I finally cracked it this week. At last the swimming thing seems achievable. On Monday I swam a non-stop 1000m, and really the only reason I stopped was because I had to get back to work. This is pretty big for me, as I was starting to get down about not being able to get any real distance. Now its not hard to picture myself going the full 3.8k’s, whereas previously I had a private fear of my whole Ironman experience falling over at the swim.
My knee is now much better, and I only have a few days to go before I can start running again. I’ve been resting it and doing my stretches (something which I’ve always been pretty slack at – which I have no excuse for considering my background). Its been frustrating not getting out for a run for the last week so I can hardly wait. I’ve canned my planned entry into “The Legend” run in September as it’s not very far away and my build up has been terrible.
So the next big event is the Auckland Marathon in October. This is going to be a really important test, as I messed up my nutrition fairly badly in my last marathon, and I really need to get this right before Ironman. My only real concerns at the moment are my lack of running and the possibility of my knee problem reoccurring (however I have a plan in place to stop that from happening). I’m also now planning on doing some of the “Stroke and Stride” races and the Harbour Crossing to get use to swimming in the open water with a pack of other swimmers.
This week has also been notable for the fact that I’ve finally seen some sunlight. It’s still been pretty cold, but I seems so much easier when the sun’s shinning. On Saturday I got early for a ride as the family had to be in Albany by 8.30am. The ride was a real struggle and I couldn’t understand why. I wasn’t terribly windy but I just found it really hard to get moving, to the point where I was going around 5 kph slower than my normal cruising pace! I thought that I must have just woken up weak for some reason. Anyway after about half an hour I finally heard the rubbing noise (I was going through a sheltered area with a slight tail wind so there wasn’t much air rushing past my ears). It turned out that my rear break must have got knocked or something because it was rubbing, quite solidly, against the wheel. Once that was fixed things went much better!
Today’s ride went much better (apart from the squeezie incident and sticky Leppin all over me and my bike). I past several roadies again, which always makes me feel good, but had a good dose of reality when some guy, decked out in full aero gear, including race wheels and helmet came screaming past me. I paced behind him for a while at mean 47 kph, which is a much hotter pace than I can keep up for any length of time, especially at the end of a long training ride. Common sense took over after a couple of minutes and I eased off and watched him disappear around a corner. Maybe next time I’ll get him …
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