Things to accomplish this week

With both feet now being battered and bruised from running I must do something about getting new shoes.

I’ve got one Shoe Clinic $10 voucher so I’ll stop in there at lunch time tomorrow to see what they say.

I can’t believed I now have 3 toes going black.  My feet really hurt.  I’m trying to figure out how long I’ve had these shoes.  I don’t think it’s been a year but who knows.  I’m going to go back looking at the credit card statements – these things matter to me

Now my swimming is in dire need of instant improvements.  If there’s one thing I’ve learnt, there’s no such thing as instant when it comes to bettering technique.

My 2k swims are marked as "steady" but it seems I’ve managed to make them "slow" (and steady).  No more skipping any swim sessions this week (I skipped one this week).  I’ve got Monday and Thursday with 60 minutes each with "shorter faster sets".  So that’s what I’ll be doing.  Puffing and panting in the pool expecting it to pay dividends by Saturday’s 2km "steady" swim.

I’ve just been tweaking my programme.  My Tuesday was starting to get crowded and it’s one reason I was getting up so early.  I had a ride to/from work, Jen’s strength session and a 40min run.  I know it doesn’t sound much but it’s quite a lot to fit in when you work all day.  Now I’ve put Jen’s session in on a Monday which only had a swim in the morning.

Thursday is changing but only in the programme.  I think Richard has quite forgotten that I can’t manage a swim, Running group and Jen’s programme all in the one day.  Jen’s session will be on Friday, as I have been doing for a number of weeks now.

And if I really feel like it, I could take the bike with me on Monday and bike home, then bike to work on Tuesday, and take the car home, or drive somewhere new for my 40min run before getting home.

See, it just takes time to sit and think outside the box.

Now there’s just Monday and Thursday where I’ll be setting the alarm for 5:15.

With this being my longest training week in this 6 week block, I best get some shut eye. And early nights this week.  Off to bed at 9:30 for me.  I’ve got 13 minutes to go!

One discipline is much easier

Ahh the unknown.

After yesterday’s hill ride today’s programme had a 40 min ride with small hills (at A2 intensity) and 90 minute hill run.

I had decided not to set the alarm this morning and just get up when it felt like it was time to get up.  The only down side with "going with the flow" is that it was 9am before I left the house and to me half the day is gone.

I know the ride was on the list first, but I wasn’t sure I was going to ride at all.  After my failed run on Thursday I had been looking forward to the run (that was Saturday night) and knew it was more important to get the run in.

Boy oh boy.  It was hard work.  I ran from the Sign of the Takahe.  I knew if I had done Rapaki I’d have been really disappointed with my time.  I have a tendency to compare my run times when running the same route.  Not that that’s stopped me today!

The day started out (at 9am!) a little windy and grey.  I was waiting for the sun to help warm things up.  When I got out of the car to organise myself I was actually starting to shiver.  I knew I would warm up once I got going.

Well Harry Elle is a much easier gradient to Rapaki and yet it felt considerably harder.  That’s what you’ll get after a 3hr+ hill ride the day before (oh, and a 2k swim).

Once I got to the Sign of the Kiwi and had a quick chat to Katherine, Sue (and another person in CP kit I don’t know) I was on my way again.  This time heading along the Summit Road as if I were going to Gebbies Pass.  Once I got to the first cattle stop I decided to go check out the Crater Rim (or Hoon Hay Reserve as it’s called).  I’m pretty clueless when it comes to trails and I wanted to do the little Trig one but I’d only taken about 10 paces and couldn’t figure out where the track was.  I decided to continue on with the Crater Rim.  I managed to go part way along Ella’s Track but it was so windy up there and the track is pretty narrow with a nasty drop that I decided to turn around and head back.

The plan was to run down from SOK to SOT with more pace than I would normally when "running" down hill.  Every step I took jarred my beautiful bruised leg.  And trying to sleep on my left side was causing no end of grief last night.

Anyway, I did get to comparing today’s run to another when I went up Rapaki Track.  They were the same length of time, but that’s where the similarities end.  When I ran Rapaki I ran 600m more for the same time, and it’s a steeper climb.  Ahh well.  It wasn’t a surprise I guess.  I didn’t try to push myself while running uphill, mostly because it was harder work than normal.  It’s just good I guess to do a harder run on the back of a long hill ride the day before.

But no ride.  Just gardening and housework for me when I got home.  But it made me feel better to get those things seen to than the ride would have made me feel

And the bruises from yesterday’s run in with my bike.

Just as well I’d done a bit of grooming on Friday.  Must have known I’d end up with a close up of my leg

Ups and downs

I could be talking about so many things with the title of this post.  There were ups and downs if you look at the recording of my swim.  Which was the   s   l   o    w    e    s    t    2k I’ve ever swum.  Plenty of spikes and troughs with that recording.  I just wanted to see how my swim compared if I just swam the way I’ve done "naturally" (read incorrectly) and to how I swim when I’m trying to apply some correct technique.

Even without the timing I knew my last 500m of swimming how I damn well please was wrong.  There was so much drag on my left (non-breathing) arm as I pulled my hand out of the water.  Well I don’t know I was really getting it out of the water because that’s what it felt, like I was still in the water dragging it.

What I did try to do yesterday was to really use the muscles in my back to pull my arm out of the water instead of loading up my shoulder.  I could finally feel this kick in.  But still, the swim was just shy of 60 minutes.  How did I go from 51 minutes to the previous two swims (on being after a ride) of 55 minutes, to now this!?

Following the swim Kylie and I high tailed our way to Pioneer for the Brunch Ride.  I was not enthusiastic at all about this.  And made no bones about it.

The day was warming up, but knowing we’d be sitting around for brunch I didn’t really want to get cold so it was a wee bit tricky to know what to wear.  Plus I expected it to be cold on the descents of Long Bays.  I left my cycle jacket behind but put a cycle top over my long sleeved merino top, and had my vest and 3/4 pants on (instead of just cycle shorts).

I’d not eaten anything at all until brunch was served.  I had Hot Cakes.  What turned out to be 3 massive fluffy pancakes with lemon curd and whipped cream.  Oh they looked good.  And I wanted to eat them.  But I managed almost one before I felt sick.  They tasted really good and I really wanted to eat them.  I struggled to eat 1.5 of them with taking breaks.  No hoovering my food like I normally do.  I was done.  I just felt awful in my stomach.  The idea of tacking Long Bays wasn’t improving that’s for sure.  I managed to finish my pineapple juice.  I thought that was probably more important anyway.

Richard and I had already had a short chat about how I was feeling and he knew I was struggling.  I don’t understand.  I’m sure I’m not putting in any more hours than last year but for some unknown reason, I’m finding training so much harder, and more difficult to do.

While we were getting ready to head out again my bike fall against my leg.  Serves me right for not paying attention when it was precariously weighted on a railway sleeper.  I guess the motion of me removing my helmet from it changed the weight or something, or maybe I nudged it without realising.  So it crashed into my knee.  It hurt but I didn’t get it any more attention.

All the way heading out to Motukarara I was wondering how I would cope with the ride.  I’d been worried about hills until last weekend when I proved I could still manage them.  Now I’m riding with a dodgy tummy.

Well the hills were fine.  The bunch was really good and everyone waited for the rest of the bunch at the end of each climb.  No one was left behind.

In fact I thought my pace, or more my cadence was much improved to what I remember it being.  I remember slogging my way up hills.  Well I was in the same gear and able to spin more.  By spin I mean 50rmp or higher, and I wasn’t in my easiest gear, often 3rd easiest.  So I feel pleased with that.  I find that I pull back and up more than I used to when climbing and I’ve got to say for me it works.  It sure takes the load off the quads.  Needless to say my legs felt good during the ride, well all but the last bit around Heathcote Valley into the wind.  But even then it wasn’t hurting, it was just noticeable.

My descending needs a lot of work.  I don’t know what it is that makes me fearful about the speed of cornering.  I listened to others (people I’ve not seen before) say they’re slow.  I felt I was in good company.  But they were hurtling off ahead of me.  There was one corner that I realised I cocked up and so instead of applying more brakes I let them go, or eased back and it did feel better. But still my natural instinct is to apply the brakes.  I need to get out of that.  And I’m sure it’s the descending that takes away the enjoyment of hill riding for me.

On the flat from Sumner I still felt good, though I knew my legs were starting to tire.  But I was cracking up the pace with three behind me who confessed they were barely hanging on.  So I’d find myself checking behind me and having to slow right down for them to catch up.  That was another positive from the ride.  Or maybe I’m looking at it wrong and shouldn’t assume that because I could maintain a reasonable pace (27+ with the headwind) and others couldn’t that it some how makes me good.

It was 2pm when we got back to Pioneer. I thought we’d be back at 1pm and was griping about how so much of the day would be over.

I ate one piece of licorice and about 1/2 of my 683ml (loving my new Camelbak) drink bottle.  I was neither hungry or thirsty and I didn’t feel as if my energy was depleted, but still, that’s a pretty poor effort.

I got home at 2:30 to find a note from Mark to say he was at the neighbours mowing the lawns.  He invited me over.  I decided since Mark had been on his own all day doing housework I’d do what I could.  I could prattle on about what I managed to do as my "share" of the work but who wants to know about housework.  It’s enough to say that I had a sense of achievement and that I’d done enough to remove the guilt.

By the time Mark got home it was 3:40ish.  To catch up on our days he was chatting away to me while I was showering.  That’s how bad today was.  The only chance for us to have time together was while I was showering.  Because after that it was time to head out to Mark’s family for dinner.

A run of bad luck

Thursday night is run group night.

Axle’s still in Germany and it’s sort of pot luck as to what happens on a Thursday given no one is there to lead the group.

Tonight it was "Anita no friends".  No one else turned up.

I decided after a LOT of internal discussion that I’d do the run anyway.   Andrew had put something up on the Yahoo newsgroup so I thought I’d do that anyway.

The warm up was to run around the park and along the streets that surround the park.

Unfortunately I came across swarm upon swarm of tiny little flying bugs.  I wondered at one point if they were deliberately aiming for me.  One or two got caught up in my hair and I was frantically trying to get them away from me.

I was trying really hard to keep my mouth closed when I could spot a swarm headed my way.  I wasn’t totally successful and before I knew it I was choking on one.  I tried to do the big spit thing since it seemed lodged part way down my wind pipe.  I thought I managed.

On I continued.

As I was getting closer to the park entrance I looked at my watch and my HR was 151bpm.  My run *minimum* is 165bpm.

My idea had been to get to the car and put the head torch on and then do the technique sets that Andrew had suggested.  Except I’m so tired at the moment and having checked a summary of my 9 minutes of running my average HR for that stretch was 150bpm.

I wasn’t dilly dallying about.  I was running.  I was huffing and puffing and giving it a good go.  My HR however gave no real indication of the effort I was putting in.

So instead of carrying on I sat coughing and spluttering trying to dislodge this bug from my windpipe and turned my watch off.

Enough.  I can’t see what benefit I would get from continuing on when I’m just further exhausting myself for no gain.  Well I don’t see any gain.

Last night I did the spin class followed by a run, then out for a ride at 5:30 this morning for an hour.

I’m had it.  Not just from the last few training sessions.  I’m just had it in general.  I’m tired, I’m hurting all the time, I’m feeling somewhat despondent and I’d throw in the towel if that didn’t require any physical exertion.

Blah.

The right of way

Today was the final event of the Ashburton Duathlon.  My first time participating.  And my first Duathlon in a good long time.  More than a year.  Of course now I’m a big girl and can flail about swim.

Off we went at 7:38am.  I was paying careful attention to see how long it would take at that time of the morning to get to Ashburton.  I wanted to use it as a measure of how much time it would take to get there come November.  I have no idea how much further it is to Lake Hood.

We arrived at 8:45am.  Clearly we’d gone a wee bit over the speed limit.  Not me of course

It’s a fairly relaxing affair – things done in Ashburton.  No fuss, no rushing, no beating the crowds, no long queues to the loos!

Soon Rebecca and Paul turned up which was nice.  They’d done two of the three previous events so were a wealth of knowledge about the run course and the "up hill" of the ride.

There were cones as far as the eye could see and I was mighty lost with where we were running.

There were cones inside the race track which is where I presumed we were running.  Turns out we weren’t running on the track at all.  Who knows what the cones were there for then.

I’d taken 3 different pairs of gloves with me, and some 3/4 leggings in case the weather was cooler.  But it was lovely when the sun came out.  But with the sun came the wind.  It was almost a nice day

Murphy’s Law, the wind only kicked in with about 30 minutes to start time.

The run felt better than I expected it to.  I thought four laps of 1.25k would do my head in but it didn’t.  I also don’t believe it’s 1.25km in length.  My first lap was 6min 15 seconds.  No way that was 1.25k.  So perhaps that explains why the run wasn’t so awful, it wasn’t so long.

They set everyone off together.  The short and long courses all leaving at the same time.

Boy oh boy.  I don’t think I’ve ever reached my bike and been able to count on one hand how many others were still racked.  Made me feel really slow.

I managed to pass four people out on the ride.  There were very clear instructions about drafting, riding two a breast and that sort of thing.  And they’ve disqualified people before.  Needless to say when it came time to overtake I went very wide to make it clear I wasn’t aiming for any advantage.

I’d passed 3 people by the 10k mark.  But I could see that a farmer was running across the road and then I looked right and there was a heard of cows all lined up.  What??

Sure enough, he’d roped the road off so he could move his cattle.  Two riders travelling back picked up their bikes and carried them over the rope and were on their way, yelling at me "cows".

Yeah, I can see!

Guess who got the right of way?  You don’t mess with the back bone of New Zealand’s economy.  Doesn’t matter you’re in a race and trying to lengthen (not shorten) the distance between you and your rivals.  Tough luck!

Actually I didn’t mind.  I was so tired.  We’d been battling the head wind right from the word go (and while out running) so it was a blessing in disguise.

The farm hand on his tinny sounding dirt bike was seeing to it that they made short work of the delay and even apologised to me for the hold up.

No worries mate!

A further 7k on I could see a guy on the side of the road and saw this spray of stuff a couple of times.  I slowed and realised it was his C02 canister that was making the spray.  I asked if he was ok.  He asked if I had a hand pump as his valve was too short for his C02 canister.

Nope, no hand pump but I did give him my tube with a long valve and my canister (that’s not threaded!! – just BTW).

The guy I’d passed before the cow interruption caught up and shared a few words.  And we were on our way again.  The guy behind waited for me to start before he took off which was very good of him.

Thank the Lord for the turn around.  At times my speed was down to 22km/hr and I wasn’t at all liking how much effort it was taking just to keep it there.  Boy it was hard work.

I’d not been on my aero bars except for a short stint.  I was determined to use them on the way back to see if it made a difference.

Yep, easily a couple of k per hour difference.

I spinning really fast.  It was starting to tire me out.  I knew I needed to be in the big chain ring but every time I’ve done that (when on the road) I’ve dropped my chain.  I’d already had 2 unplanned stops, I didn’t want a third.

With my fingers crossed I managed to get into the big chain ring with out any drama.  Weee, I was off.  I got another couple of k per hour by being in the big chain ring.  I was now back to the early 90’s for cadence.  Much happier sitting there.

The max I got to was a long sting at 40km/hr.  Paula later told me she got up to 42.  Nice going!

The last 3km back along Racecourse Road I expected a really good tail wind – after all, we’d had a hard slog up that road – but it wasn’t quite as good as I’d hoped.

Never mind.  I was done with the bike and miffed when I went to rack my bike to find someone elses in my way, along with their shoes and helmet strewen across the path.

Off for that last run.  It wasn’t as difficult to get going as my last few Sunday bike to run sessions.  It wasn’t easy, I felt slow but somehow my time was 12:17 for the last 2.5km.  Okay we missed the little bit running off the track through the building out to the ashphalt area but I was still confused by my time.

All done.  I had a nice (unplanned) snooze on the way home.