Saturday 20 April 2019

On the way

A good tough bit of training for the Busso folks today. Not the last bit of hard work the athletes will be doing before race day, but certainly a very important session, both physically and mentally.

The session today was a brick session, but more than that it was a race day simulation. 60km on the bike and 12km on the run, all done at 70.3 pace. The session is a very good work out, but the idea of the session is to also to practice pacing, race preparation, double check equipment selection etc, all the little things that need to be ironed out before racing. For these reasons we view it as a very important session and one that we run every year.

As well as dialing in race preparation, when done right the session is also a great one for building confidence. The race is two weeks away from today and so all our athletes they should be well and truly ready for race day. That means that while 60km and 12km is a tough morning out, it shouldn't be that taxing. Achieving those distances and knowing there is more in the tank can give a great boost leading into the final two weeks of training.

I am happy to say that all up I think the session achieved its aims. Everyone got through the session looking pretty comfortable and capable of doing more, which is exactly what we wanted. The only hiccup of the session was actually another good lesson. As yesterday was one of our first wild days of autumn weather, today was our first cold one, almost freezing in fact. These chilly temperatures caught everyone by surprise and caused a few numb toes and fingers. As I said though, even this was a good learning opportunity as the half Ironman in Busselton is sometimes very, very cold and so figuring out strategies to race in those conditions is never a bad idea. This morning was a great morning to work out those strategies.

Yep, for most of our athletes race day is becoming very real. There is still a bit of work to do, but as this morning demonstrated, most of them are well on their way. Very nice.


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