BRENDAN SEXTON: ATHLETE DIARIES

I sit and write this one week out from my first major competition of 2012, a title race no less: the Aussie Sprint Distance Championships which is this year also moonlighting as the Oceania Champs of the same distance.

As the diary title may allude, this post could be about getting back into high level racing after an extended break away from official triathlon contest, but it’s not.

The coalface I refer to is the place I’ve been hanging out at since my last post. Three times a day, every day of the week for three months now I’ve been slowly chipping and digging away- always creeping forward even though it often seems like I’m standing completely sedentary. It’s a normal base training phase, the foundation used by any endurance athlete to build upon a season’s worth of race specific training and competition. It gets the body’s energy systems prepared for the more intense training nearing a season’s peaks and give the ability to recover from racing.
 
I’ve been lucky enough to split my base training into two distinct camps over most of the summer. I spent the last six weeks of 2011 at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra. A perfect location for swimming, cycling, running, drinking coffee and perusing museums (I’ve heard).

I then went high and rugged setting up camp in Falls Creek with the rest of the Victorian Institute of Sport team. Commonly a winter ski destination Falls’ has been for me an escape to something almost European in its mountain village feel, its welcoming of all athletes and (obviously) its mountainousness.

There are several reasons I’ve found Falls Creek useful as a training base:

1. There are big, steep hills which make riding a 60 minute time trial at a pace similar to that of an Englishman drinking a chilled beer acceptable;
2. The air is thinner at altitude. A common misconception is that this aids in blood capillarisation or something but that’s a myth. An actual benefit of thin air is that it’s much closer to the composition of helium and if you take constant deep breaths for 7 minutes and then speak (whilst imitating Alvin the Chipmunk) your voice goes squeaky!! This does little for athletic gain unless you manage to continually laugh at the squeaky voice for an hour each day and then a solid core workout is achieved (but who wouldn’t, honestly?)
3. There’s a relaxed vibe of a small village with next to no permanent inhabitants that gives way to a lowered expectation of style. This being of great significance when fatigue leaves you unable to swat flies let alone change out of your moth devoured trackies to go and buy some milk.
4. There’s a distinct lack of “Warney’s” on the road

But the major appeal is the ease that base training can be carried out. The ‘chopping of wood & carrying of water’ (to mix up the metaphorical clichés) is most affective when all functions of normal daily life outside of training are temporarily detached from routine. No traffic, no work, no meetings or appointments, no nagging. Cooking becomes much simpler and streamlined: whatever’s on hand, on a wrap or, come Thursday night, the chicken parmy special night at the local.

Simplicity and repetition is the key to setting up a successful year and 2012 is shaping up to offer the big haul.

Brendan