Forewarned

Sorry folks, I wrote this last night but stuffed up the 'complicated process' of pressing the publish button. Rather than you miss out on the glory of this post I thought I would attempt to publish it tonight instead. Enjoy.



Very much a business as usual weekend today. We have a long weekend in Perth this weekend, which means it can be a good opportunity to get out of town and do something fun, or it can be a good opportunity to spend some time at home and relax a bit. We have gone for options B. With that in mind we have had a very standard Saturday today, a bit of exercise, a bit of around the house stuff and a bit of coaching.

On the coaching side of thing everything is very much about Cairns 70.3 at the moment. Meeting with athletes who are doing the race, reviewing tapers for athletes doing the race, looking at race plans for athletes doing the race, answering questions for athletes doing the race, getting status updates from athletes doing the race. I think you get the idea.

All up things are looking on track for race day. I need to update a couple of programs, but I think generally the athletes are ready. Unfortunately the weather for race day is not looking splendid (rain forecast), but the event is still a week away so that way well change. As with Busso I don't like the athletes getting to obsessed with the weather and panicking about it at all. However, my view is there is a difference between panicking and planning. If looking at the weather means you may pack a bit differently, or plan a bit differently etc, then I think go for it. It is only if the weather is going to sow seeds of doubt and start eating away confidence that I would prefer athletes to avoid it.

As it is, rain at Cairns Ironman is hardly unusual, it rains there on race day reasonably often. However, I have had two friends DNF at Cairns in the past due to rain induced crashes, so it is well worth being aware if rain is a possibility. Taking some of the corners and roundabouts a bit easier in the wet is a small price to pay for staying upright and reaching the finish line. Hopefully it ends up being a dry day, but this is one of those times where a bit of forewarning isn't a bad idea.

The other element of the weather we discussed today was the possibility of a headwind as athletes ride back into Cairns (it is currently forecast). Once again we didn't look at this to induce panic, but rather to help with race planning as pacing becomes very important when headwinds come into play. We want athletes to resist the urge to push too hard into the headwind so that they don't torch their running legs.

As the old saying goes being forewarned is being forearmed.