Learn By Racing

It was a 5 and ½ month preparation for my race in Shepparton. I achieved a great finish but also saw areas where I know I can improve further and have even better performances in the future. I needed this race to gauge how far I had progressed and it showed some great signs, along with areas that need extra work. I will now focus my attention on the Geelong 70.3 and, hopefully, a podium spot.

My 1.9km swim time of 32.37 minutes was several minutes below what I anticipated and it essentially cost me a podium finish with the third place getter in my age group getting home less than 3 minutes ahead of me. 

I know that my technique was flawed throughout most of the swim and I put this down to a few points:-

Ø  I didn’t train enough with sighting and open water swimming. This meant, in the race, lifting my head regularly for the extra sighting needed, caused my legs to drop significantly in the water and not allow me to swim in the streamlined position I was used to from the pool.

Ø  My kick wasn’t strong enough to maintain decent momentum and body position while I was sighting, and;

Ø  Although, my arms and shoulders felt relatively good, they weren’t turning over at the desired pace. I feel my strokes per minute would have been higher than what I am used to in the pool which then resulted in less efficiency through the water and also a contributor to my lagging body position.

Over the next couple of months I will be working to improve each of these areas:-

Ø  I will incorporate tougher strength training in the pool to improve endurance and power.

Ø  Devote one whole session each week to technique, arm turnover and kicking to improve overall efficiency. 

Ø  Work even harder on more core strength.

Ø  Try to raise my overall race pace, and;

Ø  Prepare better for open water swimming prior to the race.

My 90km bike leg was the best part of my day, completing it in a time of 2 hours 21 minutes and 59 seconds at an average speed just over 38km/h. This gives me great confidence in the possibility of getting even faster as it is an 18 minute improvement on last year. I have trained a great deal better than I have in previous years with adequate amounts of over distance rides combined with strength and power efforts. I will continue to build on this and expect I can improve by another 5 – 10 minutes for the February Geelong race. The only changes I will make to my bike training will be adding an extra couple of hours to my weekly total, while pushing harder to build more strength/power and developing my higher cadence capabilities further as there are some extended downhill portions on the Geelong bike course.

My run was, also, a little below expectation. I turned in a 1:27:34 split but was hoping for a 1:25 or better. I started off at my desired pace below 4:00min/km but I couldn’t hold it for more than the first 3kms and had to settle for a first lap average of 4:02min/km which then blew out to a total run average of 4:09min/km. I put this down to a couple of factors:-

Ø  My form wasn’t what it should have been. I sat back too much and didn’t run how I have trained which has better forward momentum.

Ø  My long run in training wasn’t a below race pace, over-distance effort to build endurance. Instead, it was a race pace effort broken up into 4 x 5km segments. I thought this would serve me well but I now think it wasn’t appropriate when combined with other high paced interval sessions throughout the rest of my training week.

Ø  My leg turn-over was slow. I wasn’t able to maintain a high enough turn-over which has a huge effect on my speed under fatigue.

I will look to improve my run with the following methods:-

Ø  Train my leg turn-over with a slightly different technique to promote a greater number of steps per minute.

Ø  I will perform a longer, endurance based weekly long run on a hilly course. It will be a minimum of 90 minutes and extend out to 2 hours closer to the race. As the Geelong run course has many undulations, this will be essential practice and strength training.

Ø  My weights and core training will increase to promote stronger, powerful running muscles. It will, also, benefit my cycling greatly for an undulating course helping me feel fresher coming off the bike.

I’m very motivated to get back into serious training but I won’t be doing that until I have completed 2 weeks of recovery post Shepparton. My recovery is several days with no exercise and other days with short, easy sessions for active recovery.

I know I can go faster in Geelong and I can’t wait to put out a big performance there.