The Season Is Here

I sit here writing this in a t-shirt on a warmish day at the start of spring. The cold dark days pretty much behind us.

I had 4 chats just this morning about race schedules. A sign that everyone is done with training and ready to PIN numbers on.

It’s been a tough winter to get through. Cold and wet. The worse type. Makes getting up early to train a tough gig.

Time doesn’t stand still however and the races have started. The season is here. Our first 70.3 of 22/23 was last weekend with the traditional Sunshine Coast edition.

Athletes wiped away the rust and dust from bikes and bodies and even if you trained solid you probably felt every bit of that race.

Onto the next …. our second course …. Western Sydney 70.3. Another chance for a good crew to get things going. Everyone on the start line is keen.

This will be my first race visit for the season and then follows 7 races in 12 weeks for me. I love the races and going to as many as I can fit in.

We have a good solid mix of races with a couple of newcomers on the calendar. Melbourne 70.3 and Tasmania 70.3 are new and the emerging scene of Adventure racing and gravel bikes all making for some great opportunities.

Coaches hate winters too!

It takes a LOT of work to get their athletes through the dark window. No races and weather not conducive to enjoyable training sucks.

Pool decks when it is 10 degrees and raining isn’t an easy sell. Bikes at 6am and 6 degrees …. yeah well you get my drift.

But now the season is coming …. bring it on baby ! Lessssgo !!

Tuesday Night Runs were a winner last year. They will be back in Daylight Savings.

My training has had it’s twists and turns. Everything was going okay and winter was a time of lots of experiments looking for the right mix.

I had my back to the wall and was looking for a “fast track”

There wasn’t one.

I played with rest days and block periodisation. I did back to back sessions. I tried 2 rest days a week, 1 rest day a week and no rest days a week. I tried a lot of things.

Guess what worked ? The tried and true. Alternate ride and run days with a rest day when I needed it.

Go figure ! No shit Sherlock !

My knees went from terrible to acceptable. Almost good even ! A welcome relief I can tell you as there was 4 weeks there where I considered knee replacements. I knew it was something I was doing wrong but couldn’t see my mistakes.

Frequency wrong and intensity wrong. I wasn’t ready for back to backs and I wasn’t ready for anything other than easy.

But things are coming good now I went back to tried and true.

After pretty much abandoning any chance of racing Noosa I am in with a slight chance. But only if I pull my head in, snip the ego, and be disciplined with the basics.

I better get back in the water !

Always happy on pool deck.