The weeks are rushing by at the moment. Before I know it 2 weeks have passed before I have even blinked. It has been a emotional couple of weeks. Mum called last Thursday to say Dad was back in hospital with a mild stroke. Thankfully he didn't sustain any further complications to his speech and walking. Its tough for everyone at the moment because he is struggling to deal with the fact he can hardly walk, has trouble speaking and doing routine tasks such as getting dressed require Mum's assistance. He is very frustrated and depressed about it all. I am trying to be positive for him, but I wish I could make things better and back to normal for him again. Each time I see him and go to say goodbye he gets every emotional. He often says "you be careful riding your bike I am worried you are going to have an accident." This all weighs on my mind heavily but when I am out training and it gets hard I think of him and it encourages me to push through it.
My thoughts are also with the people in NZ after the earthquake, it is a reminder that life is prescious and we must make that most of everyday and let those closest to us know how loved they are.
Week 16- This week marks the start of a month bike build for me. Four bike rides a week for me are on the program. The Wednesday morning squad ride was loops around the uni. In order to to ride for 2 hours I start the day with a roll down the hill from home. Friday morning session is windtrainer ( big chain ring front and smallest on the back maintaining cadence about 60). The main squad were doing 4 mins speed work followed by run off the bike. Long course people are given some reprieve if you can call it that with a run off the bike on only 2 out of the 6 sets!! A tought little session that still hurts.
I had a nice 2 hour ride on Saturday morning with Kate and then close to 4 hours on Sunday out to Redcliffe. The day was really hot and we bumped in to Alicia and Sarah at the C Word coffee shop at Nundah, so I left my ride home through hills a bit late in the day. By 10:30 it was nearly 30 Degrees!!! A total of 185kms ridden for the 1st week of bike focus and 9 hours on the bike.
Week 17- I woke up on Monday with a really sore neck and feeling flat. I thought the sore neck may have been caused by building up extra time on the bike so I am going to get bike fit checked again also. I was supposed to do core and boxing however a big storm hit Brisbane that afternoon so I went home. I woke up on Tuesday feeling really flat and wasn't able to train in the morning. I could barely move off the couch. I took the day off work and went and got a massage to try and sort the neck out. I think I may have had some bug as I was also running a fever as well. I decided to give Wednesday morning cycling a miss and still wasn't feeling great. I swam on Wednesday night and thankfully it was only a easy 2km session.
Thursday morning I was feeling heaps better I of course wasn't going to miss Robson's Thursday morning run!! Whilst I tried to take it a bit easy I was starting to feel better and put in a good solid session for the 400metre efforts around the gardens. At the end of the session we did a 1km time trial and I managed 4min:21sec quite comfortably without pushing too hard. Thursday night in the pool was also tough although my swim focus is starting to pay off. Bronny had us doing 50/100 metre repeats on 1 minute/2 minutes I was comfortably holding 47-49secs for 50s and got down to 1:39 for the last 100. When I first started swimming it would have been a push for me to hold 1 50 on a minute!!!
I finished the week with another windtrainer session and 2hr ride on Saturday morning. I caught up with some friends for coffee. My friends Alicia and Sarah are racing their 1st IM at NZ next weekend. They are feeling really positive and ready to race. I can't wait to watch them at Taupo it will be great motivation for my race later in the year.
I had a short sprint distance race out at Raby Bay on Sunday. I was feeling very tired as I had been to a hens night and didn't get to bed until nearly 11. I didn't drink but the late night coupled with lovely munchies for dinner ( homemade cupcakes and carmel slice weren't the best preparation for my race-oh well its all about balance in life and there is life outside triathlon too!!!)
The race was a 400/15/4. I came out of the water in 7th place and took a minute off my time over that swim course from last year. My bike felt solid as well and I pushed hard to make sure I kept my avg pace over 30km/hr. Again a solid bike for me 28:30 rack to rack, giving me the 10th fastest bike split. Things started to unravel for me in the run. My legs felt heavy and it was a real struggle. I got passed by 3 girls in run. A by product of the swim and cycle focus is that I haven't been doing much running and not much speed work. I only started to feel better in the last 4km ( seems I need 10kms to warm up these days!!!) I spoke to one of our coaches Suz after the race( Suz has also raced a number of IM's) She reassured me that it is normal to feel sluggish and slow whilst training for longer races as the body is used to racing at lower intensities. Whilst the run felt bad I actually ended up with 20:10 which is just over 5 mins/km ( I was happy with this as 12 months ago I would have been pleased to hold 6 min /kms) Overall 9th place out of 45 girls so I was happy with that. When we have a bad day its easy to beat ourselves up, but I always look back on the journey and how far I have come over the past 2 years. It is important to remember that in the end its supposed to be fun!!
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