Must be in Heaven

Nothing like the satisfaction of having a good 90min swim, then sitting on the couch with a coffee and breakfast in front of the TV watching the Olympic's ... Heaven :)

The number for today must be 8, as we did many sets of 800m i.e. 8 x 100, 800, 2 x 400.  Perhaps I should get a lotto ticket ?? One of the sets required the slower lanes to wear fins (that's me), now I know what it must feel like for these Olymipc swimmers when they go fast, unfortunately even with fins I can't get anywhere close to their times. Such disappointment when you take them off and you feel like you are not moving at all, dam reality !!  

Buggar the wind and the rain

Group ride day (Sunday), me and one other braved the wind and rain to complete a 2 hour ride this morning.  Great work considering last time it was just the two of us, we bailed out of the ride and went for a coffee instead and were sprung by coach.

Not so reassuring when 'camp mother' of the Sunday bike ride yells out from across the carpark, 'Gee you guys are brave!!', she was referring to the gusting wind.  She and a few others were heading off for the final of the Run Auckland Series.  The advice was to stay away from hills and make sure you maintain the pedalling motion as helps to balance when you do get hit with a gust.

Decided not to wear the new shoes as opted for socks this morning, also wore my newly purchased leg warmers, they were fantastic and did keep the legs warm, however a major design flaw as although you should be able to move then down when you get warm, they should at least beable to keep them pulled up!. Next time I will have to wear them under my normal bike pants, but then seems to defeat the purpose of being able to remove them quickly ???  

Apart from the cold and wet we both managed to stay on our bikes, and Im glad we made the effort as it has been sometime since I actually got out on the road.

PS saw the misses out for a joy ride when she should have been on the bikes with us :)

Coach is Back, and dont we know it!

Saturday brick time again, today was a special day as coach had her first day back after the birth of her beautiful sporting star!.  Not a good start for me, not able to find room to setup my bike in the wind trainer hall, so when I did the mad dach to the pool, across the skate park from the hall, I was a few minutes late.  Hard to sneak in when everyone is watching, Buggar!.

A good swim session today with a set of 400s and some IMs (one length of each stroke for the uninitiated, butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle), certainly a killer if you have not swum them for a while.  Unfortunately I had a wee sickee in the pool, but managed to hold it in my mouth until I reached the bathrooms, good one!.

The ride was hard with some long sets in high gears.  Coach took the session so no opportunity to ease off, although I expect she ran out of words whilst trying to distract us from the sore legs as she revealed this blog to the class.  Nice one, so welcome new readers, although this blog had started as a private affair only distributed to a few, but never mind and it is great to get a ripping when I am feeling down or need a kick in the ass.

The run off the bike was mean't to be a 30-40 min run, clearly I am way slower than everyone else as I took a good 50mins although I suspect I saw more of Le Roys Bush track than others since I seemed to get lost in the various paths available.  However eventually made it back to the car absolutely buggared.  Lucky for me when I got home I was allowed a 2 min shower to get rid of most off the stink before heading our to watch Miss Amelia play netball.

Welcome back coach, just in time to keep me honest :)

Friday Off, not likely!

Being Friday it was mean't to be my day off from training, however as I already had days off during the week I felt the need to get out for a run, so managed to knock off a good 60min steady run with hills.  I ran past the same group of ladies 3 times as I completed a figure 8 around the local streets, down thru the forest and back up colonal road from the sugar factory.  Each time I past them I put ona brave face to indicate I was out for a relaxing run, Im sure the heavey breathing indicated otherwise :)

I am nowhere as fit as I think I should be, certainly I don't feel as fit as I was when I was training for the Lake Hood Half Ironman.  I think the problem is a happy life makes it harder to get out for long periods.  But anyhow my vow for next week is to complete all prescribed sessions, starting from this weekend where I can good hard sessions planned as coach returns from parental leave.  Goodness!

PS: The ping pong balls were used appropriately.  We have a swim drill called fists, and as it sounds you hold your hand in a fist and use the placement of your forearm to catch the water, however some tend to cheat a little (not me ofcourse :) )so those lucky few were given ping pong balls to hold.  Works a treat as you need to form a proper fist to hold them tight.  Nice move coach!

The Swim Tool Kit

Todays swim session was back to technique using all the tools in the kit (fins, paddles, pull bouy, bands, kick boards and ping pong balls).  Apparently a easier session after Tuesdays 800m time trials, buggar I missed it. :)

So I bet your wondering about the ping pong balls ah?, well add your smarty comments and see who can guess, I will let you know in the next update. :)

Late nights no good for an early start!

Ended up working late last night, so although good intentions of going for swim this morning I slept through the first two alarms and only awoke after the cat decided he needed food at 6:08.  After another 10min snooze I managed to drag my butt from bed and jump on the bike (wind trainer).  No matter how good the music it is soooo boring.

Rain, rain and more rain

The weather forcast is not good news, rain, rain and more rain.  The joys of winter training !  Unfortunately 3 hours on the treadmill is just not going to happen nor is 3 hours on the wind trainer, so looks like I need to toughen up and at least go running in the cold and wet outdoors.

Today is Sunday night and Im already down a 3 hour ride which was meant to happen this morning, unfortunately the rain did not help.  Plus not often the case, but we went out last night so the sleep in was most welcome.  Time to pull finger on Monday.

You got to learn to take a bit of hurt!

"You got to learn to take a bit of hurt!" the inspirational remark yelled out during wind trainer class today.   Not sure it was inspirational, but unfortunately very factual.  After a hard swim (60min) and a hard bike (60min) I was happy to sneak out of a run to go watch Miss Amelia play netball.  The most precious moment was the celebration dance after intercepting the ball and passing it on to another, one of the exciting plays earning 'player of the day' not bad for a 5 year old :)

The key swim set today was 2 x 400, 4 x 200 and 8 x 100 wil 10sec res, a quick interchange and into a hard wind trainer with 5 sets of 5min high gear lots of resistance, 30 sec sprint and 3min spin. Tired and sweaty!!!

Todays reward was the collection of a prize I won  for early entry into the Taupo Half Ironman.  See picture, they are super flash and far to expensive and swanky for a simple athlete like myself.  My fear is people will have great expectations of my abilities, then I will jump on the bike and likely fall off just to show how classy I am.  But great colour for a cantab :)

Pumped for K2

After a good catch-up with coach I am now pumped to get lots of hill riding under my belt and give K2 a crack, then I read the following:

The Cranleigh K2 – 2,300 metres of screaming descent !

The Cranleigh K2 is the toughest one day cycle challenge in the Southern Hemisphere. It is also one of the most scenic and varied with the route traveling through sub tropical forest, pacific coastlines, rural farmland and the Puhutakawa coastline of the Hauraki Gulf.

The event is named after Kuaotunu, an enchanting community on the wild eastern coastline of the Coromandel Peninsula. In Maori, the name Kuaotunu means “to inspire fear in young animals” ! The 2 represents the almost 200km that the ride will cover. 

Then I read the statistics, quickest time is 6 hours and longest 10-11 hours.  Lucky for me, coach has already conspired to get the Sunday ride group ride up the albany hill this weekend! Nice.

How to get motivated

Rule number 1:  
Get yourself a nagging wife who loves you heaps and won't let you give up :)
Rule number 2: 
Get yourself some mates who are willing to give you a hug, some encouraging words and a kick in the ass
Rule number 3:
Write a blog so family and friends can leave encourage and smarty pant comments
Rule number 4:
Schedule a face to face with your coach (today), this will surely scare you into action :)
Rule number 5:
Look at the countdown clock and realize you only have 225 days to prepare, wholly goodness!!!

So today I got back into action with a good and steady 90min swim session.  Sweet!  Although I hear you gotta do at least two sessions before you are considered to be back on track so better go for a run later today.

Where has the time gone

I notice my last post was on July 3rd and today is the 17th, where does the time go?

Life has got in the way these last few weeks, unfortunately Mum was rushed into hospital, but is all good now :) Spent a week in ChCh but just out of my routine so didnt do as much training as I should, then away this weekend.  So overall have missed two weekends i.e. a brick and a ride session x 2.

Meeting with coach this week and not planning anymore time from Auckland so hope to get back on track quickly. 

Not your everyday update

So got the following update, not something you see everyday funny :)

Pool Flooded!?!

Unfortunately, the downpour that hit Auckland has filled the swimming pool with bark chips from the bank.  The pool is currently black.  Tonight's swim training is cancelled. 

It is likely that the pool will be back in action for tomorrow night's swim technique class.  I'll send out another email at midday tomorrow if the pool won't be ready for tomorrow night's swim training.

Cheers

Brave or just Stupid!

This is the question being asked by all us "stupid" people in the water this morning.  Cold, dark, windy and icecle rain and we are swimming in an outdoor pool, no wetsuites only togs!.   So the question is "brave" or "stupid", Im sure folks will leave a comment on this :)

Swimming has moved into the next phase, first drills, then steady long distance, now breathing shorter distance focus.  I suspect speed work will follow.

I felt strong today despite the stiff body from Sundays run, and yes I have been stretching!. 

Coming round the mountain

Sunday's big event was a 19.9k off road run at Woodhill Forest, Xterra Series.

I decided to take my new Garmin today, normally used on the bike, but decided to slip it in my pocket to track the run.  Im not sure if it helped, especially when  it ticked past 19.9k and the finish line was nowhere in signt, in fact we where heading in the opposite direction, dam it!

The first several k's headed up a steap and sandy road, nice! Then lots of undulating track, down hill then up a vertical hill and lots more undulations, along forest roads and single file tracks, a good mix.  Whenever I run up a hill now, I think of Liza and the comments she would be throwing out and it makes me smile and keeps me going :)

Absolutely buggared afterwards, took me 3hrs, 14mins approx to do the 21.2k's, which I didn't think was too bad given the course.  A real tester at 2 points, firstly around 16k when I hit a wall, felt completely buggared, legs started to cramp, and I wished I had some gels or something to push me on.  The second was once the Garmin hit 19.9k and the track just kept going and going......as coach mentioned it was good training for the Ironman, especially mentally, working out what you needed to do to keep pushing yourslef even though all you want to do is walk or even lie down for a nap.    

Anyhow another challenge ticked off, this week is all about recovery and then come Saturday it is back on!, Sunday kicks off hill work on the bike in prep for the next challenge, K2.

PS many special thanks to the wife for arranging a massage last night!. Top job :)

What constitutes a sleep in?

Yesterday I tried to convince Liza that going to training at 7.30 rather than 6.30 constituted as a sleep in as per the, "Yes you can do an Ironman as long as I get to sleep in with you at least one morning in the weekend". I mean at least it was'nt 5.30am. :)

So went to the later brick session this Saturday, mainly because Liza set her alarm but then forgot to turn it on, yeah right!.  I know someone is going to say why is it Liza's responsibility, but she offered.

Anyhow thank goodness the pool was warm, because the air was getting colder and colder as the day awakened. Nice swim session with 10 x 200m.  Bike was on the wind trainer, despite the blue sky, which was a good call given the chill. Missed the run today as per coaches instructions.  Need to prepare for a 20k off road run on Sunday.