END OF SEASON AWARDS NIGHT

Thank you to all who came to the End of Season Awards night and made it such a great evening - it was so good to see everyone all dressed up and not in Lycra for once! The night was all about celebrating the successes and achievements of our athletes and rewarding those who had gone above and beyond their goals. Congratulations to all those who were recipients of awards or were nominated - it was such a good year that there were some very closely run categories. As said on the evening thanks to everyone in the squad as it is you who drive and make it what it is. See below for all the winners in all their glory.

RACE GOALS, PROGRAMS AND MEMBERSHIP

Many thanks for those who have completed the survey asking of your race goals for the upcoming season. Please do fill this in so we are aware of what you are working towards and to ensure you are on the correct membership and training program. If you have any specific questions regards your goals, races or program please speak to your coach who can help you out. 

Until this is completed you will not be allocated a program in your athlete profile so it is crucial this is done. In addition, if your goals do not match your membership level (e.g. your goal is to race a half Ironman and you are on short course or social) you will need to upgrade accordingly to ensure you have the correct program and are tracking for it. Again any questions please speak to your coach on this.

Included in your programming are also strength and flexibility workouts via our TriStrength iPhone app. These exercises can be done with minimal equipment at home or at the gym with descriptions and videos helping you along.

RACING NEWS

Congratulations to Michelle Grocock on her race at Ironman 70.3 Pays d'Aix in France. This year Michelle is competing in a number of 70.3 destination races and this was by no means a walk in the park! "The bike course is tough, but is just so beautiful - better than any other bike course I have done by a long way". We look forward to following Michelle on her next overseas racing adventure.

In other related Euro news Coach Hilario who recently left for Spain is now working for and running European cycling tours! If you are heading over to Holland for the ITU World Championships in September or just fancy some Euro touring please check out www.sierrasportsandtours.com.au. We also have further information so drop Coach Scott an email at info@dev.tri-alliance.com.au for more details.

TIME TRIALS AND TESTING

Those who swam this morning at MSAC would have completed their first swim time trial over 500m. St Michael's swimmers should also be completing theirs tonight. Good work and well done, especially to those who did not see that coming! But we are in the off-season we hear you say - why should I do a time trial? These time trials/fitness testing sessions are completed on swim/bike/run throughout the winter to initially get a base line and then to see how you are progressing following the structured programming we have in place. As you know plenty of technique currently followed by increasing volume and strength/endurance. Each 6 weeks we go back to testing and hope to see improvements. Those who have done them in past years can compare to the same time last year again to see where they are now. You should only compare yourself to yourself and not to others. You can then work with your coaches to pin-point specific weaknesses and improve on these. 

The next testing will be on the wind trainer next Tuesday at MSAC (6:15pm warm up starts). For those with a power meter ensure it's charged and ready to go and for everybody bring your heart rate monitor & bike computer as these will be used. Power users will have a calculation to work out their functional threshold power and those using heart rate a calculation based on this HR training zones spreadsheet. You can then use these calculations to see your training zones and work from these going forward at sessions.

The first run time trial (5k/10k) will not be until June to give more time focusing on technique and drills and for volume to build adequately.

DRY LAND SWIM STRENGTH ROUTINES

We are now prescribing dry-land exercises to aid swim technique, form and build strength. These are best done after your swim session where coaches can help and ensure correctly completed. Investing a few dollars in a resistance band or set such as these (worthwhile actually getting two to expand the repertoire of exercises) will enable you to complete these exercises at the pool. For members on a program (short course and up) check out the exercises we have been doing on your program.