Delay's contempt, but still looking forward.

It is with a heavy heart that I report I cannot start the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon this week and the San Juan 70.3 two weeks following. Within the last week I've come down with a stress fracture in my proximal fibula and have to put my season openers on ice. For the cognitively advanced among us, the nature of my injury is of;

localised bone marrow oedema within the medullary cavity of the proximal left fibula with undisplaced transverse microtrabecular fractures consistent with stress fractures. No cortical fracture or displaced injury. There is minor oedema extrending into the surrounding soft tissues in the peroneal compartment and the lateral aspect of the lateral head of the gastrocnemius. The adjacent tibia is intact with no focal bone marrow oedema or stress response. 

I have been in such great shape, and the fracture happened very very suddenly within 24 hours of feeling the fragments of pain in/around my fibula. I was in my last week of training of a heavy six week block, a consecutive amount of training I'd never attempted before without intermittent recovery. It's sad that it's happened, but I can already draw positives, knowing I've know got an understanding of my training limitations for the future. Obviously I can't test my racing form yet, but I still have a lot of time to heal and consolidate my base training before attempting my scheduled races in late Spring.

I'm really gutted I can't race Escape & San Juan, 'Alcatraz' has been a race I've always wanted to do and I know I could have shown some early season dominance in San Juan. But as the blog title suggests, I'm very much looking forward. I'm in this game for the long haul and I'm lucky that fibula stress fractures aren't the worst injuries in the world. This crazy triathlon train ride stops & starts, and an express train to the top is rare. I understand there are highs & lows along the way, and must use all the knowledge I attain to stack myself up towards to the top.

In the meantime, this pony was ready to race but now unfortunately must be stabled.

And here's some more hardware shots of some of my new kit (all have been posted on Twitter prior to this)

Thanks for reading, hopefully I'll have some positive injury updates int he coming weeks.
Cheers
Burgs

New Partners & Base Miles (cont.)

Salutations endurance enthusiasts and Tri minions everywhere, thanks for tuning in.

Another exciting sponsor announcement happened this week with my inclusion in the fantastic team over at TYR.

TYR is the gold standard in everything waterborne (excluding Giardia and the like). Wetsuits, swimsuits, swimskins, trisuits, goggles, even down to the triathletes pool tool of choice, the hand paddle. I'm really excited to be a part of the brand, and I'll be joining top lads and chicks like Crowie, Pete Jacobs, Andy Potts, Sarah Haskins & Rinny Carfrae. Stop #1 in my dirty fast (©Tim Don) Freak of Nature wetsuit is the cold water swim in San Francisco for the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon on March 3.

Please excuse the overly intense grimace and zeal of me putting on my new suit

In terms of training, I've never been fitter and more capable of a big workload than I presently have been in 2013. I'm backing up lots of miles week after week and recovery time has been very quick. I've skipped a lot of early season Oceania & Australian racing to focus on consolidating a good base block, and I'm really pleased with the outcomes in my training thus far. I'd also like to think that my dilligent and concerted effort towards training and racing last year has meant I'm still building on the new level of fitness I found last year. Here's a weekly session I've been doing, to give an idea of what I've been up to!


Each Thursday I head out of 200km (124.3mi) of solo cycling, with a 60-90min TT wedged in (duration depending on how I feel). I prefer to do sessions like this by myself because the demands of such a long session is quite great, and I'd rather my session not get corrupted by another athletes stengths or weaknessess. In a race I can only rely on myself for motivation & performance, and I think it's important to do a great deal of key sessions forcing this mentality on myself.


This session is done on a Thursday to finish off my training week, which is a 7 day cycle consisting of 6 days on and 1 day off. When I ride long like this, I'll always like to do a lot of climbing. This particular ride included 3,157m (10,358ft) of altitude gain, but I will only ever start the TT once all the big climbs out of the way. On this particular loop I started the 60min TT at 110km, after 3hours 50mins of riding time. The 60minute TT saw me complete 41.6km into head & crosswinds. This was done in zone 3, around 155bpm heart rate for the whole hour. Total ride time was 6h29m, and it was topped off with a 30minute run off the bike!


The loop I did started at my home in Brisbane north, and I was going to go up Mt. Glorious, down the backside, past Sommerset Dam into Kilcoy, then back up Mt. Mee, through Dayboro and Samford before finishing up. However I got up to Mt. Glorious & found out the road was closed from landslides from the recent floods (Mt. Glorious is always going down, check out this post from two years ago). I quickly had to re-route and head in another direction. The link to my training file is below (this week I'll have my Quarq!!!).



200km w/60min TT by hey_burgs at Garmin Connect - Details