Rubbish Week – But it’s not all bad!

It’s been a bit of a rubbish week training wise this week. On account of the new job my schedule has been thrown out of wack resulting in a bit of a waste of a week. I did manage to sneak in a short swim on Monday and also got in a pretty solid run on Wednesday (although I didn’t actually get away until 10pm! – I made it back before midnight and managed to get a solid 6 hours of “recovery” sleep, whippee! But it was a good run, I was feeling fairly fresh so thought I’d test my limits and smacked out 10 k’s in 42 minutes, which is easily a record for me. I’ve heard about “reverse periodisation” and I’m toying with the idea of tying it out, I don’t think I have enough time though to do it properly though, still a bit of speed work isn’t going to hurt – makes you tough).

The week hasn’t been a total waste though. I went for my first open water swim in a wetsuit on Friday evening. It was a short swim and really just to see what it all felt like, and I’ve got to say … I like it! At first it was kind of weird as I waded out into the water and felt like I was bobbing around. Then once I started swimming something quite surprising happened. My normal horrible body position (I drag my hips to much) suddenly came right and I was much flatter through the water, resulting in a good pickup in speed. It’s awesome I love it! Following that short swim I’m now a lot happier about doing the Harbour Crossing in two weeks time, I just need to find the time to get a little bit more pool time somewhere and I’ll be set.

Today was a real ray of light as well. Both figuratively speaking, in that I had a great ride, and actually speaking in that it was a really nice sunny day (at last!).

Today’s ride was actually a bit of a treat. My wife was working today, which would normally mean I could perhaps sneak in a 1.5 – 2 hour tops ride if I was lucky, before she started. However today was different. My wonderful in-laws offered to look after the kids this morning, meaning I had the chance to do my first proper long ride (with summer just about here there should be more to come).

It’s been a hectic week so I wasn’t really prepared for a long ride food wise, but when the opportunity comes you make do. There’s a big “undulating” course that I’ve ridden in my roadie days which normally takes around four hours so that was the plan for today. I managed to scrounge up a fist full of squeezies and one of my kids “fruit bars”, plus the normal two bottles of Enduro Boost and a bottle of water and of I went.

The ride was sensational. The weather was near perfect with very little wind and lots of sun. There were loads of roadies out plus a couple of fellow trigeeks. I felt pretty strong for most of the ride but the inadequate nutrition took its toll towards the end. Three squeezies and a “fruit bar” just don’t cut it for a 3 and a half hour ride. Still it’s good for eating up your fat stores as well as improving mental toughness. Just for the record I lost 2 kgs (from 73kgs this morning to 71kgs by the end of the ride) on today’s ride, but I reckon I’ve pulled some of that back again now (he says while munching on some Pringles). I was starting to suffer by the end. Just to prove how tough I am I ran off the bike to the in-laws to collect the kids … Did I mention they’re only two k’s away? (Weak, I know).

I had a couple of roadies in a pace line pass me 80k’s into the ride. Normally I don’t mind that, I figure good on them if they can, but this time the buggers rode up, drafted off me for a minute or so before taking off! Now that’s just bad manners! I kept in touch with them and smoked them o a hill though, so that cheered me up no end.

The actual ride itself was 110k’s and took me 3 hours 30 minutes (and a few seconds) for an average speed of 31 kph. That’s good enough for me, but what was really encouraging was my average speed of 35kph along a longish flat part of the course (with horribly huge chip) which was 50k’s into the course. That particular bit of road was a lot like the road on the Taupo Ironman course so that bodes well for a good Ironman ride.

So what’s on the agenda? With a bit of luck I’ll get in both a run and another open water swim tomorrow. Then next week will hopefully be more settled and I can get some solid work (by that I mean training) done. I’d like to do at least two swims, but I still need to sort out a pool and find a good time to actually go, plus four solid runs (with one long run of 20k’s) some indoor biking and a long bike next weekend (that might be replaced by a long swim session depending on how things pan out – Harbour Crossing is on the 25th November!).

Train Smart!