Stryka’s BodyBlog

Official Race Times: Swim 11:06 (2nd Last)

Ride: 24:36 - Ranked 7th out of 28 (and within 20seconds of 4th)

Run: 12:24 - Ranked 9th out of 28 (again within 20 seconds of 5th)

Total: 48:06 - 16th overall

Bring on next season!  But for now bring on the weights

I have been so excited about riding a fast bike in todays tri that when I woke up this morning to bucketing rain I was almost ready to go back to bed instead of racing. But I didn’t, I got ready and by the time I got to the beach the rain had eased to a light drizzle. The race was still on, I had already paid my entry fee, so I stayed and got ready.

By the time the race started the rain had pretty much stopped. The temperature was about 17 degrees C which is about perfect for the race, there was no wind to speak of but there was a fairly decent swell.

We started off and I eased my way into the surf, I don’t see much point in rushing too much at the start, would just mean everyone would swim over me and before we hit the first buoy. Today the swim was tough with the swell and on top of that my goggles fogged up so I had no idea where the far buoy was so I could only go off the main bunch which fairly quickly left me behind. Basically I zig zagged my way in the general direction. Although Today I only decided to quit about 5 times instead of the 10 last race. And each time I made that decision I pushed through that little bit further before all of a sudden I was only 15 metres away from the buoy, I only had to get around that and I could then swim towards land so I swam back out to it (I had gone off course again) and then headed for the beach.

Just as I thought I would never reach the sand my hand hit the bottom and without realising I was back in knee deep water. Another race without drowning.

I was sucking in some pretty deep breaths here and my transistion felt slow. I enventually got the bike off the rack and looked at my stopwatch, roughly 12mins had gone past. I was two minutes slower than my first swim. Need to learn to swim in a straight line The swell obviously accounted for some time too as did a very slow transistion.

Now for the real test - I have only had my cycling shoes for about a week and I haven’t gotten used to walking in them yet let alone run on the greasy wet road to the mount/dismount line. I hobble and I hop on the bike, again because of the road surface I gingerly take off, my intention was to really but the big power done out of the turnaround points but because of the road we have to really slow down to get around the turn and then it took a couple of turns to get full power out of the turn. I was dissapointed I couldn’t really get a good idea of how much improvement I had made since the first race because of the difficult conditions but I know I was faster and when I looked at my watch about 36minutes had elapsed. Average speed was roughly 30kms per hour including hobbling through the transitions trying not to slip over.

The run started well. It wasn’t the fastest ever 3kms I have run but it felt ok. And when I got towards the finish I picked the pace up a fair bit. I finished strong with a total time of around 48minutes. Roughly 30 seconds slower than the first but faster than the second and in pretty average conditions.

I am satisfied with this. Today for the first time I felt like I competed instead of just dragging my ass through it (well except the swim). I mowed down about 5-6 riders as if they were standing still and ran down another 5 or 6 on the run. I wasn’t last out of the water which was a race goal and I think that I should have achieved my other two goals of top ten splits on the bike and run. 

I am eagerly awaiting the official times  

Now to eat some more so I can get in a good weights sessions this afternoon

Well thought I was an ok cyclist - and I thought that hill climbs were my speciality because of the strength in my quads to push up the road. I was wrong!

Today was my first ever cycling race and granted it does fall outside of my less than 1 hour criteria for these races (and tougher than the super sprint triathlons) but It was a challenge and those of you have have read these posts over the last few months know that I like nothing better than a good hard challenge.

Todays challenge was a time trial race to the top of Mt Wellington. The same mountain that I ran the half marathon up back in November although the first half were from and different (and easier) approach with a six km climb followed by 4km of slight downhill then on to the main mountain road that I ran so many times last year for another tough 12 kms of climbing. I think the average gradient would have been about 5-6% but there are also sections that hit closer to 10% so pretty damn steep.

I rocked up this morning and whilst waiting to register I checked out some of the competitors bikes. Some serious money in those bikes and some very serious cyclists here too. Even before I registered I felt a little out of place (but I bet they can’t squat and deadlift what I can!)

We were setting off 30 seconds apart. The guy behind me took all of 2 1/2 minutes to bridge that gap and all day long it was the same story - I felt like I was going backwards with the speed some of those guys raced uphill past me.

Training preparation for the ride was hardly ideal (not an excuse but) we did one ride to the top but taking the same route as the point to pinnacle and one trip from the start line to the turnoff to the top. On that second trip It took 34 minutes to cover the 10kms. Today I blitzed that down to 29:30 for that first 10km. I should have been happy but with people racing past me the whole time it was a bit disheartening.

It got tough from there. I just couldn’t settle in to a good rhythym. I was already in my lowest gear but I had to ride standing up to get the pedals around at anything over 10kph, I just had no power!

Was surviving at about 12-13kph for the first 5km of the mountain road but then I hit what I have now renamed "the death zone" which is about 3.5km of really steep road that is virtually straight and where the scenary barely changes so it really feels like you are pedalling with no effect.

I hit the next checkpoint of "the chalet" meaning I was almost to the home stretch. On the runs this was a great motivational boost. Today still meant there was 3.5km of climbing to go. Mentally I was already spent. I was literally taking it one pedal stroke at a time. The big bend gave about 100metres of relief where I actually hit about 16kph…. then the climb hit the final 2kms, running you don’t really notice it kicking up too much but on the bike… holy crap can I even get up this? 1kms and I can pretty much see the finish. I tried with everything I had to crank it up a couple of gears and push harder - it lasted about 100 metres before dropping back to granny gear. I try again, and drop back again. I am almost there, I give everything I have and finish in about 1hr27 averaging about 14.6kph to the top.

I should have been pretty happy with that but the way so many others flew past me I was actually really disappointed. I was hoping for about 10minutes faster which would have been a respectable time (the winners I think were closer to 50minutes!)

The thinks I learnt:

Expensive bikes = fast bikes ( I am seriously considering finding the money to upgrade after today!)

I am nowhere near as quick as I thought I was on the bike!

Backing up for a chest session after a ride like that is hard work but it had to be done, weights still come first

I need to spend more time on the bike if I want to even come close to a lot of those guys (but they prob cant squat and dead what I can)

Next week is a 100km charity ride but that will be at a nice sedate pace and despite 2 decent hils it will be relatively flat   

Well I am back and am still yet to drown!!! Today the weather was ideal conditions for running and cycling at about 16 degrees with a light breeze however that light breeze was enough to chop up the ocean making my swim harder.

But despite the course looking decidingly longer than the advertised 300m (although that could just be my imagination) and me literally making the decision to quit about 10 times during the swim and swimming off course meaning that I added about 20metres to get around the last buoy I got there with a mix of what at times almost resembled freestyle, side stroke, breaststroke and backstroke and felt all the better for it when I eventually stood up in knee deep water back on the beach.

The bike felt good today getting up above the 30kph that I wanted to average, taking about 21 minutes for what my cycle computer said was 10.8km

Where the past runs have been nice and easy along flat roads today we went back onto the beach for 3 laps of a 1km loop that crossed back across the sand dunes twice per lap which really made the run tough. I have no idea but If I had to guess I think the run took about 13-14minutes - pretty slow particularly through the soft sand.

I don’t think they took split times for the legs but when the post the full race times I will let you know. I would like to think I beat the 47odd minutes from my first race but with the changes in conditions I am not sure.

After seeing both my parents extended families over the past week I started thinking about genetics and how much they play in our athletic abilities. Both sides of the family are large with mum and dad both having 5 brothers and sisters and that means that I have about 20 odd cousins on each side. So my informal study consisted of about 50 odd people with what should be fairly similar dna.

What became glaringly obvious was that there no direct link as to who was athletic and who wasn’t. Within the 3 generations there was short and tall, skinny and fat.  brothers and sisters were as different as chalk and cheese, highly athletic or morbidly obese.

Sure genetics make life easier for some than they do for others, I am not denying that at all. All I am saying is that some people make the most of what they are given…. Some don’t.

Make up you own mind what you do with yours.

One of the things that has always attracted me is the mental aspects of sports. Just what will go through Cadel Evan’s mind as he lines up for another 3 weeks of absolute torture on the bike as he lines up for the Tour de France after throwing everything he has at the race for the last two years only to come second place and also knowing that it just gets harder this year with Lance Armstrong, Floyd Landis and Alberto Contador back in the race not to mention somehow finding a way to get past the might of the CSC team with last years winner Carlos Sastre and Frank and Andy Schleck to somehow get past?

I wonder just what is currently going through his mind as he endures hours upon hours of training on the bike?

How does last years football wooden spoon team find it within themselves to get back out on the field against last years premiers? How do they put last years humiliations behind them to enact a game plan and somehow find a victory?

Finding the answer to these questions is what separates the true champions from the perenial also rans. It is the ability to put aside past failures and not them define who they are.

Sure they are bitterly disapointed but don’t dwell on it. They analyse what went wrong so they can do what any champion must do - learn from the mistakes.

Mistakes happen - that is just a part of life for if we didn’t make any mistakes then it is impossible to achieve greatness

"The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure" 

I know it is a bit corny but I will leave you with a video from Sly: Was it really your best?

First up let me apoligise for the rather sporadic posts lately. It has been a ridiculously busy few weeks at work (which is a good thing) the busier I am the more money I can make

On a sader note side my Grandfather passed away this week at the ripe old age of 79. Yesterday was the funeral at the other end of the state which took it out of me to drive about 600kms yesterday plus the funeral and memorial services, it became a long day. My grandfather was a Church Pastor who served his God all his life so I know he has gone home to a happier place.

Feb 15 was my line in the sand for a number of goals. I hit some, but missed some.

Squat - nailed 10 reps at 150kg no problems at all. I also got a couple reps out at 400pds the other week which wasn’t listed as a goal but certainly satisfying none the less.

Deadlifts - Still not satisfied that I am flat enough with these. The weight itself is no problem at all but I will keep working on them.

Bench - My goal here was 115kg for five reps with the ancillary goal of a 120kg lift. I got 4 reps out but got the 120 - just. Whilst I came antagonisly close I am still pretty happy here because I have added about 15kg to my 1 rep max over the last 6 weeks. Certainly nothing to be scoffed at.

Weight - Barely moved currently 78.4 at 8.4%. I really need to work on eating more. Simple as that. No excuses. Just eat more. Having said that - I have made some great strength gains on all my lifts using a 5×5 system which is a great base to now focus more on size as opposed to strength. Now I am going to switch to german volume training for the next two weeks.

Tonight was the first night of the gvt. We started with arm night because it will be the least intense to ease into the program but let me tell you I can barely lift my arms right now.

Leg night we will just do a 20 rep squat rather than the 10 x 10. The only other time I have done gvt I couldn’t walk for a week even with light weights.

Next goals are due by April 18th which is my birthday. I really need to shake things up to catch up on the weight goal in particular.

Well this week is the week I have set to reach my first 6 week goals for 2009 (scary that 2009 is 6 weeks old already!). I have a specific Squat, Bench, Deadlift and Weight goal that I was supposed to hit this week. Well tonight was leg night. I have had a real lack of energy this week. It wasn’t actually the tri that took it out of me but rather on monday morning I went for a ride with some friends and I had to work my butt off just to keep up. Then getting up early on tuesday morning for swim training.

I am not a morning person at all. For all of you that are up every morning before dawn to train, I definitely salute you!

So anyways I didn’t wanna squat. But I set a goal. If I just decided it is too hard to attempt this week then what is the point of a goal in the first place? My goal was 150kg x 10 reps. 10 good deep reps. It is not so much the weight but the depth that I was going for.

I didn’t want to train tonight, I wanted to stay at home and rest, When I got to the gym I wanted to stick to the warm up weights. When I put 150kg on the bar I wanted to stop on the 3rd rep. I wanted to stop on the 5th rep, and on the 6th, 7th, 8th, and the 9th.

You know I didn’t quit though. Tomorrow I tick the deadlift goal off.

Well I placed 15th in the tri (although only 22 competed in the super sprint, hard to tell because of the two races being held at the same time) 15th was my goal so I guess I passed that but it is a little hollow with only the 22 competitors.

The 300m Swim time was 10:15. Split placing 21 out of 22. (got out of my wetsuit faster than the other bloke )

12km Cycle was 25:07. Split placing 10 out of 22.

3km run 12:02 Split placing 13 out of 22

Total time  47:24.

:( Negatives: My swim was poo. As soon as the race started everything I had practiced went out the window. I didn’t go crazy like a bull out of the gate but my technique was virtually non existant. I do need to keep in mind though that I never swim so to complete 300metres on two practice sessions is a big effort for me.

My cycle was average. My cycle computer said 29.5 ave kph. The course was perfectly flat and I should have been faster. Again I need to keep in mind that it was only the second time out on the bike in a long time.

:) Positives: I have 6 scheduled swim sessions till the next race. Already I am learning to relax in the water and concentrate on my swimming rather than just fighting to get enough air to get me to the other end. THere is a lot of room for improvement which means that I can make big gains on this leg. A simple 2 minutes puts me in a very competitive position.

I will get out on the bike more between now and March 1. Again simply getting in the saddle should get me some easy gains. Another minute here and again I am a lot closer to the front of the field.

My fitness was fine for the 47 minute event. No problems here.

Despite my legs taking about 500 metres of running before they realised that they were no longer pedalling and were supposed to be running I still managed 4 minute kms.

Most importantly - I enjoyed the journey.