The first two weeks of the official preparation for Crocodile Trophy have ticked the three big boxes:

1. The routine has been established
2. Motivation has been restored
3. The body is starting to respond

Multi-tasking is the key to fitting it all in, training and child-minding can work together

Establishing a routine

People often say about diets that you shouldn’t think of it as a diet, but rather a way of life. After more than six months of riding for fun and racing infrequently, the “way of life” or “diet” that I am following to prepare for the Croc is substantially different (and a lot less fun) than what I had become accustomed to.

In addition to the food, the day-to-day training routine has been a necessary shock to the system. The major elements of the routine that I needed to establish were:

• Early mornings and late nights – getting the training done, including the 3-4 core sessions a week – with my current work and family schedule means finding hours to train that are `unsociable’ – take, for example, 5:15 am wake up calls on weekends and earlier starts during the week. They aren’t exactly pleasant, or sustainable morning after morning, but they are definitely a part of the routine. It’s similar at the other end of the day, where it’s not unusual to complete an ergo session at 10:00 pm.
• Scheduled recovery. It sounds counter-intuitive but a demanding routine needs to schedule in time to rest, and to sleep.
• Scheduling food intake around both of the above. I have learned the hard way that a large meal before a core workout is potentially disastrous. Likewise an intense ergo session after a particularly spicy curry is potentially debilitating.

In summary, the routine has to be predictable and tough, but at the same time, sustainable.

Generating (and sustaining) motivation

I am generally a motivated person, but I also know that I am motivated by goals and success. One of the issues when you start a training program is that success and results are a memory rather than a likely short-term occurrence. In fact, during a program like this there aren’t any short-term successes to keep you motivated.

Thankfully, over the years I have developed the ability to turn poor results into motivation. One of my regular tactics is to go and do a hard race at the start of the preparation, which I did with the Forrest 6 hour a few weeks ago. It had the right effect – pushing me into action.

The challenge now is to stay motivated while I am under pressure in all other parts of my life. I find great and reliable training partners are perfect for this, and Jesse Carlson fits the bill on both fronts. I also rely heavily on my training coach, Jess Douglas, to keep me motivated and accountable. She does this naturally, and is always looking for positives even in mediocre weeks and average races.

In short, motivation can’t always come from within. If you accept that and get it elsewhere, it can help at crucial moments.

Getting the body to respond

There isn’t a lot you can do here except wait. The first two weeks aren’t going to see your threshold rise by 20% but I take positives from small indicators. For example, when climbing a hill I can notice that I can keep my upper body more stable under load which is a sure sign that the core strength is starting to kick in. Those incremental signals also help with motivation, and tell you that you are closing in on where you used to be.

In short, look for the little responses.

The Croc is now three months away. With a lot of hard work to do, I’ll keep you posted on my progress in a few weeks. Now I’m off for an ergo session….

A focus on quality of training rather than massive k's

Five months sounds like a long time, but for a race as long and hard as I expect the Croc Trophy to be, five months is nothing. The Croc Trophy starts on the 18th of October and a few weeks ago I started a 19-week training program designed by coach Jess Douglas.  This program is radically different to my program for the World 24 Hour Championships, on three main fronts:

1. A greater focus on ergo training and intensity (the typical session is an hour long)
2. A reduced emphasis on long road miles (not much more than 300kms per week even in a reasonable week)
3. A significant emphasis on core strength (three or four specific sessions a week)

The changes in focus are as much a reflection of the demands of my life as the the demands of the race. With our little girl Wynne growing up, almost weekly work trips to Sydney and a generally higher workload, I have had to adopt the `lean’ training program (lean in terms of hours, rather than long hours…which would help me get lean). This unfortunately means almost eliminating social rides without purpose, which are enjoyable but not the most efficient use of time. A typical training week for me will involve between 10 and 15 hours a week, compared to the almost 20 hours I was putting in on big weeks leading up to the 24 hour worlds.

The training has been officially going for just two weeks and the body is still struggling to come to grips with the emphasis on ergo. I have always been someone who pulls out a bit extra out on the road but have had a history of being positively soft on the ergo. I am gradually training myself to go deeper on the trainer, and I’m finding it pretty taxing. As an example, I did a reasonably hard session on Friday morning which made my 5.5 hour jaunt with Jesse Carlsson on Saturday positively uncomfortable. Jesse had me in the box within half an hour and I never got out of it… Still, great to get a 130km mountain bike ride (2200m vertical) in the bank.

The program is basically a slow build to the Croc Trophy in mid October, with two preparation races in there as form finders and motivation. The first will be an epic – the Mawson Marathon – covering 360km in a single day. Jesse and I are riding as a team (it will hurt) and expect a time in the 15 hour range. It’s not quite a 24 but it’s not a cross country sprint either. The second race is two weeks later and it’s on bitumen: the Midlands Tour. This race is perfectly suited to me – hilly but not mountainous and generally windy. I’m not necessarily fussed about the result of this race but will be a form indicator two months out from the Croc.

I have two weeks in Bali coming up – the bike is coming with me – so I’m trying to get some good base kilometres in over the next few weeks to ensure that I am reasonably well prepared for the Mawson.

My sister Sheridyn (pit crew extraordinaire at the worlds) is getting married on Saturday, but after that the social functions will diminish and the weight control campaign also begins in earnest. I am sitting at 77 kilos and aim to make it back to 71 by late October, which should be do-able with a bit of discipline (OK, a lot of discipline)….

The Croc Trophy is like no other race in Australia

Stay tuned for more updates as the weeks tick