happy new year

Hopefully mine will have many kms ahead ;)

2011 totals

Swim	278:44	872,412 m
Run	284:28	4,069.4 km
Bike	665:44	23,731 km
Other	11:25	0 km
Total	1240:21	28,672.8 km

tomorrows ride

The first "race" of the season

60 km MTB race with tons of climbing...

It was very close to Vanessas hometown so i really needed to make a good impression ;)
I cleaned the dust from my MTB bike that still had some leftovers of The Trans Portugal back in May and went for it.
The course was awesome and Super tough, i felt quite dizzy in the first kms with the always fast pace but i managed to lead the race till km 20 with another guy. at that time a misplaced signal sent the top 20 or so atheletes out of course and probably (me and the other guy) almost 10km where done out of the course. After returning to the spot, that had the signal already and since i really wanted to make it a hard training day i went like nothing happened. left that group and started hunting something that was basically the guy ahead, had no idea where i was classification wise. From 1:30h i really felt like flying and just one guy survived to my hunting skills by a scant 50 meteres ;)

It was a great days with a tremendous course, i was happy with legs

here is the top 30


Pos. Dorsal Nome Equipa Tempo
1 022 Renato Gaspar RG Ladrilhos/Hilzy 2:56:44
2 071 Sérgio Marques Triatlo clube TAP 2:57:06
3 241 João Nunes CSRDOTA/CARBBOOM/EXTRUSAL 2:58:32
4 164 Luís Augusto Individual 2:59:26
5 181 Paulo Simões CSRDOTA/CARBBOOM/EXTRUSAL 3:00:40
6 180 Tiago Fragata CSRDOTA/CARBBOOM/EXTRUSAL 3:01:15
7 288 Joel Lucas 3:04:15
8 218 Adelino Camacho BTT Caldas Aluvia 3:04:55
9 151 Vítor Costa Individual 3:04:59
10 159 Hugo Fernandes individual 3:06:10
11 280 Vitor Lourenço 3:06:59
12 148 Carlos Marta Individual 3:07:20
13 060 Manuel Ferreira viveiros vitor lourenço 3:07:50
14 062 Mário J. Amaro BTT Campello 3:07:50
15 113 Ricardo Vicente LabrugaBikeTeam 3:07:50
16 160 Renato Fidalgo A.D.C.R Painho- Btt Santa Susana 3:08:30
17 175 Alexandre Esteves CSRDOTA/CARBBOOM/EXTRUSAL 3:14:00
18 176 Pedro Pereira CSRDOTA/CARBBOOM/EXTRUSAL 3:16:50
19 269 Carlos Pedro 3:18:25
20 127 Sérgio Dias Lusitano Bike Team  3:18:55
21 182 David Ventura CSRDOTA/CARBBOOM/EXTRUSAL 3:20:00
22 128 Carlos Nascimento Os Estravadinhos Da Bike 3:20:55
23 137 João Rêgo BTT Caldas Aluvia 3:21:20
24 217 Paulo Capinha AdN BTT 3:22:30
25 216 Renato Vieira Já-Tagarro 3:23:00
26 065 Hugo Crescido Casa do Benfica - Btt - Charneca de Caparica 3:24:22
27 275 Filomena Paulo 3:24:22
28 009 Jorge Paiva Individual 3:32:15
29 136 João Lopes LabrugaBikeTeam 3:32:15
30 284 Renato Silva 3:32:15

the holiday ride

holidays are alway good to put some miles in ;)

sunday's ride

lets oil the engine

Winter training, everyone likes it right?

Well i have started training first with some weeks of very ramdom stuff then the past weeks have already been of some decent scheduled training.

The goal is to have an early race in 2012, Melbourne is without a doubt the favorite in my short list but is a hell of a ride to get there well... Neverthless and since i like working out, ive been doing so without being really sure what to do race wise, sugestions are welcome ;)

I recently introduced Yoga in my training with my good friend Carlos from CP Yoga, one hell of a core strength workout, i was humbled. Of course going straight to an intermediate class is part of the toughness. 

Im not happy with my swim milieage right now as i have been waiting for my favorite pool to be 100% open to the public thus bringing my regular group back to normal training. Other than that running and biking have seen a lot of high intensity, short duration interval almost everyday. so far i have been feeling pretty well.

tomorrows bike ride

8:30 at the usual meeting point

tomorrows route

Ive been posting my routes somewhere else and ill post them here from now on. At least the ones for weekend warriors ;) always a good size peloton

here is tomorrows +- 2h ride

the meeting point is as usual, for me, parking lot of the swimming pool in Estadio Nacional.

Peter Reid

He was my favorit athlete, its not the first time i said this, always good to see this:

http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Triathlete+Peter+Reid+among+latest+enter+Canadian+Sports+Hall+Fame/5677830/story.html

2011 racing photos

Lots of Kms of racing this year. here is a best overview of it in photos.

Porto Santo half ironman

2nd, Tune up race for South Africa

Ironman South Africa

12th, wass very fit but had monster stomach pain during the run

Trans Portugal

3rd, 9 stages, 1200 of MTB riding, very tough, enjoyed every km of it. left me trashed for a long time

IM Texas

11th, 2 weeks after the MTB race, was still really tired

Aveiro Half ironman

2nd, one week after texas, did my best ;)

IM France

5th, Great race, great course

IM Zurich

6th, 2 weeks after France, felt really good and actually held myself in the marathon to recover quickly to what was coming

IM Frankfurt

16th, blew up really had at 120km, 3 IM in one month can do that to you ;)

Guadalajara Half ironman

2nd, The tune up race for hawaii. I was Way better here than in the island

IM World Champs, hawaii

33th, Bad day all day, didnt really have much to leave in the course, felt really weak. but went for it the whole way

This is how i ended my season ;)

the race

definetely not what i anticipated but i went through it to finish the best i could.

From start to finish it was all about suffering at a speed that would be a good recovery workout.

The swim was basically a lonely effort, i passed lindsey somewhere before the turn around and that was about it. Felt so hard and endless that swim, no big news to tell there.

As soon as i steped into the bike seemed like i was hit by a lighning bolt (i never had so probably not the best way to tell), had absolutely no power in the legs and the few i had felt so hard to put in the pedals, got passed by the slower swimmers, Jozsef went by me like 15km/h faster than i, really, then the girls, badman thurig etc. I had such a hard time going up hawi and no matter how many calories i got in it never changed the outcome of the ride. I Averaged 208W a good 50 55W below my best performances this year. the only good thing is that i kept a even pace power wise. finished with 5:10 on a good day for fast riding.

the run was all about finishing the day, nedlees to say that i felt terrible while running slowly and was actually surprised that a sub 3h was made.

Really hard day with no power in my body. Probably just an extension of my week where after arriving on sunday i only felt good on tuesday  and then i really went downhill. i was really feeling good leading to this with tremendous workouts but i wasnt abble to put everything together in one day.

Vanessa had a good day phisically but had some major GI in the midle of the run that made her finish in 11:30, im actually happy for her overall performance and her hapiness to finish IM hawaii.

so, it was far from my ideal season finale but neverthless i fell like i had a tremendous season, some bad races yes but most where really good for me.

more after the break

:D

in hawaii

Ah yes, im in hawaii already, Loooong trip that ended on sunday.

as a quick blog, i would say that i haven't had much time to blog, even on weekend ive been out of my city to get some fresh air leading to a decent prep to the race. Place like my all time spot Tomar and definetely my new amazing training place in Avis.

Of course anyone that follows my blog knows about Tomar, but let me tell you that Avizacqua training center is just a perfect place for triathlon training and in particular Long distance. more on that later.

The build up for this was very decent but i certainly feel the need to get some real rest from a very busy season where i definetely wasn't the "real pro", very far from that but i managed to get VERY good results. I managed to get some more time to workout in September, not sure if it was the right thing to do ;)

the overview of the workouts would be the following

since i got here i have been feeling a lot below what i would like, jet lat and really tired from the travel, but i guess everything will get together in a few days!

What im really enjoying is Vanessas experience here in the big island. I can really say with 100% that she is having a blast and she is only here for one day ;) We had a calm day yesterday where we just needed to workout and have a photo session with swift bikes witch was pretty cool

Having said that, all is well so far, today will promise to be a very relaxing day again, but tomorrow the schedule gets tougher ;)

Guadalajara photos

Guadalajara Triathlon video

Guada

Wednesday i had a 4000m swim and a 1:15 run with 5X1000m with plenty of rest
felt good on the run, it wasn't an all out workout but even so it a nice hard one.

Thursday i swam 3800 and had a Short brick of 1:30+20
with some intervals at 320W at the end, a trun of 10min hard and 10 min easy

Friday was an easy day. 2500swim and 40 min easy run, I did all this before 9:30 am because i had an invitation to shoot some photos for a Portuguese magazine and after that i needed to drive to Guadalajara with Vanessa for the race, always a long drive to get to Guadalajara, got there at 10pm in time for a good night of sleep, something that has been missing for most of the days.

Today was race day, Guadalajara triathlon is one of the oldest triathlons in Europe in its 26th edition. a "training race" for me, and a good check point to see my form and status after a DNF in Tampere.

Contrary to probably all editions of the race, the day was cold, yes...cold in Madrid area at this time of the year!!! the race was an half ironman distance, again different from previous years, it kinda makes it nice to not have a single course that is exactly the same as last years. the only thing that seems to remain the same is the t2 and finish line in the local stadium.

The gun went of at 2pm, yes, very cool an afternoon race, a day where i could wake up whenever i wanted, have my breakfast with plenty of time and still have time to relax before an half ironman, hard to see around the world, but it sounds great to me ;)

The swim in a small lake was very easy for me, i felt comfortable but i never trust my water feelings anymore ;) after that sprint that is always hard i settled in a group and didn't even tried to lead, the fact that it felt really easy except when i got squeezed and drank water and could really breath for a few strokes, always nice to feel the shock of that, the body really weakens for a minute to try get my breath back. other than that i left T1 with everyone i wanted, a bit less than 2 min from ivan tejero, a awesome swimmer.

The bike course was hard, harder than previous edition and one of the hardest ever, at least the race director told so, and heck it was really hard. I felt good climbing but i really didint felt much strenght in the few flat sections, i still dont feel the same as for example IM france, but im in the good direction of the curve.  The ride had sections where i felt good and some where i didn't felt very good. the worse was at 70km where i was seeing my life going backwards, i was really feeling nothing in my legs, with the post race thoughts i think i underdone my nutrition taking not as much calories as im used to. Even so i finish the ride with Alessandro Santamaria in 4th/5th place, knowing the the best runners where probably me and him depending on how we felt of course. Ivan was 3min ahead so my ride was 1 min or so slower,

The run was a 4 lap with twists and turns, up and down, mixed surface, plenty to keep you focused. We started at a good pace, after 2 3 km i was already in the elastic and got dropped a few meters, the first lap i felt bad, especially in the big hill, ouch, i got back into Santamaria and we run almost the entire course together, the only exceptions where when he dropped me a few meters again, it happened for 3 occasions during the first 2 1/2 laps then i started feeling good legs, and tried to drop him when we where catching the 2nd place runner. I know that going uphill i was suffering more than him but i really could stretch my stride in the flat and downhill sections, we where closing the gap to Ivan really quick and in the last lap in a false flat downhill i really pushed the pace to drop Alessandro, i did it and only needed a big blow from Ivan to get to him, it didnt happen for 35seconds, again very close.

im happy for this race especially for how i finished it. There where to much up and downs to consider this my best but i liked the way it started, swim, and finished, the last 2 laps. Bike form is there yet but it was enough to stay in contention. This is my last race before Hawaii

Vanessa did well finishing 6th with a great ride but lost a few places on the run, another good test for her, happy me.

Konissima

An update on past things.

The European LD Champs where a big bad day that fortunately didn't left any regrets.

The weekend was all but good, me and Vanessa only got our bag with race stuff at 4 am before the race, lost in the airport. so its not easy to tell how nerve wrecking that was for us. Anyway, i felt very tired on the race day, since the beginning, although the swim felt bad i left the water not so bad as it felt as i was not so far from the regular guys that leave behind me. the bike indeed where i felt all my trashed legs. from km 0 it was all about pain pain pain and no power on the pedals so with 3 (of a total 6) laps i pulled out knowing that i was not going to have a good race so there was no point of trashing my body more and more.

Vanessa was 2nd overall in all AG but curiously was beaten in her AG but even so, she had a very solid race despite not focusing too much on it, so the weekend was not so bad for me.

I had a few easy days after the race and i believe my "road to Kona" begun last weekend. although if i think about it it was a long journey from IMSA to Kona. In all my Age group mentality i told myself this year i would be there competing ;)

Saturday i did 4:10 with Power hills and 1h run
Sunday i had a brick of 4:20 with 2X30 min at 280-290W followed by a 40 min run in a decent but not hard pace

I will have a middle distance race in guadalajara, spain this weekend so this week i have been doing some intervals and low volume.

Monday:
3800 swim
1:15 ride
1:00run

Tuesday:
3900 swim
1:45 bike with 4X6 min
30 min Trun at 4min/km

always something good to blog about...

A road to Kona...

ive been forgeting to blog more often and i apologize...

but a Road to Kona is always an excitment for me and with the added factor of WC164 being part of it.

so... this week, after the european LD champs that where disapointing, more about that in other post, my road to Kona has begun and this is just a reminder for the ones that follow this blog that in fact, more posts will chime in ;)

be good

yes..

Me and WC164 now have EVO nutrition as sponsor






New portuguese company with top level products with product line increasing very rapidly.

I highlight the Wake up evolution shake/pancakes for being a think outside of the box product. yes i said pancakes, pancakes full of bcaa's, protein and all the other stuff athletes like in a..... pancake ;)

check it out in their site

http://www.evonutrition.com.pt/

as for me, i wont race an ironman this weekend ;) im racing for portugal in the LD european champs, witch cahnged a bit my schedule for august. and im happily making my way for a good training block.

it is done

3 IM in 4 weeks. ive done some silly stuff, this places very close of the top if not up there.

Ironman Frankfurt is of course one of the biggest races in the world and for some the last chance to get in the cut off for hawaii for so many people. Despite having held of in Zurich to help recovery, it didn't happend that way. First week after Zurich i felt good especially at the end of the week but in the week leading to Frankfurt i really didn't feel that good, needless to say i have an excuse for that ;)

Weather wasn't fantastic during the days i was here looked more like a winter day in Portugal but according to some forecasts it should hold on to dry conditions on race day witch clearly didn't happend.

The day started with clear skies indeed when everyone was preparing the T1. i got there a bit late so i really didn't have much time other getting the things done  and get into the water, no time to freak out... The swim course was quite nice, well marked and not boring. i didn't felt good and powerful in the water, a consequence of how my swim form is going downhill since IM france 1 month ago. from a great swim in Nice loosing a couple minutes to the lead i got a decent but not awesome swim in Zurich and now i got a slower swim, not terrible but you get my point. basically and since i didn't felt any good i got into a group and let thing flow. but i was surprised to know that Riesen that had the bike right at my side in T1 was 1 minute ahead when 2 weeks earlier in zurich he was 2 minutes behind (he eventually DNF in both races) anyway i swimming is the part where i most felt the fatigue of the last month... i thought.

Time to ride. I remember being at the water and while breading and spotting a BIG cloud was closing by and in one of those occasions where you just think in something else other than rotation your arms i thought that those clouds didnt look any good. It took about 10 minutes of riding to get all (or stay) wet. I hate this was my thought. I rode steadily but wanted to catch guys in front of me instead of being caught. Everything seemed to be OK, i was feeling OK eating well but the temperature dropped a lot with the rain and i was suffering with that a lot and loosing my concentration in just pedaling. at around 40km i spotted a big group in one of the twists and turns. Dealsaut was there (his bike is quite flashy) and i spent around 60 km about 20 30 seconds from them, i was getting really annoyed for not getting there, closer some times but them their pace picked up and i really didn't want to get into those games. at the end of the first lap, around 105km, i was shivering hard and saw my life going backwards at that time. i was 1 min behind that group and had the chance to warmup a bit with a few minutes of time out from the rain and some tailwind. i was so relieved to start feeling my body again!!! even so i went through 110km with something close to a 4:40 bike split pace witch sounded great.
Soon enough i passed delsaut, that group riding in front of me seemed to have exploded and not so far ahead I exploded! WOW i really blew up really hard like i never did in an Ironman Ride ;) i was "caput" and all happened in a very short period of time. the last 40 50 km took forever to go by especially as i had the company of rain and cold again, i couldn't even get my powermeter above 200w more close to 170 or so. Nice

I came out of the bike in such a bad shape that i almost couldn't run...really. But i really wanted to get through it and finish my own craziness of 3 IM in one month but i was really struggling this day. i started running so slow and it was hurting so much that i was thinking that this would be the day i would walk in a marathon. I stopped in the toilet to loose some weight (didnt really needed to) but mostly to get my body together. after that it was all about doing my best to stay in one piece through the run. Not sure but i believe that the first lap was by far the slowest of the 4. that because i got into some decent rithm after the first lap, decent considering how blown and melted i was, to say the truth i would never imagine running as "fast" after T2. I really didn't care much about the position i was, i only knew about it at the end of the race. it was all about letting the kms pass. witch eventually happened ;)
finished 16th but for me that not really important. i can now brag of doing 3 IM in 4 weeks. stupidity i know but arent we all? and the first 2 where really solid performances i only regret of helding back in Zurich for some damage control that really didnt help in Frankfurt. Im definetely an ironman But im not made of iron...

It was too bad that the weather sucked in frankfurt its a great venue (yeah another one) but the rain really took people out of the streets, even so there was tons. And of course its so hard for me to race in the cold and rain, i just hate it.

so now its time to rest a bit. i really miss those blocks of training where you just...uuuh, train for something up ahead.

Swiss Photos