Bit crook...

I have gone all year without so much as a snivel, cough or cold. Now in the middle of my taper I couldn't quite fight off a bug that came through the Dunstan household. I have a real good cough and have been feeling well less than 100% for a couple days. My heard hurts and I generally feel like crap. I skipped my swim tonight in favour of some rest instead. I have 4.5 days to be 100%, so hopefully I can shake this thing and get back to my normal self soon.

The weather forecast looks a bit ordinary for race day - with SSE to Sth'ly winds blowing all day and a top of 29 deg. Better than northerly winds and 39 I guess...

6 days to go

Well actually 5 days, 20 hours and 30min! Thats the first full taper week done and dusted.

It ended up being a pretty cruisy week overall with only 7:16hrs of training. I skipped one run and only did 2 proper swims (4 last week) for the small totals of 3.4/97/35.

Yesterday I rode with the RW crew and Phab set the ride for my benefit! It was just a 'round the river' with some all out efforts at Burke Drive, Left bank, Leighton, Victoria Ave/Jutland Pde and Mounts Bay Rd. It was just the ride I was after too! Perfect little hit out one week from IM. Big Greg and I got to the coffee shop at about 8:05 where as the main group did a Kings Park loop! We'd had enough. Also, I wanted to check the calibration on my bike computer, so we went down to Terrace Rd and ran our wheels over those 500m survey markers (All good). PJ rocked up for brekky and most of the usual suspects were there too, so that was great. I haven't been able to sit and have a coffee and breakfast there for ages. Everyone was really nice and was asking me about the race and my prep etc and all wished me well. They are a great bunch of people that RW crew.

Then it was home and flat out getting ready to go up to Lake Leschenaultia for a big Xmas picnic with all our good friends with kids. This proved a to be a very expensive day. I think the transmission is blown in the Commodore. We got about 2k up the road before it crapped itself and would hardly move. Not happy. I am in denial, as for the 2nd time in a few years - a transmission is going to stop me upgrading to a new telly! Bloody cars. Anyway, I put it mostly out of my mind and we enjoyed a pretty relaxing afternoon at the lake with a bunch of great people. I went for a swim of around 400-500m out into the middle and back and I felt good. The reed type things growing on the bottom were a bit annoying as they kept brushing my arms and even my body as I swam, even out in the middle where it was a bit deeper. We BBQ'd some chicken and had dinner before we tipped everyone into the car and headed home.

3 more swims, 2 more rides and 2 more runs in the next 5 days...then the big one. Bring it on

Taper isn't that good

Day 4 of the full taper. I have been feeling pretty crappy on and off all week.

Had an 45min intervals session on Monday morning - ran 2 x 1.6k at an avg pace of 4:03 and 4:06 min/km. That went OK. Then Tues was bike intervals with a hard brick run. I did about 29km in 54min which included 4 x 6min hard. I wore my new Jaggad race kit (which I probably won't wear in IM) and so jumped off the bike at work and headed straight out the door. Straight into 15min of Z4 (4:00-4:15 pace). Then Z2 for 10 min on the way back.

Later that day I felt a tickle in the throat and my glands were up and felt like I was fighting something off. Legs felt Ok, left foot was a bit sore. Woke up on Wed after 8 full hours sleep and still felt ordinary. Very lethargic. Went to the pool on the way home from work but could only manage 1km. I forgot my pull buoy and I felt like crap. My breathing was laboured and my arms felt really heavy. Seeing how it was taper - I pulled the pin and cut my losses.

Today was my 'long' run. 70min. That went pretty good. I wore my Jaggad tri top so that I could utilises the back pockets for keys, glasses, phone etc. Had two pieces of work - 15' @ Z2 and then 10'@ Z3. The Z3 stuff was really hard - as it was mostly up hill. I had to really push it hard. Left foot is sore still and my left calf and lower quad are a bit tender. Luckily I have a massage tonight. I still feel a bit below par, but will hopefully come good soon.

I have settled on several of my goals for IM - to run without slowing down (even or negative split), a 5:10hr bike leg (weather permitting) and Top 20% of the field. Total time? We will see about that one. Only 8 more sleeps!

Week 18/20 done!

Today was supposed to be a rest day, but I snuck an extra swim in. Scott and I did the City Beach groins (x4) which is about 4k. It was my first wettie & ocean swim since the HIM in May. The water was pretty good. Not cold at all and pretty flat. There was a decent little offshore wind blowing and visibility was OK, but not great. We met just before 7am. It might seem like I always record great rides/runs and PB's in this blog/diary. Not today!

I was looking forward to it, as I would rather swim in nice ocean conditions than a pool any day. We took off together, but soon Scott eased away from me. I never felt good from the first 50m to the last. My arms felt tired and I had no power in my stroke. My forearms especially just felt plain tired. It took me nearly 1km to get into the groove somewhat, but I just couldn't get a consistent rhythm going. Scotty and I popped up near each other a few times at either end of the course, but we basically swam on our own. Then after half way, I swam into some stingers - about 6 times in 1km. Face, neck, arms and underarm all got mild stings. I was not happy. As if I wasn't swimming bad enough, to get dropped by Scott (he is probably faster than me normally) and then stung made me feel like throwing in the towel for the day! It was my 4th swim in less than 7 days and I had a hard swim on Friday night. So I think it had kind of caught up to me. No excuses though, I was just crap! Anyway, I couldn't quite bring myself to quit, especially since Scott was there. So I banged away for another 16-17 min and finished the set. It was about 4k, probably a tad less, more like 3.9k for me though. Ended up doing 1:07 which isn't exactly slow, but it certainly ain't fast.

Anyway, thats week 18/20 completed and now for the full taper to begin! My week ended up being 14:00hrs - made up of 12.7/237/39. Probably one of the biggest swim weeks I have ever had. Next week drops back to 9-10hrs. Focus for this week is recovery & sleep! Time to get my bike serviced and buy all my supplies ready for race week...

Almost done

This week has flown by. It has been a pretty successful week from a training perspective. Today was an epic day. My 2nd and final Race Rehearsal brick session. It went something like this...

Had a sleep in (5:30) as I didn't fancy wearing my tri suit in the forecasted 11 degree air. Hit the road at about 6:10 and headed south for the end of the freeway bike path. The pacing plan was the same as 2 weeks ago. 32.0 km/h for the 1st hour and then lift it up to 34+ by the end. The legs didn't feel real flash early, or in fact for the 1st hour or so. the forecast was for SE'ly winds - and that was indeed the case. I think they increased in speed over the next couple hours too. I got the 1st 30k done at about 31.2 It was hard work. I passed a small group just past Roe Hwy turn off and one of them was Marko! He caught up to me and we had a brief chat. Then I kinda cut him off a bit and accelerated away. I was trying to sit on 34 by now. I past a fair few people and started seeing others on their way back. Lots of IM'ers out there! Before I knew it I was at Safety Bay Rd and turned in to the servo for a quick pit stop. 58k @ 32.8k. I was behind on my nutrition and hydration, so I made a conscious effort to pick that up a bit. It had started to warm up a bit now and the clouds had all but burnt off. the next bit is the tough bit mentally - 32k out and back on some super flat long straight bits down to the end of the path. I couldn't wait to get to the half way mark. The head wind was pretty awful now. I got down there in 57min. Stopped for a few seconds and then headed back.

Wow! The wind was so good coming from over my right shoulder! I love a tailwind. I was sitting on 40-44km/h most of the way back to Baldivis. So the avg for that 32k was 39.4! It was fun. The legs were feeling pretty strong and I was flying! I made another quick stop at the servo, refilled my bidons etc and headed back out to the path north bound. The breeze now was in that phase when it changes from SE to SW, so it died off a bit. All this fast riding started to effect me now that I hit the small undulating terrain. The next 18km were completed at an avg of 37.4. I still felt pretty good, but some fatigue was creeping into my legs now. The sea breeze picked up a bit but had a fair bit of westerly in it and so was a cross wind at times. I was passing people all the time, but by now the numbers were thinning. I kept pushing and when I hit the Narrows my overall avg was 34.9. I was spurred on by this with visions of glory to be had on Dec 5!!! The bit from town home was pretty slow, due to having to stop and cross road etc and then the sea breeze became more of a headwind as I headed west through Floreat past Bernie's house etc. I finished it off with a blast along Weaponess and hit 180k just before I crossed Scarb Bch Rd in 5:10hrs. Home and of the bike in 5:12. So overall a 34.7 avg. I am pretty stoked with that. Especially since there were quite a few small hills to ride and 90k of headwinds. But I still had to finish it off with a 10k brick run.

How would the legs feel now? Well I soon answered that question as I headed out and down to the coast. They felt pretty damn good - all things considered. I ran up the coast to Mettams Pool with a honker of a seabreeze blowing me along. Turned around in 24:34 and then had to push into the wind. My legs started to feel pretty tired now. I went for a gel, but to my disgust I had one that was definitely off. It was a bit fermented like. It was gross. So no more carbs for the trip home! I felt good, but could just sense, as I ran up the big hills from the coast to home, that my legs were slowing down a tad. The terrain is way different to race day and I haven't tapered, so thats OK. Finished in 50:35. So just over 6 hours of exercise and about 4300 calories burnt! It was a bit of an epic. Glad to have that one in the bag. A new PB for 180k too!

Last night I went to the pool after work and did my 3rd and final 3.8k non-stop pool swim. I was very pleased to have knocked a minute off last weeks time. So my times for these swims (with pull buoy) were 1:09, 1:08 and now 1:07. Things are headed in the right direction...

My long run this week was down to 1:30. There was a good chunk of work in it though (2 x 20min) Which felt very easy compared to 2:30! I also did an interval run and ride. Both went well. Full taper now kicks in for the next 13 days as I wind it back. I will probably do an ocean swim tomorrow morning with Scott. As I haven't tried the wettie on sim the Busso HIM in May!

The hard work is done!

This is the end of week 17/20 weeks in my IM program. 8 weeks of general prep and 9/12 weeks of race specific prep. 3 to go. Next week is an easier week and then 2 full weeks of taper. I clocked up 17:49hrs this week - that means it has been my 2nd biggest week ever! I have swum 9.6k, ridden 304km and run about 64k

Today's plan was a 3hr ride/6k brick run. I slept in a little (5am) but was on the bike by 5:28. I headed up to Yanchep on Marmion Ave. The first 30min of this ride is all up hill. Well it has a definite uphill trend from a low point of about 5m above sea level to a high point of 60m. After that I settled into a steady rhythm. The legs felt a bit fatigued from yesterdays hard ride but OK. It was dead calm initially but by about an hour into the ride there was a just noticeable SE'ly blowing over my right shoulder. I got to the roundabout in Yanchep in about 1:19hrs (avg 33.2) stopped for a quick pit stop, ate a muesli bar and head back towards home. Straight away I could feel the increased headwind and it was much noisier in my ears. This was going to be hard work. I was in ABP mode (always be pushing) but I could feel my legs getting weaker after about half an hour. This was when I hit civilisation at around Brighton. I pushed on and it got harder and harder. I kept drinking Powerade (one bidon per hour) but couldn't help the slide in pace. With about 10k til home I popped a gel and that combined with the downhill trend of the last bit picked me up a tad. I got home with a 6min positive split at an avg of 31.1 for the 44k return leg.

After a quick change headed out for my brick run. The legs were feeling pretty ordinary, but I managed sub-5 pace for a run down to the coast and up the bike path to around Contacio's break and back.

Very glad this week is over. I think my body has adapted to the work load better than my mind. I was kind of on auto-pilot for the last few days to a week. Besides yesterdays ride, I just keep on absorbing the work. I get a bit tight in the shoulders/neck and the odd niggle, but generally these old legs just keep going! I am getting a bit fed up with not enough sleep and not enough time with the family though. But hey, the end is nigh! Then it is the festive season and I will relax a heap...

20 days and counting!

Well today, in 3 weeks, will be race day. I am nearly ready. I think my mental reserves are getting a bit low. If I was a motorbike, you'd switch me to the reserve tank! Only a few more big/tough sessions to go.

The week has gone pretty well, with all target sessions achieved. My last big run was on Thursday and I managed a bit over 32km in 2:30hrs. I ran down the coast from home to Eric St in Swanbourne and then around to Christchurch school and then followed the normal bike route around the river until just above Warrawee lodge, where I went down to the river and ran past all the yacht clubs. When I got to Matilda Bay, I bumped into Scott coming the other way. He was doing exactly the same thing as me (2.5hr run) so we ran together for about 35 min, which was good (and hard). It was really humid and drizzled a little. I lost a bucket of sweat. Was a bit dehydrated later in the day despite a decent effort at drinking heaps all day.

Last night I had my 2nd of 3 weekly Friday 3.8km non-stop swims. It was a bit easier mentally than last week. I also took a full minute of last week and posted a 1:08. Still a long way off race pace hopefully. But in a pool - turning every 50m, with no wetsuit and using a pull buoy, I was fairly happy. My laps were very consistent at just under 18min per km.

Today was a very tough ride. I was up and on the bike at 5am, rode about 28km in 55min to Runners World. A really good group was there today. A few people who haven't ridden much all winter rocked up. Like Rat and big Andy. Most notably though - Bernie. He was looking pretty good. He has finished his chemo for now and was on his new Merkx bike. It was really good to have him in the bunch, even if I didn't see a lot of him. Anyway, Spider, Spud and Big Greg were all keen to give it a nudge at various times and so I had some other riders to play with! We did Circuit # 2. The tone was set early when we headed up Hale Rd (east side) and I pulled out of the bunch and blew up the hill and past Spider (who was a bit in front) in the 'big dog' all the way to the top. I was deep in the red by the time we got to the top and my HR had hit 88% of max. I'm not sure what I was doing - as I didn't plan it. I just felt the need for speed! Well Spider jumped on my wheel and followed me to the top and then it was on! Every hill was a test in who could hurt the most! I think I hurt the more - as he is still a level above me in bike fitness and I was on the TT rig - which isn't the best climbing machine. But it made for some lively riding as we did Rebold hill, Mosman Pk golf course, Reserve St etc. Spud and Spider egged me on when we were on flat fast and sometime windy bits. So I towed them at various times and loved it! Spider took a dare from Butch that he couldn't ride one legged up Reserve St - twice! He took it and did it! Amazing! I couldn't believe it as he went up with one leg unclipped!

We then got to the coffee shop at about 8:35 or so. It was real hard to just stop for a pit stop and refill a bidon. I really would have loved to stay and have coffee and eggs and toast. It was hard to leave as I would have loved to catch up with everyone. So I jumped back on the Cervelo and headed back around the river the opposite way to what we had just ridden. East Perth, Burswood, Sth Perth , Como, Canning bridge and back down to Port beach. The WNW'ly had picked up a fair bit and my plan of a nice steady cruise home was out the window! I had to push into it for about an hour. I got home and had done 153km in 5:03hrs

A quick change of gear and I ran out the door for a brick run. 30min/6km later I got home and was feeling pretty shattered. But mostly hungry!

One more big ride (next Sat) and taper begins next week. I can't wait. 20 days to go.

My late swim

Yesterday, I forgot to throw my swim gear in the car before work. When I discovered this (after parking my car in town) I was spewing. I usually go straight to the pool after work. So, this meant a trip home before I could go to the pool. So the plan was to go home, help out at 'feeding time at the zoo' for a while, see all the kids and catch up with their day, then drive back to the pool. Well that went pretty well, besides it being a bit of a struggle to sit and watch everyone else eat! It was good to catch up with what all the girls had done that day.

At about 645pm, I headed off to the pool for about an hours swim. The Bold Park pool closes at 8pm. Anyway, I had just jumped into the water and a voice from the next lane said 'hello Darin", it was Sam, Johns wife. Without contact lenses in I never notice people I know at the pool! So we had a quick chat which was cool, but I started to get cold standing there and kinda cut the conversation a bit short. Time was ticking away also.

I got into my session with 4x100m warm up, but was having a few issues with my goggles, so i stopped a few times to adjust etc. Then I did 10x150m & 15" rest, as 100m hard, 50 easy. I find it is very easy to lose count of these laps, as you end up at the other end of the pool every 2nd rest. Anyway, got through those and then noticed that the pool had thinned out a heap. In fact I was the last one there. I didn't look at my watch, but decided I best haul arse and finish ASAP. I was supposed to do 3x200's and 200 c/d. But made the decision on the fly to just swim 800m as quick as I could, without blowing too hard. I new I was running out of time, but kept swimming and counting down the laps. I tried not to look up when I got back to the start end of the pool, in case someone was there and told me to get out. I noticed that they had moved some of the lane ropes, in preparation for the pool covers to go one. I ploughed on, really wanting to get the last few laps completed, as I hate not finishing what I planned.

I was on my 2nd last lap, heading back to the start when I saw a pool attendant standing on the edge of the pool waiting for me! Doh! Busted! So I surfaced and stopped the clock. I then just more or less blurted out "One more lap" and she said "you are kidding..." I said "just give me 100 more seconds - I don't need the change rooms or anything, what the time?" She said 8 o'clock and didn't really wait for a further comment and took off, as fast as I could go! Well I powered up and back, stopped my watch then jumped out of the pool. The time was 8pm and a few seconds on my watch (which is almost spot on to the ABC radio news). I don't think I as very popular, as they were wheeling the big covers up to the end of the pool as I was drying myself! I thanked them and was real sucky and then took off! Opening hours say until 8pm, no where does it say you have to be out of the pool before 8!

Anyway, was a good swim - 2.8km in 50min.

Race Simulation # 1

Today the program said a 2 hour - optional - ride was on. I took the option of skipping it. After a 3.8km non stop swim on Friday night - my first since IMWA 2007 and a big Sat, I deserved the rest! Yesterday was a BIG day and a little extra recovery at this point in the build up is just fine. Yesterday was a race simulation ride. Scotty and I drove down to Busso and rode the IM course. This is how the day unfolded.

Up at 4:05am. Breakfast of cereal and a banana. Half asleep still (after a crappy 5hrs sleep only), toilet, contact lenses in and then grab all my drinks and into the car. I took 6 x 750ml bidons, 2 x 500ml, plus water, plus Coke and 2 x Up & Go's for recovery. Got to Scotty's place just before 5 and then hit the wide open road. We got to Busso at about 7:15, both busting for a pit stop! We parked just near the bike exit from transition. This was a race simulation brick, so it was on with race gear, race wheels, race nutrition/hydration plan and most important of all - race pace. So at 7:45 we hit the road on the pushies. The plan was simple - 1st hour @ 32 avg, then end up with an overall avg speed of 34 km/h for the 180km. Then run hard off the bike for 10km (over race pace). I had been having an easy week, Scotty had had a pretty big week. But he is 10 yrs younger than me and should be able to absorb the training better! He was however, not 100% at the start of the day though - and was a bit crook.

Well we started in great conditions - cool, overcast and nearly dead calm. As the day progressed it got warmer, more sunny and more windy. Scott and I alternated between riding 2 abreast and single file (no drafting) for the whole day, depending on the road and where we were exactly. The 1st hour we finished on about 32.7km/h avg, a tad faster than plan. But we both felt OK in the legs, although Scott was sweating a lot and clearly not quite right. We then upped the pace for the rest of the first lap to finish with an avg speed of about 33.3km/h. There were a lot of locals out and about riding, mostly roadies, but some triathletes. We saw quite a few groups or pairs etc. Back to the car and my speedo said we had done 64km. So obviously we had done a few extra kays at the far ends of the course. We grabbed some new bidons, had a wee and headed out for lap 2.

On race day, I usually find lap 2 to be the toughest mentally. But this time, in training, it wasn't so bad. Having Scotty along for company was a big difference I am sure. The time went pretty quick. The number of riders out there decreased a fair bit now, as it was 10am by now. The road kill count was pretty significant - birds, possums, bobtails and other unidentifiable mammals at regular intervals out in the Tuart forest. The breeze picked up a bit, but was shifty and hard to pick the direction, as we rode in all directions of the compass at various times on the course. We got through this lap a bit quicker and our lap avg had lifted to 34.9 for 61km. Another pit stop and fresh bidons and we were off for the last lap.

By now the legs had a bit of fatigue in them, for me, my left leg around the lower quad/outside of the knee was a bit sore. It felt a bit like ITB. My neck and shoulders were OK, but getting a bit uncomfortable. So I popped my Nurofen and things improved not long after. Scotty was a bit worse for wear and tear now, but was digging deep and not letting anything slow him down. He took plenty of turns at the front setting the pace (not that we were drafting at all) and ploughed on. I felt pretty good and was glad I at least had had an easy week. I felt quite strong throughout but was sick of being in the aero position. We both couldn't wait to get off the bike, especially after the last big effort into the wind on new Layman Road - which is very exposed to the wind, which had picked up to be fairly painful now. We finally made it back to the car and had done 59km (@ 35.1km/h) with the overall avg now finishing at 34.4km/h. That was my fastest ride ever (over 100km), by a long shot. Total = 183km, total time 5:19hrs. That would mean about a 5:15hr ride on race day (assuming my bike computer is accurate) which would be superb!

So we had a quick transition and pulled on the running shoes, threw the bikes in the Commodore and headed off in a westerly direction on the IM run course. This was my 1st run in a new pair of Kayanos, so my foot pod needed calibrating. It was reading about 5-6% fast/long I later determined. We ran at about 4:30 pace for a bit over 5km and turned around at the Mandalay caravan park resort. Scotty ran with me for most of that time and then after getting rid of some excess gas build up in his guts, was able to slowly pull away from me on the return trip. I ran the last 5km at 78-80% of max HR, so I couldn't really do anymore. I was very happy with that. It was a lot faster than I would have run on race day, especially the first 10km, so it was a good test to see if the bike leg was too fast or not. I was really only limited by my lung capacity and not my leg strength, so that is a very promising sign for race day. So I ran about 10.3km in 46min which is about 4:25 pace overall. Total training time 6:05hrs. I was glad to stop!

We then drove over to park near the jetty and the Equinox cafe to go for a recovery swim/stand in the water. That felt really nice. The onshore breeze had whipped up some wind waves and it wasn't real warm. But once you got used to it - it felt great. We stood around for a while and then had a bit of a swim/float in the water for about 10min. Amazingly, there were heaps of crabs around - and decent sized ones at that. Glad none latched onto my toes!

After a shower and then a burger, we jumped into the car and headed for home. The analysis of the session revealed we both would not do much differently. We would both put on more sunscreen and tweak our nutrition strategy a little, and thats about it. But it was a very successful session. I can now start to lock in my race day pacing strategy with a high degree of certainty. A 5:15-5:20 race day bike split is a reality now.

Anyway, it was a massive training day and Scott and I were able to push each other to both achieve some good results. Hopefully race day will be even better in 27 days time. I got home before 6pm just in time for dinner. It had been a long day and by 930pm I was asleep in bed!

An easy week this week - totals were 8.5/242/35 in about 12:30 hrs. Next week is the last big one before the taper begins...

Training peak reached

Well, with merely 33 days until IMWA, my training peak workload has been reached. This week, with my 2 days off, I clocked a huge 25:22 hours. That included 7km of swimming, 564km of riding and 58km of running. By and far my biggest week ever! I feel surprisingly good after all that too!

Yesterday for my 4:30 hr ride, I joined the Runners World crew for some hill repeats. The numbers were down a fair bit, with a few people away and a few 'CBF's'. But Big Greg, Hue, Nick, Greggie and Phab set out and did Ewen St, Hale Rd and Rebold Hill repeats. One trip up Ewen St (I think Phab and Greggie skipped this one!) then 5 x Hale Rd's. These were relatively easy, as we turn around about half way down the steep or Western side and the Eastern side is much more of a gentle slope. I felt pretty strong and stayed in the tri bars for most of the time. Then over to Rebold hill where we were to ride until a bit after 8am. I lost count of these, but after looking at my HRM graph later, it was 8 repeats. That pretty much took the edge off my legs! I managed to lap everyone at least once. Not that says much! After a spin back top the coffee shop, where I topped up my bidons and had a quick pit stop, I was off for another 2 hours.

There was a strong southerly blowing, so I rode RTR via East Perth and Mt Henry bridge, which ensured I had a tail wind to come home with from Port Beach. On the way down the Kwinana Fwy path to Canning bridge I passed Scotty and gave him a wave. From Freo home I had the wind behind me. That was great fun. I love going fast. I think I probably averaged 45 all the way up the coast. Total distance ended up being 132km. By the time I got home, my neck and shoulders had had enough. That 564km of riding had taken its toll there.

Today I had a 3hr ride and 30min brick run. The legs were certainly feeling the effects of all those hill repeats today.

This next week is an easier/race rehearsal week. I will re-test my 5k TT instead of my long run. Then I hope to ride the IMWA course next Sat. Then one more big week before I start the taper...I can't wait! Bring it on!

Using the Polar software, I pulled together a few stats. In comparing my training in 2007 to this year. In the 161 days to 1/11 (23 weeks) here are some key numbers;

Total training time 229 hrs v 288 hrs (26% increase)
Cycling Km's 4096 v 5026 (23% increase)
Running Km's 632 v 963 (52% increase)
Swimming - the same, except avg velocity has increased 9%

For an 'avg' week (km) in 2007 I did 3.4/178/29 and in 2009 it is 4.9/218/42.

What these numbers don't show is the quality of the work. The avg velocity of the avg week of running and cycling is up 7% and swimming 9%, but thats just stats. I have been focusing on doing more intensity each week in all 3 disciplines. So hopefully come race day it will all pay off!