tony dodds   elite triathlete

As i sit here in my room 3 days out from World champs and the biggest race of my life so far, i look back on the season to date….

Over this International season i have been very good and consistant with my results, i have had a win, showed i can contend at a world cup with 8th place in NEtherlands. So my years in the Under 23 Elite World champs have nearly come to an end with my final year in this age catagory, then it’s up to Open Elite men next year! The only time we get put in Under 19s, Under 23s, and Open Elite are at National Champs and World Champs so the rest of the races are all Open.

So…..it’s time to step up, and i this season i have done everything possible to give myself a chance at well…..doing the best i can but hopefully get a medal! I have eaten right, have trained to perfection, made sure i havn’t gone out or had any big nights in the past 6 weeks, and just made sure i’m not going to regret anything when this is all done saying  could have done this better.

But what i do believe is that everybody has there good and average days, if you have an average day and feel slightly off you could be back 20 spots, so there’s not much we can do about that but try to make my chances better at having a good day!

Big thanks to Dylan McNeice who has trained with me for the past 4 months and lived with, i think we both know eachother pretty well now, know when each of us are tired, grumpy and so on and know the limits of eachother. He is racing in the world Aquathon champs today so we going down to watch him, he’s got a good chance so lets see if he can top the World!

well over and out until after the race!   BRING THIS ON

“IF YOU’RE GOING THROUGH HELL, KEEP GOING”

The past 2 weeks we have been on a high performance training camp in Wellington and now Rotorua, and shit its been hard!

The first week Wellington turned on a stunner of a week nice and hot every day. It has been non stop, get up swim, then eat then maybe an hour rest until a gym session or maybe a long bike, come back eat again for lunch, have another hours rest then out again for a run, back again, eat then rest and sleep…the best time of the day

I had 2 races while we were there in Welly. The first one was a 5km run race around the waterfront, was a hot day and i felt really good coming home in about 15.22 but was a bit long, was 1st place there as well by about 30seconds.

The second race was the oceans wim series in the harbour, alot of great swimmers there and a perla of a day once again, i have been swimming really well so wanted to nail this one in a race. The first 1km i held onto the front group with thew likes of Bryn Murphy and Kane Radford until i dropped off the pace, then the 2nd bunch caught me and stayed with them. It was a 2.8km swim so felt like a lifetime!, managed to come in about 7th i think having a sprint finish on the beach with a swimmer and he beat me!! I think its because he has a bit more muscle to spirnt than me haha.

So 2 good races and i now know i am fit and in good form, but to turn that into a triathlon…well it will be hard but we shall find out this weekend where it is the NZ spirnt champs in Taupo. Its a good race to see where you’re at in the season…and of course bragging rights for the next while

anyway i amvery stuffed, alot of training has put me deep inside a dark place so back to sleep for me, then get ready for spint nationals this weekend

day 4: Criterium 60km

Today was the last day, and i would hope after yesterday my legs would hold up. It was 10 laps of 6km and it was fast and furious! A few hills and just flat out, the first few laps were really intense becase there were sprint points up for grabs. At the start of the morning Tom Davison was sitting 3rd in the senior men, so we thought if we were all feeling good we should probaly work for him and keep him up the front to save hi energy, but since we were “only triathletes” we couldnt all stay together and the race was all over the show and all our team was everywhere!

Everyone was stuffed since it was the last day and about 20 guys got dropped off the back, but i stayed near the front and had relativly good legs so kept in the pack and finished with the top guys in the peleton! The rest of our team did the ame and finished with the peleton as well. So the Tour is over, a very good experience for all of us and a wicked Tour definetly recomend it. As for us guys its back to swimming and running

Well interesting day all round today, was 130km stage with 2 little hills in the middle then a huge mountain 16km long at the end finishing on the hill top.

Legs were feeling a little tired today, but after 50km there were about 10 that tried breaking away and everyone slowed up so myself and Dylan went up the front and excelerated, next thing we knew we were about 100m in front so we thought well we could try catch the 10 in front so a couple bridged upto us and we had 4 of us….But for the next hour we were fighting to catch the front group. Until finally! we got them, just 4 of us caught 10 of them, so very happy about that and then we had a 3min 30 lead on the peloton including all the big names Hayden Roulsten, Jeremy Yates and so on.

so it was about 15km to the bottom of the hill and myself and Dylan ended up with no more fluids left, but luckily at the bottom of the hill Rob our sports scientist was going to be there with a bottle of V and some water so thought i would have a good chance at the hill as there was only another under 23 guy in our bunch. So the bottom of the hill i was looking around for  Rob with my drink, but couldnt find him, i was needing it very very bad as i was staring to loose everything!!!

Then BANG!!!! I totally exploded haha i bonked big time! i had no energy and was suffering as Rob was not there with my fluids. So 1km up the road, the peloton passed me and i was in the gutter, apparenlty i looked like a drunk! i was stumbling around wasn’t making sense, and wanted to absolutly deck Rob cause that was my race over. But lukily Marty came by and gave me a water bottle and Rob finally turned up to the party and gave me my V, and a girl stopped and gave me some lollies and biked with me to the top! very much thankful for her giving me company because i really did not want to bike up, but i finshed it.

I have never blown up so much in my life, i was in a big lot of hurt, honestly i was gone haha, after 2 hours of a heartrate at 170-180 and then a hill with no fluids it really got to me.

The other boys did well, Dylan kept in the breakaway but got caught up the hill, Tom stayed in the peleton until the hill and finished up 10-20th riding very tactically. And James…well his bad luck never ends, he broke his chain at the bottom of the hill and borrowed a girls bike and rode 16km up a hill in bare feet!

After we got to the top, it was straight to burger king to regain our 2500 callories we lost!1 haha a few burgers

Day 2: 110km mostly flat with 2 little hills.

Went well today, except it was raining for the first half which made it very dangerous! i felt good today was up near the front getting myself away from trouble. There were alot of punctures from cyclist though. One including James Elvery our teamate but he managed to get back on. The first hill i was up near the front but a few others contested for the king of the mountain points but i didnt think i would make the whole ride if i did that so sat back a little. There was one stage however where i did put myself in the max zone and nearly missed the bunch, on a downhill, i had no more gears left so was just spinning my legs off trying to keep up about 10m behind the pack.

There were a couple absolute tossers in the bunch though, Chad i dont know his last name but was a trek rider, basically tried pushing me off my bike while he got abused by others, as he did the same thing yesterday! definetly wasn’t in my good books. I ended up in the main pack again, no breakaways today though, i did however come in about 10th not realising where the finish was i could have maybe done a bit better.

After that iwas feeling quite good, but then we had to go for a 30min run and thats what hurt me!!! i was stuffed after that so on the recovery now! all of us are starting to feel the affects of some solid days riding but the biggest one to come tomorrow with a huge hill so rest up it is for us.

The rest of the guys went good as well, Tom had another strong race in the main pack and Dylan again riding strong and very fit, Marty doing very well not taking any shit from the cyclists and James hurtinga little bit today riding on his sisters bike, but im sure he will be back in full force tomorrow!

Well the start of the 4 day cycle tour in Nelson kicked off today, it was a criterium style road race, a 12 lap course ending up at 60km. It was a hot day here, and as 102 strong riders went out i tried being up the front away from the crashes but i found myself back in the middle of the pack , couldn’t even get myself near the front as we were tightly squeezed in on the road. On the 2nd lap the pace was stopping and starting and as we hit about 45km/ph we slowed down dramatically and a guy just up in fornt of me slammed his brakes on then the next guy ran into him tumbling over then i had to jam mine on but it was so fast that i flew right in the air!!! As i was in mid air it felt like slow motion and i thought shit i’m going to face plant all over these bikes and tarseal and broken bones are going to be everywhere, but….i managed to kind of fly myself into another guy that had crashed in mid air and soften my landing. It must have look so wierd from behind as i flew through the air basically tackling this guy who had already hit the crash and was going the same place i was going…..DOWN!! So as i got up i checked everything, no broken bones?? nope. but a bit of blood of my knee and a scrapped bum, grazed elbow and a very sore knee as it is quite puffy at the moment. There were about 6 of us that went down someone had a broken colar bone it looked like, and we were allowed to wait for the peleton to come back around again so we could jump on which was good.

As for the bike, a few little scratches on the Trek but nothing too major, nothing Racers Edge cant fix!

Right a few painkillers for me and off to bed then its Stage 2 tomorrow!

stay tuned

Well, it is 1 week out from the world champs held in the Gold Coast here. I have been here now for about 10 days just building up and everything is going pretty good.

This year has been very off and on for me, I definitely have to get my planning and time management side of things a lot better as I have lost 2 watches, my wallet and credit cards and had problems with my bike and missing flights! haha.

So … next week, biggest race of the year! And cant wait, everything has been going good the last couple of weeks and I think I’m at my peak for the year which is a good sign. At the moment I am just staying with my parents until Monday when I go back to the apartments where the NZ team is staying. It was good just to get away from the whole enviroment for a while and relax and not get too stressed about how everyone else is doing and rooming with your team mates but competitors on the day.

It is going to be a huge race and a lot of spectators, and many thanks to all the family, friends and girlfriend who are going to make it over, there are a lot of you … 30-40 to make an estimate? So there is going to be a lot of support!

My bike is running great, and its the first time this year I actually feel good and comfortable on it, just took a bit of getting used to and wearing it in a bit!

My goal for the race … well personally top 5, a top 10 is very good as well, but I mean all I want to do is to be at my peak and do everything I can to win the race. And if I am racing as fast as I can and come 8th or whatever then I couldnt be more happier!

Thanks to all the support from everyone this year, thank you to the sponsors who have helped me out in so many ways … it has been a huge help! Looking foward to seeing you all when I get back to NZ or when your over here

Over and out from Australia

Well it has been a tough 2 weeks. I am in south of Germany at the moment training with the New Zealand team, it has been full on and very hard training. It has been good for me, i have got alot stronger in all 3 disciplines but not nescessary faster haha. (by the way my spelling is very bad i know!).

I have changed my bike set up a little bit making my stem shorter and putting the handle bars down again so hopefully a little bit more power output and feels alot better! I will try put a photo on my site of us lying on the grass..this is us after our run “in the hurt box” and after 2 hard weeks of solid training. Most of us are in the box at the moment, but trying to climb our way out of it by next week where we will race in the world cup in Hungary!

Weather: been good 30 degrees hot days and about 20 on cold

Path to world champs: 5 weeks to go, all going well, stronger, legs feel a little heavy

ready to get back to the southern hemisphere, Australia in 2 weeks! a bit closer to home

Another big day yesterday, 4hour 15min bike and a swim followed by a little jog…Today hard swim, then 2hour bike with 2×20min efforts, thisafternoon 75min bike with fartlek session :s yikes i am screwed!!!! too many hard sessions in one day!

The hours in the days over here seem to dissapear just like that, i will take you through a usual day:

7.30am get up go swimming at 9am-10.30 come back eat big breakfast at 11, then 12-12.30 second training session maybe a long bike or bike run session until 4.30pm, have shower, eat more and more, watch some tour de France for half an hour then, by then its 5.30pm and time to make dinner, then eat it. 7.30pm rolls around so time to breathe on my altitude breathing machine for 1 hour. 8.30pm go down and do my emails and talk to girlriend, mum and dad, and coach. by the time that finishes its 10 or 11pm and time for bed!! so thats my day, and man can i not wait for my easy day tomorrow!