Noosa training

Recently I went to Noosa for a long weekend, which was a nice treat. I intended to do an ocean swim race but (as sooo often) it was sold out. So then on Sunday, I took joined thousands of cyclists in the Century Ride. It was the best riding in a very long time. Not many cars, No stop lights, lots of Nature and lots of fit cyclists and fun in bunch riding. And they had Gummi Bears at the halfway point station! You even got a new water bottle filled up with energy drink. My brick run led me onto a trail that goes off Main Beach along the cliffs past Tea Tree Bay towards Alexander Bay. Looked like Maui or Kauai's Na Pali in small format.

The beaches near Noosa are amazing and empty. The photo shows Marcus beach. I ran there for an hour the next Monday and I loved it. It reminded me a lot of Kailuana / Kailua Beach. I also joined the Noosa Tri Team for their morning swim. In the summer, about 20-25 elite athletes come here to prepare for several months. Noosa is great for training for sure- just the pool alone is impressive. I have never seen such clean pool showers. But all pools I have seen here in the area are amazing. Usually there are two olympic size pools to fit all the squads in in the mornings.

10k swim

I did 10,000 m of swimming on Monday. A 7,000 m in the AM as an interval session and a 3,000m easier one in PM. My coach was like: "How are you feeling after swimming more in a day than most people ever swim in a week?"
Considering that I hit the interval times for the 100s the next morning I guess I feel pretty good. But it is amazing how the body adapts and even leaves me impressed. I am shooting for 17 hour swim week.
And- I am carrying a chlorine tattoo under my skin instead of an IM logo, setting a new trend of being recognized as a dedicated athlete.
The pic was taken in Incline Village/ Lake Tahoe during a training session for the Xterra Nationals.

Beautiful Girls

Recently my teacher of "Sport & Physical Activity in Society", showed calendar pictures and advertisement posters with "lightly" dressed female athletes on it and blabbered an entire 2 hours about the "rude" media that exploit female athletes by portraying them as "sex objects". His argument was that those athletes should not be portrait in this way, but in their sports clothes and be credited for their athletic ability not for their curves. I don't know why he has not considered the fact that maybe we don't even mind??
Here is my point of view: We are sexy women; and our curves are worth while showing! We are proud of our bodies and we are not shy to show them! We love to dress into our training gear, get our munition ready to hit the trails, get dirty and sweaty while pushing limits. BUT that's not all we've got -- Nope! We love to throw those dirty "athletic" cloths behind, get the heels out and the jewels on and show how beautiful we are - and we love it!

Flyday

Today was not an Aloha Friday at the pool but Aloha Flyday. My question when glancing at the main set was, "does this workout come with a massage therapist?" I had not done any butterfly since I left the UH swim masters in 2004. It went surprisingly smoothly and it was fun to do. The more I butter-flied the more I liked it. Although I kept "hydrated" along the way; and realized the water got a touch saltier, since I started swimming at Somerville last year. Killing germs with a shot (or 2) with Jaegermeister never hurt. Prost!

Sydney

I am still wrapping my mind around mental toughness - so for now I post the promised entry on my training weekends away from Brissy. First one: SYDNEY
I stood near Bronte, Tamarama. Tamarama surf & life saving club was the first one in Australia. Heath Ledger lived in Tamarama along other celebs. The weather was cool but sunny and the beach path was filled with athletes and fitness warriors. Surfers, runners, kick boxers, boot campers, triathletes on trainers, swimmers. I have been to this area in 2006 as I stood with a friend from the Xterra circuit. Beside a run at Bondi that stay had included a training camp to Jindabyne (vivid memories of that one).
And swimmers are all over the place. If you ever happen to enter a pool in Oz, you will notice one thing: Everybody can swim. I mean really swim. Freestyle. And they are all moving quite well, acutally; and if they don't, they pretend they do. There is always a nice swim climate no matter what time of the day you go to the pool. The city pools get interesting at lunch. Business people show up like bee swarm. They show up in suits, disappear into the changing room, come out transformed into speedo's, swim 30', disappear, come out geschniegelt & gebuegelt (sorry that's german, means "all spruced up") into their suit and disappear with their laptop bag like they just closed a big deal. What is very special in Bondi area are the ocean pools. There is one on each corner. I am not exactly sure why people prefer doing laps over "free-swimming" in the ocean itself. I was happy to be able to go for several ocean swim's and the water temp was ok enough to not wear a wetsuit. The ocean is very different to the one at home. No corals, turtles, fishes, not drowned engines.. but empty. Literally. All you can see is the blue wide water and the sandy bottom. And if you stick your head out you can see the buoys of the shark nets. I did not bring my bike, so my training consisted of swim, run, swim - swim, DWR, swim and stretching. I ran the path from Bronte to Googee. It is stunning. It runs along the cliffs and if you are eager to do so you could do an entire marathon distance on that path going along the coastal line.

Training Update

Oi- To the AUS audience - Aloha to all Hawaiians at heart. And I guess a Gruess Dich to the German crowd.

I apologize to all who follow my blog about the lack of posts recently. It's been soo busy- but in a good way. I am back in Brissy and have been submerged in school, training and working more than ever. I am still spending a lot of time on my swim and I am seeing improvements. I join the RiverCity Swim Squad about 2 times per week and swimming in a group is awesome-ly more fun; not only because of the draft. Felicity Abram joins in once in a while.
Some changes in my training will most likely occur any time in the near future. Soon I will increase my bike and run again and I look forward to that. Regards the swim I will start to focus more on developing strength and increase overall intensity (yep-got it all sorted out (:
I also hope to be back with my coach Mike McMahon soon again. It's just too tough to be your own objective judge about what needs to be done. I am very pleased with my past couple of training blocks. Being in the Human Movements Program is awesome. Everything is soo interesting!! I wish I had more time to dig deeper into the subjects. For example I am currently learning more about Mental Toughness and what differentiates successful athletes from less-successful ones. I will put on a report on my website soon- along with some training reports from Sydney and Noosa- So:: Keep checking back!
Make it Matter.

Studying Hawaiian Style

How much better can it get? I love it!