Whats been happening

Well post Roth I basically spent the first week in bed, watched a lot of Tour de France and movies. I am back moving pretty well now and looking forward to KMD Challenge Copenhagen in a couple of weeks time.

I had a interesting ride yesterday, a planned brick session, 3hrs on the bike into 90min run. I could write a whole story on it but the short story is, I was doing a long effort, and completely missed my turn off, thought I knew where I was but ended up extremely lost. Then to make matters worse I double punctured and only had one spare tube, so the last 90min was spent riding the rim home. And to finally top the day off, about 45min from home I started bonking badly, had no money to buy any food, so I arrived home just over 5.5hrs from when I left in a pretty wrecked state.
The next hour involved eating just about anything that I could get my hands on, so moral of the story, ask for directions earlier, take money, take a phone and more than one tube!



2yrs ago in Denmark

Challenge Roth

Not quite the blog I was wanting to write from the best race in the world. I woke up on Sunday morning feeling pretty lethargic, got in had a little swim warm up. Got hammered at start of swim and was on struggle street the hole way, but tried to put it out of my mind once on to the bike.
So I tried to get going on the bike but the body felt very empty, the small hill out of Heideck I was just about in the granny gear, and then soon after the women started riding past! So I called it a day after the first loop of the bike.
Time for me to get the health back and rolling again.

Highlight of my day was seeing Tamsyn taking 45min off last years time and I know there is definitely another big junk of time to come off once she gets some more miles in the tank and resistance in the legs

Challenge Roth - What do i do on the wednesday before

Well Challenge Roth is fast approaching, plenty of athletes around, all the signs are up and I am nearly ready to go.

So on my agenda today was;

 - Get up about 6.30, check the emails
 - Have some breakfast, oats and yoghurt
 - Head out for a bike on some super fast smooth roads, ride some time at a solid pace
   Then run of the bike for 20min
 - Get home, have 2nd breakfast with Dominic, the home stay, he likes to sleep in :)
   Had some nice bretzels and toast
 - Had play with Ava, then a nap, which ended up about a hour long!
 - Lunchtime, yes I do eat quite a bit!
 - Afternoon, a quick swim in the stainless steel pool
 - Quickly back home to pick up Ava and Tracy,
 - Go to Roth, have a massage with Andy
 - Go to Autograph session in Roth, need to improve my signature
 - Back home, catch end of Tour De France, Super motivation to see Greg Henderson smashing out a 
   great lead out for Greipel who took the win
 - Write this blog
 - Dinner
 - Bed 9pm

A few photos from the flights to Europe

So it was a 40hr door to door trip to get to Hilpoltstein, 3 flights and a couple of car trips. We had a bit of time to kill in Singapore so I managed a jog at the airport gym, and then we had some more time to kill as our 2nd flight was cancelled.

Jog in singapore airport

Ava having a sleep in Singapore airport - me playing sudoku

Same babysitters I found in the 2nd flight

Time flies - off to Europe

Well the past month has flown by, I have had my head down working hard getting fit for Challenge Roth in a couple of weeks time. I cant wait to get back, we have a super home stay and race day was cranking last year with the crowds and atmosphere. Check out some photos below of last year.

This time Tracy and Ava are coming, fingers crossed the flights go well and Ava decides to sleep alot :) she likes to crawl around and investigate everything now so we might have our hands full.

Other news, Candice had a breakthrough run last weekend in Ironman Cairns and ran her self up to 3rd place only 3min from the win. Now I just have to install some more confidence in her and she will be on the top of the podium in the future. It just confirmed to me that Ironman racing is largely a mental battle and if you loose concentration or worry about what has gone on in the past you can loose a lot of time.

Run Action

Crowd

Wow

Beerfest after

Cool pool

Recovery Run

Well today is a super easy day on the legs with just a quick 30min jog around the park to
help flush out the muscles and keep the legs ticking over. I quite often do this with Ava in the pram but today was a little wet so it was a solo effort. The speeds not important, its probably close to 6min ks or about 8min ks when I am pushing the pram.
So time to show you my favourite run loop....

Which shoes to pick??

3.39pm start time on the Timex watch

Chose the Saucony Fastwitch

Out the driveway

Down to the lake

Nice hard packed gravel path around lake

Lake path

Hill where I do short hill reps

Louis Garneau

So it was just like Christmas when I arrived home from Koh Samui, I got to see Ava and Tracy and also got some new gear from Louis Garneau.

I am going to be racing in there Super fast Vortice helmet. I like it as it doesn't rely in you holding your head in the one position because of the short tail, therefore you can concentrate on riding strong rather than thinking about "is my aero helmet sticking up like a sail in the wind". Its also got a super cool visor to keep the eyes in good condition.

Shoe wise I have started riding in the Tri-300 shoes, they are super stiff and with the moldable sole fit nicely. The moldable sole you simply heat the shoes up in the oven, then put the shoes on and 10mins later you have a perfect fit. A added bonus they match my red Timex kit too :)

Check out some photos below

Vortice helmet

Hot visor

Tri 300 shoes

Calf shot