Good Day MGCC,
With almost a month gone since I arrived in Melbourne time is flying by! Being able to ride every day and race when I want is really bringing my form up fast. It is to early to be racing every weekend but the races I have performed up to my goals during the races I have competed in. The first race was a crit held by the St Kilda’s Cycling Club. With 12 other riders off of the front, we lapped the field at an avg speed of 46.7 kph. I came in 4th, not bad for my first race! It was extremely competitive and the caliber of racers in the elite field where beyond what I was expecting. The second crit saw me almost take the win. I attacked the field every time I could to get away. With 3 laps to go I got away trying to hold 450-475 watts. But coming into the finish I was caught with 300 meters to the line. SO CLOSE!!!!!! The training here is phenomenal, you have a costal road that goes on for 100k and a set of foot hills with tons of small roads to climb all day long. Having the opportunity to ride full time has given me the ability to train with the pros. I have done a few rides with Greg Henderson and Jeremy Hunt from the Sky Pro Cycling Team. They are great guys who have introduced me to a tonne of people in the cycling scene down here as well answering every question I throw at them on how to become a pro. Hammering with them will surly bring my form up fast Greg and Jeremy are getting ready for their season witch starts in 4 weeks so the rides have been increasing in intensity. I can only imagine what the intensity will be like over the Christmas break. Melbourne is a beautiful city, reminds me of Vancouver (minus the rain and door step mountains). The people here are very friendly and the nightlife is fantastic although I have only missed my self-imposed bed time of 10pm once. I am here for one purpose and that is to train, to race, and to get a pro contract. As my time here has just begun, my performance has already seen a massive improvement from last season. So far, everything is on track with my plan. Thanks again MGCC, you are the reason I am able to follow my dreams. Connect with me on twitter to get a more up to date experience. Twitter - @_Ivey_ Cheers, Derrek derrekivey@gmail.com TO THE ENTIRE MGCC,
It is the night before I set off to pursue my career as a bicycle racer and with my nerves and excitement in check I can only think of what is yet to come. It is all of you, my supporters from the MGCC, that are first and foremost in my mind, because without you I would not be able to follow my dream. Tomorrow evening at 6:30pm I will board a flight that will, after a quick change of planes in LA, set me down in Melbourne, Australia on Thursday the 17th at 9:55am. I am being met at the airport by the owner of Bike Force Australia, a 21 store chain, who I have been introduced to by MG rider Paul Jackson - THANK YOU AUSSIE PAUL. This winter training journey is without a doubt going to give me the edge for next season. Being able to have 4 solid months of riding and racing in my legs will put me light years ahead of my competition!!! It is my goal to secure a pro level contract with the results that I gather over the Australian racing season and upon my return to Canada at the end of March. Bike racing is my life and it will soon be my profession. I am 200% committed to achieving my goals on the bike and in life. Every minute of every day will be dedicated to this. Every week from now until my return I will be blogging to MGCC to fully include you in my progression and transformation in becoming a pro rider. Stay tuned, it is going to be an awesome journey. Words cannot describe my excitement for this next chapter to begin and my appreciation for everything the MGCC has done for me. THANK YOU MGCC!!!!!!!!!!!!! Derrek Ivey derrekivey@gmail.com PS - please email me at anytime as part of my goal is to give back to the club what it is that I learn as I take these next steps. A German reader asked me today how fast fitness is lost if you miss a day or,
heaven forbid, several days of training. There are lots of confounding factors here but I’ll take a shot at it. This is a particularly tender area for me right now as I am missing beaucoup workouts. While in Spain at a training camp two weeks ago I ran into a suddenly opened car door on a ride. It wasn’t a parked car, which I’m always pretty aware of, but rather a car stopped at a traffic light. A passenger decided to get out at mid-block and threw open the door just as I got there. Her timing was perfect. I landed on my hip which was fractured in four places. I’m now 17 days into no training. So, never miss a workout… Obviously, that’s something which is nearly impossible to attain even if you haven’t broken your pelvis. Life sometimes just gets in the way. So let's take a look at missed workouts--or decreased training--from several varying perspectives. Here’s what research on detraining by Randy Wilber at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado tells us about the changes that happen after three weeks of no training [Wilber]: Effected Physiology Heart stroke volume -10% Heart rate at submax effort +4% Plasma volume -12% Capillary density -7% Aerobic enzymes -29% Blood lactate +88% Lactate threshold -7% Time to fatigue -10% VO2max -8% Anaerobic fitness, however, seems to hang on somewhat longer [Coyle]. So it’s aerobic function that we need to be most concerned about, especially since you are undoubtedly an endurance athlete given that you’re reading this blog. Even just reducing the number of aerobic workouts from 5 days per week to 2 causes a loss of significant amounts of fitness [Brynteson]. And reducing the intensity of your aerobic training below 70% of VO2max has been shown to also cause a loss of aerobic fitness with a decrease in aerobic capacity, time to exhaustion and heart size [Hickson]. There is also something relatively new, at least to endurance sport, referred to as “residual fitness” by Vladimir Issurin. This suggests that specific areas of fitness may be lost in a matter of a few days to a few weeks even if adequate training continues in some areas but with little or no specific stress in others [Issurin]. I’ll write more about this topic soon. Using the WKO+ software model I can also tell you that if your fitness is relatively high you lose fitness at a much faster rate than if it is low. A single missed workout for someone with a CTL (Chronic Training Load) of about 100 TSS/day (high fitness) results in a fitness loss of more than 2%. But an athlete with a CTL of about 20 (low fitness) will see an approximate 0.4% drop in CTL when a day of training is missed. In other words, zeroes are more expensive when you’re highly fit. So I guess my only hope is to lose a lot of fitness so my rate of fitness loss won’t be too great. That should be easy to pull off. But in the mean time I’m going to do what I can to exercise while I wait out this 6-week down time. I figure that even doing something is better than nothing—but probably more for my head than my body. References Coyle, E.F., W.H. Martin, D.R. Sinacore, et al. 1984. Time Course of Loss of Adaptations After Stopping Prolonged Intense Endurance Training. J Appl Physiol. 57:1857-1864. Wilber, R.L. and R.J. Moffatt. 1994. Physiological and Biochemical Consequence of Detraining in Aerobically Trained Individuals. J Strength Cond Res. 8:110. Brynteson P, W.E. Sinning. 1973. The Effects of Training Frequencies on the Retention of Cardiovascular Fitness. Med Sci Sports 5(1):29-33. Hickson, R.C., C. Foster, M.L. Pollock, et al. 1985. Reduced Training Intensities and Loss of Aerobic Power, Endurance and Cardiac Growth. J Appl Physiol 58: 492-499. Issurin, VB. 2009. Generalized training effects induced by athletic preparation. A review. J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 49(4):333-45. Andrew's Result:
Total Time - 9:02:56 Overall Placing - 44th Age Group Placing - 7th Overall Canadian - 1st Ironman Hawaii Most athletes strive for a race effort where execution equals or exceeds expectation, and I was lucky enough to have one of those races this past Saturday. My long day started at 3:30AM, up 30 minutes earlier than planned, but was awake and excited so no use trying to force sleep when it’s not there. Ate 1000 calories and headed down to the race start by 5:30AM, did a final check on the bike, took a quiet moment to calm the nerves, and chatted with some friends until the start. Coming from a competitive swimming background, I’ve never had a problem with triathlon swims – usually a quick 2-3 minute burst opens up clear water and I’m on my way with a small group of other swimmers. Hawaii is unique in that it is a deep-water ocean start, affected by currents, and brings together a much higher quality field than any other triathlon its size in the world. Getting to the front of the swim start line wasn’t too hard, but with three minutes until race time, there were elbows and knees battling underwater and lots of pushing and swearing as people tried to get up front. The cannon fired at 7AM and it was absolute chaos – arms and legs flailing with too many people contained in too little space. After about five minutes I felt the pace was way too high, and had a slight panic attack when I realized I had no choice but to continue at that pace because slowing down would result in getting run over from all directions. After about 15 minutes we had spread out enough that I was no longer claustrophobic, but the contact continued throughout the 3.9K swim. Swim time was 57:23, 106th overall, slightly slower than the plan but was more than happy to have that part of the day over with. Long course triathlon racing is challenging as a successful performance requires a huge amount of patience over a very long day – it’s important to dose your effort evenly, and discipline is needed to keep that effort in check when people you’re racing take off up the road and you want so badly to go chase the down. The bike course starts with a 15K ride around town that includes a short and steep uphill, a longer climb with a more gradual grade, then a third climb that is the steepest on the course (about 400 meters long). I was getting passed like I was standing still on this section, despite seeing 260 watts and thinking I was working too hard – took a lot of patience to let everyone go up the road and do my own ride. I stayed conservative throughout the first 96K, which ends at the top of the longest climb of the day. At this point my average watts were 211, right at my target of 210, and I was feeling energized, strong, and not at all fatigued. Over the course of the last 84K, I built the effort, having a few 5K intervals where my average power was in the 225-242 watt range which was a bit risky, but a lot of fun passing a bunch of the people who’d flown by earlier in the ride. Bike time was 4:56:43 on average watts of 215, and I’d moved up to 97th overall. Garmin data: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/120025740 My run plan was to run 7 minute miles for the duration of the run, I’d done this in workouts all season and I knew that was the pace I could hold if I was smart. Seeing the race clock at 5:59.11 leaving transition, I was tempted to push for a 3:00.48 marathon to dip under 9:00 for the day, but stuck to the plan as the probability of blowing up by attempting to run 3 minutes faster than planned was way too high. Similar to the bike start, guys were flying out of transition and I let them go – at 1KM I checked my watch expecting to see 7:15 pace as it felt so easy, instead I was on 6:00 pace and immediately slowed it down a bit more. From then on in it was a really steady run – every mile was right around 7 minutes with the exception of two uphill miles, and mile 5 that included a bio break. A few times I felt rough, and my brain would try to focus on how much farther there was to run, I was able to change the focus back to just completing the current mile. Once the mile was complete, it was time to stock up at the aid station on sponges, water over the head, ice down the race suit, sports drink, coke and salt tabs into the body; then back to focusing on the next mile. I also had my family out cheering on the course, it’s a long day for the spectators as well so wanted to keep on pushing to get them out of the hot sun as early as possible! I ran side by side with another athlete from mile 10 to 24 which made it so much easier, we fed off each other’s pace and were passing runners steadily. I felt so strong with 1 mile to go I was able to drop the pace down to close to a 6 minute mile and closed strongly, in a lot less pain than the race six weeks previously. Run time was 3:03:43, and I finished 44th overall with a final time of 9:02:56. Garmin data: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/120025055 The race was flawlessly executed by the organizers, it’s arguably the most highly anticipated event in the triathlon industry and is supported appropriately by all the major players. Sharing the course with the professional athletes is a special experience, and having so many talented athletes in one field is a fantastic challenge. Thanks again to the MGCC for pushing my comfort zone on the bike all season long, at the start of the year I’d have been ecstatic with a 5:15 bike split, to come in sub 5 hours was really exciting. See you out on the roads! Cheers, Andrew. This is a three part series written by Andrew:
Part 1: Written Sept 25th Ironman Louisville - qualifying race for the Ironman World Championships Aloha! As a kid I saw this clip of Julie Moss crawling her way to the finish line in the 1982 Hawaii Ironman on ABC's 'Wide World of Sports' and decided that it looked just crazy enough that I wanted to give the race a go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbWsQMabczM Today the Hawaii Ironman is the 'Ironman World Championship'. Professional athletes qualify through a points system based on performances on the Ironman circuit, and age group athletes qualify with a top placing in their age group at any of the 26 Ironman races in the series. I'd made two prior attempts at qualifying for Hawaii, at Ironman Canada in 2008 and 2009. In 2008 I had a decent result but was nowhere near qualifying; in 2009 I ended up dropping out with 7 kilometres to go in the run after completely depleting my body (and 7K is way too far to crawl...Julie Moss was yards from finishing when she started crawling, not outside the city limits!). My weakness in both those races was a deficiency of both cycling speed and endurance, so I committed to not attempt another Ironman until I'd turned those weaknesses into strengths. In the spring of 2010, I started riding with the MGCC, and getting repeatedly put in the hurt locker on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings transformed my cycling fitness from being unable to hang with the group on a full Bagel ride in May of 2010, to being able to take some pulls off the front in the fall of that year. I carried that fitness into 2011 after a solid winter of indoor riding, and was very happy with my race results in 2011 leading up to Ironman Louisville. The race in Louisville played out almost exactly as I wanted it to - easy on the swim (which kept my heart rate and overall energy expenditure lower than in my previous Ironman swims) and was on the bike early without many other riders around. I had planned to ride really easy (below my target power numbers) until I was caught by some stronger riders, then use those riders to pace with for the remainder of the ride (drafting is not allowed in Ironman racing, but even at a legal distance of 7 metres behind the rider in front of you, there is an aerodynamic benefit as well as a psychological benefit of having somebody else to 'chase' up the road). Cycling strategy in long-distance triathlon is almost the polar opposite of road racing in cycling - both Derrek and Shannon posted about their experiences at the road race nationals, where each time the riders approached the hills, people attacked and power numbers went through the roof. In an Ironman, because you need to run a marathon after the cycling leg, you want to minimize power spikes, so I climbed most hills with only a marginal increase in the power I was pushing on the flats. This reduces the overall physiological 'cost' of the ride, and increases your chances of having a strong run. Here is my data file for the cycling portion of the race: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/110727612 The run started well, I felt strong for 10 miles, a bit rough for 3 miles, strong again until the start of mile 19 and then things started to fall apart. Your brain is constantly trying to convince you to give up during an Ironman, and when I hit the 30K mark of the run I think subconsiously I knew that was the longest I'd run in training and that made me focus on the pain in my quads more than I should have. By that point I was in the lead for my age group, with the second place racer almost ten minutes down, so I walked each aid station from mile 19 to the finish. Here is the run course data: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/112244756 Overall I was happy with the result, finishing 8th overall and 1st in my age group. The top six in my age group qualified for Hawaii, so I gladly accepted the spot I was offered. Because Hawaii is six weeks after Louisville, a quick recovery was important to be able to get back to training as soon as possible. Right after the race, I received two litres of IV fluids while drinking an Infinit recovery shake, 500ml of chocolate milk and 500ml of orange juice to get some carbs and protein into my system to start the muscle rebuilding process. Post-IV, I had two light flushing massages in the medical centre before being released to gorge on copious amounts of Kentucky BBQ. A nine-hour day puts a lot of stress on the body, so the two weeks post-race involved only some light cycling - no swimming to allow a rib injury to fully heal, and no running as the weight-bearing nature of the exercise is too traumatic for depleted muscles. I'm spending the final four weeks before the race on the Big Island of Hawaii, doing an intensive three-week training camp followed by a week-long taper (which is light on training and heavy on sight-seeing!). Mahalo, Andrew. Full Ironman Louisville race report is posted on my blog: http://avacuumstraightaway.blogspot.com/2011/09/ironman-louisville-2011.html Part 2: Written Oct 5th Ironman Hawaiii Preview The training is done and dusted and the final race of the season is here on Saturday. After taking two weeks to let my body recover after Ironman Louisville, I hit the training hard once I arrived in Hawaii four weeks before the race. Training totals for those weeks: Four weeks out: 18K swimming, 635K cycling, 72K running Three weeks out: 19K swimming, 597K cycling, 100K running Two weeks out: 21K swimming, 557K cycling, 75K running Race week: 5K swimming, 100K cycling, 20K running No long taper for this race as coming off a three-week taper in August for Louisville and then two weeks of recovery following the race meant building fitness was more important than doing a long rest off of low volume. Being in Hawaii and away from the office made it manageable to handle much higher volume than I put in during the year, especially on the bike. During this past taper week, I've had some family here visiting, we've seen an erupting volcano, hiked through rainforests, body surfed some mean Pacific waves, explored the stunningly beautiful Waipio valley, and relaxed on both white and black sand beaches. I'm feeling strong, healthy and well-supported heading into the weekend! The atmosphere in Kailua-Kona is fantastic - the sleepy village has been transformed in the last week, with all the major companies in the industry sending their A-teams to be present at the World Championships. Specialized flew in their triathlon athletes from Olympic distance, XTERRA (off-road triathlon) and Ironman to launch the 2012 triathlon-specific Specialized Shiv which was unveiled on Monday, including Canadian triathlon stars Simon Whitfiled and Paula Findlay who were showing off their own custom Shivs. We'll hopefully see these new rides in Gears soon! My hopes for the race: Swim: The surf has kicked up in a huge way in the last couple of days, so it could be a rough swim. The unpredictability of the ocean currents make it tough to predict a time, but there's a much higher percentage of fast swimmers here than at other Ironmans, so I'm hoping to find some fast feet to follow around the course. Goal time is 55-58 minutes depending on ocean conditions. Bike: I've cycled the full course five times and know it well. It's a rolling course with total vertical of 1200 metres over the 180KM ride, I'm hoping to average 210 watts for the ride, which depending on the wind conditions on the day should hopefully be a ride between 5 hours to 5 hours 15. Run: After mentally falling apart a bit during the 19th mile in Louisville, I'm planning on pushing through that 'dark place' in this race and running the full marathon, hopefully putting in a faster time than Louisville on a tougher, potentially hotter course. Regardless of how the run ends up, I'll finish with a smile on my face and enjoy sharing the road with some of the best endurance athletes in the world. The race begins at 6:30AM for the professional athletes and 7:00AM for the rest of us (12:30PM Eastern time for the pros and 1:00PM Eastern time for the amateur race). Results will be streamed live at www.ironmanlive.com, including video of the professional race. Happy Thanksgiving! Part 3 of Andrew's Blog will be a post race summary - stay tuned. Start # Finishing Time Finishing Rank
1 3 mins 32 secs 5 2 3 mins 10 secs 1 3 3 mins 27 secs 4 4 4 mins 6 secs 17 5 3 mins 40 secs 8 6 4 mins 10 secs 18 7 4 mins 46 secs 26 8 4 mins 27 secs 22 9 4 mins 29 secs 24 10 3 mins 43 secs 9 11 4 mins 27 secs 22 12 3 mins 56 secs 14 13 3 mins 38 secs 7 14 4 mins 40 secs 25 15 4 mins 57 secs 28 16 5 mins 5 secs 29 17 4 mins 2 secs 16 18 3 mins 26 secs 3 19 4 mins 53 secs 27 20 3 mins 57 secs 15 21 3 mins 49 secs 11 22 4 mins 24 secs 21 23 3 mins 33 secs 6 24 3 mins 45 secs 10 25 4 mins 17 secs 20 26 4 mins 14 secs 19 27 3 mins 55 secs 12 28 3 mins 24 secs 2 29 3 mins 55 secs 13 As I sit reflecting on the past week, my memories of visiting an amazing corner of the world, meeting new people and enjoying great Spanish food and wine are the ones that are the strongest. Racing at the international level is an eye-opening, powerful and often humbling experience, yet somehow it’s always the events of the week leading up to the race that I cherish the most.
Daily team rides formed the start of every day after a 6:30am breakfast at the team hotel. Our rides would take us from our oceanside home base up narrow, winding country roads into the foothills of the Pyrenees, offering us spectacular views of the Bay of Biscay below. Our group would usually fracture into 3 smaller packs of riders with a sweep riding off the back to make sure no one was left behind. After 2 hours or so we’d fly back down to our hotel through a fast, twisty descent of about 5km on the same route as the race course each time trying to descend with less hesitation, less braking, staying aero as long and as tightly as humanly possible. Occasionally, as speeds approached 90k/h, a twinge of anxiety, fear of losing that last sliver of control necessary to keep me rubber-side down would sneak into my consciousness….aghhhhh, overbraking, oversteering, valuable seconds lost….back to the top I go and try again. By race day I’d found the perfect lines to carve my way down with barely a touch of the brakes. The full road closure would virtually guarantee a perfect descent with both sides of the road to work with. The morning routine would finish with a run alongside the city’s canal through the tree-lined streets of Gijon, usually no more than 50 minutes, just enough to shake out tightened climbing legs after riding. Afternoons were spent on the beach, surfing, shopping or grabbing a bite and a glass of Rioja in the old city then maybe a siesta, after all, “when in Rome”! As the team physiotherapist, when not training, my days were often spent treating national team athletes as well. Accreditation, body marking, bike check, check-in, etc. all took place 24-48 hrs prior to the race. Our first glimpse of the transition was at bike check on Saturday night. All bikes are required racked and ready to go the night before. I got up at 6am race day to get some breakfast and make sure I had everything I needed to take from the hotel to transition. My race start was 10:08 with the transition close being 9:45. I was scheduled to do a French CBC interview at 8:45 at the race start so left by 7:45. After a quick warm-up I was relaxed and ready to go. 10:08 came fast as did the first km with a group of 15 guys coming through in a stupid-fast 3:00 flat. I stuck to my plan and stayed back, mid pack doing 3:15s. By 6k, the lead group had shrunk to four guys; two Brits, a Mexican and the eventual winner from Spain. At this point I was 5th with an American who had been sitting on me from the start. At the start line he introduced himself as Dave and remarked that I was “the guy to beat” so I wasn’t surprised to have him breathing down my back the whole way. By 8k there was only the Spaniard, out in front by about 45s. I was comfortably in 2nd with three guys sitting on my ass not making a move. At this point in the race I was very happy. I never race with a watch or computer so didn’t know exactly what my splits were but I knew I was less than a minute off the lead. My plan was to stay within 1.5 minutes so I figured I was sitting pretty. I sat back and coasted easily into transition within a minute of the lead feeling like everything was going according to plan. I later found out I was nearly a minute slower than I had hoped at 33:45 instead of 32:45. “Just get me on bike, just get me on my bike…” I was so psyched to get out there on a course that suited me perfectly. As soon as I did I started mashing the pedals, passing athletes from other waves like they were standing still, was feeling awesome. The 3km long climb at 8-9% was nothing, exactly as I anticipated. An average gear ratio of 53-18 was easily enough, making me happy about my decision to go with an 11-23 cassette. Wind conditions were negligeable at 5km/h making the rear disk choice a good one as well. My only difficulties on the bike course were the riders who had decided to ride left instead of right (mostly Brits, South Africans and Spaniards) and some congestion on my second descent causing me to take an inside line through the final corner. These are things that everyone had to deal with so no unfair advantage, just a pain in the ass. I began to stress a little when I realized by 35k that I had still not passed the leader. Finally, at about 38k, I caught him. I had ridden a solid race and put over a minute on him on the bike but even so, this still only put me about 15s in the lead going into the final leg, the 5k run. Last year I had nearly 30s and last year’s 2nd place was not as strong a runner as Fernando Dominguez, Spain’s National Duathlon champion. Oh crap. This wasn’t going to be easy. Sure enough he clipped me at about 2k. I tried to reel him in but I didn’t have it, not on this day. So in the end, I had a silver medal, a bittersweet achievement after winning gold last year but I had experienced a new culture, a week of meeting new friends and reconnecting with old ones from all over the world. I earned my silver fair and square. If I had learned anything from the race it was that relying on your singular strengths may work sometimes but won’t ever guarantee a victory. I can only hope that I have gained the knowledge in this race to make me smarter, wiser for my next athletic challenge, whatever that may be…. As I enter my final days of preparation for the ITU Duathlon World Championships in Gijon, Spain next weekend, I can’t help but start to wonder whether I’ve done everything possible to ensure I have my best race ever. As an athlete, I find myself constantly second guessing my training; have I done enough, am I overtraining, am I eating right, sleeping, do I have the right equipment?? In general, I’m pretty happy with everything right now and totally stoked to get to Spain and race my ass off!
Last week I was in Beijing at the ITU Triathlon Worlds, managing the National AG team and found myself so busy I was unable to do any meaningful training for nearly ten days….stress! However, the week of rest and the motivation I was able to draw from watching elite athletes like Macca (Chris McCormack), Simon Whitfield and of course the British phenom, Alistair Brownlee, did more for me than I realized and I’ve had some of my best workouts of the year in the three days that I’ve been home. In the few days remaining before flying out on Monday, I’ve decided that today, Friday, I’ll do a 10k interval run workout alternating half miles at 2:25 and 2:55. Later today I’ll squeeze in a 70k tempo (sub threshold) ride. Training to bike on legs that are fried from a hard 10k is one of the most important components of duathlon training, making an intense run workout followed by a long ride an ideal training strategy. Saturday will be a 80-90k easy ride and Sunday another running interval workout and a few quick laps of the MGCC bridal path loop followed by a longer 15-20k run on Monday morning. After that there’s nothing more I can do except start to mentally focus and taper into next weekend. The race-course in Gijon looks awesome, well suited to both my running and cycling styles. The run consists of an initial four laps of 2.5k. The loop has a couple of 20m high, short climbs and descents, just enough to take the legs out of guys who’ll inevitably go out too fast on the opening lap. The bike course is two laps of approximately 20k and has one good climb and descent, per lap of about 150m. The climb is solid, about 50% higher than our beloved Brimley climb but stretched out over nearly 3k so under a 10% grade…won’t even need to get close to my small ring. I figure I’ll go with an 11-23 cassette rather than my 11-26 I use for grades over 10%; easy decision. I’ll be riding a rear disk wheel and either a Zipp 404 or 1080 depending on wind conditions. The final run is two laps of the same run loop, totaling 5k. My competition will be stiff with the European champion and Pan American champion both being on the start list. My competition from last year (and 2x European and World Champion) Didier Vervaleix from France is not racing unfortunately as I looked forward to the challenge of going head to head again this year. Last year I beat him by 35s after starting the bike leg in 8th and passing him on the final bike lap to take the lead. Passing him on the bike course was a huge mental boost as he’s a pro cyclist with two Tour de France starts to his name. My strategy is simple and the same as it always is in every race; go in feeling totally and completely psyched, confident, looking relaxed at the start line. Control in the first 2k of the first run; the first 2k should be my slowest. Let everyone fly out of the gates and run 3:00/k for the first 2-3k then gradually reel them in and finish in the 32:45 range. This will likely put me about a minute off the lead pack of 3-5 runners heading into the bike. On the bike I need to make up this time and add some, a minute if possible as I head into the final run. The stronger runners will run a sub 16:00 final run whereas mine will be in the 16:30-16:45 range so the minute gap off the bike is essential. If it all works according to plan then I’ll be headed home with another medal, hopefully gold againbut if not, at least I’ll feel like I’ve done everything possible to have one of my best races ever and as always, will know that I left it all out there. You can follow the race live here: http://www.triathlon.org/events/event/2011_gijon_itu_duathlon_world_championships/ Cheers, Dave MGCC/Gears Used Bike Drive Initiative into Thorncliff Park
As part of our club philanthropic spirit, the MGCC and Gears are hosting a used bike drive into Thorncliff Park. Thorncliff Park is at Millwood and Overlea (we ride by the gates to it every Tuesday and Thursday) and houses some 30,000 residents. Thorncliff Park is a high density, over-crowded and low income neighborhood with extremely limited resources for children. Almost one quarter of the population in Thorncliffe Park is under the age of 14 and is home to North America’s largest elementary school with more than 1,500 children in Kindergarten to grade 5. The MGCC is calling on it's membership (& friends/family who want to get rid of unused bikes cluttering the garage) to donate used bikes for this cause. We want to get bikes into the hands of kids (and adults) that will not only appreciate our effort but actually will get good use out of the bikes. This Bike Drive will be part of a Bike Rodeo hosted by Toronto Police Division 53 on Sunday October 2, 2011. This will be a meaningful event for the families in the neighbourhood. The Rodeo will run from 11am-3pm on Oct 2nd and will include the police bike unit, safety officers, their K9 unit, motorcycle unit and their horse-mounted unit—quite a day. We are teaming up with Gears on this initiative and they will have a very important role to play. First of all, Gears has the ability to store a lot of bikes at an offsite location. Secondly, Gears has secured brand new helmets to go with each bike for an approximate cost of $15/helmet. We ask that each bike that a MGCC member donates is accompanied with $15 for the cost of a helmet – we cannot give away bikes without helmets. Gears has committed to professionally tuning each bike donated so we are giving away bikes that are not only safe but running well. We do ask that you “clean” each bike before you bring it in to Gears. As of today, you can start bringing in your used bikes (cleaned) for donation along with an envelope attached to the bike with $15/bike for the cost of the helmet. Gears has a cut-off date for accepting bike donations of September 30 so they can ensure that all bikes are properly serviced. Please note that bringing in your bikes sooner as opposed to later helps Gears out. The MGCC has had a few conference calls with Councillor John Parker and the school Principals in the area. They were very supportive and appreciative of the initiative. Some have supplied contact names, emails and phone numbers of potential recipients they feel could really use a bike. We will need some MGCC members to volunteer to contact the recipients – some will be by phone and some by email. Please let Paul Tepsich (contact info below) know if you are interested in helping on this front. Our timing for this initiative starts today. Gears will service and store the bikes until delivery at the Bike Rodeo on Sunday, October 2. To summarize: · Used (or new) clean bikes with $15/bike are dropped off at Gears between Sept 6-30. Earlier is better than later! · MGCC needs volunteers (4-5) to contact the Police Division 53 and also the families in TP. · Bike Drive/Rodeo on Sunday October 2 from 11am-3pm. All welcome. The MGCC would like to extend a HUGE THANK YOU to Paul for the leadership, time, and energy he has put into this initiative. Please contact Paul for volunteer roles and if you have any questions or comments. Paul Tepsich MGCC Board Member paul@highrockcapital.ca 416-642-5707 Cheers, MGCC Coming up 3rd was not a shock but a bit disappointing. I know I could have achieved the gold if only more time was granted for training. I could tell this because as I rolled off the starting ramp my legs could turn beautifully but 5 k in I could not ramp up the power when I was crusing around 360 watts. As I am a fighter this did not deflate me as it would for most, I just continued as I could keeping that rpm up and slowly chasing down my minuet men. Getting the joy of ramping up the speed just as I passed them.
Giving thought to my effort I could have not done better under the circumstances, keeping my legs around 90rpm and my power steady is an art within its self. I would like to share an inside scup of my pre 24 hours to the TT. The day and night before my T.T. was just about consuming carbs with minimal fats, with lots and lots stretching!!! I find that stretching gives me time to meditate and focus on the event, letting go of everything else but my goal of winning. My legs felt great in the morning, I had eggs with a piece of toast. Stopping off at Tims to grab a sandwich before the event. The goal with food before a T.T. is to have nothing in your stomach, so all the blood can go to the legs. For most that means eating 3 to 4 hours before the T.T. My warm up was 45 min long , with my legs at 100rpm and power sitting at 250 watts. (keeping your legs at a higher rpm during a warm up tricks your brain into thinking your legs are moving to slow during the T.T.) After my warm up I took the time well riding to the start to connect and focus and the task of winning. All I have now is my drive for perpetual progression and k-9 devotion of getting better and faster. Using this winter and the unforgettable help off the MGCC to get stronger, lighter and more experience. Here is my garmin file for the race. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/108865198#.TlP_j9JUrl0.email Thank you MGCCl!!! Derrek Ivey 6474040140 derrekivey@gmail.com |
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August 2017
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