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.