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.