April - Busselton Training Camp

Busselton 70.3 Endurance Triathlon Camp 2011 - Dunsborough

Brian Kempson delivered yet another great training camp this year. With the location changed to a few kms down the road to dunsborough this year it was great having a different scene for all of our sessions on new courses.

It was a full packed weekend arriving on friday arvo. We started with a welcoming BBQ and seminar before we knew it was lights out for an early morning. Saturday started with our new bike loop through dunsborough and yallingup hills. We managed to punch out a 2 lap course totalling 3hrs approx 110km. As soon as we rolled back to the house it was running gear on and off for a 30min tempo run. The pace was set pretty quickly by Guy and Nathan with me and mark hanging on at the back. After listening to my coaches advice and the seminar the night before i decided to let the boys go ahead and flog themselves as my program didnt have the same pace written on the paper as we were going!! A decision well made as my body thanked me for it when we did another trail run and ocean swim a few hours later. Sunday morning it was a long ocean swim to the small jetty and return. It was a choppy day with not really many people enjoying it and before you know it me and mark had kicked the clarkes off their kayaks and decided to paddle back for abit of fun! Myself and Guy decided to kick back and enjoy a coffee after the ocean swim whilst every one else went for a trail run. Having run every day that week already i was glad to rest the feet instead :)

Sunday Arvo and the camp is starting to wrap up with a farewell BBQ at Fat Duck Cycles in Busselton. All in all it was great weekends worth of training and would like to thank the Endurance Fitness crew for making it ejoyable especially Briank Kempson for organising it.

More Pictures still to come...

March - Singapore 70.3

Singapore 70.3
Well it wasnt a great start to my long course racing for the year posting my first ever DNF...
I had an ok swim coming out of the water in 4th being approx 1 minute down to fellow WA mate Mark Luckin.

                    (swim course was 2 laps with a run out between laps.... ouch)

         (good swim 4th in age out of water. We all agreed it was a little longer than 1.9km....)

I pushed myself hard on the bike to bridge the gap to mark and eventually caught him on the last lap. We then worked together back to T2.

Unfortunetly I had neglected all my nutrition on the bike missing all of the water stations until the last one approx 7km from transition. This ment I had only taken in about 500ml of water over 80km from my aero bottle and in humid singapore conditions my body was not happy.

                                                             feeling cooked.....

                                   In the Hurt Locker.... Next stop, the med tent :(

Coming into T2 I made a rookie error n totally went passed the transition entry leaving me to doule back. In the end I didnt lose to much time to mark which meant it was going to be a battle on the run. Mark put the pace on from word go and my body was in a world of pain. The first 500metres was tough pushing at around 3:50 pace. I knew I couldnt keep this pace for long after having little fluid on the bike. After another few hundred metres my body was shutting down and mark dissapeared down the road. At this point I knew I was in trouble when it was hard to run in a straight line zoning in and out. This left me to only complete approx 3km before collapsing and getting carted off to the medical tent for a few IV drips. A few hours later and I was released feeling the worst i have ever been physically and mentally. I would like to give a big thanks to "The Luckin Family" and Ian Mansfield for looking after me. Also a big congrats to my mates Mark Luckin 3rd, Andrew Tyack 2nd and Matty Burton 1st for a full house WA podium. Good race boys!

Also a Congratulations to
Kelly McCombie - 1st
Caitlin Bridgeland - 1st