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...