Training

The training and preparation for the race has been gradual. For most of this year its been on the radar and slowly building. The trick to making it successful has been to do it in stages and having breaks along the way. I worked out a schedule that allowed me to build up.

Starting in January, I trained for about 8 weeks which culminated in doing the Aroc Adventure Race and a sprint triathlon. Then it was holidays (wedding & honeymoon) before coming back and going hardcore at the gym for 6 weeks. The focus here was on weights and plenty of them - high reps, building endurance. Then it was time for more holidays - world cup.

Then the serious build up started. About 12 weeks of build up. Started this slowly and just kept building, tapered the weights and started doing more cardio. We did a lot of training events, ie going mountain biking down in kangaroo valley, the blue mountains and wisemans ferry. Doesn't really feel like training when you're having fun.

With about 6 weeks to go really concentrated on multi discipline training so would do run, kayak, bike type of stuff. Also started to do a couple of big sessions here culminating in a massive session about 3 weeks before the race. Here I did an 8 hour session over the course of 12 hours. From there on it was about rest and tapering for the event as by that time the body had started to suffer.