Happy Holidays everyone. Its best been a memorable Christmas for me down in Australia. I grew up in Houston, Texas so I’m accustomed to having warm weather around the holidays, but 95 and sunny was a new one for me. The McDonald family welcomed several of us into ther home for the holiday and I was very grateful for the invitation. I definiltely like the idea of wearing flip flops and hitting golf balls on Christmas afternoon. That’s pretty much the exact opposite of last year when we spent the afternoon building a snowman in Crested Butte on Christmas day.

The day after Christmas brought Boxing Day and Marilyn had arranged for a group of us to ride out about 110K to the town of Mt Beauty. From Mt Beauty we had a 30K climb to the town of Falls Creek followed by the descent into town and a picnic lunch at the park.

The gang was pretty groggy from all the festive Christmas cheer, but we still managed to get out of bed on time to make the rollout. The pace to the base of the climb was mellow and social (this was to be a good thing) and soon enough we were in Mt Beauty. Most of the crew stopped for a good helping of snacks, but I opted to keep things light since I wanted to TT the climb.

We got rolling again and I pretty much started to drill to it for the next 30K of the ride. The climb had some breaks in the first 15K, but the last 15K was a constant grade and it even kicked up a bit for the final 5K. I was starting to get a little foggy in the final 15 minutes, but I was committed to the TT so I kept pressing until I reached the summit parking lot.

One of my favorite things to do is TT climbs (both riding and running) and this was definitely a beautiful and challenging one. Its nice to take a break from Colorado and actually have some air to breathe while climbing.

So all that was pretty tiring, but we all decided that we needed to get more tired so on the 27th (next day) we headed to a small town about 110K away from Albury to do the Lake Bannella Triathlon. Its a unique event simply based on the fact that it begins at 5:00 p.m.

Having to start so late in the day was a bit of a challenge for me as I’m more of a 8-5 type of guy when it comes to training, but I managed to get my head in gear around 4:59. I had a couple days out of the pool prior to the race so going hard for 750 meters was tolerable.

Hopping out onto the 20K bike? Man my quads were burning. Fortunately Blake passed me early on and I was able to key off him even though he was slowly putting a couple secs/K on me the whole way. The run that followed didn’t feel any better, but I kept it together enough to finish just under a minute behind Blake. I don’t get to race like this very often and I had a great time doing so.

We had dinner at a local pub and eventually made our way home around 10:00 p.m. that night. It was nice to have a break from waking up at 3:00 a.m. to do a race.

Now I think its probably time for a rest day as I’ve managed to stack a lot of stress on myself over the last week.

Until later,

jd

Yeah, whatever. It seems like it always rains in Albury. Though it never seems to rain on the days when I want to ride my bike so I’m not complaining. Apparently its normally 100 degrees with rarely a cloud in the sky and I don’t think its topped 85 just yet so I’m content.

The only thing that the rain really hinders is the development of my hacky sack skills. Last Friday we encountered a bit of rain and I found myself walking along a bunch of store fronts looking for ways to waste my money. I found some solace in the purchase of a hacky sack (for 50% off; what a deal) and I headed home to start working on my back up profession.

I haven’t played hacky sack since I was about 14 or 15 years old (I cannot recall playing any time after I left Crested Butte). Even when I seemed to play every day I never really got any good at this “hippy sport.” Chris, Blake and I spent a couple hours the other evening trying to master the art of ‘hacking’ and while we did make progress, we didn’t exactly reach “master” status. I would have to contend that Chris is likely the ‘best’ and I am likely the worst (no quotes needed for worst since it would be applicable based on any standard).

When I’m not hacking I’m usually out training, but I’m mostly trying to distract my buddies while they type away on their computers. When I first got to OZ my computer was a little wrecked. Apparently something was up with something that was causing some other thing to do something which left me with the ability to do nothing. I had to drop the ol’ machine off at the local computer shop and I was left computer-less for the better part of a week or so.

I had no idea that a lack of computer could make you such an outsider. Every morning I was left to drink my coffee alone as I watched all three of my other amigos hack away at facebook, emails, or whatever the morning called for. It was as if the return of my machine one week later was like giving me the gift of literacy again. I was no longer forced to access the cyber world over the shoulder of someone next to me. I had my own key to the universe.

Anyway, TEAM jdCMbb are having a lighter training day based on the weather and the shalacking (sp?) we put on ourselves yesterday. We all did a long ride yesterday, but we finished by hooking up with the local Tuesday Night World Cup. The Tuesday Nighter always finishes with a 20K race to the Wodonga city limits. I managed to stay with the front bunch to the finish, but I died and came back to life about 3 times over the course of 25 minutes or so. I haven’t done this type of training in some time so hopefully it will give me a nice little training stimulus. If not, well then, at least its fun.

I think its about time to head to the pool. I don’t think we can use rain as an excuse for missing a swim session.

Heard it was a high of 1 degree yesterday in Boulder. Awesome.

jd

Howdy all,

The ball is beginning to roll again after a couple weeks of low-volume, low-intensity training. The final race of my season sits a little less than six weeks away so there isn’t a lot of overthinking to be done in this coming training block. Its basically split as 2 weeks of general SBR training, 2 weeks of race specific training, one peak week, one race week. Nothing to get too carried away with.

This past weekend I headed up to the town of Bright, NSW to help Marilyn whle she raced the Tour of Bright. The race consisted of three stages: a hilly 80K stage on Saturday morning with 2 significant climbs, a 16K TT on a windy Saturday afternoon, and a 60K stage on Sunday that finished with a 30K climb up to the ski resort of Hotham.

The area where the race was held was in some really beautiful country and the terrain seemed great for riding. The climb on the final day was seriously epic (and this comes from someone who lives fulltime in Colorado). I knew Australia had some hills, but this looked outstanding (from the car).

Chris and I started training again on Monday morning and I was pleasantly surprised to not be experiencing a bit of discomfort from a return to normal training. We even latched onto a local group ride yesterday evening and I was, once again, pleasantly surprised to see that I could get my legs over the top of some big gears again; at least for 20K.

Until later,

jd

Greetings from the Southern Hempisphere. It took a bit of time to make the journey, but I’m finally starting to shake a bit of the fatigue from the trip. For those curious as to how long the trip was, I’ll give you the details:

On Friday, the 28th my father dropped me off at the Phoenix Airport around noon. I waited nearly three hours for my first flight to LAX

1:15 flight from Phoenix to LAX

In LAX, I gathered up my luggage and headed over to Terminal 2. Checked in for my Air NZ flight and waited over four hours for my flight to Auckland.

12 hours and 30 minutes from LAX to Auckland.

In Auckland, I go through security again and proceed to have a three hour layover. I drink two strong espresso drinks.

3 hours and 50 minute flight from Auckland to Melbourne.

I arrive in Melbourne, but for some reason baggage claim is severely delayed. We wait one hour to get our bags. I roll through customs in about twenty minutes and meet up with Chris’ sister and bro-in-law in the airport lobby.

We then hop in a car and drive 3 hours North and arrive in our destination of Albury, Australia (New South Wales).

Nearly 33 hours after my Dad dropped me off I finish the journey.

It was a long trip, but it didn’t seem as rough as some of the travel I have done over the years. My solo cross country drives have been much, much, MUCH worse.

Its now been about 72 hours since I arrived and I’m adjusting to my new temporary home. It will still be some time before I’m training in full gear again, but I can tell I will be able to build some great fitness here while training with Blake, Chris and Marliyn. Its been over two years since all four of us have been together again and I suspect we can do some fantastic stuff over the next 7 weeks.

Until later,

jd

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Friends,

I hope this email finds everyone doing well; for those in the States: Happy Thanksgiving.

I traveled down to Tempe, Arizona this past weekend to race the final North American Ironman of the season (IM Arizona). I felt good about my preparations going into the race and I had hoped to improve upon my recent finish at Ironman Canada in August.

The swim started out nicely and I found myself near the front of a large pack of swimmers. Near the halfway point I hit a bit of a wall and found myself with some calf cramps, but I soon recovered and tried to hop back onto the pack. I never regained contact, but I was only 20-30 seconds off pace so I planned to hurry through T1 to make up some ground.

I headed out on the bike course feeling as though I had put myself in a decent position and I started to plug away at the second leg of the race. The first lap (of three) went by pretty nicely, but the second lap began to feel like a bit of a struggle. I tried to preserve all the energy I could on the fast sections of the course, but by the time the third lap came around I really just felt off. I knew I was starting to slow down, but I started to focus more on the upcoming run instead of burying myself to get an extra minute or two on the bike.

Unfortunately, I could tell at the start of the run that things weren’t quite right. I really felt quite awful to be honest, but I decided to just get through one loop of the run and take it from there. I eventually started to feel a bit better, but I knew that my goals at the start of the day were simply not going to happen. I told Brooke “no more splits” and just plugged away doing the best I could. I actually managed to move up 4-5 spots in the last hour and finished up the race in 11th place with a time of 8:40.

I missed out on a few goals I set for myself this past weekend, but I still got a lot satisfaction from the day. There is a certain sense of accomplishment that comes from sticking things out even when the day is not what you hoped for. It makes it easier to push yourself on the days that are going your way.

I have one more race before putting my feet up for an offseason. I will be traveling down to New Zealand to race Challenge Wanaka on January 17th.

I’d like to personally thank John Fell with Advantage Packaging for stepping in as a title sponsor for IMAZ. I’d also like to congratulate him on his 12:22 finish on Sunday.

Happy Holidays,

Justin Daerr

www.eas.com
www.javbike.com
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www.trainingbible.com
www.jaggad.com

A little over two weeks ago I was racing the Soma HIM down in Tempe. I made little mention to the details of the race (other than that it didn’t go so well), but I should mention that I had a crash… …on the run.

At the start of the run I clearly realized that I was WAY out of contention so I just decided to run at an IM effort in order to save my legs. As a result, I was occassionally running on the dirt/grass that paralleled the bike paths/sidewalks we were running on.

About 3/4 of the way through the first mile I was cruising along enjoying myself.

About 3/4 +.001 miles into the run I was on the ground.

Apparently they set porta pottis fairly close to the sidewalk, but they are even closer when you are running on the dirt. I came cruising by at the very moment that some dude swung the door open. I slammed into so hard that I fell backwards and actually did a somersault. I was left with a nice bruise/cut on my face as well.

All I could think was:

“That’s about right.”

This moment made me think back on things that have happened to me over the past 8+ years.

In 2002 I was racing a HIM in a speedo. I crashed on a chip sealed road.

I don’t wear a speedo when I race any more. I suspect anyone that still does has not crashed while wearing one.

In 2003 I was on my way home from a ride in College Station, Texas. I was stopped at the train tracks (I spent about 967 hours on either side of these trains in college). As the train passed, the railroad crossing barriers rose. I began to ride across the tracks. Then the barrier cranked at its hinge and fell directly on me… …like a tree falling in the woods. This did not happen in the middle of nowhere. This was one of the busiest intersections near campus (Wellbourne and G Bush for those in the know) and traffic kind of stopped in shock and people came over to see if I was ok (such humanitarians). I was OK because of my helmet.

Wear your helmet because something might fall on you.

In 2006 I was racing in Lake George, New York. The race director had invited me out to race and do a presentation the evening before the event. Its a lot of fun to do these sorts of things, but you definitely get the feeling that you_cannot_race poorly.

I came out of the water in 2nd and came out of T1 in first. Good deal.

The bike course began with a climb that went up a narrow bike path. I had my bike shoes on, but somewhere on the bike path I decided I needed to adjust the strap. I reached down to fix them.

Then I was on the ground.

I had managed to edge my wheel off course and I slammed down on the ground HARD. I thought about how awesome it would be to crash out of this race (that I wanted to win) in a single athlete collision… …while leading the race.

Fortunately I didn’t wreck my bike (or myself) too badly and I was able to roll on to victory.

In 2008, I crashed into a porta potti.

jd

A few days ago I was chatting with my friend about what I consider to be ‘acceptable fatigue.’ The conversation stemmed from talking back and forth about how tired we were.

The first question is: when does ‘being tired’ become detrimental to your goals?

I’ve spent a lot of time asking this same question and I usually don’t get the answer until I’ve overdone it and find myself fairly shelled. This is not to say that I intended to wear myself out, but rather, I underestimated the cost on certain training blocks and/or sessions. Over time I accumulate enough real world data (by this, I mean, how I feel) to know how to place workouts appropriately.

This past round of training I have experimented with new sessions in an attempt to breakthrough on various levels. While the sessions themselves went well I found myself needing nearly 72 hours to fully recover from them as opposed to the 24 or 48 hours that I had anticipated. While this might not seem like a big deal, I find that it is. Something that takes so long to recover from cannot become a weekly staple in your training plan. It might become something you do monthly or every few weeks knowing that the cost will be high (but the return might be worth it). Trying to make it a weekly staple will cost you too much fitness loss when compounded week after week.

Another question: when is it ok to train tired?

This question is a bit complicated because we are almost always somewhat tired. I see two primary thinking patterns amongst folks I know:

1. Do the best that you can every day. Some days will be better than others and that’s ok.

2. Only train at the prescribed power, pace of the session or shut it down.

My own line of thinking falls somewhere in the middle of those. There are certain days when I know that my level of fatigue from past sessions might not allow me to execute workouts perfectly based on the intensity guidelines (i.e. goal pace/power). In my mind, being off by a couple percentages is ok. Being off by huge margins (and subsequently feeling awful) is not.

A practical example:

1. I am planning to ride long intervals continuously between X and X+30 watts with a target of sitting around X+15. I had hard training the 24 or 48 hours beforehand and can only really manage hanging around in the X to X+5 range. In this case, I roll on. I might also take more breaks/recovery intervals to try to keep power up. I adjust the workout so that I can still manage to hit the target numbers. (For ex: I might ride 8 x 10 minutes on 5 min rest instead of 4 x 20 on 5 min rest).

2. I am planning to ride long intervals continuously between X and X+30 watts with a target of sitting around X+15. Getting anywhere near that range is a massive struggle; my legs burn, my HR is depressed (or elevated) and I’m cranky. The only option is to ride easy. In this case, I go home or cut the session short.

It takes time to know when you are simply tired and need a longer warm up (or an adjustment to the session); and when you really need to shut things down to regroup. I never do things perfectly and I’m constantly trying to learn how various sessions and training blocks affect me. All this is in hopes that one day, when there aren’t many seasons left, I might just get it right.

jd