Oh yeah…you read that right.  RE…COV….ER…Y WEEK!  A time to let the body catch up, some extra time to spend on body maintenance and a time to check in on how the body’s feeling and bring that back into balance.  The body does not grow stronger or build endurance while you're exercising. It's the period after your sessions when your body makes all of these important changes. So, it's vital to give your body this time to repair itself or your fitness will not increase. In fact, your fitness will likely plateau or decline if you continue to push yourself without recovery. Our sessions do no stop this week, but the intensity does reduce, to allow for some repair and growth.  Keep ticking over, but be kind to your body.  Some key words for you to be thinking about this week include, rest, massage, nutrition, change, stretching, sleep, socialise, rolling, enjoyment!  And with all the extra time you’ll have, I’ve included an article I found by Nick Croft on the importance of the Off-Season for the On-Season.  It’s a good message to get your head around now.....enjoy!

Speaking of enjoyment, it was such a great night at Arcadia Hotel last Thursday night after our run session.  It was the perfect place to unwind (by the fire if you’re lucky), watch the footy, have a glass of wine and a chat without rushing off and generally enjoy each other’s company!  We’ll be sure to have another one soon, so make sure you keep an eye out and get along next time.

An upcoming semi-social night, is our Team Meeting taking place next week.  Join us next Thursday at Elwood Sailing Club to hear about the training phases, where you should be and be going, hear from other athletes about their journeys and their tips to being successful.  Greg will provide us with an overview of goal setting and then there’ll be a chance to break out with like-minded athletes to go through specific goals.  We’ll also order in something to eat so join the FB group to stay up to date with the event.  Oh…and don’t stress about your run session.  We’ll do that at Elwood from 6pm and the meeting will start around 7:15pm.

Thanyapura planning is heating up.  The athletes are confirming their places and the venue is preparing for their stay.  So if you’re yet to let Ollie know that you really really want to go, you must do that now!!!  There’s no more time to waste to secure your spot to seriously one of the best experiences you’ll ever have!

We are adding a couple more sessions into the timetable…Welcome back double days!!!!  All the details are below, but in short, Tuesday morning runs and Thursday morning Hot Laps will be back on the agenda from next week.

Our grumble of the week goes to Triathlon Victoria this week :(  Read below for all Y’s…..but let’s just say we are super disappointed with their recent actions (against our requests) and hope our athletes have enough sense to make their own independent decisions (and see through their BS). 

Enough of that!  Back to fun stuff!!!  Have you ever wondered what it takes to be an Ironman?  Well, (somewhat controversially as he is yet to debut) our Ed-bassador wanted to share his thoughts.  We think he it is the fact that he’s riding the high from IM Cairns and carrying the euphoria into his IM Busso build, that made him put pen to paper.  But take the time to have a read, it’s very interesting.   And when you’ve finished his article, you can move straight on to Eddy’s movie picks.  He’s gone with the double-header this week, pre-empting wet, indoor weather.  Sorry Eddy, but we hope you’re wrong!

And let’s not forget we had a couple of athletes racing internationally this weekend, so make sure you read the weekend wrap up, we have included a new promo from Shotz (which is awesome) and there’s the all-important weekend sessions to get organised for.  So time to move on.  Keep warm.  Keep well.  And read on!

That's right!  Starting next week (Tuesday 26th and Thursday 28th June).  Time to get back to those early Tuesday and Thursday mornings, which will mean double days for many.  These key sessions help to build volume, strength and teach the body how to perform under fatigue.  If they are scheduled on your program, make sure you start getting along:
TUESDAY RUN - 6am from MSAC front entrance.  All levels welcome.
THURSDAY HOT LAPS - 5:45am from MSAC front entrance.  Intermediate/Advanced athletes only.  Must have confident bike handling skills, working front and rear lights, and Tri Alliance apparel is preferred (as popularity with other groups is growing and this will help keep us safe).    

We are aware that many of you have received the above email from Triathlon Victoria this week, advising you of our already stated decision to not club affiliate this season and outlining your options.  As we have said, this is an individual decision and we encourage you to make your choice for Tri Vic membership based on your perceived value-add of their service.  But, Tri Alliance WILL NOT force all members to take out this additional membership, if they do not want to.  The decision has not been made by 'Ollie Allan'.  The decision has been forced on us by the non-negotiable contracted provided by Triathlon Victoria and the legal ramifications of Third Line Forcing. It does not align with our core values.  We simply cannot enforce this.  This is why we are extremely disappointed that Triathlon Victoria chose to ignore our request NOT to communicate unfairly with our members, suggesting that you may now want to join an affiliated club.  Obviously, we do not want to lose any of our members and clearly communicated with you all that our decision was based on the the best interests of all members in our squad.  Thank you to those athletes who have voiced their support and opinion with us and directly to Triathlon Victoria.  Tri Alliance will do its upmost to support the members of our squad to the best of our ability, will nurture the development of the sport through the grass roots growth and introduction of new athletes to triathlon (mostly free of charge) and continue to support local and interstate events with setup, pre-race clinics, Tri Kids volunteer race-day support and technical officials.        

"At the start of the offseason athletes will generally ask: “Where to from here?” and “How do I maintain fitness in the offseason?” Firstly, you need to look at your goals and what races you’re planning to compete in next season. The goal may be as simple as repeat the races you did this season but be faster or more competitive, or to step up to the next distance if you started with shorter events. But in order to improve, you must raise that bar."
Text by Nick Croft, as seen in Aus Tri Magazine

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