MSC Latest News - May 2007

For the multisport athlete downunder, this time of the year signals recovery time and for many, thoughts of how you rated the season just past. A great time to reflect on performance and results and spend some time putting together some realistic goals for next season. It is easy sometimes if you have ended the season on a not so good performance or injury / illness to try and continue through the off season and push things past the point of long term sustainability - mental or physical. We all need some down time - this does not mean a total stop of training - but for the experienced campaigner it does mean a change in focus. Keeping the aerobic engine turning over with other pursuits, working on weaknesses or seeking expert advice on niggling injuries or perceived problems you know may have affected your performance during the season past, not to mention trying new equipment, bike position or training strategies that are best suited for this period post season.

With this in mind, a series of off season specialist clinics are being organised by MSC to be held in Noosa between June and September covering various subjects of interest to enable those that participate the opportunity to gain more insight and knowledge and be ready to start the next season with a jump on the competition. Train Smart and never give up! Nick

Recent Squad Results

IM NZ (3.8 / 180 / 42.2) - March 3
Peter Seldon - 12.15.33 - IMNZ PB
Melissa Gaudart - 13.42.43 - First IM - Congrats Mel!!

Florida (USA) Tri (1.5/40/10) - March 18
Kim Fabian 2:20:03 - 1st 30-34

Penny Croft Tri (750/20/5) - Bribie Island - March 18
Jess Fleming 1.04.21 - 1st 30-34
Nicola Gregory 1.04.44 - 2nd 30-34
Neil McPhee 1.07.07
Maddie Bartholomew 1.08.35 - 1st Junior Girl
Geoff Bartholomew 1.10.56
Catherine Spiteri 1.17.09
Angelika Hannon 1.18.57
Brian Hannon 1.19.40



Noosa Triathlon Club - Number 1 in QLD
Triathlon Queensland has recently announced that Noosa Triathletes has won the Interclub Points Championship for 2006/07. This is a wonderful achievement. We understand it is the first time the Club has won the award and is a terrific incentive to stay in the ascendency in future years.

For the 2006/07 year, the Noosa Tri club accumulated 117 points and our closest competitors, Spike and Sunshine Coast accumulated 108 and 104 points respectively. The points are accumulated on a performance basis with the highest club placing in each age group down to 5th gaining points. Points are not awarded for participation. In total 35 tri-clubs competed in the competition.

Triathlon Queensland presented the trophy to the club at the club championships at Raby Bay on 22nd April.

All club members who contributed to this achievement are to be congratulated, and the award serves as another reminder of value of being a member of Noosa Triathletes and Triathlon Queensland, in addition our local club....discounted entry fees and significant insurance coverage while training and in competition.

Noosa Club President - David Coulter

MSC Latest Squad Results

Iron Man Australia - April 2
Well done to all squad members who completed IM OZ this year. A solid day for all with the wind up some more then last year and of course the new venue at Port Macquarie has it's fair share of hills in both bike and run. Some great performances with a few PB's and some first time finishers

Matt O'Neill - 10.12.20 - 45min PB
Doug Griffiths - 10.17.18 - 20min Course PB
Allan Moustoukas - 10.42.50
Justin Hunter - 10.53.30
Steve Buth - 12.07.52 First IM
Jeff Barker - 12.28.31
Shaneen O'Brien - 13.28.34 First IM

MTB Tri -
A few of the squad have ventured into the world of off Road Triathlon at the recent Tre-x series held just north of Brisbane. Race two of the series saw Dan O'Rourke win his category after a second in race one.

Still on the subject of MTB -
Well done to our run group regular Jeff Toohey on his recent victory at the 24hr (Team) event at Kooralbyn in South East QLD. His team blitzed more well know pro teams and took home a cash and product haul - and lots of satisfaction

QTS Final Raby Bay - April 22
Dan O'Rourke 47.40 - 2nd 30-34
Neil McPhee - 53.36,
Dan Fox - 52.53,
Sean McPhee - 56.07
Sean O'Brien - 56.08 - First tri
Graham McColl - 1.07.19 - 1st 70-74

Brisbane Half Marathon - April 22 -
Peter Degnian did on 22 April in 1.59 - a 6min PB

Bribie Island Multisport Event - April 29
Squad member Jason Cheshire had a great top 10 result in the solo events category. With a time of 7.26 Jase completed 9 separate legs covering 50km of MTB, 23km paddling, 22km of running and 1.5km swimming

Off Season Clinics @ Noosa
A series of at least 4 (possibly more) subjects that will help you be your best. Limited spaces available with a nominal fee charged for each clinic. Dates will be released shortly

Muscular Screening - Physio Ian Seels -
local Noosa Physio with many years experience working with endurance athletes fro many sports

Heart Rate Monitors - Nick Croft -
Former 2 Time Aussie Champ, Aust Triathlete of the Year and 2005 TA IM Coach of the year.

Nutrition - Ben Wuele -
Former Age group winner IMOZ and now qualified and experience nutritionist

Sports Psychology - Lisa Trotter -
unlock the minds potential to greater performance


Up Coming Events

Arafura Games Darwin NT May 12 -
Angelika Hannon, Brian Hannon

Byron Bay Tri May 12 -
Catherine Spiteri, Jess Fleming, Dan O'Rourke, Brian Barr

Kona Half Ironman June 2 -
Brian Barr

Ironman Switzerland June 24 -
Peter Seldon

Triathlon World Championships
Hamburg Germany September 2 -
Jeff Barker, Brian Barr, David Coulter, Nicola Gregory, Kim Fabian

Everest Climb update with Dereck Davey

Last month MSC squad member Dereck Davey wrote a brief article on his upcoming ascent on the worlds highest peak. Dereck is now in the thick of his preparations and sent this text to me just last week -

Hi Nick, hope your doing well. Aldas - my colleague and climbing partner from Deloitte and I got back from a 5 day acclimatization trip to ABD (6550m) yesterday afternoon. ABC is about 22km from Base Camp and 1300m higher. Aldas climbed to camp 1 or the north col as it is more commonly known (7050m) and in doing so became the first foreigner to do so this season. I will attempt north col after a few days rest at Base Camp. Had my first wash in a week this morning. which was just amazing! Conditions are tough, but we are surviving.

Regards Dereck

Noosa Tri Club continues events over the winter. Based from the Noosa Heads Lions Park, you can get all the latest info from the website and club race calendar - linked from the MSC site.

Sports Testing
For any local (South East QLD) athletes wishing to get lactate threshold / VO 2 testing on bike or run or both, I have contact details if you would like to go down this path. A great way to know for sure your HR zones and lactate threshold HR for each on land discipline. Let me know if you would like the details and we can then work these parameters into your training if you are on a program.

For interstate athletes we can assist in finding details for your closest Exercise physiology lab.

Importance of the right cadence

Below is an article I recently came across that holds a lot of merit regarding training to high cadence (especially at the base phase part of your training) It has been penned by 6 Time Hawaii IM champ Mark Allen

Let’s talk cadence. This has become a very hot topic and one that is worth exploring in your own training. If you watched the Tour de France for the past few years would have been impossible to not notice a dramatic difference in the cadence (peddle turnover rate) between the eventual winner and that of the rest of the riders. As a triathlete your race demands are going to be different than for a stage cyclist, but nevertheless there is a lot you can gain from this technique that will help you out in a sport requiring three disciplines.

The theory behind higher cadence riding is that the length of muscle contraction is too short to build up as much lactic acid as in lower cadence riding. It is also suggested to facilitate the flushing of lactate better than a low cadence where the load on the leg muscle can be more constant. Low cadence in theory has less time during which the muscle relaxes and let’s the flushing action take over. During the rest moments in the peddle stroke where one set of muscles relaxes and another takes over (normally around the bottom and top of the peddle stroke) is when the muscles can flush out lactate, and as a result keep up the power output.

Some people are suggesting however that not everyone is built to take advantage of this technique. Jan Ulrich, for example, said it didn’t work for him because of his body type. I am not one to say whether this is true or not. But even if you are a person who for some strange reason cannot gain benefit from a higher cadence on the bike (and also running) of 90-95 revolutions per minute (rpm) it is a physiology worth attempting in your training. Here are some of the reasons…

First and foremost, your workouts should be designed around making race day seem like just another day of training. The closer your race can feel to a training day, something you have done thousands of times before, the less your body will perceive your race effort as a high stress situation. And one of the absolute keys to having your best race performance is to keep the stress level (perceived or real) as low as possible.

So how does this relate to high cadence training? To answer that let’s think about how one feels during a normal aerobic training ride. Usually the cadence is relaxed (for most triathletes this means a cadence on the flats of around 80-85). However, when you get into a race, especially if it is an event shorter than an Ironman, cadence rates are elevated (85-90 and higher). This is one of the reasons training at a higher cadence can help you in your race. If you have trained at 90-95 rpms, this will eventually become your relaxed aerobic training cadence. Then when you are in your big race and still at a cadence of 90-95, it will feel just like another day training, which is a low stress signal to your body.

If you never do higher cadence training try this out. First purchase a cyclometer for your bike that can give you cadence feedback. Now go out and ride for 1-2 hours at a cadence of 90-95 rpms on a rolling course and keep your heart rate in the upper 10 beats of your aerobic training zone (the heart rate zone that you have for your long endurance workouts in each sport). If you are used to training at a lower cadence, the pacing of this turnover will feel exactly like the franticness of a race. Do this for a week straight and see if the higher cadence starts to feel more normal. Also, monitor how your runs feel each day after you ride like this. Almost immediately you should find that your turnover running will increase also. This is a good thing to have happen. World-class endurance runners usually have a cadence rate of 90-95 foot strikes counted on one foot per minute.

The end result is that you will start to ride at a higher cadence, and also you will be able to run at a higher cadence. This will help you out immensely in your races. It may get you to the finish line faster because of the lactate clearing effect. It will also get you to the finish quicker because it will train the neural pathways from your brain to the muscles that cause muscle contraction. And just like training your fat and carb metabolic pathways, one needs to build efficiency between the brain and the muscle. And the best way to do this is through higher cadence training. In fact, a lot of the fatigue that one feels in long events such as an Ironman is a tiring of those exact pathways. You may have all the calories you need, but the link between the gray matter and the red matter is fatiguing. The more this is trained, the less it will fatigue when it counts.

This type of training is especially important during your base period when workouts are done at lower speeds than they will be done at during your interval sessions near the races. As I have said many times over the years, just because you are training slower does not mean you need to look like you are training slower. So even at very easy training paces, if you keep your cadence rate up, the timing of muscle firing will give you the neural fitness you need to transition into speed work without a hitch. If you train at 75-85 rpms in your base but then suddenly try to up it to 95 during speed work, your body will have a tough time responding because you are asking it to do two things: go faster and go at a higher cadence. But if you lay the foundation needed to make higher cadence seem normal during your base work, then the only thing that will change in the speed phase is an increase in speed during your interval sessions.