9 weeks to go till Busso Half Ironman

Its been a strange old preparation this year for the Busselton Half Ironman 2010. For those of you uninitiated, this is a 1.9km swim, a 90km bike and 21.1km run. Last year I managed around 36mins for the swim, around 2hrs 33min for the bike and just over 2hrs for the run. I spent a little time in transition and managed an overall time of 5hrs 19mins.

This year, the aim has been to crack 5 hrs. I remember years ago the magical barrier was called the ‘440′ club- which pretty much meant finishing in 4hrs 40mins. Very tough goal. My mini goals are to go close to a 30min swim, a bike of under 2hrs 30mins and a run better than 1hr 50min. If I do all this I should go under 5hrs, allowing for my notoriously slow transition.

Its never an easy path though and I find I am on track with my cycling/time trialling but a bit behind with running and swimming. My swim efforts now have to be at least 40laps and the runs now have to switch up from 12kms to something approaching 15 and 18kms.

It’s been very hot weather and efforts are mostly pretty tough. Here is my typical training week at present. It ain’t going to look like any standard plan you’ve seen. On Monday, I cycle 30kms in to work, I have a lunchtime 11km run and I cycle 30kms home at day end. On Monday evening I will do 40mins of swimming at Riverton. Tuesdays, I go to Deepwater Pt and take my young niece on a 6.66km effort around Mt Henry and Canning Bridges. I then commute to work from there and commute back to Canning Vale at day’s end. Another swimming effort awaits from around 6.30pm at Riverton Leisureplex.

Wednesday, I do my bike commute to and from work and I add in a 12km brick run with a friend , Rod Mejias, who lives nearby. He goes around 4min15s/km pace at his peak but we are doing these efforts at around 5min/km pace thus far for around 12kms.

Thursdays is the commute in to work on the good bike and I save my petrol for the Thursday afternoon ride from Narrows. We go hard, there are no excuses or allowances made. You get on otherwise you a quickly dropped off. For some of the guys, they ride in to city from Anketell and Kwinana before out training ride actually begins so they are posting up to 120kms in total.  I took some of the harder turns last Thursday which felt good.

Fridays are my rest day but I still commute in on the old Colnago. I love it when other cyclists try to race me on this old girl. There are an unbelievable amount of events on in the next several weeks - Coogee Swim, Neerabup 47km time trial, Freo Corporate Teams triathlon, Darlington Half Marathon, Cyclosportif at Lancelin in mid April (two teams to organise for Team Force), and some more time trials at Wandi in early April (80kms) and mid April (160kms). I am just about to pick up my Giant Bowery from Runner’s world and I have a new Pro-lite Capuccino time trial frame to build up in time for Busso. I need lots of ‘light bits’ on it including carbon groupset/cranks, handlebars, TT bars, etc, etc, etc.

I should have joined Central TAFE gym by now but I plan to next week and still have time to get some strength work in.

I slept in this morning after staying up till the wee hours for my son’s 19th birthday party.

Very hot day today and warm again tomorrow. Long weekend in Perth with 1 March being a public holiday (Labour Day)

Regards

CHRISTO