After one training session last week I have decided to send an email to all MC2 athletes. Maybe few other people out there might get the message and that’s why I am posting a copy of the group email to the blog.

“you seem to all fall like fly to a Achille’s overuse.
So far there is 6 athletes in squad with such a debilitating injury, either in remission or starting (my worst score ever!!). at that rate I will reconsider triathlon for synchronize swimming coaching, nothing against synchronize swimming, but there is probably no issue with Achilles in that sport.

As I said to all of you when you started with me:
1 – you need to have a massage at least once a week or your body will not cope with the amount of training I am giving you. failure to do so will result in injury(ies) maybe not right now but it will eventually happen.
2 – stretch, failure to do so will either result in injury. To stretch a muscle properly you need to stretch it at least twice in a row for 20sec each time with 10sec of moving it around in between. if the muscle are not stretch they keep shortening reducing the range of movement and pulling on the tendons creating an inflammation.
3 – you need to drink lots, failure to do so will result in
injury(ies). if you don’t drink one of the first thing that gets
dehydrated are your tendon, if dehydrate they become brittle, produce micro-tears which create inflammation and pain.
4 – you need to tell me if the training is becoming too much to bear, failure to do so will result in injury (ies).

On top of that your running shoes are design to last between 400-600km. For most of you it means between 10 and 15 weeks (or 3-4 month). failure to change your shoes will result in injury(ies). Not only the cushioning disappears but the shoes are usually worn on one specific point which push your foot in a different posture.

Any combination fo the above : risk of injury(ies)

in short:
- have a weekly massage planed the same day every week, I will put it in my diary.
- stretch after each session and dedicate 30-45min once a week for a stretch session
- drink, drink , drink
- tell me if you are doing too mcuh.
- change your shoes every 3-4 months. (do the math: 3 pair of training
shoes a year: $500, OR one ultra sound for achilles: $150 + MRI, $500 + 2 visit at your GP $120, one cortisone injection $120 and twenty physio appointments to get rid of the pain $1200, plus lots of frustration …)

Your call.”

I rocked up to Richmond Boulevard on Sunday morning in trepidation. It was cold, wet and windy. It was also my first race for 9 months and my first hit-out since being out of action for almost 6 months with a stress fracture of the pelvis. And it was a duathlon. Yes, a duathlon – the race that has no swim and two runs, which makes me question why it was ever invented… I was therefore in a wonderful state of mind to race! Nonetheless, when the gun went off, the legs moved forward and automatic pilot thankfully kicked in. The first run wasn’t too bad and although feeling longer than 5 km, must have actually been a bit short given the times. I came into T1 as third placed female and was keen to give my new Trinity a good hit out. The bike felt great and although I had to corner pretty sedately, I soon got into a good rhythm. The bike course was 5 laps and the wind picked up each lap, but it wasn’t too bad in comparison to the gale-force winds that I had ridden into on Plenty Rd the previous day. I was relatively happy with my progress as I could see that I wasn’t losing too much ground to Ryan who was about half a lap ahead of me. On the other hand, I was losing a fair bit of ground to the lead males. Granted, however, they were riding in a pack (I thought it was non-drafting!!!!!), and I only had the wind in front of me and a guy stuck to my wheel (again, I thought it was non-drafting!!!). A flash of grey raced past me on my fourth lap, which turned out to be Cam attacking the lead pack – not bad for an old guy. I came into T2 as lead female and hoping to hold onto this position as well as my form. Unfortunately, the latter did not occur and I felt shocking on the second run which was not helped by my (unconscious) decision to take a long-cut and run an extra 100 m or so. Nonetheless, the finish line finally came and I was happy to finish as first placed female and most importantly, without any broken bones (a minor miracle). Ryan continued his impressive form, coming second in his age-group and laughing off my pre-race trash talk. I am now looking forward to starting some speed work and hopefully keeping my bones intact. Finally, my opinion of duathlons has softened a little – but only a little, as they still don’t contain a swim!

more picture here

Well, not a bad day at the office for Kate Murphy who won the women’s race. Anna Coldham, MC2 last recruit, has managed to win her category, F1519, despite a long break off training. Ryan is creeping his way up the ladder of his age group by finishing 2nd on the day. D’Wayne as never been that close to a podium finsih with a 5th in the male 35-39. Three more squad members finished the race, David, Tara and Kelsey. Well done for getting out and braving the elements.
Photos to follow …

My last races in the US have come to an end!

Last Thursday I made a trip North of San Diego 8hrs to a place called Santa Cruz. I didn’t know what to expect from the area as I had not heard much from anyone about it. When I got there straight away I thought ‘this is what I expected California to look like!’

Nice beach with lots of sand and people riding cruiser bikes and skateboards everywhere. Not to mention a beach with about 30 volleyball courts.

My plan for the weekend was to race two races. The first being on the Saturday morning which was an Olympic distance and the second on the Sunday morning being a sprint distance.

On the Friday morning I woke at about 7am to see rain for the first time in ten weeks! Can’t believe I nearly got through the whole trip without rain. Well, it was drizzling lightly and that looks like rain when you haven’t seen it for ten weeks. So I was off for my morning ride in the rain. Not much fun but I am heading back to Melbourne shortly so better get used to it.

Saturday morning rolls around and the weather is the same again, drizzling with lots of cloud cover. We rolled on down to the beach for a swim start and before the race started we were to have the national anthem played for us. This was being done by the main sponsor of the event and he was playing it on his trumpet. I did look weird when I turned to see him standing on the pier in his wetsuit, swim cap and goggles!

The gun went and we were off. The swim course is a triangle from the beach start and we were to swim that twice. Meaning we get to run a little in the swim! Gotta love that I say. I was at the first buoy in fourth place and not too far off the front guys. Two guys slowly pulled away and I swam next to one guy. When we got to the turn around on the beach I used my legs as best I can in a swim and got running. I made up some time on the front two and dropped the guy next to me.

We stayed in those positions straight into T1 which was about 400 meters up the road. For those of you who may have seen times I didn’t swim 16 something for the “1500” It was way short, more like 1200 I’m guessing.

In transition I made up one place so I was into second place leaving T1. The gap between me and Eric who was in front of me stayed the same. The road was very windy, wet and rough in one place of the course and after losing both wheels but somehow staying upright I decided that it was more important to finish without stacking than risk it around the corners. So I rode really slow on the turns and hard on the straights. Not the best way to ride but it was keeping the gap at about a minute to Eric which was easy to judge as we did 4 laps with a u turn for time splits.

I had a minute to make up on Eric and really wanted to catch him in the first 5k so he would not try to hang on to me. I did catch him by about the 4k mark and from there it was just about keeping the pace up and running home.

I came in first place and was happy that there was no sprinting involved at the end.

I woke pretty early on Sunday to get the body going and it was feeling pretty good as I had some good recovery with ice baths massage and stretching.

This race was basically half the distance of what we did yesterday. The swim was to be one loop of yesterday and I was rubbing my hand together as I knew that it was really short. Unfortunately they realized what they did and made the swim bigger but at least it was now an accurate swim.

Eric, Abraham (from Israel!), and myself all raced again with the addition of a local guy named Tommy.

Eric told me that Tommy was a good swimmer and should go well so I had the heads up that it wasn’t going to be easy. The gun went and Tommy was off. I think he beat me to the first buoy by about 30 seconds! I was sitting in about 4th place with Eric up ahead.

We exited the water fairly spread out with Tommy gaining nearly 2 minutes on me! I was trying to ride a bit harder than I did yesterday as the roads were not wet today and I had a big gap to pull if I wanted to win. 2 minutes would be hard to pull on someone that can ride and this was proving hard as I was riding the same as Eric sitting about a minute behind him but only managed to put 40 second into Tommy.

Heading out of T2 in third place I had a minute to Eric and about 1:30 to Tommy. I was running pretty well but not at a fast enough speed to catch these guys. Tommy ended up running faster than me by about 25 seconds and I only ran 30 seconds quicker than Eric. Meaning our places did not change from exiting the swim.

I was happy to be on the podium again but was not looking forward to the 8 hour drive home!

That’s it from me over here. Next you will hear from me back in Australia. Can’t wait to plan my next trip over here to do some more solid racing. I t was a good learning experience and I have met some really cool people. Thanks to everyone that has helped me out whilst on this trip.

Now I need to get to work and earn some money!

After winning the Santa Cruz International triathlon on Saturday Paul doubled up with the sprint distance on Sunday in which he finished third (his report to follow). Not a bad way of ending his USA campain !!!
D’Wayne made the trip to Sydney on Sunday to run in the City to Surf where he finished in an honorable 1h10min. Didn’t see him in the broadcast, did anyone?

Paul Attard won the Santa Cruz international triathlon this morning, or yesterday US time. He is now recovering and preparing for the sprint distance tomorrow morning (sunday morning US time). Double up week-end for his last week in the US and first international win … well done Paul. Looking forward having him back next week.

after few weeks away I have to catch up on few little things, but now that I am back I have few results to update and the first one is from Kelsey who run the Sri Shinmoy Half marathon last week in a 1h50min01sec, 2sec off the sub 1h50, too easy to crack on the next one, seeing that Kelsey only ran twice a week leading to this event.

The second duathlon of the Victorian series was held this week-end.

Ryan Scannel finished 1st in his category , for someone who didn’t really want to race … not bad .  Nicole and Tara finished respectively 1st and 2nd of the same category after a long head to head.  Tara took this opportunity to beat her father by few minutes …

In the Dash Steven and Ethan went head to head in the first run but Steven got the best of Ethan who tried some new tricks he didn’t practice at training. Steven finished 3rd over the line on the day.

Lesson number one: Always practice at training what you will do in a race …

Pictures by Chris Carroll

Vineman is held in the Sonoma County in the North of California. This is a big region for Wine with many vineyards and spectacular scenery. I had a very interesting week where I travelled on my own to the race so everyone I met was completely new to me. Except for Michelle the Kiwi and her mum Gail who I had met three weeks earlier in Texas.

I hitched a ride up with Kyle who was from the TCSD. We left on the Wednesday so we could give ourselves plenty of time to get there with no stress. It was good to share the ride with someone who knew their way around California as I didn’t have to put any thought into where we were going. A short stop over for the night in San Jose where I met Kyle’s Mom and brother. From San Jose it’s about a two hour drive further north to a place called Santa Rosa where I was staying with my home stay.

I have been so lucky with the home stays that I have had and Tracy did not disappoint! Tracy was extremely nice and very helpful. Also joining us in Tracy’s house was a friend of hers called Mona who works for Livestrong and between them they had many interesting stories which made my stay fun. Sorry guys, Tracy has told me that there won’t be any room at her house next year so best to look elsewhere!

As these races can get hot we tend to start them early. As we are the first wave we also need to be first there so I was up at 4 getting ready. I was pretty nervous and getting up was no problem for me.

The field of athletes this year was not as strong as other years due to a clash with Racine 70.3 I think. However Chris Lieto did decide to race at the last minute which raised the bar a little and is always good to have high quality opponents to measure against.

The weather is typically cold in the morning with a big layer of fog over the river and vision is poor. It was no wetsuit for us and the river swim was pretty slow. It’s a pretty simple upstream swim to the turn around and come back to the start point. It really did feel like we were swimming against the current the whole way. I was in touch with the main group at about 400 meters and then a little loss of concentration and they were gone and I was trailing with one other guy. It also made it hard when I couldn’t see the other guys as we could only see about 30 meters up the river.

I exited the water with the fastest girls who started two minutes behind! This was a big crush on the ego and I knew I had to work pretty hard as I had a bad swim. I was struggling for the first 30k of the bike as I was freezing and had goose bumps all over. I was just praying for the sun to come out and warm me up. The main difficulty I was having was keeping my mind focused on the job and keeping positive. Once the sun poked through and I started to warm I started to ride better and by the 40k mark I had caught a couple of guys. It’s a very lonely road out there and it’s amazing the effect it has when you start to pass people after one hour of seeing no one except maybe two photographers. My confidence was going up and I knew I was riding well enough to be able to run well.

I headed out of transition in about 9th place and after my last few races where I had not run well I had a good plan on what I had to do to run well. Even though I could not possibly win from that position I wanted to prove to myself that I could pull a good run if I stick to my plans. I was feeling good and all was going well through the run course and after two miles I was starting to pass people and in some parts I could see the main line of guys except for Doe and Lieto who were in 2nd and 1st with no threat from anyone. The turnaround point for the run is a one mile lap around a lake within a winery. It was at this point I saw there were two guys who were about 1k ahead and I knew if I could hold pace I would be able to catch them. It was this point where I saw Macca who was full of encouragement and on my way out of the winery he was giving me some good words of encouragement. I was feeling good and this only made me feel better to have a Ironman world champ ride beside. Unfortunately this is illegal and he was told to move on but it was great while it lasted.

I was starting to cramp in the hamstrings but was managing to keep it under control with good technique. With 500 meters to go I had passed the two guys in front of me and was in fifth place. I rounded the last corner and as I did this I ran into an age grouper running wide around the corner. To avoid the collision I jumped over the witches hat and my hamstring cramped! I tried to run it through to the finish without the other guys seeing but Tim Marr must have noticed my big down change in pace and he came back past me and I couldn’t get it going again to get it back. So I had to finish with a 6th place and very happy to run 1.15 and have the fastest run!

I don’t have any plans yet for more races and am still figuring out what I am going to do. Not 100% sure when I’ll be home but it will depend on what races I decide to do here.

All sessions from Monday the 19th of July until Wednesday the 4th of August are canceled.