2007 Year in Review

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This was a very vocal ride with Eric today and he wasn't speaking too much either.

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This me doing some resistance training. 80kg of rocks in my two shopping baskets. i think I managed to reach 12kph at one point.

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5hrs in the saddle. 2hrs of climbing, -1 degree, minimum temperature and a nice warm train ride home.

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not a great photo, but boy did it feel good to see some mountains again. Thanks Eric, I can't wait to do this again soon.
Year in Review
Where to start.
Stats
Annual hours: 674.75hrs (13hrs PW)
This is a PB for me by almost 100hrs. I’m pretty happy with this considering how much time I needed to take off due to my foot injury.
Swim: 67.05hrs
Bike: 442.55hrs (11863km)
Run: 89.37hrs(1012km)
As you can clearly see most of my hours came via the bike. My run was almost ½ of what I did the previous year and this year I intend to triple those hours and aim for around 2500-3000km as my goal for this year.
Highs!
My Aet pace is at 4:32min/k. This was a bit of a shock to me. I was hoping that I would be able to get my Aet pace down to around 4:40min/k before IM Germany but to be at 4:32min/k just shows you what a little focused period of training can help move you closer and closer towards your long terms goals. My long term goal (3yrs time) would be to get my Aet pace down to 4:10min/k.
On the bike things have been moving along okay. It is very difficult trying to get in quality training while riding around in Tokyo. So much stopping and starting due to traffic lights. Typical 4hr from door to door generally amounts to around 3.5hrs of actual rising time.
My Aet pace on the bike is currently at 34.2kph over a 20km TT test. My goal before IM Germany is to get it up over 35kph. So I have a little more work to do on the bike in 2008. Once I finish my January run challenge this will be my No 1 priority.
Swimming. This is the most I have swum in 1 yr however, majority of this has been doing just 1-2 swim sessions PW to maintain my current level of fitness. My B/L LSD pace is currently around 1:35/100m long course and I’m happy to keep it at that level for now. Over the next few months I’ll begin to gradually increase my swimming back up to 3 sesisons PW. Once I start my IM specific preps I’ll then start swim around 4-5 times PW.
Lows!
My feet are still causing me some issues. I just can’t seem to get completely on top of this one. I’ve have taken every single course of action trying to get my feet back to 100% injury free, however, I have now realized this will never happen. The best I can do is just work around it to the best of my ability. This does concern me as I feel I still can’t run off the bike without pain occurring very early on in the run. I now it will be an issue for me come race day and I’m just hoping I’ll be able to work around or through it for that matter.

In summary, I think this is the fittest I have ever been in terms of my endurance in and around Aet. I’m looking forward to taking on 2008 with gusto and I can’t wait to start knocking out regular 18-22hr training weeks. I feel once I’m at that volume I start getting big returns for my investment. I feel like the last 3 months of solid training has set me up to be able to handle consistent weeks in the range of 18-22hrs.
My goal at IM Germany is to break 10hrs. I feel everything is on schedule and I have no intentions of reassessing that goal until I have reached it. After that I have some big plans for the next 3 years that I have been developing over the last 6months. I’ll be calling on people to join me once I become a sub 10 hr IM’er.
Are you willing to undertake ‘The Quest?’
fluro