Christmas Training

Christmas week was always going to be an interesting affair. How do you squeeze in training when one has so many family commitments to keep. To complicate things for me was the small matter of a plane trip to Christchurch and an uncomfortable few sleeps in a cabin in the same room as two rather excited kids both under the age of 5.

I’ve had a little bit of feedback regarding one of my previous blog entries (basically around the length), so for those of you who are pressed for time here’s the short version of my Christmas training experience.

My family and I arrived in Christchurch. I put on a kilo, got sick and only managed a total of two hours training over the course of six days.

Actually that pretty much sums things up. Training wise it wasn’t a great week. I went off for a run on Monday past the Christchurch airport and down to my brother’s place in Russley. There was a nor-wester blowing and it was stinking hot. My heart rate was unusually high and I was starting to suffer by the end of it. I had a fairly bad sleep that night and right on queue I woke up with what was either a cold of really bad hay fervour. Given that I felt like rubbish for most of both Christmas and Boxing day and the hay fervour pills didn’t seem to do anything, I guess I was actually sick. By the 27th I was starting to feel better, which was just as well as it was my birthday (yay to me, 32 years old!). I went for a nice easy run on a mix of road and off road around a near by lake, and felt really good for it. That afternoon I went for a half hour ride with my brother. It was an interesting affair. My brother is a top kayaker, having represented New Zealand for several years. He also has 5 kids with another one on the way, so time for him is even more precious than it is for me. As a result he uses a hand bike so that he can get in extra upper body workouts (it also means that people give him heaps of room on the road as no one wants to hit a cripple (which is what he looks like on his hand bike)). So off we went, him on his hand bike, and me on his mountain bike complete with his wife’s pink helmet – cool! It was a bit slower than I’m use to but it was still good to turn the legs over.

Aside from the training though things were really good. I got to hang out with my whole family which doesn’t happen very often, my kids had a very exciting time and really enjoyed hanging out with their cousins, plus there was a reasonable haul of presents to both take down and bring back. Plus there was the pervading joy of celebrating the birth of Jesus which, after all, is the whole point of Christmas in the first place.

I’m back in Auckland now and feeling much better. I got in an ocean swim of around 2.5k’s at Long Bay. The beach was packed as it was a beautiful day. The sea was calm and quite warm, meaning I had a lovely swim. And this afternoon I also managed to get an easy half hour run done.

As of next week the in-laws (bless them) are going to help out where the can to allow me to get in some bigger training days. This will be really great as my wife works on a Saturday so doing a long ride, run or brick is very difficult and as a result my training load at the moment is probably only just adequate. So hopefully the next two months will see a final “rush” of quality training that will really build on what I’ve done already and see me in good stead for 1st March.