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