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Monday, February 22, 2010

Weekly Update - 15.02.10 - 21.02.10

SWIM

3 x squad
1 x sea swim
2 x non-squad

Thats right - ONLY SIX SWIMS!!!!! I knew the weekend would be a bit tricky to fit in a swim on both days with the tour on. On Saturday after racing we headed down to the Cambridge pool at about 6.15pm thinking it closed at 7pm but it had closed at 6. So the intention was there and being the only pool in Cambridge I was a bit stuck. But I swam in between stages the next day while all my competitors were resting up so there is some commitment for you. Sea swim was in my pointzero3 muppet suit, I thought I should be brave and face the cold sea and it was a better workout than with the buoyancy of the Helix. Will have to try and do a double up swim next week to make up for my lost one.

BIKE

Time: 11hrs 39
Distance: 330km

Had my little tour this week so will put a little race report up for that soon with some photos. The rest of the week was pretty standard, did a couple of 5min efforts but sucked big time and threw a few 15sec sprints in to prepare me for club racing.

RUN

Time: 1hr
Distance: 12.5km

Only 2 runs this week because I didn't run in the weekend but leggie seems to be getting better with each run. I don't feel like I'm running very nicely, my other leg feels like my knee keeps rolling in so will need to start some VMO strengthening to try and fix it.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Weekly Update - 8.02.10 - 14.02.10

SWIM

3 x squad
3 x non-squad
1 x sea swim

~17km

A bit of a better effort this week in terms of volume. I have only been managing about 1500-2000m in my non-squad swims because the pool is too cold even in my little muppet suit. Am trying to concentrate on a couple of things I saw I was doing wrong from the videos Haydn took but I don't seem to have much of a feel for the water or for what I am doing when I swim so may need to get some outside feedback to see if it looks better or not.

BIKE

Time: 13hrs16
Distance 346km

Did the waterfront TT for the first time in a while, and managed to crank out my second fastest time, YESSSSSSS. It was one of those days when the tailwind is not quite in proportion to the headwind. My speedo sensor ran out of battery the day before so I just went as hard as I could without know how fast I was going, which was good because it felt like I was going pretty slow on the way back at times.
Rode the Hunuas with the Hot Cycles bunch on Sunday as my wingman had deserted me for the weekend. The weather turned a bit yuck but it was good to have a few people to ride up the hills with.
Next weekend will be my big club cycling debut, starting with a 2-day womens tour around Morrinsville. I have entered myself into C-grade which may be a bit easy but A and B race together so to race B grade you basically have to be able to foot it with the A graders which I definately don't think is me, so safest to go with C grade. And the distances seem much nicer. Will be a bit of a learning curve as I don't really know how to behave in a road race situation and there is also criterium, I did a couple of crits when I was at school but basically just rode round in circles without really knowing what I was meant to do. Hopefully will be fun.

RUN

Time: 1hr 49
Distance: ~23km

Had an AWESOME run on Saturday, only had a teeny tiny bit of at ache at the back of the tibia which was only there some of the time and a little bit of something around the medial part of my shin but other than that I felt awesome. So ran for 35mins mostly off-road at a decent-ish pace. Then backed it up with a 30min run on Sunday which wasn't quite as good but better than any of the previous runs I have down. So woo hoo, hopefully the big comeback is starting.
I don't seem to have lost much fitness for these length runs and am running at about the pace I normally would for easy stuff so all that mind-numbing water running maybe paid off.
Now I need to start seriously looking at what races I should do this year.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Weekly Update - 01.02.10 - 07.02.10

2 x squad
2 x non-squad
3 x sea swim
~14.4km

Today was the first week of my swim everyday in February campaign and so far so good, a bit low on the distance for 7 swims... Two of the sea swims were races, the first was meant to be 1500m but it had to be reduced to 1000m because it was so rough. I'll put a photo it but it doesn't really do it justice, I didn't realize how big the waves were till I was among them and wondering how I was actually going to get through them. But I survived and all the better for it, I would be pretty gutted if an Ironman swim looked like that but at least I know I have swum in bad conditions.



The pool I do some of my non-squad swims in has turned slightly arctic with a broken heater, so I wore my Blue Seventy pointzero3 to keep me warm. The clock was also broken so I couldn't tell how fast I was swimming but I'm sure the suit sped me up. Must remember to take a watch next time.

BIKE

Time: 13hrs27
Distance: 338km
Boyfriends: 3

Was planning on doing the Waterfront TT this week but it was canceled due to Waitanagi Day festivities, shame because conditions were perfect so will try for next weekend. Did a few little efforts during the week then rode the Waitaks on Sunday which is always nice in good weather.

RUN

Time: 1hr12
Distance: ~15km

Things seem to be holding up well, did an aquathon during the week - 1500m swim, 2km run, not usually my distance at all but good for now. Just plodded along and tried not to push it, had to resist from upping it to catch a couple of girls ahead of me I had caught up to. Ended up running 8.31 for 2km which I didn't think was too bad considering I was taking it pretty easy.
There is still a bit of acheyness in the leg but it doesn't seem to be getting worse so will just carefully monitor it. Managed a long run of 28mins (!) in the weekend and didn't seem to have any ill-effects from that.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Weekly Update - 25.01.10 - 31.02.10

Squad x 3
Total ~11.5km

More big sets at swimming this week, did a 400m TT which was broken into 4x100m on not much rest which is the same as what we did last week. I won't say my time because I am too embarrassed but I was a lot faster this week, last week I had trouble making the interval... Have been giving my swimming some serious thought recently, its quite a problem that I don't swim faster. Last year when I did IMNZ I swam 1.04 and I expect I would be about the same now, I think it would really help if I could swim <60mins. So I had a D&M with Haydn (swim coach) and he has given me some advice on what I need to do and he took a little video of me swimming. I had some videos of me swimming about 3.5years ago and while I think I suck now at least I have improved, but more work still needs to be done. So I have a couple of things from the videos to work on and have decided to swim everyday in February and see if a bit of extra volume helps my plight.

BIKE

Time: 14hrs00
Distance: 373km
Boyfriends: 1

Nothing too special this week, Taptap is really quite ill and has only being telling me speed so has made any efforts a bit redundant. I will be sending him back to get fixed next week so will have to get used to no power for a while. I have become quite dependent on TapTap in the last 18months so maybe a little bit of time apart will be good for me.
I made a friend on our Sunday ride while Uncle Roy was fixing a puncture, he wan't so keen to be friends at the start but then sniffed out my Em's Power CookieBar and we became friends for life once I gave him a little bit.



RUN

Time: 41mins
Distance: ~8.2km

Just a couple of cautious runs on the grass, 2x10mins during the week then stepped it up to 21mins in the weekend. Don't want to get too excited just yet because I can still feel a very slight ache but it hasn't gotten any worse and I certainly wouldn't call it pain so hopefully am on the right track. It has been 16weeks so you would think it would be fixed by now. Since I was able to run for 20mins I was allowed my pancake mix which I had been saving since Hawaii and they were AWESOME.