12 Weeks to Kona

 Total Training Duration - 13hrs 17min

• Swim - 9.7km
• Ride - 168km
• Run - 52km

Currently sitting 49th in Australia and 191st overall (worldwide) in the M40-44 Ironman Age Group Rankings:

Monday's velodrome bike set was a big gear strength session. We had a busy ride on the track with lots of people and even a few on the wind trainer. A real leg burner that morning. I know it's been a good session when I need to rest when I get to the top of the stairs at work. 

Then a surprise email from the swim coach that afternoon - Ben Street resigned effective immediately!  This was disappointing and sudden. So it was up to Sean Foster to be the swim coach. He ran a tough session. 

Good luck in your future endeavors Ben and thanks for all your coaching. Your passion on the pool deck will be missed.

Hammy's were sore for Tuesday's run following Saturday's OD run (It's always the hammy's after an OD run that are suffering next run back). Lucky it was an easy run for 45 minutes around the Tan. 

Thursday was a 1000m swim time trial. 15:17 was my time to beat from 6 weeks ago. Wanted to get sub 15 minutes, ended up swimming 15:02. Surely I could have found 2 seconds somewhere!  And to make matters worse I finished last of all 8 lanes - that really disappointed me as there's nothing worse than finishing last. Also, I probably had the least improvement over the last 6 weeks compared o the other 7 swimmers. AND a gain of 15 seconds is not even 1 minute over the 3.8km Ironman distance. I did all that training to achieve less than 1 minute improvement?!?! Regardless it's a PB, my best 1000m yet.

Ran a Fartlek session Thursday evening with Henry Polk and Red Bear. We smashed each other, a great hard effort. Finished up running 18km over 1hour 25 minutes. 

A fast one on Thursday's run session

Stretching at the Tan - without Graham Smart! Photo by coach Steve Davis.

Swimming was tough again on Friday. Ollie and I swapped the lead but generally I was following his lead. Could only swim for 1 hour due to an early meeting at work. Still enough to wreck me. Smashed down some donuts that day. 

Stirling has progressed to the next group in swimming this week after a long hiatus from the pool. He definitely likes swimming more that football. We've locked in this term's swimming, it's good to get him back in the pool again. He'll be doing 1:30min/100 pace in no time! 

Me

Stirling

This weekend was the last chance we had to finish work around the house before the sales photos. Couldn't ride with the group as we had heaps to do. I planned an early 4am start with some 1:20 repeats in the Dandenongs. Then it all changed when I arrived home from work. Decided watching the Tour replay on the wind trainier is a much better option. The rain hammering down on the roof convinced me of this. First time I've missed a group ride for a long time. Don't like missing sessions or taking the soft option but this one won't kill me. Had breakfast with Lauren and Stirling then went to Auskick. Turned out to be a great morning. Even watched a video of the Hawaii bike course someone filmed with a bike cam while I was on the trainer. 

On the trainer with little coach in the corner - "You're doing well Dad".

Then I had to move all that!

Then it was Run Melbourne on Sunday and a great morning for running - cool, a clear sky and little wind. Unfortunately got to the start line late after doing a long warm up. Didn't realise how many people do this event. Could hardly see the start line where I slotted in. I was in about wave 6 with people dressed up as spiderman, batman, men dressed as women, etc....This was going to be a tough start. When I did eventually get over the start line I was dodging in, out and around people. There were people stopping to do up shoelaces, handing jumpers over the fence and doing all sorts of things that should be done BEFORE the start. So it was up onto the footpath and away I went. It was the first run I've done where no one passed me.

My half marathon PB was 1:29 set in May 2012. At Geelong 70.3 in February 2013 I did 1:31 after the swim & ride. Today I finished with a PB - 1:23:05 averaging 3:54min/km pace. AWESOME!!! Was 8th in my category (Male 40-49) and 48th overall. Really happy with that result. A good confidence booster.

Spiderman as a Run Melbourne

Was 1st on Strava when I uploaded the run...Dropped down to 3rd when I last looked.

Entered the "winter triathlon" Olympic distance at Hazelwood Pondage on 18 August 2013. Did it last year, it's a great event and will be the first triathlon since Ironman Melbourne. This will effectively be my lead in race for Hawaii (8 weeks before). 


The Wrap Up - 2 PB's made this an epic week. The consistent training is now paying dividends. I'm on a high after Run Melbourne.

2 months and 20 days until race day!