News : Summer ?

Last week I wrote that Spring was here and just one week later it looks like Summer is now on us. Two days of temps over 30 gave us a great chance to train and race in the heat. An awesome opportunity for everyone but especially for Jonah and Darren in their Kona preps.

It’s been a great week of training. We had a great crew of girls do a Gong ride which I believe was awesome. I loved getting back to our home pool again at Sutherland. Load wise we generally had de-load across the squad which leant towards a low-key vibe, and I picked up a lot of little hints that we are “switching on” in the right areas like riding skills and nutrition etc.

Racing :

Great North Walk 50k Ultra : Josh Revell originally had this one planned as a qualifier for his Miler but after qualifying at SUM50 kept this in his program and switched it to a training run mid-build. It was an ideal opportunity to get more experience at this distance. Josh faced tough conditions and at points the difficulty of the heat and trails was getting really tough but he rallied superbly running through half his age group field from the 25k turnaround to finish 22nd overall in 6:56.

Post-Activity Comments :

I can’t stress enough the value of the post-activity comment. Why? Because data is objective only. I can read HR’s and paces forever but the subjective feel of the session completes the picture. With data analysis getting better every day it also allows us to track comments across a block just as easily as numbers and that becomes game changing.

Race Schedule :

Things are about to get busy ! If you have a race coming up keep it at the front of your mind and start talking me through your goals and race strategy (nutrition and pacing).

Despite all the numbers we get thrown at us, the biggest thing you can do for success on race day is to race the course not the Garmin. Races can be wrecked with changes to courses and conditions and you need the skill to be guided by numbers not constrained by them.

Am I missing a race ? Have a date wrong ? Tell me by responding to this email.