Final Preparations

Leading into what will be quite easily my biggest week of racing with both Alpe'D huez long course triathlon and Ironman UK, everything feels like it is on track to get some good results.
Over the past few weeks we have done some massive sessions and I am feeling alot stronger and confident than I have for a long time.
I've even had some luck go my way. On Saturday I was out riding with a small group of the boys on an easy ride, we were about 100m from the summit of one of the climbs which was going to be our turnaround point and we decided to have a bit of fun and race each other the last few metres. With my amazing lack of speed I was holding the wheel of the guy in front, both out of the saddle and sprinting as hard as we could when his handle bar simply snapped and sent him straight to the ground in front of me, I had no time to react, hit him and went straight over the handle bars. Amazingly I came out of it with barely a scratch while Dan, the other guy who came off ended up with some pretty bad cuts and bruises and my chain-ring in the back of his leg. So it could have been alot worse!
 
On Thursday my new Time trial bike should be ready to ride and I'll have the rest of the week to test it out and get used to it. After waiting seven months I am quite excited that finally I'll get to ride it.
The big week starts with the long ride to Alpe'D huez with the rest of the team on Sunday and Monday then our race Wednesday. That afternoon I head back to Leysin and pack for Ironman UK which is on Sunday. If all goes well I will be back in camp on Tuesday for a week before heading home for a short period to celebrate Tylers 1st birthday and christening then return to have a crack at some more of the European races.
Otherwise everything else is going along nicely, I have settled into camp well and coping with the workload better than I expected, a bit of fatigue is setting in now after some big weeks and I have been a bit lothagic with my blogging and emails but with a bit of freshening up I will feel like a million dollars. 

Aaron.

Just a quite training week in the hills

Bit of a quite week last week after my trip to Denmark. I got back on Monday and just tried to get back into a bit of rythem with training. It took until Saturday before I started to feel good again after the food poisoning episode but everything is back on track now and I am feeling good.
Most of us are heading to France for a race on the 27th of July at Alpe D'Huez so that will be my next appearance and from what I have heard, a very interesting race. The 115km bike leg finishes with the climb to the top of Alpe D'Huez then we run around the top at some crazy altitude. I think its 2200m. So that should be alot of fun...
As part of the trip we have to ride to the race, which is about 300km away over 2 days before the race then back home. But I think I might have found something even crazier to do instead. I have entered Ironman UK the following weekend, so will probably just leave straight from France.

Time to head for bed and prepare for another long day tomorrow..

Aaron.

What a disaster!

My first trip to Denmark was certainly one to forget. Most of my memories of the weekend include something to do with the above picture..
After some good preparation and recovery leading into the race at Aarhus I ate something bad along the trip and spent the rest of the weekend sick with my head down the toilet bowl.
From Friday morning I couldn't eat anything without bringing it back up but for some reason decided it would be best for me to have a go at the race regardless. I knew I probably wouldn't finish but if I didn't have a go I would have been left wondering what might have happened.
As you can imagine things went bad and I ended up crawled up into a ball on the run course with massive stomach cramps, not even able to move.
We made the trip home yesterday and I attempted some light training today unsuccessfully, still unable to keep my food down. Hopefully I can get rid of this in the next few days and back into some serious training again.

Not everyone in our team had such a bad time though, Caroline ended up winning the womens race with a massive gap back to second and another couple of our girls went 1st and 3rd in Ironman Austria. So Congrats!!

Aaron.

Check out my home for the next few months

 Thought I would take some shots of my pad over here so everyone back home can see what this place is like. Its only small but in the centre of town with some amazing views over the Swiss alps.
We are at about 1200m so similar to Thredbo back in Oz.
The village is alot bigger than I was expecting and has most facilities that we need including the 25m pool.

View out the window over the Alps, still with snow over the peaks.

Through the front door into the kitchen

Sleeping with my new bike and wheels on the top bunk!

The kebab shop to the left. My room is on top of the building behind it. My lastest dilemer is that it has shut for the next month. Now I have to do some cooking..

Looking through my front door into the kitchen/living area

Training for an Ironman..

Time for a change

Exactly twelve months ago I was racing for a small team in Germany as I had for the previous two years before, I was in quite a comfortable position getting paid by the club and looked after well, both in and away from the triathlon scene when it hit me that I needed a change. I was doing the same races every year, getting the same or similar results without really improving and just getting to comfortable with the position I was in. With our first child on the way later that year the same results weren’t going to cut it and I made the conscious decision that if I couldn’t improve my results it was time to move on with my career.

At that time I didn’t know what the answer was, I knew I needed a proper triathlon coach some proper training partners and a fresh beginning.

I finished the last race with the club winning the series both as an individual and as a team.

I kept my plans pretty quite, the only people I talked openly about it with, were the family that had taken me in. They understood exactly what I meant when I talked about my lack of respect for the teams main sponsor and my frustration that I was not improving and helped me look for other alternatives.

One year later and with some help from some good friends I am in the Swiss alps part of one of the most successful triathlon teams of the modern day with a list of great sponsors as long as my arm and a coach who has guided the best athletes at the peak of their careers to greatness.

As for the results, they’re coming! After a broken leg which cut my training for four months I managed to win the Noumea triathlon off basically a months running then finished third in Weihai Long Course World Championship series a month later. With a long way to go to get back to 100% the results can only get better and I am excited about what I might be able to achieve in the future.

Getting out of my comfort zone and making the change was the best thing I could have done and I am determined to make the most of it for however long it lasts. I look at my former training partner who is still at the club doing to same thing and getting worse results and think what a good decision it was. If you ask him why he’s still there he’ll tell you he gets paid well and has a good setup with the sponsor but  when it gets to that point in my career when I lose that desire to improve and the desire to win its time to move on. The change has given me new focus and more determination with a platform to achieve whatever I want in triathlon and I am extremely grateful for the opportunity.

Now the rest is up to me.

First day

I received one of my new frames and disc wheels today. I have to wait for the rest of the bike to turn up but I could'nt help playing with it and got as much as I could togeather.
In the next couple of weeks we are going to be the first team to promote the new Campagnolo 11 speed electric groupset. So it should be a pretty sweet ride in a few weeks! Hopefully its together for my next race in Aarhus.