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Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Warm weather

After a shocking first week here the rain has finally cleared and things are warming up.
The last thing I threw in the suitcase turned out to be the most valuable.. my snow jacket for the bike! I didnt even consider leaving home last week without it.
So I am in between races now, my next event is in Kraichgau on the 6th of June followed by three other races in the next three weekends, all around this area.
At the moment I'm just trying to get a bit of strength back again after a month of shorter races mixed with tapering, recovering and flights it does'nt leave much time for good solid training sessions and I feel I can improve from where I am at the moment leading into the next few races.
Hopefully the weather remains clear for the next few weeks and things will be looking good for the upcoming races.
Aaron.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Cold Start

My first race for the team today went well, we finished second in pretty cool conditions.
As a team time trial we had to stay together as a group.We start with 5 guys and at least 4 have to cross the finish line, so basically we drop the weakest person at some point of the race.
It was a bit of a funny race, we were planning on dropping our first guy during the swim thinking he would be at least a minute slower than the rest of us but as it turned out one of our other guys was having a bad day and also came out with our slower swimmer so we had to wait as a team now for both to exit the water while other teams cruised past us.
Eventually we got rolling quite well as a group of 5 guys on the bike and worked our way back up to second place, about 1.40 behind the leaders which over 8km on the run we knew was going to be hard to pull back even with a good group of runners that we had.
In the end the gap was to much for us to close and we finished about 1.30 behind the winners and well in front of any other team
So I have a break from the club racing now for a few weeks but fill in the gaps with a couple of Challange events, one here in Germany and the other in France starting on the 6th of June.
So back into a bit of solid training till then.
Aaron.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Touch Down

Made it back over to Germany again yesterday after the haul over from Oz. Since I arrived it has been freezing cold and raining. Its so cold that there is talk of making the race this weekend a duathlon.
Hopefully the rain will clear and I'll be able to get back into a rythem again. Things should start to warm up over the next few weeks. My race this weekend will be my first for the team. Its a team time trial and we have a good chance of winning. Will keep in touch.
  

Monday, May 10, 2010

2nd in Noumea

Well, I'm still trying to calm myself down after yesterday.
Basically I finished second which I was happy with and set my quickest time over a non drafting (for most of us!!) course of 1.50.05.
I came out of the water in the second group about 30 sec down on the leaders with Patrick Verney and John Polson followed by Cam Brown who was about another 30 sec back. Within the first few km we had caught the lead guys and gone straight to the front trying to set a good pace but now we had guys sitting on the back of our group unwilling to take their turn at the front that were just waiting for the run. For some reason the official drafting rule over here is 5 metres but from third place back in our group it was basically draft legal as conditions were reasonably calm and the rule was'nt enforced. So on a pretty flat and fast course, as much as we wanted to we wer'nt going to get rid of the guys that were unwilling to work and it was looking like it was going to be an ITU style finish.
As unfair as this was I had to prepare for the run as best I could which meant doing smaller turns at the front, spending minimal time there and making sure my nutrition side of things was spot on.
We rolled into transition as a large group and as predicted the guys that done nothing on the bike went straight to the front. After doing alot of the work on the bike Patrick made his feelings heard, sprinting the first 100m to catch the leader and letting him know his thoughts. At this time I was about 15m behind just trying to put one foot in front of the other wishing I had a turn of speed like that so I could do the same thing.
I got my legs back quickly and joined the lead group of three.
By the end of the first lap we had opened up a good gap and the three of us seemed to be running comfortably. It was'nt untill about the 6km mark that Ryan Scissons made his move and left John Polson and myself in his wake I chased as hard as possible and dropped John in doing so but the move was enough to give hime the win.
We have some presentations tonight then I begin the trip back to Europe tomorrow morning with a quick stop over in Canberra tomorrow night and my first club race next weekend.
Aaron

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Back in Noumea

Just arrived back in Noumea again last night with the race tomorrow. All is looking good so far with reasonable weather and the bike still in one piece after the flight, although the bike case was'nt so lucky!
The race starts at 8am in Noumea, so about 7am back home in Oz. Its non drafting over an olympic distance course.
Again there is a pretty reasonable field with Cam Brown, Patrick Verney and a handfull of short course guys from Australia, New Zealand and Asia. So it will be an interesting race, I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.
Aaron.