Post Marathon Week

It’s now been a week since the Auckland Marathon. I was a bit stiff and sore for the first couple of days following the race, which was to be expected. I was also really tired for a couple of days, putting the kids to bed was a struggle as I found myself falling asleep with them (or before them on at least one occasion).

However the soreness was gone by Wednesday and the tiredness was largely gone Thursday (actually it would be more correct to say that I was back to my normal state of tiredness – I have kids …). So training started again on Thursday after a whopping three days rest! Unfortunately I had to fly down to Wellington for some training as part of my new job. As a result Thursday’s training was done in a hotel gym. It was brick session using a treadmill and a stationary bike, not the best quality workout but I’ll take it.

Friday was a bit better. My work training finished really early as I already knew a bunch of the stuff that I was going to go over. This meant that I got a bit of a treat. I had plenty of time before my flight (which I couldn’t bring forward) to get in a really good swim session. I headed down to Freyberg pool which is a 33 meter pool. It was the length of the pool which was the real treat. I’m use to swimming in a 25 meter pool and I found swimming an endurance set in the longer pool a heap easier, as I got a better grove going and didn’t have o worry about turning around as often.

This weekend’s training was scheduled as being fairly light and was based squarely on the bike. The plan for the next few weeks is to build towards the Rotorua Half Ironman so that I can get the most out of it on the day. So I’m going to be doing a lot of bike work to build both my endurance and speed. The bike is where I believe I can make the biggest impact in both the half ironman and ultimately the full Ironman race, so I really want to make sure I can maximise this strength. The bike has really been taking a back seat all year, so I’m quite excited to how the speed builds up between now and December. I’m also aware that I’m going to be inclined to go too hard on the bike if I’m not careful and suffer on the run, so endurance and pacing is also going to be a big focus along with some runs off the bike.

Saturday’s ride was a shortish two hour 62 k ride over a fairly hilly course. Due to a range of circumstances (and the fact that my lovely wife needed a well deserved sleepin) I didn’t go for the ride until the afternoon, which turned out to be a real stunner after a gloomy morning. The ride went really well, it was largely into a building headwind and I managed to keep an average speed of just over 30 kph throughout. (To put that into perspective when I was riding the same course in my roadie days my average speed was around 26 – 27 kph just before I rode the old Rotorua – Taupo Flyer course (which included a big chunk of the Ironman course) in 3 hours. It’s unrelentingly hilly which drags the average speed down a fair bit. I reckon if you try to translate the speed from there to a flat course you should add around 4 kph – I’ll be testing that theory later in the year, but for the mean time it works for me).

There’s one really nice flat section about 5k out from home that I really enjoy. It’s one the few truly flat bits and it have a really nice smooth tar seal with a slight downhill leading up to it and goes for about 2.5 k’s, so I can really wind it up and give it everything knowing that I’m really close to home and blowing up isn’t going to be a problem. On Saturday I was rally looking forward to this bit of the ride as always, and once again it proved a highlight. I managed to jump in behind a 4WD with a somewhat surprised driver, and with the benefit of the draft got up to 65kph and held it for most of the way (the speed limit is 50kph and I think the driver was trying to get away, don’t worry mum I was being careful …).

I love my bike!