Big Jo training Dec 13 - Dec 19

SWIM

Squad x 3
Sea swim x 1
~9km

Nothing wildly exciting to report on this week.  I did a 1500m TT at Parnell Baths in my wetsuit and came out with an ok time with my one-pace. I was at Cook's Beach for the weekend so did a sea swim there which was a bit choppy but nice. And the only time in the weekend that it wasn't raining - how ironic. Full points to Lesbo for letting me waking her up so she could do my wetsuit up for me after a big night out at Jac's wedding. Poor Lesley's little hands hadn't woken up properly so it was quite an effort for her but I fed her with chocolates so hopefully it was marginally worthwhile.

BIKE

Time:
Distance:

Good week on the bike this week. Got my A into G and did some short intervals and got some power PB's woo hoo! And then didn't need to do any efforts on Thursday as holding Uncle Roy's wheel in the gale force winds was hard enough.
My weekend in the Coromandel was a training weekend disguised as a wedding weekend (cunning I know...), sadly the weather was absolutely poo for riding (and for a wedding) but I came prepared and luckily it wasn't cold which is fatal for me combined with the wet. So I did semi-decent ride on Saturday and then good ride on Sunday from Hahei to Kopu on the way home. I was a bit concerned about the road being a bit busy and people not seeing me but am happy to report that the drivers were super courteous and no-one abused me or tried to kill me. It rained the whole way but I was actually pretty happy in my riding apart from the winding downhills with my failing brakes where I was struggling to find my happy place. I got a bit cold once I was soaked through on the downhills but I knew I was almost there by that stage. Some kind man stopped at the top of the hill and asked if I wanted a ride because the weather was so yuck. Bless him. I guess people find it difficult to understand that we do these things for fun, but we do.

RUN

Not quite sure what to do with the running. I did 2x15mins and 1x20mins mostly on grass and while I wouldn't call it painful it certainly wasn't the same as the other side so I'm feeling at a bit of a loss. I know my tibia look a few weeks of running to feel right, but I'd had 4 months off running for that so that was understandable whereas this one I have only had 5 weeks off running. I don't feel like I've aggravated it at all but I don't want to be jumping the gun on it and making it worse down the track.
I think I have decided to have another week off and then give it another go. Tauranga is looking very shaky at this stage... BAH!

How to keep me entertained during boring wedding speeches while waiting for food...

The lovely couple Jac and Tony and the Brownie Cake nom nom nom

Big Jo training Dec 6 - Dec 12

SWIM

Squad x 3
Sea swim x 1
~12km

Did 3 good squad sessions at Parnell Baths this week. Unfortunately me and my old Orca wetsuit did not really become friends this week as it gave me a wicked rash at the back of my neck. Hopefully my special new Blue Seventy Helix Muppet Suit will be made soon so I can wear my original Muppet Helix in the pool. I was in Taupo for the Half Ironman in the weekend and had good intentions of going for a swim while the others were out on the bike but the weather was a bit yuck and it just looked so cold and uninviting... I figured my time was better spent doing a longer ride. Did my Thursday Haydn sea swim in my usual slow time. The tide was a bit low and there were some pretty nasty oyster rocks which were hard to see so I had some pretty bad ouchies on my feet after that.

BIKE

Time: 9hrs 43
Distance: 229km

I have fallen into the trap of thinking I have raced because I was spectating a race in the weekend and therefore thinking I am in recovery mode the following week. Very Bad. I have also lost about 2hrs per week of commuting which I need to make up somewhere else. My long ride was lost this weekend with the half but I did get a decent ride around French Pass in Cambridge on Sunday and while I was in Taupo I did a ride over the new bypass which goes around the back of Taupo.

A new route in Taupo. How exciting

My RooRoo's lever issue is being resolved (after a few days of me realizing it wasn't going to reattach itself...) but until then my Serottica and I are getting reacquainted.

RUN

The big news for the week is I went for run!! Woo hoo!! On the grass I did 4x1min, 1x2mins, 1x3mins all with 30sec of walking in between. There was the odd whisper of pain but nothing at the end or any aching afterwards, so perhaps more psychosomatic... So I will continue to do interval jogs on the grass for the next week just to make sure all is a-ok. I am also going to need to look at my running style (I'm not called Slappy-J for nothing) and need to try and tone down how much lift I get to reduce the amount of load on my poor little bones.

TAUPO HALF IRONMAN

I was supporting the usual Bowden and Lawson suspects for this as well as Jess's brother Sam who was doing his first half in preparation for IMNZ.  J-Rad had a good swim coming out in the Terenzo group with Davo 2mins down and Jess beating her husband out.  Jess had some bad luck with a puncture in T1 which took a long time to fix, which was crap because she would have been close to the top 3 (and $$...) without it.  J-Rad had the ride of his life (until he popped with 30km to go) and Davo blew his foofoo valve trying to catch him. Across the board run times were a bit slower than usual but Jess took the fastest run split of the team and Sam tootled along to get the job done.

Captain Poobum. Could be mistaken for a pout but he's telling me that he's popped

J-rad happy in his running...

Nick with his game face on

Big Jo training Nov 29 - Dec 5

SWIM

Squad x 3
Sea swim x 3
~ 15km

A bit more quality time with my PB and band this week. Although I did learn (after getting yelled out by the whole lane) that I can swim with a band and no PB when I am in my wetsuit.  We have started to do a few squads at the Parnell Baths with Haydn which is always good value. Definitely feel more wasted after a Haydn swim than any other swim.
The Tauranga Tinman Triathlon was on in the weekend and since I was going to be there as a supporter I figured I would offer myself as a swimmer. So I swam a whole 750m (note to self: being a team swimmer is NOT cost effective for $/minute spent racing...), almost missed the start getting carried away watching the individual race, dodged a few jellyfish, came 3rd out of the water (!) and our team was 1st overall. Woohoo.

BIKE

Time: 11hrs51
Distance: 303km

Had a nice 4.5hr ride with my friend Two Piece in the weekend, we had a big 4.5hr chat :) We must do that more often.
Very sad moment after that ride while RooRoo was in the car traveling to Tauranga - somehow my front derailleur lever snapped... I can still use it but its very hard to get into the big ring. Luckily Tauranga is nice and flat so I was still able to go for a bit of a ride on Sunday but its no good for any decent riding. After a few days of hoping it would magically heal itself I have realized that this isn't going to happen and need to get my A into G and organize a new one. Of course they are not very cheap so it is really is quite a sad moment. At least I will then have a spare rear derailleur lever...

Boo hoo

RUN

2 x pool-runs...

Nothing new to report here. I didn't attempt a trot this week, although I had to run around transition to get to my swim start and it didn't hurt so thats a good sign.  So I will try another one minute run next weekend. Fingers crossed.
I have been making a concerted effort to up my calcium intake thanks to my friend and helpful nutritionist Mikki so hopefully my bones are getting nice and strong. My iron stores have dropped yet again (surprise, surprise...) so I am getting the hang of coordinating the calcium and iron since they are not friends, so hopefully its working and I will be super strong boned and full of iron by the time I am back into it.

Big Jo training Nov 22 - Nov 28

SWIM

Squad x 3
Non-squad x 1
Sea swim x 2
~15.5km

This week I did the Kohi Summer Swim Series 2000m race which was fun but not much to report about it unfortunately. It was a bit choppy further out so they had to go to the contingency plan of 500m multilap race. I swallowed a lot of water which didn't taste very nice. I just noticed that my beloved Blue Seventy Helix MuppetSuit is not looking so sprightly anymore so hopefully Son of MuppetSuit will be made before Christmas.
I have been trying to make friends with my pull buoy in an attempt to learn how to swim faster. I absolutely suck with a PB and make little forward progression unless I am wearing paddles.  But I am persevering and while my PB may be looking a little worse for wear hopefully it will turn me into a better swimmer...

Baby shark teeth marks courtesy of G-dog in her chewing puppy dog stage

Looks a bit more normal from this side. Thanks to Haydn for naming it for me. As if anyone else would want it anyway.

 BIKE

Had a few TapTap issues this week after the hub batteries ran out last weekend which resulted in a couple of rides with no power. But after a rejig of the inside of the hub it seems to be all good now no thanks to Cycleops who never replied to my SOS email which I am still very dark about. If Taptap ever needs help again and they don't get back to me I may get nasty with them.  Sadly I didn't get any data for our Tuesday Waitak ride as a result.
Only managed a 3hr ride on Sunday due to a cleat bolt that fell out somewhere around Maraetai so I had to ride with my cleat hanging by a thread, a bit like having a pedal made out of slippery ice - not much fun.

RUN

2 x pool runs (whoopdy fricken doo...)

I went back to the Sports Physician today and after him and another doctor reviewed my MRI they decided I have a stress fracture of my lesser trochanter... I would prefer to call it a stress reaction.
Which ever it is it is still no good for running - my 1 minute intervals in the weekend ended after the 2nd one because it hurt and did not feel like it was doing me any good. So I will continue to pool run and swim and bike my little leggies off and will do another test run in two weeks time... And in the meantime I will drink lots of chocolate milk and try to make my bones strong.

Big Jo training Nov 15 - Nov 21

SWIM

Squad x 3
Non-squad x 2
Sea swim x 2
~ 17km

Whoa look at all that swimming. One of those days was a DOUBLE swim day as well!!! Nothing  much interesting happened in any of those swims, my old favorite goggles tried to die on me but I resurrected them once again so they will live to swim another day. I actually got a bit of chaffing from my togs from swimming so much - oh my!! Didn't do Haydn's Kohi swim as I thought I would be recovering from Karapiro but I will be lining up next week instead.

BIKE

Have been a bit lazy and haven't downloaded all my rides so not sure of my hours and kms for the week, it won't be huge though, plus TapTaps hub batteries died on me so will have to make some up.  Did a long(ish) ride in the weekend up the Waitaks and got dropped by Kezzle-Anne who normally sits behind me and heavy breathes in my ear.  He has been on a Poo Power Program and has improved phenomenally this season - he is a classic example of the Power of Poo.
I suffered quite badly up the Waitaks - its been a while since I've done long hills like that and it showed. I think we should be riding out there every week now that summer is upon us. Although it wasn't looking very tropical up there in the weekend.

The past week has been pretty dark for cyclists in NZ with 5 being killed in the space of 4 days. One person killed 3 cyclists in one go. One of the cyclists was girl who was a similar age to me riding along Tamaki Drive about half an hour after I had ridden over that exact same spot - pretty scary. It has definitely made me think twice about how I am riding and what the cars around me are doing. Sometimes it does feel like the cars are actually trying to hit us though.

A little reminder that it could have been any of us

RUN

0 hours 0 mins
0km

Hip is still poo (not poo as in the Power of Poo, poo as in shit). It is a lot better than it was but even running across the road hurts. My MRI showed some mild bone odema around my lesser trochanter and some odema around the origin of vastus lateralis on the femur (ie. bone stress and a muscle strain). It was reported as all being mild so nothing which can definitively say this is what is causing your pain. And I wonder how many asymptomatic runners would have signs of bone odema on an MRI.... But clinically it presents as a stress fracture/stress reaction so that is how we will have to treat it, I can attempt a 5min run this weekend but based on my run across the lawn yesterday I'm not holding out much hope.
I think the dreaded aqua-jogging awaits...

Big Jo training Nov 1 - Nov 14, Karapiro Half Ironman and a pain in the hip

SWIM

Swimming has been going swimmingly (as usual...) after my shocker in Taiwan.  The new thing is our dear friend Haydn Woolley's new summer swim series which is on a Thursday evening at Kohi beach.  The first race of the series was a bit difficult with a pretty big chop causing them to go to the contigency plan of a 500m loop instead of out and back.  But the next race was much better weather so we were able to swim all the way 1km out and back for a 2km swim.  Its a pretty good way to make sure I get an extra swim in and good to practice open water swimming so I'll be doing as many of the races as I can over summer.

BIKE

While I was in Taiwan someone raped and pillaged my Serrotica road bike and left it crank and BB-less forcing me and RooRoo to become more at one with each other.  The weekend after Taiwan I was back into a 4hr ride with some uptempo work which I actually held pretty good power for and this last week got back into my efforts during the week.  This weekend's long ride was Karapiro Half but more about that in a sec.

RUN

This where the sad part starts.
My first proper run back from Taiwan was on the Wednesday after and I noticed a bit of niggly hip/groin pain. It just niggled away for my next few runs but really came to a head after I did the O'Hagan's 5km run the following week - it was so sore by the end and the next day was way worse.  At this stage I was pretty concerned it was an Injury Which Shall Not Be Named.
So I have since had a bone scan which looked pretty clear to me (ie no ball of fire on my bone like with my tibial stress fracture) however it was reported as having a subtle area of increased uptake around the trochanteric region - ie some bone stress around the outside of my hip bone. But you really needed a magnifying glass to see the increased uptake, so its not completely convincing as a stress fracture but more like a stress reaction which is a precursor to a stress fracture. So I am hoping that 4 weeks off running will fix it but I will be getting an MRI next week which will give us a better idea of what is going on. In any case it is Very Poos.

KARAPIRO HALF IRONMAN

So the whole hip thing came up the week of Karapiro Half and when I got up on Wednesday morning after the O'Hagan's run I realized there was no way I would be running at Karapiro. I was pretty gutted as I was really looking forward to the race.
So I withdrew my entry and offered myself as a swim/biker if anyone needed it and got teamed up with a young Cambridge girl who was keen to run.
Things didn't start out so well even before the race when I filled up my fronty bottle and it immediately started leaking - it seemed my patch up job from Taiwan wasn't so good. But it was leaking slowly so I knew I get some use out of it, plus I had a bottle on my frame so it wasn't too much of a biggie.
The swim went pretty well, we swam on the rowing course which is quite cool.  It was an in the water or dive off the pontoon start - most people chose to start in the water but I really wanted to dive. This didn't go so well for me as I almost landed on tiop of someone and my goggles filled with water. Oh well.
The first 500m was a bit congested but then I was pretty much on my own and came out of the water as 7th female and just ahead of the 2nd individual female (oh my...). I tried a couple of steps jogging but my hip hurt too much so I did the walk of shame all the way up to T1 - and it was a loooooong way... About 300m and I got passed by a tonne of people and as I walked into T1 I heard on the loudspeakers they were playing Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run"- how ironic.
I think my swim must have been around 32mins which is a slight improvement of late but still pretty crap.
So I jumped on my bike and off I went. My bike goal was to catch Nicky who had a much faster swimmer than me and while Nicky would normally be much faster than me she was just on a road bike with no aero bars and hadn't done much training.
I had a few Nicky mirages as I went along but finally saw her up ahead at about the halfway mark. There was a huge long downhill and I hammered it as hard as I could when something came flying off my bars, it took me a few seconds to take stock then I realized it was my TapTap CPU - disaster!!!! I had a moment of indecision - whether I turn around or carry on and go back for it later, then realized I could never leave TapTap on the side of the road so had to turn around and ride back up the hill.  It was pretty gutting seeing all the people I had worked so hard to pass just cruising down while I went the opposite way.  Luckily TapTap was easy to spot but the battery and battery cover had aborted themselves and were nowhere to be seen. I didn't know what was more sad - Nicky and all the people I had passed riding away from me or all the power data I had just lost...
Anyways I carried on riding hard to make up for lost time and ended up catching everyone I wanted to (including Nicky) so all was not completely lost. It a pretty tough course - very hilly and very rough roads so I came in with a time of 2hrs53, I think I would have lost around 3mins with my TapTap drama so we'll round it down to 2hrs 50. In any case I had a fastest bike split of the individual females...
My runner did a fine job and we ended up winning the women's team section.
The rest of the team did well expect Davo who had a mechanical issue (how convenient...) and had to turn around after 10km on the bike.  Nicky had a good ride, Jess swam fast and J-Rad was 10th individual despite running himself dry by eating and drinking all his nutrition in the first 2hrs on the bike...

A few kg's skinnier than when he started...

Its only the second year that the Karapiro Half has been held and its a great event - a few little things here and there which need to be tidied up but definitely has the potential to be one of the big events on the NZ triathlon calendar. Last year I missed out on it because of my tibial stress fracture so I got a bit closer this year but fingers crossed that next year I'll be lining up for the whole thing.

Taiwan 70.3 Race Report

One of the reasons I chose Taiwan to race was because it is a new race I thought it may attract a weaker field which could work in my favour.  Turns out my sneaky plan was foiled as a few decent girls decided to show up (Michelle Wu - Japan 70.3 winner, Belinda Granger, multiple Ironman and 70.3 winner, Maki Nishiuchi - can't remember her results but she's good...) and so on.

They haven't posted any results up yet and my watch battery died so I have no times for anything yet but the general consensus is that it wasn't a very fast course.

SWIM
The swim was a mass beach start, the Pros got a couple of meters head start. Beach starts are not my friend - I should really practice them because I never know whether I should run or dolphin dive (usually ends badly) or what to do. Anyway it wasn't too bad but I was pretty quickly engulfed in the the AG men coming up from behind.
As much as I was a fan of wearing a wetsuit it really was a bit warm and I was cooking by about 10mins. I had a few groups to swim with for most of the way but encountered quite a few annoying breaststokers on the second lap which broke us up a bit.
There was quite a swell the further out we got and I swallowed quite a lot of water.
Not quite sure of my time but think it may have been around 35-36mins which is probably my worst ever. I really don't know what is up with my swimming, I blame Haydn and the Teps for abandoning me, I've been extra sucky since then.

BIKE
Bike started off well until around the 15km when I rode over a huge hole in the road (refer other blog about shocking state of the roads) and heard a bad noise and RooRoo kind of stopped on me. I stopped to investigate assuming it was a puncture but turned out to be my fronty aero bottle which runs pretty snug with the front wheel had dropped down a fraction with the jolt and was now resting on my front wheel. I had some issues with it leading up to IMWI and had patched up a little hole which had been covered with tape, this had pulled the tape off and water was now leaking out. Awesome. I hitched it up so it was clear again and carried on and just used the bottle on my frame. Caught a couple of the girls ahead of me and got passed by a few men but mostly rode on my own.
The wind was pretty bad. Like Kona strength. Seriously.
Mostly side/tail or side/head and very gusty, had a few scary moments and had to pick my times to take my hands off the handlebars.  The second lap was worse with a pretty full on headwind for a decent part of it.
Bike time was around 2hrs43 according to TapTap, will have to check the other girls times to see how it compares but it seems pretty slow to me. I think the guys were riding in the 2.20's so maybe that's not too bad.

RUN
My favourite part. Didn't feel like my favourite running out of transition and up a long hill.  In fact the first 3km were pretty much uphill. After that it was mostly flat with a nice downhill section.
We didn't escape the wind on the run, it was there too making forward progression a bit hard at times. I even lost my hat at one stage.
Took about 5km to start feeling good, then I felt awesome for about 6-7km then I felt average again. It was pretty hot - like high 20's, but I kept cool getting water and sponges from the aid stations so the heat wasn't really an issue.
I have no idea what my run time was - at times it felt like I was going for under 90mins, other times it was more like 120mins. I think the fastest girls time was only 1hr28 and the men were around 1hr23, so I expect I was around 1hr35 but who knows.

So overall ended up in 8th place which is my best placing at an international event, so maybe not too bad for a muppet like me, but will wait to see the times compared with the others before I make any vast, sweeping statements.

Post-race feast - lucky the breakfast buffet was still open when I finished. Nom nom

Followed by dessert

View while I was enjoying my meal

The performance of the day must go to Jamie Whyte for winning the sprint for 2nd from 4 x IMFrance winner Marcel Zamora and also to Kieran Doe for coming 4th.

Next up will be the Karapiro Half Ironman on November 13th.

Taiwan 70.3

Hello and welcome to Kenting, Taiwan!

So after 2 plane trips and a 2hr car trip we arrived at the Yoho Beach Resort at about 2am on Wednesday morning.  The pre-race email said to expect sunny weather 25-30 degrees. Wednesday was overcast, about 22deg and very windy, probably better for racing anyway (maybe not the wind...).

Artwork at the Yoho Beach Resort

Since then I have been for a few rides and runs on the course and swum in the pool at the resort.
Swimming in the pool has been interesting, its pretty big but a funny shape so I reckon I can get ~22m end to end.  One end was on a curved wall which made for some pretty interesting tumble turns but better than nothing I guess.
The roads are pretty bad - a far cry from the smooth roads of Wisconsin and Syracuse but riding the Karapiro Half course recently has prepared me for bad roads.  The bike course is pretty much flat except for a couple of little hills with a few obstacles in the form of road works, dogs and giant geese/ducks (think Jemima Puddleduck on steroids...).

Scenes from the bike course

More bike course

Ducks? Geese? Not too friendly whatever they were. I was worried they would develop a pack mentality on me...

Helpful signs so I knew I was going the right way

Getting my game face on

I see the sea

 

 The run just goes along the main road from the swim to the resort so will be a bit Syracuse-esque but is pretty much flat so should be good.

Local village on my run

We have just found out that the swim will be wetsuit legal YIPPEEEEEE!! The website had always said wetsuit legal but last week they dropped a bomb on me and said the water would be too warm and wetuits would be banned. However some cold currents (or maybe some creative temperature recording...?!) have brought the temperature down to a legal 24.2 to the dismay of the people in the race who can actually swim. Lucky I brought my trusty Blue Seventy MuppetSuit with me!!

Beach where the swim is. Note the grey hump over the hill - just the local Nuclear Power Plant. But its ok I read the sign which tells you what to do if the emergency siren goes off.

 

So RooRoo is all racked and ready to go. Lucky they have the fancy racks that your rear wheel goes into rather than the usual kind which we dislike so much - we would have been seriously flapping around with the wind down at transition when we checked in.

Hello RooRoo

So the race starts tomorrow at 11.30am NZ time for anyone who is interested and should be up on ironman.com.

I have just realized that the buffet breakfast here is open until 1pm and since the race finishes at the resort I should have plenty of time to get in for a post-race breakfast woohoo!!!

Big Jo training Oct 18 - Oct 24

SWIM

A bit slack in the extra swims department this week... But we did do a 2km TT at swimming on Wednesday which just reinforced how crap I am swimming at the moment. I'm too embarrassed to say my time but it was quicker than at Syracuse. Maybe I didn't count right and swam extra... But the most exciting news of the week was my new swim cap purchase (yes I actually paid money for a cap - unheard of!!) but it is so cool that it is worth it. Maybe it will make me swim faster? Or maybe it will make me just want to swim more. In fact I was so excited about wearing for the first time that I even dreamt about it.

Front. Excuse my nose.

Back. Jealous much?!

BIKE

Time: 12hrs50
Distance: 320km

Some good riding this week thanks to some nice weather. Did 4.5km as the longest ride with some uptempo work. My Serottica has an annoying clanking coming from the bottom bracket so have been riding RooRoo a bit more plus with all the races coming up RooRoo and I need to become more of a unit.

RUN

A much better week on the running front - got my calves sorted with a good massage and our dehydration theory work and I was toilet-free for my long run in the weekend.  A lot of people would probably prefer not to hear about my number two's issues but it has really been quite a problem and I know that I'm not the only who has these problems so I'm pretty happy to have to under control now.
My longest run was 2hrs which went well, I'm certainly getting more comfortable with running for longer.  It used to be anything over 90mins was a mission but not 2hrs isn't too much of a big deal.

Chilling out in my new chair with Murfy post-run. And yes I do realize I have a clubfoot and giant thighs. At least we can see how my ankle rolls so easily when this is my comfortable resting position.

At the moment I'm in Taiwan for the 70.3 this weekend so will update in a couple of days on whats been going on here.

Big Jo training Oct 11 - Oct 18

SWIM

Squad x 2
Non-squad x 2

~ 12.6km

Still plugging away at the swimming and am trying to make friends with my pull buoy and band to make me actually use my arms when I swim... One of the biggest problems I have with doing PB and band work (apart from swimming at snails pace), is that I get so cold that I end up freezing for the rest of the day even after spa-time and hot showers. But I found a solution to this the other day - I can swim in the kiddies pool which is only 20m but is heated to about 32degrees mmmmmmmm perfect. Its a lovely temperature for creeping up and down the pool. The length isn't ideal but I was struggling to find any motivation to go to the pool knowing I was going to freeze the whole time. I even tried wearing my Blue Seventy Point MuppetZero but my bare arms started to feel like ice blocks when I pulled them out of the water.  Oh the joys of being a Little Person...

BIKE

Time: 12hrs28
Distance: 319km

Back on the RooRoo this week for my longer rides, it was a happy reunion. My lack of a bigger daily commute is going to bring my weekly totals down a bit I think, but I guess most of that is considered junk miles. I do love adding my weekly mileage up though (well actually letting WKO do it for me...).
Longest ride this week was a bit over 4hrs in some pretty poo weather, but at least its warmed up a bit and get rained on doesn't result in hypothermia.
Biggest news of the week is my super styley BMW kit that my dear friend Neilio hooked up for me. I've never have a complete set of matching kit (arm warmers, knee warmers, vest, etc) so its pretty exciting and it looks AWESOME!!

How cool am I

Neilio is so good to me, he knows that I'm always the last person to get any cool gear because Jo-sized stuff is too hard to deal with so he made sure that I had this gear before anyone else. Thanks Neilio!!

RUN

I haven't been keeping track of time and distance but assume it was around 40-50km. My calves have really been suffering since Syracuse and my masseuse is in Kona so I resigned to wearing compression socks for my long run. This ended in disaster with multiple toilet stops and a rolled ankle and faceplant onto a gravel path (we blame the compression socks for all of this...).  My fall resulted in a few grazes and bruises but I was able to continue for another 90mins so nothing major. As for the toilet issues, a catch up with my friend Mikki who is a nutritionist may have pinned it down to dehydration so heres hoping I can get that under control before I defile every bush in the Eastern Suburbs...

Slackarse update

My poor little blog has been a bit neglected over the last couple of weeks, although I did spend a bit of time sexing it up - looks better now I think.
So we arrived back in NZ to some pretty cold, windy and wet weather and took a week or so to get over some sickness and get back into proper training. I also started two new jobs in three different locations so needed to work out how I could fit everything in.
I was inspired by my backing up at Syracuse so now have a pretty full-on race schedule for the next few months with a couple of races overseas and almost all of the long distance tri's in NZ over summer. I think it will either make me or break me. Having more regular (and better paid) work will definitely help with the cost of travel and obviously one of the main points of doing this is to try and be like a real Pro and win money at races - imagine that!!

I have added a couple of extra swims in to my week to try and address my embarrassing swim at Syracuse and have changed the structure of my biking around a little bit.  Now that my work hours have changed I will be able to do the O'Hagan's 5km run as my speedwork which will be good to give me a gauge on how things are going in that department.  The last two weeks I've done about 12hrs per week of riding so will build that up a wee bit more with longer Sunday rides and long runs will creep back up to the 2hr+ mark.  I definitely need to do something a bit different because my build up to IMWI was good but didn't produce an outstanding race on the day. So a few little changes here and there and a bit more race experience and hopefully I should be good to go...

My googles will live to fight another day with a slight makeover

I was inspired watching the Kona coverage in the weekend (a race that damaged me physically and mentally...) and am looking forward to a good season ahead.  Belinda Harper from NZ had an absolutely amazing race - 1st AG female overall, breaking the AG record in the process and beating many of the Pro's. And at the Commonwealth Games watching Nikki Hamblin getting silver in the 1500m and 800m - seeing her come from 8th place to 2nd in the 800m in the last 200m shows how you should never, ever give up.  It looked pretty painful but would have been well worth the pain.

Madison was beautiful but nothing beats NZ on a nice day

 

 

 

So I'm eager and inspired, now just need to get my A into G... Stay tuned!!

Syracuse 70.3 Race Report

I really didn't know how this race was going to go for me, I figured since I was here anyway and was entered I may as well give it a go and if it all turned to poo I could just pull out. After the other 2 Ironman's I have done I have always had about 2 weeks of easy swimming and biking and no running at all, so to do a half Ironman only one week after Ironman was going to be pretty interesting.

My legs had been pretty sore for a couple of days after IMMOO but the worst thing was the blister in between my 1st and 2nd toes which was a bit of a problem and was taking a long time to heal. I managed an 18min run the Thursday after Wisconsin and things felt ok, I did one easy 1000m swim and didn't get to ride my bike at all until we got to Syracuse so I couldn't really tell how I felt.

I don't have any photos from the race but have included a few from the day before.

PRE-RACE

A very large transition

We racked our bikes the day before the race then it rained overnight. I forgot to take any lube in the morning so my chain was not going to be working very smoothly. I also realized on the drive in that I had forgotten my Taptap head unit which aside from my actual bike and wheels is one of the most important parts of my bike. To be honest I actually wasn't so concerned, I had a watch so could roughly see my bike time but was a bit sad that I was going to be missing out on all that power data. I figured I would just ride to how I felt, maybe it would be better not to have power/speed so I couldn't see how slow I was going.

The weather in the morning was not so great - not too cold but a bit rainy and cloudy. I was a bit concerned about being wet then getting cold but the commentator assured us that the rain was going to stop between 7.30 and 8 so I decided to stick with just the tri top and shorts.

SWIM

Nice lake for swimming

 There were only 11 of us Pro Women and we started 4mins behind the Pro Men and 4mins ahead of the first wave of AG men. The start of the race was delayed by 15mins because of traffic issues so by the time we were lining up to start I was already shivering after my swim warm-up. The water was about 17degrees and dead flat. The gun went off and after about 50m I had already been dropped. I tried to bridge the gap but it just wasn't working so I swam by myself the whole way and by the end was about 2mins behind the last girl ahead of me. Basically my worst nightmare for a swim. I had to run out of the water all by myself with all these spectators giving me claps of pity and I'm sure they were wondering why on earth was this slow girl racing pro. My swim time was 33mins something which is pretty bad for me. In fact it is probably slower than my time at Tauranga when there were nasty currents and big waves and I got stuck under a buoy and had to be rescued. Shame.
I felt like I was swimming ok, I just couldn't go any faster. So far my race wasn't off to a very good start.

Swim exit

BIKE

Poor old RooRoo was waving around in the breeze and feeling pretty lonely as the last bike on the Pro rack so I jumped on and off we went. After about 15mins I began to seriously regret my clothing choice. It wasn't raining but the higher we climbed the colder and foggier it got, the downhills were the worst - I would get a little bit warm up the hills then would freeze on the downhills. My hands started to go numb so eating became quite a problem. A few AG men passed but none of them I could keep up with. All I could think about for the first half of the ride was how cold I was and I started to think I wouldn't make it to the end of the bike. I hadn't started shivering uncontrollably yet but I didn't think it was too far away. At a few stages the visibilty was so limited that you could only see about 20m ahead of you which made some of the downhills pretty interesting. Luckily they had flashing lights at the intersections and they had lined one part of the road with flares which was cool. Gradually the fog subsided and I started to get a little bit warmer. I had no idea how fast I was going and only had the 5mile markers to know how far I had gone. Since it was a hilly course I was thinking it would take somewhere between 2hrs40 and 2hrs50 but really had no idea.
At about 20miles I passed one of the other Pro women which buoyed my spirits a bit and then passed another two before the end of the bike. The second half of the ride was a lot easier - mostly flat and downhill so I think I picked up a bit of extra speed through there. Rolled into T2 with an official time of 2hrs41 which was only 10mins slower than the fastest girls bike split so not too bad an effort I thought.

RooRoo waving in the breeze, the racks were far too high for us...

RUN
The run course was point to point and was supposed to be overall slightly downhill so should be a fast course. Legs didn't feel too bad starting out and I ran the first mile in just under 6.50 and the next one in about the same. Mile times don't mean much to me so I stopped checking them after the that, I could have tried to calculate for each mile but that would have done my little brain in. There was a short out and back section at the start of the run and I couldn't see any of the girls that I had passed on the bike which was good news.
Passed a few men in the first couple of miles and after about 5miles the last girl I had passed on the bike came running past me. I tried to keep up but it wasn't happening so I let her go and hoped the other girls wouldn't do the same. I fell into step with an AG man somewhere around the 6mile mark and pretty much ran with him the whole way. I tried to pass him a couple of times but he wouldn't let me get even a step ahead which was pretty annoying but he was running at a good pace so I stuck with him.
The run course was less than spectacular - 75% of it was on a 6 lane boulevard going past run-down buildings and through heaps of intersections. The marshalls did a really good job of controlling the traffic so there were never any issues with that.
The run was pretty uneventful, my legs felt tired but nothing like the pain of Ironman which was so fresh in my memory. I had gone back to sock-less running and my feet felt so much better than in socks the week before.
Finally the finish line came and no other girls had passed me so I ended up 9th Pro Women in a time of 4hrs55 - incredibly the first time I have ever broken 5hrs! My run time was 1hr33 which was also the first time I have broken 1hr40 in a half so not a bad run. The fastest girls run time was 1hr23.

Apart from my piss-poor swim I was happier with this race than IMMOO. I didn't really feel like doing Ironman the week before had any affect on me which was pretty surprising and it has cemented my idea that more racing is better for me.
So now it is back to NZ to start training for IMWA where I shall redeem myself from my IMWI demons...

Chiacgo/NYC/Syracuse adventures

So I thought I would put up a little update for anyone who is interested in what I am doing post-IM in the big USA.
We left Madison the day after Ironman and caught a lift to Chicago with Sean Stringer. Sean is the world record holder for the most amount of Ironmans in one year (20 in 2009). He did this to raise money for a foundation he has set up www.onegoodthought.org - check it out, pretty impressive.
From Chicago we flew to NYC to stay with my friend Juliet and Stu in Manhattan. NYC was pretty overwhelming especially coming from the green pastures of Madison, Wisconsin...


The bright lights on NYC - even in daylight

But we got around quite a bit and saw most of the city in two and a half days. Managed a little trot in Central Park on the Thursday after Ironman - just planning on going out for an easy 20mins and ended up in some kind of some sprint with some man in hot pants. Its ridiculous - I can't go anywhere without picking these people up!! Also did a little swim at a local YMCA which was a bit of an ordeal just trying to find the pool in the building and having the lifeguard explain all the rules of the pool to us. Those American's and all their rules! The list of rules for Central Park is about as tall as me!!
After NYC we braved the Manhattan traffic and hired a car to drive to Syracuse in up-state New York for the 70.3. It was about a 4 hour drive all on the interstate which was pretty boring but easy driving. I even had a turn at driving which was a bit scary for everyone... But I only got beeped at once.



Lucky American's love their big giant cars

Syracuse turned out to be not quite the holiday destination that I thought it might have been... A bit run down but the swim and bike for the 70.3 were in a nice area, similar to Karapiro in NZ we decided.


Pre-race run reccy - we ran on this road for about 2mins in the race...

The race was on Sunday - I'll do a race report for it soon - and it went pretty well, the weather wasn't great at the start but it was ok by the end.
The next day we did a road trip along to Niagara to see the falls and do a quick outlet shopping trip on the way back. Niagara Falls was pretty awesome, the town not so much...



So now we are waiting at JFK airport waiting for a flight to LA then a flight to NZ then back into it!!

IRONMAN WISCONSIN

So here is my race report, its a bit wordy I'm afraid...

PRE-RACE
I got to transition in what I thought was plenty of time but I seemed to be almost the last pro in to be fluffing with my bike. I didn’t have much to do so was in and out within 10mins once my tyres were checked, bottles filled, shoes clipped in and Em’s cookies taped to RooRoo. RooRoo seemed to have fared well despite the front wheel waving about in the breeze all night because I couldn’t rack it by the brake levers (fronty bottle was in the way) and as usual my front wheel didn’t reach the ground when racked by the saddle.



Pre-race fluffing

Made my first pre-race toilet stop, the beauty of a race of 2900 people with only 700 women meant that there was no queue for the girls toilets and a huge queue for the men. Ha!
Got down to the swim start, wetsuited up and did a little warm up swim waiting for the race to start.




SWIM
My instructions for the swim was to get onto some feet and stay there. I knew there should be some people about the same speed as me and within a few hundred meters there was a little group of us. We pretty much swam the first lap and a half together but then started to get strung out by the turn around buoy. I had to put in a few little surges every now and then to keep up but lost my feet with about ¼ of the way to go. Amanda Balding had been on my feet for the second lap and I must have slowed down a bit on the way back because she came through and took the front. So I stuck with her for the way back and we started to get passed by the fast AG men with a few hundred metres to go (they had started 10mins after us). Came out of the water in 1.05 which is pretty much the same as my IMNZ time last year, I really didn’t know if my swimming was any better or worse so I guess it is the same.
Came out of the water and had my first wetsuit strippers experience which was interesting. I had pulled my wetsuit halfway down and they make you lie on the ground and they whip if off you which I wasn’t totally expecting then you run to T1 holding your suit.
The run to T1 is up a spiral parking ramp which was lined with spectators and quite overwhelming, I thought it was never going to end and was getting a bit dizzy.
I had all of T1 to myself when I ran in so had some helpful volunteers get my food into my pockets and send me on my way.

BIKE
I’ll put it out there and say my goal for the bike was to go under 5.30. I knew the course was pretty undulating but figured there was as much down as there was up so thought it would be doable.
I checked my average speed and power after about 45mins and was shocked to see my power was way high at 137w (I was aiming for between 120 and 130) and my speed was way low at 30.1kph – at this rate it was going to take me just under 6 hours… Quite a few men were passing me on the first lap of the bike but they were all too fast for me to try and keep up with (we had an 10m drafting zone) so I rode the first lap on my own making sure I was eating and drinking regularly. It had ended up being quite a hot day so I made sure I was drinking enough.

I started to pass a few people in the second lap of the bike and at times had people to ride with. The spectators on the course were awesome – groups of them would pop up out of nowhere with cow bells, speedos, stereos and pompoms. I had managed to get my speed up to over 30.5 and power down to 132w but I still knew that my sub 5.30 time was long gone and I would be lucky if I did 5.45. Starting the second lap of the bike I really needed to go wees but no matter how hard I tried I just could go on the bike so had to stop at Mt Horeb. I think it must have been here that Jocelyn Wong passed me because she was behind me onto the bike but ahead of me on the run but I never saw her go past me otherwise I would have tried to ride with her. I thought she could end up riding quicker than me and she put out a pretty good bike time.
The last 12miles were mostly downhill with a tailwind so I gained a few places there but still ended up with a 5hr47 bike time which was way slower than what I was hoping for. My average power was 129w so I’m not actually sure I could have ridden much harder either. So overall I don’t really know what to think about it.
Once again I had transition all to myself so was in and out pretty quick and got molested by the sunscreeners although I think the sunburn damage had already been done.

RUN
Everything always feels a bit weird running after sitting on the bike for 180km and this was no exception. I felt like I was really creeping along but was passing people so figured I must have been going ok. There were only mile markers which don’t mean much to me except the first one which I was surprised to see I did 6min52, but settled into a slightly slower pace from there on. It was now between 25 and 30degrees so was grabbing ice and sponges at the aid stations to help me to cool down. The first lap of the run was pretty uneventful, there were heaps of spectators and we got to run around the University of Wisconsin football stadium which was cool. It’s a pretty messy run course with a few out and back sections and I thought I may have been slowly catching a couple of the girls ahead of me.

I got to the halfway in about 1.42-1.43 so would have done a good time if I could maintain that for the second half. My tummy started to feel bad around the 27km mark so I had to make a couple of quick toilet stops which seemed to get that under control. My quads were starting to feel pretty bad and running just wasn’t fun anymore. I walked through a couple of aid stations and struggled to get running again. I had a blister on my forefoot which was also starting to burn and I think I just gave up a bit, I saw J-rad who was asking what the story was so I stopped to have a chat with about 10km to go. I had every intention of finishing but I knew I was well over what I wanted to do. There was actually another pro girl who ended up just a couple of minutes ahead who must have been suffering about as much as me, maybe that would have been motivation enough if I’d known she was going backwards. My end time was 10.43 with a 3.43 run – ouch. Almost exactly 20mins slower than my 2009 IMNZ time – 10mins on the bike and 10mins on the run. I was 11th pro and 16th female. I can console myself that there were 4 of us pro’s within 10mins of each other so it’s not like I was an hour slower than anyone else which was a big fear going into my first race as a pro. I really should have run around (or under) 3.30 which would have bumped me to at least 8th place and in the money, but I didn’t.


Thank god thats over...

I was hoping for a better result and while it could have been a lot worse it also could have been a lot better. At least I didn’t do anything really stupid which I would regret. The general consensus is that IMWI is a slower course than IMNZ so maybe I shouldn’t compare my times but I would like to think that I am faster and have more iron-distance training under my belt so was hoping for a bit more.
I did think at several times during the run that I never want to do Ironman again because it hurt so much but think I just need to toughen up, surely the more I do it the easier it will get?! So I think I will be lining up for IMWA in 3 months time – at least it’s a bit closer to home and I know it’s a faster course than IMNZ so no excuses!!!

Big thanks to J-rad to being my number one supporter, to Mike for letting us stay with him in Madison, to Guy and Ben for my awesome new K-Swiss gear, to Davo for his infinite knowledge on all things Ironman (and all things in general) and to everyone back home who have supported me :)

IMMOO eve...

Less than 12 hours to go now - bike and gear is all checked in so not much more I can do except eat, sleep and stress...
Race day is looking to be perfect weather, today was rainy and foggy for the first part of the day then cleared up. Tomorrow is set is be clear and sunny and temperatures in the mid 20's, awesome.
I rode over the first part of the bike course yesterday, its pretty crazy going through bike paths and parking lots - like taking a little ticky tour around Madison... Must remember I am in a race and not out for a Sunday pootle. And transition is inside the main convention centre - weird!! Should be a bit different though.


Everything I need for an Ironman


RooRoo ready for racing amongst the foliage


T1 in the ballroom...


RooRoo racked and ready to go FAST

So now to do a few last minute things before beddy-byes and next thing I know I will be on the start line at IRONMAN - ARGH!!!!!