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Out of the frying pan, into the .... fish pond
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Thanks for all the well wishes. Much appreciated
@scon I could definitely get used to the warm weather training .... maybe when we win the euromillions #TriHarderontour
Sunday:
Run: 70 min easy
Long run day so back to the trails that run along the edge of the coast. It was so breezy today. Nice for running - hard work on the outward leg but easy peasy on the way back. Felt ok. Breathing was good but my hamstrings were a little tight. I think I might do a sprint tri on the 17th Jan. It's about a half hour drive from Claire's house http://www.eventlist.com.au/event/activetri-triathlon-series-race-3. I need to get my little ass in the ocean though. Was going to swim this afternoon but I didn't sleep very well last night and I had a splitting headache so it's on the to-do list for next week. I went for a walk this evening and took some pictures:
The trail that runs along by the coast
The ocean from above:
The trail path contains numerous beautifully decorated tiles like this. Guess that's why they call it the art trail
Kind of hard to appreciate them when you're running though!
Another look at the Pacific from the trails. If you zoom in you can see a few windsurfers .... they had ideal conditions today!
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Looks and sounds idyllic. It's getting harder to remain enthusiastic about winter training in Ireland.career move wrote: »I think I might do a sprint tri on the 17th Jan.
I suppose you thought you'd sneak that in there and nobody would notice? HEAR YE, HEAR YE....CM is FINALLY becoming a triathlete... 0 -
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CM is FINALLY becoming a triathlete...
I dispute that allegation
One egg does not an omelette make
18.9C/66F today. I think that's about normal for the summer here according to this website http://www.seatemperature.org/australia-pacific/australia/elwood.htm. I'll just borrow one of Claire's trisuits. I think she has short ones with no sleevesWhat is the ocean temp there??? Will it be a wetsuit swim???shotgunmcos wrote: »Do it!! You didn't do 200km+ swimming last year for nothing!
Sorry to hear about yor Da. Hope that turns out ok.
As for #TriHarderARonTour .. ooH Ya!
Thanks. Ya I guess I might as well make some use out of them and it'll be something different
Cool thanks. If you'd only timed your visit better we could have had a little rendez vouzThebitterLemon wrote: »Some great places to run in Auckland, you can even run along the hard sand on some of the beaches that go on for miles and take a dip in the sea afterwards.
Fantastic!
Hope your Dad makes a full recovery.
TbL 0 -
career move wrote: »I dispute that allegation One egg does not an omelette make
18.9C/66F today. I think that's about normal for the summer here according to this website http://www.seatemperature.org/australia-pacific/australia/elwood.htm. I'll just borrow one of Claire's trisuits. I think she has short ones with no sleeves
Thanks. Ya I guess I might as well make some use out of them and it'll be something different
Cool thanks. If you'd only timed your visit better we could have had a little rendez vouz
I'm booking my flight as I type
TbL0 -
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Monday:
Run: 40 min recovery (20+20)
Bike: 54k in 2:08
There's an 800m circular trail where Claire has her horses and the first run was done there before Claire went to work. She dropped me at the train station and I got the train and ran back home from the station. It was kind of cold early on and cloudy so I didn't bring water or bother putting sun cream on when I went out on the bike. Kind of stupid really cause after about 20 minutes the sun peeped it's head through the clouds and it was roasting. Of course I got burnt and dehydrated and there was a horrible headwind on the way back. Loads of cyclists use the ocean road and it's the location of the bike leg in Challfnge Melbourne that's in at the end of January. Three guys passed me on the way out. They just flew past as if I standing still. Depressing and inspiring at the same time
Tuesday:
Run: 10 minute w/u, 1,1,2,2,3,2,1 min fast with same rec, 20 min c/d
Done on the 800m trail. Good workout
Core/karate: 60min
Legs were a bit tight in the evening, especially my R hamstring
Wednesday:
Run: 50 min easy (30+20)
30 minutes on the trail. 20 minutes from the station. Legs still a little tight. Not too bad though and they eased out quickly.
Bike: 63k in 2:32
Back out along Ocean Road cause it's handy. The views are lovely and there's a bike path both ways. The only annoying thing is the abundance of traffic lights but I think wherever you go on Melbourne it's the same. Lashed on the sun cream and brought my water so I was happy out until I turned back for home and there was a stinking headwind for 30k. Nice ride though. Wasn't pushing the pace and I felt stronger on the bike than the last day. Probably just because I had water today. A sip in time saves nine Meant to go swimming today but it was going to be awkward so I'll go tomorrow instead. 0 -
Thursday:
Run: 40 min easy
Trail run. Felt a bit tired. Had planned a swim and an hours paddle boarding but I was feeling a bit dizzy when I stood up in the afternoon so I didn't do any more. Read my book on the couch and ate too much food instead
Friday:
Bike: 100k in 3:57
Slept for at least 10 hours It was cloudy and not too hot but I put on loads of sun cream, filled my bottle with water and headed off down beach road. It's the same way I always go but I like it because there's a fab view most of the way, loads of other cyclists use it and I have a bike lane all the way. The only annoying thing is the traffic lights. I counted 51 sets of traffic lights in the ~27k between Mordialloc and Port Melbourne and if you're unlucky you can end up getting stopped at 4 or 5 in a row. On the positive side it's good for your ass cause you get a chance to get up out of the saddle
Swim:
After I'd got back and had some food I got into the trisuit I borrowed from Claire, put on more sun cream and headed to the nearest beach which is about a mile down the road. There was 3 black swans on the beach. The water was gorgeous but I only swam a couple of hundred metres because it was quite rocky and the waves were high and I was on my own. I think to do a proper swim I need to go to the beach where we did the paddle boarding which is about 5 miles down the road. I did learn a couple of useful things though: the water is warm enough that I shouldn't start hyperventilating, my googles are useless I need new ones and I need to wear a sports bra inside the trisuit so that I con run 0 -
Saturday:
Sleep deprivation training
We flew into Auckland on Friday evening/ Saturday morning. The flight was delayed for a couple of hours. I think it might have left around 2a.m and by the time we were through the airport and we'd got to the hotel it must have been nearly 9a.m. I got my runners cleaned by customs After breakfast we met my cousins and spent the day on a sailing boat. The weather was beautiful. Blue skies, blue water but not hot like Melbourne where you sweat just thinking about exercise! We went to a party in the evening so no time for any exercise of note.
Sunday:
Yoga: 60 min
Up early for an 8a.m Yin yoga class. It was really packed. I'd say maybe 50/60 people so space was at a premium. I really liked it and the teacher was very good. We had to imagine we were 100 year old tortoises, swimming in a sea of honey and to move accordingly. We didn't do a whole heap of poses but we had to hold each pose for between 3 and 5 minutes and if you went down really deep into the pose it was quite challenging.
Run: 40 min easy
We went to a couple of beaches and we went for a long walk on the first one and a run on the second. The weather was very changeable .. hot, breezy, cold, cloudy, sunny, drizzly but the sand was firmish and lovely to run on. I went for a dip in the sea after the run but I was only in there 5 min and I got bitten by some pesky sea thing which made my knee swell up like a balloon so I bid a hasty retreat from the water
Monday:
Run: 70 min easy
Paddle boarding: 90 min
Another early start in order to get a longish run done with Claire. My knee was still a bit swollen but it wasn't sore. We wanted to go to the Auckland Domain which looked like a large park on the map and we had a rough idea of how to get there. The Sky Tower was our reference point and we managed ok. I think we maybe spent more time than was necessary on concrete paths on the way out cause we were way quicker coming back and we ended up running round the quays to bring up the time to 70 min. It was a nice run though and I could have easily kept going for another hour but we had arranged to meet the others at the pier at 9am to get the ferry to Waiheke island. New Zealand is full of fabulous places and Waiheke island is one of them. It's a little paradise. We walked to Oneroa beach and after an overdue breakfast and a spot of rock climbing, Claire, my cousin and I went out on the paddle boards. It was so nice and we travelled out a good distance before doubling back around the boats again. We tried to do some board yoga but our feet kept cramping so it wasn't too successful
Tuesday:
Run: 50 min easy (30 +20)
Back to the sweltering heat of Melbourne. I put Arnica cream on my knee and it was nearly normal this morning. First run on the trails, second run home from the station.
Bike: 20k in 42 min/13k slow/5 min run @ 4:34/k
Finally managed to drag myself out on the bike in the afternoon. Very hot. I was having a good run with the traffic lights so I decided to see how fast I could do 20k without killing myself. Turned around then and crawled home for 13k. Dropped the bike in the door and did a 5 min run along by the golf course. Not sure if I'd be able to keep that pace up for 5k because my breathing was getting a bit ragged. There's still a small chance I'll go for a swim today but I think it will be in a pool!0 -
career move wrote: »Saturday:
We had to imagine we were 100 year old tortoises, swimming in a sea of honey and to move accordingly. brilliant, those are the best kinds of yoga class!
the trip sounds amazing, loving the updates / living vicariously through you!0 -
brilliant, those are the best kinds of yoga class!
the trip sounds amazing, loving the updates / living vicariously through you!
Thanks, glad you're enjoying them. New Zealand is so amazing it's hard to do justice to it!
Ya I really enjoyed that yoga class. It was my first one. I normally just do it on my own 0 -
Wednesday:
Run 1: 10 min w/u, 4 x (3 min hard, 2 min easy), 10 min c/d
Run 2: 20 min easy
First run with Claire on the trails. The lap button on both of our garmins is knackered so no idea of pace for the 3 min bits. It was roasting even at 8 a.m and it got progressively hotter as the day went on. I was able to run in mostly shady bits on the way home from the station but it was still about 35C and the sweat was pouring off me. I went to bed for the afternoon
Swim: 1.2k
200 easy
200 steady
800 as 400 BE 3, 4 x (50 BE 2, 50 BE 3)
It's 4 weeks since my last decent swim and with the sprint tri on Sunday I figured I could use a bit of practice and luckily I found a nearby pool that allowed public swimming. It was only 5 dollars and the 25m pool is lovely, with really wide lanes and salt chlorination. And I got myself some googles that actually keep out the water! I'm really comfortable when I breathe every 3 strokes but when I swam in the ocean last week it suddenly dawned on me that I wouldn't be able to sight if I swam like that. So I needed to practise breathing every 2 strokes. It was a bit awkward at first but when I got the hang of it, I was able to do it on both sides and it was grand.
Yoga: 40 min
Thursday:
Run: 60 min recovery (30 + 30)
It was horribly humid during the night and it took ages before I could get to sleep. Then I was woken in the early hours by a baby cockroach. I trapped it on my hands and I was going to let it out but the windows have fly shields outside them and I couldn't find the door key so I squashed it and went back to sleep. The temperature dropped rapidly after that and when I woke in the morning it was kind of chilly! Two recovery runs because my legs were a bit tired. I was actually only going to do one run today but I ate far too much for breakfast :eek:
Bike: 35k in 1:30
The first time since I got here that I was able to go out without sun cream. It was so windy and I was tired but I thought I'd get 50k done. It started to spill rain after about 10k. I only had a light jacket and my runners were saturated. I was kind of cold and not really enjoying it at all so after an hour I turned back for home.
Yoga: 60 min
Claire and I got a voucher for a Balance class at the local gym. It's kind of a mixture of yoga, tai chi and pilates. I liked it and there were some good exercises for my hip flexors and for my karate stances.0 -
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You're getting so much done while you're away, fair play to you for sticking at it especially in the heat. I shuddered when I read the bit about the cockroach, they make me cringe all over.
It sounds like the dream holiday
I could easily sum up the last two weeks: Eat, sleep, train, repeat....
Yep...a perfect holiday.0 -
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Friday:
Bike: 21k in 54 min
Run: 10 min @ 7:15
Very, very tired today. I don't remember it bring particularly hot but I had a really good sleep and then 3 more naps throughout the day. I felt really weak on the bike and I was in the big ring but the lowest gear for most of this. Bit of a concern but then I ran straight off the bike and it felt good and my breathing was better than the last time so I think it's just a combination of the heat and me training pretty hard for the last couple of weeks.
Saturday:
Run: 80 min easy
Claire wanted to do a longer run today because she doesn't have as much time during the week. I went along cause it's nicer to have the company and we were only going at a slow pace because Claire had a fever yesterday and her throat was a bit raw. We had a really nice run and we stopped at the bakery on the way home to get some yummy fresh bread for breakfast
Sunday:
Elwood park sprint: 1:38:56
I saw this advertised when I was out on the bike a couple of weeks ago and thought it would be fun. I was a bit worried about the swim because the only open water swim I've done at home was in Lough Gur after a TriHarder training session and it was very short and not particularly successful because I was hyperventilating the whole way. I felt like I should have been in the sea here but I was nervous of going in when I was on my own. I did consider doing the mini (250m/10k/2.5k) but it seemed a bit pointless and I didn't think it would give me much of a training stimulus. Because there's only 2 bikes and Ian hates swimming, Claire and Ian entered as a team and there was a little bit of rivalry but really I just wanted to focus on my own race and try and get as much out of it as possible. I could see from last years results that it was going to be really competitive but I thought aiming for a 20 ish minute swim, under 40 min on the bike and under 22 minutes for the run should be achievable. I thought I should get through transition very quickly as well since I had no wet suit and no bike shoes to worry about. Races start really early over here because of the heat and we had to register, get the numbers sorted and rack the bikes before the race brief on the beach at 7:30.
Swim:
Claire's wave was off 2 minutes after mine so we warmed up together. The water was colder than I thought it would be but still lovely. Swimming away from the beach I couldn't get my breathing organised and I swallowed a few mouthfuls of salty seawater which wasn't an ideal confidence booster but when I turned back and swam the other way I was way better. The course was a simple out across and back in and it was fun watching the elites starting. I was getting a bit cold so I jogged on the spot while I was waiting and then it was time to line up. I started at the back and although I passed a few people on the run to the water by the time we were in deep enough to swim I was at the back again. I found it impossible to get a good breathing pattern going and every time I put my head underwater I ended up swallowing a big mouthful of sea water which made it even harder to breathe. I got to the first sighting bouy and just about managed to resist the urge to grab a hold of it and stop. Shortly after I had a bit of a panic attack when I stupidly tried to stop and put my feet down and realised I couldn't. I was hyperventititing now. Short, shallow useless breaths made worse by me trying to keep swimming with my head out of the water. Claire's wave started to stream by me and then everything started to go blurry. The safety boat was nearby so I scrambled over a few bodies to get to it and they threw me out a float. I stayed there for a couple of minutes and tried to relax my breathing and get over the hypoxia. I saw Claire go by but I stayed on the float for another bit until I was more in control and then when I was ready I started again. When I tried to breathe out under water I was still taking in a lot of water so I just swam with my head out of the water. Another wave passed me but I was able to stay with a couple of guys at the back until we rounded the first bouy and they went away from me. It was easier going across although I still wasn't able to breathe right under water and I was nervous of doing it. A couple of times I thought I was going to throw up but thankfully I didn't but there was also a couple of times when I thought how nice the water was and wished I was able to swim well enough to appreciate it better Rounded the next bouy and then it was just back on to the beach. By the time I got to the sighting bouy I was the last person in the water and I had a couple of people in canoes and a safety boat to escort me back in The last 100m was tough. I was tired and thought it would never end. So glad when I could put my feet on solid sand and hobble out of the water towards my bike
Swim: 750m in 31:11
T1: 3:xx
Ran into T1 and thought I knew where my bike was but unfortunately I was completely disorientated and ended up lost. Ran past Claire who got a bit of a shock cause she was 10 minutes faster than me swimming and thought I was still ahead of her. She found my bike for me and helped me get organised to go
Bike:
So happy to be on the bike. Didn't have a watch on so didn't know how slow my swim was but my new goal was not to be the last person on the bike. The course was 2 laps along the road that I normally cycle and up at that end where we were, it's pretty flat. The whole road, which is basically a dual carriageway, was closed and there was about 350 people doing the sprint which meant loads of room. I think they are quite tough about people not drafting. There has to be enough room to fit a big car between you and the person in front and you only have 15sec to pass or you get carded. I enjoyed the bike although I thought I was going to throw up a couple of times, especially after the first gulp of water that I had to get rid of the salty taste in my mouth. I might have passed a few people on the first lap but I'm not sure if they were on the 1st or 2nd lap. I passed a few more on my 2nd lap and that was good cause I knew I was passing them for real I had hoped to be a tiny bit faster but at least I was 30sec faster than Ian
Bike: 20k in 40:52
T2: 1:xx
Racked my bike, took off my helmet which I'd forgotten to open coming in and took another swig of water. Legs felt good running out.
Run:
An out an back loop along the harbour. I loved this. I tried to go as fast as I could but anytime I felt I was starting to breathe too fast, I dropped the pace back a little. It was still before 10a.m but it was getting quite hot and I was a bit worried I was going to get roasted because I had no hat or suncream. They had 4 water stations. I took a little sip at all of them and poured the rest of the cup over my back and neck to keep me cool and I walked for a couple of steps at the one at the turnaround point so I could get a good drink in. There was a good few people on the harbour walking who weren't doing the race so it was difficult to know who you were passing but between the bike and the run, I made up 18 places overall. I think the run was a bit long. Claire had 5.1k on her garmin and she was delighted with her time of 27:xx and the way she's improved with the training we've been doing.
Run: 5k in 22:21
So like I said, good bits and bad bits but I don't think I'll be giving up the adventure racing anytime soon 0 -
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Well done K, great racing and a great report Very honest and well done for keeping your cool and getting going in the water again. If I could do a sub-23 5km without the swim and bike, I'd be pretty dam happy with myself. You rocked it
Thanks You're flying along with the training. Nice work up Keeper
Thanks BarryFair play Kate, took guts to get back into the water. Great cycle & run after that.Bloody hell, that sounded scary. With all the swimming you've been doing, I would have thought you'd be way more confident....?? I say that as someone who can barely swim at all, so it's a genuine question... You've been doing such great training, is it just that it's very different when you're in open water?
And great time on the bike and 5k after all that!
I didn't find it scary because there was 2 safety boats on either side of the course and 2 guys in canoes following the swimmers. I knew I was safe enough but its annoying/frustrating because sometimes I can breathe really well and then other times it just all goes wrong. I guess I just need more practice. Swimming open water is a skill.
The pool is safe. The water is calm and flat. There's no waves bashing into your face and you can see right down to the bottom where there's a reassuring thick black line to guide you. There's also lane ropes and every 25/50 metres you get a little break whether you want it or not as you turn at the wall. The sea had a life of its own. The water is choppy even on a good day and the waves are unpredictable. If you don't breathe correctly as you exhale you swallow water. Possibly large amounts of water. It tastes horrible. Sometimes it's so salty you want to gag and all that water also limits the volume of air that you can exhale. Carbon dioxide levels rise and you start to breathe a little faster to compensate. If this happens once or twice its not a if deal but if you do it repeatedly it becomes a vicious cycle where you're blood CO2 levels are too high and you're breathing is too rapid and too shallow to allow enough oxygen to reach your lungs. Blood oxygen levels drop and you're in trouble
Cheers 0
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