A good run

I was not looking forward to the run today. I knew that it was going to be hard work. Funnily enough it was a fairly small turnout.

We warmed up at South Bank and did some stair work and then ran over the Victoria Bridge to the Botanic Gardens. I was really struggling with the warm up. I was running with Amy and Adele and I was really strugging just to keep up to them.

Once we got to the Botanic Gardens we did a small loop with 3/4 hard, jog back recovery and then straight into the next loop. I started off using Sophie and Sarah to pace off, but felt like I could push it a bit more, so I went past them not sure if I could sustain my pace or not, but because it was only a small loop I was able to hold the pace which was great. Managed to keep it up for the second loop too so I was pretty happy with that. Much more than that and my lack of endurance would have told a different story!

After that we did the dreaded 1 minute squat and then a sprint which is always hard work.

We then jogged back to South Bank working hard over the Goodwill Bridge. I ran with Sophie on the way back and we pushed each other along over the bridge. It felt good, I actually was feeling quite strong. The thing is the total session was only 1 hour and I think that really had a lot to do with it! Anyway, I was happy.

Back in the swim

After my disastrous swim last Thursday I decided to ease myself back into it by doing a 1500mtr swim at lunchtime on my own. Alicia and Tim from work came along and we all did our own thing.

I did a 1k continuous swim which I found OK, I was concentrating on my stroke and it actually wasn't feeling too bad. Then I did a 200mtr kick, 200mtr pool buoy bilaterally breathing and then 100mtr breaststroke.

I find the more relaxed and easy swimming I do the better it feels and funnily enough the faster I go. As soon as I try to go fast I don't get as much pull out of my stroke and it becomes inefficient, so whilst I didn't time anything today I am pretty sure that whilst my perceived effort was not high I think the time wouldn't have been too bad as I was concentrating on pulling my stroke right through and pushing it out the back and really grabbing the water out the front with my high elbows, even under the water.

I will do another session similar to this on Friday and then I will start with Trent's squad next week.

So, it was a very easy session, but at least I am back in the swim and it is a start. I am certainly feeling a bit more optimistic about my swimming now!

Mt Gravatt Hill reps

Today was the second day of our gear ladders. Byron is our cycle coach and he will do the same session two weeks in a row so that we know it a bit better the second time around and we can give it a bit more effort. I quite like this, it seems to work well for me. I also have the advantage of not missing too many cycle sessions so I do end up getting the benefit of this style of coaching.

The geared ladder was the same as last week; 3 times up Mt Gravatt hill starting off in the easiest gear and 1 gear harder each time up. The third time up last week I had to flick down to an easier gear twice while going up as my cadence got too low and I was at risk of falling off! This time however I made it up without having to go down a gear. Very thrilled with that! My cadence was between 45 and 60 which is where Byron recommended it be.

And, it was raining and I rode in the rain! Luckily it didn't rain whilst we were doing Mt Gravatt, but when we regrouped down the bottom it started sprinkling and a cyclist came up to the intersection to turn into the street to go up the mountain and locked it up and skidded and took a big fall - it looked quite spectacular, it was very scary. Dad was first over to him and he was actually OK, I think because of the rain he slid rather than grabbed on the bitumen, so he didn't look as though he had any damage - he may just ride a bit more cautiously in the rain though!

As soon as this drama was over and we headed back to where we started the ride at Stones Corner it bucketed down! It was absolutely pouring, the type of rain where you can immediately feel the water trickling into your shoes. I was not really comfortable riding along on my 120psi tyres in peak hour traffic with traffic lights and man hole covers and painted lanes, etc. I rode cautiously that is for sure. I managed to keep up with the group, so my guess is that everyone else was riding cautiously also!

So, all in all I was quite happy with this ride. This is actually my last ride before the big day out at Goondiwindi. My bike will have to be cleaned up, it is filthy! Tomorrow nights job I think.

Easy 45min run

I love these sessions.

Easy 45min run with HR between 140 and 155bpm. I ran from my work at QR down Ann Street on to the river, over the Goodwill bridge (quick drink stop here) around to the left in front of the Kangaroo Point cliffs and then over the Story Bridge and down into the Riverside Centre. The idea was to keep my HR at 140 -155bpm. It was just over 150 for most of it even though I was running really slowly.

But, I didn't care; I enjoyed the scenery, I felt good, the sun was shining and it was a pleasant morning to be out enjoying a run! I could run like this all the time that's for sure. I didn't have to be humiliated by all of the fast runners and I could just go at my own comfortable pace. Maybe I'm a turtle instead of a hare - slow and steady. Jeez that sounds like the words of a future age group champion - not!!!

The good thing is that I didn't pull up sore at all and I wore my skins all day at work and my legs feel great - no niggles, so I'm thrilled with that.

90k ride

I rode with Jacque today seeing as it was her 40th birthday party on Saturday night which rendered us both a bit useless for the squad ride on Sunday morning. Seeing as it is a long weekend for Australia Day we opted for a Monday morning ride instead.

We started out nice and early, rolling at 5:45am; it was set to be a hot day! We did almost 3 loops of our Yatala to Coomera V1 ride which was great. We turned on the 3rd loop just after the Jacobs Well Road turnoff.

It was uneventful in that we didn't have any flat tyres even though there was heaps of glass on the road. We both were really happy with the ride. We rode for 3 1/2 hours totalling 90k's. We stopped briefly to restock water bottles and grab some food, but this wouldn't have been a 10min stop.

It was very hot and on the 2nd and 3rd loops there was quite a stong head wind going out, funnily enough we didn't notice it on the way back... I went through 3 Accelerade bottles which makes me wonder if I should take 4 out for next weeks ride at Goondiwindi. I think the conditions at Goondiwindi are going to be similar to today. Hot and windy! There will be no let up from the wind either as it is just cotton crops on either side of the road - not the best kind of crop for protection against the wind! It is known for its cross winds - should make for an interesting ride. It was good for me to do this distance today just to know that I can do it. My heart rate was between 140 and 155bpm, I'll aim to have it around the 150 - 155 next week for the 80k with a cadence of 90 -95. It will be a mental challenge for me to have everyone overtake me, I'll just have to focus on my cadence and HR and refueling myself. I will get to the end eventually! I'm not sure of our average speed as my speedo didn't work, I'll drop my Polar HRM into Polar as soon as I finish Gundi.

Jacque dropped me a couple of times (up every hill and even on the the flats a couple of times!). It is good to see that she has grabbed her fitness back so quickly after her Christmas break, I just hope mine returns soon after my Christmas break and then injury break!!! I'll try and reel her in a little bit.

Ride Inside

Today was our Friday Ride Inside session. I really love these sessions - I never get left behind!

It started out a bit shaky when I managed to fall off one of the stationary rollers! The back wheel sits on 2 drums that roll and the front wheel sits on a frame that does up with the same set up as a quick release wheel. I had set myself up and was just starting to warm up when I leaned a bit to the right and the bike went with me! Luckily Jacque was setting up next to me and managed to catch me!!! She made some comment about how dangerous I was as it was Jacque who had to avoid me when I hit the pavement! Well, that got the heart going - for both of us!

The session was a gear ladder. We did 3 minutes in our big gear at the front and the easiest at the back then we had a 3 minute break. We kept doing this until we were riding in our hardest gear. I was on the 2nd resistance setting on the rollers and my cadence started out around 110 - 115, halfway through it I was struggling to keep my cadence above 80. Mark came around and adjusted our resistance at this poing to the lowest setting. This helped, but it was still hard work - it was a great session.

We then did a run off the bike for a few hundred metres. I really struggled with this as my legs were still carrying the residual tightness from the cramping the night before. My left calf in particular was threatening to cramp up, so I ended up backing off and stretching it out really well when I got back. Another reason not to swim at night - it interrups successive sessions.

We celebrated Friday and a completion of another Ride Inside with coffee at Albertos.

Most disastrous swim ever

I must say that I have never had such a disastrous swim as what I had today.

I was in lane 2 which was pretty fair, so I took up the rear seeing as I hadn't been swimming. We did 8 x 100mtrs warm up and pretty much as soon as I started swimming the dreaded cramps came along. At first I thought that I could relax my legs and just swim through them with less kick effort, but they just got worse. So I grabbed a pool buoy and tried to relieve them by not kicking at all, this didn't help matters either. My toes were curling up, my arches were cramping, they were starting to go into my calves and the back of my heel - it was just awful.

In then end I went across to lane 1 as I was being lapped and getting in the way of the other guys in my lane. I kind of just tried swimming up and down the lane with my pool buoy, but the cramps persisted for the whole session. As a consequence I wasn't concentrating on my stroke, it felf as though I was just thrashing about trying to get from one end of the pool to the other...

Unfortunately, Mark decided that we were going to do team relays. So I was put into my team after much trouble getting out of the pool with my cramps and being told that we must all dive in. I dived in and immediately lost my goggles, so because I wear contact lenses I couldn't open my eyes underwater. Consequently, I was thrashing about with cramped feet and calves bouncing off the lane ropes because I couldn't see where I was going. I was so embarrassed I wanted the ground (or the water) to swallow me up whole.

It seems that whenever I swim of a night I get cramps. There has been a pattern with this as long as I can remember. In fact I remember being plucked out of the water one swim club night when I was about 15. So, I have made the decicision not to do night swimming and I will do Trent's lunchtime swimming and then the BTS Saturday lunchtime swims. Hopefully, this false start to the commencement of my swim training will just be a little blip on the radar and I will start to make some progress in the coming weeks...

Stairs - what the?

Today was my first Thursday morning session. I hadn't been doing these previously as it was one of the sessions that Mark had dropped off my programme when I became injured.

It was really hard work! We did a lot of drills including hopping up the stairs, 5 on the left leg, 5 on the right leg and then sprinting up the hill with a recovery down and we did a number of reps of this. We did the same drill with jumping up 10 steps. I seem to struggle with the coordination required for the stair drills, I'm not sure if it is a case of not being conditioned to them and once I get a bit more practice I will get the hang of it or whether it is a case of weak core muscles. This was followed by squats that we held for 1 minute followed by a quick 500mtrs to get the feeling of running off the bike in our legs. This was hard work, my legs were burning. After the 3rd time of this I thought my quads were going to explode.

We then did a staggered run back to the goodwill bridge which is probably 2 - 21/2 k's @ 85%. I started out strong keeping pace with Sophie, however about halfway back my heart rate was at 95%, so I had to slow down and let Sophie go, just after I slowed down Dad overtook me. I knew this was going to happen one day, so the day is here. I'm hoping that once I get a bit more running fitness in I'll be able to reel him in, but I'm not so sure. He is running really well at the moment.

This session was followed by watermelon, coffee and toast - it doesn't really get too much better than that!

I love hills!

Today was hill repetitions up Mt Gravatt hill. This is a great hill, I remember the first time that I made it to the top, I was so chuffed it was incredible!

This was also my first ride with the pack since my stack. I was really nervous before it, but once I got there and everyone was chatting it distracted me from being completely terrified which was good.

My group (called the fast group, but we are really the slowest...) left first to give us a head start down to the mountain which is about a 15min ride from Stones Corner where we start. I took this opportunity to go out front which I thought might be a bit easier for me. What I didn't take into account though was the hill that greets us a couple of hundred metres up the road. I may have mentioned that hills aren't my strong point - well, needless to say I was soon at the back of the pack! But it felt OK, it all just felt natural, I was with people that I am comfortable riding with and I didn't have any problems riding in close proximity to them again which was a huge relief!

The mountain sets that we did were called gear ladders. The first time up we were in our easiest gear, next time up to the next cog and the next time one cog up again. I managed to do this, although the last time I had to go down a gear twice just quickly as my cadence was gettting below 40, so all in all I was quite happy with that. I would like to be climbing the mountain alongside Sophie and Jacque, but hey, I'll work up to it one day!

All in all a great ride for strength and for confidence.

New Max HR

Today I did the run sessions that I have been doing last week. These include a warmup and then some drills with the main set being 10 x 50mtrs @ 80% with walk back recovery.

My warmup felt OK and my drills were even feeling OK; I usually struggle with these in the technique department. I started doing my 10 x 50mtrs keeping an eye on my HR. My HR only got up to early 140's at the end of the first few 50mtrs and then it steadily climbed to the early 150's.

I decided to do an all out 100% effort on the last one and my HR was 181 when I finished, I couldn't believe it as it didn't feel as though I had put in that much more effort, I was certainly working at the 80% efforts, but this obviously tipped it over with the accumulation of the others.

So my new Max HR is 181.

Here are my new HR Zones:


Level 1 60-65% Recovery 109 - 118
Level 2 65-70% Endurance Base 118 - 127
Level 3 70-85% Aerobic Capacity 127 - 154
Level 4 85-92% Max Aerobic - Lactate Threshold 154 - 167
Level 5 92% + Anaerobic/Oxygen debt 167 - 181

Also, my coach said that it is too confusing to use my previous calculation including the rest HR, so we are purely taking the zones as a percentage of my max HR.

Finished the day with some core exercises from the Women's Health website: http://www.flashbonanza.com/womenshealth/workitout/ These are a great way to put together 6 exercises. I am doing the core exercises only and have included the Reverse Bicycle, Superwoman, Dead Bug, Big Hump, Hip Thrust Leg Curl and Reverse Crunch. I am finding them all a bit hard, but hopefully they will get easier over time. I will be doing these 2 or 3 times a week.

First road cycle after my accident

I did it... I am back on the bike on the road. It wasn't with the whole squad, but one step at a time. I was really nervous and not feeling very comfortable, but luckily Craig and Dad came along and we rode along at my pace (slow) and we did two of the Coomera loops which meant twice riding past where I fell off last weekend.

The first loop was spent with me getting my confidence back and just trying to calm down, the second loop I was feeling a lot more relaxed and comfortable. I sat on Dad's wheel for quite a bit of the way to get my confidence back. I even managed to pass a few people that were doing a road race from the Le Mans track - I passed them going up the hill and then they passed me going down the hill - must work on my descents!

The average speed was very slow -24.8km/h. I normally do this loop in 27-30km/h depending if I am on my own or with Dad and Craig. I was a bit disappointed that it was so slow, but the objective today was to get back on the bike and get some confidence back and that has been achieved. Average HR was probably between 120 and 130, not high.

Also, another good thing is it poured with rain, so I did end up riding in the rain! The rain was on and off and in places the road was quite wet, just as we were coming in to finish though it absolutely poured - we were drenched!

I do feel as though I have lost a bit of strength and fitness on the bike, but I'm hoping I can gain it back pretty quickly. Probably not in time for Goondiwindi, but I have resigned myself to the fact that it will be a pretty slow ride and luckily I'm OK with that and so are my team mates!

Running for the soul

I felt really down this morning. My arm is still swollen and not healing as quickly as I hoped. I spoke to the pharmacist yesterday about what I could do to get into the pool as soon as possible and he basically said that I had to wait a week. I skipped out on the BTS Saturday ride due to feeling nervous and there being a bit of rain about. So much for riding in the rain... So my thoughts were that everyone elses training was ploughing ahead whilst I was nursing scabs and being a complete wuss!!! I was not happy and feeling quite pathetic.

However, I went for a 7.5km run with Craig in the afternoon and it completely altered my mood. We drove up to Karawatha Park and ran through there, it was really lovely. I have decided that running through the bush is great! It was incredibly slow, Craig didn't mind going steady with me as he was doing a HR run and he had done a long hard ride in the morning. We were able to chat comfortably the whole way and admire the view. It was quite undulating but nothing too strenuous - just a really nice run.

So I am feeling a bit better about things. Not quite ready to register for Mooloolaba Triathlon, but getting closer.

Max HR Test

This morning was a maximum HR test at Ride Inside at West End on the rollers with the bike. We did a 10min warmup with a few hard kicks thrown in to really get us going, followed by two 8min all out - go as hard as you can sustain with nothing left in the tank at the end of the 8mins. So, I started with my HR around the 150 mark and built up to mid to high 160's and then in the last minute went all out and managed to get my HR up to 171. My resting HR is 53, although I may review this as I haven't taken it for a while.

So from this test we can identify what HR ranges I should be working in over the next period of training. Here are my HR Zone calculations and the summary:

Max HR - 171
Resting HR - 53

Formula for calculating zones: % of (MHR-RHR) + RHR

MHR - RHR = 171-53 = 118
70% of 118 = 82 + RHR (53) = 135
80% of 118 = 94 + 53 = 147
85% of 118 = 100 + 53 = 153
90% of 118 = 106 + 53 = 159
95% of 118 = 112 + 53 = 165
100% of 118 = 118 + 53 = 171

I find this interesting as according to the 220 - your age max HR rule of thumb I should be Max HR at 186, so I would be interested to see why mine is so low. Is it because I don't push myself to the max or is it my make up?

Anyway, it will be interesting to work within these ranges and see how I go.

I think I will try and tape these to my handlebars or try and memorise them or something.

Back on deck

Well, enough sitting around licking my wounds.

I didn't even turn the television on to watch the Australian Open tennis today (OK maybe just while I was eating my lunch...). I managed to use the last day of my sick leave productively - I went for a run. Well, I guess you could call it an amble if you were unlucky enough to witness it, but it felt like a run. I was working hard, breathing heavy and I was sweating, but unfortunately all that hard work did not result in much more than an amble.

The set consisted of the same as what I did last week:

15min warmup jog
3 sets of bum kicks
3 sets of high knees
10 x 50mtrs @ 80%
10min cool down - no such thing when you are as unfit as I am!

It felt good to be doing SOMETHING! I don't really care that it was slow and hard and proved how bad I was going, the only way from here is up.

My wounds (the gravel rash from my Saturday bike fall) are healing nicely. They had all kind of sealed after the copious spraying of Betadine that I had diligently been applying. I could feel the scab on my arm while running, I can't really explain it other than it felt disjointed to my arm and a bit yuck. I wonder how it will go with the vibration of riding a bike. I am doing an indoor spin on Friday and then a long bike ride on Saturday, so hopefully by Saturday it will be better.

I am still doing the 80k Hell of the West ride, it will just be slow and steady (and upright!!!).

Must remember; the rubber stays on the bitumen...

Uh Oh!

Well, it had to happen eventally... I crashed my bike today. I am feeling pretty sore and sorry for myself with scrapes on my left arm, left leg, right leg, right arm and my right hand is quite cut up on all the fingertips rendering it next to useless - this is the most painful. My hand was throbbing all day until I got some painkillers into me! I also copped some small marks to the head and upon close inspection of my helmet Dad detected a crack - so a new helmet is on the shopping list. This explains the stars I was seeing afterwards! I had already decided to replace the helmet as I knew that I hit my head, so a wise decision indeed! e

I was really looking forward to the ride, it was with some friends whose company I enjoy who are all competent riders. The sun was shining for the first time this year and we made a nice early start of it. However 10 minutes into the ride with the sun in my eyes I clipped the wheel in front of me over some pot holes and came to a screeching, grazing abrupt end to the ride! Unfortunately it ended the ride for everyone else too, so I went from a feeling of wellbeing and anticpation into pain and feeling quite low. Bugger...

Lessons learnt:

• Don't follow too closely to the wheel in front when going over pot holes
• Ride with caution when the sun is in your eyes
• Take pain killers as soon as you can get them - Panafen Plus is nice!
• Do douse all wounds with Betadine
• Replace helmet even if you didn't hit your head hard
• Practise writing with your left hand before you need to and realise that you can't!

So my training session for today and tomorrow has been curtailed slightly - not the best preparation for Hell of the West - 3 weeks to go... As soon as my sores stop weeping I'll jump on the wind trainer, I don't hink I'll be able to change gears too well with my right hand for a little while, so I'll probably do wind trainer sessions until I am right, but I know that I need to jump back into a group ride as soon as I am able or risk losing too much confidence - I don't have swags of it to lose!

Another 2 sessions in 1 day!

Well, today was a good solid days training.

I did a run this morning which was a bit of an odd session. It sounds really easy, but it was quite intense. I had a 15min warmup, 3 sets of bum kicks, 3 sets of high knees followed by 10 x 50mtrs @ 80% with a 10min warm down. I was quite pleased with how I went, on the warm down there was a moment - albeit it brief when I was running under 6min/ks and it felt fairly easy, however most of it was between 6:15 and 6:30min/ks. I'll get there!

Lots of stretching afterwards and I rolled on my ITB roller for a good while on both legs and released my hip muscle on the rhs while everything was nice and warmed up. The luxury of running from home while on holidays, it really is good to finish a run and then straight into stretching, hydrating, eating without having to worry about racing to work, finding a car park, getting into the showers, getting myself organised and then worrying about food and hydration. Maybe I should win lotto and quit work! Ok.... I'm dreaming now!

I did my first squad swim tonight at the valley pool - the first time in ages, months in fact... It was a good session to come back into - fairly aerobic with some technique sets thrown in. It consisted of:

4 x 100 - 75 free, 25 breaststroke - concentrating on high elbows
16 x 25mtrs kick with flippers - concentrating on kicking from the hips
4 x 50mtrs 25 closed fist, 25 normal free
8 x 50m 15sec rest
4 x 100m 10sec rest
2 x 200m 5sec rest
100m breastroke cool down.

It was probably enough for me! I felt a lot better in this session compared to doing my 1500m continuous swim yesterday at Chandler. I think it may have been because they had the Valley pool split so it was 25mtrs. Also it helps to be swimming in a lane with other swimmers that are similar to you. I was swimming with Ixchel and Kaye and it was good to have them there keeping me honest.

I feel good, I feel as though I am back into it now. My diet has improved, I'm not eating the garbage that I was eating, although I did have a caramello and a milo today, it's a gradual process of improvement!

BTS is back from Holidays

Well, today marked the first day of my training back with BTS (www.brisbanetrisquad.com.au) with a River Loop on the bike. BTS had a 2 week break and it was interesting to see that most others are in the same boat as me. They have done some things over the break but not as much as they should have. So our cycling coach Byron thought that we should be snapped into some fitness. The river loop was broken up into two groups. I went out in the second group (the slower one). We had a fairly aerobic intensity the whole way around with about 5 all out 100% sprints thrown in for about 15secs each. I love these sprints! It was a good session, I felt as though I had done some work. I didn't have my HRM on and the speedo didn't work on my computer so no decent stats - I'll work on fixing these up as I am keen to guage improvemnt.

Also, I managed to go for a swim! What - 2 sessions in one day!!!

This is the first swim that I have done since the Raby Bay Gatorade Tri series on Dec 16 and I hadn't swum for a couple of weeks prior to that. Needless to say that it was not a great swim. I wasn't going to time it, I was just going to go out and do an easy 1500m concentrating on form and technique. At the 900m mark I really wanted to stop and do breaststroke - it was just plain hard work. I plugged on though. I realised pretty early on that it was going to be a bit of a shocker, I didn't do bilateral breathing (this is always difficult for me - something I need to work at), and I was not feeling at all strong in the water. I felt as though I was dragging myself through mud. I decided to time the last 500mtrs as a guage so that I can aim to improve it over the next couple of months. Drumroll.... 10:33 for 500mtrs. I should be a good minute quicker than that! I did have my quads cramping for 150mtrs of this so I didn't do much kicking for that time. Anyway, no excuses it still would have been well over the 10min mark.

Must do more swimming!

We're in Flood!

I was due to do a long bike ride this morning with a friend, however I am flooded in. We went for a drive this morning and Chambers Flat Road was completely flooded with a car just showing its roof racks in the middle!

Since I last posted I have done 2 runs and they were both really hard. We went away for 3 nights to Rainbow Beach in the middle of cyclonic weather. Optimistically we packed our bikes up and took them up with us. The first day was hot, humid and wet. I got up early and went for a 7.5km run. It was quite nice running along Inskip Point out towards Fraser Island in the misty rain, it was good to run in a spot that is different from the norm. The run was really hard work, I haven't been doing a great deal of running lately due to injury initially and lately because of Christmas and laziness, so this was a big wake up call to run 7.5k in 47mins.

The next run I did was yesterday, same location, however the skies were clear and it was hot - really hot! I ran 8k in 49min 30secs. Very shabby, I found it really hard work. When I think of how little running I have been doing I deserve to be suffering! The good part about my second run though was that my legs, hip and foot felt much better than on the first run, so that's a pretty good indication that I am good to go. So, I'm a runner again!!! I will probably try and run every 2nd or 3rd day now with a fairly aerobic intensity just to get back into it. This will also go towards removing some of the christmas pudding, chocolates and chips from my mid section! Shortly I'll start running with BTS (www.brisbanetrisquad.com.au) again to try and get a bit quicker.

Spinervals are great!

Well, New Years Day brought about a day of relaxation and junk food with friends - a lovely day! So, today we (Craig, Dad and I) arranged to do a Spinervals (http://www.spinervals.com) session in our lounge room. We moved the couch out of the way, set up the 3 Mag trainers, brought in the heavy duty fan and put the DVD in and away we went. The DVD that we chose was "Big Gear Strength". Well... needless to say it was hard work; 1 hour of Coach Troy Jacobsen http://www.coachtroy.com/ telling us he wanted us to hurt! Hurt we did. These are great sessions, we use these when the weather is a bit dodgy or we are time constrained and they are the sort of sessions that you really can't bludge on! Dad is noticing a huge difference in how he is going with these sessions, he is a lot stronger on them. Both Dad and Craig were in their big gear and with the maximum resistance on the Mag Trainer, I was at about 3/4 which is pretty good for me.

We are heading up to Rainbow Beach for a few days to have a break with the kids, but we have chosen a place that has a 25m pool so I might be able to get back in the pool - I'll probably swim like a stone. We're also taking the bikes with us so that we can do a ride each - should be fun!

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year!!! May your year be full of realised goals and great health for you, your friends and family. I made it up to see the New Year in, probably the first in many years - quite an accomplishment. Yawn.... signing off now...