Day 5 – in Wanaka

Swim 3km

Bike 180km (incl 12km uphill TT)

Run 50mins

This morning on the way to the pool there was a bit of sleeping in the van, then some more sleeping on poolside and then more sleeping on the van trip home. The epic fatigue is well and truly setting in.

My body seems to be holding up well but I am getting pretty sleepy. I haven’t been sleeping too well but yesterday I cut the caffeinated gels and coke which helped. We’ll see what happens tonight as I needed to hit the sugar in a big way for the crown range uphill TT. My biking is on the improve (Scott has posted results from today’s TT on his blog). I’ve still got a long way to go but it’s slowly coming, Roth is still 5-6mths away.

Tara and Albert are still tacking on at every opportunity so Albert has pulled further away and Tara is creeping up on me. I’ve got a few things up my sleeve that I may pull out, we’ll see what sort of mood I’m in tomorrow.

One thing that happens on Epic is you get cut off from the outside world. I wouldn’t have a clue what is happening and it’s quite refreshing to know that it doesn’t matter to much (until I open my email next Tuesday)

Another thing that I’ve experienced and seen at past camps is the epic training can heal some minor aches and pains. I’ve been battling with shoulder some shoulder pain and some tightness in my glutes for the last few months. Doing a ¾ Ironman every day for 5 days seems to have done the trick and I’m fully healed.

That’s it I’m too tired to type anything else more. More pics are on the epic site and of course you can listen to ironmantalk (via I-Tunes), it’s so much easier to talk than type.

points as of day 4

http://epiccamp.com/newzealand08/points.htm

Day 4 – mini recovery day

Swim 4.5km race

Run 10km race + guess your time (no watches)

Bike 60km

Tack on swim 3km

The swim was more or less as expected although the Albernator surprisingly took down Molina. He dragged us around so it was fair enough.

We backed up the swim with a flat 10km race where you had to guess your time. Given the state of my legs (ie bloody sore, especially quads) I put down 37:24. The pace was firm from the start but everyone was struggling. At the 5km mark I started get head spins so figured I was going sufficiently hard. I ended up 4^th across the line thinking I was over 38mins so was pleasantly surprised that I was actually 16sec under my predicted time so all in all it was a good result. The big man form Rotorua Paul Westwood took the event with Elliott getting closest to his predicted time.

After the 10km I was sitting in 2^nd place in the GC 1.75 points behind Albert, not wanting to let Albert slip into yellow too easily I tacked on a 3km swim but he called my bluff by knocking out 6km and possibly put himself in an unassailable position. Once you’re a few points ahead it’s relatively easy to defend the jersey. So whilst I’m not giving up I’m not going to get into a tack on athon. Tomorrow is another day.

Day 3 – slightly more detail

So yesterdays bike was pretty solid. We rolled out of Takapo and stayed together for all of about 10mins before some numskull put the pressure on at the front and split things up. Knowing there were no KOM’s coming I decided to sit at the back and keep one of our good dr’s on the camp company when he was struggling. After lunch we had lydis pass. The approach felt like we were on the back of US postal leading into Alp d’huez, with the KOM contenders blasting up the road I settled into a nice rhythm and towed Molina and Tara up the hill (until Molina again cheekily sprinted past near the summit). For the rest of the ride it was cruise time.

Then for the evening Aquathon. Given my serious lack of bike fitness I knew this was my chance to win an event but it wasn’t going to be easy. I hung on for grim death to Albert and Scott in the swim which ended up being approx 1.2km instead of 600m. Then onto the 4km run. I went out hard but Albert clung on but he sounded like he was breathing heavy so after the first turn I put in a pretty decent surge and heard a gap develop. I had to keep the pressure on all the way to about the 3km mark where I eased off. Overall it was a very hard day but I was very pleased to clean up.

day 3 brief

Bike 210km

Aquathon (1.2km swim/4km run (4km warm down))

Again it’s 9:53pm so it’s bed time.

Bike was good but the under carriage is starting to feel the pinch

Aquathon – I took it out which I was very happy about. It required a solid effort to get rid of Albert though (1^st me, 2^nd Albert, 3^rd Molina, 4^th Gordo)

Day 2

Swim 3km

Bike 240km

Run 50mins

We opened up today with a swim @ 6am which included a 400IM which always has high entertainment value. Paul Westwood and John Drury were the highlights and keep the crowds sufficiently entertained with their butterfly, thankfully no FINA officials were on had to issue and infringements. That said, I did have to slap a 2sec penalty on Bevan Eyles for blatantly doing freestyle at the end of each breaststroke length but then I was hit with a 1 sec penalty when Chris out starter held us for too long on the block and I jumped the gun. When the dust settled it was no surprise that Molina took it out from Albert then myself (1 sec in front of Gordo).

The gods were smiling on us today as we started out bike. A beautiful clear day with a decent tail wind for the first 150km of flat riding. We where bumping along @ 40-45km/hr for long periods which was great. The last 90km of todays ride is classic “kiwi rolling” terrain with some pretty tough climbs thrown in. Bevan is comfortably taking the KOM’s which is impressive as he hasn’t been riding much, I say it’s the new Genius bike that he got at the start of the week. After the full group staying together to Geraldine it was complete carnage with horrific head winds keeping speed to well below 20km/hr. There were some tired battered bodies at the end of the day. I joined Albert for a Zombieathon run, I was careful to run upwind from him as there was something seriously wrong with his insides. I think we also only just made the minimum requirement which was running 8km in 50mins, it was seriously slow.

day 1 proper

Day 1

The objective of this camp for me was to pull myself from the depths of unfitness to start my build for Roth in July. However on day one I thought I might be able to sneak into the yellow jersey if things went my way with the 2km swim TT, a sneaky 200 Fly bonus point and then see what happened in the bike TT.

I thought I started well. I did my 200 fly with ease then onto the 2km. The plan here was simply to set off at 1min20 pace and hold it. I figured this would get me 2^nd or 3^rd. In my lane I had Gordo tucked in behind me (Monica said I was giving birth to him he was so close) but I did manage a wry smile when he popped off inside the first km. Next to me was Molina who surprisingly dropped off a little but then came blasting by to take the win comfortably. I was holding 1:20’s with ease and couldn’t see anyone in the lanes across so just cruised. So when I touched in 26:40 (exactly 1:20’s) I was a little surprised to see Albert two lanes across with a Cheshire grin on his face. Then when the count back happened Tara took me down by a second (she’d left 10sec later than me and had been working in tandem with Rob Chance). The boys gave me some stick which has been noted. I pick and choose my times to compete and I’ll admit I’m a bad looser.

Off onto the bikes for the Christchurch classic ride of Akaroa return. It’s 2hrs flat, 2hrs very tough hills and 2hrs flat. I was a little late leaving for the 1^st KOM so was a bit down on where I should have been but I was OK with that. On the way back I started the climb with Scott M, Mark P, Douglas, Tara and maybe one or two others. One by one the guys dropped off and by halfway it was just Tara and myself, whilst we weren’t smacking it big time we weren’t mucking around. With about 2km to go I was thinking what to do. I wasn’t sure whether I should let Tara take it or would that just be patronising because she’s the only girl on the camp. I hummed and hared then with 400m to go I opened up the burners and pulled away. It just so happened that as I did this my wife and son drove past. I could just image her thinking why is John attacking a girl rather than giving her a break.

Next came the time trial. I inadvertently thought it was around 30km when I set the course and there were a few sour faces when it turned out to be 43km. The less said about my TT the better, basically I exploded within the first half and simply had to ride it in. Mark Pietrosa, who only arrived at 9am that morning from Hawaii took it which was impressive.

Day 2 has now been complete but again it’s late and I need to go to bed so I’ll write that one up tomorrow. Let’s just say the swim started at 6am and didn’t finish my run until 7pm!!! BIG DAY

Day 1 brief

OK so it's 9:45pm and I've been up since 5am so I'm going to bed without doing a blog.
BUT i have put some pics on the epic camp site and Bevan has put up a podcast which you can get via ironmantalk on I-Tunes.
Quick Summaray
Swim 3km incl 2km TT (plus I did a 200 fly)
Bike 165 (I tacked on to 180km) incl 2 x 7km KOM and a 40km TT
Run 50mins

Scott M is in yellow
Bevan Eyles in KOM
Albert Boyce in Green Jersey (over 40)
IronmanTalk performance of the Day - Rob Chance for saving a guys life who was in a seizure

ECNZ 08 Prologue

We start EC NZ08 in a mater of 2hrs so I thought I better get something down before we get underway. This camp is going to be a bit different for me as I’m getting back on the other side and actually doing the full camp and easing off some of my support duties. It’s not since my first camp in Australia in 2005 that I’ve done a full camp. Why? With a 7 month old baby kicking around the house I’ve decided to try and register a fast Ironman time by going to Roth. After that I’ll kick back for a few years of short course whilst spending more time with Thomas.

What am I looking to get out of this camp? This is where the training for July starts for me. I’m ‘relatively’ unfit which will make it interesting. I’m ok with the distances we’re going but I know if I get carried away with intensity it will be game over pretty quickly. On epic camp the goal for everyone should be ‘camp completion’, that is to hit the daily minimum requirements set by the committee (myself, Scott and Gordo). I didn’t quite understand the significance of this on my first camp but this time round it’s a major objective for me. I might have a shot at the yellow jersey in the first few days but I think my bike TT could let me down (this morning I’m going for a bonus point with a 200 Butterfly and hopefully the 2km swim TT will go OK).

Off to the pool now. I’m committed to doing daily blogs on this camp and you can also catch myself and Bevan with daily podcasts on ironmantalk.com