THE MIGHTY JO CARREL: Big Jo training Jan 17

SWIM

Squad x 1 (+ 1 x attempted squad)
Non-squad x 3
Sea swim x 2

~14.5km

What a big week of swimming that was. We decided to make our comeback to Parnell squad on Monday only to find the pool a wee bit empty after a pool maintenance failure. Its a pretty deep pool so we could have still swum but I think I may have struggled to get out again and the dive in would have been a very long way down. So we tried Youthtown where we knew our other peeps would be, this was fine until a canoodling couple crashed my lane. My lane was actually only half width so really only Jo-size and they didn't get the memo that I was actually swimming in there and not pissing around like them. But after a few closely executed tumble turns and "accidental" knocks with my paddles, I had the lane to myself. Am I a bad person?...

BIKE

Time:
Distance:

A pretty good week on the bike despite missing a ride on Sunday due to some pretty heinous weather. Sunday was never going to be much of a bike day because I did Tour de Ranges plus some on Saturday as my long ride.
Tour de Ranges is a 110km "fun" ride around the Hunua ranges and back along the Auckland Half/old IMNZ course. Last year I double flatted and ran out of tubes and only made about 30km so I was hoping to actually finish this time. This year they had a separate Elite male and female starts which was way better because last year everyone went a little silly at the start trying to keep up with the big boys. I managed to stick with what started out as the second bunch the whole way round and come in as first of the non-elite girls. It wasn't particualary easy though, I had to work pretty hard on the downhills and corners. Uphill was fine, I even made it to the front of the bunch up the hills a few times, which was good to get me a head start on the downhills. So it was a pretty solid 3hr effort, special mention should go to Shaun Jacka of Piako Yoghurt fame who helped me out a little bit and made sure I didn't get dropped.
I then rode home from Clevedon to make it a bit over 140km, luckily I had a tailwind most of the way home.

Not quite my best look but at least we know I was there

RUN

Time: 2hrs 12
Distance: ~28km

With TDR on my long run day I had to shuffle things around a bit and do my long run (80mins!) during the week but no dramas there. Had a bit of a shock to the system with my first Stroke and Stride in about 2years. It was 1000m swim/3km run so a good short run for me to start with. It was pretty hideous and my pre-race banana smoothie was not a good snack choice. I managed to run my way up to 14th place with an untied shoelace but my internal organs were starting to revolt against me. My usual S&S markers beat me so not a great start but its not like I been doing anything as intense as that so it was good training.