29th July 2007

The week got off to a slow start thanks to the lingering effects of last weeks dodgy buttered chicken. But came along quite nicely in the end. My fitness has definitely moved up a notch. This is pretty common for me, I find that I plateau at a fairly well defined level, before having a sudden clear jump in fitness to a new point where I plateau again for a time. I’ve found over the years that for me, what causes the jump up to the new level is a combination of steady training climaxing in a big event or training day. And for this reason the events that I’ve got pencilled in over the next few months are really important for my overall plan. I don’t have the time to log huge k’s or big training hours, which makes getting in the events key for me.

The swimming is slowing getting better, I don’t quite get the same slow drowning feeling that I was enjoying last week, so that’s good. I also had my second lesson this week, and have been given a bunch new drills to work on. I’m a bit more confident now that I’ll get there in the end.

This weekend has been good. I have a great hilly ride on Saturday. What was really cool was that it was in the sun!! Anyway after a good warm up I rode an old 30k loop that I use to do a lot when I was road racing. It’s basically a series of steady hill climbs with one flat section about two thirds of the way through (followed by another long hill). I’ve just put my bike computer back on as I was quite curious to see how the figures would stack up. I ended up averaging 28kph for the loop which I was pretty pleased with given the constant climbing.

Sunday I had another ride planned, this time with a mate who’s also doing NZIM. Unfortunately the torrential downpour which lasted all morning put an end to that (yes I know I’m soft). It cleared up in the afternoon though, so me and the kids headed down to the park. It was cool, I spent about 30 – 45 minutes chasing my kids, as well as half the neighbourhood kids around. Really, who needs structured speed training when you have children! To make it even better I had to pick up and carry my little girl around after a while as she was getting tired and left behind, but still wanted to play. So not only did I get a speed / sprint workout, but I also got some resistance work thrown in, and my wife got to have some quite time to relax at home (as well as a couple of other parents who seemed quite happy to sit back and let me do all the work!). We certainly had some tired kids tonight, who both went to sleep very easily.

I also managed to squeeze in a more sedate 16k run later on in the afternoon, down and along the beach front. So all in all very good.