Hawaii The Long Road to Queen K Highway Part 1

So let the extraordinary journey begin.

Well after a nice three week lay off after my Iron Man New Zealand , it was time to set my sights on Hawaii and get back into training.

The next question was what to do. Do I continue to train and coach myself or do I look outside for help?

I was very lucky to have my physio Katie Flatters from Shepparton move down to Melbourne for work at Physiohealth. Katie introduced the idea of talking to Mat Tippett (Captain Triathlon) from Elite Triathlon Performance Australia (EPTA) with which physiohealth is affiliated. Mat contacted me the week before l left to N.Z and I told him my grand plan which was to win the race!

After a good discussion I slightly altered my game plan which luckily enough on the day all come together.

The day I arrived home Mat was again on the phone to me and I hit it off with him so from that day forwards I always going to move to having a coach. Problem one of my journey solved.

Phase 1 Strength -

So let the training begin.

First thing on the agenda was a Run and Bike Screening at Physiohealth with Katie and Poly.
Problem number one my Glutes don’t work running or on the bike. Problem two my core is no where near as strong as it needs to be to produce a fast bike and run split. The positive side of this is I still had the second fastest amateur bike split of the day followed by a decent run spilt at N.Z so things can only get better.

St Kilada Gatorade Race

I was given my exercises which at first I thought were very unusual and very different and wondered what are these going to do but followed the process. Every 3 weeks the exercises have evolved and now after 9 weeks I feel like I have a new and improved body. It works in a totally different way. My glutes are activating strongly and my core is extremely strong and hard and my running style has totally changed.

First evidence of this was at the last St Kilda Gatorade race only four weeks N.Z ironman. I had only been on physio exercise program for three weeks and only one week back into running training since New Zealand. Sub 18 minute run for 5 km off the bike and fastest run for the day in my age group. Not bad for some one that for the previous 3 months had been training for distance not speed.

Second proof was the Puffing Billy race, 49 min flat for the 13.2 km and 37 overall out of 3200. A lot of these guys are not triathletes they are runners. Faster average pace than my best 10 km split by six second per km and not only was it longer distance, it was all hills no flat at all.

My bike has always been my strength. Thanks to Leigh at Leigh Egan Cycles, all the ergo sessions we did even made it more of a weapon in N.Z which is what I based my race plan around.

The ergo sessions fitted with Mat’s approach to bike training so I purchased a Lemond Revolution from Leigh and between what I have learnt from Leigh Egan in all the ergo classes and from Mat’s new approach to ergo, my plan is to get to the next level on the bike and go even faster.

In four weeks on Mat’s strength phase program I have already increased my functional power threshold (FTP) by 5%, so things are headed in a positive direction.

One point I would like to make is if you want to be strong and ride fast, hills are good for pacific training but the time and petrol we waste driving to find hills could be put towards ergo classes or buying an ergo trainer. Used with a quality program and you will see more benefit I’m sure.

Well I now move into my next training phase which is going to be even bigger on the bike so I will be excited to do another FPT test after it.

For this phase I will be in South Korea to see how my body is going to cope with the acclimatization and will also bring some hard steep hills into the training program as well as the ergo trainer session.

So looking forward to the challenges to come.