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...