Pretty Good Recovery

After feeling so crook at the end of Nepean, I assumed that I'd be having a very easy week. However, after a couple of hours kip in the afternoon, I joined tiger angel for the second half of her one hour walk. Boy, does she walk fast! Most of the time I was left panting and gasping in her wake, but by the end of it I was feeling loose limbed and pain-free and I woke up on Monday feeling 100%. Amazing! I'm putting in a recovery walk after everything big from now on.

Thus, the week became like many others - Tues 5k run, then ride to/from work; Wed Run to/from work; Thurs Ride to work, Run club; Fri Rest day. The run club session was a killer (both TA and I were sore on Friday), but it really set me up for the CR5k on Saturday.

The session was

• 1 x 1600 (400 splits - 1:46, 1:50, 1:51, 1:51)
• Rolling 100's (Sprint 70, ease down to the 100, then jog back to start - 22, 39, 21, 42, 20, 43, 20, 42, 20). The first split is the 100, the 2nd is the jog back and so on. As you can see here and below, the 100s got faster and the recoveries got longer :-)
  
• 2 x 800 - Missed the first split, 1:35, 1:30, 1:35
• rolling 100's - 20, 40, 20, 45, 20, 47, 19, 47, 19
• 3 x 400 - 1:29, 1:29, 1:23 (pushed the last one).

I told JD & Langswm at the start of the CR5k that it was going to be either Fly or Die, and it turned out to be fly. I knew after the first km that things were going well - I felt like I'd be able to hold the pace, and the pace was at the better end of my expectations. Splits were 4:15, 4:12, 4:14, 4:11, 4:05 for a finish time of 20:57, being the first time I've gone under 21m this year. Cool!

Tiger angel had a bit of a gut ache before she started, but started nonetheless. Unfortunately, I think she started a little too enthusiastically which is quite strange as she normally has metronomic pacing. A 2:30 first 500m sent her well and truly anaerobic, and although she held on to 5:30s for the first 4 k, she never recovered and she had to retire :-(

The run back was pretty good though; we ran together and she ran strongly - in fact when JD & I stopped for a drink at Rodd Pt, she ran on and we didn't catch her until we got back to the Rowers.

Finally, on Sunday morning we went for a bush run - TA did the first hour with me, then I went back in and did another 90 minutes, giving me my longest run since January and TA's longest since May. It's all good! :-)

Looking forward to the Central Coast on Sunday. TA's doing the 9k and I'm doing the half with JD and Eagle. It's gunna be fun :-)

Gnome

Triathlon - a nice place to visit...

...but I wouldn't want to live there. It was a lot of fun today & I'm wearing my finisher's shirt with pride, but strike, it was tough! Hats off to all who choose to do it regularly. I don't think I'll aspire to be in that category** :-)

It was too warm for wet suits which caused some consternation amongst the competitors, but didn't bother me 'cause that's the only way I know how to swim. I was hoping for under 30 minutes, so I got a real buzz when tiger angel called out "sub 25" (official time, 24:28, 47/60 category position). Much better than expected.



I managed a 'leisurely' transition. :-) Amongst other things, I knew that part of TA's transition mantra is "Helmet on first", but of course she doesn't need to put a shirt on... Helmet off, shirt on, helmet on again... About this point I realised that 3 of the 4 pins holding my race number to my shirt had sprung open and were scattered around the ground. Find one of them and re-secure number...



The bike leg was great. I found out today that I'm better on acceleration than some, but slower in a straight line than most. Hence, the technical parts around the industrial area suited me to a T, the straight along Castlereagh less so. Got a remarkably sore butt in a remarkably short time. By my measurement, I did the 30k in 57 minutes (av speed 31.6kph). The official time (including both transitions) was 1:01:41 (46/60).



The run leg was the best! A few people (mostly team runners) passed me, but I had the immense satisfaction of passing LOTS of people. The surprise for me was that, although I was aerobically fine, I felt like I had no strength at all. It was the weirdest feeling. Still, given that I'm only running 44 minute 10ks at the moment, I was super pleased with an official 48:05 (25/60), and a final overall time of 2:14:15 (35/60), heaps under my hoped for 2:30:00.


I'd like to expand here what I've already said on Cool Running. I've watched tiger angel doing triathlons since 2002, and before she got sick it seemed like she was doing them every few weeks. She seemed to be having so much fun that I wanted to try too, but my one-and-only attempt was such a miserable experience because of the swim leg that I contented myself with photographing from the sidelines. At the beginning of this year I asked TA to teach me to swim as an adjunct to my 6ft training, and she did so with patience and skill (I imagine that it's quite hard to teach someone who you're very close to and who keeps asking 'why?' to everything you say) so that I was already achieving laps after only a couple of lessons, and I was swimming more than a km straight within a couple of months.

When I found tiger angel after the race I got a bit emotional trying to explain to her just what she'd given me and I think that I was a little incoherent (no! :-) ), so I'm going to say it again here. Once again, you've given me a life experience that I never could have achieved on my own. Thank you, my Beautiful.

Gnome

** Note that I said 'regularly'. I didn't say that I don't intend to do it again... :-)

Countdown

One week to go to Nepean, less than a week till carbo loading! :-)

I had a lighter week this week, though it still felt full on. Monday swum 1.1k, then rode to work and home. TA did a 1 hour walk (on top of running 3 individual and group training sessions). Tuesday, TA did a 30 minute swim, but the pool was too crowded so she called it a day. I ran to work and back - still enjoying it. :-) Wednesday was a rest day for me and a 45min really solid bike session for TA. On Thursday I rode to work, and then Run Club.

The session was a killer. Tiger angel & I were dragging ourselves around on Friday (wisely taken as another rest day by both of us). We did 4 x 200, 2 x 400, 2 x 800, 2 x 400 and 2 x 200 (was supposed to be four, but we ran out of light). I kept the splits pretty even, but the 800s were slower than I wanted. Ah well. I pulled out a couple of 35s for the last two 200s, so that was pleasing. TA's run was so even that you could have set your watch by her! :-)

The weekend was a lot of fun. On Saturday morning, tiger angel had her training with Freespirit (a brick session with body weight exercises thrown in after each run leg) while I went to the first run of the Strider's 6ft training group. I still really want to get at least one 6ft under my belt, so let's see if this year I can manage it. We ran up from under the Roseville bridge to a park in Lindfield and back - about 14k in just under 1 1/2 hours. Then in the afternoon we went down to Clovelley for my first wettie swim (thanks for the loan, Tim). It was fine. Fitted me like a glove, and it was fun watching all the fish. You don't see them in a swimming pool! :-). Unfortunately, we also had the company of a few blueys, one of which brushed my arm, and one of which got in under TA's collar, leaving her with a big welt on her neck. Not nice :-(

On Sunday morning we went to Homebush early for a brick session (for me - TA was under instructions to do nothing more than walk). We found a new area with a 1.3km circuit which was just perfect. I did 3 laps pretty solid on the bike, one lap running, then repeat. Bike averaged 26kph, run 4:30 pace. I don't normally hit lots of tight turns on my rides to work, so this was really good to sort out some of the technical stuff too. Lots of birds and other wildlife around - alas, the wildlife included flies, but you can't have everything. They've build a new cafe down there too - we didn't have time to sample its wares because we wanted to get back for church, but I can imagine heading down there again some time.

Lucky it was a lighter week, eh?

Gnome

Good for the Gander, less so for the Goose.

Hmmm... In my attempted misappropriation of an old saying, I may have just called my beloved tiger angel a goose. Unintentional, believe me. Ah well, push on...

It has been a very good week for your old mate Gnome. Firstly, it was my first >60km week since the first week of January. Secondly, I ran to and from work on Wednesday, fulfilling a long held dream to run to work (and, for the first time ever, backing up two reasonable length runs - 11.5k each - on the same day), and thirdly, I ran a season's best time of 44:30 at the Striders 10k at Lane Cove on Saturday. It's still a long way off my 42:19 pb, but at least it's heading in the right direction! :-)

Apart from that, I squeezed in a 1.5k swim on Monday, a 5.5km AT run on Tuesday, cycled to work twice (though got a car ride home both times for various reasons), did Run Club on Thursday night and a 16.5k run up to Hornsby and back this morning (Sunday). Phew... Run Club comprised a 10 minute 30/30 session (30 sec firm, 30 sec float) and then 2 x 2km reps. It was supposed to be 3 x 2k, but we ran out of time. :-) 500m splits for the reps (actually 475m splits, but who's counting) were;
2:05, 2:03, 2:05, 1:58 and
2:01, 2:02, 2:06, 2:02.
That's roughly a 4:25 pace, which set me up well for the 10k on Saturday. Like I said, a pretty good week.

Tiger angel, alas, didn't fare quite as well. At the moment, her focus is on strength, so Monday and Wednesday's sessions were an interesting hill mix. She had to run a 100m hill, recover down, then walk the same hill up and down with 5kg weights in each hand, and then repeat all that 3 more times. Tuesday was a more traditional gym weights session. After the Wednesday session, her back was a bit sore and as she was at the physio anyhow for her wrist, she asked that her back be looked at instead. General consensus was that her glutes and hammys were tight as a drum, and her pelvis was a bit out of whack again, so all that was worked on. However, afterwards, her left calf got *really* sore up near the back of her knee. It hurt to walk until it warmed up, and was really sore to the touch all the time. Hrmph!

As it didn't feel like a tear, and it was OK to use after warming, tiger angel decided to do the Run Club session nice and easy. Now, you're expecting me to say that everything exploded in a shower of blood and tissue, aren't you? The way things have gone this year, that'd be about par for the course, but actually the whole session went really well - it still hurt like crazy to touch, but didn't hurt at all to run. Most strange! Since then, it's got better and better so by now it takes a concerted bit of poking and prodding to make it hurt. The sports doctor on duty at the striders run said that it was just a strain and that doing a set of heel lifts before running was all that was required and that there was no continued problem. Good news, but it just leaves one question. Where did the problem come from in the first place? Curiouser and curiouser...

Gnome