Weekly Round-up

Dear Athletes

We hope you all had a great weekend and enjoyed the pleasant weather!

GOOD FRIDAY 1.9km OPEN WATER SWIM CHALLENGE 6.45am:

It is Easter this coming weekend, and as such there are a few planned changes to the program that you should be aware of, most notably Friday morning's swim session.

There will be no squad swim session(s) this Friday due to the Public Holiday (5.30am, 6.30am, 7.30am or 9.30am), however, never one to let you guys down...we will be running a social, 'non-event' handicap 1.9km swim down at Cottesloe Beach instead. Swimmers will start the swim in small waves with the slower swimmers heading off first. This is open to all our squad swimmers (including the Time-4-Me) group and you may also bring a friend along with you too. We need a couple of volunteer paddlers to assist if anyone is keen? Please email me if you can help out. The first swimmer across the line will win a small Easter surprise - so get moving!

Details - meet at 6:45am on Friday 10th April on the grassy area in front of the pylon at Cott Beach for a 7:15am  first-swimmer start. Please come prepared with an idea of how long 1.9km will take you. The course will be north from Cott Beach for 950m before turning around and heading back. There will be no charge for this swim, but equally it is entirely your own responsibility and risk when partaking. All swimmers will be asked to sign a small waiver to that effect. We hope you can make it!

CHANGES TO TRAINING THIS WEEK / HIM PROGRAM:

All sessions will run as normal (http://www.theteamcore.com/weeklyprogram.html) with the following exceptions:

Monday AM - those who didn't run on Sunday can do up to 1h20 run this morning. PM - wind trainer session in the Sweat Shack at 6 / 6.15pm.

Tuesday AM & PM - all as normal - 5.30am, 6.30am, 7.30am and 7pm squad swims all running.

Wednesday AM - all as normal - please wear your new cycle gear at the session at 5.50am!

Thursday AM - ocean swim at 6.30 / 6.45am at Cottesloe Beach. PM - running now at McGilvray Oval for next 4 weeks 6 / 6.15pm. 

Friday AM - Cottesloe 1.9km swim at 6.45 / 7.15am

Saturday AM - no official Brick Session. Meet at Bell Tower at 7am for a social Easter Saturday ride around the river. I am happy that HIM athletes have done enough on the brick front over the last 3 weeks, and now need an easy ride this Saturday. There will be NO 1pm Squad Swim Session today.

Sunday - REST DAY

Easter Monday - no sessions running. HIM athletes to do a 1h15 steady run + a 1h00 easy ride if possible.

Tuesday 14th April onwards - all sessions as normal.

BOOT CAMP BREAKDOWN:

It was a great weekend enjoyed by all 13 athletes and 2 coaching staff over at the Kingstown Barracks on Rottnest Island. We arrived late on Friday night and quickly had dinner at the newly renovated Rottnest Hotel - very nice indeed! On the Saturday morning we had our brick session in fine (but windy) conditions (more on this below). Shortly after the session, Paul was handcuffed and faced eviction from the island by the Rottnest Island authority* for apparently not having warned them in advance that we would be over doing the session (despite several months of written communication to the contrary). Paul was soon released and sent on his merry way when they realized that our gang weren't the hooligans that they were initially believed to be! This was just in time for an ocean swim technique session in the afternoon and finishing up with Taper Time Tapas at the Rottnest Hotel. Next morning we had the choice of a bike, run or just a coffee from the Dome (!) before heading back on the 11am ferry. It was a great weekend and everyone showed a great amount of Composure during the brick despite of the variable course / conditions, Consistency on their lap splits and an excellent sense of Camaraderie - which is exactly what training with The TEAM CORE is all about. Well done chaps - we had a blast!

* this is of course "tongue in cheek" - we'd like to thank the Rottnest Island Authority for their help and support following explanation of the session to the Head Ranger later that day.

BRICK SESSION RESULTS:

The brick session was due to be 1500m swim + 85 km ride + 12km run. The swim was incredibly rough and tough going into the rising sun and made sighting very difficult. Upon analysis and re-calculation it appears that the swim was also 200m short and pace times have been adjusted accordingly. 

A few of the Team got lost on the bike course (and as such rode shorter laps - albeit very consistently!) and the overall distance was 3km further than originally planned at a nice total of 88km. It was also very windy on parts of the course which slowed the riders considerably. 

On the run it was hot, hot, hot and a run-in with the Rottnest Ranger over marking the course with three removal red cones resulted in variable lap distances for some of the earlier runners, but as pointed out by Judi, it was still a great session and the chance to string together a considerable swim, bike and run session over a challenging (yet scenic course). 

Times weren't fast overall and again we see drops in the overall "HIM Guestimates" from the previous 2 weeks, however, having now done 3 of these sessions in a row, athletes are well ready for some R&R and to look positively forward to a well-rested, windless (?!) race down in Busselton on the 2nd May. Well done Team!

Full lap times / splits can be viewed now at http://www.swimsmooth.com/Documents/brick_3.xls

NB. Please ignore any notes that pop up above your name saying "DNF - time inputted to help calculate predicted HIM time" as these were from last week!

NOTABLE PERFORMANCES:

Swim Improvement (including re-calculation for a 1300m course):

Carl Andrews - averaging 1:29 / 100m on the swim

Judi Clemie - averaging 1:43 / 100m on the swim

Helen Buckle - averaging 1:43 / 100m on the swim

Desiree de Silva - averaging 1:53 / 100m on the swim

Mary Tennant - averaging 2:04 / 100m on the swim

Anna Foster - averaging 2:05 / 100m on the swim

Transition Improvement:

Caitlin Hunt - down from 10:08 to 9:08 including a mechanical...still some work to do ;-)

Composure from swim to bike:

Helen Masson

Sub-60s Lap Consistency on the bike:

Helen Buckle - 34s

Judi Clemie - 35s

Mel Cundy - 44s

Sub-60s Lap Consistency on the run:

Jo Thomson - 53s

Run Improvement:

Nathan Thomson - averaging 5:39/km

Keen-as-mustard on the run:

Renee Baker - doing an extra 3km run to make it 15km off the bike!!

Cheers

Paul