Week 9 the commencement of my next strength block of 3 weeks. I am starting to get a better routine happening and found that I was less tired this week.
On Monday I ran home from work via Ashgrove. Not the flattest run I could choose so I got through about 7 kms in 45 mins.
Tuesday morning was my usual long run. Again I ran into work and covered about 16kms in 1hr 45. The run felt good and to date no real niggles.
I have found doing training in my commuting time gives me more time at home/work. It just requires a bit more organisation. I need to take a couple of days clothes with me on Monday. I end up looking like a pack horse but that is nothing unusual. My work colleagues are also getting used to the sight of me in Lycra in the morning!! What a way to start the day.... They on a whole think I am nuts anyway with all this training.
I am gradually seeing my bike fitness improving. I managed 4 1/2 reps of Mt Cootha for my Wednesday morning ride in the same time as it took me to do 4 the previous weeks.
Thursday morning saw me back at Robson's run session. It was a great hit out. Robson sent myself and Krista ( who is doing Port IM in a few weeks time) plus a few others training for marathons over winter off for a longer warm up run. We then had to do some 1km race pace efforts. I was amazed the first couple I was jogging along chatting at just over 5min/km pace. It felt easy!!! We then dropped down to 4:45 min/km pace for the next few. With all the long slow runs I have being doing and I wasn't sure I would manage much speed work. Whilst this is quite a bit faster than I am expecting to run the marathon ( more like 6:30min/km pace) it certainly gave me a bit more confidence to see what I can do on race day. I covered close to 10kms in just under an hour for the session.
I missed swimming on Thursday night ( One of only a few sessions I have missed over the past 11 weeks) but I just couldn't fit it in any other time!!
Friday morning was a indoor windtrainer session. I am still not great at setting up the windtrainer. Things got off to a bad start when Blair noticed I had not put the feet down properly on the floor ( that could have ended badly with me crashing over into Matt Hoppers bikes on the floor at Avanti Cycles). Thankfully we fixed it before the session started. Then I managed to rub my back tyre with the tension being set incorrectly so Brett has ordered me a new set. There is message here don't let me near windtrainers especially first thing in the morning!!
Did the usual 3km swim set followed by the 1hr 30 ride. Jac, Ray and I were joined by Tim Franklin, Glesso and Blair on a ride out to Sandgate. The guys are weeks away from Port IM and are feeling good. Thankfully Glesso didn't unleash on the hills through Ascot until right at the end. I was just able to keep the group in sight over the last few kms.
I had a few social things over the weekend with a yummy birthday afternoon tea at Max Brenner Southbank ( go there if you are huge fan of chocolate). It was so nice to have a girls catch up for my friend Bec's birthday. Unfortunately during IM training sometimes social engagements get put off in favour of training. I also had time to see my friend Christy and my god son Jack who were in town overnight on their way to Perth. We enjoyed take away Thai from Thai Green Mango at Bardon ( lovely!!!)
I met Jac for our Sunday long ride and Kristen also came along. We decided to head up to Mt Nebo ( I had plans of going up to Glorious as well but thankfully we decided to turn around at Nebo). I then took the girls along Gap Creek Road. We were all a bit tired after nearly 3 hours of hills on Nebo so the idea of another few hills didn't sound great at the outset. I think it is good that we challenged ourselves mentally to do it because on race day I am sure we will be faced with a similar situation where we need to push through.
There are a couple of steep climbs totalling a few 100 metres but apart from that it mainly rolling hills. I had ridden along the road with the Red Dog ride and Brett about a month ago and I nearly died. I was still swearing at Brett by the time I finished the ride so I was mentally scared from my last time on Gap Creek Rd. This time around I got to the end of the road and I thought is that it?? My memory was that it was worse than that. Yay all those Cootha reps are paying off.
I am lucky to have such great people to train with. Thanks to Jac and Kristen for being awesome company today.
My other focus for the ride was upping my carbs. Coach Mark nearly died when I told him I was only averaged 30gms per hour in my last few rides. The guideline from the dietitian Sally for was weight loss is between 15-30grms per hour, but I have decided that I need to focus on race performance now so I managed closer to 50gms per hour today. I must admit I finished the ride feeling much less fatigued. However if you are eating whole foods it is quite a lot of food to get through. I will be interested as to how I deal with running off the bike with this amount of food in my stomach. I will be practising that more over the coming weeks.
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