Boyd "Battler" Conrick's Training Blog

Professional triathlete Boyd Conrick and triathlon coach Peter Mauro are working together in pursuit of a Top 5 overall result at Ironman Mexico on November 29, 2009. Ironman Cozumel is a brand new event, and will suit Boyd with it's non-wetsuit swim and hot conditions. We will be using a unique training approach for this event, targeting Boyd's weaknesses and maintaining his strengths. The key ingredient in his preparation will be the use of a reverse periodisation, whereby he will eventually cover race distances at his goal heart rates and power outputs, immediately prior to his taper.
Boyd will be recording a weekly blog of his training, thoughts, and progress etc in the lead-up to the race. Check back regularly to stay in the loop.

Week 1 - Monday 14th September, 2009.

Hello Comrades and welcome to the first installment of what will hopefully become a weekly blog. First of all, congratulations to all those that competed at Southport in the World's last weekend. Special mention to Reggie for making podium, very solid!! Good to see Jane Mountford capture the world title too. Caught Emma Moffatt's win on the telly. Great to see a country girl standing on top of the world. Had the privelege of meeting Emma a couple of years back at the Noumea triathlon and she's a really down to earth girl with talent to burn. Actually her older brother Chris was also a very handy triathlete in his day.
Closer to home, I headed to Gloucester last weekend to race in the Mountain Man Tri Challenge. This is a great old race that throws a little bit of everything at the competitors. On Saturday I managed to break my kayak when I went for a practice paddle down the river. The water was really low. I then grabbed an old surf ski but ripped the foot-well apart. Lucky for me that I was travelling with a few wise heads from Redhead Surf Club and they managed to repair my boat using cable ties. Anyway, race day went well and although I am a little unfit at the moment I managed to not lose too much on the opening leg, the mountain bike. I got into gear in the paddle leg and felt stronger as the race progressed and was pretty happy to break the tape in first place. Well done to all that completed the race because it got bloody hot out there as the day unfolded. My good mates Nathan "Struggla" Stewart and Matt "Lucky" Kent raced really well and both recorded fastest individual legs. 
I'm headed to the Gold Coast this afternoon to take part in Round 1 of the Anaconda Adventure Series on Sunday. This should be a great race as competitors trace their way all around the oceans, rivers and rainforest areas of the stunning Gold Coast. This is my first time at this particular event and I'm really looking forward to it.
Anyway, gotta run. Hope everyone is going great guns and Pete isn't subjecting you to too many arduous sessions!!! Happy training...BC.

Week 2 - Monday 21st September, 2009.

How's everyone?
Well I definitely knew I was alive last weekend during the 1st round of the Anaconda Race Series on the Gold Coast. It was such a tough course on a very warm day and my winter hiatus came back to bite me. My heart-rate in the run and mountain bike legs was maxing out. I really struggled and felt a bit ordinary throughout the entire race. I got pumped in the swim leg and couldn't seem to get into a nice rhythm at all. Crossed the line in 5th place in 4hr 19 mins. Still have soreness in the ITB's four days later.
Just getting organised to have another crack at IM racing later this year. Looks like I will race IM Cozumel in Mexico. It's the first time the race has been held there and it's likely to be brutally hot. Pete's designed a new program for me and although he thinks it might be a little close now to have a great race in Cozumel, he does think it will be a good idea to race there and get a feel for what IM is all about again.
I just punched out my weekly key swim set which consists of 19 x 200m on 2:50. I did them in a 50m pool with my Profile speed-suit on and the set was fairly comfortable. I held all about 2:45 pace except the middle 4 where I lifted the pace a bit and held 2:36's. As the weeks progress, I am supposed to keep adding 2 more fast ones until all are 2:36 pace!!!!
Hope everyone is well............Keep plugging along......BC.

Week 3 - Monday 28th September, 2009.

Hello,hello,hello......
Well, into week 3 now, of my march back into the IM arena, and things are going pretty good. Supposed to ride long tomorrow after the morning speed set in the pool. The rain here is starting to set in and looks like we are in for a wet weekend. Can't say I've missed those long, wet pre-IM rides. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Completed a good key swim set a few days ago and had the pleasure of punching out the 19 x 200's with up and comer Scotty Llewellyn. Scott swims about 4.15 for 400m, so he definitely hikes in the water. It was good to have somebody there to share the monotony. He did it easier than me!
It's really shaping up as a mouth watering showdown next weekend, HAWAII that is. Word on the street has Crowie running the house down and Macca back to his best on the pushy, so it sure will be interesting to see how this one pans out. Throw in a handful of others and it's sure to be one of the more hotly contested IM Hawaii's we have witnessed for a while.
Well, gotta get some rest before the big planned Saturday. Sunday has a double run pencilled in, and then an afternoon with the boys watching the NRL grand final (that's Rugby League for you out of towners) on the big screen. Bring it on!!!!!!!!!!!!
                         Till Next Week.....Cheers..Boyd.

Week 4 - Monday 5th October, 2009.

Aloha friends,
Only two more sleeps until the IM world title will once again be decided on the black lava fields of the big island. One would be brave to go past Chrissie in the women's race, while the men's race however seems to be a little more wide open. I'm hoping C.J McCormack can bring home the title once again, but he really has his work cut out for him against the likes of Alexander, Bracht, Llanos, Potts and Co. Macca has spent some quality time up here in the Newcastle area in the last few years, and has even been engaged in some lengthy one on one's with our coach Pete on how to rectify that stiff right arm that he carries through his swimming. Bring on the big race!!
Closer to home, training has been going fairly well and the sessions have been getting done, but geez the pins have been a little heavy after some of my big days riding/running. I was impressed Wednesday with young Josh, a key member of the TrainingSmart crew. Josh is only 16, yet came out with me after 5km in the pool and rolled out 155km on the bike, then a 75 minute run. Sounds like we have an Ironman in the making.
Anyway, hope everyone is well and this dog's breakfast we call the weather is not getting you down too much. Good luck to Reggie who flies out to Asia today to compete in an ITU points race, and also to all the crew heading to Morpeth for the long running Maitland Triathlon. I've done this race approximately 10 or 11 times, but I am giving it a miss this year as I am focussing on some goals with the longer races.
                                     Stay Safe........Battler.

Week 5 - Monday 12th October, 2009.

Week 6 - Monday 19th October, 2009.

Hi Everyone,
Well the slog of training for another IM hit home this week. Unfortunately I missed most of last weekend's sessions, as the cold I had brought me to a grinding halt. This is pretty common in a preparation for an IM event but it still is frustrating knowing that you should be out there punching out the key bike and run sets, but instead you are on the lounge watching re-runs of Seinfeld. I have been back into things since Monday, but I am still suffering from the remnants of the virus.
Wednesday was again race simulation day, and provided us with kinder conditions than the previous week. In saying that, it was very warm, but that's okay with me. Anyway, IM Cozumel could be very hot, so it was probably a good thing. I started the day with a 6km swim, holding 2:35's for a set of 19 x 200m. I felt a bit ordinary, and struggled through the set. Until about midway through the 160km bike, I was still struggling, but managed to come good for the last 50km's, and for most of the 1 hour 40 minute run. I think I am starting to get fitter, as my speed in the run is increasing, while maintaining 130-140 HR. I am planning on paying greater attention to my HR throughout this program and even in the IM race, rather than looking too much at speed and worrying about what other athlete's are doing. I'm kind of planning to race myself. Not sure how that will go, but looking forward to trying it out in 5 weeks time.
    Hope you are well...........Safe training....Battler.

Week 7 - Monday 26th October, 2009.

How is everyone?
It's been a really sad week for everyone associated with anything sporting around Newcastle this week with the sudden passing of Peter "Goldfinger" Mackerras on Tuesday. Goldy coached me for many years when I competed as a young surf-lifesaver, and has remained as a mentor and friend to me for the last 20 years. He is the grandfather of my training partner Nathan Stewart, and coached many other athletes including our mate, dual Olympic kayaker Peter Scott. I can't put into words the positive effect Goldy has had on my life, and the lives of so many others. The term "legend" gets bandied around fairly loosely at times, but in the case of Goldy it most definitely applies. I will miss him dearly!
Onto more cheerful news, the guys and girls from the TSO squad performed really well last weekend at Gunnedah in a variety of triathlon formats, and proves that Pete must be doing something right, with some very solid performances right across the board.
I continued the grind towards IM Cozumel with my regular workouts, and used a Power Tap on my key bike session last Saturday for the first time, to get some specific feedback in regards to my power output, and what I can or cannot manage at the moment. After a hard swim session, the bike session was 180km in total and contained three efforts; 50km, 30km, and 10km, all sitting at 150-155HR. All efforts resulted in me exerting about 250 watts. I'm going to use the Power Tap this weekend at half IM Port Macquarie, and see what happens. It will be my first real triathlon since Byron Bay at the start of May, and I'm hoping to have a reasonably solid hit out and see where I'm at. Bring on the BIG hurt!!
                             Cheers........Battler.

Week 8 - Monday 2nd November, 2009.

Hey Everyone,
Well, the PM HIM went okay and wasn't any easier than I'd anticipated. It'd been a while since I competed on the TT bike in a traditional triathlon, and I was a bit rusty in a few areas. I finished 7th overall in 4hrs 9 minutes, which was basically about where I expected to be. My fitness was good and I felt pretty good, but I really lacked that top end HR stuff. When push came to shove, I couldn't go any faster. My swim was unusually slow, and although I did it easy in the pack, I felt I couldn't go any quicker. This is what happens when a) you haven't done a race in a while and b) you've done no threshold sessions. At the end of the day you are a product of what you practice. This was much the same on the bike. Distance was not a problem, but when the lead pack put the foot down at 70km, I was stranded and couldn't respond. Again, on the run I felt strong, but was a few minutes off the pace I would normally run for 21km. Did a 1.21. So all in all, not a bad result and I got a much needed hit-out for my upcoming IM. Pete and I sat down a few days ago and have tweaked the program slightly to help make some necessary improvements. Oh yeah, nearly forgot, I used the PowerTap on the bike portion of the half, and averaged 275 watts. Interesting to know!!!
         Train smart.....CIAO......Battler.

 Week 9 - Monday 9th November, 2009

Hi Troopers,
Hope you're all feeling more energetic than me today. I've had a few heavy days of training and I am suffering like a dog. I did the IM distance over three days, with a few other sessions thrown in. It went a bit like this: Saturday - 19 x 200m in the pool, fairly solid (about 49 minute pace), then had a run that afternoon. Sunday - 225km bike ride incorporating 180km behind Pete's motor bike at a solid pace. This was a seriously tough session, as it flogged down rain for the entire session and was just dismal. I felt really strong for the first 70km and was averaging 265 watts and 43.5km/h, but after that the wheels fell off a bit. I think my legs were still hurting a bit from last Sunday's Half IM and they just couldn't push that hard for the whole effort. I had a couple of bad patches at the 110km and 140km marks, and was really glad to get to the 180km mark. I still held over 40km/h for the session but couldn't hold the intensity I would have liked. Ran a few km's at 4.10/km pace off the bike, and felt okay. Monday - Legs were a bit tired from yesterday, as I set out on the 42.2km run session. I had to hold 4.10/km pace for the entire run, and stick to hard surfaces and predominantly flat terrain. For the first hour I felt a million dollars and was cruising. The next hour was much the same, and I held the paces quite easily, but my legs were getting very sore from the jarring on the hard run surface. The last 40 minutes were painful. My feet were on fire and my legs just ached, but I got there in the end and ran the distance in 2.55. I was very consistent throughout the run and always held between 4 minutes and 4.15/km pace. My HR was always between 142 and 161 beats per minute.
Come today though and my legs are GONE!!! I will now start to taper the training off, as I prepare for the IM in Cozumel in two and a half weeks. I am heading to Forster this weekend for the NSW Long Course triathlon championships. I'll let ya know how that goes. Until then, all the best.
                                          Cheers.   Battler...

Week 10 - Monday 16th November, 2009

Helloooo,
Well I won't try that again. Running a marathon within a week of doing a long course state title is definitely not a good idea. I swam okay on the weekend and my legs weren't too smashed on the bike leg, but when I jumped off with the leaders, ready to run, I knew I was in trouble. It felt like I had lead weights strapped to my legs and I just couldn't turn them over. Very demoralising, but I guess you have to try things out to see if they work or not. I felt like walking most of the 15km run, and sure was happy to find the finish line. Finished 7th in the end, which was a bit disappointing. Adam Holborrow should have won the race, but was pinned for a blocking infringement at the end of the bike, when he was 4 minutes up the road from the pack I was in. He got a 3 minute penalty after riding all the way by himself. It's absolute rubbish. He would have comfortably held off our pack of "runners" without the penalty. Man, the officials really need to take a step back sometimes and open their eyes to what is happening as the races unfold. I know we need rules, but for a guy to put in such a great bike split and set himself up for a state open title, only to have the rug pulled from under him at the closing stages of the bike leg, just isn't right. 
On better news, Team TSO had plenty of good results on the weekend, none moreso than Scotty Llewellyn, who came from behind to grab 3rd place in the Pro Tour on Saturday at Forster. With a few more of those races under his belt I think Scotty will really be percolating!!
                         Train Smart....Battler.

 Week 11 - Monday 23rd November, 2009

Ole,
Well I'm back in Mexico after a seven year absence and I'm pretty impressed so far. The place here around Cancun is really nice. The water is clear and warm, and the food is good. We spent the day with Chris McCormack and our friend Derek on Monday in L.A. and it was good to see them. Macca shouted us lunch at Rosti's in Santa Monica, and we visited a few other favourite haunts. I grabbed some race gear off Macca, and then headed south to Mexico. Had an easy jog late yesterday and the weather was warm at sunset, about 28 degrees celcius. It's raining today, and i'm desperately trying to source some CO2 cannisters for race day.
Although work has been very busy lately, I think i'm feeling ok, and looking forward to toeing the start line on Sunday. Had a scan of the pro start list and it's fairly solid. You've got 4 previous Ironman winners, and 2 or 3 other guys who have gone top 5 in Ironman races. As i've stated previously, i'm going to try and race on HR and not worry too much about other guys in the race. It's going to be between 27 and 32 degrees celcius on Sunday, which will have an impact on some guys in the race. As a rule of thumb, for every 1 degree increase in temperature over 25, you can add about 3 mins to your marathon time. So, a runner that would normally run 3 hours, would run about 3 hours 20 mins if the temperature was 32 degrees. I'm hoping to be somewhere near the lead after the swim, and then settle back and resume my own race based on HR.

I'll try and post another report prior to race day.

Gracias, Boyd.

Pre-Race - Saturday 28th November, 2009

Hola,
Ally and I arrived on the island of Cozumel today, after a rough ferry crossing due to the really strong northerly winds. Cozumel is really nice and the turquoise waters of the Caribbean are crystal clear. Went down to the pro briefing an hour ago. A few other German boys have jumped on the start list and there is no warm up allowed prior to the swim, which I personally dont like the idea of at all. Managed to lose my bike computer, and jet lag has been an obstacle, but apart from that things are going pretty good. The weather on Sunday is tipped to be hot and windy, with strong ocean currents in the swim. Although we are in paradise, I think the run leg on Sunday will be more like a war zone. Ahhh......bring it on! Hope everyone is well.

Adios, B.C.

RESULT: Boyd had a great swim, exiting in 3rd with a time of 44 minutes. He was vomiting on the bike, and due to not being able to hold down any nutrition, he 'bonked'. Congratulations must go to Boyd for continuing the race despite these problems, and finishing.

Race Report - Monday 30th November, 2009.

Well, what an absolutely humbling experience that was yesterday. The race didn't go at all to plan. I felt good in the swim and could have swam all day at that pace. Onto the bike in 3rd place and felt good. Took the first 20km relatively solid, but not too hard, and made sure my HR wasn't too high. Rutger Beke and 2 others rode past, but were going too fast for me. At the 25km mark, Galindez and a pack of 4 or 5 caught me, and their pace seemed more to my liking. I was just settling in on the train, sitting about 3 bike lengths off the 4th wheel when, bang, I got a red card for drafting. I haven't been done for drafting since 'The Anchorage' triathlon in 1999. I've been in plenty of packs where other guys were done and I wasn't, so maybe my time was up, but I seriously wasn't drafting any more than the other guys I was with. I can't say they were biased, because they also pinned the Mexican tri hero Valderbanno at the same time. Anyway, I served 5 long minutes and watched as basically all the pros went flying past. Got onto the bike and started to hammer away, but I was really struggling to re-focus. Being a solid swimmer, I've never had to chase on the bike, and I have a new found admiration for the guys who come out of the water way back and have to slowly reel the race back in. I'm not sure where Valderbanno disappeared to behind me, but I punched into the vicious head wind on the other side of the island, and basically didn't see anyone for a really long time. Remember, the age groupers went 15 minutes behind us and it was a 3 loop course. Very lonely. Anyway, I got over my drafting penalty and settled into sitting on about 160 HR and was feeling OK, until the 60km mark when all of a sudden I felt really ordinary. Next thing I knew I vomited. I couldn´t believe it. I am not a spewer and could count on 1 hand the amount of times I have spewed in my life. I kept riding and 10 minutes later I threw up again. All liquid. The 2nd bike lap was a write off as I bonked (went sugar dead) because I didn't have any food in my system, and the only thing I felt I could consume was water. I was riding so slowly that the women went past me like I was standing still. I was in all sorts of trouble.
After getting off the bike I spent some time with some medics, before saying to them that I was going to finish the race even if I had to walk the entire 42 km's. I walked 10km and then felt OK and jogged the rest. Very demoralising for me, as the 4 top guys lapped me on the run. Plenty of the opposite sex finished ahead of me also!! It actually didn't feel hot at all yesterday. Maybe that´s because I was going too slow and was not up the front of the race.
It was really disappointing to finish the year on a whimper rather than with a bang. I'll never know how I might have gone. I was definitely short on bike miles, but I did come into the race thinking my swim and run would be strong. As to what made me ill in the race, I don't know for sure, but I had a warm up swim in the dark in the port at 5am before the race and stuck close in to the shore. There was a lot of crap in the water and although Ally thought I was raving mad, I explained to her that without a swim warm up I would come out of the swim way down. It takes me all of 2km to warm up swimming.
Anyway I got to the finish line. It's been a disappointing recent run of races for me. I sort of trained through the shorter races as a build up to this IM and, well, the wheels just fell off!  Being brutally honest though, I really think my dream of qualifying for Kona as a Pro is just that at the moment. With a cut in qualifying spots at each race, and the fact that I'm working over 40 hours a week while commuting 2 hours to work, I'm being realistic when I say that it just isn't possible to be competitive against these full-time athletes. Although I've gone a few top 10's in IM's and made a few bucks, it's getting harder to do. Also, because I work full-time, I can't travel to races as early as need be, and coming here to Cozumel, I believe in hindsight that I needed to be here in this time zone at least 10 days prior to the race. But, what can I do? Being a Firefighter pays my bills, and is my real and chosen career.
I'm now off to Hawaii (Sunset Beach) for a surf trip. Thanks especially to my sponsors and Simon for your organising abilities, Pete and the guys at TSO, Greg for your run sessions and Cambo and Macca for the use of equipment (it was all good). 
Oh yeah, Ally handed me a Corona in last 500m of run and I finished the race in style..........Cheers......Battler!!