Pheeee-ew.  What a bloody awesome weekend, after what was a very average lead-up.

After spending a couple of days in Nelson last week, with a good lurgy in tow, I arrived home at 7.30pm Thursday night feeling pretty darn knackered.  I’d just spent a long day in mediation, which strangely enough, I don’t enjoy.  Still, it’s good to get those sorts of challenges in my work, even if they are rather negative.

So I had three rest days in my week – Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, despite taking my running gear to Nelson with good intentions.  On Friday, I did my long ride and a 3km swim, but I decided to take myself off to the doc, as I was really chesty.  I felt reasonably good in myself, but I just knew things were taking a bit longer than expected to come right.  I have an awesome GP – she’s very understanding and respectful of what I get up to.  She’s not one of those docs who don’t appreciate endurance-type training.  I remember when I ended up in her room in tears during my training for the C2C.  I was self-coached at the time and had basically run myself into the ground.  That was the only time when she has told me to have a complete rest – I guess under the circumstances, she would have been irresponsible not to have!

Anyhoo, she detected a bit of a rattle in the chest and gave me a script for some druggies.  Bless.

Saturday

Then what was I to do…  on Saturday, I had both Em and Megan’s hen parties in the diary.  I had sort of apologised for Megan’s, as I didn’t know how long Em’s was going to go for, but I’d left the door open for me to catch them up in the evening.  But that was the plan while I was healthy.

I decided to err on the side of caution – 1)  I didn’t think Em and her athletic brood would be too impressed to catch anything off me.  At the very least, Em has the Half IM in a month and I know I wouldn’t have been impressed if someone sickish had turned up to share the love;  and  2)  I was definitely not going to risk sharing bugs with Megan, one week out from her wedding day.

So Saturday had suddenly gone from being socially very full, to nothingness.  And I’d had three rest days from training, so not a lot to show for anything really!

Oh dear, that’s when Graham had his brainwave…  that he was going to do Mt Thomas.  The fourth and last of the mounts in the Oxford area - one we hadn’t done before.  Okay, he told me to stay home as he was going off to do it with the kids.  WHATEVER!  I was coming.

So Mt Thomas it was (1023m).  It was my fave out of the four – just gorgeous.  A good grunt up to the top (aren’t they all), but a lovely area at the top where the trig is, and what a beautifully warm, still day it was up there.  As long as I kept the intensity reasonable, I didn’t suffer too many coughing fits (actually, it was worse when I stopped, so it was best I kept going!).  It took Ella and I 1.23 hours up to the top, and just 24 minutes to come down, so just shy of two hours.  That took care of the 90 minute hill run I couldn’t get done on Wednesday night.

Here are the pics.

I felt really good after that, and I was further inspired when we saw Gina Crawford (Ferguson) out on her bike just near the Mt Thomas turn-off.

I had a 60 minute cycle and 20 minute brick to do on Saturday, which I was going to flag.  But I felt so good in the evening, that I just jumped on the mag trainer for an hour, then took off for the 20 minute run.  Ella joined me on the run and kindly told me I was on fire – so nice of her!  What is it about mag trainers though, that you simply don’t seem to be able to simulate the road when it comes to running off the bike?  Despite having a good solid 60 minute session on the trainer, I never had that disjointed feeling in the legs that you get when riding on the road.  Oh well, it gave my confidence a boost to feel so damn good on the run.

Sunday

Sarah emailed me while I was in Nelson to advise that I was to look after the Tri Devils at the junior training this morning in Hagley Park.  Oh dear, that wasn’t on the coaching roster so it took me by surprise a bit, and I was supposed to come up with a coaching plan.  Fortunately the group was to be in good hands with Will and Rob also down to take the two groups, so I tended to just tag along this morning and help out where required.  It was a really good session and I’m sure the kids are getting a lot out of it.

We were back home by around 11am, had a quick bite to eat, then it was off down to Ashburton to do a run and swim at Lake Hood.  Wow, it was really warm down there, and the place was humming (okay, not such a good thing).  There were boats and people for Africa, and there’s a paintball operation at the back of the lake now too, so there were lots of dropkicks driving fast around the back of the lake where I was running.  A good stiff nor’wester helped to simulate the running and swimming conditions that might exist in four weeks, so it was good stuff.  I did a loop of the lake and Huntingdon Park plus a bit more for a total run of 45 minutes, then the swim.  The water was pretty frigid to begin with, but it didn’t take long to get used to it.  Everytime we popped up onto the pontoon however, our shoulders were covered in weed, which we don’t remember from last year as being such an issue at the swimming end of the lake.  Graham wants to go back in a fortnight for another swim – the plan is to run up Little Mt Peel in the morning with a swim to end with.  Should be good.

So despite having a crappy crappy week where I had two unintentional rest days, I was only down a swim by the end of the week (which I partially did at Lake Hood).  And best of all, I’m feeling pretty darn good, all things considered.

I’m getting in before the next Croc-like fad kicks in…

I will NEVER buy a pair of these shoes.  Never, ever, ever.  The Skechers designers should be ashamed of themselves – what were they thinking of?  Are they not every podiatrist’s worst nightmare??  They’re supposed to simulate walking on sand and therefore will strengthen muscles…  And they’re being marketed as the latest in “getting fit”.  Oh puhleeeese!

<Shakes head in disbelief>

Every once and a while, a whingy post is needed, and this is one.

It’s mid-evening, and I’ve only just really surfaced in the last couple of hours thanks to the gunk that is filling my head and lungs.  This cold is a doozy, and unfortuntely I’ve probably made it worse thanks to my various antics, but I haven’t been able to let life pass me by this weekend.

Doing Mt Oxford on Saturday, and a TH interval cycle yesterday, actually made me feel better at the time, but I pay for it as soon as I’m back in chill-mode.  The writing was on the wall yesterday when I was doing my cycle – the highest I could get my HR to was 159.  So much for threshold intensity.  Well at least I know my legs couldn’t have gone any harder.  Did it help that my quads were also sore from Mt Oxford?  Not overly, but all things considered, I haven’t come off too badly this time around compared with Mt Somers.

As I’m sitting here, I’m weighing up the week to come.  I can’t see myself going to work tomorrow, but I’ll see how I feel when the alarm goes off.  I’m mindful that I have Wednesday and Thursday out of town this week, with two potentially chewy mediations on the Thursday which I need to be switched on for.  The last time I flew with a cold, I suffered wicked earache for the rest of that day.  I can do without that so figure an extra day to recover may well pay off later in the week.

Also playing on my mind is how close the Half IM is now – just five weeks.  Funny, I’ve been challenged by people lately, as they’ve asked me what I’m training for at the moment.  I normally reply “Just a Half Ironman”, and they chip me about the “just” bit.  But that’s all it is to me.  Having said that, with the way I’m feeling at the moment, I’m struggling to feel sufficiently prepared for it.  I need to have trust in the plan, and accept that Paul *is* preparing me sufficiently for it.  I had the same doubts last year about Wanaka, but this time, I’m only just doing sufficient training to cover the half distance whereas last year, my A race was much larger, so the Half IM was just a blip in the training calendar.  This time, the Half *is* my A race and it feels like a real anticlimax that my whole year has culminated in “just” a Half IM. 

When I was driving up the Old West Coast Road on Saturday to pick Graham up from his ride, I had The Feelers playing full blast (The Feelers have huge sentimental value to me, as they are the backing music on the DVD for the 2006 C2C , which became my favourite viewing when training for the 2007 C2C), it was a gorgeous day, and I kept glancing across at the Waimak.  I felt really lost, like my interests were totally messed up.  I know where I’d rather be, but circumstances are such that I’m having to keep my training simple for the sake of the family.  I can’t see myself hopping back in a kayak anytime soon, and it does make me really sad, as much as I didn’t enjoy that part of my training.  Sometimes you have to do the stuff you don’t enjoy to round yourself out as a person, to challenge yourself, and to test your drive and discipline.  I haven’t forgotten that Megan said she’d go back to the Coast one day, once she has had kiddlies and they’re a little older.  I think there exists a gentleman’s agreement to tottering back as a couple of seasoned vets to once again tackle it.  Maybe that will be the shining light at the end of a very long tunnel for me.

To that end, yes, I’m already thinking about what life is going to hold for me after Ashburton.  Well, you have to don’t you.  To not have a goal of some sort is to have a rudderless life.  I’ve thought about another Half IM but maybe up north somewhere, just to give me another goal that is easy to train for while Graham is still working towards Wanaka.  It still feels like padding to me though – just training for something… anything… to fill in some time.

In the meantime, I need to knock this damn lurgy on the head, consume every supplement under the sun to get some energy/iron back into the bod, and have faith that I’m doing everything I can to knock the Half off at the end of November.

End of whinge.

 Today the Harris clan took to North Canterbury to rike up Mt Oxford.  It’s a 13km return trip, with a total elevation of 1371m.

The weather was forecast to be near perfect, and Graham and I both found a slot in our respective training diaries to knock it off.  We were supposed to have done Mt Oxford back on my birthday in February, but the weather was crap that day and it’s taken us six months to get back to it!

Despite Graham trying to talk me out of going seeing as I wasn’t feeling very flash, I convinced him otherwise.  He had to get a 90 minute cycle done today, so he left home before 7am and we picked him up near the Waimak Gorge Bridge on our way through.  I had rejigged my programme so I’d be doing a 90 minute hill run today.  Well, today’s outing was a tad longer than 90 minutes as it turned out but close enough!

We started from the Coopers Creek Carpark.  The route goes in a short way on farmland, before it starts rising steadily.  But it was all runnable which was a bonus.  Around half way up the track, it starts rising pretty steeply – comparable to Mt Somers at the Sharplin Falls carpark end, however we didn’t have to walk up that way at Mt Somers so we developed an appreciation today of how tough that direction is!

Ella and I pretty much left Graham to look after Louis, although we did stop every so often to make sure they were okay.  Where the track rises steeply, it goes from a mixture of bush with tree roots, to bush with rocks, to tussock and rocks, to tussock and slippery shale pieces.  We came into snow around three quarters of the way up, and it didn’t take too long before the navigation got pretty dodgy.  You could see the poled route, but where the actual track was to get between the poles was anyone’s guess!

It was a real grunt up to the top, and I ended up leaving Ella to go at her pace while I went off ahead.  That didn’t stop the little tike from running past me at the last minute to get to the trig before me.  Cheat.  We stopped for lunch at the top and took in the views, which were gorgeous.

It took Ella and me 1.42 hours to get to the top.  The recommended time to the top is four hours, or 7-8 hours return.  Ella and I did the return trip in just over an hour, for a total of 2.47 hours.  That quite surprised me – it was around 3.5km shorter than Mt Somers, but it was only around eight minutes quicker time-wise, which I think shows how tough it was.  Mt Somers had a lot more runnable sections whereas today was slower going, even going down.

Tonight Graham is wanting to know when we’re going to attempt his Four Peaks Challenge – Mts Grey, Thomas, Richardson and Oxford in one day.  I suggested that would be tougher than Goat Pass, to which he nodded and grinned like a madman.

Here are the pics.

I had an epiphany last night. 

I came home from my run feeling really dejected.  I was slow, and yet my HR was relatively high.  It wasn’t a one-off either – my runs of late have mostly felt that way.  My swims have been getting crappier and crappier too.  Around a month ago, I clocked a new 100m PB of 1.41 minutes.  This week, apart from one that got past the keeper at 1.42 minutes, I had a couple in my set that were in the early 1.50s.   I’d been going great guns with my swimming, having tweaked my technique slightly.  Now I’m getting slower again, am left feeling knackered, and yet I’m not doing anything differently.

So that’s the swimming and the running.  Cycling is going okay I suppose, but it’s certainly a long, long way from being a strength.  Ashburton is looking more and more likely to be a real plod at this stage.

But back to my epiphany.  It dawned on me last night that since Wanaka, I have not taken one iron tablet, or any Spirulina, or any of the other supplements I used to down routinely.  I’ve been thinking I should get back on the rails and start again, but it has never happened.  Okay, I’m not going to be nearly as candid as Gina Crawford, but before Wanaka, I was on the Pill constantly.  I mean constantly.  No sugar pills for me, just one lot after the other.  Get it?    I’d always had big issues with anaemia so rightly or wrongly, for the past couple of years, I didn’t want it affecting my training so fiddle with the hormones I did.

I put all that behind me after Wanaka, allowed myself to go au naturale, fell out of the habit of taking supplements, and now I think the darn anaemia is hitting me again.  I’m tempted to get the bloods done, but then if things are normal, what will I put my current ’state’ down to?  And if I am anaemic, I’ll panic that I only have six weeks left until Ashburton to get my ferritin levels back up.

Having done a quick analysis of my diet using an online diet tool thingy, my average daily intake of iron is 4.8mg.  Hmmm, apparently it’s supposed to be around 18mg.  Plus being physically active takes its toll on ferritin/iron stores.

So last night I dug out what spirulina I had, knocked back some zinc, and I’ll be off to the chemist this afternoon for some of my favourite Carbonyl tablets.   How quickly they’ll work, I’m not sure.  And if it has a placebo effect, then so be it.  I don’t think I have much to lose.

Ha!  This is now a standing joke in our house… to be explained later.

Today was the Frostbuster race up at Methven.  It’s either a Multisport event, or a Duathlon.  The Multisport follows the same first run (8.7km offroadish), around a 3km longer cycle at 28km, then a 15km paddle.  The Duathlon does the run, a 25km cycle, then a 2km run to the same point on the riverbank where the kayak leg finishes.

Graham was entered in the Duathlon.  Last night we had the Sumner end of year dinner, and the old boy had complained that he was feeling a bit shivery and unwell.  Typical, just before a race.  He still wasn’t feeling 100% this morning, but he seemed to perk up.

I’m not sure how many entrants there were, but there seemed to be lots of cycles lined up in the first transition.  Naturally these were split between the Duathlon and Multisport events (and the latter would have had way more entrants).

We can’t leave Allen out.

We saw all the runners off, then waited for them to return to the same spot to collect their bikes.  The website said the top runners would do the run in around 38 minutes, so I really didn’t know how Graham would fair, but he came in 5th off the run, in 38.01 minutes.  Good start!  I love events with a multisport flavour, because at least you get to support and therefore be useful.  So we grabbed Graham’s bike and gear for him and had it at the ready.  He came in hot on the heels of Nathan from the Sumner Club, which he was really pleased about as Nathan is a stronger runner.  Because of this, I think Graham was a little frazzled trying to get organised to get on the bike, because he wanted to keep up with Nathan, despite the fact Nathan was doing the Multisport event and therefore would be cycling off into a different direction. 

Once he was on his way, the kids and I tracked him around the 25km cycle course.  He passed Nathan a good distance before the turn-off (where the Duathletes go in one direction, and the Multisporters the other), so he was then sitting in 4th place.  He turned at the intersection for the Duathlon section, to find the three guys ahead went off in the other direction (the Multisport course), so Graham was therefore leading the Duathlon.  Things were still going well.

We stopped a few times along the way to take pics and cheer him on, but otherwise he seemed to be clipping along at a good pace, and there was no sign of anyone coming behind him. 

Standing at the final cycle-run transition, we could see him coming, and were at the ready with his shoes.  It was amusing to hear the other support crews around us, predicting who the cyclist was that they could see coming in the distance.  It seemed to be unanimous that it was “Sam” – I didn’t like to tell them that it wasn’t.    It was far more amusing to hear their disappointment when it wasn’t Sam, and furthermore, Sam was nowhere to be seen!

He finished the cycle (which turned out to be exactly 24km) in 36.49 minutes at an average of 39.1kph.

We struggled to get ahead of Graham when he was on the final run.  I got the bike onto the car in record time, but Graham ran 7 minutes for the final 2kms (or 1.95kms to be precise – Garmins are wonderful!), so I didn’t have much time to get my A into G!

The finish was an anticlimax – the finish line was up, but no-one was organised enough to be there, bar the Methven Lions who were just starting up the sausage sizzle!  This year was only the second year the Frostbuster has been run – Graham did it today 10 minutes quicker than last year’s winner, so maybe they thought they had a bit more time up their sleeves.  One official off in the distance asked Graham to yell out his number so he could jott it down, plus the time.  Three minutes later, ”Sam”, the second placegetter came in.  I’m sure his support crew were pleased about that!

The standing joke referred to earlier came about from a conversation Ella overhead.  Graham and I were down at the river afterwards, when Ella came running over giggling.  She heard a couple of guys talking – one asked the other “Who won?”  The other guy said “Oh, some old guy.”  Hmmm, see what happens when you stop colouring the grey out of your hair?  You’re forever tarred as an old person. 

It was a good day for Sumner bods - Karen won the Vet Women’s category in the Multisport race, and Russ and his partner Barb won the Duathlon Mixed Teams category.

It was neat catching up with a few of the usuals – Nades, Anita, Deo…  My hat goes off to Deo, who did the Multisport event in a team.  Today was the first time on moving water for him, with the exception of the course he did up at Murchison.  I would have been packing myself at the prospect of paddling 15km down a river with so little experience under my belt!  But he didn’t swim, and was all smiles at the end.

A great day all round.

Tomorrow is shaping up to be a busy day, starting at 9am with a 90 minute session coaching the Tri Kids.  Hmmm, Rachel the most unco-ordinated cyclist is teaching cycling skills to children.  Ha!

PS  This post can’t possibly end without an example of lunch envy that was displayed towards us by the Palings today.  What would you rather have – sandwiches and a packet of mallowpuffs, or a very large crate full of crap?  I go for the Harris Crate of Crap.

Don’t you like the way Anita has her hand on her sandwiches in the background, as if she is fearful that I’ll pinch them in preference? 

After an exciting day of Kona watching on Sunday, I was really disappointed for Gina C that she had yet another race that didn’t go to plan.  One DNS and two DNFs since Taupo.

I’m treading on eggshells here, because I think she’s an awesome athlete, but I was really, really intrigued to read her blog after the race.

Here’s the link if you haven’t yet read it.

http://www.ginacrawford.blogspot.com/

I’m interested to know what other people think, particularly the women out there. 

As I say, I don’t like to say anything that could be seen as criticism towards her because from what I’ve seen and heard, she’s a top girl, but am I the only one who wonders why she would not give in to “artificially altering her hormones” to avoid having a period during a key race such as Kona?  I think what happened is quite bizarre.  She knew the timing would be bang on, that it would affect her race considerably, but for even one month, she wasn’t prepared to go on the Pill or whatever in order to keep it at bay?

It was her A race.  And the biggest A race anyone could possibly have on their race calendar, let alone for a professional iron distance athlete.  I don’t know.  Perhaps it’s me, but not seeking some form of intervention for one cycle, for an incredibly important event, seems very weird.  It was quite a stance she took for the sake of her body, and I’m not sure whether to take my hat off to her or not!

It’s just as well Graham is my constant voice of reason in my life.  After Wanaka, I was trying to convince him that we could both train for it next year.  He was very hesitant and whenever we talked about it, he’d always just say “It’s okay, I won’t do it - you do it.”  But I wanted both of us to do it.  Hmmph.  I was never going to win that battle so I conceded.

As it turns out, it would have been completely nuts of us to both try to train for an iron distance event, and this weekend was a taste of what it might have been like.

On Friday, I had a long ride to do.  “Long” in my current world is just 3.5 hours.  But it was a really crappy day weather-wise with rain, hail and the like, so it may as well have been seven hours for how uncomfortably cold and wet I felt when I got home (plus lugging a heavy MTB around the hills provided a good workout).  Friday was the only day I was going to be able to fit the ride in, so it was non-negotiable – it simply had to be done.  Added to that, it was school holidays, and Graham had to go to work at 11am for a ten hour shift.  So I was out the door by 6.30am to ensure I got home in time to look after the kids.

Today, it was Graham’s turn to do a long ride.  Just four hours – seemingly the beauty of being a bloke is you tend not to have to ride as long.   But yet again, he was due to start work at 11am, so he was out the door by 6.30am to get it done.  Just as well he didn’t have to do a run off the bike today, or it would have been a truly squished morning!  He rushed in when he got home, showered, and left for work.  So between 6.30am when he left for his ride, and 9pm tonight when he gets home (and on a Sunday when the kids and I are home), we’re certainly turning into passing ships.  Work and school tomorrow for me and the kids, but Graham has the day off.  It’s great planning, I’m telling ya!  Fortunately he’s taking leave during the month of December, so when the training ramps up, he’s not having to deal with 10 hour shifts as well as training!

Anyway, the crux of it is, if we had to try and fit any more training in, our lives would fall apart.  Period.  Already, Ella is accusing me this weekend of being a right grump bum for the past week.  That’s not like me.

Takahe to Akaroa Road Relay

 

This is by far the bestest race of the year.  Graham initially said he wouldn’t do it as his running wasn’t up to it, but I was pleased when he tossed his name in the hat, as it’s a really social race, and can be nail biting from time to time.

Oh yeah Paul, Graham did a race yesterday!  He’s not very good at divulging some things.  Is now a good time to tell you that he’s also doing an offroadish duathlon next weekend?? 

This year (yesterday), the race doubled as the National Road Relay Champs, so there were lots of out-of-towners racing.  Sumner went into it defending their Senior Mens title in the B Grade, but really they didn’t have a show (at least not on a national level).  What didn’t help this year is that the Senior Mens category was up to 40 years (previous years it’s been 35), which is ridiculous given that all the Athletics NZ races deem Masters to kick in at 35.  Anyway, it meant that 50% of our “Senior Men’s” team of eight runners were over 40, and the remainder in their late 30s.  Senior citizens more like.

Graham went for his traditional Lap 6 – Cooptown to the Hill Top (a 436m climb over 6.8km).  When he first started getting coached by Paul, he was a true skeptic that aerobic intensity running would improve or at least maintain his running pace.  He went from running 6-7 days per week with at least a couple of speed sessions each week, to running around three days a week with no speedwork (except for any weekend races).  Yesterday, he did Lap 6 52 seconds faster than last year, and 35 seconds faster than in 2007.  Yesterday’s time for the uphill lap was 30.19 minutes, so 52 seconds is a huge improvement given he’s doing less running and no speedwork.  I reckon that’s a pretty stunning example of the benefits of aerobic training!  Yesterday’s time gave him 6th MM on that leg (2nd out of the Canterbury MM).  He wasn’t overly happy with that, but that’s what happens when the elderly Scott Wintons and Ben Ruthes of New Zealand are in town!!

I had to do a two hour cycle yesterday, so up at 6.30am yet again, in the rain yada yada yada, so I could be back home in time to for us to wind our way over to Akaroa.  I realised when I got home that I’d done 5.5 hours of cycling in a 24 hour period – wow, I never thought my cycling would ramp up even to that degree ever, ever again!!  As soon as we were home from Akaroa, it was off to the pool for Graham.  I think I’m content to live vicariously through someone else training for Wanaka now!

Picarooneys from the Takahe to Akaroa

This time, from the other side of the fence.

I don’t usually wade too deeply into the whole anti-cyclist debate, because I do know there are some dropkick cyclists out there who give the rest of us a bad name.  But here’s another story of anti-cyclicism (like that?).

Graham and the kids were up on the Summit Road today, heading to the Crater Rim for a walk.  As they rounded a blind corner, they saw a cyclist go past and straight into a car that was doing a u-turn in front of him.  Clearly, the car was in the wrong – (a) you don’t do a u-turn on a blind corner;  and (b) you don’t do a u-turn in front of oncoming traffic.

The cyclist was knocked off his bike (as you would).  The car driver gets out, yells at the cyclist that he’s an idiot, gets back in his car and drives off.

WTF?

Fortunately for the cyclist the family saw it happen, and Graham got the rego of the vehicle as best he could (well, he hopes he did anyway!) and got the cyclist’s details so he can follow it through.  Otherwise the w***ker driver would have got away scot-free (and may well have yet if the rego is wrong).

So you can be a moron cyclist and ask for trouble, or you can be a well behaved cyclist and still cop it.  And some vehicle drivers seem to think it’s open season and if they hit someone, it has the same degree of importance as hitting a hedgehog.  It’s getting scarier and scarier out there, that’s for sure.

…according to Stuff.  And tomorrow is my 3.5 hour ride.

Fortunately as history shows, I’m prepared to go out in whatever weather the day throws up, but tomorrow I think it’ll be a day for the MTB.  That way, I can take a pack with whatever guff I think I might need.  That’s where road cycling sucks – it’s not cool to wear a pack, so you’re stuck with whatever you’re wearing and if you get too hot, or too cold, you’re pretty darn stuck.  Plus if it’s just wet (which it probably will be), the MTB will make it more fun and less of a handlebar gripping experience.

So last day of the holidays tomorrow.  Yippee – back to routine next week.