2 weeks to go

Only two weeks to go now before the Big Day ...  that means this week is all about training hard and next week is the taper week - the semi-resting week before the main event ...

went for a ride yesterday ... just 18K ... same length as the tri just to see how I would go ... the ride was nice, legs felt good and puff was fine ... but ONCE AGAIN I forgot to mark the time before leaving so I don't actually know how long it took me ...

I don't know how I keep doing this, it is very frustrating.  I guess I just get all caught up in getting ready to get out the door.  Perhaps I should buy a 2 dollar shop watch and stick it on the bike so I always at least have that.  

I'd have been hard pressed to guess the time right anyway this time because I stopped towards the end to help a young boy who had fallen off his bike.  It was actually quite a spectacular fall too.  He was riding down the footpath on Tawhai St as I was riding up so I saw it from across the road.  Don't know quite what caused it, but he managed to go over his handlebars, bashing into a stone wall on his way to the ground.  I stopped and checked him out cos he was obviously in some distress over the whole thing.  He had hurt his arm, grazing and bashing the elbow quite impressively.  The elbow swelled up quite quickly so I raced home and grabbed the car to give him a lift home.  He lived up the other end of the valley and was spending the day with a friend down our end... but having hurt himself, even in a non-life threatening kind of way, he really wanted to go home.  So I threw his bike in the back of the Rav and drove him home. 

That certainly conspired to mess up any chance I would have of guessing my time :)

well, it's official now

I am now officially registered for the Tri ... all paid up and everything.

Lynne did it for me today and brought the forms home as a surprise.  Didn't tell me what they were - just handed them to me and said "this is for you"  - it took me a moment to get my head around what it meant ... but woooohoooooooo  :)

gosh

wow - only 19 days (and 7 minutes according to my desktop countdown thingy) to go until the tri ...

nervesnervesnerves

did a quick test run at the gym last night - only 2k cos I am still sort of resting my hip to let it get better ... it was ok by the by ... ached a little bit but nothing like previous runs.  The good thing about this little run though was that at the end of 2k my HR had only got up to 120 ... which is way lower than previous attempts ...

Nice weekend

Had a really nice weekend this weekend ... the weather finally managed to stay nice for the entire weekend which was really encouraging.

I did the Trial for the Hundred Pushups plan on Friday ... rather disappointing that despite all my exercise over the last few months I could still only manage 5 ... rather bummed by that, although I suppose my exercise to date hasn't been focussing on Pushups ... it's been focussing (mostly) on Triathlon stuff, which is more about endurance than power.  Still, that puts me in the bottom group for the Pushups Plan which is a wee bit of a blow to the ego :)

Lynne and I went and did the Impact (pseudo-boxing) class on Saturday morning.  This time we had our new wrapping for our hands so as to hopefully avoid some of the bruising and other damage to the knuckles that we both got last time.  Personally I think this helped quite a lot.  I still managed to raise a blister over the knuckle of my right pinkie but I have none of the bruising or stiffness that I got last time.  The workout was a hoot.  Very energetic and quite carthartic.  All about punching stuff (bags and pads) at varying intensities ... the class runs to just over an hour and seems to fly by.  I found I got the rhythm of the thing better this time than the first time and really enjoyed myself.  Got a bit of a sore tailbone from doing situps on the hard floor but had a great time.  As an added bonus I weighed myself while we were there and the downward trend has continued, which is good.

Sunday we took the bikes out for a bit of a spin.  First time for Lynne on the 'new' bike she bought on Trademe.  Jazz's old bike was proving just a bit too small for Lynne to get comfortable on so she bought a slightly bigger framed one second hand.  Notwithstanding the fact that she had never ridden the bike before and that the seat turned out to be fairly uncomfortable, the ride went very well.  We rode down the gravel road that runs beside the Hutt River from Moonshine Road down to Silverstream bridge.  That's about a 12K round-trip.  Not super long but a good try out for a new bike.

Today I did Week One Day One of the Pushup Plan.  The final Set in the plan is Do as Many as You Can ... so today I managed 8 ... which is obviously an improvement over the trial number, which is cool - progress already.

Agent 99

Long lull in the blogging ... simply slackness really.

Not a great deal out of the ordinary to report.  Have been training pretty regularly for the Tri (which is now only a rather terrifying 23 days away)... still haven't actually registered for it yet - really must get on to that on payday ...

However, one item worthy of recording is that yesterday I passed one of my target milestones ... that of getting back down into double figures weight wise ... still got a wee bit to lose to get to my goal weight for the Tri, but I am close now and still seem to be moving it regularly, which is very encouraging.

a new week dawns

Lynne and I went to the gym last night ... did a simple and slightly mixed up workout.  Ran 2K on the tread - only a short run obviously but I managed to maintain an 8minute/K pace which is nice - an improvement certainly.  Then hopped on the bike for a little while - didn't ride for long, just wanted to get a feel for how the legs would feel jumping on the bike straight after a run.  Not too bad ... From what I understand it is going from bike to run that feels bad ... so perhaps I am quite luckly that this first tri is doing everything in reverse ...

Then did some weights and had a sauna.  A nice evening at the gym really :)

However, I seriously need to get some swim time in.  Andrew at the seminar emphasised repeatedly that having the swim at the end of the tri would make it hard work and that we all should be training the swimming harder than the rest.  And so far I haven't been able to in quite a while.  I've been resting my arm to try and let it recover, which it does seem to be doing, but the lack of swimming has been worrying me.  However, a swim is the likely outing for tonight.

the week that was

Been a pretty good week all in all.

Went to a triathlon seminar held at the venue for the Tri (Naenae Pool) on Wednesday night.  It was run by a chap named Andrew Smith who has his own training business and does some training for National Level (and Olympic) athletes.  He is very enthusiastic and quite knowledgable - it was time well spent I think.  There is a follow up seminar on the 22 Oct where we can all go back and talk with him about how our tri training has gone and get some last minute tips and hints.

Thursday was Crazy Exercise day.  I rode to work in the morning, went for a run along the beach at lunchtime and then rode home in the evening.  I was going to go for a swim with Lynne in the evening too but she went to the gym instead, so I stayed home and rested.  I must say, running along the beach at lunchtime is a great idea.  Weather permitting of course.   It is calming and relaxing to run along with the sound of the waves in my ears.  I only ran about 3k but of course my time in my lunch break is rather limited and I didn't know how far it was at the time.  It felt good though, legs and lungs seemed to cope quite well 

Friday, I went for another lunchtime run along the beach.  Same distance, very nice.   Lungs coped less well today, I ran out of puff a couple of times and had to walk briefly to recover. However on the plus side I was pleased to note that my breathing did in fact recover rather quickly.

On Saturday morning Lynne and I went along to the gym and tried out an Impact class.  This is basically an hour of working out with punching bags and other boxing paraphernalia.  It was good fun and we both got a bit of a sweat on.  A bit hard on the knuckles though.  As it was our first time we didn't have wrapping for our hands, and although there were gloves aplenty, the wrapping helps protect the hands from the inside of the gloves.  A few bruises and scrapes and now in evidence.  Enjoyable overall though.  Not perhaps something that I am going to do a lot of in the buildup to the tri, but good for the occasional "let's do something different" kind of workout.

All in all - a good week.