Well today I have been in Kona 2 weeks! Hard to believe that the time has passed so quickly! Hannah arrived a week ago and Tania 5 days ago so we are now 3 and it feels good to have my friends around me!

Unfortunately our plans to hire a car here for 2 weeks fell flat on there face within an hour of Hannah stepping off the plane! We went to pick up the car from the rental place and discovered that the price we had 'paid' was subject to some additional local charges..... which totalled over $1000 US dollars!! Needless to say we decided that was a little over our budget and cancelled the car hire! Instead we found a local car hire company in town and rented a car for a weekend so that we could use it as a support vehicle for my epic cycle to the top of the Ironman course on Saturday and then use it to explore the Volcano National Park on Sunday. We have booked in another rental period for 24 hours at the end of the week so I can be dropped at the top of the cycle course for my final 'long ride' before race day. Not having a car during race week will make it a little harder to get to all the places I need to be like the bike shop for a pre-race service, event registration, the parade of nations, the athlete briefing and the all important race start but hopefully we will all figure out the best plan of attack to get me to each of those!

So Saturday was the big training event of the week for me - getting to the top of the cycle course and the big crew event of the week for Tania and Hannah who were manning the support vehicle (attached pic of Tania at a check point!). Friday evening was spent planning the various check points along the route, working out what I needed to be handed at each and also featured a quick lesson in making up my electrolyte drinks! I set off just after 7am and the first check point was scheduled for 0830! I picked a great day to cycle - the heat intensity was high and the Island winds were the strongest I had seen so I got a real taste of the legendary Ho'omumuku headwinds which blast at you from just north of the airport (10 miles out of Kona) all the way to the turn around at Hawi (mile 55) - I have to say that there were a few moments of despair as at times I felt like I was making little if any progress in a forwards direction (I have attached a video Hannah made on the side of the Queen K highway so you can hear the winds)! Just 10 miles out from Hawi I cycled into a belt of lashing rain - Hawi is situated at the very Northern tip of the Big Island and I have since learnt has a more tropical rainy climate - so I arrived at the turn around soaking wet and was greeted by an equally wet support crew! I didn't stay wet for long - 10 miles out of Hawi I hit the familiar intense heat and was blown dry in no more than 2 minutes! The top of the cycle course brings you right to the edge of the coastline and features much steeper sharper ascents so it felt good to finally see what I would be up against on race day! I certainly couldn't have made it up there without my support crew keeping me in a constant supply of electrolyte drinks and water! I managed to drink my way through just over 9 litres of water and arrived back at the condo only one kg lighter which I was really impressed with! I ran 40 minutes off the bike and felt good so all in all the day was a big confidence booster..... I had made it to the top and survived the heat and the winds! Below is a map and course profile for the cycle course.

Yesterday I got really excited because I spotted that the second part of the swim course had been marked with a couple of orange buoys! Today I had planned to swim the entire course however all the beaches and local water access points have been closed because the swells and currents are dangerously high following the Tsunami in Samoa and the Big Island is now on full scale alert for a Tsunami hit - some of the locals say the water should be open again by tomorrow so hopefully the buoys won't have been swept away!

This week sees a dip in the volume and intensity of my training so I feel that the taper has finally begun towards race day. I still have between 2 and 3 sessions a day but they are mostly shorter in length and at a much lower intensity. I am maximising my rest periods and taking advantage of a few more sleep ins! I finished my race plan this morning so have sent that to Tony this morning for feedback and comments!

Generally I am feeling good and looking forward to the excitement of race week Hawaii style! The rest of my crew arrive next week so it will be great to see Kathryn, Noo, Elaine, Mags and Kati! We have recruited a couple of locals to the kiwi support crew and hope to get as many Americans holding kiwi flags out on the course as possible :-)

That's it for now! xx

Kona Learning Curve

Well today I have successfully completed the first 5 days of training here in Kona and I have certainly learned heaps! The biggest challenge has been getting my fluids right for the longer sessions and picking the best times of the day to train depending on the nature of the session - I definitely won't be running intervals in the heat of the day anytime soon again!


Today I managed to get it right on my longest session yet which was a 6 hour cycle out on the course. As Hannah (and my support vehicle!!!) doesn't arrive until Tuesday I had to break the cycle into 3 hour loops that started and finished at my condo so that I could replace my drink bottles and replenish my food stash! It was really windy today so I got a taste of the Island winds in full force which I would safely say were some of the strongest I have encountered! I fully enjoyed every second of it though and finished feeling well hydrated and in good condition! I am now itching to get to the top of the course - I saw plenty of cyclists with their support vehicles making there way up to the top and I have to admit to a few pangs of jealousy as I had to turn around at mile 25 to get back to the condo to stock up my fluids! I know that Tuesday isn't long to wait for Hannah to arrive and I have a big cycling week ahead which will provide lots of oppertunity to get up there......hopefully that is if Hannah is willing :-)

My heart rate is starting to come down to the upper end of normal during my training sessions so that is a sign that I am adapting to heat. The black lava fields on both the run and cycle course make the heat quite intense (I have attached a piccie of said lava fields!) and the wind hot! It's a bit like when you open the oven and get that blast of warm air in your face - someone likened it to cycling in a furnace although I'm not sure that must be a hypothetical comparison!!

It has been really nice to do some open water swimming - on my first swim out on the course I came across a large pod of dolphins and I really couldn't resist the urge to suspend my training session (like everyone else out there) for 20 minutes and have a play! Amazing experience and so far I haven't come across another pod so I think I really struck gold that day! Also on the swim front I received my blue seventy swim skin in the post (yay yay yay) which as many of you know has been a bit of a mission for me to find in New Zealand because they had all been sent overseas for the Northern Hemispheres summer season! Blue seventy in New Zealand arranged to have one couriered from a store in the US to my conodo in Kona and timed it to arrive the day after I arrived - now that's what I call amazing service! So I now have my swim skin of choice (blue seventy pointzero3) which came in a box that said on the front 'you are now holding the fastest swim skin ever made' - I feel there may be some key words for the swim on race day in there somewhere!

Still not yet able to communicate with the outside world by cell phone yet! I need a tri band phone to pick up a signal so the lovely Hannah is bringing out a spare tri band phone for me this week which will mean I will be back up and running on the cell phone super highway...I hope!

I am making good progress at eating my way through the stack of nutrition I brought out with me! I have had to limit my porridge consumption to just two bowls a day as my Uncle Toby's oats are running a bit low as are my low carb protein bars. I will try to resist the urge to go crazy on the bars and porridge when the rest of the supply arrive on Tuesday!

OK - I thought that I would finish up with 10 "interesting" things I have learned thus far in Kona.......

1. You will never need to bring something warm to wear in the evenings - it really doesn't cool down.

2. There are 73 TV channels here and I still can't find anything to watch

3. Boys on flashy bikes with deep dish wheels have a lot to say for themselves when powering past you on the downhills but are strangely quiet when you pass them on the uphills

4. All downhills are an optical illusion - you still need to pedal like crazy to move forward

5. Never wear anything black - you will melt

6. Suncream is not conducive to 90% humidity- just when you think you have rubbed it in it resurfaces quietly and makes you look like a streaky white zebra

7. The more sun tanned you are the faster you go

8. If you want the experience of swimming in a washing machine - hit the swim course after 11am - that's when the swell 'gets up'

9. Salt tablets melt in extreme heat

10. Dolphins are very big up close

Right - time to cook some dinner and make a plan for tomorrow!

Aloha Kona!

Well aloha Kona! Hard to believe that I am actually here, sat in my condo on the infamous Alii Drive! My last week in New Zealand now seems a distant memory although my physical limits were pushed to new levels of intensity and agony with a big training volume, hard sessions and a weekend that featured the 90km cycle time trial on Saturday followed by 3 hours of run fun up the concrete monster on Sunday! A year ago I would not have thought that combination possible and as I fired my cycle wind trainer and legs back into action at 0600 on Monday morning I really began to wonder what it would take for my legs to simply stop working altogether! I am constantly amazed at the moment by my bodies ability to bounce back and to keep pushing the sessions out. Although my sessions on Monday and my squad swim on Tuesday morning were a little below par in terms of energy levels and stamina I have arrived into Kona feeling pretty fresh and I'm now ready to get stuck into the last couple of weeks of training.

Getting here once past check in was pretty straight forward! I copped a $120 luggage charge in Auckland - not because I was over my weight limit but because I had packed my bike into one box, my wind trainer plus nutriton into another and then had a suitcase too! Apparently 3 items of checked luggage are a big No No but if I had called Air New Zealand before I flew they would have waivered the charge - really didn't quite understand the logic as to why they couldn't waiver it at check in but hey ho I needed everything in all the boxes so the only option was to pay up! I have to admit to something resembling a large scale nuclear meltdown after that but thankfully Hannah was on hand to calm me down, mop up the tears, feed me diet coke and safely deposit me to the security check point!

I arrived into Honolulu at 11pm last night so grabbed an airport hotel for the night and then headed back out to the airport this morning to catch a domestic flight across to the 'Big Island'. I arrived at midday into 34 degrees and 90% humidity and navigated my way to a taxi that delivered me to the complex of condos I'm staying in - a little gated community off Alii Drive. I was making slow progress moving all my boxes from the front of the condo the back stairs when a friendly guy called Scott pulled up! He was a friend of the owner of my condo and knew who I was and that I was here to do the Ironman World Champs! He quickly moved all my boxes up the stairs for me and after several minutes of chit chat asked if I wanted a quick tour of the town and a drop off at the supermarket! I knew that not having a car was going to make getting groceries difficult as taxis mostly just operate to and from the airport and I figured that a bit of local knowledge would be useful so within 5 minutes of arriving at my condo I was out the door and in a massive jeep heading into the town with a man called Scott! The quick tour ended up being one of the most comprehensive tours of a town I have ever been on in my life and featured a lot of Ironman course information! I then got dropped off at the supermarket and picked up 45 minutes later and deposited back to my condo! So within 2 hours of arriving I had a weeks worth of groceries and all the information I needed to kick start my training! Go Scott!

I assembled my bike this afternoon and then headed out for a quick run to get my muscles moving prior to the start of my Kona programme tomorrow!! The start of the week has been very low on volume as Monday was dedicated to packing and Tuesday to flying and getting settled in! Tomorrow I've got a swim in the sea, a wind trainer cycle session and a run.....the best thing of all however is that I don't have to get up at 0430 to fit it all in - I've got the whole day!

So yes it's hot, yes it's humid and yes it's pretty windy........bring it on Kona!

90km Cycle Time Trial

Today I had my 90km cycle time trial and I've attached my pretty power graph - time trial starts just after square 1 following a bit of a warm up! Again the time trial was on the cateye trainers so it was a test of pure strength, power and speed! I was the only one in my squad down for 90km so I knew that it was important to stay focused on my own speed, distance and power goals and not get distracted by the number of people around me stopping after 60km!


I had got through my last 90km time trial on a cateye trainer in 2 hours 24 minutes so I was looking to improve on this and set my sights on a finish somewhere between 2:18 and 2:20. I was also pretty determined to get to the 40km mark quicker than the recorded time for my last 40km time trial when my brake had been locked on the wheel - I knew that was a bit of a dangerous tactic as I could quite easily blow up and not make the next 50km but deep down I knew that I was faster and stronger than an hour flat 40km and was confident I could hold the pace through the remaining 50km.

I approached today like I would a race, eating a hearty pre race meal of porridge and protein powder at the crack of dawn! I packed up my bento box with race nutrition and intended to eat like I would during my Ironman bike - 20 minute intervals alternating between GU energy gels and 1/4 pieces of protein bar. By 7.15am I was set up on my bike ready to go and I got the signal from Tony to start.

I decided to break the time trial down into 10km segements so that it was mentally easier to deal with! Probably one of the biggest challenges doing a long cycle time trial on a trainer is mental endurance rather than the physical side of things. It is hard work to keep pushing yourself at a maximum effort for so long when you are stationary in a room rather than out on the road racing against other athletes that you can use to pick and pass.

I started hard at a speed of 40-41km/hr and opted to begin with a higher pedal cadence and then move into bigger gears as the time trial progressed as I'm much more comfortable grinding it out at a lower pedal cadence in a big gear - I felt that when the fatigue began to hit I would be able to lower my pedal cadence and achieve the same speed for less percieved effort!

I hit the 40km mark in just under 57 minutes which gave me a much needed mental boost - a small wave of panic did wash over me when the reality of another 50km at the same effort sank in but I focused on the 10km blocks and hitting them in 15 minute increments. The hardest 10km block came at 70km when I felt so close but yet so far to finishing. Once I hit 80km however I knew that I was on the home straight and it was simply a case of pushing on at a consistent effort.

I managed to keep it together and average a speed of 41km/hr which got me a 2hour 12minute and 51second finish for the effort! Not only had I managed to pace myself consistently for the 90km but I had managed to knock 12 minutes off my previous personal best effort over that distance - all in all I was one happy camper!!

I got all of about 2 minutes to celebrate my achievement then it was a quick transition into my running shoes and into a 40 minute run - 10 minutes of easy followed by a 20 minute hard effort and then a 10 minute easy. I was unsure exactly how my legs were going to perform given the fact they had never cycled that hard for that long in their life before but I was pleasantly surprised to feel them fire into action after 5 minutes of easy running and cope with the increase in pace midway through the run.

Tomorrow it's time to do my last battle with concrete monster before getting on the plane to Hawaii so I'm seriously hoping that my legs recover enough to push out a solid 3 hour run tomorrow! Compression tights on and an early bed tonight!

What Not to Wear!

Well I'm sat here after successfully swimming, cycling and running my way through just over 200km today - pretty big day at the office all round! I had been psyching myself up for my 'Big Sunday' since the middle of the week so when my alarm rang out this morning I was ready and focused for the day ahead. After a solid swim down at my local pool I layered up with a couple of thermal polyprops and headed out on my bike to the Eastern hills of Miranda. I pushed out a 6 hour ride broken only by a puncture just before the halfway mark and had a decent paced run off the bike firing up to full speed within a couple of kms! So delirious with my accomplishment for the day I happily posed for the attached picture on my return home only to realise now that I could have done with running the GHD's through the curls first!

It feels good to have finished a solid week with a successful day and to have again got through every session with ticks in all the boxes - all in all training hours this week tipped the scales at 23. Aside from my Super Sunday my other key sessions for the week were a hard bike interval session tagged with the simple instruction from Tony to time trial each effort - nice! I had another key long swim session of 5km and my key run session was short and sharp -descending 800m track reps.

I have just got my programme through for my next block of training - the end of which is race week......eeeekk! Next week is a big run week which can only mean one thing - concrete monster time!!! It also features a 90km cycle time trial on Saturday so I will be looking to break my previous PB of 2hour 24min at that. The time trial will be a good oppertunity to practice race nutrition and also pacing - hopefully simulating an ascending effort and negative split for the second 45km.

Having spent most of the previous week sourcing nutrition for my month in Hawaii this week I focused on race wear! I have deliberately held off on getting this until now as I wanted to be as close to race weight as possible to ensure the best possible fit! I have recieved so much advice over the last few weeks on what not to wear on race day that I was finding it difficult to make any kind of decision on clothing for any part of the day!! Due to the extreme temperatures and humidity in Kona what you wear I have been told can make or break you....dark colours are deemed an absolute No No, tight lycra on the run viewed as risky and the balance between exposed skin versus unexposed skin crucial in balancing sunburn prevention with over heating!! I need to find a swim skin that had been approved by the American Triathlon Federation (USAT) in light of all the controversy surrounding them in recent months and also think about a complete change of clothes from run to bike - I usually race an Ironman in a two piece tri suit and chuck a pair of cycle shorts over the top for the bike so the thought of actually having to get naked in the changing tents is more unnerving at the moment than the thought of taking my place on the start line!! Needless to say this week has mostly comprised of me buying random white stuff that I'm hoping will eventually come together to form the perfect race ensemble! Current plan is to take as many options as I can with me and then spend a couple of weeks trying different combinations until I find what works!!

So it's only 8 days until I get on the plane to Hawaii and I have just 3 days at work left before my leave officially starts! Hard to believe that this time next week I will be 2 sleeps away from starting my 4 week build up to race day in Hawaii!! Aloha!

Bye for now!