TOBY RADCLIFFE

Professional Ironman Triathlete
http://tobyradcliffe.com

Tuesday 19 February 2008

Hot hot hot

Its 9pm and its still near 34 degrees. Luckily I've been on a couple of fairly light training days with lots of pool work (my back is now markedly browner than my front... must do more backstroke!). The weather's set to break tonight sometime - just in time for a hard brick session tomorrow. Think I'm fully recovered from Epic... had a pretty standard week last week, only dropping a little of usual intensity and lowering the run load. Last couple of days have been fairly light so feeling refreshed and ready for the next round.

Sunday 10 February 2008

Post-Epic Recovery

Since Epic, I've made it back to Geelong and starting to feel more human again. First couple of days I did nothing (partly thanks to a pile of work that needed to be done) mainly due to the fact that my quads were in tatters. Wednesday I started back in with a swim and built slowly from there. Most of the sessions have been fairly easy, nothing longer than 2 hours. Total training time this week only hit 15hours. Finished off the week by doing the run leg for a team at HIM Geelong. It was just a training run for me, so I sat around 4 min kms for the duration, steady and fairly easy... that was more than I expected to be able to do by this weekend, so that's good. Part of me hated doing the run as I wanted to be racing it, but other parts of me (my legs) were quite happy to just watch. Tara Norton (from Epic) was down doing the race and cracke dout 5th. Didn't manage to catch up with her afterwards to find out how it felt, but I think that's a pretty good way to back-up Epic! Way to go Tara! I certainly wasn't in any state to go racing.

Sunday 3 February 2008

Epic days 6, 7 and 8

Day 6
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I was feeling a litte worse for wear so instead of going for the run to the pool at 6am, I slept in and got a ride to the pool for 7am. Slugged out 3km with 10 200s on 3:20 (the first was on 3:00 but there was slippage!). Shoulder turnover was sluggish and the final 1km to finish the 3km was long. Ran after the swim and my quads were feeling the days before. Then it was back to the lodge and on for the ride. The plan was to go back over the Crown Range and then past Queenstown and up to Glenorchy and back, but the weather had other ideas. We'd set out thinking believing the forecast for showers clearing, a light southerly and 21 degrees. By the bottom of the climb (I had already been dropped by the pack as i was having a bit of a personal moment where my maximum output was nothing near what was required!) the weather had started to deteriorate. By deteriorate i mean the skies had opened and the temperature dropped rapidly. While this was OK on the way up when I'm sure I was steaming slightly, on the way down hypothermia was seriously imminent.

By the bottom (which took me even longer than usual) a few people had bailed and the ride had been cut short to a direct route to the accommodation in Queenstown. Most of us changed in the van into dry clothes which meant at least hitting the road again was bearable for the first couple of kilometers. That last part of the ride was hilarious... gusting crosswinds, rain coming in so hard that it was difficult to keep your eyes open, and then obstacles like the Shotover Bridge where traffic, crosswinds and rain conspired to give a hair-raising experience. Once in, a very long shower was the reward and I didn't even consider anything extra.

Totals
Swim 3km, Ride 90km, Run 10km

Day 7
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Today was supposed to be a bit easier ahead of the triathlon we're doing tomorrow for the end of camp finale. A longish group run was planned involving going up Ben Lomond... A mere 1400m climbing. Unfortunately Ron and I had a toilet stop at the turnoff and then immediately turned up the wrong track. Oops. Continuing on, I ended up going up the wrong side of the valley and doing a lot of unnecessary climbing (noted as I had to descend a long wasy when I finally started to find some real paths). By the time I made it to the Gondola, I'd been out nearly 2 hours... seeing Mark P and grabbing his Fuelbelt before he got on the gondola going down! By the time I made the top (and met Andrew who went back up to the top with me) it was rather later than expected and we made our way back down the correct way... total time about 3:45... probably 30km+ covered.

Quick swim, 3km steady, then the ride to Coronet Peak was enough to finish me off for the day (another KoM).

Totals
Swim 3km, Ride 60km, Run 30km (ish) (est 2200m climbing)

Day 8
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2.5km lake swim, 25km ride with 8km climb and 4km run (400m vertical) up a ski field to finish. Johnny Newsom took it out... Coronet Peak is the perfect place to have a triathlon race! Must admit to running very little of the hill climb to the top... my legs were sore!

Very pleased to have finished the camp having done all the sessions. Lessons learnt? That substantial time out of training is not an ideal was to prepare; that everyone at Epic deserves massive respect; never be rude to Michaela - she's in charge of the food!; that volume training s great fun.