Sunday, May 25, 2008

Last week in New Zealand

So I only have 5 more sleeps till I leave for Canada and I still have an awful lot to do... training, work, packing, tidying the house, altitude simulation sessions.... the list goes on. But I am ready to race which is an awesome space to be in right now.

I have my actual race time now... 7.25am and there is 85 athletes in my age group. I will be finished my race before some of the men even start!!

Well I don't have much more news and this will probably be my last post before we leave so watch this space for the first report from Canada.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Last big brick done!!

Well today was the last big training brick for this campaign. I had a 3 km swim, 2 hour ride with 45km tempo and a 5km run at race pace.

The swim included:
8 * 50 m explosive kick
3 *(4 * 50 m max, 3 * 100m race pace on 1.30 and 200m easy pull)

The ride included 45km tempo at:
15km just below race pace
15km at race pace
15km above race pace
Each 15km included a climb up Ngaio Gorge.

The run was a 5km at race pace. I did my first ever sub 20 min 5km off the bike in this session which was really awesome!

So all in all a great session to end the really, really hard training leading up to Vancouver.

Looking ahead I still have a few tough sessions to go but none of this length.

At the time of writing this post I am just 13 days and 7 hours away from racing

Friday, May 23, 2008

World Champs websites and race time


Here are two websites where you may be able to find race information up to and on the day:

http://www.triathlon.org/worldchamps.php

http://www.triathlonvancouver.com/

My race time is 6.45 am (not sure of exact wave start time yet) Saturday 7th June (Vancouver time)...

This is Sunday 8th June 1.45am NZT and Saturday 7th June 11.45pm Australian time. So by Sunday morning you will be able to wake up and find out how I have done :-) I promise not to send text messages when I finish and wake you up (approx. 4.05 am and 2.05am NZ and Aus time respectively).


15 days till race day...

So I am sitting at work with just 15 days to go till race day (and only 7 till we leave the country) and I just can't get motivated to work. I am distracted like I never have been. My body is tired and sore from all the hard sessions that I am been doing and I am worried that we won't have enough money for our trip! But I am looking forward to racing.

My goals for the race are:
  1. Enjoy the race;
  2. Have the best swim, bike and run that I can have;
  3. Maintain focus and give it everything I have.

If these three goals come together on race day then I will be pleased. The goal for this year's world champs was to go and see what I might need to do to podium in the 2009 World Champs. I need to see where I am at in my age group and I will then have over a year to focus on building the skills I need for 2009.

In terms of the course I think that it will suit me.... the bike is a 4 lap course with a 2-3 km 6% climb and a 3km fast downhill for each lap. The run course is a 3 lap course with a gradual 400m climb each lap. This course seems to be a strength based course which suits me. So definitely looking forward to it.

The swim is a one lap point to point swim with a beach start. I am technically better at beach starts over deep water starts so that suits me too. I just need to get good goggles for it now as the last few Scorching Bay races I had issues with my goggles coming off in the beach start!

That's about all from me. I am going to carry on writing my to do and packing lists now :-)

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

More Rarotonga photos....

Here are some more photos from Rarotonga... This first one is of the Thursday swim race start. I am number 8 in the white cap.

Here is a photo of the main road in Rarotonga on race day, if you look closely at the photo you can see the rough road surface that bruised my arms while riding on my aero bars!!!

And here I am crossing the finish line... looking VERY tired!

Friday, May 16, 2008

Raro photos

Here is a random selection of Rarotonga pictures.... just to give a flavour of what it was like...

Fruit and vegetables on the back of a truck at the market.

The beautiful hibiscus flower (my attempt at being arty)

One random beach.... the camera does not really capture how lovely it was

This is the view across Muri lagoon from the backpackers one morning.... so nice!
Random shots of palm trees :-)

My trophy for winning the race (was not allowed to take this one home... I have a shell one that I was allowed to keep).

My wheels for the week... the blue one over the back is mine.

Hehehe the men's toilet sign at the sailing club...

And the women's...

Me before the thursday night swim race...

Me after winning the race

Me back at the backpackers later in the day....


Sunday, May 11, 2008

Quick update from Raro... more tomorrow

Hi all, here is a quick update from Raro... I WON the triathlon!!! Yay! I get return airfares back here as part of my prize! So stoked right now.

Backing up a few days I came third female and 7th overall in the round the boiler swim which I was also really pleased with. It was a very technical surf swim with waves breaking over the coral reef. I didn't read the water very well... just didn't know how really. One minute I was fine, the next the coral was nearly scraping my chest!!! Great tough swim though as a lead in to the main race.

This morning started with the ehaviest downpour I have ever cine across... I was a bit worried that the bike might be dangerous but lunchtime hit and the temperature shot up, the rain went away and the humidity levels increased. I knew that I was in for a tough one. In the bolier swim (800m) I was behind the lead 2 women by 40 seconds so I prepared myself to be over a minute behind the girls after the 1500m swim, but I had the SWIM OF MY LIFE!!! at one stage I was with the lead groiup of men. I came out on the lead swimmers toes... having drafted a good portion of the race so stoked with this. I paid for it a bit in the first 10 -15 km of the bike though. But pulled away from the other girls within about a km. In the middle of the ride there was the steepest nastiest hill you could ever imagine. I was in my granny gear and standing!!! and I like hills. I went through 2 full bottles of replace on the ride. About 1.14 for 42.5km so pleased with that effort.

THe run... I didn't know what sort of lead I had from the ride so hit the run hard, at the first turnaround I hit the timer and found I had a 3 min lead on the second place female. Really stoked s I increased this to a 5 min lead by the end of the run. The run was hot hard and tough. There werre aid stations every 1.25km with sponges and water which I needed.

We finished the race to be given nu coconuts to drink and this is the best thing to have after a race./... totally awesome.

I thjen got interviewed by rarotongan TV. All in all I just had a primo day.... and am really pleased. Its so nice to have a race that things go well for.

Yay

I will post phots when back in NZ as well as some stories about the rest of my trip.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Weather

So just in the past week the temperature has dropped dramatically. On the weekend I went cycling and there was snow on the Orongaronga and Rimutaka ranges!!! My bike computer had the outside air temperature at just 9 degrees at one point!! The wind chill factor would have made it even colder as well. It makes it hard to get the legs moving when we are in these conditions I tell you!

So as you can imagine I am really looking forward to heading to rarotonga for a few days.... hmmm or am I? Just checked out the extended weather forecast for Raro and I have:

Wednesday- High: 30° C. Wind 36 km/h. Chance of precipitation 90%.

Thursday - High: 29° C. Wind 32 km/h. Chance of precipitation 40%.

Friday - High: 27° C. Wind 18 km/h.

Saturday (RACE DAY) - High: 28° C. Wind 18 km/h. Chance of precipitation 40%.

Sunday - High: 28° C. Wind 18 km/h. Chance of precipitation 40%.

Eeeekkkk I would love a nice balmy 23 - 24 degrees I think. racing in temperatures close to 30 degrees will be tough for me! At least I should get a bit of a tan :-)

In order to try and pre-acclimatise to the expected heat conditions in Raro I have been doing sauna sessions after each training session... building up to 30 min sessions without rehydration. That is a test of motivation to stay in the sauna I tell you. There are times when I am so ready to walk out. But it definitely helps. I did the sauna treatments before racing in honolulu and it really helped then.

Thats about all, my next update will be from Raro itself.