Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Training, the Half Ironman & Lance Armstrong!

Dear Athletes

Wow! Its great to be back! Believe it or not, we did encounter one final hurdle on our adventure around the world - when we got to Manchester to check-in for our flight back to Perth it transpired that Jackson's ticket allocation had gone AWOL. What apparently happened was that there was another Paul Newsome travelling with an M Newsome, flying on the same flight back to Perth! Unbelievable! The computer spotted what it thought was a duplicate and cancelled our tickets as a result. Because the other Paul Newsome checked in before us and were obviously confronted with what would have been a strange question of "where is your baby? Baby Jackson?" to which they evidently replied "but we don't have a baby called Jackson!" - Jackson was then shut out of the system as well! Nightmare. Emirates says this has never happened before with a relatively uncommon name like mine. Very weird! Normally it would be a simple case of re-issue the ticket and be done with it, but due to both flights being fully booked, this was not quite so easy! In the end, someone else was unlucky enough to get downgraded and sit on the tarmac whilst we were allowed to fly back (complete with a very generous luggage allowance which we received as compensation!). So it all worked out well in the end and now we're back, safe and sound!

Training this week:

Adam returns this evening from the UK, but I will essentially be running all the sessions as per the timetable at http://www.theteamcore.com/weeklyprogram.html this week. I'd like to extend a very big thank you to all the coaches who ran the sessions whilst I was away - I've been receiving some great feedback from you all this morning about how that went down, so thanks! If you have any further input you'd like to add, please email me directly.

The openwater session on Thursday at 6am at Cottesloe Beach will proceed as normal this week - hope you can make it - it's lots of fun!

Saturday - due to the Rottnest Channel Swim rehearsal races this Saturday at Sorrento, it is recommended that those of you who are involved in the swim this year in whatever capacity should swim at this event on either Saturday and/or Sunday. Last year most of us solo swimmers did the "double-up" (5km on Saturday and 10km on Sunday) - so if you're going well, I'd recommend this too! Please note the 1pm squad session will still run as well - come on down for some fun!

For those of you training for the Half Ironman event on the 2nd May, please follow the recommendations this Saturday from the Master Plan (more on this below).

Half Ironman:

As it happens, there is still a waiting list of +250 people for this year's event. You should hear by midweek, next week, if you were one of the lucky ones who snaffled-up one of the 200 extra places allocated. As such, please can you email me if you are either A) already in; or B) on the waiting list and C) keen to be involved in some of our dedicated sessions for this event. I need to know exactly who and how many in the squad will be training and competing at this event so as to then post-out an updated training itinerary for you to use free of charge. Also, if you'd be keen to look at purchasing a "bulk-buy" discount card to attend the block of training leading up to the event, please let me know and I'll look at what is practical given my concerns that many people may have missed out on their entry this year.

Stu and Helen attempt to smash Lance Armstrong at the TDU!

From Stu:

"Both Helen and I are riding in the Tour Down Under on the 22nd Jan and we've committed ourselves to the "Ride to Find a Cure" cause. Mr Armstrong's favourite cause, a worthy one it is too. Could you please help by posting a blog asking people to donate what they can.
 
 
It's gonna be a hard 160km's in red hot heat. I promise to beat Lance Armstrong and Cadel Evans to the finish!"

Please help if you can.

OK, cheerio - off to fight this jet lag - very much looking forward to catching up with you all soon!

Paul





No comments:

Post a Comment

Please add your comments here: