Why wasn’t I blessed with perfect biomechanics.  Huh?

Instead, I’ve got one leg longer than the other, one hip that sits higher than the other, knees that bow in, flat feet…  and unless I spend eight hours a day stretching and toning those dodgy bits, it seems I’m destined to have recurring issues.

Okay, I’ve kept my gob shut up until now, but I injured my foot at the Ashburton HIM.  The cuboid syndrome that I had this time last year, just before Wanaka, reared its ugly head three weeks ago.  It felt okay during the event, but that night, the pain was pretty intense.  Every run since then has been pretty bloody awful to be perfectly honest.  I’ve gone from wearing my Saucony flats (which I love dearly), back to my Frees, back to my Newtons, back to my Newtons with the orthotics that I was given this time last year for cuboid syndrome, and finally today, back to my clunky Mizunos with the orthotics, plus I strapped it like the Podiatrist did last year.  I was almost at the point of crying today on my run (which ended up a walk thanks to the pain).  Well, the pain wasn’t entirely in my foot – my back plays up something wicked on the hills.  I’ve got to keep chipping away at my (in)flexibility in the hope that comes right – and soon.  But as for the foot;  I just don’t know what to do now.  At least I know what’s wrong with it, I know what fixes it (or at least what should fix it), and I know what causes it.  Nothing I can find on Google suggests that I should stay off it, but then it’s getting to the point of being too damn sore to run on.

Thank goodness I have a cycle tomorrow which will give me a little reprieve from the discomfort.  But I still have a second run to knock off today.  I’ve already warned Graham that he may yet have to take my entry at Motatapu if this doesn’t come right – but at least I might win the Open Women’s section!

I’ve decided to do something new by summarising my week a little differently.

So here goes it.

Training highlights

• Returning to running offroad on the hills (in an official, ‘I’m-allowed-to’ capacity).
• Ordering some new trail shoes from the States (ooooh, they should be here this week!).
• Working hard on my run technique – it’s surprising that after just 2-3 runs concentrating on one thing, changes are starting to feel second nature. 

 Training lowlights

• Hmmm, new trail shoes - boo, I don’t like the idea of running in heavy shoes again!!  Sadly, I found out during my run on Friday that Nike Frees don’t drain water terribly readily.    But I’ve selected a reasonably lightish pair of trail shoes so hopefully I won’t feel too compromised.  What a shame Nike don’t put out a Free model made of free draining fabric.
• Getting a niggle in my back after just one run.  But I’ve started picking off the areas that could be attributing to it – I need to stop being so ill disciplined when it comes to stretching!
• On one hand feeling excited that there’s only five weeks until we go to Wanaka, but on the other hand, feeling sad that I’m not going to be part of it.  Nothing new there.

 Lifestyle highlights

• Seeing the Canterbury Tri Club’s Junior Programme conclude yesterday, well at least the inaugural term of the programme anyway – long may it continue!  Big ups to Rob, Will, Kirsten, Jeff and Jill in particular, who gave of themselves so willingly each week (not to mention the fabulous job they all did).
• Going to see Under the Mountain on Friday night – it was nice to relive my childhood!  I was a little disappointed that they bastardised the book and there were some continuity issues in it, but it scared the children which is always entertaining to see. 
• Continuing to have fun nailing our Christmas Day plans, as to what hike/tramp we’re going to do.  A Plan A, B and C is required, for all weather eventualities.  We decided to forgo Avalanche Peak, as we’d really like to end at a hut (which helps with our weather planning too).  A few ideas are still being bandied about.

 Lifestyle lowlights

• The home laptop died over the weekend so of course we had to buy another one… just before Christmas, typical.  But we found a nicely spec’d one reduced from $1800 to $1100 – bargain!  And at least I was able to use my work laptop for a couple of days to get us through.  Life without a laptop/internet is just… just… just… unfathomable!
• School breaks up on Wednesday, and it would have to be the week from hell in terms of stuff happening that needs to be juggled.  But we’ll burn some midnight oil to get everything fitted in.
• Not having enough accrued Annual Leave to take time off between Christmas and New Year.  But I have lots of office cleaning/tidying/filing to be done, and it’ll be a nice quiet time to get it all done.
• I’m starting to eat too much, I think.  I’m not going to go down the food diary path again unless I really have to, but the latest Healthy Food Guide has some good tips on quashing old habits.  I’ll give them a go.

What got me down

• Learning that I have to go to Nelson tomorrow.  I want to wind down now for the year, not wind myself up.

 What lifted me up

• The thought of getting to Friday, when I could get up onto the Crater Rim!
• We’re going to have almost a family Christmas for the first time in YEARS!  My sister Melissa and her daughters Charlotte and Poppy are now coming up for Christmas Day evening (normally they come up Boxing Day, but that’s never quite the same).

 Brick bat

• The Christchurch City Council Cycle Safety woman who took Ella and her class for their Cycle Safety session at school last week.  She sent a note home with Ella telling us that her bike was not roadworthy as it doesn’t have a red reflector on the back.  Oh puhleese.  Okay, it’s law, but NONE of our bikes at home have reflectors on the back, Graham said the Police would never pull up a cyclist for not having a red reflector on the back, and what good is a red reflector unless it’s reflecting light (ie it’s dark, in which case you should have a light on the bike instead?!)   Bureaucracy and arse covering.  Hmmph.  Rant over. 

Bouquet

• To all the Junior Programme coaches.  Again. 
• To Graham, who did his long ride around the Gorges on Saturday – 179km in total - into a howling nor’wester that saw him blown off the road several times.  He couldn’t use his aeros, and he had to stop a couple of times just to change gears because he couldn’t take his hands off the bullhorns!  Mental note – don’t head to Oxford or attempt to cross the Waimak Gorge Bridge in a nor’wester!
• Online shopping at Christmas time.

…not to mention people with allergies…

This is the current state of the fire track – the grass was up to nunga nunga level, and very wet!

I only tripped a couple of times, over grass that had fallen over the track.  Duh.  Poor Molly-the-manic-Jack-Russell resembled something out of a Land of the Giants episode.  A couple of times I found her in the midst of all the grass, seemingly wondering how to ‘get out’.  Dumb dog.

But I’m not complaining – today was my first time back on the track and the Crater Rim for goodness knows how long.  I was blimmin excited about it last night, and I wasn’t disappointed this morning.  Except the niggle that I used to get in my lower back from running up and down over rocks and pinchy undulations has returned.  I just need to dig out all the exercises the physio gave me originally for my hammies, hips, glutes etc etc.  Plus I need to go back to working on getting my knees to track straight over my toes again as they’re all over the place at the moment.

I love Christchurch. 

Oh, and thanks readers for your words of support and wisdom relating to my wee verging-on-agrophobic iss-eww (in my best Kath and Kim voice).  I’ve accepted that I have weirdo-tendencies, but am off to Borders tonight to find a book that Paul has recommended I read.  I’ll keep you posted (if it helps me to come to terms with my iss-eww).

And before I forget, a big ups to Clare who I discovered is on the entrant list for Challenge Wanaka (sly dog that she is!).  Clare was in Wanaka ALL FREAKIN DAY this year, cheering me and other bods on – so this year I’m out to support her as best I can!  Go-go-go Clare!

I’ve come a hell of a long way since 2007, if I do say so myself.

In 2007, I ended up in the office of Renzie Hanham, because my run training in preparation for the 2008 C2C had hit a wall.  I simply couldn’t go out in the daylight to train, unless I was up on the Crater Rim at a really quiet time of the day.  I’d leave home just after 5am so I could run around Centaurus Road to Rapaki without anyone seeing me.  Once I was up Rapaki and on the Crater Rim, I’d be sweet (but it had to be a Friday when everyone was at work – the weekends were a no-go!). 

Then there were the times when I would wait up until 9.30pm-10.00pm, when it was dark, before I felt able to go out for my runs around the streets.  If I couldn’t go out in the dark, I had a country road between Halswell and Prebbleton that I’d drive to, and I’d just run along there.  That still happens now, when I drive to Halswell Quarry to run up the Crocodile Track because it’s a dead quiet area and doesn’t attract the runners like the Crater Rim does.

I ended up at Renzie’s, because it was becoming ridiculous.  I had body image and ability issues and didn’t want to be seen training in public.  I decided that everyone was laughing at the fat chick who was running really slowly.  He ‘taught’ me to accept that actually, people don’t give a shit.  But I wasn’t entirely convinced with his philosophy, and it’s taken a hang of a lot of work to overcome.

This year, for some reason, it has been a wee bit different.  It has to be different really, because I simply couldn’t afford to keep burning the midnight oil by running after dark.  Daylight saving is a bummer when you have issues like I do.  I started to fret when daylight savings hit a month or two back.  The comfort zone I was in was drawing to a close and I knew I’d have to face my demons.

The biggest saving grace has been being able to run with Ella.  I’ve sucked it up and gone out with her during daylight (yeah, okay, I’m beginning to sound like Dracula).  When I’m running with her, she tells me to slow down if I’m going too fast.  We chat, which takes my mind off stuff.  I think to myself that if people see me running with her, maybe they’ll think I’m running at her slower pace, rather than her running at *my* slower pace (which couldn’t be further from the truth!).  She keeps me in check – I have a penchant for quickening my pace whenever people are walking, cycling or running anywhere near us, or if cars are coming along.  That feeling runs deep – the need to appear better than I really am.  Ella will always tell me to slow down, and usually I don’t even know that I’ve sped up.

This afternoon got me thinking about how far I’ve come, and how far I haven’t!   I was a bit knackered when I got home from work, so Graham offered to take Ella over to QEII to Tri Kids, while I went for a run.  I just had a 30 minute steady run to do, but I amazed myself that I took myself out mid-afternoon, without Ella, while there are normally lots of children and adults around to frazzle me!  But without Ella, I did notice my change in pace/intensity – my average HR would rise even just seeing someone walking towards me on the footpath.  I ended up taking myself around quiet streets where I knew I wouldn’t get myself wound up.  With Ella, my AHR will sit in the late 140s for a steady run.  Today it was 153, just because I didn’t have Ella to keep me on the straight and narrow.

So while I’m proud of myself for partially overcoming my hang-ups, today I realised I’m not totally there yet.  I still have big self esteem issues.  But I’ve done three events now where I’ve *had* to run in ‘public’, during the day, and looking pretty crappy in terms of pace and technique.  And I’ve got through unscathed.  I just need to back myself, and convince myself that I’m never going to get any better unless I go face to face with my demons.  And if people are sniggering at me behind my back when I’m out and about, well then it’s probably just as well I don’t have eyes in the back of my head. 

I got the coolest mag in the mail today, put out by the organisers of the Motatapu.  It’s like an official souvenir mag and it’s got the sexiest centrefold I’ve seen in a long time:

Okay, it’s not the clearest image, but is that drool material or what?  I’m going to admit to having thoughts that I may throw any goal times out the window in order to be able to stop and take photos along the way.  I mean we’ll be passing by old miners cottages and the most awesome of scenery.  Not to mention 30+ river crossings.  Man, this is going to be my type of run.

We socked it to the bastard!

Yes, the tree that I fell out of a couple of months ago while attempting to chop it to bits (on my own, yeah yeah – they call me dumb arse Harris), met its demise on Saturday. 

The neighbours have returned to Malaysia(?) (well, somewhere up there anyway) for a couple of months, so we hatched a plan to infiltrate the perimeter wall and prune the tree within an inch of its life.  Graham was mighty pleased to recover the pruning saw that I’d left over there originally.  It wasn’t even rusty.  Remarkable. 

The difference is huge – no longer do we have this horrendous weedy Wattle-like tree obliterating our view.  Our lounge seems a good few metres longer now, as we have sky out the window!

Bloody ugly thing

Now we can see the city again and almost all the tennis courts (that bloody great conifer and those chestnut trees are going to get poisoned by the Harris Gang next, but don’t tell Number 14)

Looky here – I can keep an eye on Graham now when he nips down for his game of bowls

See?  This is the remains of the prick of a tree that hurt me lots.  Graham is sitting at the top of the main trunk, and he’s around 8 foot up off the ground, such is the gradient of the bank between our place and theirs.  I reminded him not to lean on the branches that he was cutting off.  I’m always happy to pass on my knowledge and experience.

So I just had to share that exciting piece of news with the world.  And aren’t you pleased?

With my new programme-with-a-run-focus.

If that’s not going to stoke the fire in my belly, nothing will. 

What a weirdo week it feels.  My main event for the season is ticked off, and I’m on the last week of my programme, which has been predominantly rest days and/or easy sessions.  I’m feeling a bit rudderless as I hold out to see what’s waiting for me around the corner training-wise.

My entry for the Motatapu Marathon on 13 March 2010 is in, and the accommodation in Wanaka is booked (which was a bit of a mish in itself given that 10 million MTBers converge on the area for their event on the same day).  The night I entered, I felt I could almost become a serial event enterer.  Never before have I gleefully gone off and entered an event as willingly as I did that night.  Almost 10 foot tall and bullet proof I was. 

Anyhoo, now that I’ve put to bed my main tri for the season, it’s time to turn my attention to a bit of running.  My run time at Ashburton was so abysmally crappy, that I’m determined to get better.  Although I do concede that the long, steady training required for a marathon is very unlikely to make me a racing whippet.  A look-see at a run programme for three months should leave me with a better running base, which hopefully will enable me to give my 2010 ‘A Race’ a better nudge than what I achieved in Ashburton.  The secret A race. 

So here I am in my wee hiatus, waiting to see just what Paul has planned for me over the next three months.  Having said that, I’m going to continue with a smidgeon of swimming in my spare time and for a start, Graham has me booked to do some OW swimming with him over the next few weeks.

I could pour over results and analyse them until the cows come home.  Especially for multisport-type events, because you don’t just get an overall time to reflect on, but lots of little ones.  Ahhh, I’m in heaven today.

Anyhoo, the results are in from yesterday.  Despite having electronic timing for the first time yesterday, I’m disappointed to see that they don’t separate out the transitions, but here goes anyway:

• Swim – 38.28 minutes, which includes a short run from the water’s edge to the first transponder mat by the Restaurant.
• Cycle – 3:00.59 minutes, which includes the run from the first transponder mat, into T1, onto the cycle, then back into T2 and all the prep before embarking on the run (ie two full transitions) – this could be a LONG time for numpties like me!!  I hit my lap button when I entered T1 (not including the run from the Restaurant) and when I jumped on the bike, it was just over four minutes.
• Run – 2:00.03 hours (no transition time included)

There were 40 women entered, and 10 in my age group.

• Swim – 24th overall, 7th in age group
• Cycle – 9th overall, 1st in age group
• Run – 18th overall, 6th in age group

My overall time was 5:39.30 hours, which gave me 14th overall, and 4th in my age group.  I was 39 seconds off 3rd place – 1st place was won in 5:26.36.

Graham wasn’t overly excited with his 3rd place AG result, as he thinks triathlon age groups are ridiculous (he doesn’t buy into the squitty five year age bands).  He’ll always say “But what was I overall??”  So just to keep him happy, he was 16th overall out of 79 – 64th in the swim (ouch!!), 14th in the cycle, and 5th in the run.  I’ve just told him his overall swim ranking, and he laughed and told me to piss off. 

Right analysing over.  Time to move on.

The Race Report

Okay, the build-up didn’t go quite according to plan for the Harris Gang, when Graham cut his foot during our last scheduled OW swim yesterday.  The rocks at Cass Bay are volcanic (read “bloody sharp”) so when he came out with blood dripping from the sole of his foot, it didn’t omen well.  Being the good wife that I am, I almost fainted, so I left him to do the cleaning out while I made a dash to the chemist to buy whatever I could to patch it up.  It appeared quite deep, but fortunately the cut went into the foot on an angle rather than directly in, so with some oinkment and some strapping tape keeping it closed, it was a matter of crossing fingers for today.  If it all turned to custard, the plan was he’d do the swim and cycle, and DNF at T2 before the run.

We headed down to Ashburton after the kids got home from school, dropping Louis off at Mum and Dad’s on the way through.  Registration done, it was off to the motel to trash the place with all our crap.  The NW wind on the way down was wicked – I was watching the bikes flexing up on the car roof through the wing mirrors, grateful that I wasn’t doing Teva this weekend and trying to get a kayak up to Methven yesterday!  I know what it’s like to have a kayak shunted sideways off the roof in strong winds – very stressful.

I had a piss poor sleep last night.  Mental note – don’t stay at a motel on State Highway One, with a railway line across the road.  But it did mean I was wide awake when the alarm went off.  My stomach started churning as soon as I got up, but it was nice to be able to key off Graham who remains outwardly pretty calm before events.

Timing

This is going to be a screwy race report, because while I was something like 5.25 minutes quicker than last year (5:39.32 hours this year by my watch), I can’t quite account for where the improvements were made.  When taking off my wetsuit at T1, I changed modes on my watch (a mode I’ve never seen or used before!!) so I was a little blind with my times.  All I know was that I was (I think!) four minutes quicker on the swim this year, and I thought I was quicker on the cycle and run, but the times don’t add up (unless I stuffed around for FAR too long in transition – highly probable!).   I was also hitting my lap button wherever I could, but I wasn’t terribly consistent with where exactly I pressed it each time (or where the organisers considered transitions stopped and started etc).

Swim

Roughly 37.40 minutes – last year 41 minutes-something.

I entered the mosh pit!  Yes I did!!  While I was reluctant to start too far back, I was also mindful that the thought of being in the mosh pit is pretty bloody terrifying to me!  But it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.  Graham and I got separated at the start, but partway up the first leg, I realised we were swimming side by side.  We swim at the same pace, so it was good to ‘catch up’.  He only clouted me a few times – I’ll get him with my rolling pin later.

My damn goggles got rather fogged up so sighting was quite difficult.  I was going off course a number of times – I’d look up to see nothing but clear water, only to realise all the swimmers were heading in the opposite direction!  I wasted a bit of time and energy getting back on course, but on the last lap, I found a woman to draft off and she was excellent at keeping on track.  She towed me all the way in to the swim finish without my having to sight once.

Graham had got away on me because of my wayward tendencies, but he was still in T1 when I arrived. He then cleared out and I got myself organised.

Cycle

Somewhere between 2.54 and 2.58 hours – last year 2.57 hours.

I didn’t feel quite as gung ho to start with on the bike as I did last year.  I glanced down at my computer to find it wasn’t working.  Bugger bugger.  I’m firmly of the view of “What you can’t monitor you can’t manage” so this was a real blow.  I never toyed with the idea of stopping because that would have just wasted time, but decided instead to go with Paul’s “comfortably hard” recommendation without being able to monitor what this meant speed-wise.  My HRM wasn’t visible in this mode either, so for the whole race, I didn’t know what the bod was doing.  In hindsight, I think I’d do that again – instead of holding myself back, I just went with how I felt.

Once I got going, I felt pretty strong.  As I exited Lake Hood on the bike, I saw Nadia go past at the end – she’d just completed the 3.5km down to the first turnaround and back before heading off on the 40 or so kilometres of the first lap.  I still had that 3.5km to do, so I knew she’d had a good swim when I saw her there!

I was disappointed this year that they’d changed the cycle course from 3 x 30km out and back laps, to 2 x 45km blocks.  The only time you’d see other cyclists (to key off) was back at Lake Hood at the main turnaround, and the small 3.5km out and back dog leg they got us to complete to make up the 90km distance.  Instead, it was just a matter of picking people off one by one up ahead.  I passed lots of people like I did last year, which was satisfying, but in the second lap, it got harder and harder to pass people as they were better cyclists up that end of the field!!  At the first turnaround at Lake Hood, I didn’t make the tight u-turn and “fell off” my bike.  Well, I rode up a shingle bank, quickly unclipped and remained standing while my bike went arse over kite.  I was more concerned about picking up all my nutrition (oh, and the fact that several people I’d passed got past me again!).

Until the official results are out, I can’t work out what my average pace was on the bike.  I felt pretty strong, even into the head wind we copped on a couple of longish straights.  I was able to stay comfortably in my biggest gear at a low cadence throughout – thanks to Paul’s muscular endurance training philosophies for that!  But the only idea of my pace I had was  a) passing people;  and b) looking at the trees, fences etc at the side of the road to see how quickly I was going past them – very scientific it was!

Run

Tentative time of 2 hours – last year 2.01 hours

I so dreaded getting off the bike.  The swim and cycle felt good, whereas running off the bike is something I generally feel really uncomfortable doing.  However, I surprised myself and headed off at a reasonable pace for me.  I ran to the first 1km marker in 5.30 mins, although I suspect the distance was a bit short.  I’d taken a couple of Neurofen and a caffeine tablet near the end of the cycle – I didn’t feel them kick in like I did last year, although I felt steady throughout the run.  I walked briefly at two aid stations, as the Coke at those stations was still carbonated and it was a bit of an effort to drink it.  I’d headed out with a Slingshot bottle of gels, but tossed it to Ella after the first lap as I decided to switch to the Coke – it worked a treat.

Em passed me on the second lap, at around the 10km mark.  She was running at a great pace so I could only watch her disappear off into the distance.  I think she said she ran around 1.39 and that was with a loo stop – stunning!

The last lap was HARD.  Well that’s not quite true – I felt really good on that last lap and was able to pick the pace up a bit, but with around 4km to go, I really put the pressure on myself.  I was looking at my watch to see what I was going to have to run in order to achieve a sub 5.40.  I started kicking myself for having fluffed around in transition – all three triathlons I’ve done now, I’ve ended up putting pressure on myself to achieve a certain time, whereas the times have been pretty darn tight.  I gave the last few kilometres everything I had – my HR (as I later found out) was sitting at 170, which is pretty high for me on a run.  My breathing was okay, but legs were running on empty.  I came in with 22 seconds to spare (for a sub 5.40) – last year I came in with 7 seconds to spare under 5.45.  I must stop doing that to myself – it hurts something wicked!

Conclusion

On reflection, I’m now quite disappointed with my time.  I saved four minutes on the swim, but only 5 minutes-something overall.  When I was on the bike and reflecting on the swim, I was hoping for around 5.35 hours, because the bike felt pretty good, and I feel like I’ve been running better this year than I did last year.  Perhaps that’s good enough in itself, that while I wasn’t necessarily faster, I felt more together and stronger.  Hmmm, I don’t quite buy that, but until I see the results, I’ll reserve judgement.

I went into the event with a strong desire to beat last year’s time, but I had no idea if it was possible.  It didn’t feel like I’d done much ‘real’ cycling, because a lot of it had been on the indoor trainer.  I also wondered if my endurance would be up to it, as my longest session was four hours.  But YET AGAIN I needed to show more faith in Coachie!!

Nutrition

• Gel before the swim plus a couple of electrolyte tablets
• Gel in T1
• Three hours of Perpetuem during cycle – divided into two Slingshot bottles
• Two bottles of water during cycle
• Two Neurofen and one caffeine before the run
• One gel in T2
• One gel 25 minutes into run
• Coke at every aid station
• Six electrolyte tablets during run – three each hour

The Boy

Graham went into today just wanting to go under five hours.  His swim time was 37 minutes-something (half a minute or so quicker than me), around a 2.35 cycle, and a 1.26 hour run, for a total of 4.44 hours.  While he was initially pretty pleased with that, he was disappointed at prizegiving to hear some of the swim times.  He likes to ‘compete’, but he’s a bit down that the guys are swimming in the mid-20s and he’s churning out 37 minutes!!  It’s just something he’ll need to suck up and I guess it’s par for the course when you only start swimming in the year that you do your first triathlon!  But I know how he feels.