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.

hmm don't forget

Last night proved the importance of not forgetting stretching ... after yesterday's comments about my aches and pains I went to the gym last night and did a Body Balance class.  Lots of Tai Chi and Yoga based moves with plenty of twists and strectches.  And this morning I feel really good ... nothing is aching or sore at the moment (touch wood)

However I must confess I am wimping out on riding to work today ... it's not raining or anything at the moment (and the rain wouldn't really stop me) but the forecast is for the wind to get up to 120K today and frankly I am not at all interested in trying to ride into a 120K headwind :)

grumbles and groans

man! I seem to be a mass of aches and pains today...

my wrist is still a bit sore from where I hurt it gardening a couple of weeks ago ... my shoulder is very tender from god alone knows what ... I don't remember hurting it so I am blaming transferred pain from my wrist. My back is hurting a little from my stupid back-hurting bed ...and I stressed a muscle in my calf yesterday. I don't think I actually pulled it ... I felt it going while I was out on a training run yesterday, and fortunately I was on part of the loop that was close to home at the time so I cut my run short and walked carefully home rather than risk doing it in completely. I then hobbled about grumbling and moaning to myself for the rest of the day. Today it is tight but not actually giving me much trouble. I'm very glad I stopped when I did.

But now I have another thing to worry about with my training. All of last week I avoided things that might put pressure on my wrist to give it a chance to heal. So that meant no weights and no swimming. And certainly my wrist feels better for it. not fully healed, but much improved. Now I have this calf thing.... not sure I can really avoid running, riding and swimming and still do much that is meaningful for my training. . .

I can go for walks I guess, which is better than nothing ...

progress

Been a bit slack about posting up here this week ... but it has been a fairly good week in terms of progress.

Did a 4K run on the tread at the gym on Monday. Took me 38:30 which is hardly a stellar time, but it is the first time that I have done a full 4K since I started training. So I am pleased. Even more pleasing was the fact that at the end of the run I still had breath ...

Tuesday I rode to and from work - 16.5K each way. Not greatly challenging but it was nice to be out on the bike. Once again I am really noticing some increased fitness in the lungs ... hardly even breathing hard the whole way and now managing to go up Tawhai St in something other than the very lowest gear on the bike :)

Wednesday I did another 4K run at the gym. Did it in 35:00 even, so I shaved 3:30 off monday's effort - very pleasing!

Thursday was a very light workout at the gym. My legs were a bit tired for anything serious so I did a short ride on the exercycle and then some leg weight work. I am still having to take it easy with my arm so my selection of exercises is pretty limited which is rather frustrating. And I haven't been able to go for a swim all week because of it. Lynne has suggested that I should go see the doctor with it and I am now thinking that if it isn't showing signs of improvement by Monday then I will do just that.

Today is going to be a rest day. Time to let everything settle in.

shoulda kept quiet

It's distinctly possible that I may have jinxed myself with that comment about how nice the ride to work was yesterday morning. Cos the ride home was horrid!

Riding into a strong cold headwind driving rain straight into my face for about 90% of the trip. Not much fun at all really :)

Got home and was too cold and miserable (and TIRED) to even consider going to the gym, although I had intended to originally.

Was in bed by nine which is awesomely early for me ...

arg I did it again!

Jumped on the bike and rode off to work this morning - almost half way there before I realised I hadn't checked the time when I left - bother bother bother ...

So i am reduced to guessing somewhat - I know I was still at home at 7:09 and I know I got to work at 8:14 ... so I am going to assume that it took me 5 minutes to get out the door and call it a one hour trip.

One hour for 16K isn't all that great but it does seem to be as good as I am going to get on these nobbly off road style tires ...

Notwithstanding that - it was a nice ride ... a fine sunny morning and generally very pleasant. I had a great time.

monday monday

53 days to go!

did a 2K run straight after work ... on the one hand, I shaved almost 2 minutes off my previous time for this run so I can quite clearly see I  am getting fitter.

On the other hand, expanding that out to 4K (and assuming for the moment that the second 2K would be as quick as the first) then I am still running about 9 minutes slower than the slowest guy in my AG from last year.  I don't really mind coming last, in fact I kind of expect it ... but I'd like to come last by a somewhat smaller margin.

To Work!

weekend report

Had a fairly good weekend all in all ... Lynne and I went to the gym on Friday evening. I did a mostly resistance workout, just to vary things up a bit. Fun and satisfying really.

Lynne and I both came away feeling like we got a good workout. Lynne used the sauna again, which I still haven't organised myself enough to try ... but I will soon.

Saturday was ok weather-wise so we decided to go for a drive and walk rather than doing any specific exercise routine. We were both feeling the aftereffects of Friday's workout somewhat and wanted something a bit more low key. We found a nice park that we hadn't tried before and went for a walk up through the bush. Very nice and quiet... and obviously quite popular with people wanting to walk their dogs as it is well out of the way ... we definitely plan to return there with the dog in tow at some point.

Sunday was a glorious sunny day that really felt more like summer than spring. We took the bikes out for a spin and rode down the public trail along the river bank. It was great to be out in the sun again - a feeling echoed by the many many people we saw out doing the same as us.

The ride, although fairly gentle was a good test of the lungs and I was pleased at how my breathing stayed under control, especially on the return trip, which was a bit faster than the first half and (slightly) uphill.

Stuff I learned from today

1. Shave

I hadn't shaved for the last couple of days and the whiskers were just gettling long enough to catch on the strap of the helmet when I moved my head.  Slightly painful and distracting.  So shave!

2. The mind plays tricks

Time and distance can be very tricky to judge.  A section of a ride that whizz's by most days can seem to take forever on others.  Likewise, you can feel like you are going faster than you really are.  Makes a pretty good argument for a bike computer.

3. I don't seem to be able to remember ...

...To check the time when I leave for a ride.  I have got very good in recent weeks at setting the odometer in the car to record distances from A to B in case I want to ride it later, but I just keep on forgetting to check the time when I leave on rides.  I always remember a kilometer or two down the road when it is too late to check.  Another good argument for a computer I think.

well well

What a day ...

Rode to work today.  Work for me has recently moved from Wellington to Petone (for the next few months at least) so that means I can ride to work.  Well I could ride to work in Wellinton too - it's only 35K from home to where I was working in Wellington, but there's quite a bit of riding along the motorway involved and I really never feel all that safe.  It's not really a particularly bad piece of road, but of course 'cos I'm riding to work I'm riding in rush hour traffic.  Going to Petone I don't have to deal with the motorway at all, which makes the prospect of riding there much more appealing.

As an added bonus, it is a 16.5K ride which is less than 2K shorter than the race distance.  So I figure if I can ride to work and back three days a week on average that should help me heaps towards the cycle leg of the tri.

Had a good ride both there and back.  Interesting the homeward ride felt much quicker than the outward one.  I was quite puzzled by this on the way home, thinking that it seemed odd that it felt like a quicker ride given that the homeward ride is sort of uphill-ish.  Very very gently uphill.  If you were walking it you would probably think it was flat.  But it is very gently uphill and I have always found that noticable on the bike.  Anyway, it turns out that my feelings were completely wrong.  The homeward ride took 20 minutes longer than the outward one, which pretty much fits with what I expected.

The good part of the homeward ride was the tail end.  Rode up Glenn Road as normal, except that right at the end my legs ran out of go.  Just went completely rubbery.  So I stopped and walked for about 50 meters before hopping on the bike again.  But it was when I stopped and walked for a bit that I noticed something that I hadn't picked up while I was riding.  I wasn't puffed!  In fact I wasn't even breathing hard.  The whole 50 meters of walking was just to give my legs a rest... my lungs were fine.  This was a surprise as I am usually puffing away like an old train on this last leg.  So when I hopped back on the bike I was conscious of my breathing.  I rode all the rest of the way home (up Tawhai St no less) without stopping, and at the end of that I still wasn't puffing.  I was definitely breathing a bit harder, but not puffing or gasping.  PROGRESS!!

Anyway, got home... a quick 15 minute turnaround to get changed and I was off to the pool.

My first brick training ... well ... perhaps.  The Hutt Valley Tri does go from bike to swim, so I guess that worked out well.  I imagine a normal brick doesn't have 15 minutes of mucking about in the middle, but it will do for the time being.

Down to the pool ... I only swam 300 meters, but since that is the Tri distance I am happy with that.  The thing I am really happy with is that even though I was just off the bike, I was able to swim the whole thing Freestyle with no rest lengths of breaststroke ... just a 30 second break after every two lengths (it's only a 25 meter pool)  The swimming went amazingly better than it has before.  My altered breathing approach has worked wonders and coupled with my seemingly new improved lungs the whole thing just zoomed along.  Well for me anyway.  I'm sure I'm not going to win any speed prizes but then that was never my goal ... if I can finish the Tri with a reasonable swim effort then I will be happy.  And suddenly, that seems like a possibility.

Man I feel good at the moment :)

ooh those arms

OK, so the aftermath of the arm workout on Sunday was rather more than I anticipated. I haven't done a lot of resistance work for the arms lately and boy did I feel it most of the day on Monday.

Went for a 2K run (well ok, jog ... well ok, gasping wheezing stumble :) ) around the streets near home after work. 2K in 19 minutes. It's ok for now but I am going to need to shave that down considerably by the time the 2nd of Nov rolls around.

Once Lynne had got home we went down to the gym. She did a workout upstairs in the woman's section (including a first try of the sauna which I really must try out) while I went and did a Body Balance class. Man that was good. Got a fabulous stretch out of my arms and shoulders which has removed quite a bit of the pain and has returned most of the range of motion to my arms. And I am putting the fact that I have no pain in my legs today down to the stretch out of the class as well.