The audacity of Hope

Besides work , sleeping , family and training lots of training , I have been reading Baraks Obama's book the Audacity of Hope. It is a telling insight into the President of United States perspective of politics in the US , the Democrats , the Republicans and his ideas , how to change the politics and civic life in the USA and the consequences if the United States doesn't change.

I like the title and I have just begun reading the book so I will not be providing a synopsis. What does shine through in the first chapter is the vitality and values Obama seems to have been imbued with by his mother and grandparents who cared for him.Hence I presume the title .

This week leading to Kona , I have been getting updates by Rick Twine who will be racing .I am torn between the excitement of Kona and the sadness at not being there.But it continues to be a dream and hence one must have the audacity to Hope .
How much sweeter the experience of kona for the many who are there after years of endeavouring to qualify.

I have been watching the you tube clips of Macca ridng the Queen K at 50kph and the buff triathletes on Dig me beach .





This has been an easy week for me so I have been able to fit in the more normal aspects of life .Monday was a swim and easy run for 1.15 which was in the evening along the river.The wind was as strong as ever. Swimming was fine , managing approximately 2.4km but as always I have a long way to go with my swimming.

Tuesdays ride was fun as I rode easy with Meredith and only pushed a little harder towards the end and we were not that far off from the middle pack. We welcome a new member into tuesdays ride a world triathlon sprint champion no less.Its the coffee after the ride that makes it all worth while.The tough stuff starts next week as I ride alone at 5.30am for a 1.5 hr hard session.

Wednesday swim was harder with a 600 m warm up and then 5 x400m set with each set 10 secs less.I swam with a Pullbuoy for the last set.Did a 2.6k session. The evening run was fine with only 6 x 1min sets at threshold and the rest easy. On the way back I was overtaken by a girl and managed to stay with her till I got back .saw kim Vivian on the foreshore.

What all this training achieves is i believe a slow and steady improvement.Iam sticking to the plan and not doing more or less.I do know that I have to take a long term approach.i enjoy reading Cuckie V , Gordos and Alan Couzens blogs.
I have attacehd a small part of Alans piece :What it Takes on his blog

So, what does it take?

• Persistence (irrespective of bad races)
• A lifestyle that supports 6-8 years of ‘serious’ training. What is serious training? 18-24hrs/week of aerobic training (3hrs/day, 10 sessions a week, 48 weeks a year).
• A deep love of the process

That means that, to achieve ‘your best’ in triathlon, for almost a decade, you need to be willing to put other aspects of your life in maintenance mode. It is difficult to climb the corporate ladder and the AG ranks at the same time. That doesn’t mean you need to ‘drop everything’, it just means you need the type of job (and the assertiveness) that enables you to block out time for a morning and evening training session most days for the next 6-8 yrs (see Gordo’s latest blog for more on this).
It also means, as an athlete with nothing better than an 11-13hr IM to your name, you need to have the courage or the naivety to ‘back yourself’.

This is a common decision among the majority of the guys (top age-groupers and pros) that I know who have ‘made it’. My buddy, pro triathlete, Justin Daerr comes to mind. At our last camp he recounted how, as a 12hr IM guy he planned his college class schedule around the needs of his 20+ hr training week not because of his pro ambitions, or an impending Kona goal but simply because “he enjoyed riding his bike

So there is hope of improvement .Slow and steady but possible.

Safe training