Less than a week to K2

In 5 days time I'll be competing in my longest ever cycle race...K2. It's a cycle race that goes around New Zealand's Coromandel peninsula. It's not so much the 197km that is the issue. It's the 2,800m of hill climbing involved. Sure, you get to go down the other side but you gotta get up 'em first. A few friends from Hawke's Bay here have done the event and are doing it again this year so it can't all be bad.

About two months ago I bought a new TT (time trial) bike for racing in triathlon. Unfortunately these bikes are not the best for hill climbing. There is one other thing...amongst a crowd of 'roadies' (road cyclists) someone on a TT bike is bound to be labeled the idiot triathlete and who can therefore do all the work at the front of the bunch. So, to avoid these problems I now have a new road bike. Certainly a different ride - more relaxed and upright - faster? No.

So, back to K2. The coach asked me to fill out a race plan. One of the sections discusses attacking - i.e. when are you going to attack? Attack? Hmmmm. The only thing doing the attacking in bike rides involving me are the magpies (birds that become quite vicious during nesting season - about now). Before begging with the coach I'd never done race plans before. It's a discipline he's got me into and it does help, especially on the day when things go a little wrong.

The quickest riders will do K2 in about 5hrs45min. They also have something called the sub-6hr club. Some how I don't think I'll be joining that one any time soon. As for the time I'm expecting? Who knows, I'll tell you next week.

Easy Weeks and Hard Weeks

I don't know much about other sports but in Triathlon there's this concept of periodisation. The idea behind it is that to grow stronger you much push your body close to its limits and then have a period of time to recover. A normal cycle of this runs over four weeks. You spend the first two weeks building up to the third week which is the hard week. Then, you get the easy week.

Interesting things happen in the easy week. The first couple of days you normally feel like crap and get a little grumpy and you need to try super hard not to bite everyone's head off. Late in that week on the other hand you feel like you can take on the world at anything. Well, that's what's supposed to happen. It's also a week to get a few chores done.

Here's a week by week chart showing how, after a bit of shaky start to training, things have settled into this.

But then, just when you think your into a build week, bang! Here comes 22 hours of training in the coming week. Ahhh!!!! I'm guessing this is to align this periodisation so I'm getting this "taking on the world feeling" come the start of my next race 1st of November....K2 (187km + 2800m of hills!).

Another interesting thing happens in the easy weeks. You get to enjoy some time-out from training. But just when you begin to enjoy it, bang your holiday is over and it's back into it.

So, with 2.5 hours done today, just another 19.5 left for the week.....time for sleep I think.

The Road to Ironman NZ 2009

Pressure has mounted to start a blog. So, here it is.

Back in the early 1990s I was into triathlon. Never having done well (or for that matter anything at all) in the way of sports at school I was keen to give triathlon a go. I enrolled myself in learn to swim classes, got on a bike and started running.

In 1993 I did my first Olympic Distance Triathlon (1500m swim, 40km bike and 10km run). Early the next year I did my first Half Ironman (2km swim, 90km bike and 21km run) and backed this up by completing my first Ironman (3.8km swim, 180km bike and 42km run) in Auckland, NZ...what a buzz!

Since then I went on to do another two Half Ironman races but after that lost interest and gained weight - about 25kg in the 10 years that followed.

Towards the end of 2006 I thought enough was enough and it was time to get back on the bike again and aim towards doing another Half Ironman. January 2008 was the target. Early in 2007 I took on a coach and it was all on. Mission accomplished - 5hrs 10min at the Port of Tauranga Half. Somewhere along the line the Ironman carrot started dangling in front of me and that became the next target. So, 7th March 2009 is the date.

Back in 1994 it was the 10th Anniversary of the NZ Iornman. 2009 will be the 25th Anniversary.

Bring it on!