Josh Amberger's Dynamic Gallery of Thoughts

Caloundra Ritural Teil Zwei

2012-02-08T13:53:00.002+10:00

For part one, wind my posts back two years ago. Refer to this post for the present day race report...

The format: 400m swim, 7km cycle, 1.8km run, 200m swim, 7km cycle, 1.8km run.

While these numbers seem completely arbitrary, the speed of the race wasn't. It was hard from the gun, likeareallad. It was a small field, but a quality one, with identities such as Atkinson, Good & Fisher toeing the line.

My current training load is nearly as big as a Captain Ahab era leviathan, so I wasn't expecting to be super quick, but I was certainly expecting to be strong. I lacked only a few seconds of leg speed on the first run to put myself back in the mix for the second round, as three athletes were a wombat's dick up the road. I was relegated to the second pack by default to finish 5th, but was still less than 60 seconds behing Courtney who took the win.

The evidence....

Results

Revive me please....

2012-02-02T22:18:00.001+10:00

Small fish

Big fish

Small yabbie

Small fish

Big fish of wellbeing.

I'm happy to share that I'll be working with Brisbane's Revive studio for the next 6 months for all my physio, massage and (a new one for me) pilates treatments.

If you're living in Brisbane and need a good metaphorical iron out, you should check out Revive.

In other Burgs news, I've decided for a late entry into this weekend enduro event at Caloundra, with the format set at 400/7000/1800 - 200/7000/1800. The dogmas of the conventional triathlion have fallen with this unorthodox format, and I'm sure it will be fast because I'm feeling pretty fit :)

Check back for a race report in the new week!

Absu (I'll push you then you push me back)

2012-01-16T22:32:00.001+10:00

I've just come off a three week block of some long steady miles on the bike. The night I had my last session, I made my solemn way into town and treated myself to a performance of the touring 'mythological occult metal' band Absu from Dallas Texas. The band is 22 years in existence and this was their first ever show in Australia, so naturally it was a pretty special moment for the humble Brisbane metal scene. After the supports cleared away, it was time for the black & thrashing soundscapes of Absu to bleed awaiting eardrums. I was standing third row amongst a crowd of maybe 150 lads & lass', when one of the said lads next to me started to windmill headbang, with my face as the unfortunate collateral damage. As progression took hold (during Pillars of Mercy), he courts me and kindly asks if I would like to start a mosh. Thinking of my tattered legs from 3x600km back to back bike weeks, I whimpered something at him to which he spoke over the top "I'll push you, then you push me back". Without hesitation, he executed his commitment, to which I duly reciprocated. The mosh was on!

From this action and the course it followed thereafter, I can canvas some brief simalarities between Triathlon and a sweaty, hot, filthy, thrashingly brutal Absu show...

When the metalhead or the Triathlon pushes you, you have to push back
Sweaty hair stinks, & should be trimmed & cleaned accordingly
Spilling beer on the floor of the mosh is like a wet descent, the wrong tread and inappropriate precaution will cause stumbles & crashes
If you get kicked in the face during the mosh or the swim, it's likely you will bleed internally & externally from the lip
There is always an encore...

*the maps below are the cartographical reproductions of the four hilly 140km+ loops I have repeated in the past weeks. This week I'm recovering, then I'll do it all again*

D'Aguilar Loop

Fernvale Loop

Mt. Coot-tha 6 laps (not 140km, but rather 80km + 2,500m of vertical climb)

Numinbah Loop

Nth NSW mix & match

Triathlon's 'Best of 2011'- An Arbitrary Account from J.Amberger

2011-12-22T21:16:00.005+10:00

The festive season not only brings together family, friends and children with jovial fat red men with sacks in shopping centres, it also spews forth copious amounts of fickle and arbitrary lists of 'best of's'.

So here's my own list, prehaps also as fickle and arbitrary as the rest.

^disclaimer- I generally give more attention to mens races, so I have withheld a list of female performance as a bastion against my inadequate knowledge and likely speculation. If you don't like my list, make your own!

ITU

Best performance of 2011- Javier Gomez in Sydney WCS
Best swim of 2011- Richard Varga in Hamburg WCS
Best ride of 2011- Reinaldo Collucci in Kitzbuhel WCS
Best run of 2011- Joao Silva in Yokohama WCS
Best overall athlete/s- Brownlee, either one
Breakthrough athlete- Vincent Luis
Best course- Geneva Euro Cup
Best crash- Laurent Vidal in Sydney WCS (video- watch from .30 in)
Best quote- Alistair Brownlee post-Kitzbuhel: "It was a funny race today, the swim was really really slow, I was a couple of guys back...and I thought these guys are going really slow so I just swam to the front. It didn't seem that hard"

Non-Drafting

Best performance of 2011- Greg Bennett in Hy-Vee
Best swim of 2011- J.Amberger in Hy-Vee*
Best ride of 2011-Ben Collins in NYC 5150 or Hy-Vee
Best run of 2011- Javier Gomez in Dallas
Best overall athlete- Paul Matthews
Breakthrough athlete- Billiard Bertand
Best course- Hy-Vee
Best crash- Cam Dye in Minneapolis, "An age grouper came out of transition and tried to do a flying mount onto his bike, however, from lack of practice or body control he began to go through the line of cones and into my lane. I slammed on my breaks and road over to the left as far as I could to avoid him but my C75 met the curb and I did a slow motion flip over the bars and onto said curb."
Best quote- Cam Dye post-Hy-Vee, telling me I cut the bouys and cheated in the swim!

*Have to get some credit for it

70.3 & Iron Distance

Best performance of 2011- All three records, first Marino Van Hoenacker at IM Austria, Andreas Raelert at Challenge Roth & Craig Alexander at Kona
Best swim of 2011- Pete Jacobs in IMOZ
Best ride of 2011-Andreas Raelert at Challenge Roth
Best run of 2011- Pete Jacobs in Kona
Best overall athlete- Craig Alexander
Breakthrough athlete- Clayton Fettell & Andi Boecherer
Best crash- Tim Reed in Phuket 70.3, "On the final climb of the day at a bit after the 80km mark I felt the heart sinking feeling of a tyre getting very squishy as glass had sliced the tyre and tube... I decided to just ride slowly on the flat tyre until the support vehicle caught up. There was a minor descent where I was able to pick my speed up a little... as soon as I hit the corner at the end of the descent I came down hard stupidly forgetting that I wouldn’t be able to corner with a flat tyre".
Best Quote- Andy Potts after Vineman 70.3: "Anytime you can get to smell the finish line, and you're shoulder to shoulder with you know, the top guy, and you're in the lead, all that's bringing you towards the finish line. It's like a tractor beam, pulling you in and you got all this adrenaline, and I'm thinking, let the tractor beam, let it pull me in let it pull me in..."

On the whole, 2011 was a good year for me, with some definate highlights but also some downers. I had my first injury of my career, which set me back four months of cycling & running from December 2010 until April. I had a short while to recover and condition myself before the international season began, which of course made things tough. I tried some shortcuts to fitness, which obviously worked for my early races in Klagenfurt, Zurich & Geneva, but held me back from long term conditioning for New York, Hy-Vee, Noosa and Port Mac. I introduced new styles of racing, non-drafting Olympic Distance and 70.3, and will certainly continue this into the future. The triathletes I admire are the ones that can do it all, and that's my blueprint. It was also my first season where I took care of everything myself; training plans, racing schedule, training bases, homestays, nutrition and funded myself 95%, the other 5% going to my only cash sponsor. A bit of a bleak figure, but I guess this margin can only improve. At 22, I think I did an okay job of managing all of these things. I learnt a lot and I understand I still have a long way to go, but this is the challenge I love.

...In 2012, I will be smarter, and I will be better. Cannot wait!

Twitterlad

2011-12-04T17:40:00.001+10:00

Get at me on Twitter! @JoshAmberger

I expect those that read this blog would actually follow me on Twitter as well. If not, you'll most certainly get hit with the poo shovel, at any given time.

Island Migration: Part 4

2011-11-30T00:21:00.000+10:00

This time around, camping on Moreton Island off the coast of Brisbane. Of course, I took Asha with me :)

Nothing but sand, trees, lakes, and beaches. No sealed roads, only a few houses, mostly wilderness and rugged landscape. Love it!

Island Migration: Part 3

2011-11-23T10:33:00.001+10:00

It's hard to remember what you're on Hamilton Island to do, a race or a holiday? Well I wont deny either, because the race has an atmosphere and course that inspires majesty, but it's still strikingly relaxed. All the while, the island itself is beautiful, amazing flora & fauna with the exact kind of rugged landscape that I love, which is of course is contained by crytal blue waters. Mark 'Sharky' Smoothy, a 25 year veterean of the sport says the race on Hamilton Island is just like the good old days, relentlessly tough, but with a nuturing and fun atmosphere.

Now getting down to the nitty gritty, Asha and I arrived on Thursday and settled into our little 5-star nest at the Beach Club. Thursday and Friday was all about relaxing while waiting for the metaphorical gun (air horn of course) to go off on Saturday morning.

I was joined by perenial sparing partner Jimmy Seear, whilst Pete Jacobs was also starting amongst a hundred or so other male contendors. Unfortunately Craig Alexander decided not to bring his bike with him so a race with him was null and void! It would have been great to race (and beat of course :p) him as well as Pete, but I guess a 3-time Hawaii champ doesn't have much more to prove!

For those that don't know already, this is a sprint distance race. Don't get put off by that you uber-distance fanatics, everyone is always glad that it's only a sprint. The course is truly brutal: ocean swim with chop, beach running, serious vertical ascent on the bike, more vertical ascent on the run and more beach running to finish. Leading into this race, I really struggled with recovering from Port Mac 70.3, and I knew my body had expired for the year. It's been a while since I took a break, but had planned this to be my send off for the 2011 season anyway.

Pete Jacobs interestingly wore a wetsuit for the 750m swim, something I didn't even think about brining to the race. By default, Pete was assigned the duty of pulling me around the swim course, but Jimmy and I instantly gapped him at the start of the cycle because he had to take the thing off! There's not much else to add about the bike (watch the video below if you haven't already), just the fact that Jimmy absolutely tore me to bits and dropped me around 12km in. I kept putting chunks of time into Pete however, and with each lap of the bike I longed for the run to start, wanting to move onto new (hopefully fresh) muscle groups. It's funny how I was thinking that though, because the run was just as tough. There's not many courses around that make you think about walking in a sprint race! Last year I had a 200m sprint finish along the soft sand with Ryan Fisher (who just picked up 3rd in Auckland ITU), so I was happy to pull onto the finishing straight by myself this year, even if it meant I was still in second place.

Swim start

Jimmy and I on the runway

Group shot!

Pete Jacobs

Run

Pete, Ash, Jimmy, Burg

Crowie finishing in teams

Here's some shots from the rest of the weekend, including the return boat trip from the 2km Whitehaven Ocean swim.

Thanks goes out to Hamilton Island for the amazing weekend. You can view them at their website here or follow them on Twitter here.

Island Migration: Part 2

2011-11-21T23:51:00.001+10:00

I'm waiting on some race photos from Saturday, so I've done a video from the cycle leg in the meantime. This is my first time recording & editing anything, I hope you will all enjoy!

Island Migration: Part 1

2011-11-16T12:38:00.000+10:00

Heading off once again to the gorgeous Hamilton Island for this Saturday's sprint distance tri. I've been really slow on the recovery for Port, and am really just hoping to get through the race without walking. It's a super brutal course, but magical enough to still make me smile. I'll be taking some time off after the race, and have got some good holiday stuff planned to make all you Northern Hemisphere lads a little bit jealous.

Here's the video from last year's race

2010 Hamilton Island Triathlon from Hamilton Island on Vimeo.

And a link to my blog post afterwards

http://joshuaamberger.blogspot.com/2010/11/get-some-hamo-in-ya.html

Ominous Traversal 1.0

2011-11-14T12:31:00.002+10:00

With compatriot D.W. Wordsmith's foray into the electronic mediations of the blog, which is becoming increasingly ubiquitous with Australian Triathletes, it is without epiphany that I have to reinvigorate my blogging colloquy. Thus, in a vain and plunderous attempt to stay relevant in the cut-throat market of blog hits, I shall decant an esoteric but hopefully not irrelevant narrative which will eventually if not sublimely encapsulate an important 'lesson of the Burg', should you treat it as such. I shall also disclose that while no one is currently making significant financial investments in my future, I will write here what I please. Begin...

Around the year 370AD I was moping around the vast steppes of Hunnic Empire before I settled (temporarily of course) near the Volga. Days and months of scouring the banks of the great river passed, all the while dancing with tribes of Huns, slaughtering beasts and drinking fermented goat's milk became norm. I had left my tiresome abode in search of a new life, travelling without facing the embargoes, facades and tyranies of the modern empire and sovereign society. My partaking in the nomadic rituals, namely the aforementioned, as well the casting of tunics out of rodent's skin, riding horseback popping arrows, throwing javelins, sharpening daggers and jousting with the Romans has certianly left many legacies on my being, now of course breathing in the globalised society that is 21st century. Through osmosis, the vastness and desolation of the steppe marvelled it's way into my being and soul. In those fevered times, it was kill or be killed, fear or be feared, the oldern day equivalent of the modern fable 'Triathlon or die'. In essence, life in those times had an overwhelming sense of darkness which has stayed with me all these years voiding the destructive power of time. I still feel the darkness of steppe, even after my many migrations; from my quest accross The Great Silk Road from Eurasia to China, from China to India amongst the West Indies Spice and Opium trade, the booming textile and tea trade from India to the great European imperial powers, and finally from the Pax-Britanica Empire on convict boats to Australasia, which has since seen me settled in the humble Northern Brisbane suburbs for the past few centuries. As fresh as Attila's mink skin coat, the longing for dark feelings remain.

As a consequence of my aforementioned Hunnic explorations, everything I do is one of feeling. Feeling the workout, feeling the purpose. Feeling the aromas of the bean, feeling the succulent taste. Feeling the panorama and feeling the beauty of the moment. In essence, as well as doing, I try to feel. My Hunnic brethren live on in one of my most cherished feelings, the feelings of the dark nature embodied by the soundscapes of modern metal, delivered in musical format. It's quite obvious that the darkness has a different texture to the light; the feeling of dread and despondency versus fear and nervousness. The darkness I feel from music is so real that I feel I can touch it. It's like a cosmos, a very energetic and rich vacuum with lots of messages, infinitly mobile in its capacity to abduct your being. When the darkness knocks once on your dilapidated goat skinned Hunnic door, knocking thrice if need be, you have no other choice but to surrender yourself to it, shifting your state into transcendence.

Pertinently, the great thing about today's globalised society as opposed to my mopings throughout antique centuries past is the recent progeny of Black/Doom/Death & Sludge Metal. While it's deplorably true that about 90% of the bands spawned are hopelessly repugnant, the 10% of metal bands that give a nod to their fellow space-travelling couterparts man should have their very own unique, obscure and dark atmosphere, one that a being like myself can immerse themselves in and feel the feelings of dark times past. The feelings and transcendence absorbed by the atmospheres in metal music are so monolithic and vast that it's a feeling even D.W. Wordsmith's metallic mind would have to grapple with.

Now before it becomes consensus that I'm a vagrant Hunnic freak because of the misanthropic or macabre leanings of this entry, I assure you this darkness is a transmission of joy as much as it sounds like the opposite. While some may like bright colors and soft fabrics, I'm about wanting to have an abstract experience, trying to get to something deeper and more obscure than normal. Dark music provides the perfect medium for this. To the pompous ones who may satyrise or scrutinise these words, please ignore what you don't understand and hide from it accordingly. Alternatively, to the other space travellers out there, I encourage one to embrace the foundations of this post, that from day to day, as well as doing things, feel them.

"But sir, this feeling, this feeling of darkness and dread.... where can I get it?" Lad, by having seen Brisbane's own Portal live at the Globe Theatre last Fiday night. The darkness....

Port 70.3

2011-11-08T12:15:00.002+10:00

Less than two months ago I had an embarrassing moment in Syracuse when my bike fell off the car on the way to my first 70.3 race. Apart from feeling as useless as a marzipan dildo, I felt I needed to reschedule the lost race and get my 70.3 virginity over with. So last week I saddled up and headed 8hours down the East Coast for the Port Macquarie 70.3. I didn't realise it at the time, but Port was going to be a whole bunch harder than Syracuse, with a tougher course, and a tougher field.

I drove down to Port with eventual winner Clayton Fettell. He's in career best form at the moment in the lead up to the Busselton Ironman in December, and my plan all along was to stay with him as long as possible. I only needed to suffer for two hours on the bike and I would outpace him on the run for a win. Dream on lad! I ended up 5th place in 4hours 2minutes.

The swim is pretty easy in the 70.3 format for the good swimmers. There's no short course shit-fight to the first can, there's never 5 guys either side of you holding you back or sucking your wake, simply clear water from the start. I sat on Clayton for the swim, and we started the ride together. The Port course is 2 laps on the bike, with the first & last 12km's each lap over some pretty agressive hills, which also doubled as the run course. The other section is a pancake highway. I rode with Clayton until about 30km's, where at this point he managed to find the benevolent slipstream of the lead motorbike, instantly gapping me and leaving me solo and a bit annoyed. I hate dobbing, but this was a pretty shit thing to do on his behalf. I continued by myself, but lacking in experience and endurance, I ended up getting caught by a bunch at about 65km's. I knew I just had to sit in, and conserve for the run. After sitting in, I lost a bit of focus and hit a pretty low point at about 82km's, began losing energy and concentration fast, and consequently started the run by myself after getting dropped again.

On the run course, there's only about 2km's in the whole half-marathon that is flat. I got the first flat km ticked off easy, but locked up as soon as I hit the hills. I'd been warned about the high and lows and endurance racing, so I sucked it up and kept chipping away at time. I ended up coming good at about 8km's, but had lost too much time to claw my way back into the podium places.

I came into the race without really preparing properly for the distance, and I probably disrespected the 90km TT a little and suffered as a result. I just wanted to get my first half-iron done as an end-of-year treat (a treat only a die-hard triathlete could love I guess), and to put some long-distance feelers out there for the future. Now that it's over, it's exposed a nice chunk of weaknesses that I can work on for my races in 2012. I'm definately going to do more of this distance! 4hours, 2mins over a brutal course can only get faster, lads. Maybe next time I can win like Clayton did, off the front the whole way. I like that.

Noosa

2011-10-31T21:58:00.004+10:00

The Noosa Tri is the one of the best races on the calendar.

It's a fun course, lots of people do it etc., but my reasons to say this mainly transcend the race itself. It's just a magical place with a lot of atmosphere. A quintessential Australian town which now holds a quintessential Triathlon. It's Australia's biggest prizemoney and industry race, and I've had a good history in the race even though I'm relatively young to the lads who win it each year. This is what compels me to make the Noosa Tri a perenial affair.

Now that the word wanking is over, it makes me feel lower than a dingo's donger to say I had another shit one in 2011. But let me spin the narrative before all you lads and ladies give up on me.

I arrived in Noosa 6 days before the race on the Monday. I had organised a weeks accommodation right next to the headlands National Park in the lead up to the race. I wanted to soak up the town, focus on the course and make some memories. I was kept company by two of the lads. All the sick things went down that you lads who weren't there wish you could do. Fishing, banter, bickery, coffee, trail running, cycling, open water swimming, bickery, more banter and surfing (although only ever possible is there's actually surf in Noosa). 4 days before the race though, I woke up with a brutal little bug which kept me inside and catatonic for 24hours. I was in a pretty bad way with muscle aches and migranes, and I didn't know if I would be able to start the race. It was gone after 1 day, but I still didn't feel right. I didn't really tell anyone about it and tried to forget it happened so that it didn't rattle me before the race.

I got to the race site at 5:30am, did a small swim warmup and then sat on the sand to the side of the startline. I soon had a crowd of other athletes around me. Macca threw a comment at me essentially saying it's bullshit how relaxed all the good swimmers can be before the start of a race, while the little fish are shitting themselves about the imminent aqua maelstrom. I guess this is kind of true, sometimes I feel like I'm the king lion on the swim line and can feel really relaxed. But Macca was wrong, because I knew there, sitting in the sand that something was wrong. My heartrate was beating about 30-40beats higher that it should have been. Big problem!!!

I swam okay. The pace was slow, but I was happy to sit in and come out 3rd trying to keep my heartrate as low as possible. The start of the bike was fast, really fast. I sat in for 20km but in an instant, my heartrate flatted out and I lost all of my power and got shelled out the back. My 24-hour sickness was enough to take apart my condition for the race. I went from about a 45km/h average to about 39, but luckily still had a small group around me to ride back into Noosa with. I knew the race was over for me, this kind of thing wasn't normal at all. One of the lads with me was Courtney, who was going for his 4th straight win. He was also cactus after being hospitalised during the week. We exchanged a laugh riding back into town about our comparably meek physical states. Onto the run, I just tried to have fun, and hold a good form. I gave out lots of high-5's to kids, smiles and salutations to those that clapped and a few cheeky comments to spectators. What else can you do when you're having a bad one? You have to keep yourself occupied from pulling out!

So that's Noosa for another year, but I can still feel I'm getting closer and mature enough for a win in the future. Yeahyeah. By the way, my lady has a blog, support it.

If you want to see my drop in numbers during my blowout on the bike, have a look at my Garmin file.

Noosa Imminent

2011-10-22T16:17:00.000+10:00

2011-10-19T08:57:00.000+10:00

Now stop looking at mine and get your own!

Formalities 1,0

2011-10-15T14:27:00.000+10:00

My pretty girlfriend Ashleigh has had an amazing 12 months.

1x Junior World Champion
1x World Cup win
1x podium at Noosa Triathlon
2x Continental Cup wins
2x WCS top 10's on debut
1x unofficial hottest triathlete award

This week she was recognised for her valor by the Australian Sporting Hall of Fame with a scholarship. We both attended the awards evening in Melbourne this week.

Aussie madlad Greg Welch was also in attendance, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Ash and I met him for the first time. I introduced myself as Andy Potts (esoteric to those who didn't watch Hy-Vee braodcast).

Next up for me is my perenial quest for gold in the Noosa Triathlon on October 30, followed by my second attempt at starting my first 70.3 in Port Macquarie a week later on November 6.

On the Horizon...

2011-10-08T15:20:00.000+10:00

Top Athletes Tri it in Paradise - Sport News - etravelblackboard.com

2011-09-23T11:01:00.003+10:00

Somewhere along the line I've picked up some crazy fans, and no, none of them are my family members. Love it!

Syracuse Scourge

2011-09-19T06:03:00.001+10:00

So it turns out my debut 70.3 was not meant to be, and I failed to make it to the startline.

That beautiful bike you see in the post below is now out of service, it fell off the back of the car on the highway driving to the race. How does that happen! I feel really empty and stupid, and it's sad to finish my trip with such bad luck.

Time to get home...

70.3 Debut

2011-09-18T08:41:00.000+10:00

Tomorrow in Syracuse, NY.

Got myself some 808Firecrest wheels with a Powertap from a top local lad. I'll strap about 50gels on, and I'm ready to go! After this race I'm heading back Down Under, so the next 48hours or so will be very exciting for me.

The field isn't that deep, but there's still some decent guys for sure. The course is tough, with about 800m of climbing on the bike course, and about 300m for the half marathon. I'm just here for a fun time, to see how I do and hopefully pick up some more pocket money before I go home. If I can win, that's top notch! See you all on the otherside.

Green Lakes Gallop & Grill

2011-09-14T12:05:00.005+10:00

{ubiquitous Burgz post follows}

Green lakes is a sweet lad facility in Syracuse. Magical jadestone-green lakes (no way), fantastic trails, and many fat American grillz for big athletic diets. On the menu tonight after an easy trail run; stuffed chicken breasts with camambert & sundried tomoato, with a side of eggplant and asparagus. I had to run with my camera, or this blog just wouldn't be any good.

Hy-Vee Highs, Hy-Vee Lows

2011-09-09T06:22:00.004+10:00

The two best feelings you can have in a race is winning, and flying through the air during a swim re-entry.

Thats being said, the race on the weekend was pretty cool, and so is the picture collage above. It was an awesome course, had a great crowd and a special atmosphere. Although I didn't have the bike or run I was looking for, I had a great time and managed to secure my first professional pay check of $20,000 (I still consider myself semi-professional though, until sponsors start doing something reasonable).

I woke up on the Sunday morning, walked outside to see the water and I knew it was going to be a great day for swimming. There were strong rains the day before the race, which made a nice downstream current as the rain spilled into the catchment. With the novelty of swimming in a petite river under and around bridges, with a current, this was easily the swim of my dreams. I mean really, I dream about this shit. A hard swim in Triathlon? No way, what a travesty! Let's cancel it, move it or make it shorter. Not on Sunday sir! I think those who struggled on the swim would even say it was a really cool course.

So you can see in the first picture the distance from the starline to the first bouy. This made short work of the weaker swimmers, and gave a great advantage to the stronger ones. I was first to the bouy, and then I was away. I think I had a 25second gap over some of the sports best swimmers by the first lap, which got to 55seconds by the end of the swim. Unfortunately I went backwards from there!

I stayed ahead for almost 10km on the bike until I was caught by Ben Collins just before the first bike preme line. Really, Ben Collins? Yeah, the guy rode as quick as a death metal drummer, he was sensational. From there I kept falling back in the field, and by about half way through the ride I went into survival mode. This is essentially where you're no longer racing and accept the inevitable. It's the point where all those people passing you doesn't bother you at all. Sad but true, and I don't really know what happened. I think being in Texas in the weeks leading up didn't do me any favors, but I still can't complain after the 3 swim premes. However, I was really hoping to be able to race, not just finish.

I'm now training (well, staying fit at least) for the Syracuse 70.3 next weekend. Anyone have any advice for someone who's never TT'd over 40km and never run a half-marathon? It's a little bit daunting, but I'm excited to have a crack, and more still, get back home to Brisbane after the race.

Thanks to all those who followed my progress leading into Hy-Vee, it wasn't hard to know that it was the season's big goal for me. It took a lot of planning and courage to be able to leave the ITU nest and have a crack at making it professional it on my own, and I feel proud of myself for executing a small degree of success. I'll be back better next year lads!

Culinary Exposition

2011-08-31T14:06:00.003+10:00

On the menu in the Rocket house tonight-

Pan fried salmon, topped with asparagus, dill and a green curry sauce (coconut milk with thai green curry paste); with a side of stir-fry Kasha (Eastern European buckwheat) with spinach, brocolli, peas and beans.

I've come from a family where I can expect a meal on the table every time I come home (love you Mum), so I've had to teach myself how to cook since I've been away from home. I think I'm doing alright (modestly, this is the reason I've done this blog in the first place yeah?). From my last two homestays in Zurich and now Austin, it seems that I've fallen into the principle of 'you buy and I'll cook'. That works fine for me with supplies like this :)

The Big Dance

2011-08-29T14:22:00.002+10:00

Welcome to Austin TX, a very homely city that greets you each day with a 40+degree (I don't know, maybe 106F if you prefer ancient and obscure measurements) punch to the face and a whole lot of sunshine.

It would seem that when you're doing most of your training indoors, you don't have many ideas for a blog and your life becomes rather mundane. But with the big dance now less than a week away, I have to get some jumble on here to let you chaps know I'm still turning the pedals.

Indoor training aside, I've had another great homestay here. I'm staying in the household where Rocket Science Sports was born. These guys are pumping out some really good shit, and are about to launch their new line for 2012. I'll be debuting their new swim skin (which is sick lad) at Des Moines next week, so if I lead out of the swim assume it was the skin and not my hard training. They will be launching an updated website soon with the new kit, so have a go at that train when it comes along.

I've been thinking of home quite a bit, and drinking American coffee doesn't help the longing. Watching classic Aussie films like Two Hands and The Hard Word gets me by though, and I have found Clarke and Dawe is really good at killing pain.

But I still haven't stopped thinking about the job next Sunday. I have sacrificed alot of my running training to make sure I'm strong enough on the bike to either ride solo off the front, or ride with the best. Swimming has been equally prevalent in my preparations. There's no point turning up to the race if I can't use my strengths.

I'll also be rolling the dice in my first 70.3 in three weeks time in Syracuse (New York state), just for a bit of fun. I'm going to be totally ignorant about what it will take to race and win a 70.3, so maybe this will work in my favor like it did for T.Bozzone in Wildflower '06 when he was 21.

So I'll keep preparing, and you might keep reading if I think of some ideas for a blog with meaning. In the meantime, you lads should give me a gee-up for the race 'eyy!

Burgs Texas Ranger

2011-08-17T05:08:00.000+10:00

I'm currently in Austin getting some training done before smacking down in Des Moines on September 4. It's hot here, very hot. Not a day cooler than 40°C, and no rain for the foreseeable future. I've only just started training again since the race in New York, I had to take 5 days off with illness. I not sure what it was from, I could have been carrying a bug for some time and the race put me over, or I could have simply got a bad dose of the Hudson down in me. Either way, I hope the time off helps me to pedal circles instead of squares.

No Cigar in NYC

2011-08-09T07:54:00.001+10:00

I was really eager to get the the USA to show off my form, but it turns out I didn't really have anything to show at all.

NYC is a tough race. Even though it's the easiest swim in triathlon, the bike and run are quite tough. I swam 13.25 for the 1500m, which knocks Sun Yang's world record straight out of Manhattan. The only difference between his swim and my swim was we were swimming with the outgoing tide in the Hudson. Essentially, this race is not for swimmers, because all the weaker guys get a free ride.

I honestly thought I would be able to ride off the front in the bike, but just had no legs at all. I'm not sure what it was, but I just got worse and worse as the ride went on. I averaged 89 cadence for the ride, which just doesn't cut a fast time over a 40km TT. 110 average cadence gets you a quick time! The course was full of rolling hills, and I got caught and dropped by 4 guys (Collins, Bennett, Yoder, Thompson), and just had nothing to give. I ended up getting caught right at the end by a bunch of 6 or so, so it would have been smart to drop back to that bunch after the 20km turnaround, but who would actually let themselves do that in a race! Here's my file, note the shitty HR decline!

^^^ Sympathise with that grimace!!

The run was pretty cool. We ran down 72nd, and then into Central Park for a stroll around before the finish line on Dead Road. I started the run in 5th, but already 3minutes down on Collins. Only 2 guys from the bunch that caught me at the end outran me, and I picked up one place from the athletes ahead of me on the bike. The run was also full or rollers, and it was a reallt battle to keep a high turnover. I ran a 34.30, which I guess is okay after the disaster on the bike. I was just really happy to finish the race and get it over with!

Looking back, I've done 4 races over 5 weeks, and this has probably affected my ability to hold good form throughout. I knew this would probably be the case, so I've learnt more about my ability to race until certain pressures. Now I can really focus on 4 good weeks of training ahead of Des Moines on September 4. The course and my prepartion will be very different to here in NYC, so I think I can expect a different result, hopefully an improved result where it really counts!

I'm off to Austin Texas now. I'll be checking in next time from there :)

Pool Reviews- Teil Eins

2011-08-01T22:21:00.009+10:00

A traveling triathlete faces many adversities. Luggage/bike fees, accommodations, fiscal nightmares, training inadequacies, and sometimes just a simple longing for home, not to mention the depression when things go to shit. One major pain in the ass for a traveling triathlete will always encounter is swimming. Every country has its own take on swimming, how it should be done and what is considered an adequate swimming facillity; they all have their own minor and major frustrations.

In this new reviews section, I'm going to one by one expose and debunk the pros and cons of European pools, beggining with Freibad Annen in Witten. I'm clearly not in Witten Germany anymore, but I prepared this blog over and over in my mind while living the nightmare that is this pool. Now I don't sprechen ze Deutsch, but I believe freibad means outdoor pool. So that's a start, it's an outdoor pool. This is a picture from last year, but as you can see its an aesthetically sound pool and a nice facility, with a pleasing dash of ambience from the green foothills above. One tick for the freibad Annen.

Initially, being an ourdoor pool in Europe, you can expect that when the suns being dominated by the clouds (which is most of the time), that this pool is cold. While this is always going to be the case with otudoor pools in Europe, the pool is at a constant 27degrees celcius, so it's actually quite pleasing, most of the time. When the weather turns, let's just say 'typical European', the pool has some facilities to make up for the cold. So that you're not freezing your sexual organs off undressing, drying and dressing again in the open air, the freiban Annen compensates with a nice changeroom facility. Here we see this neat little trick, the changeroom where you can enter or exit the water via a hot shower.

But is a hot shower a good thing? Not when you have to pay 10cents for 30 seconds. 30 seconds of warm liquid goodness is just a teaser, which leaves you begging for more, and also begging for 10cent pieces. Who has any of these anyway? No tick here.

Staying on the fiscal topic, the freibad Annen wins in respects with pool entry. If you're sly enough you just walk in any claim you're with the local tri club and not get charged. Alternatively, you can pay a 2euro student fee. I got a 10 trip pass for 17euro. Big tick.

It would seem the pool thus far is of a high class. But what happens when you dive in the water? I have heard of German efficiency and precision, but I'm sorry, I see nothing but carelessness and callous ignorance when swimming in this pool. A big fat bratwurst sized cross for the freibad Annen here. German's need to learn some simple pool etiquette.

Freibad Annen, where the hell are your lane ropes? In the first picture of this review you can notice 2 laneropes to the left side of the pool. You have seen these on a lucky day. It is to my understanding that those two lane ropes are the only two laneropes Freibad Annen own, and they are also very seldom in the water. Consequently, the functionality of this pool is brought into disrepute.

Chances are if you go to the Freibad Annen, there will be no short supply of hobby swimmers in the pool. Now while I have no problem with people excercising, I have a problem when people excercising don't give a curry wurst about others, and swim in every direction of a 360degreee circle. These German's don't give a shit, and would swim over Claudia Schiffer if they could. On considering this, I have to ask myself is are they actually even swimmers, and is this actually even a swimming pool? Let's examine the evidence. Here are some of the styles of 'swimming' you will encounter at any given time when using this facility.

The Frontal Crawl (with specialty webbed gloving for increased hyrdrodynamics)

The Frontal Crawl (floatation assisted)

The 'float 'em if you got 'em'

The Semi-Indecent Exposure

Vertical Breakstroke

Reverse Breakstroke

Scissor Kick Variation 1

Reverse Scissor Kick Varation 2

Even a Siberian living on the steppe can conclude that none of these styles are in fact swimming. With no lane ropes, the Freibad Annen pool is a maelstrom of arms, legs and Germans all up in your face. Please install some lane ropes and order to this pool. I just want my own little space please! Did I mention that when the sun comes out, you can't actually swim at all because there's so many people? Not even a paddle to the face can sort these folk out. On the rare chance you will stake one of the two lanes to yourself, be prepared for 50 school kids to jump on you without warning.

So that's the freibad Annen reviewed. Next up, Zollikon freibad/hellenbad, when I feel like it.

*this review was entriely satyrical so don't take offense, simply because I've written this disclaimer*

Geneva Grudges (on photographers)

2011-07-30T05:52:00.002+10:00

If you have been checking here for a race report from the Geneva Euro Cup last weekend, and curse me each time when it's not here, blame the dozen photographers on the course who never upload their photos and seemingly keep them to themselves like it's some freakish fetish. Even old AV mate on the motorbike has failed. I've given these folk 5 days to publish something, so if this blog doesn't get down now it probably never will. So my cordial apologies to those hoping to see some optics. I mean, I wouldn't read a blog without pictures! I have found 2 shots from facebook, so please don't lose interest after the first line, that is if you're still reading, albeit, if this is blog is ever interesting at all.

So Being in Zurich for the last few weeks, it was easy to make the decision to don the drop bars on the P3 and race the Geneva Euro Cup. I decided to skip the breifing on the Saturday, and just catch the train to Geneva the morning of the race, which took 3 hours. I got off the train 90minutes before the race, and I had to accept a penalty for the start because ITU are anal folk, and because I missed the breifing. Nevertheless, I was happy to be there, and ready to have some fun in what was going to be a good hit out.

The swim start for me was really slow because I had a penalty. I was actually going to give up trying to get to the front because I was so fatigued. Wetsuits in my opinion are really quite counterproductive, it's almost impossible to swim past people in a wetsuit. In good time however, I poked my head out to the front of the pack, but was content to swim on old mates feet. The bike was where the deals were going to go down.

I didn't come to race to sit in a pack, so I made sure this was the case. I pushed really hard the whole bike, and we had a petite group of 7, which at times was rather frustrating, and took of bit of yelling to get the guys motivated. The first 4 positions in the race came from our pack, with the eventual first and second place getters (being Sharp and Elvery) doing a small dicks worth of work. I even said to Sharp (sly British lad) that if he f******* outruns us all.... (you get it). He replied in his silly accent that he was giving it all he has got (oh yeah lad, I believe you). This bike course was cool though. It had a neckbreaking hill every lap and I led up it 5 times out of the 6, the other was covered by partner in crime Jimmy Seear. Here's my file from the bike (someone ought to give me a power meter to make these things more interesting).

After half way on the bike, we really started to put time into the chasers. A few km's and middle fingers later, we were on the run. I really payed for my work on the bike, but still ran quite well, feeling I could tick off a good cadence the whole way. A good sign for my non-drafting races coming up! I actually came up short in a sprint and just missed out on the top 10. A bunch of guys ran really quick from the chase group and I lost 5 places in the last 1500m of the race, which thinking about it is actually quite disappointing. Nevertheless, it still puts a smile on my face that I was able to show everyone how a real triathlon is done. Breakaways are possible, it just takes committment! 40seconds quicker running, and I would have been on the podium.

So it seems like that could possibly be my ITU season over for the year in a whirlwind, but don't count it out. Next weekend holds some big apple pain, served across the Atlantic in New York. Sick lad!

Digital Manifestations

2011-07-18T21:21:00.000+10:00

Some photos from my first week in Zurich after the race.

This is Parpaner Rothorn, a mountain that springs up out of the town of Lenzerheide. It sits at 2,891m.

It was expensive to get up to the peak, so I thought I would make the most of it and run down. I imagined it would be pretty easy going and breathtakingly scenic, but it turns out 981m of elevation loss and rocky trail makes for a brutal run/walk-whereit'stoosteeptorun. I only ran to the midway section too, I could already feel the DOMS coming on. Anyway, a bit of fun!

Above is the view to the top from the mid-section, and below is the path down.

My homestay Marco and I also went for a swim in the chilly lake at the bottom! Marco is swimming the English Channel in a team this week, so he teased me saying the water was warm.

Ash also came to visit me from the AIS base in Aix-Les-Bains in France. For those who didn't know, Ash won the Edmonton World Cup last week, a day after my 2nd in Zurich. Well done Ash :)

Breakfast is an important ritual between us. This is my rooftop view at breakfast from Marco's house.

Another part of the ritual is finding wild blackberries from the bushes around Marco's house for our cereal!

And here's some shots of the wonderful city.

That's all for now :)

2nd in Zurich

2011-07-13T07:05:00.000+10:00

I did my final 5150 to qualify for Des Moines on Saturday in Zurich, the day before the Ironman, with the result reflecting my upward progression of fitness!

I didn't really know what to make of the race before the start. There were some really good guys lining up. Chris McCormack, 2-time Hawii & ITU World Champ, and born again short course racer. Sven Reiderer, Olympic Bronze medal and some recent hot Dextro results. Paul Amey, Olympian and 3-time ITU Duathlon World Champ. Ruedi Wild, hot results in World Cups this year. Richie Nicholls, forwarding the trend of crazy british leg speed, and a few other guys. So this field was essentially Ironman champs, ITU champs and Duathlon champs, which puzzled me to think how I fitted into the race. Well I guess the whole thinking about everyone was stupid anyway, because I wanted to go right off the front anyway!

I got to work in the swim and led the whole way, shaking off all but the Salvisberg boys (there's three of the bastards that look the same, with the big grinning Swiss smile and all).

I made short work of these boys on the bike, they each had ITU setups which was probably a bit silly. Anyway, the ride was a three lap course, flat except for a 900m (with 88m of elevation) stinger each lap, aptly named Heartbreak Hill. This hill was a small chainring job!

With total ignorance and disrespect for the hill, I opted for the disc, and I think was one of only 2 pros riding one. Big mistake boys! I could see I was putting time into everyone each lap because of the u-turn at the other end of the course. I think it was the strongest I've ever ridden, and was the first race I've stayed off the front solo. Quickest bike split by 50 seconds over Macca. I'll take it!

The run was a weird 2 1/2 lap course, but was rather fun and there was plenty of support out there from the spectators. I knew now I was running for the win, and felt the best over 10km I have felt all year. To be honest I forgot Richie Nicholls was in the race until I hit the 6km mark, and saw this kid blazing the other way to the u-turn. When I saw this effort I knew I had a hot race on my hands, but he caught me at 7.5km. This guy ran a 31.16 10km in a non-drafting race, incdredible! I clocked in for 2rd after plenty of celebrating at 34.00, 40seconds behind Nicholls and Macca came in another 30seconds behind me.

So now I'm ranked 9th for Des Moines on September 4, and it's all eyes on the prize :)

Düsseldorf Deeds

2011-07-05T20:24:00.003+10:00

On Sunday I saddled my P3 with drop bars, and hit the sprint race in Düsseldorf. Watch a short video of the race here.

I was really excited for this race. It was only 40mins from where I'm staying in Witten, it had some big names, it was draft-legal and good money. I wanted to do it for a good training race, to check my speed and have a bit of fun!

The speed was on the whole way. The swim was pretty quick, and I was swimming next to Frodeno the whole way, until (and you can see it in the video) I did a Wiltshire, grabbed his hips and jumped over him. We were swimming totally the wrong way, and I knew we were but didn't want to change direction because I assumed the Olympic Champion knew the course. Anyway, it didn't really matter, because all the good guys were going to be in the front group anyway. The ride was 3 laps around a techincal course with some decent cobble sections. I pushed hard and I think i was the strongest rider on the day, but Iknew the run was where ther pace was going to go down! I ended up running well I think, and finished 5th. Almost 90 seconds down from Zipf who won (the guy ran mentally quick) and 1 minute down from Frodeno. Loschke rounded out the podium and Olympian Prochnow finished 4th. I think my split would have been just under 16minutes (the course was too short to know the exact times), so I'm happy with this knowing I can still improve a lot more. I think if I was a foot taller, running would be a lot easier for me! Look at the behemoths in the pictures below!

All in all, a lot of fun, and a great day out enjoying the triathlon life.

This Saturday is Zurich 5150. Should be great fun with some big names present- McCormack, Reiderer, Wild, Amey and heaps others. Hey Macca, 'I'm here to win!'

:)

Unorthodox

2011-07-03T02:48:00.000+10:00

Tomorrow I'm doing a small sprint ditance race in Duesseldorf, draft legal as you can see. Frodeno, Prochnow, Zipf and Loschke are starting though, so I guess it's not really that small.

It should be some fun!

Border Ride (special velo edition)

2011-07-01T00:48:00.004+10:00

Aachen is one of my favortie cities, but until a few days ago, I had never actually been there. So why is it one of my favorite cities? 3 of my favorite bands are from Aachen, all of which are signed to Van Records, my favorite record label, surprisingly also from Aachen. My adventure played out like this...

12:30pm, pick up by the CoffeeRide crew.
2pm, arrive in Aachen.
2:01pm, begin looking for Alexander von Meilenwald of The Ruins of Beverast.
2:05pm, have student 2Euro coffee & muffin deal.
2:20pm, begin looking for Zorn of Nagelfar.
2:31pm, move to different cafe, have another coffee.
3pm, loiter Aachen and get some lunch.
3:59pm, begin looking for Gnarl of Verdunkeln.
4pm, head to student dorms, drop off gear, suit up.
5:30pm, cross Netherlands border like it was 1939.
7pm, crit start.
8:30pm, crit finish.
9pm, cross the German border like it was 1944.
9:30pm, arrive at student dorms to clean up.
10pm, student dinner in Aachen.
12:30am, home.

Above is the loop with the country borders in yellow. I hacked a 55min effort off the front with a few guys in the crit, then bowed out citing pedantic Triathlete training theory. I have actually felt rather good since riding the crit, and am thinking about doing a lot more crit work, even for the non-drafting. I might even do this all over again next week, considering TT bike are permitted!!!!

Here you can see how techincal the track was...

Dutch Border

Plenty more riding is being done in North Western Germany, and Tuesday's ride was the second ride I had done in 3 days where I had been riding past 9:30pm. Where else in the world would this ever happen??? Oh and when I say plenty of riding, I also mean plenty of coffee too :)

2011-06-25T21:10:00.001+10:00

Here's some of the Motley Witten crew I've been getting around with...

Jens 'feeling rather warm' Bödecker

Jens is my homestay here in Witten. He specifically loves the warm winter kit during Summer rides and he is also my Can Kebap partner. He races 1st&2nd division for the PV Witten Bundesliga Team. Jens has also managed to get me back training on the tartan track for the first time since August 2010, congratulations Jens.

Christian 'mudflaps' Schellhoff

Christian is a local cyclist, who aside from riding with mudflaps on his road setup, drinks a lot of coffee and beer. He has decided to combine his hobbies, and has started a road team. 'Beer Ride' sounds a bit weird, so he called the team 'Coffee Ride'.

Tim 'tiny' Allen

So small I couldn't take a picture. A local cyclist, Tiny can always be found weaving in and out of the Peloton, and I'm told he's impossible to draft off. Tiny and Christian are both the backbone members of the Bochum Coffee Crew, as seen below...

Dommi 'where's my hair gone' Wawrik

Sadly, at only 19, Dommi doesn't have much hair left, and perhaps out-performs Gemmel and Gaag in the race of the receeding hairline. Dommi is a good young talent, and while he crashed out of Euro's yesterday, he will be a big contender for the world junior title if he is on the startline.

Leo 'beard' Nelle

Leo has an impressive beard for a 20 year old.While where I come from, the word 'beard' is used as an esoteric insult, there's no insults towards Leo here. An envy of the bumfluff triathletes, such as myself.

Helga

Helga, minus the swimming/cycling/running is a pure born and bred triathlete. When he's not found sleeping, he's found eating. When he's not found eating, he's looking at the weather outside and procrastinating. On-on Helga.

...and lastly, Josh 'add something in the comments below if you're as witty as me' Amberger

Prost!

River Times 2.0 (special swimming edition)

2011-06-21T23:47:00.002+10:00

A somewhat pointless expansion of last years River Times.

The great Ruhr, once a major economic artery for the North Rhine-Westphalia industrial region, is now the humble home for Witten triathletes, and the maneating Wels Catfish. But I try to forget about that when jumping in, I find that the 15degree water numbs my brain perfectly anyway. ***while 15degrees is an arbitrary number, it is still very cold and will suffice*** The Rocket Carbon Wetsuit does the trick for the skinny triathlete body though!

Yes, I had enough time to take my camera out of my wetsuit and take pictures of the crew while I was swimming. Sorry boys :p

Anyway, I thought of a useful tip. Swim with water in your goggles to avoid swimming like Andy Potts and Richard Varga. What I mean is, while you don't realy want to avoid swimming as fast as these two athletes, you want to avoid their shocking navigation skills. Master this, because surprisingly, a little water in your goggles clears the fog!

Because this is an über swimming edition, I'm opening up a chapter from the D.Lush 'Book of Spells', my primary swimming resource. Ideal for the travelling triathlete without access to a swim squad.

4.8km of swimming delight! You can also do maybe 200m easy on the end to make 5km, just so you can sleep at night.

Burgs Bargain Buys

2011-06-18T18:38:00.003+10:00

The Triathlon industry is what's going to hopefully someday provide me with a really good lifetyle, but the anti-consumer in me is also somewhat appalled by how much people are made to pay for some of the things on the market. So welcome to my new sporadic 'Burgs Bargain Buys' column. Today we talk about hydration for the long distance/non-drafting enthusiast. While I may be a newcomer to this game, I think I have some wisdom to pass on already...

Today I'm tearing a slab off X-Lab. Although I ride a Sonic Wing on my P3, I wasn't happy paying $170aud for it, so X-Lab can go sonic wing themselves in the face. Let's not even talk about the Sonic Carbon and its total 'I want my aero bottle setup to be more stiffer and 15grams lighter' carbon fiber redundancy.The important question is what is on offer for the cage setup that the Sonic Wing facillitates?

As I have found, cage setup is crucial. My first ride on my Sonic Wing was a disaster. I simply attached my existing road cages to the wing, and went about my business. When I ride solo, I dangerously prefer to pay more attention to my ipod than the traffic, and 45mins down the road it was time for my first drink. Who can guess what happens next? You're probably right if you're thinking something like "Where the sonic wing are my bottles?!!!"

So what can can the long distance/time trial enthusiast do about this? Easy. You just have to spend $70 each (or about $150aud in domestic Australia) on an X-Lab Gorilla Grip cage. Yay for corporate crime! The worst part is that I don't even know if they work, nor would I spend that much to find out if they do.

Alternatively you could go to your local store abuy the 'I can't remember how much because I don't even remember buying them' plastic cage, which will never ever eject your loving bottles!!! Have a look below for the optics of this weeks 'Burgs Bargain Buy'...

Embrace this advantageous purchase, and happy riding!

3rd in Klagenfurt

2011-06-16T02:37:00.003+10:00

Happy to report my first podium finish for the season in the Klagenfurt 5150.

The first part of the swim was in a beautiful lake called the Worthersee. Apparently WTC rules say that under 24degrees is a wetsuit swim for everybody (correct me if I'm wrong), so I was a little annoyed because it's always a closer race with the wetsuits on. I had a little trouble from the start of the swim and didn't feel great. There were three of us (Hayes & Syseov) holding hands and butting heads until the third turning bouy on the map below, so after the bouy I conceded in letting Stuart lead. We had to navigate into a very small canal, which with the wetsuits, would have been smooth and easy swimming for the athletes behind! I was a bit worried it was going to be a large group on the bike because I think we exited with 5-6 other athletes.

The bike course was really tough, with a 6km climb on both of the two laps. Bertrand took command of the bike straight away, and was riding like a demon. Leading was bertrand, the Hayes and I, and we had surprisingly dropped everyone within the first 2minutes. I battled my way up the climb with a smile on my face happy we disposed Filip Ospaly et al. Bertrand managed to pull away from Hayes and I by the top of the climb, and by the decsent he had blown the two of us apart. Stuart and I worked well together (in non-drafting terms of course) for the rest of the bike, but we had lost 3minutes to Bertrand by the start of the run. Bertrand is an very very classy athlete, lots of kudos to him after that ride, and he wasn't using a disc either!

Here's the file, still without power though.... I'm too poor. The course was 43km by the way!

I was happy with my 34:34 run split after only 10 weeks of running and such a hard bike ride before. I think I'm heading in the right direction, and looking forward to getting the time down again in Zurich.

^^^ can someone please tell me how I can legally grow another foot or so?

Here's a bonus picture, the post-race kickflip :) I'm lucky no pictures from the post-race salsa party have emerged!

Race Ready

2011-06-12T03:56:00.001+10:00

At least the bike is, let's hope the body follows!

Running an Edge 500 mounted up front for max aero baby :0

I rode a lap of the course today, it's awesome. Steady uphill for 4-5km, crazy fast descent, so beautiful I may have to try to remember I'm in a race.

Let's go!

Austria? Yes please.

2011-06-11T00:45:00.000+10:00

Another day in Paradise!

Favorite Sessions Part 1

2011-06-05T19:51:00.001+10:00

Bunyaville long run + BBQ breakfast with good company. Here's a feeble picture documentary...

Here's some bonus pictures:

Kookaburra with bacon fat

"Don't spray on open flame"

Calendar 2011

2011-06-01T12:28:00.000+10:00

I think it's a bout time I let those who follow me in on the races I'm doing this season. I'm actually only a week away from leaving home in Australia, first heading to Europe then America.

Non-drafting and Des Moines is still the goal, but I've deided to go to Europe to try and qualify. I still want to keep in touch with ITU, and will race a Euro Cup. If I race well enough they might just throw me in the team for u23 Worlds in Beijing. So anyway, here's what I have planned...

Klagenfurt 5150 (Aut) June 12
Duesseldorf Sprint Race (Deu) July 3
Zurich 5150 (Che) July 9
Geneva ITU European Cup (Che) July 24
New York 5150 (USA) August 7
Des Moines 5150 (USA) September 4
Lake Lanier 5150 (USA) September 11

I'm really excited about the race in Klagenfurt next weekend, the bike course has just under 2,000ft of vertical ascent! You can see the course profile here :)

So I'm still playing around with some good hill-work for Klagenfurt, and am really happy with how my running is coming along. Building up the km's and building up the speed. After Klagenfurt I'm heading back to Witten for a month to enjoy the company of the German folk, and to spend some quality time at Can Kebap. I'm also chasing a homestay in Switzerland for a few weeks, so if there's any readers that want to help me out, please contact me!

Error 404

2011-05-23T09:51:00.001+10:00

If the rapture did happen, it would have done so as I was out riding an awesome loop around my native Brisbane. I even took my camera along with me to document all the chaos and carnage and of course the transcendence: the mountains of the divine ones raising to the heavens while the damned (including myself on my bicycle) fell into the crevasses of eternal damnation. I was hoping I could still do a big gear effort and grind my way out from the depths so I could find some wifi access to sell the photos to the News Corp later on that day.

Here's what I got instead. There were some ominous clouds, and it did start raining a little, but Jesus was always there shining through the clouds over the other side of the skyline making me feel safe. Maybe it actually really was the rapture, just on a small Samford Valley scale. Maybe the rapture was actually happening, but was simply interrupted when sir rapture saw a group of hot country girls walk into the Samford Hotel, so he went in and bought them some drinks but ended up on the pokies all night.

Downer in Seoul

2011-05-15T16:27:00.001+10:00

Above is me and Huggy pre-race, you can see the lovely water we swam in.

So today was the Seoul Continental Cup, and it was maybe the most comeptitve Asian Cup ever. With some really good runners in the field, I knew I had to have a good swim/bike combo to get onto the run course first.

Well I ticked off the good swim, thanks to Slovakia's Varga who dragged me along. We had about 45 seconds (there's no results yet) out of the water to the pack, but we maybe could have had 1minute if he could swim straight. Anyway, I dropped him on the bike on maybe the first corner, and was really amped up for a good solo effort but flatted out almost instantly at 1km. The wheel stop was at the transition so I had to ride the rest on the flat but the Techinical nob wouldn't give me a wheel.

Anyway I thought I would make myself useful, so I took some pictures for the rest of the race.

Enjoy!

2011-05-12T10:01:00.000+10:00

I unpacked this yesterday and just got it together in time for my race on the weekend.

I think I've nailed the setup, but please don't heckle me about the stem issue, it came pre-glued in the box!

That Magic Feeling

2011-05-11T11:34:00.001+10:00

Since I've been writing my own programs, a lot of sessions, specifically the lead up to the workouts, have felt a little drab. Today I'm happy to say I could put old mate drab aside, and really really enjoy being able to train for triathlon. The day started with maybe the coolest swim set I've ever done with Sir Lush, and ended with my best TT on record around an awesome loop close to home (only some of you know it). There's really not that much to this blog, I just wanted to share my passion, and say thanks to the tri-gods for welcoming me back. Being able to do this everyday is a blessing!

This weekend is Seoul Continental Cup, with a decent startlist for an Asian Cup. It's time to learn how to race again! I'm not expecting much, but I think I have at least a little offering of pain to the other competitors.

Anyway, I have a cool song to share by a Mongolian throat singer.

2011-05-06T18:35:00.000+10:00

Today marked my first proper running session since December 12. This session today is actually the last session I did before I tapped out from injury. I did the race on the weekend with about 200km behind me since December. Maybe now it can be 200km a fortnight :)

Dear Americans

2011-05-05T23:26:00.003+10:00

This is what real coffee looks like, what it tastes like you will never know :p

Wait a second, I'm not done with you folk yet. I'm going to need a homestay in America from around August the 7th until Des Moines on September 4. If anyone can help me out, please get in contact. The training must be good, and you must be nice :)

A Grim Welcome

2011-05-04T12:36:00.000+10:00

St. Anthony's is done, and to be honest, it was a lot tougher than I thought it was going to be. I guess first races always are, and there’s some easy improvements I can make for my next efforts. Here’s a small narrative…

At briefing on the Saturday, Sir Honourable Race Director mentioned the possibility of a back up plan for the swim, because there were steady Easterly winds bringing chop into the bay. When 'suggestions' like this are made, it makes Josh upset because we all know that if it comes to be mentioned, it essentially means they're planning on doing it anyway. Sure it may have been a little too much for the age-groupers, but I didn't go to America to have a swim cut in half because it was dangerous for people who enter a Triathlon with no swimming experience. This is twice in two weeks that a swim in the States has been chopped like Snoop Doggs vegetation. Can race organisers please move away from the legal jargon? We all signed a waiver before the race anyway. Isn't the point of a waiver to waive liability?

Anyway... I led the swim until the final stretch into the beach where Potts took the reins. You're allowed to wear cheat suits in these races, and I need to get one because he blew straight past me. There was a brutal brutal 1km run to transition along concrete from the alternate swim course, which my feet have been suffering from since. I rode well for the 40km, but still have a bit of work cut out for me to keep up with the big players. Cameron Dye rode like a madman and put 2mins into us folk. I came off the bike with the company of Hayes, Docherty, Gemmell and Ospaly and as expected, I battled pretty hardcore on the run. I will have to run quicker than 36mins to win these things. If fact, Ospaly ran like a hare with a sub-31min, which is phenomenal for a race like this. Mega-kudos given for that effort.

So I'm back in Oz now, and I'm thinking twice about going all that way again for one race, especially a seasons first. I guess it's all experience and learning though. Yet, the webs have certainly been blown out, and as always, have be superseded by every athletes good friend DOM(S). I'm looking forward to finally doing some proper running training and getting the bike a bit faster, and getting back over here to get my way to Des Moines on September 4. Next up is Seoul Continental Cup on May 15. Quick...cram in the run km's!

Here's some pictures, reproduced without permission.

The Rocket Train

2011-04-27T11:58:00.000+10:00

This stuff is AWESOME!

The racesuit is all-class, the wetsuit is outlandish and the bag is just really really cool.

This weekend's race will not be a wetsuit swim, but I'll be repping the new race suit. This is just about to be released, and it's the most comfortable suit to date. Im sure it will be just as fast too!

Hell yeah!

What do you have to lose, when there is so much to gain.

2011-04-25T19:44:00.001+10:00

Don't be scared, take this for what it's worth.

In the lead up to St. Anthony's, my aural senses are being pleased momentarily by the new As Blood Runs Black album. This is not my typical kind of music, I like more obscure, bleak and atmospheric soundscapes. But my liking of this is partly nostalgic, but also partly because it's pure awesome. When I listen to this, I feel as if I'm scared of nothing! A surprise for most will be the lyrical themes, a cast aside from the sterotypical (and fundamentally incorrect) comments/beliefs of lyrical perversity/negativity.

I knew that this was the last thing
This was the last thing that I had to prove
Have all my struggles amused you
This was the hardest thing to do
I've chewed through the chains
With broken teeth in my mouth
I was finally free
Free of my own mind (Free of my own mind)
But I was always trapped inside

I will escape from this cage and extend my broken wings
I will escape from this cage and extend my wings

I walked out on everything that I ever knew and now
And now I find myself cold and alone
Searching for strength
The strength to stand on my own two feet
Approaching the edge
Taking the leap
A leap of faith with my broken wings

As I rise to my feet I realize
I should be standing up by myself
Why haven't you? What do you have to lose?
When there is so much to gain

I will escape from this cage and extend my broken wings
I will escape from this cage and extend my wings

Hiatus Over

2011-04-23T22:55:00.000+10:00

Beers and fishing...that's a cool holiday! I've been offline the last 8 days, and have been down south with some Euro and Kiwi family. Yes the bike came with me, and yes I lopped all my hair.

My debut race for 2011 will be next weekend (May 1st) at St. Anthony's 5150 in the States. It will be my first race in 6 months, and I'm very very excited to see what I have I can lay down despite all the recent injury woes. Let's go!

A Sad State of Affairs

2011-04-12T20:32:00.001+10:00

Monday's front page news of Australia's Sydney Morning Herald featured this piece of journalism.

-------------

The world's best triathletes imposed themselves on Sydney yesterday for all the wrong reasons after mass road closures turned the city into a gridlocked nightmare.

The day began with super fit athletes chasing each other around the Opera House, Harbour Bridge and harbour, and ended with thousands of frustrated motorists cursing the fallout from their efforts.

The Roads and Traffic Authority conceded it did not anticipate the extent of the traffic chaos to hit the city.

The bridge was turned over to the event between 4am and 11am. But the heaviest delays, leaving commuters fuming in cars and buses throughout the city, were just after the bridge reopened, when motorists moved into the city and found a clutch of other roads closed.

A spokesman for the RTA's traffic management centre, Phil Akers, said the delays were worse than expected.

''For a weekend this was very heavy today,'' he said

The afternoon NRL fixture between the St George Dragons and the Canterbury Bulldogs at the SCG further added to the congestion. And on the central coast traffic banked up along the F3 after a caravan accident blocked two lanes.

As for the event itself, it was a disappointing day out for the Australian contingent. Paula Findlay of Canada won the female race, and the two favoured Australian athletes, Emma Moffatt and Emma Snowsill finished 13th and 42nd, respectively.

Javier Gomez of Spain overcame a bike crash to win the male race, and Brendan Sexton of Australia finished fourth.

The traffic centre said travelling by car from the CBD to Manly took two hours yesterday afternoon, against a typical journey of 40 minutes.

------------

Today's letters to the editor continue somewhat along these lines (click to enlarge).

Here's some samples...

THE BAD

"Who were the idiots who approved the Sydney Triathlon and managed to shut down the city for the day?...It certainly made a mess for the 31,000 people going to...the football"

"Surely it's time we removed those pesky, smelly triathletes from our harbour, bridge and opera hous where they cause so much offence to Sydneysiders...they can move to Olympic Park, where they can swim, cycle and run until theirs hearts content and not disrupt the traffic or scare the kiddies"

"A road is a road is a road (what the hell?- Josh). It is defined in the dictionary as a public way for travelling. It is not defined as a venue for sporting events" (V8 supercars anyone?- Josh)

THE GOOD

"Can I congratulated Events NSW for bringing the triathlon to Sydney. The incovenience caused was minor compared to the benefits such a spectacular event"

"Sydney hosts the world's top triathletes who compete on what must be one of the most stunning courses in the world, and what is the angle from Sydney's only quality newspaper? A whinge anout the poor old motorists who are stuck in traffic...how disappointing."

--------------------

People overseas, don't travel to Australia if you're hoping to do a triathlon, because you just might get strung up by 31,000 ignorant footy fans banked up in traffic, and have a picture of your lifeless cadaver taken for the front page of The Sydney Morning Herald. How very very disappointed I am to call myself Australian after reading this. Sometimes I actually call myself a Kiwi when I travel overseas, and I might just have to do it more often.

Get some banter going!

My Thoughts....

2011-04-12T14:59:00.002+10:00

Courtney needs to stop sitting in :p

+

Vidal, what were you thinking?

That Feeling You Get When...

2011-04-05T19:14:00.004+10:00

You self diagnose, treat and begin to overcome your injury after months of being misled.

Tibialis Posterior, you've been the bane of my last four months. Now cooperate please...

Visual Expressions 2.0

2011-04-04T13:43:00.002+10:00

Here's some pictures I took on a solo ride pre-injury in early December last year. This is an amazing sport we do, to be able to use places like these as our play grounds.

A photo journal of my ascent up and into the clouds...

Enjoy

If you have you're own romantic journey to share, send in your pictures (contact on the right) and I will post them up.

CoffeeRide

2011-04-01T11:14:00.000+10:00

Sorry about picture quality. Coffee and ride quality however was outstanding.

Non-Drafting Assault

2011-03-29T21:01:00.001+10:00

New P3? Yes please.

A special thanks to Cervelo Australia!

Time to ride...

2011-03-24T11:48:00.000+10:00

I've been back running slow and short distances for 3 weeks now after my December achilles blowout, but I'm still going through some rehab. Here's one thing that I'm doing two times every day; a 2 degree ice bucket for 20 minutes.

Now this may be one of the most excruciating thing you will experience in your athleteic lives. But it really only hurts for the first few times until you freeze your nerve endings off! Now it actually feels good :)

See you at Mooloolaba!

Guest Blog #1 ------> DBontherun

2011-03-21T11:47:00.001+10:00

Introducing David Bryant, an old friend and fellow fitness freak (DB to those friendly or already acquainted with DB, and now DB to everyone else). DB is a pretty remarkable sort of guy. We started getting friendly at around 14 when we had a common interest in fishing and surfing. We would have endless weekends pillaging waterways and lighting fires to cook our catch. I guess you could say our friendship was consolidated when DB started running. I still don't really know how or why DB chose running. I say this because DB running is like Rebecca Black without the internet or Josh A. without chocolate; it's just not seemingly possible. Anyway enough of me, read on to find out why.

--------------------------

After many years of reading everyone else's blog I guess its time I repay the favour and write one of my own.

Who am I? DBONTHERUN!

I’ve known josh since back in the Nudgee college days. the days when we were keen fishermen and would ride down to breakfast creek estuaries (yes you can fish and catch fish there) with a crab pot on each handle bar and fishing rod and cast net on our backs. Throw in a few runs for Nudgee cross country team and our friendship was formed.

I no longer live in Brisbane, I've made the move over to Perth where I have been based since finishing school in 2006. Since then I have finished my nutrition degree and now work at a dietitian clinic. Josh would like me to post some regular nutrition performance tips, who’s keen? Be prepared I am one serious foodie, coffee enthusiast and cook!

Anyways, I am heavily involved in the triathlete and running scene over in Perth. In terms of training venues I think Perth is the most picturesque training ground in Australia. Endless array of beaches, parks and rivers to run and ride around until your heart is content. Oh and hardly any traffic like Brisbane! Which brings me to my why i am briefly over in QLD. I am training for my first marathon which I am doing in Zurich on April 17. Training has been going strong, peaking at 130km per and and 35km long runs.

A lot of people look at me and wonder how I run. Why? because I have an inch and a quarter leg length difference, no right calf and 3 size shoe difference. It all stems back to being born with a club foot. I think I am a testament to the saying “anyone can run”.

With a 10km pb of 36:45 and a half marathon pb of 1:21 I'm hoping I can crack the 3 hour barrier for my first marathon. so as a tune up, on Sunday I decided to do the Brisbane Twilight Running Festival half marathon at the University of Queensland. Now every year I make the effort to fly back to the gold coast to do the half marathon in July. In 2009 I was feeling good until the 12km mark where I got a stitch, which lasted to the end of the race and finished in a time of 1 hour 25 min. Not a bad time but very unfortunate to get a stitch considering I never get them in training.

Fast forward to gold coast half marathon 2010, yet again a great first 10km feeling ready to attack the final km’s, then 12km a stitch, which yet again lasted for the rest of the race. This time a time of 1:21:50. A pb I'll take, but PLEASE, what is up with this stitch. 2 years of running and just 2 stitches on race day on the gold coast. Something in the water in QLD?

Fast forward to now, have not had a stitch since then, on the start line of the Brisbane Twilight Half Marathon, the thought of a stitch is far from in my mind, so surely I wont get one today?

So I got into a nice groove for the first 10km, averaging 3:55, being mindful not to bust my gut as the big marathon is in 4 weeks time. Josh was kind enough to meet me out on course with his bike and take some photos and well, yell and scream at me. past the 12km “demon mark”, no stitch, could it be that I've overcome this stitch race day curse?

13km, good, yippee. 14km oh no, this cannot be happening, the stitch had come on again. As the kilometres went by, the stitch got sharper and sharper. I was trying everything from focusing on breathing, to digging my fingers into the hot spot, to stretching my rib cage area. nothing was working. To make things better (or worse) at the time, Josh was by my side yelling/cheering, at this point I was ready to belt him! Finally I got to the final bridge and last couple of kilometres. By this stage the stitch was excruciating and I finished at 4:45 per kilometre pace. To make things worse, the finish precinct was a really good spectator finish and I would have loved to have crossed the line around the 1:21 mark feeling good about my run. NOT TO BE. The legs wanted to go faster, stitch wanted to go slower!

I’m trying to apply my nutritionist brain and relate it back to a stitch. but I'm not getting anywhere. My diet did not change over the past couple of days and I had powerade powder with the water i was drinking to maintain the electrolyte salt balance.

Any ideas anyone from across the globe?

Humidity? Tap water? Flight?

Got to go, just made a banana bread. No fat, made with pot set yoghurt and wholemeal flour, super duper pre/post training food. Stay tuned for the recipe....

Black Coffee

2011-03-20T15:22:00.001+10:00

(soon spoilt by a little pot of white)

Sunday's at Blackboard!

Tri-Dogs

2011-03-16T20:31:00.001+10:00

At least I'm going okay in one discipline. With this swim form I've decided to enter in the 1km Mooloolaba Ocean Swim, which is concurrent with the World Cup & Triathlon Festival next weekend. I'm coming after all of you, full time swimmers!

Set on the right, times on the left.

Help the Beginner

2011-03-14T12:06:00.001+10:00

Athletes of the world, please help this battler.

Leave your answers below!

Should Jamie cut his fringe. Y/N

Should Jamie get new bartape? Y/N

Should Jamie buy authentic cyclewear. Y/N

Jamie will accept all donations. Contact him through his blog (still can't quite work out whether this blog is a parody or the real deal).

Dream-Swimming

2011-03-12T10:33:00.001+10:00

No pictures today, just a few words I felt compelled, and rather proud to share.

I call it dream swimming because it's sets like these where essentially, I fade in and out of dreams.

* How does that song go again??? That's it..... (singing out loud in the water)*
or
*Need to buy the new Urfaust LP*
*Oh yeah, and A Forest of Stars & Solstafir*
which normally follows with
*Shit is that 200 or 300?*

There's really more to my dreams than that, that's just all I feel comfortable to share :P

Anyway I don't share sessions too often, but I've no problem with this because I can assure myself no other Triathlete will ever be stupid enough to do it.

Main Set:

12x400m, broken in three sets with a kick swim off between sets
-------------------------------

3x400 on 5mins
1x400 broken (hard)- 200m, 100m, 2x50m
6x50's kick on 50seconds

x3

Thanks to CJ for the company! Laverty, you chose the right session to wag for a surf.

A new season-

2011-03-02T20:26:00.002+10:00

and a new bike sponsor.

How did Slowtwitch get the scoop before I posted it here???

I will be on the S2 for ITU and P3C for my non-drafting events. I'll have some pictures up soon.

Bring it on!!!

Hamilton Island Take 2 (I swear I was swimming straight)

2011-02-28T19:58:00.001+10:00

There were 5 buoys, one of which I used as an anchor, and did loops around the other four.

Swimming with hotels in the background

This is me claiming the acute accuracy of my swimming lines. My Dad is on the kayak, if anyone was wondering.

I know I shouldn't feed the Cockatoos, but they're too cute!

This bat fish was munched down to juvenile size by the fish below....

Or it could have been the bastard shark that was taking all our fish on the way up? It's too close to call either way.

And finally, the best part of the island!

Now it's back to reality, and 5am starts :(

2011-02-20T12:55:00.000+10:00

You know you've been doing some compulsive k's on the bike when your saddle looks like this

and your tires like this!

Time to go shopping.

2011-02-16T18:24:00.000+10:00

Choice ride today with good company. I publicly welcome old friend Sam Trevor (far left) back to circumventing South-East Queensland roads with me on his aluminum steed. Sam's a new daddy, which could explain his return to road cycling after a half a decade of absence. I would imagine he's going to have to limit his jetski, downhill MTB and 4WD habits in light of new family commitments.

And for those that didn't know, 16 dry needles in your calves will severely reduce your chances of any sort of mobility at all. You may way to organise some alterate door to door transfers if you're intending this kinfd of treatement for yourself anytime soon. I also threw some cortisone into the achilles today for good measure.

The half-full glass is looking a little more palatable. It still might have some poison left in it though...

time will tell!!!!

Willenskraft

2011-02-15T11:54:00.001+10:00

I've been having a little trouble running again. To quote fellow decrepit 'biathlete' Dan WIlson, "If the glass is half full, it's half full of poison". Hopefully this stuff is going to make that (to borrow from Dan once more) "Challice of optimism touch my lips" again.

Get amongst it

Unimportant

2011-02-07T16:48:00.000+10:00

Native boy with billum

stumbles across native girl in bikini.

Native boy courts native girl

and seals the deal.

(Yes that is a levitating tree stump from the powerful floods). Unfortunately for native girl and native boy, that is the end of this wonderful pictorial narrative.

In other news, I'm back running, feeling fit, and am hoping to be on the startline for Mooloolaba World Cup!

Now back to training....

Secret Ride

2011-02-02T11:30:00.000+10:00

Choice new secret loop with the motley Seear siblings. It included;

Mountains, many mountains

Peacocks

Heaps of 'who would be working' views

Broken chain

Chain repairs

Creek Crossings

Another broken chain + the arrival of the third motley Seear, Susie and her 4 bike capacity car

A Very Important Disclosure...

2011-02-01T21:03:00.002+10:00

This is a small back-catalogue of shoes that I have sitting in my room. There's 10.5 pairs of shoes here, don't ask me where the other .5 got too. I was looking at all my shoes, and I had this groundbreaking thought. I wondered just how many pairs of these shoes could fit into my new Rocket Science Sports bag, and I'm pleased to say that I had a small victory today when I easily fit all 10.5 pairs of shoes in the bag.

So if you ever have 10.5 pairs of shoes around, this is a timely reminder that you can fit all 10.5 pairs of shoes into a Rocket Science Sports bag. Oh yeah, it will also fit all of your triathlon related things in it too! The best thing is this is only their entry level bag. I can't wait to get this yummy one!

It is with this note that I announce an exciting new partnership with Rocket Science Sports, under official distribution in Australia by Xosize.

These guys have some great stuff, and I will be racing in the Rocket Racer trisuit and Rocket Carbon wetsuit exclusively this year. Check them out!

Lucifer owns this set, for real...

2011-01-25T18:48:00.001+10:00

Part of today's warmup in the pool, the lazy 666 KICK set.While I'm not running, why not destroy my legs :)

6x100m under 1:25 on 2 mins
6x50m under 37.50 on 1 min
6x25 under 17.50 on 30 seconds

DUSTED

Also push started an 8:44 800m in the first of the 4x800's on the board above. At least swimming is looking up!

Two Feeble Battlers

2011-01-23T13:59:00.001+10:00

were on the road this morning.

Choice session with Jimmy 'always seems to score older chicks' Seear who is recovering from a broken collorbone sustained back in December. It was his first ride on the road bike, on the road since the crash. Hats off to us injured folk.

2011-01-22T05:47:00.000+10:00

Interview with Slowtwitch!

Yep, my city and my state in underwater.

2011-01-13T18:22:00.003+10:00

I'm a fair way out in the suburbs and away from the river, so I'm safe. Unfortunately, a lot of others aren't.

I went and did some flood recon on the bike today in the CBD, and the extent of it is mind boggling. I don't have much to say, but the last few mornings I have been waking up thinking it's all a dream. Then I turn on the TV and there's morbid disaster on every channel. If your not local and want see what's happening, shuffle through the videos and news on this site, or do your own research on youtube. It's not important considering the lives that have been lost, but a lot of my training grounds are underwater, including pools, bikeways, roads and running paths. Most of the structures have just floated away. Think of where you train, and now think of it being 5meters underwater. As I said, it's mind boggling.

On this Garmin map above, click the aerial button in the top left, and the end of the red line is where I live. You can see the green mountains behind me to the West. This is what's stopping my area from flooding, but causing the city and surrounding suburbs to flood. Shuffle around on the map a bit, and you will see the Brisbane river meandering all the way around behind the mountains, until it hits a huge dam. This is Wivenhoe dam, and it's running at 190% capacity. The satellite imagery of the dam you are seeing was probably taken about 2 years ago, when the South East was in a diabolical drought. When we were in the drought, the dam got down to about 12% capacity. So see the dam, and imagine it about 18 times bigger. The reason our dam is flooded is because all the water from the inland floods ended up in our dam, down our river and now of course, in our city. Even the roads around the dam which I do long rides along are under. This loop that I posted about a month ago is now completely underwater once you descend the mountains (you can see Wivenhoe dam behind the pictures of the mountains). Yep, even the Moggill Ferry (that I joked about having to use on a ride) had to be sunk to prevent it from becoming a huge missile floating down the river. Whilst I did the city flood recon today, me and two friends did a Wivenhoe flood recon yesterday, and drove the same way over the mountains as I rode. Here is what we tragically saw.

Landslides covered huge sections of road descending Mt. Glorious. The branches had been cut only hours before as people were trapped at the bottom from the rising flood waters.

Most of the water causeways had been savaged.

This is Kipper's Creek. Under the water there is a bridge, which stands about 30 meters off the ground. 2 years ago, the people on our ride can verify there was no water here at all, now it's all under.

Wild cattle were everywhere.

This big hole you see here is supposed to be a driveway.

Water marks on a park bench.

Road's end.

A lonely car, luckily with no one in it.

And I even had to rescue a poor bugger from the mud.

And here's some obligatory pictures of the waterways on the mountains that I love.

I hope all Brisbane and QLD residents continue to stay safe, and let's all pitch in for the clean up effort that is imminent and dawning. Let's hope no more lives are lost, and that all the missing people are recovered. If anyone would like to donate to the Premier's Flood Appeal, please follow this link.

Josh

2011-01-09T22:45:00.000+10:00

I've been in a catatonic state the last few weeks with a niggling achillies, but it's not so bad, the weather here down under would eventually send me catatonic anyway.

This is Burleigh on the Gold Coast today, windy, rainy and quite dreary!

I'm on the upswing though, and should be up and moving about this week.

2010-12-29T17:28:00.000+10:00

It can't get much better than this.

Get smashed in the Pandan Waterfall, then ride home. Czech it...

Continental Drift

2010-12-28T01:15:00.000+10:00

Just off the coast of our resort there is a small bit of land called Snake Island, and the first thing I thought when I saw it was swimming there!

This is the Island

And this was the swim! Don't give me any flack about the nice straight line, it was kind of rough out there.

It's only 1.1km over there, so I went back and forth a few times and was joined by my sister once. I got the garmin on it, here was one of the return trips

This is the island when we got over there, which is home to a few monkeys that only came out as we were swimming away :(

2010-12-25T21:48:00.000+10:00

I'm not sure how many people knew/heard about this. So for those this advertisement concerns, you can put them away now okay? :)

Thanks to the few who have left comments in the post below :)

Some stuff on my time in Malaysia is on the way.

Annual Blog Awards

2010-12-24T12:52:00.007+10:00

Okay so I'm going for something different with this post; let's just call it the Triathlon Blog Awards 2010. This should be a bit of fun, and I'm hoping everyone will get involved.

One of my posts recently received a comment from David Sweeny of the Running Masters blog, which went something like;

"Hey Man with such beautiful Post's as this and so little comment from your readers perhaps you need to get your blog out there a bit more and advertise what your saying because it is really worth reading"

I'm not going to lie, I started this blog to get a bit of exposure, a bit of support, and maybe a few fans. I don't really know if any of this has happened at all, so I'm going to see what you all think. So, bring on some feedback, and maybe a little bit of fun sledging :) Do some research of your favourite athletes and look at the blog rolls on the sides of peoples pages to get the who's who of the triathlon blogging community. Hopefully myself and other readers can come across some other good sites (I'm obviously going to have a big ITU bias), and I'll add every new site I come across on my feed to the side.

I've made a list of categories below, and the idea is for people to vote for their favourite triathlon blogs in however many categories they choose. Make up your own category even. You can leave your name or post annonymously!

The prize is pretty much limited to benign cyber respect.

Categories

1) Best Blog/Content

2) Wordsmith

3) Hardest Hitting Entry

3) Most Sporadically Updated

4) Biggest Blunder

5) Shortest Lived

6) Most Sponsors Listed/Best Subtle Sponsor Plugs

7) Most Repulsive Entry

8) Worst Spelling

Merry Chistmas everyone, I'm off to the tropics of coastal Malaysia for a while :)

Time in the Saddle

2010-12-15T14:23:00.002+10:00

Not too long, but long enough for an olympic distance athlete. We had a great ride this morning, same loop as 2 weeks ago over Mt. Glorious and through Fernvale. The ride was 5:25 pedal time, with 146km total including 2.25km of vertical ascent, and 40degree temperatures in the mix. Essentially, it's a hard 146km.

This is the loop, click on it to see the ride on Garmin Connect. I said it's the same as two weeks ago but I'm telling a little fib, but more on that soon.

This section is where most of the business is done. Brutal in parts, but very very beautiful riding. This is the Goat Track and Mt. Glorious climb. Around the back of the mountains you can see our water supply, Wivenhoe Dam. We actually do a perennial Esk loop, which is this loop but around the dam, which is 220km total. We haven't done it this year yet, so I guess it's not really perennial anymore. I'm okay with that though.

Okay so then you will notice in this section we did a bit of a dog's leg.

How many times do you do a ride and have to turn around because the road is flooded? Well today was one of those rides, with Mt. Crosby Road taken over completely by water. Not wanting to get my ipod wet, I was okay to pass on the swim across the rapids with my bike on my back, my shoes still on my feet and my jersey pockets acting as drag nets :p

So with my new Edge800, we sought an alternate route which had us land here, in this primitive part of the world where bridges haven't been invented yet. Yes, it's a barge crossing the river to service traffic.

So that's today's ride in a nutshell. I wont go into details about all the grumpiness and wack theory Campbell and I had to put with when Jack Walgers talks.

I will be posting something monolithic (in blogging proportions) in the next few days that will require involvement from everybody, so come back soon.

Josh

2010-12-12T15:03:00.004+10:00

Yesterday I had the pleasure of celebrating Matt Hopper's and Melissa Trims wedding. Matt raced 4 seasons as an Australian ITU elite, and represented the Australian elite team at the 2007 Hamburg Worlds and 2008 Vancouver Worlds before his retirement, in which he finished a solid 23rd. Mel also raced internationally, but not quite at the level that Matt got to. These two newly wed athletes, and most of the crowd at the wedding last night have had a pretty big influence on my upbringing in the sport. I spent most of my early athletic years looking up to Matt as a pro on the circuit, and most of the other energetic age groupers in our great squad formerly under the guise of the once-great coach Brendan Terry. So it was great to catch up with everyone at the wedding, specifically one of the guys I used too look up to in sickening (OMG this guy is really fast) proportions, who goes by the name of Lee Mounster.

Most people probably wont know Lee, but he raced a few world cups back in the day before quitting at age 25 around 2003 I think. One story that comes to mind about Lee is from the Syndey World Cup in 2000, and while I can't 100% confirm the validity of this story, I can put it together in patches. Lee was in a break with Chris McCormack on the bike until they both crashed riding down the horridly steep Maquarie Street (spelling?), which is the street Jan Frodeno crashed on in this years race a decade on. Chris busted his front wheel in the crash, whilst Lee busted his rear wheel; thus only one of the two could continue the race if either of them helped each other with a true wheel. I think Chris ended up bullying Lee to the point where lee gave up his front wheel to the front-wheel-less Macca to avoid a fight, as to which Macca could then continue the race. Someone correct me if this is total bullshit, but this is what my young and impressionable mind remembers.

Anyway lee passed some wisdom over to me last night over a Cascade beer, which happens to be a beer from a Tasmanian brewery that he grew up 5 minutes away from. We firstly had a good chat about beer, and when the Cascade thing came up I think that's when we started to get cozy. He told me that despite not really ever achieving the success in Triathlon he was hoping for, he wouldn't change a thing, and wouldn't change the outcomes. Lee ended up quitting the sport because he had had enough of the gypsy-college student lifestyle, and went on search for a normal life pursuing perhaps far more financially rewarding pastures. Lee now sells luxury cars and is quite successful, living on mountain top real estate. Nevertheless, Lee will be the first one to tell you that he didn't pass the 10th grade at school after he dropped out with no qualifications. But ultimately, Lee tole me that his recent success in business is all owed to Triathlon. He explained to me that Triathlon is the equivalent of a degree. It teaches the things that a degree teaches; although not the gritty information, but rather the value and experiences gained after finishing a degree. He told me that Triathlon taught and facilitated everything he knows; honesty, integrity, determination and above all, commitment. In every little detail, Triathlon is a sport that you need to commit yourself too, and if you can come through at the other end saying that you truly applied yourself 100% to try and achieve your goals, then Lee believes you can achieve in life. Triathlon was Lee's education, and there's no reason the same can't apply for all us all.

Now that that's said, it's time to go do that session I've been putting off in rain soaked Brisbane.

Josh

Ash and I

Alan Moran, Anthony McSweeny, Matt Hopper, Myself

Sea Change

2010-12-09T20:51:00.000+10:00

I don't often blog about swimming, but a few recent changes have compelled me to. I have decided not to go back to my normal tri squad with Shaun Stephens, and have decided to pursue my own agenda. I'm the kind of guy that is way too competitive, and I didn't think being in a squad environment was really benefiting me. The last 5 years I had been training with Shaun had been dedicated to simply beating everyone else in every training session. It took me 5 years and a average season this year to realise that this way of training was quite counterproductive, and that I need to be doing things in my own interests to get to the level that I know I can reach. So for me, training a lot smarter is now king, and I have started doing sessions in the places I have always dreamed of (Brisbane is a really great place to train, you just need someone who knows where the good stuff is!).

On this new agenda of mine is a small swimming squad at Brisbane Grammar School, coached by young genious David Lush. Lushy is my sister's ex-boyfriend, so if you read this Eloise, sorry but he is a good coach. It's an amazing pool complex in inner city Brisbane, it's only 25m but has the widest lanes I've ever swum in. It's a nice change, and one that is getting me motivated to get back to my top swimming ability, which I haven't really seen the last 2 or so seasons. Here's this afternoon set, which was good fun....

If you click on it and read, it's a time chart for a set of 28x50m on 1:30. You get to pick your level, then just do the times! I picked level 5, which started off with 2 50's at 28.5, then 6 on 29 etc etc. The times get rounded to the nearest half a second, and if you miss one you're in trouble! Fun set :) Level 5 was easy, but level 4 is crazy. 2x27.5, 4x28, 4x28.5 etc etc. Maybe some day, but not this time of year! I'm enjoying 150bpm and below way too much to even think about that.

This is another new water playground of mine.

I've started training with Courtney Atkinson on Mondays, and this is his back yard. A giant freshwater lake in suburban Gold Coast. You can do 1km reps from end to end, or 4kms straight around the perimeter. Training is too easy when it's this accessible!

I'm also half way through my level one triathlon coaching course, and could be interested in taking this further is anyone is interested.

Lastly, this interesting and impromptu package came in the mail today from this Canadian athlete.

When I saw cookies on the customs declaration form, I had to check it out. So apologies go to my girlfriend Ash, she is furious another girl baked for me. Cookies from Canada, from another female = major bickery. I find this really funny, so sorry Ash for when you read this.

Take it easy,

Josh

2010-12-04T10:01:00.001+10:00

Further mileage will now be accrued with the Edge800. Get amongst it!

I still need a powermeter though!

2010-12-02T22:01:00.000+10:00

Milage will now be acrued in the Lunarfly. Love it!

Majesty 1.0- Fernvale Loop

2010-12-01T15:53:00.000+10:00

Amazing 5 1/4 hour loop on the bike this morning with the crew up in the clouds, finished with a breakfast at Jimmy's 'you should have a party here' house. Czech it...

155bpm on heartrate monitor = anaerobic dog!!!!!

Click 'view details' to view the ride in Garmin Connect

Filing Cabinet .03

2010-11-30T09:29:00.001+10:00

Some news coming soon

Filing Cabinet 0.2

2010-11-26T08:45:00.001+10:00