I have been training up North under the watchful eye of my parents! Hilarious couple of weeks, it’s funny how rigid we all get when we’re living out our own little worlds, then try to share them for a prolonged period. We stayed at their place in Currumbin, which overlooks the waves. It’s just awesome to wake/eat and sleep to the sound of the waves. I could move there, if only the coffee were better. Seriously, what is wrong with Queensland? Don’t they realise they have a whole host of addicts to supply with their drug of choice.

Along with wrestling my Dad (he copped a nasty bite mark bruise to the arm and a broken set of glasses, sorry mate!) I spent a fair amount of time out training, and managed to kick start my Kona campaign with some decent mileage. Almost cracked the 30 hours last week, but swim/run has a long way to come yet. I’ve had a niggling hip flexor, which I’m sure Charlie (masseur) will punish and improve at the end of the week. That’s meant a bit less running than I would have liked. It’s just over 11 weeks until Kona, so the serious km’s will be put under the belt between now and race day.

Obviously the TDF is on and into it’s final week. I’ve been watching and lapping it up, itching to get back over to France for a trip. Maybe IM France in 2012. It has a lot of climbing…You might have seen my legs and head on the Giant advert which has been showing during the Tour. If you haven’t, it’s embedded below. Spend a few minutes joining the Giant community and apply for a contract- I’m sure you’re a real rider.

See you on the road,

Mitch

PS Have an exciting Kona training plan in the pipe works, which involves altitude and heat acclimation…drop me an email if you’re going to Kona and interested. mitch@mitchanderson.com.au

So here goes- I’ve done a number of interesting sports related projects in the last few weeks. Obviously the first is trying to recover form my 1.5 Ironman in 6 days gig. That involved a fair amount of sleeping and regular short sessions. I figured I have to try and maintain some semblance of fitness for a commencement of Kona training in July.

In pursuit of said fitness, I have done a couple of entertaining rides. The first was RLK3 (Ride Like King 3). Which pays homage to King of Giant in Taiwan- home of Giant bikes. Ironically and sadly, we also remembered Richard King, a stalwart of the cycling community who had succumbed to bladder cancer the previous week. This made for a sombre start to a great day, which started and finished with coffees in St Kilda. Probably not usual training pace, but it is a day well worth the effort. Thanks to the kids at Giant who set up the show- you know who you are. You can see some images and a short report from the day here.

The second Giant event was the Forrest Six Hour on the weekend. It can be summed up in one word- EPIC! I wouldn’t call my preparation perfect (I hadn’t been on a mountain bike since Tri X in Feb) and found it extremely challenging. The course wasn’t overly technical, which was to my advantage…but after 8 laps (~4hours) I was cooked. The relentless pushing over logs and bone jarring corrugations made for early fatigue for an unskilled rider like myself! I was in clear 2nd until lap 9 then still in 3rd until the final lap. Hard to complain when it’s not in my specialty skill set of swim bike run. Even so, it has whetted my appetite for future forays into the world of endurance mountain biking- maybe a 24 hour on the schedule for 2012?! Thanks to the little wheel for feeding me over the day- some hilarity was had despite the frigid conditions!

Real riders story is here

Get your entry in early for 2012 by book marking this link: http://www.forrest6hour.com.au/

Niki fisher won the women’s and put together a neat set of thoughts here

So just plodding through the rest of the month with a fair amount of work to see me in good stead for a critical Kona campaign! It’s going to be a bit of a referendum (of sorts) which will dictate how I spend the following 12 months. Also contributing a fair amount to the magazine (Australian Triathlete) who are getting much more content up on their website. Click over there for a look.

See you on the road,

Mitch

Nice to be back in Melbourne and doing some recovery! Catching up on all the jobs I had postponed while I was away is probably a more accurate representation of my current status. I could also update my status as, I’ve got the flu after burning my candle at both ends. Still, a little sore throat and snot is probably the reminder I need that the body is still reeling after two races in 6 days.

You can check in on all the hilarity that was my race report and it’s response by the vocal minority after Port Mac. There were 189 comments, mainly covering my decision to race as an ager, rather than the important stuff like my race or better still my star sign and how that affects my mood. Check it here.

Swim Port:

Bike Port:

Run Port: Thanks to Delly Carr for the images- the best shooter in Triathlon!Six days later, I race in Busso- finishing a respectable 7th in the half. I was hosted by the generous guys from Breakyourlimits.com- thanks to Tom and Ray, and all the fabulous supporters on race day.

Here’s the report: Busso blog.

Busso Run:img_6073.jpg

Thanks particularly to Anth from CBD who cleaned my rig and topped off the tyres with goo prior to Port. A soft tyre was far better than a flat one. He owns The best bike shop in the world.

Thanks to all my loyal sponsors, especially my banner sponsors: Giant and Powerbar. Thanks to the little Wheeool for making the last minute mercy flight to Port too- the support was much appreciated.

It’s great to have qualified for Kona and I’m now turning my attention to making the most of winter in Melbourne! My hammy has pulled up 100%, so I hope to be able to fill a full training load to do my best on the Big Island.Thank goodness for Liason and their coffee to cope with the vulgar weather of the wintry Melbourne Autumn …

see you on the road,

Mitch

But I think with a few good months training behind me, I’ll be able to write more regularly about triathlon from my perspective. That’s hard to do when all you can do is watch it!

First up, I have been racing again, which is a boon for the confidence. I rode in 13th place at the Otway Odyssey in Feb, then backed up to do the BRW the next day, where I ran 12.50 for four km off the bike. Solid. Then the last couple of weeks I’ve dipped my toe back into some tri’s. I won the Victorian Off Road Tri Champs down in Anglesea (here’s the link to my report from: http://www.firstoffthebike.com/races/1969-tri-x-victorian-titles-review). Also, I had a good day at the Torquay Triman, with a second place. (Check the race report here: http://www.firstoffthebike.com/races/1980-mitch-andersons-look-at-triman).

In even better news, I’m racing IM Australia at Port MacQuarie in 2 weeks. Just the taper from here, so I think I’ll be able to toe the line! Making the start line injury and illness free is such a big challenge. I’ll be representing my absolutely patient and amazing sponsors at this event, Giant, Shimano, Powerbar, BreakYourLimits, Rudy Project, Blue Seventy and Cannibal. Thanks to all these ladies and gents for being so generous during my last 18 months of injury and bad luck! I really hope I can bring my A-game for the event, and gain a slot for Hawaii in October. Most of all, I’m looking forward to testing myself over the iron distance again. It’s been too long…

see you on the road!

Mitch

Ten minutes with Clive Robertson on 2UE last weekend. The idea was to discuss Sports nutrition, but we mainly covered off Clive and his regimen!

2ue-clive-robertson

See you on the track,

Mitch