A few days in already. Time flies. After a late arrival in Los Angeles I stayed in the airport (well, a hotel room, not a terminal bench) on Monday evening and then drove myself the couple of hours south to the San Diego area I now know so well. There has been a coldy type thing hanging around since the flight – the bonuses of travel I suppose – and I am doing my best to shrug it off. The warmth of the sun is helping

I am not doing the best with my swim training of late. It turns out the pool is shut for ‘construction’, so I am having to drive a fair bit to get to the next one. Luckily I can borrow the truck to get there…hHopefully it won’t be too big an issue, as I swam pretty consistenly right through September back in the Shire.

The biking is going ok – I just got 2, 3, 4 hour rides in to remind the legs over the last 3 days. The riding is pretty hilly in these here parts, and I had forgotten just how hilly.  Nice views though, and once I get off the beaten track, no traffic either. Just how I like it.

I’m only here another 5 days and then it’s onwards to Texas for the Longhorn 70.3 in Austin. It will be a new State for me to visit, and a new race to experience. I’ll keep you posted

We really must got somewhere with decent views to train....

The week has flown by – more than 2 weeks up, less than 2 weeks to go. Training is ticking along.  However the mountains are a bizarre place to be – it snowed all morning yesterday (hence the beautiful backdrop) and yet today it was shorts and t shirt weather?!

Without question St Moritz is the best place i have ever been for running. The trails and paths are endless. The views are stunning, and if you were in any doubt about whether or not it was worth coming here to run – wander down to the track mid morning with some pop corn (or any savoury snack of you preference) and ‘olympic medal spot’. I have been, and let me tell you – the breathing rates are impressive! This morning Tim and I had a stunning run through the woods, hills and trails. I managed nearly 20ks, which given the problems I have been having with my foot since I arrived is a step in the forwards direction.

My swimming however is continuing to surprise me – every session seems to be getting better. The biking too is feeling strong, although when the gradient goes up my place in ‘the peleton’ is limited to less than 20 minutes. Thats ok though, Clearwater is flat!

In other news Gavin took home 5th place result in the Athlone ETU Cup event in his native Ireland. It was a close run thing and his chase for 2nd place involved some sneaky Spaniards … 3 of them seemed to get in his way. He’ll tell me about his 5th place when he arrives up here in the thin air Monday. – Looking forward to that.

Another very good friend of mine had a fantastic race this w/e. – Joe Gambles just won the Vineman 70.3 in Northern California in sublime style – off the front and alone into T2. I’m delighted to read he has pulled off his first 70.3 win in such superb fashion; he;s been having a helluva year since we trained together in April and deserves his spoils. I’m looking forward to racing him again later in the year!!

Finally, brother-Blair will be arriving in St. Mortiz this Thursday coming for the last week or the camp. I’m looking forward to showing him around – he’ll love it, if only becasue of the exotic cars that are everywhere!!

I know, you're supposed to get wet in a wetsuit, I know

Anyway, the title has a meaning (or a story at least) – this morning we had a nasty surprise on pooldeck; VO2/anaerobic max sprints …. call it what you will, it’s another way of saying ‘pain’ regardless of the numerous methods of rebranding available. – And I would suggest it is something that triathletes like us tend to suck at. Well, I do anyway.

The goal

Race w/u and start simulation

The Set

Minimal w/u into  2 * (12.5m MAX on 3 mins, 50m MAX on 4 mins, 100m MAX on 8 mins!!)

The boys

Gavin ’seriously-who does a 1000m w/u before a race? Who?’ Noble, David ‘Maccers’ McNamee, Mike ‘I’m in training for the Blenheim/Winsdor lead out double’ Adams, and myself – Fraser ‘clutching at straws’ Cartmell.

The gear

One very nice and perfectly normal race suit, as worn by Maccers, one all singing and dancing brand new TYR Sayonara swimskin (that’s me clutching at those straws for ANY available seconds) and two sets of back to basics old school budgie smugglers as fashioned by Noble and Adams.

The results

Serious amounts of lactate (it’s a deep burn as Gav pointed out), heavy breathing and less than spectacular times – with only Mike dipping under the minute on the ‘from a push 100s’.

The conclusions

We would probably have swum almost as fast on the 1.20 turnaround cycle, and budgie smugglers are still the way forward. – Oh, and it’s a deep burn.

I told you I was lashing two topics together....

It happens a lot less often than I would like, but every now and then I find myself saying “who needs warm weather training in far flung places all over the place when it can be like this in Stirling?”. Today (and the past few days) has been awesome…. I even got sun tan marks from my bike ride with brother Blair and Gav.

(Nearly) not a cloud in the sky. Brilliant.

Blue sky in Stirling. It might just last....

This week since the Disney 70.3 in, erm yes, you guessed it, Disney World Florida, has gone something like this:

Monday – pack and get ready to head home whilst watching the rain pour down in St Petersburg

Tuesday – leave and savour the splendour of Tampa and Newark airports.

Wednesday – arrive in Scotland town. It was raining but i was glad to be back! Easy 90 min bike, easy run.

Thursday – LONG sleep! Easy 3k swim to get rid of the ‘wierd’ feeling’, easy hour run, solid bike at the Falkirk APR – 75k total with 38k at 41kph – this is effectively my motor pacing session until Blair gets a moto licence .

Friday – Squad swim, 4k long course. Kaboom! – I was fine for 1500m of the 3500m main set and then the long course aspect of the session kicked in. – Lets say that short course yards in America for 2 months hasn’t been a good thing for my swimming…. 70 mins easy run. Easy bike with Gavin to come.

As I said, it’s good to be back.

I reckon Toby must've auditioned for the Zoolander film. Surely?

I was pretty tired and rushed during my last couple of days in California last week: I was recovering from the Wildflower race experience, organising all my gear (some was shipped home via the post) and packing up to arrive in Florida, all whilst trying to maintain a modicum of training volume. So when I arrived here in St Pete I was just looking forward to getting on with some training for a few days …. hence being so keen to get up early doors and join in with my hometays Tim+Carolyn for a swim/bike combo. I kinda wish I had stayed in bed last Saturday morning! – It really was a strange day, I just couldn’t figure out how on earth I could lose a bike in such a way. I mean I guess I must just be naive, but I know I would hand a bike in if I found it lying on the road in the middle of the night. Obviously not everyone thinks in a similar fashion.

Monday was a big relief though, as I was able to speak to Felt, and Pete (my contact) was superb; he straight away asked if I was ok, wondering if I has been involved in an accident. Then he assured me that it was simply a bike, and they could get me a replacement later in the summer, when I return to the States.

A really, really cool sponsor!

Nikola created this nice little graphic linking my site, Felt and twitter

For the remainder of the week I have been training nicely here in St Pete along with Toby. We are both racing in the Florida Ironman 70.3 on Sunday, which takes place on the Disney World property. I say property, as it sounds like you don’t see a single Mickey, Goofy or Donald Duck character during the race… pity.

It’s going to be a tough race without question. The heat and humidity combined will make it a completely different racing experience for me. I may not fare too well, I just have to give and go and see. It was a ‘let’s give it a go and see’ mentality that Gordon and I ended up following. Since I was still in the US it made some sense to try another event, (especially after the lack of results so far due to my injury problems) providing there were some sort of positives to derive from it. – Given that most of my sponsors are US based, and TYR are an event sponsor, it is nice to be able to race here in Florida. Once again I have to give a huge thankyou to Carolyn and Tim for being so accomodating – both Toby and I have been staying here and are made to feel as if we are at home and more!

The good news is that I have a whole month still to the UK 70.3 in Wimbleball, and I have now been running for a month, which is starting to mean I feel like I know what I am doing again! With another month under my belt, plus a couple tune up races back at home, I am finally confident that I can be on the start line to defend my title in the best shape possible.

Fingers crossed!

They weren't both mine .....promise

There hasn’t been too much terribly exciting happening, hence my lack of posts the past few days. However, I have been;-

- biking early doors Friday morning with Joe Gambles - hill reps, 50k, quick coffee stop, physio appointment, easy easy 30 min jog (woohoo), masters swim set, 5k (a toughie) …. all by 1pm. Then sleep!

- biking early once again with Joe – steady longer ride up and round the local hills, 115k, easy 30 min run (a little bit quicker than a jog!) …. oh and had the car washed.

- a lie in on Sunday. I found a new tv channel (ch 117) as I normally don’t go above ch 30 before getting bored. Watched IM’s Kona and NZ and thought seriously about wanting to do one again this year. Then thought again and went to the pool. 4k of mindless up and down up and down. Easy (but not quite as easy as yesterday) 30 mins run.

- biking (yet again) at the crack of dawn with Joe – hill reps once more. Quick coffee (and muffin – just the one) stop – as pictured above, physio appt before riding home to round up another 115k. 

An easy day tomorrow, since on Wednesday I will be travelling all day over to Florida. Gottalovethetravel.

I’ve been racking up the miles; the Felt(s) and I have become much better friends over the past 10 days, which is no bad thing. The running still isn’t happening – but I am aiming for shuffling along once more by this w/e, providing the physio gives me the go ahead.

After the California 70.3 a week past Saturday I was able to get back into good training as soon as the Monday. Usually after a race like that I would have to wait till the Wednesday or so till the legs feel ready to start again, so it certainly shows the impact the run has on the body. Which I guess I never really appreciated, rather I just figured it was an entire accumulation of the swim, bike and run. Nope, it’s the run that does the damage!!

So, I got stuck into a solid week to build on the swim/bike effort I had in Oceanside. In total last week I got just under 20 hours of riding done and nearly 10 hours of swimming. Thats was including a great ride up the mountain on Saturday backed up by another 100ks the following day, giving a 9hr bike w/e.

Since then I have kept it going through this week. Myself and Joe Gambles have had 2 cracking rides together so far this week. Monday we had a steady ride up and down the coast mostly on the famous Highway 101. Again today we mixed it with a bunch of roadies within a solid group ride that starts in Carlsbad and heads out onto the 70.3 bike course that we tackled last w/e. – This is on a Marine Base, so you have to show valid ID to pass through the camp gates – it’s kinda weird having a group of 50 riders grind to a halt to present their passports to a watching Marine!! 

It was a great ride, with a whole cross section of riders, some triathletes, most roadies and a smattering of US based Pro riders – the most active being a dude on the same team as Floyd Landis – team Ouch. This won’t seem as funny in print, but for some reason it looked like team Ooch the way it was printed on his jersey and Joe and I were laughing like kids most of the way round whenever we followed his wheel… it’s the little things I am afriad.

I am pretty wrecked right now on the sofa, but I am quite excited about the way I am riding the bike just now. It is deffinately faster than I have ever been, and that is certainly a good thing. - With uber-riders Chris Lieto, Bjorn Andersson and Torbjorn Sindballe on the start list for Wildflower in a couple weeks, just to name a few, I will have to get my skates on.

As I said….it’s all about the bike right now.

It would be safe to say that they rank up there in my top five favourite foods, I just try not to eat them too often, for I know I will end up wanting them everyday – especially here in the States. I’d just tucked away a solid 5k swim with the masters swim squad in Enchinitas (1K band only!! into a 3K main set with lots of hard 300s and 200s), and I had an hour to while away waiting for a man about a bike. So the perhaps-not-so-aptly-named Potato Shack around the corner had my name all over it!

and they gave me a small blueberry one??

 I don’t plan on eating anytime soon thats for sure.

defeated!

There are some great views around the Southern California hills

It really is quite lumpy around these parts if you go explore. Which I am trying to do more now, at least more so than on previous visits here. There are some busy roads, major freeways/motorways in fact, all about, and yet thankfully I am able to sneak off onto a maze of back roads without much trouble. A great training environment without doubt.

And when I got a little tired of looking out at the views, I looked down at the pretty colours on my top tube

Oh yeah, I almost totally forgot!

After a good many months training in Australia and South Africa over the years, I finally had a real live snake slither and wriggle across the road right in front of me. Jeeso they are fast, and before I knew it the wriggly beastie was offski. – Not without scaring the bejesus out of me first though!!