Epic NZ, Jan 6th

I’m going to ramble because I have four hours of battery power and not a lot of action happening here on British Airways.

Scott tells a story about how a mutual friend finds my story motivating “because he knows how slow you were, gordo”. I love that story because it contains some of what motivates me – overcoming gordo and changing the way I view myself. In 2003, I got the chance to motivate our pal. In 2006, I wonder who will get fired up from kicking my butt?

Sitting here above the former USSR at present. Not really sure where the plane is but I am well caffeinated and killing a few hours. The trip routing was my decision. I purchased a round-the-world ticket many months ago. When I do that I need to guess our likely routing. I had guessed that I might need a stop in Hong Kong – turns out that I didn’t. So we are about one-third of the way through a 36-hour (plus) journey from Montpellier to Paris to London to Hong Kong to Auckland to Christchurch.

I decided to bite the bullet and put myself onto New Zealand time as soon as possible. It is currently 3:30 in the afternoon Kiwi time so I’ve got a bit more work to do with staying awake. If I keep myself going then I’ll run out of batteries about dinner time.

In an earlier piece, I had mentioned that I was going to share my ideas on how I will attempt to get myself into decent shape again.

Being sick this past week after four weeks of training enabled me to get a bit of perspective on how time & experience adjusts our perspective.

Twelve years ago, my “illness comeback” sessions of this week would have been major outings in themselves. I can remember hikes in Hong Kong where 20 minutes of walking uphill had me sitting under a tree, slightly dazed and enjoying a break.

It’s amazing what we can train ourselves to get used to.

So Step One is completed – I managed a month of training where I averaged more than 90 minutes a day. I might sound forlorn at times but don’t be fooled by that. It is simply the natural ups and downs of coming back from a break.

A few months ago, on a day when I was being stressed – there were more than a few – M suggested that I get myself a massage to relax. Good advice – it was at my suggestion that she greatly increased her use of massage. I replied, quite seriously, that I didn’t have time to relax and wouldn’t be getting a massage until I was able to train 45 minutes twice a day. Ah the corporate life, so easy to get lured back into that mindset. I hadn’t written (or thought) about money very much from 2001 to 2004. Now you see it weekly, here on this page. We become what we surround ourselves with – choose wisely – a topic for another time.

Anyhow, I hope you found some of my writings useful on that subject. Remember to balance them with a warning that you don’t want to forget to enjoy your life. With people and jobs, we need to define how much we are willing to give.

Phase One was getting back to swim, bike and run training – and… seeing if I actually enjoyed it. I wasn’t sure what would happen.

As it happens, it turns out that I still very much enjoy it. That’s good news as I have made a bunch of plans over the next few months and it would be a shame not to enjoy following through.

Phase One was also about seeing what my body could handle – specifically my lower legs, shoulder rotators and immune system. All of which were pushed to the limit in 2004. It turns out that I can still handle a fair amount – just not as much as I was hoping. I suppose that it was unreasonable to expect that I’d be able to tolerate 30-35 hours per week after taking March to November pretty much off. Still, that was my non-published goal in my head. In hindsight, that was a bit crazy but, then again, many of us in this sport are somewhat “fringe” in our outlook on life.

Right now, I seem to be OK with about 20 hours per week, 25 being the mark where I start to fall apart. As one would expect from a lack of base, I have a very poor tolerance for tempo (and above) work – always have when I am tired or rebuilding.

My unsupervised workouts pretty much all ended up counterproductive – if I had simply gone M’s pace then I likely would have avoided illness and logged triple digits for December (she did, both). My unsupervised training is a lot like how many of us train – wind up the iPod Shuffle, head out and hammer! There is a certain discipline that is instilled from 30+ hour weeks. You never go harder than you need to because there’s always that little bit of lingering fatigue.

On my “lower” volume protocol, I always have enough energy for a bit of spontaneous tempo – so far, all that’s netted me is unnecessary fatigue.

I realise the irony in 20 hours per week being “lower”. But, I believe that 1200 annual hours is minimum required for me to make progress. No point in editing that point of view because anything else feels like a maintenance program.

One nice thing about my lack of endurance training tolerance right now is that it means that I, paradoxically, have energy for other things. I don’t have enough endurance to make myself all that tired. I simply managed to make myself sick. Sound familiar? I see it a lot with highly motivated working athletes.

Accepting my personal volume limits, I have enough time for wife & work. That’s a good thing. I can think back to when I wouldn’t accept those limits and find myself strung out a lot. So maybe I am learning a few things.

The zeroes that I wrote about weren’t all write-offs. I only had one true zero and that was early in the month when I let a little work related hiccup create a distraction. The other zeroes all involved a bit of Japanese Training (that’s what Molina and I call walking). M particularly savoured the 80 minute powerwalk across Paris to the Gare de Lyon… “it is just five minutes past Notre Dame” We made it to the train with a whole seven minutes to spare. It was snowing but, as I pointed out, “at least we had a tail wind”.

There are a lot of good memories from the initial phase – I’ll miss my swim lane buddies from the Olympic Pool in Antigone (vertical breaststroke, stationary backstrong, snorkel man) – there was always something going on in that pool to entertain.

M's only body issue came following a two hour powerwalk during my illness last week. Her calf tighted (and is still tight) from being dragged out around Montpellier.

M asked me the other day to rate my fitness at the end of November and right now. Between 1 and 10. I defined 10 as rock-star, Transamerica, Ironman shape. I figured that I was about a 4 when I started Phase One. Right now, I feel like I am about a six.

What’s a six?

Well a six is about ten hour Ironman shape – please don’t make me prove it! That makes me smile because six years ago that was life best fitness.

M asked what kind of shape I was going to be in after Epic. I said that I had no idea but it would take a few weeks for me to bounce back. I just pray that I have the mental fortitude to keep my powder dry for the first week. I completely blew it with my pacing last year in Australia. Three hours on Bjorn’s wheel nearly derailed my entire camp.

What about Phase Two of my fitness program? Well, phase two starts on Monday – in about eighty hours, actually. I am using the airplane & illness taper (more than a few have led the way on this one) and certainly won’t be over-reached heading into the camp.

The opening day of the camp is going to be my longest training day since last January. I’ll be out there longer than my time from Ironman New Zealand last March. Fortunately, we have a big camp and I am sure that there will be some folks that I can work with on the way back from Akaroa.

If you hear reports that I am being unusually friendly then you’ll know that I’m hurting and looking for a wheel. True class is being a team player when you don't need to be -- Johno showed that last year in Australia. Put more into the group than his personal standing in the point competition.

Now what about my approach? I’ll share a conversation with you that I had on the Queen K last October. We weren’t racing in Kona, rather we were a couple of guys chatting while watching other people race.

Dude: So are you going to race again?
G: Sure, just not sure if I can handle the training.

D: That’s good to hear. What are you going to change about your approach this time?
G: Nothing, really.

D: Nothing?!
G: Nope, I think I got it right last time around. I’m going to have six months completely unstructured – no main sets, no pressure, no structure. Do as much volume as I can tolerate, have fun, just like in 2003. Then I’ll do a race and see where I am at. If I am having fun then I’ll crank the volume further, ride across the US in 2007, freshen and do a specific preparation block.

D: Geez Gordo! How can I compete with that?
G: You can’t.

…and only one of us was joking.

That said, it’s easy to talk the talk. On Monday, I’ve got to walk the walk. Phase Two is Epic, a bit reckless to do it with my lack of base but I have a two week business trip scheduled for when the camp completes.

The trip will be followed with two weeks of work followed by another training camp, this time ten days in Tasmania.

What I am planning is one high volume week per month to push my endurance bounds. The rest of the time… wife, work and sport will exist in harmony -- due to my fitness matching very well with the time that I want to commit to my marriage and business.

Being able to pursue high level performance in one area can be counterproductive to achievement in other areas – mentally, I’m a bit thankful for that right now and that could prove to be a limiter in itself in due course.

When I was working in Hong Kong (1999/2000), I found that my main limiter was ability to recover from training – this time around, so far at least, it is pretty similar.

Twenty five hours of air travel to go!