Cycle TT

We were at the Nundah Crit track at the bright and early time of 5am...

It was a 30min warmup followed by a 30min TT followed by a 30min easy cool down.

The track was wet, but there was no rain thank goodness and even better - there was no wind.

My 30mins I got to 17.5kms (average 35kms/hr), last week was 16.8kms so I was happy with that.  Craig caught me about halfway through and we played around a bit; I drafted off him, then I overtook him, then he overtook me and then I drafted off him, etc, etc.  I tried to not be drafting off him when I didn't need to so that it was a solid effort the whole way through and I think that you actually work a lot harder doing it like this, but it will blur the figures.

Chatting to Craig afterwards we are kind of thinking that we might start them together and ride them together.  That way we will both be working hard and pushing each other on.  My fear of course is seeing as I am only hanging on to him by a thread at the moment that once he gets the Ridley it will be Bye Bye Emma!

Swim with 200m TT

The following swim set was done:
w/u:12 x 50m easy (15secs rest after each)
8 x 75m  of: 2 x 25m easy, 20secs rest, 1 x 25m ALL OUT, 20secs rest,
200m ALL OUT (no paddles/pb), 4mins rest,
8 x 75m  of: 2 x 25m easy, 20secs rest, 1 x 25m ALL OUT, 20secs rest,
200m ALL OUT (no paddles/pb), 4mins rest,
4 x 100m easy c/d

Both the 200mtrs were on 3mins 40 secs at Jindalee Pool (50m).  So, even though it appears as though I have gone backwards I think it makes a difference performing them in a 50m pool - that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

41/2 hr ride and 30min run

The weather looked to be continuing with steady rain.

I opted to do this session on the wind trainer and figured that this will be a great mental toughening session. 

Seeing as it was a long ride and effectively meant to be easy I didn't want to overdo it on the wind trainer, but I didn't want to bludge either.  So, I set a few ground rules; 90 cadence, min 120bpm not exceeding 140 and then when an ad break came on the TV I would change to a harder gear and pedal at 60 cadence for 2 minutes plus rounding up the current minute just to make it easier to manage seeing as my garmin stops showing seconds once it clicks over the hour!

I was set up with my drink bottles all made up, my vegemite sandwiches, my towel, tissues, remote for the TV - I was good to go!

I started off really well; watching CNS news and then 7 news and then Sunrise....  It was at about the 1hr 45min mark that something snapped and I realised that this was going to be a really, really tough session!!!  I started bargaining with myself and coming up with all sorts of things to get me to the next ad break.  Eventually at the 2hr 20min mark my bargainaing and self talk was driving me insane and I was losing the battle.  I had almost talked myself into doing a long ride on Thursday instead!

It was at this point that I thought - bugger it!  I have just over 2 hours to continue riding and I will do it outside - surely that has to be better!  So, I tried to make it a fast transition and a short time later I was riding up my street with the wind in my hair and no rain!  Why on earth would I choose a wind trainer session over this?

I felt like a puppy that had been let out of its cage!  As I was pulling up to cross Moggill Road, I noticed the dark skies above and felt the first light sprinkle.  It was then that I realised that this was going to be a wet ride.  I didn't even mind...

Seconds later the heavens opened up and it stayed like that until I was 10mins from home at the end of my ride!  The rain was stinging my face, I could stay completely hydrated by just sticking out my tongue!  There were very few cyclists and cars out and about which made it a little eerie seeing as I rode around the river loop where there are generally many, many cyclists.

When I got home I was drenched and dripping, so I dried off my feet and put on some dry socks (my new favourite accessory) and picked up the dog and we headed out for a 30min run.  The run was slow, but I felt OK and by this stage the rain had stopped and other than it being quite muggy which I think affected Nattie it was a great run.

It was nice to have this session ticked off and I am pleased that I didn't throw in the towel on the wind trainer!  I have a renewed respect for anyone who can ride on a wind trainer on their own for any length of time....  Maybe my mental toughness needs a bit of work!

90min long run with Craig

After the festivities of Christmas Day and Boxing Day which both contained copious amounts of food we were in damage control!

So, off for a 90min run for us.  I am a slower runner than Craig and he said that he would run at my pace.  We headed out towards Indooroopilly and St Lucia and made it to the Golf Course before turning around and heading for home.

The run felt comfortable; I made sure that I wasn't hurried and ran at my own pace and I felt good.  I felt like I could have run forever.  I took a bottle of water with me and a gel of which I managed to have a 'sip' of - I really need more practice with this. 

The rain made it a little uncomfortable, Brisbane had just received copious amounts of rain and we copped a good steady rainfall on the run.  I have come to the realisation that I don't like my feet getting wet.  I am going to put a pair of socks in a snap-lock bag in transition for the IM so that I am guaranteed a pair of dry clean socks for the marathon!  Small luxuries...

Because we didn't have any other commitments we took our time stretching and then went into the pool and I seemed to recover from this session really well.  My ITB's were a little tight in the evening, but really this was the only indication that I had run for 90minutes so I am really pleased with that.

Christmas morning

We had a big day planned...  12 of our family and friends were coming over for a massive Christmas Lunch, so Craig and I decided that we didn't want to do too much exercise otherwise we would be yawning through the conversations.

We decided our 5km loop would be a good start to the day and go a little way towards undoing the damage we both intended to inflict on our waistlines at lunchtime!

The run was gorgeous - I donned my reindeer antlers and took Nattie with me and I had a couple of people wish me Merry Christmas and flash their car head lights - very festive.  It sprinkled a light rain which was really pretty and cooling which all made for a fantastic run.

Now, on to the important business of Christmas Lunch and Boxing Day Lunch!

The menu was:

Turkey Roll
Ham
Roast Potatoes with garlic and rosemary
Roast Pumpkin and Sweet Potato coated with seasoned flour
Honeyed carrots
Beans with slivered almonds
Crunchy noodle salad

And for dessert:

Christmas pudding with brandy butter
Custard
Cream
Ice-cream
Cointreu truffles
Fruit
Pavlova Christmas Day
Cheesecake Boxing Day
Many more nibblies

So, all in all - there is a lot of work to be done to work it all off!!!

Christmas Eve River Loop

This morning was a great ride; it was the day before Christmas and I knew it was going to be festive when Craig, Muffy and I were riding in to West End and we caught a guy at the lights with tinsel and baubles hanging off him and his bike!

We met the others at West End and cruised around the River Loop.  Nicole had her Ipod speaker and we got to listen to christmas carols along the way (really it was incentive to ride harder to get in front so you couldn't hear them!!!).

We picked up Chris and Rob along the way who we used to ride with and it was great catching up with them.  they joined us for coffee afterward at Alberto's for a bit of a chin wag.

I wasn't working today so Craig and I had our leisurely coffee and then ambled home to prepare the house for Christmas!

Monday Crit session

This morning's set was a Time Trial.

30min warmup where I chatted to Faye and tried to get the blood pumping in to the legs...

Then 30min of TT.  It was a bit windy and seemed to get windier the more we went on.  But I managed to do 16.8kms in 30mins.  Which makes my average 33.6km/hr.

I was pretty happy with that.

This will give me a good benchmark to work with.

And the best news - Craig didn't lap me!  The longer his Ridley take to get on the road the better it will be for me not being lapped!

Long swim set failure... and some perspective!

Today was my long pyramid set.  I waited until Craig came back from his long ride and then I headed out to Jindalee Pool to do my session.

As I was getting myself organised there was a guy that rocked up on crutches and started swimming in the lane beside me.

We were pretty similar in pace - me with my pool buoy and paddles, him on his own.  I felt OK in the water and I was using Craig's paddles which are smaller than mine. 

I was conscious of my shoulder early on in the set and was trying to concentrate on my stroke and figure out if I was doing anything to antagonise it.

3/4 the way through the set I was limping and my shoulder was sore, so I ditched the paddles, continued on and it was still giving me grief.  So, I decided to finish the lap I was on and call it quits.  I ended up breast stroking to the end with my pool buoy.  I felt like a tug boat that was being towed in to shore!!!

Anyway, I was down the end of the pool stretching my shoulder this way and that to try and help it out and the guy on the crutches started chatting away to me.

He had just finished his set and was telling me how he had broken his heel falling two stories off a building site on to the concrete below.  He has been on crutches for 3 months and had at least another 1 month to go.  He has had a plate and some screws inserted and you could see that his calf had all but atrophied away.  I asked him if he used to swim prior to his accident and he said that not since school had he swum and that he was absolutely loving it.  He only feels 'normal' when he is swimming and it has given him a new lease on life.  It was really uplifting seeing the joy that swimming gave him.

Chatting to him completely turned my session around.  I had gone from being a bit frustrated and demoralised from not completing my set to feeling really grateful that I have the capability to even contemplate taking on an event such as an Ironman. 

lt is people like this that reinforce my thankfulness that I do have my health and the physical capabilities to do what I do.

4 hour ride - 30min run

There was an Ironman camp on this weekend.  Craig and I didn't go as we had the kids and were tag-teaming our training over the weekend.  Also we are hosting Christmas and Boxing Day lunch for our families so there was plenty to do at home.

I rode with Sarah, Alicia and Renee out at Coomera.  We met at 5:30 and rode out towards Jacobs Well and then towards Coomera down to Dreamworld and then back again.  Then we rode down the V1 towards Coomera Dreamworld and then I rode back with the girls and left them to continue on for an hour on my own.

Riding with the girls was lovely, I was mainly not drafting as I said that I wanted to be under my own steam and our pace was nice and steady. 

Once I said goodbye to the girls and went out on my own I felt good for the first 15mins and then it all started to fall apart.  I had been drinking heaps the last couple of hours, however the first 90mins of the ride I only drank half of my drink bottle, so I think this was coming back to bite me on the bum!  I drank, I ate, still I felt slow and lacking energy and I was really just turning the cranks over. 

Needless to say the run was quite slow.  I grabbed a water and a gel and headed out.  It was so slow it wasn't funny, but at least I figured it was a run off the bike!  I don't do gels. I'm not a fan of them and figure that they are just manufactured expensive muck, however Craig loves them and I figure that if I can get used to them it is going to be a lot easier to handle in the marathon than other food or at least I could mix it up with other food.  So, I had taken an enervite gel with me and figured that seeing as I was on my own I would give it a go and if it made me puke I could do so in my own privacy!  Anyway, I opened it up and sucked a bit down and it wasn't too bad!  Although I realised afterwards that the amount that I took was lucky to be 1/8th of the gel!  Never mind - it's a start.

So, it was a 4hr 15min ride, 110kms, 30min run (probably 2kms...  :-)  )  I went through 5 bottles of High-5 4:1 electrolytes, 1 and 3/4 vegemite sandwiches and a miniscule amount of gel with a bottle of water. 

Friday river loop

Well...  this was NOT a recovery ride.

Not quite sure what happened, but Muffy came around to my place and I ended up being about 5 minutes late, Craig was driving in as he was picking the kids up after the ride and wouldn't have enough time to ride home and pick up the car.  So, running late Muffy and I flew in to West End and arrived out of breath with 5 minutes up our sleeve.  Phew!

For some reason, the rest of the ride continued in the same manner, there was just Muffy and I and we really hooked along.  We hit over 40km/h through Coronation Drive and we hit 38km/h through the Corso.  We jumped on the pack of a group of 5 cyclists at 1 point when they overtook us and hung with them from St Lucia to Yeronga so this picked up our pace too.

I didn't time our loop, but I think it was around an hour 10, however we were stuck on quite a few lights.

I paid for it later in the day, felt quite shattered actually!  Mental note - use this ride as a recovery ride!!!

At least the coffee and banter afterwards was all worth it.

50m x 50m swim

Today's swim was to be:

6 x 50m warm up
38 x 50m 5secs rest with p/b/paddles all at the same pace
6 x 50m cool down.

I had a really sore shoulder after Sunday's swim and skipped Monday's swim as a result (any excuse!).  My shoulder felt good so I thought that I would swim and see how it felt.  It felt great in the warmup but once I put the paddles on I felt pain pretty much straight away so took the paddles off. 

I kept the pool buoy on and swam without paddles.  My first lap was 1min 10secs!  I did some quick calculations and decided that this was going to take forever!  So I skipped the 5secs rest and just continued on until the set was finished.  I have no idea what time I was doing them on at the end but my gut feeling was that they would be equal or better than when I started as I was getting a bit better feel for the water and was really concentrating on my stroke.

I will stay off the paddles for probably another week or so and then give them another go and see how it works out, but if they still strain my shoulder it will be off with the paddles!

The start of my long run!

Well, since having a hamstring hiccup I haven't done any long runs.  Today I managed a 1 hour run with a few niggles but nothing too dramatic.  Coincidentally, no niggles on my hamstring!

Craig and I set out from home and ran up to Kenmore Road and then around to Fig Tree Pocket Road and we managed to get almost down to the Pony Club before we hit 30 minutes and turned around.

It was quite a hilly run and probably not one that I will continue as my long run.  I think I will do my run out to St Lucia or even Chelmer/Graceville as there is a mix of flat and hills and water and toilets, etc.

I struggled and felt like I was running really slow (there's a reason for that - I was!).  But at the end of the run I didn't feel as though I had to stop, I could have shuffled along for a bit further, so I am happy to finish on a note like that.

There are a couple of hills that I ran up today that I haven't been able to run up before; I was gasping for air and struggling, but I didn't need to walk, so whilst it is still slow there is some improvement.

Cliff Young is my inspiration.  I often think that if I get into a comfortable pace if I can just go on forever like Cliff I'll be a happy girl.

Cootha 3 loops

After last night's coughing episode I wasn't sure how I would go this morning.  I woke feeling OK but shortly after was coughing a little a bit wheezy.  So, I was going to ride, but just play it by ear.  Muffy Craig and I left home at 4:30 for Cootha and we rode up to Cootha nice and easy.

I wasn't feeling great, I was feeling a bit heady and wheezy but once I got into the first lap I felt OK.  I deliberately just tried to keep my breathing relaxed and I didn't worry too much about trying to keep my cadence above 50; I just rode trying to stay relaxed.  This seemed to do the trick as I got around 3 laps without too much hassle.  The last lap was a bit more of a struggle than the other two but all in all I did a lot better than I was expecting.

Very happy with that.

We had a 12 weeks out from IM NZ get together on the weekend at Tim Franklin's lovely home at Red Hill.  Finally, all 5 of us girls were in the one place to get a group photo taken.  And here we are:

This is Bec, Sophie, Jacque G, Faye and myself Emma.

Don't we look fabulous!  I wonder how different we will look 1 week out of IM?

Tuesday's turn of events...

I don't know what it is about Tuesday's but I really struggle...

Couldn't get out of bed to go for a run for love nor money.  It's a run I look forward to as it is a short hilly run around home with Nattie.  But it just wasn't happening.  I think I need a good 8 to 9 hours sleep on a Monday night to recover from the weekend's activities and Monday's speed session at the crit.

So, because I have started on with the allergy desensitisation vaccines on a Tuesday lunchtime a lunch run is out of the question as there isn't supposed to be any exercise happening for several hours after the vaccine.  In lieu of this I have changed my run to go Monday's after work with a girl I work with who has just started running.  She is quite fit as she plays other sports and is doing really well and I think we will be a similar pace so this should work out well.  Another change to the plan!

I had my allergy injection yesterday, this is the 2nd injection of 12 weekly injections before it turns into fortnightly injections.  I am allergic to dust mites, grasses, pollens, cat, trees; so for somone training for a triathlon this becomes quite annoying, particularly the dust one as we are in the middle of a drought and the dust is unavoidable!  The first injection last week went really well and I had no localised pain or itchiness where I was injected and no other symptoms.  This week was double the dose and it seemed to go OK yesterday afternoon although the spot that they injected the serum was a bit sore.  Last night however, I just started wheezing and coughing for no apparent reason.  I suspected it was the vaccine and did a bit of research (Google is my friend!) and discovered that it is quite common for the vaccine to induce asthma symptoms including wheezing and coughing.  I thought about taking some asthma medication but took a strepsil that Craig offered me instead.  I don't get any relief from asthma medication and whilst I have been diagnosed by almost every doctor that I have seen with asthma there is no evidence of it.  Every spyrometer test I have had done has shown no better results after taking ventolin, so the jury's out on that one.  From my point of view, why take asthma medication if there is no evidence that it does actually reduce my symptoms.

So, I think that if I continue to get symptoms such as these in hindsight I will take an anti-histamine and hopefully that will settle things down a bit. Hopefully the symptoms won't get any worse than this and affect my training!!!!

Nundah Crit Session

This morning's session was supposed to be a 20min warmup 30min 70-80cadence FAST, 30min cool down.

However, Craig and I got there a bit later than Faye and Jacque and they started before us.  When we saw Faye finish we were almost ready to start and were chatting to her and she said that she thought that it was 20mins, not 30min effort, so who were we to argue!  20min it is then!

Craig and I started at the same time and we pretty much stuck to each other the whole way.  I overtook Craig a couple of times when he lost concentration, but mostly Craig was out in front.  A lot of the time I was behind him to the side and not drafting but there were times where I was working hard just to keep on his wheel drafting behind him.  I think we both worked pretty hard together and kept each other honest.  Craig said that our average was just over 35km/h so that is a pretty good effort.  I am hoping that I can keep on to him once he gets his Ridley Dean on the road, I suspect that I will be on my own then!

We rolled around for 30mins afterward and I tried to get down on my aero bars but my shoulder was quite sore and I couldn't really get comfortable.

Swim set

Faye, Craig and I met at Newmarket pool for our pyramid swim set.  Jacque was supposed to be there, but she was conspicuous in her absense.  I txt'd her later in the day and she said that she was bonding with her pillow...  I guess it will be the last opportunity for that, given that we are now less than 12 weeks out!

Jacqui Elliott was there though doing her own thing, so it was great to catch up with her. We had breakfast and coffee around the corner so that was very civilized.

The pool water was disgusting - it reeked of chlorine.  Apparently they had just thrown several handfuls in just prior to us getting in the pool.  It tasted terrible and it made your teeth furry.  My skin was a bit itchy afterwards too and we reeked of chlorine - yuk!!!

Faye said that Trent had warned her not to dive straight into a set with paddles without warming up first so we did a 200m warmup first and then our pyramide set followed by a 200m cool down.  3.8km all up, so it was a good set.  I hadn't swum since the previous Saturday and I felt it!  I struggled a bit, not so much with fitness but with my form.  I brought new paddles, but they were large, not small and in hindsight this was a big mistake.  I could feel my left shoulder whilst swimming and I tried to change my stroke slightly to see if I could get it to feel a bit better, but it continued to bug me. 

It wasn't until later that afternoon that it really started to annoy me.  Craig massaged some Voltaren and then later some Zen into it and this seemed to really help.

Lesson learnt: buy small paddles!!!  I think I will give my shoulder a couple of days off and let it recover and possibly no paddles for the rest of this week as it is quite sore.

Samford, Dayboro, Petrie, Sandgate - Phew!

Faye, Jacque and I left from Jacque's place at Ashgrove at the uncivilised hour of 4:30am for our ride through Samford, Dayboro, Petrie, Sandgate and return.

I found the ride really tough.  The girls had to wait for me a bit through Samford road and then I lost Jacque going up through the hill just before Samford.   So, I rode on my own out to Dayboro and just trudged through it.  Faye came back to collect me and we had a quick pit stop to fill up drink bottles before making our way to Petrie. 

I think the lesson that I can learn from having a really tough ride is not to back too far off on a recovery week.  This has been a pattern for me in that it takes me a week or two to get back to where I was after a recovery week.  I will have to be really mindful of this when I am considering taper week.  I think I will try and keep the same intensity but really back off the duration and hopefully that will work for me.  I will give this a go on our next recovery week.

I stuck on Jacque's wheel for most of the way into Petrie, so that was good.  The traffic was a bit worse than I was expecting, although they were really considerate.  There were plenty of concrete trucks on the road so there must be a lot of development happening through there.

Every time we turned a corner there seemed to be another hill looming ahead of us.  Thankfully none of the hills were particularly onerous, just long, not necessarily steep.  In fact they often looked steeper from a distance than what they actually were so that was OK.

I kept losing my rear bottle holder, the bolts had worked themselves loose, so I ended up having to stop a few times and tighten them up with my fingers.  After the 3rd time doing this I was getting a little annoyed and Jacque gave me some tape that she had put around her bottle to hold it in and I ended up tying it around my rear bottle holders to keep it from slipping out.  This seemed to do the trick.  I guess the lesson here is to check all of the bolts on the bike regularly and to drop it from a small height just to make sure that nothing is rattling. 

We pretty much stayed together after Petrie and Faye showed us how to ride from there to Sandgate - just as well as I think Jacque and I would have got seriously lost!

We had a nasty incident with a massive semi trailer driver through Strathpine.  We were on the dual carriageway with a large shoulder and we were well over on the shoulder not causing anyone any grief riding single file 1 behind the other when we heard a truck horn behind us and then the truck overtook us all the while coming over the white line into the shoulder towards us!!!  Well, you can imagine the words that came out of our mouths!  We decided that he was a fat smoker with an ugly wife and a really small pecker!!!  I only wish that we got his number plate as he really deserved to be reported.  What sort of person spots 3 girls out on a training ride doing their own thing and decides to threaten them like that?  Anyway, we survived and in reality he didn't even come that close to us as we had such a big shoulder.

We rolled into Sandgate and had a quick drink and toilet stop and then we were off.  Traffic was a little heavy on the way back through, but we managed to get through ok.  Unfortunately when we got to Jacque's place we had only done 100km's; we thought that it would be about 115kms, but it was a challenging ride with some good hills.

Jacque kindly offered breakfast and coffee which went down a treat...  the best part of the ride!

Because I am riding with people that are stronger riders than me I plan on every 3rd or 4th week doing a ride where I am completely on my own and where I am not drafting for any part of the ride.  It think psychologically this will be a good thing to do.  So, my long ride this weekend will be exactly that and I will start to do a small run off the bike.

Exactly 12 weeks today we will hopefully be on the start line at Ironman New Zealand in Taupo!!!!

Friday Coffee ride!

This morning was my favourite session of the week.

Craig is in Beijing at the moment and I decided to drive in to West End (it is recovery week!).  This ended up being more of a pain than anything; it took me ages to get home from West End where I parked the car all day.  I kept thinking as I was sitting in traffic on the way home that if I hadn't driven the car in I would be home by now!!!  Watching as all the cyclists whizzed by.  Leason learnt...

It was a good ride, nice and cruisy at chat pace and a nice group of 5, although we dropped 2 with a flat tyre and picked them up later in the ride!

It was so hot and muggy it was incredible. Afterwards I couldn't face a hot coffee so I had an iced coffee instead - it was fabulous, this may very well be my new drink!

I'm a bit apprehensive about tomorrow's ride.  We are doing a Samford, Dayboro, Petrie loop of around 115kms, but it is, as some would say an 'undulating' ride.  I just call it what it is - hilly!

Jacque, Faye and I are leaving from Ashgrove at 4:30am, so hopefully we will beat the worst of the heat.  Wish us luck!

Recovery week shinanagins!

I must confess...

I have taken the whole recovery week thing just a tad far.  I haven't swum all week, I did a rolling 40min chat around the crit track on Monday (and if I was really honest with myself I don't think I actually rode the full 40 minutes!).  I am riding tomorrow for the social coffee ride.

I did however go for another run this morning with Nattie the Wonderdog.  I was wondering if she would see the lead and pretend to be invisible, but this was not the case.  She didn't let me out of her sight and kept bounding around the house right in front of me.  So, away we went. We set off on our normal hilly 5km loop around home leaving at 6:15am which is an hour earlier than we left on Tuesday, so it was slightly cooler.  Still hot though....  this is Brisbane....  in summer!

She settled down a bit quicker today and we both had a good run.  She was dragging the chain just a little towards the end, but she survived it much better this time around.  Onwards and upwards for both of our fitness!

I could feel my shin in the early part of the run and I was starting to get a little concerned, but it felt OK once I had warmed up.  Other than that I didn't have any niggles or pain.  I stretched my calf out when I got home and jumped in the pool and my legs felt good all day so I think that I will just have to be diligent with the whole stretching and allowing enough time for a good 20min stretch and a sit in the pool for 10-15minutes after a run and hopefully this will keep any niggles and injuries at bay.

Nattie's introduction to Ironman training

Due to my slothfulness after the Gold Coast Half Ironman and then my subsequent hamstring injury Nattie the wonder dog dalmatian hadn't been on a run for a number of weeks.

I recently noticed that she looked as though she had put on a bit of weight.

So, this morning's run was a hilly 5km run from home around Kenmore with Nattie.

Nattie was so excited to be going for a run she was beside herself.  It took me ages to calm her down; she normally takes around 5 minutes to settle into a run, but this morning it took about 15 minutes of frustration.  Once she settled down she was great.  She'll get better the more regularly she goes out and I am hoping to give her 2 runs a week and Craig might give her 1 run as well.

She is lovely once she settles down and she will run quite happily beside me, although she does get very perplexed as to why I have to slow down for the hills.  Why do dogs NOT need to slow down for the hills?

This morning I left a little later as I was picking up my allergy de-sensitisation vaccines from the doctor at Kenmore to take them into town where it is going to be more convenient for me to continue with weekly vaccinations - sigh.

As a consequence we didn't start the run until just after 7am and it was HOT.  The last 10 minutes of the run Nattie really struggled; her tongue was hanging out of her mouth and she was panting heavily.  I got a bit worried about her and walked a bit for her.  When she got home she dived into her water bowl and ended up on the kitchen floor under the air-con.  Her eyes were bloodshot and she was flat out like a lizard drinking - poor thing.  So, I will see how she progresses over the next couple of weeks, but the runs will certainly be done a lot earlier in the day and hopefully this will get her fitness up and then she may be able to cope a bit better in the heat.  I'll always have water for her too once the run gets to be around an hour. I remember last year leading up to Mooloolaba I was running with her so I think it is just a fitness thing and she picks her fitness up so quickly unlike us humans!

40mins easy ride - Noice!!!

This week is RECOVERY WEEK - yippee!!!

I love recovery week, not quite as much as taper week and not nearly as much as the week after a major tri, but it's right up there.

I do tend to take it a tad too seriously though...  Too much of a good thing and all that!

I met Faye and Sarah at the Nundah Crit track and we just rolled around chatting - it was lovely.  I tried to keep my cadence high and tried to flush out any residue lactic from yesterday's ride.

I was really tired this morning and all day and wasn't feeling too flash.  A great indication was that I wasn't really hungry.  This is my best indicator that I am a bit overtrained.  So, whilst I felt as though I pulled up really well from the long ride yesterday I suspect it took more out of me than I realised. 

More incentive to really use recovery week to my advantage!

:-)

Long ride at Yatala

I picked up Megan and we headed down the coast to Yatala for a ride.

This was a good ride; the goal was to ride 4 hours so Megan and I got there a bit early to get some extra time in before the others were due to arrive.  Eventually everyone arrived and we had ridden just under 30mins so that was a good head start.

There was Megan, Trish, Alex, Chris, Sophie and myself which was a good group.  Trish and Alex are training for the Goondiwindi Hell of the West so they didn't need to do the full 4 hours.  We managed to ride 3hours 45mins and covered 105kms, so I was really happy with that.

The ride was hot, really hot.  I drank 4 bottles of electrolytes and ate half a vegemite sandwich.  I could have done with another bottle of electrolytes as I rode back empty. 

We rode from the Yatala roundabout at the BP out to Jacob's Well and then out through the GCHIM course onto the V1 down to Dreamworld and then back up the V1 to where the cars were parked.  This is where we reloaded with fuel and then we rode back down to Dreamworld and back.

On the way back the wind picked up and there were a couple of gusts that really moved the bike - very disconcerting!

I felt probably the best I have ever felt after doing in excess of 100kms.  I certainly didn't feel as though I wanted to run a marathon (who would!), however I did feel as though I could have shuffled off the bike.  I was happy to get off the bike, but I didn't need to get off.  So, I like that I can feel like that now as it gives me a sense of confidence that I can slowly build up the distances and my ability to cope with the extended duration of exercise.  I also wonder how much of this I can attribute to my bike and I think that I can attribute a fair bit to it, I feel good on it, I don't have any pain or discomfort (ok, sore bum, but that's a given!).  Maybe it's the carbon bike making me feel a bit more comfortable after a long ride...

A bit of a mis-calculation

Craig has his kids over at our place every 2nd weekend and school holidays, etc.  So, when it is a 'kid' weekend we are being a little creative...

The plan is for Craig to do his long ride on the Saturday morning, whilst Craig is riding I will swim and then I will drive over to Wellington Point and pick Craig up and then pick the kids up.  This means that Craig can start his ride at Kenmore, finish it at Wellington Point not wasting time coming home and then back out to ensure that he gets optimal sleep and time with the kids! 

Now, the plan was for me to swim at a pool along the way prior to picking Craig up.  This plan worked well, I found the Clem Jones swimming pool at Carina and it is a fantastic pool.  I had a lane to myself for most of the swim, it is a nice clean pool and best of all - it has a canteen that sells good coffee and toasted sandwiches - perfect!

However...  I miscalculated the timing and I ended up having to finish my pyramid set sooner than I would have liked.

The set was as follows:

1 x 50m
1 x 100m
1 x 200m
1 x 300m
1 x 400m
1 x 300m
1 x 200m
1 x 100m
1 x 50m

All with pool buoy and paddles with the last 50m swum fast.  Repeat the pyramid so that it is done twice.

Now, I got through the first really well, but I only did the 400m set of the second pyramid, then I did a cool down so the total swim distance was 2.2kms.

I felt good though and I was using Craig's paddles which are a bit smaller than mine and I didn't put my wrist's through the straps.  I read that by just having your fingers through the elastic it forces you to have a better pull action.  I found it a bit strange and I had to concentrate at first, but got the hang of it in the end.

My favourite ride of the week

This is going to be my savior - the Friday coffee ride!  I really look forward to them.

This morning I rode in on my own as Craig and Muffy were away. 

I was pretty excited as I was wearing my new bike nicks which are fantastic.  I don't have thin lovely legs, so I like to have bike nicks that are a bit longer to the knee and I also like them high up on the waist so as to prevent the 'plumbers crack'.  Not such an easy task to find.  The other thing I really like about these nicks is that there is no grippy bits on the bottom around the legs or around the waist.  The nicks are called Neo Power Shorts by Louis Garneau.  Here is a link to them (mine are all black - no red!):


http://www.teamestrogen.com/prodLG_1050295.html

So, I was feeling pretty swish...  But then as I was approaching the lights on Coronation Drive I flicked out of my big chain ring to my small chain ring and the chain fell off the inside.  Bummer...  I knew I was going to have to get off and get my hands dirty. The problem was it had actually fallen off the little guide that I had broken previously on the rear derailer.  So I had my bike upside down on the side of the road wrestling and swearing and thinking that I was going to be late.  Finally I sorted it out, but not without getting a gumby mark on my leg and arm as well as covering both hands with thick black grease.  My new white gloves had grease on them and my white handlebar tape and frame were covered in grease.  I was not looking too swish now...

Anyway, I hot tailed it and made the ride in time.  It was funny because the only other girl that was coming on the 'girls' ride was Merinda and she thought that we were riding with the boys and Faye.  The look of utter relief when I told her we were NOT riding with them was gold!

We had a lovely ride, although it must have been the day for dropped chains as Merinda dropped hers on Coronation Drive where there is nowhere to pull over, quite stressful!  Anyway, she managed to pull her bike over the fence and sort it out on the footpath.  Disaster averted.  We chatted most of the way around after that without getting too hurried or stressed.  We got overtaken by pelotons of riders, but I'm OK with that.  I've come to terms with it!

Coffee at Alberto's afterward was lovely.  The highlight of my week...

 

More change of plans!

Well, I am a woman, I'm allowed to change plans!

Yesterday's lunchtime swim was a no-show from me.  Work got in the way and it just wasn't going to happen.  This is going to happen from time to time and I will need to make a decision as to whether I drop the session or 'gasp, horror' catch up the session after work.  In this instance due to me having ridden in to work that day I decided to skip it and ride home instead as it would have become a bit of a logistical nightmare trying to carry my swim gear on my bike with no backpack.

I was talking to my friend Sarah last night and she is coming in to the big smoke today so we decided that we would run at lunch together and catch up.  Some friends catch up over coffee, others catch up over a run!  I'm looking forward to it.

So, I had planned a swim session at lunch today, so I swapped that around and did that before work at the Valley pool which seemed to work out OK.

Now, the good news is this was the set that has the 200m TT in them and I am really happy with the results (more on that later).

The set was:
4 x 100m pb/paddles w/up
6 times: 3 x 25 easy, 1 x 25 HARD with p/b/paddles
200m TT (timed obviously)
4mins rest
6 times: 3 x 25 easy, 1 x 25 HARD  with p/b/paddles
200m TT
4mins rest
4 x 100m p/b/paddles c/down

So, the first 200m was 3mins 36secs and then second one was 3mins 34sec.  Now the second one really hurt, I felt awful and was convinced that this was going to be considerably slower than the first, but I was pleasantly surprised to see it was slightly quicker.  Now, the thing to note with these times is that the pool was split in half so it was effectively a 25m pool, so even though I was a good 8 secs quicker than last week I'm not quite sure if I am going to count it.

The good thing is I am on the way to getting these consistently under the 3min 30secs mark.  Progress is continuing!

I got to do Cootha reps today

Like my positive attitude?

Actually, I am beginning to really enjoy Cootha.  I think this is because I am improving.  It is a nice feeling.  When I was doing these loops prior to the Gold Coast Half Ironman I was doing them in around 38mins.  Well, now I am doing them in just a smidge over 30mins.  I can't quite figure out why there is such a leap in improvement.  Obviously, I have a new bike, which of course is fabulous.  However I had started to make these improvements on my old bike, so I'm not convinced that it is ALL attributed to the bike.  As Lance would say "It's not about the bike". Another indicator that I am improving is that ordinarily I get passed by the IM girls and Sarah and Alicia, however today this was not the case. I even managed to overtake a couple of guys going up the hill and they looked like cyclists. 

Craig and I left home at 4:34am and made our way in.  For some reason, I just can't get it together for the first part of any ride so I rode like a gumby and we made it there right on 5. We got stuck straight into it and for the first climb I was pretty much able to keep Craig in my sights.  In fact he was only 50mtrs or so in front of me at the top of the climb.  Of course, I lost track of him after that as I'm not really much of a descender - more of a scaredy cat, although I will put some of my improvements down to a bit more of a confident descent, still not fast and I still get overtaken as though I am standing still, but a bit better than my previous efforts.  Of course it helped that today it was not raining!

Now, I can guage the improvements in my climbing from last week in that I very rarely dropped my cadence below 50, it was generally between 50 and 60, whereas last week it was between 40 and 50, but this was a concerted effort on my part.  I do, however have some spots on the mountain where I have to give a bit more focus to and this is from about the 1.5km mark to the 1.85km mark.  I dropped my cadence down below 50 through there and also, the last pinch just before you get to the very top; it dropped just below 50 there for just a brief moment. 

So, next week, I am going to concentrate and try to keep it above 50 cadence for the whole 3 laps - that will be my goal.  I'm pretty sure that if I can do that then I will certainly improve.

I did 3 Cootha reps today and was in at work at 6:50am.  Total ride time just under 2hrs 20mins.

Change of plans

The alarm went off this morning at 5:30 to enable me to get up, get organised, go for a 30min run and then cool down, stretch, etc and get ready for work.  All sounds lovely and civilised, however, for the second week in a row, this just wasn't happening!

I couldn't face getting out of bed and lay there trying to work out how I can alter the training schedule to give me Tuesday's to sleep in.  Now, I hate night sessions.  It's the whole doing a session, having a shower, then having wet hair when you go to bed, eating late, going to bed with a full stomach, bad night's sleep....  anyway, you get the picture - I'm not really a night person.  I like my nights to eat a meal relax, organise my stuff for the next day and get to bed early.

So, this is the new plan:

Sunday am:  Long ride with a short run off the bike
Sunday afternoon: Stretching, Yoga or easy recovery swim
Monday am: Crit session at the track (speed work)
Monday lunch: Trent's swim squad
Tuesday am:  SLEEP IN  (see, it's scheduled - I'm guaranteed not to miss this session!)
Tuesday lunch:  short run 45-60mins
Tuesday pm: Core strength session
Wednesday am: Cootha Reps then ride to work
Wednesday lunch: Swim - pacing set with p/b and paddles
Wednesday pm: ride home from work
Thursday am: long run - building over hills
Thursday lunch: swim set with the 200m TT
Friday am: ride from home to Alberto's for river loop then ride to work
Friday lunch: Massage
Friday pm: ride from work to home
Saturday am or later: Pyramid swim set with a 1hr ride either stationary or riding from pool.

So, I'll see how this goes, I'm sure it will change before too long.  The one thing that I may change is Thursday's swim to Friday and Friday's massage to Thursday, but I'll see how this goes first.

So, armed with my new plan, I ran at lunch.  I was worried about the heat, even though it was only 28 degrees, so I took my drink bottle, popped a nuun electrolyte tablet in and set off.  This was to be a gentle 30min relatively flat run just to make sure that there is absolutely no hamstring niggles and I am really happy to report that it was great; I couldn't even feel a shadow of any pain.

I really enjoyed this run, I think it was because it was at my own pace, there were lots of people out and about so there was always something to look at, there was a gentle breeze and I picked mostly shady areas to run in. 

I felt as though I was running quietly.  By this I mean my feet weren't stomping the ground, my breathing wasn't laboured and I felt like I could run all day.  It felt good.  I'm sure it was slow, but it didn't feel overly slow.  All in all I was really happy with the run and my dickie hamstring I think can now be called my hamstring!

Trent's Monday swim session

I arrived a tad late due to some wombat running his truck into a rail bridge at Graceville and for some reason that affected all trains.  It was a good day not to have my QR badge visible to the public.... again.

Anyway, I only missed the first 10mins.  Trent said that they were doing 100mtrs of 75m swim 25 kick so I jumped in and managed to do 3 or 4 before the next set so at least I was semi-warmed up.

The next set was 2 x 100m, first 50m building to flat out, the 2nd 50m what Trent calls a "mini-max" session.  So this is where you swim as fast as you can and keep track of your stroke count.  You add the two up, ie: secs it took to swim 50m added to the strokes you took to swim 50m.  The first one for me was 97, the second was 98.  So, the aim of the game is to reduce that number.  I am going to pick out a random number and say that I want to break the 90 barrier.  This would involve swimming the 50m in 45secs with a stroke count of under 45.  I think this is achievable. 

The next set was 3 x 600m; first 600m swim, 2nd 600m 100m swim, 100m pull, 3rd 600m was all pull.  This was good, it was a nice aerobic session and it was certainly nice to be in the pool without the dreaded paddles.  I'm beginning to have a love/hate relationship with them (mainly hate!).

Trent gave me some tips on the catch part of my stroke.  I tend to have a very lazy stroke, almost a catch-up stroke, Trent has said to visualise a high elbow under the water reaching out over a barrel before invoking the pull.  I have heard this before, but have never really 'got it'.  I played around with it and it certainly changed my stroke, I tried less gliding of my stroke out the front and trying to pull it through a bit quicker after entry, pretending that I was grabbing a barrel out in front of me and pushing it behind me.  I think this worked ok, I'll continue to play around with it and fine tune it a bit.  It felt a bit awkward to begin with, but settled in OK.  I might arrange for Craig to videotape my stroke, we are probably both due and now would be a good time to get it sorted seeing as we are both going to be swimming a fair bit over the coming months leading up to Ironman NZ.  Yikes!!

Crit Session

This morning Craig, Faye, Jacque and I met at the Nundah Crit track for our Crit session.

It involved a 20min warmup, 20min 70-80 cadence HARD set, followed by a 30min cool down.

We all said that we felt OK (other than a bit tired - we were meeting at 5am!!!).  But, it's funny - as soon as we started pedalling I think we all had that dead leg feeling. I was thinking that this was going to be a tough session!  Obviously the Dayboro ride took more out of my legs than I thought.

I made sure that my warmup was in the small chain ring with a high cadence to really turn the legs over.  When we started the 20min set I felt a lot better, the legs were no longer dead and I was feeling like that was a good warmup. 

The 20min set was good, Craig caught me and then we played tag for the rest of the ride, he would be in front for a couple of laps, then I would be in front for a couple of laps.  I think he was slightly stronger, but there really wasn't much in it.  I drafted off him a little, but mainly it was out to the side which was good.  I think I'm in trouble when he starts cranking up the Ridley Dean though!!  Hopefully he will get that fitted up some time this week, which will make a bit of difference at the crit track next week.

The warmdown felt good.  Legs felt OK and no longer dead.  I think this session will be a good one to follow through with after the long rides on a Sunday.  It will hopefully give the legs a good flush out!

Dayboro Ride

This morning's ride was from Ashgrove Paint shop on the corner of Newmarket and Enoggera Road.

It was quite a big group which always freaks me out.  I am happy riding with 3 or 4 people but once it gets above that my stress levels get pretty high.  Thankfully when we headed out I was 2nd wheel so this made it a bit more bearable!

Unfortunately someone got a flat tyre just before Samford hill, so we pulled up and waited and then decided that given the size of the group and where we were pulled over we probably didn't all have to wait.  Craig, Faye, Ewan, Jacque and I started heading off.

I lost the others as soon as we started climbing over the hill into Samford, but Jacque and I soon hooked up on the road out to Dayboro.  It was a really hot day, very humid, so I was pleased that we left at a nice early 5am. 

Just as we were about to hit Dayboro township we were picked up by some of the others so we jumped on the back of them and hitched a ride in! 

Quick loo stop and we kept going, Adrian, Jacque and I kept riding towards Mt Mee for 10 minutes and then back so that our ride would end up being 3.5hours. 

It was a good ride back, Adrian was trying to chase Alicia down, so Jacque and I hung on to the back of him and we were working pretty hard until we dropped off!  We regrouped at Samford and refilled drink bottles before heading back.

Craig, Ewan and Faye ended up coming back through Samford the same time we were leaving.  I followed Jacque up the hill at Samford and worked pretty hard to stay on her wheel.  We both descended pretty well and ended up just behind then at Ferny Grove.  I jumped on to the back of them and we cruised back into Ashgrove.  Jacque rode back with Alicia and Adrian.

Overall, I was really happy with this ride, I certainly finished stronger than I started, we put in some good solid efforts as well as some nice aerobic riding.  It ended up being just under 3.5hours and Jacque said that our average was just under 27kph, which given the hills I'm really happy with.

I really need to work on my hills; if I am following someone up a hill I can work hard to follow their wheel and hang on to them but if I am on my own I just lose the plot and grind up ever so slowly!  I will try and work on this over the coming weeks. 

Saturday swim set

This is our long swim for the week.  It is 3.4km long made up of a set of 2 pyramid's (50, 100, 200, 300, 400, 300, 200, 100, 50) all performed with pull buoy and paddles.

Craig, Faye and I all headed off to the Valley Pool, it was once again made into a 25mtr pool which makes it a real challenge to keep count of laps! 

I jumped in the same lane as Faye and I was feeling OK.  Faye pulled away from me fairly quickly and I ended up not taking the full breaks so that I didn't end up being lapped.  The last 50m of each set was HARD, so I was using the easy laps as my recovery.  Craig and Faye were swimming fairly similar and thankfully they had a bit longer break in between the 2 pyramids.  I started right behind Faye when she started her 2nd pyramid and I thought that I would try and stick to her like glue, which of course meant that my 'easy' laps were now upgraded to 'comfortably uncomfortable!'. 

Thankfully, though I was able to hang on, although she was pulling away on the fast laps.  So, I will try and stick to either Faye or Craig doing this set and hopefully that pace will become 'easy'.  Basically this is a huge improvement for me as Faye lapped me last week on more than one occasion.

We had breakfast at Campo's around the corner which was fantastic.  Nothing like a good breakfast and nice coffee after a good session.

Friday ride

These are good rides!  It's really a coffee ride. 

Craig, Muffy and I left our place and cruised into West End and then the guys did their river loop and we did ours. There was 7 of us this morning, it was a nice relaxed pace and we had no dramas or issues.  My legs felt quite dead, I expect it is probably from Cootha on Wednesday.  I was thankful that the ride was easy, that's for sure.

I rode into work after coffee.  The only problem riding with that is having to ride home again.  I really didn't feel like riding home.  It was OK though, I took it really easy and then jumped in the pool when I got home.  It was 33 degrees today, so it was quite warm.

All in all the ride was about 2 hours this morning and a 40min ride home this afternoon.

Lunchtime swim set

I was quite pleased with the swim set today.

It was as follows:

6 x 50m warmup with paddles/pb
38 x 50m 5secs rest all on the same time
6 x 50m cool down - it was supposed to be with paddles/pb, but I mixed it up with breaststroke, backstroke, freestyle and kicking.

The 50m were all coming in around the 1min mark give or take.  I was finding this quite easy aerobically, but hard with the paddles.  I am hoping that once I adapt to the paddles that I will be able to consistently bring these on the 50-55secs.  That will be my goal, to be churning them out on the minute with 5secs rest.

These sessions are really hard for me, predominately what gets me up the other end of the pool is my kick, so I am hoping that by working on my weakness like this I will get some good gains in my swimming.  Time will tell...

I'm back running - Woo Hoo!

Well, after injuring my hamstring 2 weeks ago, I have been a bit cautious, some may even say over cautious about running.

I attempted to run last Thursday after giving it a week to settle down, however it was still troubling me and I found myself limping only a few minutes into the run so decided that it needed more time.

So, after some massage and cupping (thanks Faye!), some rest, some Zen linament and plenty of Skins wearing I ventured out to do a run today.

Of course my whole conscious was tuned into my hamstring and I really couldn't detect much at all!  I did only do an easy flat 20min run, however, there was no pain whilst running and no pain once I cooled down.  Very happy with that.

Plan moving forward is as follows:  another run on Tuesday 30mins easy flat, see how I pull up, then on Thursday, our 5km hilly loop and see how I pull up.  No running off the bike until I am satisfied that all is good.  Well, that's my excuse anyway!

So, I'm really pleased that I am back running, I can try and build up some distance in a couple of weeks if it all holds together OK.  Moral of the story - no 'speed' work for me until at least after the Ironman NZ race. 

Mental Breakthrough!!

OK, today was Mt Cootha reps.  I was supposed to do 3 last week, however I didn't want to overdo it with my new bike fit, so just did 2 loops.

The plan for today was to ride from home to give me an easy 30min warmup, 3 laps of Cootha and then ride in to work.

As we were leaving home I noticed that there were thick clouds lurking.  Being a fair weathered athlete I wanted to check the radar and see if there was rain coming, but decided to just tough it out and if it starts raining I can always stop.

Michelle met us at home, so Craig, Michelle and I rode in and we dawdled a fair bit and arrived right on 5 at Slaughter Falls carpark.  I waved to everyone and kept riding because Craig had kept going and I wanted to get a good start on the mountain before the rain came!

The first lap was good, I was feeling OK and I even managed to do a pretty good descent.  Very proud of myself and the lap ended up being 33mins - I don't keep a very good record of these things but by my recollection that is my fastest Coot-ha lap.  In hindsight that was a good time to stop the clock!

Halfway up the second lap it started to rain, it was just sprinkling, but enough to wet the roads and of course me.  I was thinking, well that's it - after this lap I am packing up and riding in to work!

The rain had eased by the time I got to the top of the hill and there was a slight breeze so I was wondering if the roads would dry out real quick.  So, I decided that I would make my decision at the turn whether to do another lap or not and it would depend on how I felt descending on the wet roads.

Just as I was about to descend it started raining again, this time a little heavier, so I crawled down at snail pace in the rain freaking out a little and making sure that I wasn't going to lock the bike up.  Heaps of people flew by me and I wonder where they get their courage from.  I think that I need a dose of courage, I wonder if you can buy some of that somewhere...

Anyway, I figured that there was no way that the 3rd lap was going to get any worse than that and I should just do it and continue riding carefully.

So, that is what I did.  I could feel water sloshing in my shoes, my glasses were fogging up (I do ride up hills slowly!!!).  I had to stop up the top of the 3rd and wipe my glasses with my wet shirt so that I could see where I was going.

But, all in all I survived!  So, I think that some sessions are great to draw on in the future and for me this is certainly going to be one of them.  It was not a particularly physically hard session, although some people would argue that 3 laps of Cootha is physically hard!  It was for me, more of a mentally tough session and one that I hope I can draw on when I am in doubt as to whether or not I should ride in the rain.


It took 30mins to ride in to Coot-ha, 1hour 40mins to do 3 laps and 20mins to ride in to work to give a total ride time of 2.5hrs. 

A mixed bag of a day!

This morning I was supposed to run...

I was really tired yesterday, so was in bed nice and early (8:30pm), I would have been sound asleep well before 9!  The alarm went off at 5:30 and I realised that because I was only doing an easy 30min jog to test out the hamstring I could lie in bed for another 20 minutes or so.  Nice. 

Well, I probably don't need to tell you what happened...  I awoke at 7:15 in a major panic (now late for work).  So, I flapped around the house and ended up at work not too much later than I wanted to be, but obviously - no run.

My swim at lunchtime, however was great.  For some reason the set only had a small portion of pool buoy and paddles, which given my current state of chaffing I was not about to argue about!  The set was as follows:

4 x 100m w/u
6 x 3 x 25m easy, 1 x 25m ALL OUT
200m ALL OUT (timed)
4mins recovery
4 x 3 x 25m easy, 1 x 25m ALL OUT
2 x 3 x 25m easy, 1 x 25m ALL OUT (with pool buoy and paddles
200m ALL OUT (timed)
4mins recovery
4 x 100m c/d with paddles/pb.

The timed sessions were a little better than last week - progress!!!

I did the first one in 3mins 50secs, however I choked on water and after trying to persevere ended up coughing and doing a few strokes of breaststroke, so was really quite surprised to see that I was under the 4min mark.

The second one was 3mins 42secs, so this is 10secs quicker than my fastest last week.  More than happy with that.

I am trying to work out how to pace these 200mtrs time trials; it is a difficult distance to pace for because it is not a sprint, however, it's not a distance pace either.  So, I have been trying to do them quickly but ensuring that I am still getting a good pull action.  Once I go too quick that I lose my pull, I back it off a bit.  Best description would probably be a fast, strong pace.  A bit funny really coming from such a slow swimmer!

I do need to set a new goal for these though, I need to up the ante.  My new goal will be to get these both under the 3min 30secs mark! If I can achieve that I am pretty sure that I would be swimming at my previous best or pretty close to it.

Recovery swim

My plan today was to swim at the Valley pool in Trent's squad session.  However, some guy topped himself at Deagon Station and this meant that all of the trains were out of whack.  I would have arrived there around 12:20 missing out on 1/3 of the session.

So, I took a train down to Somerville Pool at Southbank seeing as I couldn't go northbound for some time and swam there instead.

It was quite good; a little congested but not annoyingly so.  I ended up doing a 'recovery' 1500m swim.  Mainly freestyle with no paddles/pb (yeah!!!)  I mixed it up with some kick and some breastroke.

I could feel my ankles this morning at the Crit session when I was riding hard, so it was probably good to use them a bit today and loosen them up a bit.  I certainly wasn't pushing it so I wasn't putting additional pressure on them.

My plan will be to do Trent's session on a Monday if I am feeling good, however if I am sore I will probably do a similar session to what I did today and it will become an active recovery session.  I am playing around with the plan at the moment trying to work out how it all fits together best.

Nundah Crit Session

I love these sessions!

They seem to be the only sessions that I have any degree of competence at.

The session this morning was a 20min warmup, 2 x 15min FAST with a cadence of 70-80 with a 5min break in between, 20min cool down.

Jacque G didn't show up, she slept through the alarm which is a pretty good indication that she needed the sleep!

I started a bit behind Faye and Craig as I had to wait for the toilets to get unlocked as I was too uncomfortable to do a fast 15min without relieving my bladder!

The 2 x 15mins felt good, I was working hard, breathing hard, my legs were just under the lactic threshold so all in all it was spot on.  I actually managed to pass Craig during one of the efforts which is the first time I have ever done that.  I'm not sure who was more surprised; me or Craig! 

Mt Nebo!

Don't tell anyone, but I really enjoy riding up Mt Nebo.

Whilst I suck at hills and they are definately my weakness if I am not pressured and can go at my own pace I really enjoy it.

Nebo is a nice ride; there is nothing too steep and it is just a gradual climb up with a few downhills to recover and have a drink, etc.

It was really hot and I sweated buckets and drank buckets but it was really lovely to sit down at the Coffee Club at The Gap and enjoy a hot breakfast. There were quite a number of us and it was a nice social group.

The ride was just over 2 hours which is very civilised.  Faye and I have decided that we will try and do repeats of this in our IM training.  We were talking 4 repeats, but in hindsight I think 3 will do it.

First long swim

This set was interesting.  3.4kms all with paddles and pool buoy.

It was a pyramid set as follows:  2 x 50m, 100m, 200m, 300m 400m 300m 200m 100m 50m, last 50m swum HARD.

I found it better than I thought, I was prepared to remove the paddles if my form was completely shot.  I had to work really hard to hold my form together, particularly through the last pyramid but managed to get through it OK.  I swum with Faye and it was at the Valley pool and they had made it into a 25m pool, it was really hard to keep track of the laps - Faye kept doing extra as she was out in front (lapping me!).  I think we both found it really hard to keep track of.

We were chatting and have decided that this might be a great session to bring the bikes and wind trainers along to and make it into a brick session.  We might alternate and do these as open water swims followed by a ride.

One bad thing about this swim set is I purchased a new pool buoy last thursday when I left mine at home and decided that I would buy one and keep it at work and then I would have one at home and one at work.  They didn't have the type that I had been using and the one that I purchased chaffed me a bit on thursday's session, it chaffed me a LOT on Saturday's session.  Not a good look, also my togs are chaffing me, so I am looking kind of weird at the moment between the chaffing and the cupping on my legs that Faye gave me after the swim!

My career as a swimsuit model is not looking too bright!!!

Allergies - the bane of my existence

Well, the allergy specialist was very regimented...

I waited until 12:30 to go in and see him, my appointment was for 11:30.  Basically, he ran an allergy test and I am allergic to dust mites, grasses, pollens, cats, trees, etc.  So, I can avoid those things which is impossible, I can take anti-histamines which are only effective to a certain level, I can get sinus surgery which only treats the symptoms and not the cause or I can go down the path of allergy vaccines.

So, I am going down the path of allergy vaccines which involves a once a week injection at my local doctors surgery for the next 6 to 12 months.  The vaccine has been ordered and I should start them in 10 days when they arrive at my doctors surgery.

Herein lies the problem - I hate needles!!!  Sigh...  I think of my mother in law and the insulin injections that she uses and I will just have to tough it out.  There are plenty of people that are in far worse positions and hopefully in a couple of years time I won't have silly reactions causing me to faint because there is a dust storm!  The success rate is 80% and I am hoping against hope that I don't fall in to the other 20%.

Also, I am hoping that this isn't going to cause me grief with my training.  I think I might line them up so that I get an injection just after my Saturday morning swim/bike session.  Because then I don't swim again until Monday lunchtime.

River Loop

Today I have the day off work so that I can see the allergy specialist who I booked into 4 months ago (this was the first available appointment!).  Sadly, my dog can get in to see a medical professional almost immediately, but that's the state of Qld's health system for you.

So, because I wasn't going in to work I really had no good reason NOT to ride to West End and ride home.  I don't have a problem riding in, but it makes the coffee after the river loop a whole lot more enjoyable knowing you are finished rather than having to hoof it home afterwards.

The ride in was good, Craig and I rode in together and we managed to do it in just over 35mins which is probably my fastest ride in, normally I dawdle in and it takes me around 45mins.  It is nice to start the ride warmed up, it takes me about an hour on the bike to get warmed up.

There were quite a lot of ladies on the ride this morning (and Chris!).  It was a really good ride, we all seemed to stick together and ride in a good bunch and it didn't seem too disjointed.  The pace was good.  I like it when I can keep up comfortably, it helped that I rode at the back and drafted my way around though!!  Chris got a flat, it actually exploded and sounded like a car backfiring or a gun going off - it was so loud!  There was no doubt that someone had a flat tyre, that's for sure! Sophie and Chris stayed and sorted out the tyre, they had all the gear and they were adamant that we didn't all need to stop.  I hope they got it sorted out OK, I told them to ring us if they had any problems with it.

Coffee was great, we met up with Alicia, Sarah and Felicity who had run; I didn't envy them, it was so hot and humid it would have been a hard slog that's for sure. They sounded like they did a really long run too - including going up Dornoch Tce!

The ride home was no fun, I lost Craig, as he went a different way - I went over the Kurilpa Bridge which is really good, but getting on to the bicentennial bikeway from there doesn't flow very well, you think they would have sorted that out a bit better when they built it.

Jumped in the pool with Craig when I got home - it was bliss!  Tried to coax Nattie our Dalmatian in but she wasn't convinced it was such a good idea.  When we purchased the house I had some reservations about the pool; I didn't want it to end up festering and looking disgusting however Craig has done a marvellous job looking after it and we use it regularly after a run by standing in it letting it cool our legs and it felt great today after such a humid ride to be lolling around in the pool, so I think we are going to get pretty good value out of it.

So, all in all the ride was a 35km river loop with a 9km ride there and back making it just over the 50km mark.

Swim set - very ordinary :-(

Today's swim was tough...

I don't know if it was residual soreness from the Cootha reps yesterday or residual soreness from my new bike fit, or lack of hydration....  But either way it was a session that I really struggled with, I had cramps threatening to rear their heads and then when I went to do the cool down I couldn't kick because my leg was cramping. It was in a weird spot - left leg, lower leg on the outside.  I have this funny feeling it is from my new cleat position on the bike.  I won't make any changes just yet, but if I am still sore in a couple of weeks I am going to have to tweak the fit.

The set was supposed to be a warm up of 3 x 100m, followed by 38 x 50m with 5secs recovery all on the same time with paddles and pull buoy, followed by a 3 x 100m cool down.  At times it was congested and I was held up and other times I dicked around at the end chatting instead of swimming, so in the end I just kept swimming without timing them or taking the 5 secs break.  I really had to concentrate on my stroke to push it though.  I think I have a tendency of not putting any 'muscle' into my pull.  So, I worked on this and noticed with the paddles that my stroke on the left hand side needs a bit of work to get a good 'pull' happening.  I will keep an eye on this.  I also found with a longer boring session like this that if I lost concentration I tended to 'flop' through the pool so I really need to try and stay focussed and I know that by working on this it is going to make the IM race a whole lot easier.

Cootha Reps have begun!

Today was Cootha reps.  Sigh...  for a person that sucks at climbing, the words "Cootha Reps" send shivers down my spine.

The girls were told to do 3 laps (and I find out later that some did more than that!).  However, I have a new bike, hence a new bike fit and an injured hamstring so I was reluctant to do too much and overload my body.  So, I did a Bardon loop followed by 2 loops of Cootha.

Most importantly the bike felt great!  Troy Hawkins had given it the complete overhaul and it was running beautifully.  I did have a 'moment' where I couldn't get it out of the big chain ring, but it was user error with the SRAM gears and I think I have that sorted now.

Less importantly, but still very important I felt good doing the 2 laps.  There was a storm the night before and there was a lot of gravel on the road, but it was mainly on the other side of the road.  I saw Marcel Bengston there warning cyclists coming down the hill about the gravel.  He recognised me and called out a "Hello Emma".  Thankfully I don't think anyone came a cropper on the gravel, it can be quite precarious coming down the steep side.

I timed my second lap and it was just under 35minutes, so I am pretty thrilled with that as I wasn't pushing it at all.  It means when I go to do the 5 laps I should be able to get them done in around 3 hours.  So, if I leave home at 4:30 and ride there I should be finished them at 8am.  I could then ride to work and be in there by 8:30.  Food and shower and I will be ready for work shortly after 9.  So, this is good to know as I have been worried about how long it was going to take me and whether I would have to ask for time off work.

When I finished I felt as though I could have gone another lap without too much hassle.  So, it is nice to finish a ride like that knowing that I could have done more.

Bec sent through a good mantra today and I will try and use it more.  I don't know the exact wording, but basically instead of saying, "I have to do Cootha reps today", say "I get to do Cootha reps today".  See how it changes your perspective?  I  like it, because at the end of the day, I do get to choose to do Cootha reps!!

Run from home

When I ran the PWC Cool Night Classic run the other night I did something to my hamstring.  It was really sore straight after and that night, so I did plenty of walking, gentle stretching, light massage, rubbed some Zen in and slept in my skins.  The next morning, it was fine.  I was quite surprised given the degree of soreness the previous night, however I didn't really give it a great deal of thought.

Well, today was my first run since then and I thought of that stupid hamstring the minute I started running!  I figured that it was still a bit tight and it would loosen up as I warmed up and perhaps I would modify my run to stay on the flat ground rather than do my planned hilly run.

However, after a few minutes of running, the pain was worsening, to the point that I was limping.  I did a few walk/runs to see how it was going but in the end I did a 45min walk instead of my planned hilly run!  Very frustrating...

I have a massage booked for Friday, so I will bring it forward to Wednesday and see if my wonder masseuse Ally can make it better.  I will then try a gentle flat run on Thursday and see if there is any improvement.

Nattie came out with me and she much prefers a run than a walk but she settled down OK.  She hasn't been out for a while so it was good for her to get out and about.

Computrainer

I have heard of Computrainer and I really like the concept of riding over courses and getting a 'feel' for something that you are going to be racing over.

Well, I had the opportunity to check out Active Cycle's Computrainer's on Saturday morning as part of a BTS trial. 

We did a 10km course through Central Park which was undulating and we did a flat time trial of 8km's.  There were 8 girls all sharing the same screen so we could all see what place we were coming, what wattage we were all pushing out, etc.  It was very interesting, but also get's the competitive juices flowing.  Needless to say the session was a smash fest!  The air conditioner was on, but I was a dripping wet mess after this session.  I think you would want to have a couple more fans on than what we had.

As for using this for Ironman training, I'm not a huge fan of having this session every Saturday.  One reason being that I think that it is not overly accurate as the girls all beat the guys in the 8km flat time trial and one of the girls in our group was a couple of minutes down which would most definitely not be the case out on the road.  Also, I think that this session has the potential to be a smash fest every week due to the very nature of pitting everyone against each other.  This session is proposed to be on a Saturday morning so would end up being part of the long bike ride; I just think it is too intense to be part of that ride.  If it was during the week and it was 1 to 1 1/2 hours I would be more keen and this could be our speed session for the week.  Craig and I rode there (45mins ride) and rode back and I was completely shattered for the rest of the day, which is probably a combination of the sweat loss and the nature of the session.  Also, if this session is not accurate it has the ability to really do your head in, particularly if you think you are going pretty well on the bike and then you end up lagging behind on the Computrainer, so you start to question your ability.  I know that a similar Computrainer that Craig was a part of leading up to IM Australia last year did just that.

I'll give my feedback to Mark and see what happens.

I'm not loving my new bike...

Well, the bonding of my new bike is not going well.

I purchased a Cervelo R3 SL bike off bike exchange.  The same size as my Cervelo Soloist.  The R3 SL is running SRAM Red gearing which I was looking forward to checking out as I had problems with my Ultegra gearing on my Soloist since I purchased it.   I learned to live with it, but it was never right.

Well, I am now having problems with my SRAM Red gears.  It begs the question; is it the user??  I don't claim to be a great cyclist and I have on many occasions been told I'm in the wrong gear...  However, in the few small weeks I have owned my R3 SL I have; broken a chain, jammed the chain 3 times, had trouble going into the big gear ring and getting out of the big gear ring.  It has been a case of every time I have ridden it I have been frustrated with it.

Initially we took it to our LBS a couple of days prior to Noosa Triathlon just so that I could get it running well enough to do the tri.  They made it better, but I broke the chain after they tweaked it and have had plenty of problems with it since.

I have had Dad tweak it and replace the chain for me and he has made it better, but it is still not right.  I am still having trouble.  So it is now with Troy Hawkins and I am hoping that he can fix it up and get it running right.  I have lost a lot of confidence in the bike and I really need to start clocking up the k's on it pretty soon!

Needless to say, the jury's out on SRAM Red just for the moment.  I'll reserve judgement until I ride it after Troy has fixed it up.

PWC Cool Night Classic run

Well tonight was the PWC Cool Night Classic run. This is an annual 5km run through Brisbane's botanic gardens and over to South Bank parklands and back to the Botanic gardens.

I have done this run before in it's different incarnations, it was made a bit better this year by having wave starts where there was a break in between people allowing a bit more space on the course, however it was still quite congested in places.

My goal was to run it hard and to see how I would go. I knew that I wasn't running at my fastest, but I was hoping that it wasn't too slow. I ended up running it in 27mins 30, so I was running at 5:45min/k pace. Not great but about what I expected.

Now, here is where it gets a bit ugly - about 1km in my hamstring started to really hurt. After the run as soon as I stopped it was really tight and sore. Walking back to the office it was really sore. I am sitting here typing this in my skins and I will sleep in them in the hope that this magically makes it all better!

Swim 30 x 50m easy - hell yeah!!!

Well my swim programme is 30 x 50m easy today. Not sure if this is a typo or not, but who am I to argue with the Ironguides programe writers!

I did most of it freestyle, very easy, without paddles and pool buoy. I had a few breaks at the end to chat to some guys from work and then headed out again. I did the last couple of hundred with breastroke thrown in for good measure.

Very civilised indeed! I wonder if these sessions will continue.... Hmmm, somehow me thinks not!

Nundah Crit session

Well, looking at the programme I thought that this would be quite a good session. I just didn't realise how hard it was going to be!

I arrived at the track and Jacque and Faye had ridden there and were ready to roll, I'm going to have to get there 15minutes before them in future so that I can warm up before they get there as I had to hold them up whilst I warmed up.

This was my first real ride on my bike since the new chain replacement from the weekend so I was keen to see how the bike was going. It was changing gears superbly - thanks Dad! I did manage to drop the chain when it was in the middle at the back trying to go from the small to large chain ring in the front, but the jury's out on that one, maybe it's a bike bonding thing that I need to sort out!

The main session was 6 x 5min FAST with a 70-80 cadence with 1min rest in between. We worked out that this would roughly equate to 2 laps plus a bit with the rest being recovery. I managed to time one of them and it was only 4mins 40secs, so next time I do this session I'll try and get it a bit more accurate.

Then it was a quick cool down and off to work.

The session was difficult, it was really hard and I felt the effects all day. I think this is going to be a valuable session and I hope that we can see improvements with it over time.

Easy run

Did an easy run with Jackie, Sarah and Lindsay from work. We are all running in the PWC Cool Night Classic run on Thursday.

We ran the course with a few drink breaks and it was lovely and pleasant. Not sure what time I am going to be able to do on Thursday; I think I would have to be really thrilled with anything under 28minutes, however the crowd is going to be a factor and I expect that it will be closer to the 30min mark.

Swimming is my weak leg...

Well, I did Noosa Triathlon 10 days ago and all I can say is that swimming is my weakest leg! I can confirm this with a 35minute 1500m wetsuit swim - not good Mav!

So, I am going to try and get in a minimum of 4 sessions in a week, most of it with pool paddles for the next 4 or 5 weeks and see where I am at.

Today's swim session consisted of a 400m easy w/u with paddles/pb, 4 x 100m easy with the last 25m all out with paddles/pb, 200m time trial with no paddles/pb, 4 x 100m easy with the last 25m all out with paddles/pb, another 200m time trial with no paddles/pb, followed by a 400m easy c/d with paddles/pb.

The 200m time trials were 3mins 50secs and 4mins 03secs consecutively. This session is going to be performed weekly and I am hoping that I can get these down to 3mins 40secs for the both of them...

Definition of frustration...

The weekend's training was a bit lax to say the least.

I woke up to the sound of heavy rain on Saturday morning. I was scheduled to do a run but quickly decided that a visit to Moggill Markets with my gumboots and umbrella would be much more fun. As I was driving out there the rain cleared and it was looking like turning into a lovely day! Murphy's law. I had a packed day planned with a lot of running around to do, so postponing the run was not an option unfortunately.

Sunday's ride was planned to be a 3 hour ride out at Coomera with Trish, Alex, and a few of their mates who Trish worked with. I arrived and rode out the first lap with Trish and about 15kms into the ride my chain broke. It was quite ugly and noisy and I thought that it had taken out the beautiful SRAM Red cluster, but on closer inspection realised that the teeth missing from it were as designed! Nice. So, a trip to the bike shop for a new chain and a drive over to Dad's to make it all better was in order. Dad got it all running nicely and I now have an extra couple of gears to use which is an added bargain.

So, all in all the weekends training was a bit of a fizzer... I'm thinking that I will enjoy the down time as I know that there is going to be a lot happening in the coming months.

Gold Coast Half Ironman Race!!!

Well, unbelievably I completed the Half Ironman. I really didn't think I was even going to make it to the start. Brisbane was hit with some severe dust storms in the lead up to the race. I am allergic to dust and these storms wrecked havoc with my respiratory system. I tried to train indoors mostly, but had to cut the training right back as I was quite sick with allergies. I ended up fainting 1 week prior to the race after attempting a wind trainer session at home.

So, for me, just being in the swim area prior to the gun going off was a really emotional experience. It was great to share it with the other girls too. We all knew that we had done the work and we had all overcome adversity to some degree to get here.

My swim went well, it was a wetsuit swim and my goal was just to be relaxed. Thankfully this worked OK and I was able to swim the whole race without getting my heart rate up too high. Then it was on to the bike. My goal here was to not go out too hard. I wanted to get off the bike and have plenty in the tank for the run. So, I eased into the first lap. My bike computer had me averaging just over 30km/h. I was expecting around 27, but I was very comfortable and my HR was not high, cadence good, so I kept on eye on everything and all seemed good. My hydration goal was to drink 4 bottles of electrolytes on the bike, so I had sectioned off the course into quarters so that I knew when I had to have my bottles consumed by and this worked well. I also had 2 vegemite sandwiches and a chocolate/brown rice bar to eat.

Craig's parents were out on the course, Craig and my parents were also out there, so after the first lap I sung out to them and gave the thumbs up - "everything is good" I yelled out, I wanted them to know that I was OK. However, it soon went a bit pear shaped...

Just after that first lap I ended up with a glute cramp which was really uncomfortable and worsened to the point of excruciatingly horrible! I tried stretching, I tried wriggling around on my seat, I tried not thinking about it (impossible!). In the end I just ended up struggling through and plenty of people that I passed whizzed by me as I watched my average go from just over 30km/h down to 26km/h over the next 60km's. The second lap when I came back in I yelled to Craig that I had a sore bum! As I progressed through the ride the glute cramp ended up expanding into a hamstring cramp. I got off the bike to try and stretch it out and it became a toe cramp too!

Needless to say, I was getting really worried that these cramps were going to be with me all through the run and I realised that this was going to be a really tough day at the office. I had taken to not pedalling down hills and I was in a really easy gear just spinning it home.

Finally, I finished the 90km's and could get off the bike! Longest transition ever to put on sunscreen, hat, take some of my sustagen sport that I had frozen overnight, put on my hat and away I went - just a half marathon to go.

I have never run a half marathon prior to this and to be fair I still can't claim that I have run a half marathon... My strategy was to plod through in my Cliff Young shuffle and walk through the drink stations.

This strategy worked really well and I was able to hydrate, eat and enjoy the crowds. It was a 3 lap course and I had supporters all around it which was just great. I really looked forward to the turn around where Craig and his parents were, I also had Mum and Dad floating around the course which was great, it was awesome for both of them, particularly Mum to see that I was OK and that I was enjoying myself.

There was also a guy from my work called Paul who was a great cheerer and took some photos, then there was the BTS tent where there was always a lot of noise and then there was Trisha who was great and talked me through a bit of it where I was extending my walks from the drink stations!

The finish was great - I really appreciated Jacque G coming back to the finish line for me. She had finished almost an hour earlier! We had our photos taken with our finisher's towels and it was a really proud moment.

All in all, I can say that I felt good the whole way through with the exception of the horrible cramping on the bike, my nutrition and hydration was good. My recovery was spent on Daydream Island with Craig which was fabulous. I was very sore for a couple of days afterwards, but I'm sure that this is from the cramping rather than anything else. Once that subsided I felt good.

It took me a couple of weeks before.....

I signed up for IRONMAN NZ!!!

OMG - what have I done!!!!

GCHIM Course run through

Today the plan was to ride 2 laps of the course being the full 90kms and do 1 lap of the 3 lap run course (7km's).

I headed out on the ride at 6:20am, so no lights were required which was pleasant. I was really worried about this ride and driving down I was feeling ill. My main concern was riding on my own down there - what if something happened? However, once I got going I was as good as gold. I brought a new 2xu triathlon top with pockets in the back the day before so I was trying that out along with the 2xu pants of Craig's just to see if I could cope with a long ride without the full bike nicks.

The course is good, there are a few little uphills, but nothing nasty. I stayed in my big chain ring for most of the hills. The Kerkin Road stretch is pretty bumpy and full of potholes, but most of the road on the course is Ok, there are sections that are dead but overall it is good.

My goal was to have 4 bottles of electrolytes on the bike, 2 vegemite sandwiches and a rice cocoa bar. I managed to get through all of this which was good. Race day I need to have the first bottle finished by the turn at the little shop near the strawberry farm. The next bottle needs to be finished by the halfway turnaround point at Calypso Bay and 2 bottles the same for the last lap. Because I can only carry 1 bottle on my bike it means that I am going to have to carry electrolytes on me to put into a water bottle. Each electrolytes provides 39grams of carbs so I need to make sure that I get everything on board for the run.

I think the plan for transition will be to have some sustagen sport and water and make sure that I scoff the sustagen as muh as I can get down whilst in transition. This will help by providing a good dose of carbs and hydration.

I did the first lap in 27kph average and then the wind picked up on the second lap. Thanfully though by the time I finished the second lap my average had only dropped down to 26.5, so I must have taken advantage of a tail wind in there somewhere, however I don't remember it!

3hours 20min was the cycle time.

I then tried a fast transition to the run. It ended up being 5 minutes by the time I locked the bike in the car and sorted out my runnin shoes, run belt and grabbed my food and hydration which wasn't too bad for me! I took out a water bottle and a vegemite sandwich. The run was good, I wasn't cramping and didn't feel as though I was about to, it was slow, but I felt consistent. I felt like I could have continued on after the 7km lap so I hope that I can feel like that on race day.

47 minutes for 7km with a loo stop so it was probably just over 6min k pace which I am happy with.

I stretched for 20minutes and then I went into the water for 5minutes to cool down the legs. I had 2 up and go's and headed for home. I wasn't overly fatigued or sore which I am thrilled with.

Today's session has given me a lot of confidence that I can do the Half Ironman and complete it which up until this point I wasn't so sure so i am feelin on top of the world.

Swim week!!

Well, with less than 5 weeks to go until the Gold Coast Half Ironman I am starting to think that I should get a bit more serious about my swimming. To date I have been swimming half heartedly once or twice a week for about 30mins. Not really classified as swim training!

So, after my 30mins of bumbling around in the pool today I got out and I went and had a chat to Trent Patten who runs the Valley lunchtime squad sessions. He's a great guy, I really enjoy his sessions and I think that he is a great coach. So, I told him that I will join his squad!

So, Wednesday and Thursday I swam with the squad. Wednesday's session was with Trent and I seemed to cope OK with that and there were even 2 people swimming behind me (only just though). Thursday was a different story, it was swimming with Dan Atkins and the session was a bit different, the swimmers were faster (or was I slower - not sure!). The end result was I was getting lapped in the slow lane and couldn't hold 100mtrs on the 2mins! So, big wake up call for me, I really need to swim 4 times a week from here on in otherwise I am not going to be comfortable getting out of the water at Coomera. Or, more importantly I am going to lose valuable minutes there where I can't really afford to lose any minutes with the cutoff time looming in front of me.

Swimming focus week for me!

Run/Swim Brick session

We met at 5am at Sutton's beach where it felt like the middle of the night! There was Alicia, Sarah and myself. The plan was to run for 90mins and then have 30mins recovery prior to the squad swim.

Alicia was a little concerned with the distance as she hadn't run that far in a long time. We ran north up towards Scarborough for 30minutes and then back to Suttons beach and continued south for 15minutes before turning back for home.

The pace was slightly uncomfortable for me, we were running around the 6min/k mark, there were times that we were on 5:40 pace. But it was good, I learnt that I can hold that pace for longer than I thought.

We spent 20minutes stretching and then stood in the cool water for a while to cool our legs prior to getting ready for the swim.

I felt pretty good, I had eaten 1 vegemite sandwich whilst running. I had some dried fruit prior to the swim just so that I had some energy.

I attempted to put my wetsuit on, however my foot immediately cramped! Bummer... I gave it away and swum without the wettie. The water was actually really nice. We did a good warmup in the water and then we did some ins and outs around the buoys and then we practices swim starts across the back of the two buoys which we did 6 times.

I discovered a few little insights; my swimming needs a lot of work and my breaststroke in open water is faster than my freestyle! Oh well, I am going to really concentrate on swimming from here on in. I am happy to not be fast, I just want to be comfortable coming out of the swim so that is my motivation.