Rotorua Half, Tadpolemonator and yuck Christmas weather

So the aftermath of Taupo Half was not so great with a my little groin issue hanging around and preventing me from running plus a very nasty ouchie on the front of my ankle from me being a muppet and not doing my shoe up properly.

Ouchies

 I was down to do the bike section for the Rotorua Half with my friend Megan from swimming which was quite exciting as I have never been a team biker before and got to wear my skinsuit which I had never had an occasion to wear.  I had a good ride despite my new Garmin 500 (on it's first outing) being on autolap and taking a lap every 8.05km (5 miles) and annoying the hell out of me.  It was fun riding with gay abandon and not having to worry about running.

Looking a bit ghost like but aero at the same time

Rotorua turned out a great day and the Lawson's backed up their 3rd race in 3 weeks with the Hammer coming 3rd and the Poodle taking a more relaxed approach and taking the dog for a run for the last part.

Who's this clown running his dog on the course?! Oh wait that's Nick

A very exciting thing happened the week after Rotorua - my new bike parts arrived!! Woo hoo!! I had to reorder from somewhere else because the original order went missing in the post which is why it took so long.  It then took a couple of nights (and lots of grumbling) to build.

Genius at work...

But then I got to use it for my Saturday ride - weeeeee!  It feels pretty good and seems to be better at cornering and 180 degree turns which is an area of mine which certainly needs some help.  It came with a pair of Zipp 404's but the whole TapTap issue means that if I use the rear 404 (once I get a Campag freehub body for it) I won't have power, BUT I will be able to use my rear wheel cover which I couldn't use with RooRoo so will be able to have a 404 front and disc on the back.  Finally I have a grown up bike and grown up wheels!! I know it is by no means the latest and greatest but don't think there is much difference between a 2009/2010 P3C to a 2012 P3C, and there is no way in hell I can afford a 2012 P3C.  It is hard for someone of my size to get a decent bike which actually fits properly and this bike should be faster than RooRoo.

ello Taddy

I have named it the Tadpolemonator - Taddy for short.  Tadpole for my new name courtesy of Nick the Poodle, and Lemonator out of respect to it's previous owner Tracy Lemon.
Let's see if Taddy can now get us to Kona....

The weather around NZ over Christmas has been pretty schizer but I have managed a bit of riding and sea swims.  Running is starting again slowly but am looking to supplement it with pool running (boooooo) so I don't lose too much fitness.

Nice summer weather in Coromandel...

Devonport to Takapuna swim crew and their kayaker.  The seemingly calm conditions lulling them into a false sense of security...

Made it! Not so calm now

Taupo Half Ironman Race Report

I had a rather cavalier attitude coming into this race this year, I hadn't pulled up so well after Tinman with my annoying pre-Germany groin problem appearing on the opposite side.  It started to get sore a couple of hours after Tinman and hadn't really settled so I hadn't run all week since it was sore just walking around.  So I didn't really expect to be running.
Plus my super speedy new bike was STILL waiting for parts and I was really quite over the disappointment of coming home everyday to no special delivery so I wasn't really enthused about riding RooRoo again when I should have been riding something faster.

Race morning was rather chilly with quite a chop on the lake but the forecast was pretty good for the rest of the day.
Last year I had a moment of brilliance in the swim and came out of the water in around about 31mins which is a phenomenal time for me.  Sadly I couldn't replicate it this year and came out in about 36 minutes... It was much worse conditions though and times across the board were slower than usual.  I was racing AG and came out of the water with one of the Elite girls and there were still 2 more behind me - why did that never happen when I was racing Elite?!!
I was so cold (the water was 14 degrees) that I ran like a snail up to T1 and struggled to get helmet on, things in pockets, etc and ended up not doing my shoes up so well causing the velcro to rub a big hole in front of my ankle - ouch.
It took quite a while to warm up but luckily there was no rain so after about 30km I was feeling a bit normal again.
The number of fast looking people passing me indicated that maybe everyone had struggled with the swim and maybe I had actually done ok.
I saw a sad sight at about the 10km mark - Jared Razzle pulling the pin on his race and rolling back in to town.  I knew it was on the cards with his multitude of niggly issues but was still sad to see him like that.

After about 25km I got mixed up in a pack which came past picking up every person in it's path, I did my best to keep my distance but had the old problem of opening up a gap and then someone else slotting in.  When I realized that the pack contained the 4th - 7th females (my competition) I decided I to had to stick with it if I was to compete with them.  The pack then got broken up a few times by the draft busters and me and one of the other girls had to spend some time in the naughty corner.  The draft marshall freely admitted that the girls are much easier to pick on because we stand out among all the men which is the hard part of being near the front of the girls race but not a good enough swimmer to get away from the large packs of men.
The last 20km was spent passing the people who had passed me while I was serving my time including a couple of girls who hadn't got busted.

Coming off the bike I wasn't really sure how the groin would be but thought I would give it a go and was prepared to stop if need be.
And it turned out to be ok! It was a little bit niggly but never got worse than a 2/10 so it was obviously pretty warmed up after 90kms on the bike.
I was pretty disappointed in my run time but have had a broken couple of weeks for running so I guess it was ok.  And I picked up a couple of places to put myself into 6th place which is always good.
I almost got run down in the finishing chute by Terenzo (he was doing it in a team) and his little group of fans who got to run the last 50m with him.  He had the decency to stay behind me coming across the finish line and I would expect nothing less from him, I was wondering what the commotion going on behind me was.

Anyhoo I fulfilled my goals of going sub 5 hours and coming in the top 10 so it was a successful trip.  The drafting penalty was a shameful moment for me but as Coach Poo said the top 3 girls at Kona this year all got penalties so I am in good company...

The groin is about where is was before the race so I don't feel like I have done any extra damage to it (am almost 100% certain it is my Pectineus muscle NOT a bone problem - whew) but will let it settle down before running again.

We had some fantastic hospitality from T the P and Netty at their lovely house in Kinloch and good company with the Poodle, the Hammer and the Seal.  The Hammer had a phenomenal race to come 3rd in the ladies and the Poodle had a solid race overall and moved pretty quick (much quicker than me!) for a big man on the run course.

This weekend I am doing the bike leg for Team Speedtheory Ladies at the Rotorua Half and will not be on my new bike so don't even ask.

Stroking and Striding, training and Tinman

The first Stroke and Stride took place a few days after our K2 adventure which meant some very sad running legs which was very unfortunate with it being a 5km run.  I made a classic amateur mistake of wearing my brand new shoes for the first time with some stretchy lace which were rather tight and resulted in some very shredded up feet.  It wasn't really a mistake because I knew that it was a dumb thing to do and even told people that it was a dumb thing to do but I really wanted to wear my pretty new shoes.  The main problem was the laces which were really too short and therefore tight so once I had put the original laces back in for the next S&S they were much better.

AIDS like foot

I also got a new pair (before they were even released in NZ!!) of ASICS GT2000 as my training shoes and they are really quite delicious.  I have read some comments from people who are really not keen on them but I think they are great, quite similar to my DS Trainers which I love.

Hello new shoes

Sadly the new Tadpole cycle machine is still waiting for some parts to arrive so I am still rocking the RooRoo and enjoying are last few days together.  I was really hoping to have Taddy up and running by now and need for the parts to arrive in the next two days if I am to use it this weekend for the Taupo Half so am remaining optimistic.  I have a little tourettes episode every time I get home at the end of the day and there is no little parcel waiting at the front door for me.

TINMAN RACE REPORT

I am not usually into Olympic distances but thought I would do this for a change and had the offer of free accommodation which I couldn't pass up.

The body marking lady mistook  me for a M30-34

Pilot Bay was rather choppy and cold and windy for our start but I tried to remain positive in keeping with my new positive attitude towards racing.
We started 2mins behind the AG Men and 6mins behind the Elites and it was about 300m before I was catching the slow men which was nice for my confidence in my swimming ability but annoying at the same time.
I came out of the water in about 20th in an OK time so was off to a reasonable start.  It was nice for my bike to be surrounded by other bikes and not only the lonely on the Elite rack like I have become accustomed to.
The bike was super windy and I was wearing my NEW front Zipp which was a little bit twitchy.  The bike course is dead flat so pretty quick but I really should have ridden faster than I did.  I didn't get passed by any girls and manged to get a few which bumped me up a few places.

RooRoo's swansong (maybe)

My hips/groins have been really tight recently so I started the run with little baby steps and they loosened up after a couple of km's.  I wasn't wearing a Garmin so was just running with gay abandon which turned out to be not so fast but I managed to catch quite a few girls on the run including one in the last couple of hundred meters - don't think she was happy about that and left me hanging when I tried to shake her hand at the end. Awkward.

Happy in my running

The leggies are a bit sore today but hopefully should be good to go for the big one in the weekend.

New stuff and stolen stuff

The last few weeks have had a few ups and downs...

We started out with J-Rad having a nasty crash on a straight piece of road - hitting a pothole while only having one hand on the bars.  A bit of road rash and a snapped hanger was the damage plus an aborted Sunday ride.

Ouchie

Onto the next week and I bought a new bike! 6 minutes quicker at IMNZ here I come! It hasn't made it's first outing yet, just waiting on some parts so standby for the big unveiling...

Then my car was broken into - goodbye running shoes, iPod, Gayman, favourite white Oakleys, Alp d'Huez triathlon backpack, sweaty running gear, wet swimming togs and towel and old favourite goggles. Sad face.  I would have preferred for them to look through my car and realize that they didn't actually want stinky running shoes or wet togs and leave those things behind because I'm sure they would have biffed them once they opened up the bags anyway.
Thank goodness for insurance, I will hopefully get everything back in some form but it is a pain in the arse and I am a bit nervous about running in my back up orthotics until my new ones have been made.
I am looking at replacing my Gayman Forerunner110 with the new Garmin Forerunner 10 but will see what insurance come up with.

Then we had a lovely ride around the K2 course in Coromandel with the A team on a super nice day.  The A team consisted of the Rockstar, the Seal, the Hammer, the Poodle and the Tadpole.  No, we are not immature or anything and like to give everyone names...  K2 is a bit of a farce not actually being 200km but was still my longest ride ever of 193.5km.  There was a slight Tadplosion with about 10km to go but I pulled myself together and made it home to the chips, coke and SPA!

The A Team Bicycle Gang rolling around Matarangi

So now we are knocking on the door of this years triathlon season with Stroke and Stride starting this week and my first triathlon of the season in a couple of weekend's time.
Swimming has been going ok despite the loss of my new togs and favourite goggles.  I am trying to make an effort not to piss around at swimming and not be the last in and it is having mixed results.
Riding has been pretty solid and I have been good at following my program which is a good start.  I will be very keen to see what happens to my riding once my new bike is up and running.  The bike came with race wheels and I will be able to resurrect my wheel cover to convert the rear wheel to a disc which I am unable to use with RooRoo due to the curved in chainstays.  So I am looking forward to mixing it amongst the grown ups with a decent bike and race wheels - yeah!
Running has been a bit of a struggle and the theft of my shoes and orthotics coincided with me needing a bit of a running hiatus.  Basically my legs felt overworked and underpaid.  So a week off running and a couple of massages have hopefully done the trick, I did make a return to the O'Hagan's 5km before my hiatus and managed to knock out a time starting with 18 which is always good.
I happened to ordered a couple of pairs of shoes a few weeks ago - I was feeling very smug about having my next pair of training shoes all lined up then my current ones got stolen so the new ones became it, but I also got a pair of DS Racers so I am all shoed up.

Hello new shoes

Al Fresco BBQing

Perfectly separated food items and a personalized drink - it doesn't get much better than that.

Return of the Slack Blogger

Don't worry people - I am still alive.

A lot has been happening around our little town in the last couple of weeks with the WORLD triathlon champs being held just down the road.  I had a Javier Gomez sighting on my normal ride home from work and a Johnny Brownlee sighting as I was going about my usual Saturday morning efforts - exciting!

At the buttcrack of dawn before the Elite Women's race

Blue pontoon

Aside from tri-geek star spotting I have been doing the usual training and, for once, working quite hard.

Swimming has mainly been centred around the AG World's so peaked a couple of weeks ago with a nasty threshold set of 100's and as eased off a bit since then.  Despite my proclamation about my amazing swimming ability I swam like a sloth in a 400m and 200m TT a few weeks ago pushing me into a swimming depression.  On the bright side I have two new sexy pairs of togs which make swimming slightly more appealing.

Biking is involving lots of efforts and making myself hurt.  We had a little training camp in Kinloch a couple of weekends the other day and did a couple of rather meaty rides in some rather meaty wind.  Next up will be a ride around the K2 course which I suspect is going to be a very long day and hurt quite a lot.

The Lawson family

Cool people in the back

Running is ticking along, my little hip/groin problem has resurfaced slightly but is mostly being kept under control with lots of stretching and strengthening.  It seems that my whole left side is rather weak and munted but I am working on it.
I went for a delicious run around Lake Wakatipu and the Lake Hayes the next day followed the next weekend by a bush run in Kinloch which was nice but resulted in my beautiful shoes being rather bloodstained due to some ouchy foot bits which rubbed raw.  Poor shoes...

No so pretty and clean anymore despite copious cleaning

Perfect post run recovery in Queenstown 

The view out of my window in my post-run recovery spot

Big Jo Training Sept 10 - Sept 30

SWIM

Swimming is actually going well for me - woo hoo! Well, mostly... We have been doing threshold 100 sets on a Wednesday and I am consistently holding times faster than I have ever been able to before, but ask me to sprint and I suck.  I go slower than what I can hold for 21x100's - what is with that?! It's like I try too hard and just end up thrashing around and go backwards.
*sigh*

BIKE

The last couple of weeks (during my blogging hiatus) was around the 10hr mark for riding per week.  I managed to recover from the Deathly Illness and pulled myself together on the bike.  My IMNZ program from Coach Poo has begun which means a lot of efforts and suffering on the bike but will hopefully result in some super speedy half and Ironman bike splits.
It also means encountering muppets who latch onto me as I ride past them and make me want to beat my head against a wall.  Hopefully I will get so fast that the muppets can't keep up :)

RUN 

Running is GOOD! I have been doing about 50km per week and doing some efforts during my long run which almost killed me last weekend but will hopefully make me stronger.  The O'Hagan's 5km hasn't been going so well but I am getting slightly faster but far off my former glory.  I keep getting beaten by about a 15 year old and then got beaten by my friend Claire last week which, while it was inevitable, it still hurt.

Lots of pics today just for you Nick.

Post training nom noms. I had to take a doggy bag

Birthday lunch for one

Birthday dessert with singing and eveything

Lots of cow poop on my bike after waiting for these people

What a healthy person eats for lunch

The reason why the run course for ITU AG Worlds was changed

Big Jo Training Sept 3-Sept 9 and the Deathly Sickness

SWIM

More fun and games at the Teps with 30x100m on Wednesday preluded by about a 2000m warm up.  The interval was better for me this week so I was able to hang with the Lane 3 kids without blowing my foofoo valve too majorly.  Although now that I cast my mind back to the fact that I was supposed to go for a run after swimming before work and had to postpone it till lunchtime because I was so wasted indicted that maybe I did blow my foofoo valve a bit.
But I came down with a very nasty tummy bug on Wednesday night which had probably been brewing during the day which could also have led to the wastedness.
I spent all of Wednesday night alternating between the toilet and bed and thought that I was dying.  By Friday I was more alive but not in any way up to swimming so it was just 2 swims for the week.
This Deathly Sickness which I had contracted ran rampant through our family starting with my one year old niece and spreading to my sister, father, step-father, Grandma and Jared.  I barely had any contact with my niece and dad who had it first - I was merely in the same room as them after they had been sick and I still managed to get it so it took no prisoners. 
We thought Jared had got away with it but he woke up on Sunday (which was his birthday) feeling rather average and spent the rest of the day feeling like death and excreting 2kg of his body weight.  Needless to say I felt as guilty as sin for ruining his birthday so spent the day at his beck and call (after going riding of course...) and performing tasks that only a true friend would do.

BIKE

The Deathly Sickness ruined most of my riding week having only ridden on Tuesday and then attempting to ride in the weekend.
By Saturday I was feeling pretty normal for everyday tasks but didn't take into account the two days of almost zero food consumption and as a result was not really up to riding.  I got about 10 minutes into the ride before I started to think it was a bad idea but not wanting to be thought of as a wuss and abandon completely I stuck it out and took the biggest shortcuts I could find and rode at snails pace to the coffee shop.
Sunday was a bit better but still not the full 100 so I just rode up to Titirangi with Neilio and Claire and Neilio tried to take advantage of me in my vulnerable state.  I showed him though and I don't think that he will be trying that again.

RUN

Only two runnypoos for the week (well a lot more than that actually...) on Tuesday and Wednesday, I didn't even bother trying in the weekend.
Much to my horror I have become a person who runs with an iPod - not all the time but it is happening rather frequently.  My little iPod shuffle is of the generation where the controls are on the headphone cord which is fraught with faults and it's favourite trick is to turn the volume up when I am trying to turn to down and still turn it up when I try the opposite.  So maybe the magic iPod fairy will be delivering me a new iPod sometime soon.  I do draw the line at using an iPod when I running with someone else - there is nothing worse than seeing two people out running together both listening to iPod's! I would be rather offended if I turned up to run with someone and they were listening to an iPod.  J-Rad will often have his on our Saturday run but since he is normally on his own after 5-6km I guess it is acceptable - I'm just covering my arse here in case someone reading this sees us running together and he's listening to an iPod after I proclaim it is a pet hate because another pet hate are people who do the very thing that they bitch about!

Snug fit

Big Jo Training 27 Aug - 2 Sept

SWIM

I get the feeling that Haydn is trying to kill us on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings at the Teps.  We have started Big Wednesday's which involve a lot of swimming - 30 x 100's last week to be exact, after about an 1800m warm up of course... I'm finding myself in a tricky place by getting not enough rest in Lane 3 but getting too much rest in Lane 2 which is frustrating.  I think we will be getting a 5th lane for squad next week so hopefully Lane 2.5 will be perfect for me.
We finished the week off with 80x50m's - choice!

BIKE

A little bit less on the bike due to some annoying sniffles/chest cough which is persisting so I made the bold move of taking an entire day off training so was down one bike and one run.  It seemed to do the trick with my sickness for a few days but I am sitting here now with a severely blocked nose so am having second thoughts.
I will hopefully be getting a bike/run program from Coach Poo in the next couple of weeks so am enjoying tootling around on my TT not paying too much attention to my power as I know the 6 months will be rather power focussed.
We did our usual Waitak/Devo Sunday ride and had our usual muppet who we passed as he was going at snail's pace then killed himself to hang. There always has to be one.
Why people, why?

RUN

Running is going well because I am running - yay!  I am getting up to 15-17km for my long Saturday run and doing about 35-40km per week.  I was keen to do a half marathon sometime in the next month or so but everything is so incredibly expensive these days - $50+ on average to do a half in Auckland - what a rip off!
I added up all the race fees for the races that I want to do and holy bejesus it adds up.  My work situation isn't so certain from November so don't think I should go entering races willy-nilly.

My friends

And speaking of races for this season, if anyone is interested in my schedule for this coming season it looks something like this:
Tinman Olympic Distance
Taupo Half Ironman
Auckland 70.3
IMNZ

I am facing my demons at IMNZ but will be having an incident free buildup for once so will be awesome (hopefully...).
A few Stroke and Strides (thanks to my 70% off season pass due to my age group win) and Kohi swims thrown in the mix too.

Big Jo Training July 29 - August 26...

I have been thinking about my blog recently and wondering what to do with it.  I was reading some American triathlete/runner's blog which was race and life related and quite entertaining which I took inspiration from, followed by another triathlon blog which was so supposed to be funny but was cynical that I immediately started disliking the author.  So that didn't leave me any further ahead so I will just continue in my style...

SWIMMING

Swimming has been taking care of itself now that we are back at the Teps in Haydn's squad.  So much easier to be motivated when there is someone abusing you for not getting in on time plus the extremely high cost of missing a session when we work out what we are paying per time...
We have been doing some pretty long sessions (compared to what I am used to...) so have been getting up to between 12-14km per week.  I wasn't swimming too badly when the Teps closed in 2010 so hopefully I can at least get to that level again.
It is nice not having to deal with people in a public lane and our little squad lane is reasonably harmonious now that we know how to seed ourselves (me at the back).

CYCLING

I was pretty much back into weekend rides once I got back, weekday rides took a bit longer to get in the swing of... I dusted off RooRoo last ride and took it for a jaunt up the Waitaks this morning which was lovely.  Our little weekend core group has been reunited and Kezzle missed us terribly while we were gone.  This morning we picked up a Muppet who sat behind me breathing very heavily in my ear pissing everyone off.  As we were all on our TT bikes it didn't take too long to be spat out the back but what are these people thinking - seriously?! This guy is happily riding along BY HIMSELF and 3 people all dressed alike and on TT bikes come past - why can't he let us go? Why does he have to blow his foofoo valve trying to keep up like he is with us.  If he wants people to ride with why doesn't he find some friends to ride with?  I could understand if we were a large bunch and he could just slip onto the back but a group of 3 - this happens all the time, what is wrong with these people?! The most annoying ones are the ones who go to the front then detonate after about 30 seconds, in fact I saw something which sums it up today:

 
RUNNING

I am taking a cavalier attitude to August and haven't been running a huge amount but I did get some delicious new shoes which are making running so much more exciting.  I shall put a picture of them on soon.
I have been having Gayman issues with my replacement one losing a button before I even got to use it, it was resolved pretty quickly though with Chain Reaction Cycles coming to the party with a brand new one with a pretty snappy turn around so I certainly can't fault them on their customer service.
I have been working in Devonport and doing a few runs over there which has been lovely, much better than my previous place of work where I would fear for my life walking to the dairy to get a pick-me-up because the work conditions were so grim.

Alpe d'Huez Triathlon Race Report

My eagerly awaited race report for anyone who is listening...
The race was almost two weeks ago now and between sight-seeing in Paris and returning to the depths of the New Zealand winter I haven't had time to write anything.

The forecast for race day was hot and sunny which was good news because last year conditions were horrible - 4 degrees up the mountain and raining the entire day, ie. not Jo-friendly.  So the weather gods appeared to be on my side for once.
Our first challenge was getting to the race start.  We were staying up the mountain and they recommended riding to the start as it is about a 40-50 minute ride which is 95% downhill and was supposedly signposted.  It was a bit tricky to find the start of the signposting but once we got on the right track there were plenty of other cyclists to follow.  Our supporters were following us in the car with our gear but disappeared after about 10 minutes which started to cause us some concern but they appeared as we reached the lake, as  being the upstanding citizens that they are, they stopped to help a cyclist with a puncture.

The swim was in a beautiful lake which is an artificial reservoir and not usually available for public use.  It was rather chilly at 14 degrees but was amazingly clear and dead flat.

Glacial temperature lake anyone?

At 9.30am (!) the gun went off so off we swam.  I was really feeling the cold even though I have swum in colder temperatures and felt I couldn't really get going because my arms and legs were too cold so I decided there was no point in flogging a dead horse and cruised along enjoying the scenery.  My swim was about 4mins slower than I had expected but I suspect that it was a bit longer than 2.2km as J-Rad and the top dogs were slower than usual.  J-Rad had a tough time in the swim getting smacked around at the start and then getting an elbow to the head as some guy pulled his wetsuit off on the way to T1.

The first section of the bike was ~25km of false flat which went by pretty quick with some rather large packs coming past me.  The first climb was the Alpe du Grand Serre which was 14km and took a bit over an hour.  I felt like I had been climbing forever when I came to a sign saying 10km to summit - holy bejesus!! I passed a lot of people who had passed me on the first section which gave me great satisfaction, and quite a few girls. I was wary of blowing my foofoo valve so mostly stayed seated and watched my power.  It wasn't a super hard hill but just took forever.  When we got to the top (1375m) it was like we were in a valley with massive mountains on either side, after 14km of climbing...
There was a few scary downhills and some nice gentle downhilling for a while before the next mountain which was more of a false flat for 18km with the last 5km being harder.  It was very hot at this stage with the temperature being well over 30 degrees.  The scenery through here was absolutely beautiful - massive mountains on either side of us with waterfalls snaking down the sides.  I felt I needed to share my appreciation for the scenery with someone so chose an English man (our country flag was on our race numbers) who I had been toing and froing with for a while.  He agreed that the view was quite remarkable and then asked if I ride up Mt Eden which made me laugh.  I haven't ridden or run up Mt Eden in years but it would probably take about 5 minutes to ride up which is hardly ideal preparation for a race in the French Alps.
Once at the top of this mountain (Col d'Ornon) there was a very wiggly downhill (where I got passed by many people) which took us down to Bourg d'Oisans where the real race would begin.  It was the moment we had all been waiting for but dreading at the same time - climbing the 21 switchbacks of Alpe d'Huez.  I had thought I would reach the base at about 4 hours of riding and I was bang on target at 4 hours exactly and was greeted by Neilio and Darreen at the bottom of the hill.

Baby steps up the mountain

The first couple of corners almost felt a bit easier than went I went up a few days before as I was able to remain seated where I wasn't able to before.  I was going a bit slower though which may have had something to do with it... Once I got to La Garde I knew it would be a bit easier and it was but my leggies were still having to work pretty hard.  My speed was mostly in the single digits but I was passing people left right and centre - I was coming back to haunt all the people who blasted past me on the downhills - ha!  There was carnage everywhere - people stopped and lying down at the corners were my favourite, seeing other people suffering made me feel better somehow.  I counted the corners off one at a time and it wasn't long before I was down to the last 7.  Neilio and Darreen popped up a couple of times and offered encouragement, although telling me I was going slower than Neilio (he rode up in 1hr46 the day before) perhaps wasn't so encouraging and I almost blew my mind trying to calculate whether I was actually going that slow but thankfully I wasn't.
As I approached the top someone called out that I was 16th girl just as I was about to pass another girl which put me into 15th.
Gone were the negative thoughts which had plagued me at Auckland Half Ironman - I was enthusiastic and keen to get running.  The run was 22km - 3 x 7.3km loops which were either uphill or downhill and partially offroad, all at 1800m+ altitude.  I can honestly say that that altitude didn't affect me at all - I never felt short of breath unlike a race I did in Korea which was 1500m and I struggled to breathe on the uphills.
I was running ok on the flats (the little that there were) and downhills but the leggies were a bit dead for the uphills so I baby-stepped past all the people who were walking and smiled whenever anyone cheered for me.  The off-road sections  were quite rocky so I had to watch where I put my feet all the time which was a bit of hard work.  I passed a couple of girls and one who was on her second lap but wasn't keen to let me pass her so she ran on my shoulder for a while which was a bit annoying.

Happy to be here

The run went by pretty unremarkably, due to the layout of the course I never got to see J-rad but knew that he hadn't finished by the last time that our paths could have crossed so he couldn't have been too far in front. There were so many people walking on their first lap while I was on my 3rd and people lying down on the ground obviously broken by the mountain.  It was definitely a hard course and my legs were tired but didn't really hurt like they have done in other longer races.  I have heard a lot of people saying that this race is harder than an Ironman and would agree that the bike is harder but there is nothing like the last 10km of an Ironman and I wouldn't have said that this topped that.
J-Rizzle found it to be a bit of a struggle and reckons that it is the hardest race he has ever done, he did well though but is not so keen to ever do it again...
I have been reading a book about mental training for triathletes - particularly the negative self-talk section.  Apparently when you smile, even if you are not happy, if sets off something in your brain which then actually makes you feel a bit happy.  So my rule for this race was to smile whenever anyone cheered for me and whether it was that or simply the fact that I was racing in a place that I had always dreamt about, either way it worked! No nasty "I wish I would break a wheel/pedal/bike/chain so I have an excuse to stop" or "I don't want to run, maybe my shoes won't be in transition" type thoughts entered my little brain.  I may not have had quite the result that I wanted but I loved every minute of it and there are not many races that I can say that about.

Finished! I decided to bypass the camembert in the food tent 

So I finished up as 12th girl and a bit short of my top 10 goal and way off my time goal but in reality I was just happy to have made it through especially having seen all the people which had been broken by it.  That night I was as tired as if I had done an Ironman but not as sore.
I think that traditionally Kiwis don't tend to fare so well at this race and it is not really surprising since we don't have anything like the hills that are on the bike course so it is pretty difficult to train for.  It is an awesome race though in a fantastic location and I think most people tend to treat it as a 'bucket list' race rather than an 'A' race.
The next day we packed up the car and headed over to the Col de la Croix de Fer which was included in this year's Tour.  Neilio and Darreen rode from 18km to the summit and J-Rad and I from the 11km to go mark as we were feeling slightly precious.  For the first 5 minutes of riding I thought I was going to have to turn around as my leggies felt absolutely wasted but then they came to the party and we had a lovely cruise to the top passing some amazing scenery on the way.

A damn dam

Me and Neilio in the Alps but just like normal

Triplets

After that we headed back to Alpe d'Huez and packed up our stuff and bussed our way back to Grenoble for the TGV the next morning which took us to Paris.  We spent 3 days there being tourists, not training and eating rubbish.  I was quite unimpressed with the Eiffel Tower during the day time but it looked pretty amazing at night.  We had a delicious dinner on the Champs-Elysees on our last night and got pissed on a half bottle of wine between us.

Much better at night

So now I am trying to find some motivation to get out of bed in the cold dark mornings to ride... We are back swimming at the Teps which is fantastic and just like old times.

Au revoir from cold and wet NEW ZEALAND!

Dans les Alpes

Bonjour from Alpe d’Huez!

We arrived up to Alpe d’Huez yesterday morning and are preparing to take on the long distance triathlon tomorrow.  

Just what I thought it would look like

We finished up in the Loire Valley on Friday after seeing a few chateaus and eating a few too many pain au chocolats, and drove up to Chartres.  There we met up with Nicky and Davo who have been cycling through Europe encountering car doors, Italian hospitals, insurance companies and a few too many train rides for their liking.  We also met up with Darren the Ninja who had arrived in Paris the day before.  We were staying a lovely bed and breakfast which I unwittingly booked as it seemed to be the only accommodation left in Chartres but turned out to be about 400m from the 1km mark of the Tour course – parfait!

Training + sightseeing = winning

We rode some of the TT course in the morning and then spent the day spectating.  This was my first real live Tour de France encounter and it was fantastic.  It didn’t trump Roth spectating but my interests do lie more in triathlon than cycling, although I think that the atmosphere on a Tour mountain stage would be hard to beat.

Scored a free hat

The man of the hour

The next day we rode out of Chartres with the Poo Paraders as they made their merry way to Compiegne north of Paris, followed by a quick run then we packed up our Clio and headed to Paris.  Getting to Paris was fine, it was the 800m from the motorway to the hotel which was fraught with difficulty compounded by my inability to distinguish left from right and making poor decisions under pressure.  We finally made it there to drop off a bag then headed to the Gare de Lyon with some fantastic instructions from the hotel staff.  Jared did a great job driving in Paris and navigating the multi-lane (but with no lane markings) roundabouts and crazy French drivers.

Our steed

We made it to the train with about half an hour to spare so were able to relax for 3 hours.  The train took us to Grenoble where we stayed for the night then caught the bus to Alpe d’Huez the next morning.  Lugging our bike boxes and luggage was starting to wear thin and despite my efforts Jared would end up carrying most of my stuff, luckily in Grenoble we stayed close enough to the train station so that I was able to sneak a trolley to the hotel in the morning to make getting all our stuff to the bus station a lot easier.

Ascending Alpe d’Huez in the bus gave me a glimpse into what I was in for, we passed many cyclists suffering and bobbing their way up the hill which didn’t give me confidence.

After checking into the hotel and getting some lunch I mounted the Serottica and headed down the hill.  Jared has climbed the mountain before so didn’t feel the need to do the whole thing two days before the race so turned around a bit above half way and headed back up.  I started a lap at the official TDF signpost at the bottom of the hill.  As I had been warned the first couple of km’s were pretty gnarly and I was out of my saddle most of the way.  It was quite far until just the first bend and I began to wonder how this would feel after 100km… Once at the first village it eases up but is still pretty tough although I was able to stay in the saddle most of the way from there.
It took me 68 minutes to the official TDF finish which is about 1.8km from the finish banner in the town which most people stop at and is about 8 minutes from the actual finish (just saying…).  The leggies didn’t feel too bad at the end but it is certainly going to be a tough ride especially with the heat at the bottom half of the mountain and then the wind at the top. 

Going down

Neilio and Darren arrived later on – Neilio having driven 7 hours+ from Munich – so we had a happy reunion and a nice dinner then drove down the mountain to Bourg d’Oisans for café/chocolat chaud.

A J-Rad, a Ninja and a Neilio

Today we have had some items to take care of and will do a little run and maybe a paddle in the pool and just generally chill out and store some glycogen for the big day tomorrow.

Auf Wiedersehen Sigmaringen

Bonjour!

We have moved on from Sigmaringen and are now sifting around the Loire Valley in France.

Our last week in Sigmaringen ended with the last LBS-Liga race in Schluchsee.  I was again relegated to the bench due to my inability to swim which is a shame because it was a pretty hilly course which would have suited me.  J-Rad started for the men’s 2^nd team and had a bit of a shocker on the bike due to a sudden inability to ride downhills properly but had a good swim and run.  

Good laufren J-Rad

His team did well winning the teams division for the race and coming 2^nd for the season.  The race was held in a very scenic alpine town which unfortunately had some nasty alpine weather.  It was about 12 degrees with squally rain and gusty wind when we arrived, the rain moved on but it was still cold and windy for the rest of the time.

Nice venue for a race

A pool on a lake

 The rest of week was the usual schwim, rad and lauf.  I lost my schwim mojo a bit after a slightly arctic experience in the outdoor pool which had dropped a couple of degrees and then only managed one short schwim after that.

Radfahren went well doing a couple of rides with our Aussie mates plus a solo 100km to get ready for l’Alpe d’Huez.  Sadly our last ride in Simaringen finished with a downpour in some icy German rain but we were riding on a new route with a local German which was a nice change.  The weather is quite up and down with a couple of hot weeks then dropping down at least 5 degrees in the sun but more rain and cloud and no thunderstorms.  Crazy.

Laufen has also gone well with a bit over 50km laufed (?) for the week and a long lauf of 20km.  I am really going to miss running on the soft forest tracks, we obviously do have trails to run on at home but they mostly require driving to the bush and then avoiding tree roots, rocks, etc.  The trails are gravel not mud/dirt and wide and smooth so you can still run at your usual pace and also do uptempo/efforts, the trails at home are usually technical so a muppet like me has to watch her feet and my pace increases by about one minute per km at the best of times.  That being said there is nothing like running along Auckland’s waterfront on a sunny day so we do have something that the German’s don’t.

So we packed up all our gear and headed out of Sigmaringen on the train to Paris via Stuttgart.  The train ride to Stuttgart was full of interesting customers the most interesting being a couple of men in their 50/60’s sitting opposite us – one spent about 20 minutes giving the other man a vigorous arm massage while the recipient slowly ate a banana.  It was weird.

Guarding the Sigmaringen Castle before we go

Then it was onto Paris on the TGV, 1^st class of course.  It was very comfortable and we even got a meal which was a surprise.  Not quite the high culinary standard of Emirates but was well received nonetheless.  I was a bit disappointed that we only seemed to be averaging around 150kph but after about an hour we cranked it up to a bit over 300kph – how do I know this you may ask, I wouldn’t be a nerdy triathlon if I didn’t use my Garmin for purposes other than bike riding.

Smashing it

 We finally arrived at Paris and the train dropped us off about 500m away from the main part of the station.  Lucky for me some of the train station staff took pity on me struggling with my bike box and luggage and put my bike on a cart and took it to the station for me.  We then took another 30 minutes to find where the car rental was located (in the basement of course) and then zoomed out into the streets of Paris in our Renault Clio with gay abandon.

We are now situated in Blois for the next few days then onto Chartres to see the Tour de France penultimate stage before TGV’ing down to the Alps for a little race in the hills.

Au revoir.