickly by about 2-5sec/km. Then came a pretty big mistake. The plan was to take on 200-300ml of my own sports drink at the end of lap one trying to get a quick start on my nutrition. Straight away the stomach was not liking that idea and around the top of the climb on lap 2 the sports drink was no more. Took it easy back down to T1 and started to recover.

Out on the bike legs felt good straight away, power under control and passing people with easy. I played it what I thought safe with nutrition and waited till about 40min on the bike to start taking on cals. My stomach didn't like that idea at all and continued to dislike cals of any form until around 30km to go on the bike. I stat up on the bike on lap 2 hoping lower power and not riding aero would help but I was out of luck. The food came a little to late for me and started to bonk with 20km to go. Lucky I was getting cals down at that stage but those last 20km were painful.

Got to the start of the second run and all I can say is ouch! I pretty much spent the first 22.5km of the 30km run walking the climbs and jogging the rest from aid station to aid station as thats all my body could manage. Even walking the climbs I had to focus hard mentally on moving forward and straight. I took on 2 cups of water, 1 of coke at every aid station and a gel and every second. At the final turn around I finally seemed to get just enough sugar into my system again to manage a faster pace on the flat and the descents and a faster walk on the climbs. Then I hit the final downhill where my quads just went no more. I forced my way down that final climb the best i could to finish in just under 9hrs. I finished 3rd in my category thanks to 2 other athletes not showing up. I’ll take a bronze at a world title race although I feel my real position is 7th as thats the position I finished in my age group based off times. To long to explain in detail but each age group had 2 categories.    


Now what I’ve learned from the race:

• Do not take on nutrition n during the first run, the amount you gain is way outweighed by the amount you could potentially lose

• On the second run, even the pros are walking. I saw a number of pros outside the top 7 on the male side walking on the final run and still putting in competitive run times.

• TT bike kills a road bike. The easy at which I could pass people on road bikes on the flat descents was unexpected even for me for how little power I was putting out.

• The heavier you are the more perfect day you need to go as fast as you potential.

• Do not ware racing flats unless you light. The rocky surface will bruise your feet if there isn’t enough cushioning in them. I would usually ware racing flats.

Planning for next session is already happening, another big challenge planned and hope to come back to Zofingen stronger, smarter, lighter and faster.

Hopper 

The Bike Course

I  thought i would do a bit of a detailed section on the bike course and some tips and key points i feel that you need to go quick. The bike course here often get over looked by athletes wanting to go fast mainly due to the difficulty of the final run. Whats interesting is at an elite level the race is often won on the bike here. Firstly I will say you need to be “bike race fit” and not “tri bike fit”. By that I mean this course has lots of pace and power changes, even the long climbs are not very constant with there gradients. there is a whole lot of little, steep rollers that force you punch over them. Even if you don't really punch over the rollers by just having the ability to your legs will be fresher for that final run.

The course itself is made up of a 50km lap with between 500 and 600m of climbing that you do 3 times. Roads are generally smooth and they are pretty fast. There is 3 main climbs that are fairly steep which are followed by generally shallow descents which you will have to pedal down to keep any speed up. It for that reason why a TT/Tri bike is a key here. I will say this is the first course I’ve rode where i have felt electronic shifting would be extremely beneficial to going quick. Climbs are always changing gradient and being to shift on the base bars as well as under load will mean its easy to be in the right gear at the right time, not only saving a little time on the bike but possibly also on the second run as you shouldn't get caught pushing to big a gear. I personally break the lap into 7 sections based on key geographical markers

Section 1 is the first 8km of the loop to the base of the first climb. Once out of town your on a false flat climb with a few rollers thrown in. Theres a nice long straight section where you can do the Tony Martin head bob. Its fairly easy to keep the pace high without wasting to much juice depending on wind.

Section 2 is the first main climb 4.7km with a 3% ave gradient. This climb is pretty quick for the first half then kick up through the trees the last 1.5km. Once over the top you hit the next section which is a descent to the base of the next climb, Starts of steep and quick the flattens out with a few little rises along the way to slow things down.

Climb 1

Section 4 is the Bodenberg. This climb is a leg killer, 4.5km 5.2% ave max of 15%. Don't be fooled by the 5.2% average, this climb you are ether at less 2% or above 8%. This climb is where your bike fitness comes into play. the last part of the climb is pretty fast and can make up some time if you can push it over the top. 

The Bodenberg

 Next up is section 5 which is also the longest section, a 13.5km descent. At the very top of the climb there a section just over a km long at -7% although you cant hit it to hard as its twists left and right the whole way with a tight right hander to finish it off meaning a lot of you speed gained is washed straight off. The next 12km to finish the section off is at a -1.7% average. This is one of the key sections where riding a TT bike and Disk has a large advantage. This section also has a lot of little steep rollers that act like speed bumps, killing any speed you have.

Now its time for the final main climb, about 2km long. Its a fast climb through as you twist through a forest. This is the only climb with a consistent gradient which is at about 4%. Once over the top of that its around 11km back to the start of the loop. Its pretty much downhill for the first 6km then there is a larger roller then a couple of small rollers in the last 2km.

The Final Climb

So there you have it a lap of the Powerman Zofingen bike course.

Hopper

4 Days To Go!

Hay Hay,

As I'm sitting here writing this are first thunderstorm has just rolled in. Today was my last key training session before the race. Only ended up being a 50km ride but there was a bit of race pace thrown in there. Legs were all but over the plane trip and its still 4 days out from race day so timing was perfect for me to open up the legs a bit. I know this may seem close to the race for some people but for me personally I do best with a short solid hit out around 4-5 days out on the bike. The whole idea was to do all 3 climbs at race power output as well parts of the other section of the course. Legs felt good, power was there on the climbs and more importantly legs recovered quickly between efforts which will become very important and key to going quick on race day. Tomorrow I have a easy ride and a short run planned. Parts of Team USA have showed up at are hotel and by the looks of things are using it as there base. They have a 50km group ride planned tomorrow so might try to tag along with them so i can sit in for a bit.

Hopper

Hello From Zofingen

Hey all, I’ve been in Zofingen for just over a day now. All my gear made it here nice and safe which is great. Weathers been ideal since getting here 24 degrees the first day and 30 today. The hotel we are staying in is really nice with supper friendly staff that were very apologetic that are room was not ready when we showed up 3hrs before cheek in opened. We were pretty quick to explain that we didn't care about that all we wanted to do was dump all are stuff there. The town itself is a mix of old and new. Right in the center of town it is all old euro style building with cobbled streets. The Hotel is only a few hundred meters from the race venue which will make staggering back to my room after the race that little bit easier. 

Yesterday I went out and did a bit of a recon run over both the 1st and 2nd run courses. These runs are going to be interesting. The legs felt pretty ordinary but was expected as it was my first session off the plane. Pacing is going to be hard to get right and going to be totally off feel. going up hill you can be running as slow as 7min/k pace while still working fairly hard then your running 3:30 pace with HR in zone one. Straight out of the start of the first run there is a 1.5km climb that progressively gets steeper as it goes until you head off the road and onto a forest path then its undulating for the next km then its downhill back to the transition area. The 1.5-2km back to transition is also the first bit of the second run whic is an out and back course. I played it smart and just picked up the second run course from there, after all it is taper week and the less uphill running I do the better. From there you continue uphill for another 1km then its undulating through the forest all the way out to the turn around still mainly of these forest tracks with a little on roads and paths. The course at the far end lops back on it self a fair bit so was able to cut a few km off coming back into town. The surface of these forest tracks are nice. It seems to be a clayey soil as a base with small stone pressed into it which makes for a fast yet forgiving surface. 

Today I headed out for my first look at the bike course. The course is tough hard climbs with long shallow descents that mean you are going to be working the whole time. The road surface is fast and smooth, worth around 1-3kph compared to most of the roads I train on back home which is a nice little bonus. the course like the run pretty much contains no flat sections, even when you think it is flat its really a false flat climbing or descending. Legs were still not the best from the trip so kept the body in first gear on the ride except on the Bodenberg where I opened the legs up to a race pace effort. Legs felt pretty good climbing which is a plus. The Bodenberg itself is a beast 4.5km long 5.2% ave gradient max of 15%. The gradient is always changing, one min your at 11kph and the next your at 30kph. the first 1-2km off the Bodenberg is the one of the few places you get to rest as you go through a few left right combos.

Thats all for now, will do another update in the next day or 2

Hopper

Its Finally Time

Wow its here, tomorrow night I fly out to Switzerland to undertake what is the first real race as a multisport athlete, Powerman Zofingen. Its been a long, challenging road that I’ve been down these last 10 months since deciding that I was going to undertake this massive change and do this race. The biggest thing going through my head right now is am I ready, which to be perfectly honest with myself I’m as ready as I can be for this years race. The pieces are starting to come together. Legs have felt good these past few sessions and all meaningful training is all finished. Now its all up to what I can put down on race day.

The last 10 months has been a massive change for for me personally. I made the decision to move away from cycling and into multisport. Sure having 3 solid seasons behind me as a cyclist has helped but its really chalk and cheese. Biggest thing has been teaching my body how to run again, big cyclist legs and running fast over a long distance are 2 things that don’t work that well together. Its not just the running but that I’ve had to change but also my cycling abilities changing my body from from being able to jump out of corners every 15 sec at max effort to being able to put out a smoother, less erratic power distribution.

Now you might ask what the hell is Powerman Zofingen? Well pretty much is the biggest longest duathlon. 10km run, 150km bike and a 30km run to finish off with plenty of elevation change over all 3 segments. I’ll go more into the race and its details over the next few posts. People ask why this race and I usually say because I can. To me personally this race will always be bigger than what Kona is. I first saw this race as a 10 year old on TV and even since has been the top of races I’ve wanted to do. It was the first race that I ever saw that i could be good at in multi sport, no swim, long distance, and just plan hard. So hard in fact that the great Mark Allan is on the record as saying this was the hardest race he’s done. This race is hard for the exact opposite reasons as Kona. Kona is known for the heat and the wind, Zofingen is know for the cold, rain and hills.

Thats all for now, time to finish packing everything up then to spend 24hrs or so in transit

Until then
Hopper