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Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12
Welcome to another round of Epic Updates. This time, I find myself in a different position than the last two camps — more on that in a second. With my computer crashing over the Christmas holiday, I haven’t had a chance to write much. So, a range of topics have built up in my mind. What I’ll be doing over the next two weeks is mixing daily updates with some ideas on training, physiology and some other topics that I think you might like. Molina says that I can argue about anything. Well, that might be true. Since he said that, I have noticed that I do tend to take the counter position quite often, perhaps for the sake of it. I prefer to think that I enjoy discussions (or debates) rather than arguments. My girlfriend, Shanerella, notes that I have the ability to twist any given set of words into a structure to suit my needs. Why are these two points relevant? Well, I plan on doing a bit of twisting and discussing of some topics that I’ve been thinking about over the last few months. Hopefully, it will provide you with some food for thought. +++ In the face of overwhelming fire power, it pays to reassess one’s strategy in the face of one’s competitors. At this Epic Camp, I’ll be joined by Bjorn Anderssen (Mister Anderssen) and Clas Bjorling (The Baron). Mr. A and the Baron are, respectively, two of the best cyclists and runners in our sport. Come to think of it, with Larsen retiring, I’d put Mister Anderssen up against any of the top riders. Baron, well, he had the fastest second run split at the World Long Course Duathlon Champs (held in Zofingen last year). Training with these guys on a daily basis, it’s important to remember how strong they are. Things can get a bit depressing otherwise. Over the last two weeks, I have to admit to being a bit melancholy about the approach of Epic. I wasn’t sure how to deal with the pasting that was inevitably heading my way. I had to figure out some personal goals to keep me motivated even if I was well out of contention. So, I went to my key strength – absorbing and recovering from high volume training. I’ve set myself a goal to beat my 12-day personal best for training volume. That PB was set last May when I did my Vegas-to-Boulder tour. Twelve days, 84 hours. Topping that training camp is an ambitious target (especially with a Half Ironman nestled in the middle), but I’ll be giving it a go. As a fall back goal, I’ll be looking for 90 hours over the next two weeks. Our camp ends in Taupo and I’ll be staying there for a couple of easy days on the Ironman New Zealand course – if I don’t get too smoked then I should be able to tack ten hours onto the back end of Epic. However, if history is any indication then simply getting out of bed could be a big enough challenge for the first 48 hours post-Epic. Other goals? Well, I would like to beat Mister Anderssen at something (anything) on the bike at least once. This is a challenging goal given that his aerobic threshold watts are approximately equal to my lactate threshold watts (gives him a little edge). If I bide my time then I hope that I might get an opening. Aside from those goals, I am taking a more relaxed attitude this time. In previous Epics, I felt pressure to be at the front all the time — contesting every KOM, sprint — pulling as much as possible. I feel a little on edge right now, so don’t think that would be wise. I want to grab an IMH slot in Taupo so drilling myself to oblivion in January isn’t the best game plan. My overall Ironman New Zealand training strategy is a period of monster overload in January, rest up and then a mid-February cycle of max steady state training. So my period for smoking myself is a little later in my IMNZ build-up. At least that’s what I say now! Something about the group dynamic of Epic makes it very tough to be mellow on the days when you are feeling strong. +++ Bike Racing I kicked my year off with a four-day bike tour at the top of the South Island. The Tour de Vineyards ran from Jan 1st to 4th. It started and finished with 40K stages and the two stages in the middle were 90K and 130K respectively. Aside from the first day, the racing was very tough. Each day, I tended to finish mid-pack and I found the stages a very easy way (mentally) to lay down some tough cycling. If you’ve followed my writing over the last few years then you’ll know that I am very cautious on the use of intensity. Well, Scott is a little less cautious. In fact, I’d say that the use of intensity is probably our area of greatest philosophical difference. I agree that intensity is effective, it’s just that I’ve found over the years that most athletes tend to train 10% harder than is required — soon as a session calls for mod-hard to hard pace, we are all drilling ourselves. At the tour, I raced with the Vets and the Ladies — this was a lot more tolerable than three years ago when I was in the A Race. That time, they had the finish line taken down by the time I finished the first three stages (DNS on Stage Four). This time, life was a lot more reasonable. I managed to beat (most of) the over 50s and therefore the finish line was standing each day! I find high levels of lactate very fatiguing and bike racing certainly involves repeated levels of high lactate as well as many pace changes (another thing that wipes me out). I also seem to have a bit of a mental block with being in a situation where other people are dictating the pace to me — or more accurately — deal misery to me! There’s a lot of that in bike racing. Having said all that, I have to admit that racing with the “Geezers” was a lot of fun. The sessions were tough, but I didn’t ride-to-the-wall each day and was able to keep my swim/run sessions rolling. I even managed a 45-hour training week over top of the race. Coming off the race, I rode back to Christchurch (420K or so) with Baron and Mister Anderssen. I then had a couple of easy days and raced the Port of Tauranga Half Ironman. Had a good race there, but I was real tired and my bike power was way down. Scott tells me that the benefits of the Stage Race are still to come — well, it’s been two weeks and I’ve yet to have a good ride. Perhaps, it’s just around the corner. To be fair, I never really perform great when I’m in the middle of a big training cycle. My pre-Epic week was an ‘easy’ week, but I still managed 30K of swimming with a 30-hour structure. Perhaps I have a bit of that fear of rest that Ironman athletes are famous for... So tomorrow will be an interesting day for me. Mister Anderssen told me that I need to spend more time on my TT bike if I want to ride strong at IMNZ. He knows a thing or two about cycling (more on that in future editions), so I’ve decided to start my tour on my Trek. My road bike is superior for sprinting, descending and climbing. The Trek, however, is excellent for going fast in a straight line — exactly what I hope to do on March 6th. Given the difference in my bike positions, Mr. A has said that I have to bite the bullet and log more time on the Trek. I’ll let you know how it goes. Anyhow, that’s a fairly long start to our Kiwi Odyssey. Hope you enjoy the updates.
See ya,
What a day! One of the best days of training that I’ve ever experienced. Here’s how it went from my end. We kicked off at 6:30am with an easy run down to the swimming pool. After a ten minute warm-up we all did a 2,000-meter TT for time. I managed a PB time of 30 minutes (flat) in what Mister Anderssen called “a very slow pool”. He cruised to a 27-minute effort to take line honours. Baron and I went for a little bit extra and extended our swim out to a 5K effort. After the swim, Clas and I ran back to the motel — a pretty solid start to Epic. Our ride was a 166K effort that Cam had warned us would be undulating. When a Kiwi says undulating that typically means “relentless rollers” for most. The rollers were tough and as soon as Mister Anderssen went to the front, I rolled out of the back! After 50K I rode back on and congratulated myself until I heard that the lads had slowed down only because Baron had decked out on the first descent of the camp! Baron gets the second official Epic Crash. After we regrouped, we took it into the first KOM of the day — well some of us as Mister Anderssen was well up the road at this stage pushing his 58-tooth big ring. After the climbs we came out on the flats and were holding 50kph with a sweet tailwind — what we didn’t know was that Michael had broken his seat post behind us. Like a true Epic Man, he simply called the support vehicle and then continued out of the saddle until they reached him. He then installed Wy’s seat post and saddle and soloed in to lunch. Following lunch we had the pleasure of flying “Anderssen Air” into a big headwind. Rolling that big ring down the road — I was feeling a bit of suffering and started simply hanging on town-after-town as we powered over short rollers from bay-to-bay up the peninsula. Fun times didn’t last very long because soon we came to the first decent climb of Stage Two. At this stage we had four survivors — Mister Anderssen, Baron, Tri-Macca and me. Unfortunately for me, it turned out that the lads were all feeling more feisty than me and I went out the back fairly quickly. The climbs weren’t all that tough except for the fact that I was a bit shelled, was on my Trek, and only had a 42x23. I’ve been training on a 39x25 for the last year, but Mister Anderssen has been encouraging me to step-up my gearing to get stronger. We rolled into Coromandel Town one-by-one — helped the crew unload the trailer then headed out for our 10K ‘race’. It was a bit like a track race in that we all hung together until I got the urge to speed up with 3.5K to go (it only takes one joker to ruin it for everyone). Clas took off and Mister Anderssen counter-attacked me. I hung in for about 2K then he took the pace to 3:20 per K and blew me up! Not bad for a guy that is constantly claiming that he can’t run. That left me with a thought... perhaps I am actually running as fast as I can in an Ironman? Scott got a kick out of that when I told him later. Anyhow, Baron and I extended our runs to get to two hours for the day. We have distance/duration bonuses for 5K of swimming, 200K of cycling and two hours of running. That evening Scott christened our first Epic Babe, Marilyn... her new name is the Marinater • she took maximum points for the civilian divisions sprints and KOMs. As expected, Mister Anderssen ended the day in Yellow. Good work from the big man! 8.5 hours — two runs (two hours), one swim (5K, 90 minutes), two bike stages (166K, five hours) Another early start and another 5K swim session to start the day. What we’ve done this time is offer bonus points for certain swim sets. We are only allowed to score each set once during the camp. So, today I swam my 1,000 band only. After second breakfast we hopped on the bikes for a short (27K) ride over a few hills to Colville (the end of the paved road at the top of the Coromandel Peninsula). Our original plan had been to run over the top of Mt. Moehau — however — it turns out that hikers were bringing a fungus from one side of the mountain to the other so the mountain is closed for a bit. We went to Plan B! A pretty exciting cliff-side drive (Baron jumped into Mister Anderssen’s lap around one corner). Once we arrived in Fletcher Bay, I did a little research and we decided to take the ‘stock route’ over to Stony Bay and then the ‘flat route’ back. I like to warm-up and the lads gapped me right off the bat. So pretty solid pieces and the 500m ascent took us between 30-60 minutes depending on how we were feeling. Some of the lads took it out a bit hard and I managed to reel them in before the top... but not all of them! Baron was charging hard off the front and Mister Anderssen was keeping him honest. Scott was having a good morning and held me off for third. I’d warned the crew about downhill running, but it’s difficult to control yourself when you can hear your pals ‘just’ up the road. By the end of the long descent, there were five or six of us together. On the return leg from Stony Bay, there was a long moderate grade and I decided to do some max aerobic work to see if I could put some space between myself and some of the guys (done) as well as putting Mister Anderssen into a bit of jeopardy (not a chance). Baron shot off the front so Mister Anderssen and I were left alone. We ran the rest of the way easy to steady pace. There was a sprint bonus for 1/2/3 back to the car. Seeing as we were alone behind the Baron (and didn’t feel like drilling ourselves downhill), we agreed a modified finish line — Mister Anderssen took it again. I haven’t managed to get in front of him for a single swim, bike or run bonus! Descending the final hill, the Baron was running back up (to make sure that he got enough time for his two-hour run bonus). He told us that we’d better show a good sprint. When we told him that we’d worked out the positions about 3K ago he shook his head and said, “I hate you guys”. No doubt, he’d drilled himself right to the finish. The lads rolled in one-by-one, but there was a long gap until we saw the Marinator crest the final hill. It turns out that she’d taken a wrong turn and managed an extra 40 minutes of bonus training (2:40 of hills and trail for her!). We got back on the bikes and had two hours until the pool closed. Baron and I were looking for a two-swim bonus — Mister Anderssen was looking to get his first of the day done (he likes to sleep in). We made it home just before five and shuttled across to the pool. Once we were at the pool, the duel between the Vikings started. Mister Anderssen started with a single point for his 200 fly (2:30 SCM). Baron stepped up with a 20x50 band only (more dolphins than an episode of Flipper). Finally, Mister Anderssen rounded out the session with a 400 IM. Feeling inspired, and watching the Scandos duke it out, I went for (and made) my 400 IM. When we got back, Michael was out on his second run aiming for the three-hour run bonus. Not only did he manage that, but he sweet talked his way into the pool after hours to give himself the 5K swim bonus. Big day! Heading back from the pool, the Baron and I were walking through town. He leaned over and said, “One Day, I just want that yellow jersey for one day.” The Scandos are really battling for Yellow Supremacy.
So I ended the day with... 6:20 total training time, another big day. Today we woke up in Coromadel with some pretty sore muscles from our run yesterday. Well, some of us woke up. Mister Anderssen slept in — that REALLY bugs the Baron, who is dealing on himself daily to grab every point possible. I think he’s done more fly swimming in the first three days of Epic than in 2003 combined. Today, he did the following set (with no warm-up) — 10x200IM, 100 free on 10s RI. That boy will crank for a single point! This points thing is pretty entertaining — each time the lads are with me, I get a pitch on why the points system should be changed to better suit them. Each conversation starts... “I don’t care about the Jersey, but...” Anyhow, Baron held onto yellow. While the Baron was cranking out his 3K set, I did the following 12x100 IM, 150 free continuous. Quite a nice strength endurance workout. After that swim, I went for my first run of the day — a little over 9K in 55 minutes (blazing!). The bike stage resulted in a load of personal time for the G Man. Baron, Mister Anderssen and I decided to ride the long way to our next stop. It was about 160K and I blew after 55K and two hours. I think Baron let me hang out at the front until I cracked — he wanted second on the KOM points later in the day. When the going gets tough, the tough eat strudel. I stuffed down an apple strudel, a banana cake and a litre of cola. That perked me up for a little while as I rode my Trek (still on it under Coach Anderssen’s watchful eye). Just like in a bike race, things got a lot better once I dropped off the back of the guys. Upon arrival, I staggered through a 30-minute slow run (gotta get my fourth workout bonus!). I tried a little “Mister Anderssen Big Gear Work” for the final 30K of the day and gained a little insight into Anderssen-training. Using round numbers... you take a 20-hour bike week and split it into — 15 hours of pushing your 58-tooth big ring (shifting not permitted), two-by-one hour of small chain ring high cadence work (slow cadence not permitted) and two of the following sessions — one hour 10 bpm below LT then 5x8 minutes LT intervals. Repeat for 6-8 months each year for five years. I noticed a couple of things with the Anderssen method. First, you are forced to push some massive watts on the rollers and climbs. Second, you have to make sure that you use every millimeter of your pedal stroke — otherwise things get really tough. Finally, once your cadence drops below 30 rpm, you are essentially doing leg press. Not very efficient, but you can see why strength training isn’t required on the Anderssen method. Lots of people have written about how Mister Anderssen would be faster if they did it their way. Well, he’s tried different ways and they didn’t work for him. Give it a whirl for a week and you might have a new respect for the man. Having trained shoulder-to-shoulder with him for a few weeks, I certainly have a new understanding of his method. As an aside, the lads are easing into the Epic groove. Led by KP, they are now eating most of their meals out of pots — seems that bowls and plates simply aren’t large enough for the food that they are looking for. I’m pretty sore but decided to kick the day off with an aquathon. It’s the only way that we’ll get Mister Anderssen out for an early morning swim!
Take care, Apologies for falling behind on my updates. However, I’ve been getting drilled on a daily basis and have been struggling to simply get my dinner down and head off to bed. Not sure what it is this time (possibly the standard of the crew), but the day simply disappears and by the time we arrive at our destination, it’s nearly bedtime — for some of us, Scott doesn’t appear to need much sleep. Pretty impressive, he’s operating on about six hours a night. We’ve christened him the Social Convener // Cultural Ambassador for the trip. He’s doing an excellent job of researching the various ale houses along our route. Day Four was the toughest so far. Two days after our long run in the hills, we all had trashed legs. My ‘easy day’ of 8-9 hours of training also left me feeling a bit spent. To top that off, my back was torqued (!) from my Mister Anderssen big gear work (perhaps I should have been more moderate in my approach, but it was Epic Camp, afterall). So when I informed the crew that we’d meet at 6:45am for an Aquathon, there weren’t exactly shouts of joy. Still, it was a calm, warm morning and the water didn’t feel that bad as we did a warm-up to check out the proposed course. When I start to get really shelled, I come up with little sayings to amuse myself. My most recent one is “in volume we trust”. I feel a lot like that on this camp. I don’t seem to have the ability to out climb, out sprint, out whatever — but I do have the ability to soak up more volume that most. Perhaps that’s one of my blind spots. Scott and I have been talking about blind spots. What is a blind spot? Well, every athlete (every person) has blind spots. These are the areas of our lives, training or personality that, for whatever reason, we don’t address. Scott reckons mine is the use of intensity in a training program. I’ve my reasons for being very cautious, but he reckons that I am too cautious — not this week at least. I might go into some ideas on intensity. I’ve seen many athletes completely ruin themselves through excessive intensity (including me) so perhaps that’s some of my caution. So what about the aquathon — it was a breakthrough morning for the Baron. The little fella managed to beat me out of the water (without drafting!). I was keeping an eye on him and he slowly started to move up on me. By the end, I was swimming pretty solid and he motored past, I had to hop on his feet and, I think, he was still pulling away. Impressive effort for a guy that, typically, swims six (or more) minutes slower than me in an Ironman. Wy got a great photo of him exiting the water (Clas) — do you think he’s happy? The run was as predicted, Baron went the fastest, then Mister Anderssen, then me. Scott had a bit of a gap on me, but I whittled it down by the third (or fourth) run laps. As I passed him, I have him the ole “Mark Allen tap” and congratulated him on his swim. That got a laugh. Scott pointed out that my shoe was untied so at the end of the third lap, I stopped and he repassed me while I had a chuckle and tied it back up. I didn’t want to leave it to sprint so I boogied on by in the middle of the lap. I was pretty surprised by the aquathon, most of us were able to wind it up despite being sore and fatigued. All of us felt better after the effort (except my back). My back was so tight that I decided to ride my Colnago road bike for Day Four. Mister Anderssen calls this my cyclo-tourist bike. Perhaps we’ll get a comparison shot for your viewing pleasure. Mine does look pretty comfy compared to his. Out on the road, Molina launched a very solid attack and ended up taking second for the first KOM of the day. Baron could have been a little tired after his max effort swim and pulling us back up to Mister Anderssen (who was doing his high cadence work this morning). Following that KOM, the Marinater must have been feeling good because on all the remaining climbs (not even for points!) she’d be putting the heat on us. By the time I rolled into lunch, I was starting not to care about much. I just wanted to be able to ride easy. So I DQ’d myself from the post-lunch sprint and rolled out easy with Sam and KP. It was a pleasure to simply be able to ride mellow... until the Vikings then Molina/Marinater/Macca cruised past on a long climb. I managed to get onto the Triple M Train and got some max aerobic training as the Marinater cranked it up on us on each steep pitch. These days are starting to turn into bike races at times and I was happy to have my road bike today. I was feeling pretty bleak at times, but by the time we arrived at our destination, I felt good enough to tack on an extra, very easy, 30K with Sam to get us both up to 200K for the day. Totals for today are a half hour aquathon, a seven-hour ride and a 30-minute jog off the bike. Legs are quite trashed! g-man I’ve not idea why, but I felt a lot better today. Must have been all the drafting that I did yesterday! Anyhow, our day started with a swim where I managed a comfortable 5K. Baron will do anything for a point and despite being fatigued did the continuous 12x100/150 (IM, Free) set from the other day. I think he’s looking for a big cushion! It was a short day of cycling, only 80K, and my leave-early precedent from yesterday seems to have caught on with a number of folks rolling out early. Once I realized this had happened I felt a bit happy and exposed. Happy because I was probably going to manage a point. Exposed because if I got dropped then it would be a long solo ride to Rotorua! The ride had a long series of rollers and Scott did a great job pulling us to the base of them. I have to admit that I started the trouble with a bit of an attack far too early. I then waited for the lads to catch back up and Baron rode off the front — not so much of an attack, more like a decent pace. I locked onto his wheel and when he looked right... I went left. In the end, I managed to hold them off until we were out of the rollers. I had my altimeter going to see the exact top, but it was pretty ambiguous due to there being no pass, no saddle and no sign. We had the same issue at Rotorua when we rolled into town to find that there was no welcome sign. Baron made a fine motor-pacing move off the back of a beer truck so we’ll probably give the sprint points to him — out of respect for his cunning. Once we arrived, I went for the standard run off the bike — the pace is getting pretty pathetic! How will I be able to run 21K in the half ironman on Sunday?! After a late lunch, Baron, Mister Anderssen and I headed over to the pool. Baron and I tacked another 5K onto our days. I was under time pressure for a massage so my set was 1K pull, 1K band only, 3K pull. Pull was with paddles and no pullbuoy. I don’t think Baron did any specific sets — just swam a mix of strokes. That’s the biggest swim day, and biggest swim week of his life... in the middle of Epic Camp. Of course, he doesn’t care about the points... By the end of my massage, I was feeling quite a bit better and decided that I would ride to Auckland tomorrow. The crew are either driving or flying, but there is a lot of appeal to simply riding slowly, outside, without getting dealt from all sides. Very enjoyable. g-man It’s 11am on Day Nine and I am writing as I enjoy my second breakfast. I’ve spent the last three days about two millimeters away from a complete meltdown... so my reports have had to wait. The daily anaerobic and sub-LT work on the bike combined with my quest for a 12-day volume PB have left me with little time other to do anything other than train, sleep, eat and stare at a wall. Day Six was a bit of a protest day for me. Protest against the system (that I created) that was kicking my butt! I woke up with a big tightness in my throat. That tightness normally means that I am seriously run down. I nearly blew off my AM swim, but rallied a bit and lumbered down to the pool with Baron. I only swam 2.1K, so my swim didn’t “count” for points and I lost my bonus point for yesterday’s 10K session. Still, I was so nuked that anything other than simple survival through the camp held little interest for me. You might ask yourself, why get so tired? Well, I’ve had great results with getting real tired from time-to-time. However, a large part of my fatigue this time has been generated from mod-hard to hard to very hard efforts and that’s not the ideal kind of fatigue for me. I thought about that as I rode up to Auckland. I also thought a lot about Shanerella on that ride. Between making jokes with the sheep and checking out the beautiful scenery, I was wishing that she was there cruising along beside me. Having others dictate the pace and drill me day-after-day wears me out. I was getting a true taste of what it’s like to be one of the weaker guys on a bike tour. Quite tough. Now, I could rest up and ride stronger, but that’s not really what I am seeking to achieve here. What I am trying to find out is just how much volume I can absorb. There were headwinds, but they weren’t too bad and they kept things from getting really hot. I set myself an ambitious target of holding more than 25 kph (Mister Anderssen would be ashamed of me, but it was MY ride and I was determined to have fun). I didn’t really have any idea about how long it would take me, or even how far it would be to the motel. I simply figured that I would roll along at my own pace and enjoy the day. This is the kind of training were I do quite well — long, long rides — no real stopped sitting under AeT for most of it. I knew that I had been smoked from riding with the crew and decided that I needed to pull myself together and get back to the type of training that works for me. Related to that, Scott and I have been talking about training methods. A question he put to me... “Do you think that Mister Anderssen’s training style is any more extreme than your own?” When he asked me that, I said that I didn’t think the Anderssen method was all that extreme. He simply found something that works for him and stuck with it. Scott pointed out that in terms of training methodology, Mister Anderssen would certainly be at the extreme end of bike training. He also pointed out that for people that are ‘decent’, my approach to volume is also at the far end. From my point of view, my method (on myself) isn’t all that extreme. I am simply trying to become very aerobically efficient with superior endurance. The methods that others use leave me toasted. Mister Anderssen would likely say that he is simply trying to become very strong and well adapted to pushing massive watts on his race bike. Other methods left him slower. As for those that comment on the impact on his run (something I used to think as well), having trained with him for a few weeks, the challenges he faces with his running are, we believe, separate from his bike training. Maybe not completely separate, but we certainly don’t think that it’s worth compromising his critical strength to try to help his run. Having run with him, his issue appears to be overall economy/efficiency and he’s got himself a plan to deal with that challenge. So, those are some of the things that I mulled over on my way up to Auckland — a nice ride and I certainly enjoyed climbing over the Bombay Hills at the 190K mark of my cycle. The only real tailwind of the day was during that climb (balmy!). Ended the day with 30 minutes (each) of swim/run and eight hours of cycling. g-man I woke up in the middle of the night and went for a drink of water. My throat was so closed up that tears welled up in my eyes when I swallowed. Oh well, so much for that idea about recovering on the ride! Many of us were feeling pretty average. Molina had the same thing as me so he was heading into the race with one mouthful of food. It was the most quiet that I’ve ever seen him (and he ain’t loud at the best of times). We were all about to be humbled. At the swim start, it was all I could do to hang on the Baron’s feet (that guy can sure wind it up in a race when he wears a wetsuit). We were in the second bunch with a decent line of people trailing back from us. I enjoyed the ride with Clas and, this time, he didn’t drop me (phew!). The swim was a touch short, but I don’t think anyone minded. On the bike, Molina rode up to me (slow transition for him) and we rode together. Macca blew by us like we weren’t moving — that guy can CRANK for a Half IM distance. A few other folks went by, but I figured that we’d reel them back in later on.
Scott was having a tough time and didn’t really seem to appreciate my good humour when we would change the “lead”. So I tried to reduce the number of comments. I did start a Coaches’ KOM contest on all the climbs, but wasn’t sure if he was playing the game. Every time my mind would wander a bit, he’d come through and get the pace back up. Then, I’d get going again and get to the front. On behalf of the SICOs (South Island Coaches), I am pleased to be able to report that we rode very cleanly — there were witnesses!
The run was a three-lap affair and I very quickly saw that I was in danger of being lapped by Cameron. Had to deal with that for a while! Fortunately Cam was well off the front and eased off a bit when he caught me. I asked if it was okay if I ran along with him and we cruised in at about 3:50 per K pace. The Baron was closing us down, but Cam’s a real professional and timed it perfectly. Coming into the finish, he stopped to High Five his son and I got two meters on him, just rounding the turnaround barrel before he caught me again. Later, Cam pointed out that he considered it catching me and “lapping” — personally, I consider it a “near” lapping. Anyhow, I was a long way back!
When they published the results in the Christchurch paper, Shan saw that I was fourth. She pointed out that it must have been a type-o because it showed me a half hour down to Cam. Nope! That’s the raw reality of Epic Camp. My bike legs were toast, not from the 218K the day before, but from the hard riding on Day One and Four.
Baron had an awesome race — running 1:12-1:13 off a massive week of training, a hard swim and a mod-hard bike effort. Five hundred bucks for him! Macca was third and I was next. Wish I knew that I was in fourth, I drilled myself in the last three K to bridge past imaginary competitors — lapped courses are tough for that.
Scott succumbed to a mixture of lack of food, fatigue, bone spurs and other low leg ailments — he pulled the pin at the end of the second lap. Mister Anderssen nearly decked out with a front wheel blow out at 50+ kph. He’s lucky to have avoided a major crash.
The Marinater had a fantastic race and finished second with, likely, the fastest female run split. Not bad for a lady that claims she’s not a great runner!
So, given how nuked we were, a respectable effort from Team Epic. Michael even won a free bike in the lucky draw.
Seven days and 52 hours of training. I’ll be aiming for triple figures for my 14-day total.
We’ll see if I hold up.
g-man
I woke up today and knew that I was about two millimeters away from a total meltdown. So I declared Day Eight a “consolidation day”. Managed an easy hour in the pool — that did include a couple of fast 100 IMs as well as some speedy 25s of backstroke — I just might be sorting out my long axis strokes. My short axis strokes continue to need a lot of work!
Before we left on our ride (an easier 100K day to Taupo), I gave a detailed briefing on the route. Rolling out of the motel, Molina immediately turned the wrong direction! He did thank me for the route briefing after we got him turned around in the right direction.
I rolled out the back in about the first 5K and the lads missed the first (well signed) turn. I didn’t know because I was out the back — I did wonder why I didn’t see anyone for the entire ride. After a couple of hours I was hanging out on the side of the road checking my route instructions and Sam rolled past. This was just before the KOM of the day and we both ground our way up. I was on my Trek pushing a 42-23 up a 15%+ grade — very, very slowly! Sam was up the road.
As it turned out, the two of us were the only ones to score on the KOM because we were the only ones that found the route! We scrapped the sprint as it didn’t seem fair for us to take all the points for the day (actually, Sam made a wrong turn later and missed that sprint too).
Remember that KOM that I won on Day Five? Well they declared that null and void on me. Said that it wasn’t clear enough — I’d been off the front for 10K running my altimeter so it seemed pretty clear to me –— apparently not to Molina.
They also declared Day Six (my 218K ride day) a no points day. They claim that I made this declaration early in the camp. What I think I might have said was that it was a no sprint, no KOM day. They’ve twisted my words against me. Looks like my plan of twisting didn’t turn out as I planned!
I skipped my run today and opted for a pre-massage nap instead. I ended the day feeling a lot better so guess that my decision for a 24-hour stand down was the right one. Interestingly, based on how I was feeling, I’d typically have taken Saturday and Monday off completely — instead I managed a combined total of 14+ hours of training and ended up feeling OK. So there is a lot about recovery that we probably still need to learn.
Oh yeah, my gordo-thought of the day was that I should ride back to Christchurch. Whenever my training isn’t going great, I tend to think up monster workouts, races, rides... I actually first committed to Ultraman in a low training period. Same thing with my up-coming ride across America as well as my 15K swim that I did a while back. This time, my ride home after Epic thought didn’t last too long. I think that 100 hours over 14 days will merit a couple of easy days to pull myself back together a bit. Then we drop the hammer to get ready for IMNZ.
g-man
I woke up this morning and had a feeling that I just might be OK. I didn’t really know how the day would end, but I did know that I’d be able to at least manage my goal of a big day of easy volume.
Did I mention that I’ve sworn off swim gear for a bit? Mister Anderssen has recommended that I aim for 3K of non-gear swimming in each session. Being me, I’ve taken it to the extreme and stopped using all gear, altogether. So far so good.
My swim this morning was 500 easy, then 10x200IM, 100 free — 10-15s RI after the free. The IM wasn’t the greatest quality as I had some concerns about that amount of fly. My short axis strokes need material technical improvement. My free and band only performance shows that I have to power to swim fly well. However, I am CARVING up the lane. Scott says that the wash from when I swim fly past him is pretty huge. Got through the IM set, swam 100 easy then swam 12x100 free leaving on 1:30 — as it was a 25m (SCM) pool, that wasn’t too bad. Gave me an idea for tomorrow, I’ll try for 40x100 on the 1:30. See if I can pull that off. I’ve always wanted to work up to 100x100 on the 1:30.
Oh yeah, Baron finally got tired today. Too bad for him, but good to see that he’s not a cyborg! I am happy to report that he ended the day much better and still managed 6-7 hours of training. He’s had a real breakthrough period at Epic this year, nice to see.
Michael and I included the Huka Track in our post-swim run — a nice little route. The lake if very full right now so the falls and the river are absolutely smoking. I’ve never seen the flow this high.
Second breakfast followed that 90-minute run then I wrote that last report and grabbed a nap before we rode easy to steady around the lake (168K all-in). Michael got his first real taste of a typical day in gordoworld. He did great and I had a good chance to offer some tips about the way that I see IM training.
So, despite a cough and some lingering throat issues (lungs are clear), I ended up with 8.5 hours of training and at least four hours of steady-state work. A great day. The game plan for tomorrow is also to avoid the anaerobic work. I’ve had enough drilling it for a while. This will hurt my standings for Yellow, but I think the Baron’s got it locked up after his awesome Half Ironman performance.
Take care and I’ll report back when I can,
PPS: Mister Anderssen is back! A solo loop of the lake in 4:30 followed by a loop of the IM course in 2:15 followed by a run off the bike. 240K (or so) of riding.
Epic NZ '04 - Day Ten: The Day They Got Tired
Before I get into the Day Ten story, I remembered a little bit from the Half Ironman. After the race, we were all hanging out. It was a scorching Kiwi afternoon with the UV pouring down through the hole in the ozone layer. I was wearing a long sleeved shirt, long trousers, hat, socks... you name it.
To my right, Molina was spread-eagled on the grass in his running shorts and cheap Ray Charles sunglasses ($10 at the ABC Store in Kailua). After a couple of hours of this, Scott cracked and reached for his shirt saying, “Wow, it’s just too hot.” He actually got one arm in his shirt when he looked left and saw KP soaking it all up... “Damn, KP’s not going to out-tan me!” Shirt off, he stuck with it for a few more hours. The two of them slowly turning purple in the Southern Hemisphere’s burning rays.
So, how did my planned 40x100s on the 1:30 turn out? Pretty good. Scott and Mister Anderssen joined me in the lane and we lead out in reverse order of speed, i.e. I led! Scott was alternating freestyle with medley. I couldn’t really figure out his cycle, but he would close me down every so often. After about 400m Mister Anderssen disappeared — I figured that the send off was too cruisy for him (he calls 1:30 speed his ‘coma pace’). However, in between intervals, I see him sucking down a cola and he was back in the lane a few 100s later (seven hours at 300w can leave you a bit depleted, I guess). I swam the set conservatively and managed to average about 1:24s (short course meters).
I was quite pleased with that swim in the middle of my massive Epic Weeks. I must have been riding on adrenaline when I got on the bike because I laid down a pretty strong pull in the first 40K of the day. However, I paid a bit of a price with some DEEP fatigue that followed shortly thereafter. I wasn’t punished too bad because the Marinater, Scott and Macca pulled off ahead of me in search of a doc for Marilyn. Baron rolled back to pick me up and it was the two of us riding easy towards our final destination — the high mountains of the North Island.
Marilyn (and all of us) has a bit of a cough and is feeling a touch run down. I was trying to remember where else I had been with “the cough”. It came to me this afternoon... it was the Greek Islands. In my early 20s, I spent a summer in Europe and, out in the Greek Islands, everyone that hung around for a while had “the cough”. A dry cough that didn’t really do much other than irritate. In Greece, we ran ourselves down with parties, ouzo, drinking and dancing (traditional and horizontal folk). Out here on the road, we smoked ourselves early in the camp with intensity and volume. All of us are training through “the cough”. It seems to be a bit of a sign that we are run down. We aren’t running enough to get physical breakdown, but the overall volume of our programs is leaving our immune systems hammered. I was in real trouble a few days ago, but eliminating all anaerobic work and making time for a daily nap really turned it around for me. I still have the cough, but am able to manage my daily dose of steady-state as well as getting through my training.
Baron took it easy on me, after 50K we turned into the hills and had our first of two major climbs of the day. This one took about 20 minutes and we chatted as we climbed up the hill. Once we got to the top, I was a bit tired and he rode up the road at his own pace. We regrouped at 100K for the final 13K climb of the day. Halfway up we came to a village and he stopped thinking that we’d arrived at the Motel for the night. I explained that the motel was back down the road. He asked why we came up here? I pointed out that it would be a shame to waste this nice paved road and we had to get to the top. So, we road together up the highest paved road in New Zealand (toping out at about 1650m). At the top we checked our altimeters and this day only had a slight increase in total climbing as compared to a lap around Lake Taupo (a surprisingly tough century ride).
Cruising back down through COLD clouds, we came across KP heading up. Tough bugger! A few Ks later we came across Macca, Scott and Marilyn. In the end though, it was only KP, Baron and me that made it all the way to the top. It’s mighty tough to ride past the finish line on Day Ten of Epic Camp.
A short nap and I managed a two-hour trail run to cap the day off. I certainly didn’t intend to run that long, I was figuring on between an hour and 90 minutes tops, but starting a Kiwi trail run without a map is always a risky proposition. I popped out at an alpine village at 7:30pm. Fortunately, it was where I was scheduled to have my massage, so it all worked out in the end.
Another eight hours in the bank, 73.75 hours so far. Tomorrow kicks off with a big run up in the mountains — Baron, Michael and I are going to do the Tongariro Crossing.
Take care,
Epic NZ '04 - Day Eleven: The Big Run!
When I laid out the route for this trip, I saw a track that ran through the mountains and beside a couple of volcanoes (The Tongariro Crossing). I wasn’t sure if we’d have enough oomph to get up and over the track when I included it in the itinerary. As it turned out, a lot of the crew was looking for an easier option. Their sentiments combined with a slightly dodgy weather forecast and we devised Plan B for the majority of the camp. Plan B was the two-hour trail run that I’d done to end Day Ten. For the adventurous, it would be possible to loop back to the motel by running down the main road.
Baron, Michael and I set out at 8AM and the weather was great. We’d been told that the 17K run would likely take us about three hours (pretty technical). We made excellent time up the first tough bit of the climb, tackling two-thirds of the vertical gain in about 45 minutes. Extrapolating that speed, we figured that it would only take two hours for the whole thing. So when we spied Mt Ngauruhoe (2287m) from the top of the “Devil’s Ladder”, we decided to go for it. On the way up, we reeled in a group of three that were also making the ascent. Their leader tried to hold off the Baron for the summit honours. However, our man was not to be out done and took line honours (I was well back at this stage!). Standing on top of the volcanic crater so early on a clear morning was one of the highlights of my trip. In the distance, we could see the forecast poor weather bubbling up from the valley’s below. We didn’t linger on top.
As it turned out, the original forecast of three hours wasn’t far off. All in, I was on the trail for close to four (including the volcanic side trip). Baron cut that down to 3:30 run time — he’s a stickler for detail. The trail ended with 10K of downhill and that was pretty tough on the quads. Baron shot off down the trail and had tacked on a bonus 4K by the time I caught up to him in the van.
The run was a beautiful way to spend the morning, but we did pay a bit of a recovery price. A meal was followed by a nap and then another meal. The original plan had been to ride 50K back to Lake Taupo and swim there. However, we were all pretty stuffed and had to resort to plenty of coffee to get our motivation up. We also decided to ride to the ‘close’ lake. This lake was on the original schedule, but Shan had warned me that, being snow fed, it was likely to be exceedingly cold. Still, the thought of riding all the way back down to Lake Taupo (and over a mountain saddle) was highly unappealing. Around 5pm, Michael, Baron, KP and I saddled up for what turned out to be a 30K ride to the ‘close’ lake.
When we arrived at the lake, Michael announced that it felt very warm. I was highly skeptical due to Shanerella’s previous advice. However, when we hopped into the water, we discovered that it was quite pleasant. We also appeared to be sharing the lake with a lot of algae that also found the water pleasant. Before the swim, Scott had told me that 45 minutes would qualify as 3K for epic-scoring-purposes. So I resolved to be in the water for that long. KP and Baron were feeling pretty shelled and planned on a shorter effort. The efforts of the previous workouts dulling our need to score points (Baron has the Yellow jersey locked up anyhow).
KP said later that he knows just enough about strange algae in lake water to be concerned for his health. Michael and I were totally clueless and swam for the duration. Turns out that the reason the lake is so warm is that it has hot water thermals that bubble up. I was swimming along in the cool water and all of a sudden the water around me started to churn and bubble — it also got pretty warm and visibility went down to about zero. I boogied right out of that section of the lake!
So we all survived out lake experience with Dr. Purcell warning each of us to shower thoroughly as soon as we got back to the lodge. We scored a nice tail wind on the return leg and I ended up with another 6.75 hours towards my volume targets. Ending Day Eleven, I had 80.5 hours.
More later,
Epic NZ '04 - Day Twelve: The Desert Road
I was feeling quite good this morning. That might have been due to the fact that we all hit the coffee pretty hard at the breakfast party that we had at our motel room. Mister Anderssen isn’t exactly a morning guy so, naturally, he was thrilled when we started brewing up in the living room at 6AM.
The route for today looped around the mountains that make up the national park where we ran yesterday. So, the first 80K of our ride didn’t get us any closer, or higher, relative to our final destination. In fact, as it turned out, we would be left 100K down wind from Taupo.
I was riding my Trek all day. Seeing as I don’t have a speedo installed on my bike, I might have started out a little fast. When Mister Anderssen rolled past me after the warm-up, I decided to try to bridge onto his wheel to see what might happen (maybe five cups of coffee is a little excessive...). Anyhow, my bid for glory lasted for a very speedy four kilometers. Baron later commented, “What were you thinking?” Anyhow, I blew to pieces shortly thereafter then Baron/Molina/Marinater went by as I begged forgiveness for my earlier pacing mistakes. My pleas fell on deaf ears and I was left with a bit of personal time.
At lunch, the first cracks started to appear when I ordered banana cake, carrot cake, hot chocolate and a double espresso. I didn’t realize it, but Molina spotted the tell-tale signs of impending gordo-implosion.
We were looking at 100K into a brisk Northerly, with the first 20K being uphill. Scott led us out at a gentlemanly pace and my week one reluctance to draft was completely gone. Mister Anderssen was just up the road and I foolishly entertained thoughts of bridging up. Thankfully, the espresso buzz was held in check and I shared the work with Molina as we ground up the Desert Road (a high altitude road that is totally devoid of trees or any other shelter from the wind).
Somewhere along the line, Baron took over the lead and I was second wheel. 125bpm became 130bpm. 130bpm became 135bpm and the pace just rose and rose. We were riding into a hell headwind so he must have been putting out monster wattage — the days of punishing the little fella at will are long gone! Will they ever return? As we crested the summit of the Desert Road (1,026m), I was closing in on LT and we were all under duress. Macca was behind us, having broken a wheel hanging on to Mister Anderssen pre-lunch. I was thankful, because a Macca/Baron combo would have left me alone and blown.
While it’s nice to see my pals getting stronger and stronger, it’s a bit of a shame when they become so strong that I worry about training with them. Scott says that I’m just blown out, but the lads are now at the point where they are able to leave me at will. Good thing I don’t mind riding alone. I joked to Scott that it must be why I was brought on board with his training crew — no fear of my becoming too strong to leave him alone. Baron jokes that I might be slow, but I can still race IM fast so my training pace must be OK, at least for me. That’s a polite way of saying that he doesn’t mind running ‘slow’ with me.
Back to the ride, we moved through the steady climbing into a series of relentless rollers — New Zealand has great rollers — anyhow, the Baron fatigued just enough that I wasn’t in danger of being dropped anymore. Scott and the Marinater were still with us, but they’d used a few get-out-of-jail free cards to stay with us. They made a team decision to roll easy for a bit. After Baron’s monster pull, I felt that I had to pull us down into Turangi and we regrouped at the service station (50K from home).
Baron revived himself with another dose of ‘Swedish Sports Drink’ (Red Bull and Cola) and we were back on the B-train heading towards Taupo. Baron was in a kind mood and the pace was fast and only slightly uncomfortable. After 30K or so, he announced that he’d done enough training and we’d ride easy back to town. This was to my great relief.
Just ahead, I noticed a cyclist turnaround to our side of the road. At first I thought it was Mister Anderssen coming back to keep us company. However, when we rolled up, we saw that it was Cameron Brown and just in time as we were at the base of the final material climb of the day. Yippee! This climb wasn’t so bad as Cam was taking it easy on us. On the ride back into town, either my legs were giving out or the pace was picking up. Either way, I was soon in deep suffering and Cam was probably sitting on about 105 bpm. Oh well!
But like all workouts, all camps, all intervals... soon it was done and as we rolled back into the motel, I reflected on one of the most intense twelve days of my life.
When I got off my bike, I noticed that even my internal organs were shaking. I’ve never noticed my insides quivering after a ride before. Baron sure gave us our money’s worth today.
+++++
The camp totals...
I’ll take a little time to reflect on the camp as a whole, the best moments as well as my toughest moments. We’ll post those up in the next few days. In the meantime, I’m going to try to get healthy. I missed the 100 hour target for the two weeks — my body simply wasn’t able to cope with the mix of intensity and volume. Baron and I will try again when we are laying down base training in April and May (hopefully, Kona base!).
g-man
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