Bikes and Hills

My shoulder/back muscles were pulled from Friday morning swim session so all through the day, I was trying to fix it sitting at my desk. I decided to go for the Asian massage places in Southland but that didnt work. I found it so hard to sleep on Saturday night and I was kept awake until about 3am. I was so tired when my alarm went off at 5:15 and was 99% about sleep-in and not going for the training ride...at about 5:50am I changed my mind. In my head I kept thinking - How am I suppose to be a good triathlete if I dont do these training rides? I have Kinglake ride in 3 weeks - how am I suppose to do these rides well? What would the Coach think if I told him I wanted to sleep in?

I haven't ridden my bike since JC's funeral, I have sacrificed so much to get this bike, I need to ride it! Because I had everything packed and ready to go (only needed to pour water into my drink bottles), I got out of my bed, put on my cycling clothes and went out the door with my bottles and cycling bag and drove to Diamond Creek. I wasn't 100% if the ride left at 7:15 or 7:30 so I wanted to get there by 7am with enough time for a toilet stop. All I can say is THANK GOD maccas, it was right next to the train station!

I was there with plenty of time to get ready and the group left for the ride from Diamond Creek - Hurtsbridge - St Andrews - Kinglake - Pleasent Creek - Humevale - Whittlesea - Arthurs Creek - Diamond Creek.

Sunday Kinglake Training by evalin1980 at Garmin Connect - Details

The ride was life changing - I was up the front behind Clare and Paddy but as soon as we hit Kinglake, my body broke down. The fog made the ride so hard for my breathing that I was coughing all the way up the first part of the ride. I was getting dizzy from the lack of air too. I was coughing so much at one point that I had a small spew along the way. After passing the foggy part of Kinglake climb and to where it was clearer, I got my breathing back and I could get a rhythm back onto my pedal stroke. The other thing which made my ride hard was my legs were still sore from Thursday night runs. My muscle soreness is really an issue as it takes several days for it to subside. I know I should do several things - ice, foam roller, walk etc but I just didn't have time after the run as I had to get up early the next day for the swim!

I had someone from the TA group with me the whole time I rode up Kinglake so it was good knowing that I wasn't alone. Then when we got to the Bakery (top of Kinglake), the group was nearly off to the next part of the ride. I rested for about 5min, had a gel (didnt have time for a toilet break) and off to Humevale we go. The ride after Kinglake was amazing! Long straight downhill (with a small up hill only) and going to Humevale was also an adventure. The road had a speed limit of 100km/h so there were some areas where it was scary to ride and the conditions of the road on the left of the white line was in no condition to ride on! Some cars were a bit angry but seriously....you get to live another day. When we got into Whittlesea, I finally had a chance to go to the toilet - I really needed it and felt like I lost about 2kg. 

The ride from Whittlesea to Arthurs Creek was amazing - I got down on my drops and it took no time to reach Arthurs Creek Road. Athurs Creek road has been dedicated to Cadel Evans (as his mum lives there) so there were paint messages on the roads as well as along the fences of the properties. There was a small hill along the road and that's where I dropped my chain and had to get off the bike to fix it. At this point, everyone passed me and I was the last one of the group. Once I got my chain back on, I was adamant on not being last so I rode past as many people as I could. 

When we got back onto Main Road, the stress of riding along a main road was high. It was close to midday so there were many cars on the road that were not bike friendly. 

After the ride I drove to work to take a shower to get ready for Ausbike. The Ausbike Expo was not as good as last year - not as many stands and not all the major brands were there. Last year Ollie was at the Altitude stand too so I think the price for an expo stand was high and not many ppl thought it was a good investment considering that ppl cant buy straight off the shelf and will research and buy their bikes online. 

RIP John Cornish

Plans changed over the weekend. One of our Tri Alliance family (and ex coach) John Cornish was killed whilst cycling on Friday evening. He was travelling along Beach road and was trying to pass a parked car and a van hit him whilst trying to change lanes. He died on location.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8276341/cyclist-killed-by-van-in-brighton

The triathlon and cycling community are mourning. The coached ride on Saturday was cancelled. I am not sure if anyone was out at the 8am run session today either.
After breakfast, I walked into Turning Point Cycles and spoke to Dan and Kylie (they are the owners) about JC. There is no way of stopping cyclist being killed on the roads - you can't change driver's annoyance towards cyclist. Yes there are cyclist out there to give cyclist a bad name - they run red lights, they weave through traffic and cause damage to property but there are a lot of drivers out there who don't consider cyclists a humans and just have so much anger and hatred towards them. How many cyclist do we need to lose before these drivers need to realise that cyclists share the roads. This is truly a lesson that all drivers and cyclists need to learn.

Yesterday, we met at ELSC at 4pm for a small wake and to hear from the police about what happened. When Ollie spoke about JC, it brought tears to my eyes. He had lost a true friend and a valuable staff member. We then went to St Kilda for drinks in remembrance of JC and just hanging out "with the family" without being in training.

Valuable lessons to be learnt by all - we need to be better people.

Lorne Camp 2011

Over the weekend from Friday 10th June until Monday 13th June was the annual Tri Alliance Lorne Training Camp. I attended this training camp last year and the fitness and abilities have improved so much and it was so evident when I rode over the weekend!

I had a few injuries from my hamstrings and a bad cold so I didn't do that much running but my training weekend was still spectacular!!!

Friday
I took a day off work and started to drive down to Lorne at about 12pm. The traffic getting on to the West Gate bridge was the only traffic we had. I arrived down at Lorne at about 2:40pm and I checked into the motel after I dropped Ella (a girl from camp that followed me down to Lorne as she didnt know how to get down there). The motel room was nice and comfortable and well worth paying the $40 extra to stay away from the life saving club.

The first session was a light run - I did about 8km flat run as my hamstrings were still sore from last week's ride so I just ran along the beach. The run was great and I felt really comfortable as I found my rhythm and running mojo. It started to rain which made the run more awesome as I felt like I was such an athlete!

After the run we soaked our legs in the ocean. It was so cold that my whole body was numb so at the end before I headed out I dove into the water and swam around abit. The hot shower at the motel was also an advantage from staying at the dorms.
Saturday
I was placed in Group 2 which meant that we were riding to Apollo Bay and back which is about a 90km round trip. The ride there was good. I took gels every hour and I was riding strong. When we got to Apollo Bay, I only had a powerbar bar and that was it for the ride back. The ride back back was hard work and I didn't eat anything after that. It wasn't the greatest ride as I had a stabbing pain rushing from my knees up to my groin. I could not ride up the hills properly or standing up. My legs ached when I got off the bike. We then soaked our legs again in the sea and because we were late (slower of the people in Group 2), we missed the first part of the info session on running shoes - Saucony. They were talking about minimalist shoes. This is a style of running which I am going into. I need to adapt my running to a forefoot running style using the correct shoes.

I did another easy run as my hamstrings had not improved. It was a 6km or so run followed by another soak in the ocean. I then headed back to the motel to take a shower before heading out for dinner. I had seafood linguini for dinner and it was great! So good after a long day training.

Sunday
Group 2 were to do 90km Apollo Bay and back and another 2km up to Deans Marsh Rd to Benwerrin which is 427m above sea level. The ride to Apollo Bay was great. I got into Apollo Bay in less than 1:45. I had about 500m left to go to Apollo Bay when the faster of the Group 2 were heading back into Lorne which meant that I was not too far behind the fast group. On this second day I felt stronger on the bike and I went up the hills on the large chain ring and only dropped to the small chainring twice! I am not able to have a high cadence on the smaller chainring. As I was comfortable on the larger chainring, I just stayed on it.

Riding into Lorne, I was feeling great. I was not too tired and so I decided to take another gel and rode towards Deans Marsh Rd to go up Benwerrin. The ride up was interesting. It was a steep 11km or so climb with very little "breaks" in between. When I finally reached the top of the hill, I was ON TOP OF THE WORLD!!!! I felt such a sense of accomplishment. It was a hard ride up and my mind was also getting bored of riding the same stroke over and over. In my mind I kept repeating to myself "Every Stroke Counts, Every Stroke Counts, Every Stroke Counts..." I turned my legs over counting to those beats in my head and kept positive.  I took a (proud) photo of the fact that I rode all the way up the hill which we were all so stressed out about the night before!

JC rode up after I took the photo and then Ollie drove past in Jarrads van. Apparently Ollie's rear gears derailed so he could no longer ride his bike anymore. They asked me if I wanted a lift down and I said "No, I want to ride down as I want to get over 100km on this ride" - I was so proud of the fact that I am about to ride over 100km and doing it on this weekend!

The descent down from the top was not that great - I am not confident coming down as I have a fear of falling off my bike. It took a while and I was so waiting for the end of the hill as I was getting too cold.
When I spoke to Sarah, we mentioned that only about 10 people did Benny's Hill which made me even more proud of my achievements. As I couldn't run, I just stayed in bed to rest before dinner.

For dinner, I had kangaroo which was ok. Went back to the lifesaving club to chill before bed. For Monday I decided to do the ride instead of the run (as I could not run anymore!)

We decided that we will roll out early and do 40km so we can get back in time to check out.

Monday
The recovery ride for Monday was just that - slow. It gave me a chance to take in the scenery rather than just thinking about training and getting from point A to point B.

It took us about 2 hours to ride 40km which was a recovery pace. We then just rushed around to clean up so that we could head back to the club. I rinsed out my bike before the start of the aquathon. Due to my cold, I didn't have to do the aquathon which was good cos I really didn't want to get into my wetsuit.

After the aquathon, it was a BBQ lunch and it was then home time. I remember staying back last year to help to clean up but it didn't look like many people stayed to help. I left about 12:30pm and got back to Melbourne at about 4pm. I decided to indulge myself and got a neck, shoulder, back and arms massage from Southland. The massage was great but my shoulders are still hard - nothing will solve this!

I am so happy that I went to this camp. I can see 12 months of training has really paid off and I have done more than what I did last year. My fitness has definitely improved and I am no longer "just surviving", I am actually feeling that I have advanced plenty.

For the next few days I just have to concentrate on my hamstrings and getting them stronger to be able to run. I have packed for windtrainer but it will depend on the workload and how I am feeling.

So proud of my weekend's achievements!

In total for Lorne:
Ride = 90km + 110km + 40km = 240km (higher than expected)
Run = 8km + 6km = 14km (low but with no regrets)