Week 14 Update - My Busselton 70.3 Training Log

Week 14 started with the Coogee Triathlon on Sunday 15th April - plus I had my biggest volume week of the season. This is PEAK Week!! (so too, should last week have been, but that didn't happen).

Anyway, so Sunday was a huge day for our family. The alarm was set for 4.15am so that we could bundle the kids up and setup our marquee in the sponsors area before registration. The kids had agreed to man the tent and help people put their entries in for the Win a Trisuit prize draw, and Rob from Body Torque was happy to keep a friendly eye on them too.

It was a very big race, with numerous race distances but not a lot of North Coast tri club people that I knew. Most of the girls had defected to the other Olympic Distance race same day at Rockingham. Boo :(

The race start was a bit of a shambles unfortunately. With so many different races going on, and this being the same course used for a sprint course earlier in the year, some people started a rumour that the OD competitors needed to walk 1km north of the Coogee Jetty. I tried to hold my ground as I'd read the course map and knew we were all starting from the jetty but the mob mentality prevailed and so we had to jog back when called to our correct starting point! Oh well, it was a warm up I guess.

The water wasn't cold but they let us wear our wetties as they knew most of us were using this as a training race for the Busselton 70.3. I realised I haven't swum in OW with my wettie this season, been a bit apathetic I guess but it was all ok - just felt my feet were too floaty! I had a nasty moment where I almost pulled out of the swim in panic as I got stung across my nose and top lip by stingers and each time I put my head into the water it stung like blazes so I sat up and yelped a bit then figured I had to swim to get out so I may as well keep swimming. I had a girl on my hip the whole race that I managed to beat into shore so I felt overall it was an ok swim.

I got a lovely surprise as I came across the timing mat at T1 because my girls were both manning the water station wearing their official orange volunteer vests! They were having fun, and gave me a big cheer so that was great.

In transition there were lots of bikes, so that was a good start and as I clipped into my bike shoes at the mount line I spotted Paul alongside me and thought ummm... he started in the wave ahead of me... great I'm doing ok... so with that I headed out on my favourite leg of a triathlon. Whilst the course was technical with 12 hills and tight 180 degree turns (hard on a TT bike) I felt elated as I blizzed past so many riders. But you never know if what race people are doing - so its hard to judge your own performance but it feels good anyway and I always find this motivates me. So long as the only people who manage to overtake me are men with solid dish race wheels, I feel I'm on track. But then the race took on a new perspective as I came up to a girl that I had troubles holding off. We played cat and mouse and had a bit of fun with one another. We had a chat and I find out she's 24 and clearly a bit of a gun from Stadium. About half way through the race she started to gain on me and I realised I didn't pick up my gel - oh no, not again! no energy, but I knew I had one back in transition. I felt like I needed the gel, and my Garmin log shows that I started to falter a little during the bike, and that's when Sam got her lead on me. I didn't bother trying to chase her down as I was doing my maximum that I could sustain for this race and my race wasn't with her. It was a 6 lap course with a big M turn at one end of it, so it made the 40k ride seem very long and I was glad when it was over.

Back in transition, I got myself off onto the run without too much fuss and wondered how my knees would hold up. This is the part of the race where I have grown accustomsed to being the one being overtaken. It's a horrible deflating feeling but I focus on myself and tell myself this is my race and all I've got to do is run at my pace and get to the end.

Damn course had us running 2 laps with a long stretch along the beach. Exhasuting and difficult in shoes. But it was a really pretty course and I enjoyed myself so much and had no pain!

I got to the end of the 10k run, so happy that it had all gone so well and full of confidence that I was in good enough shape to have a crack at the 70.3 and that was what I out here to learn that day.

We didn't have long to hang around after the race as we had another big event that day to get to in Hammersely. It was Chardae's first karate grading - going for her yellow stripe on her white belt. We made it with 5 minutes to spare and she did very well, scoring top marks in all parts of the assessment so we were very proud and pleased to see her enjoy herself.



Of course, the next day was a well deserved rest and then it was back to a double session on Tuesday - ride + swim. I felt a bit tight in the hamstrings throughout my ride (on my road bike) on Tuesday but didn't think much of it and swam 3.1k that night. Did a 14k run on Wednesday - my longest so far, but not without pain. I started to see a pattern where using my road bike seems rather than my TT bike seems to bring on the knee problems later in the week when I run (usually the next day). So I decided at that point that I could now just stick with my TT bike for training through to the 70.3 race - even on the wind trainer.

The week ended with a very solid brick on Saturday - 85k ride with 6.5k run off bike, which felt really good. I really wanted to keep running but I used my head and resisted the urge to do another loop.

So 12 hrs 51mins of training for Peak week 14. 4 rides, 3 swims, 3 runs and 1 rest day.