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!