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.