Friday 19 January 2007

Enjoying swimming

Swam 6 lengths of the pond in my old wetsuit yesterday, experimenting with breathing one sided as opposed to bi-lateral - last length was the most enjoyable whilst dodging kids in kayaks.


Last night instead of doing my usual windtrainer session, I took my race bike out and tried to get the handlebars straight. I also practiced standing up and accelerating, this has been a problem since I bought new bull horn handlebars.


Swam today lots of kick drills to improve my balance and stroke counting I got down to 15strokes per 25m for 5x50m.

Sunday 14 January 2007

Hot and humid for training

Did some excellent training this week despite the heat and humidity and did some more reading on cardiac drift when using a heart rate monitor. For swimming I am using an excellent drill from Aeromaxfor trying to find balance in the water. I swam at the pond using my olod wetsuit because the one I bought from Barry was holding too much water. I'll train in the old one and use it in the race on the 21st. My shoulders where really tired from using the garden rake. I was raking out topsoil to plant grass seed, and as I discovered if you add a twist you get an excellent abs workout.


Teresa raced the Splash Dash (small local swim run race put on by the club) at Frimley 50m pool on Wednesday, I marshalled the kids race and looked after my two while Teresa raced. We didn't realise until after that it was her first race as a veteran and she won.


Teresa started running with the Hawkes Bay Marathon clinic today in an effort to ignite her running and thoroughly enjoyed it. They meet at 8am Sunday morning which means I can only get out on the bike about 10am. I am flexible, Teresa's fitness is very important to me. She is contemplating a return to triathlon albeit half the distance of sprint races (she hates training on the bike).

Landscaping the garden

Had a big week in the garden. We got company who do land clearance to come and clear the right corner of the garden with truck loads of organic matter and an estimated 5ton of concrete. The concrete had been dug up by myself over the last 3years from various parts of the garden. I must explain that the garden is a quarter acre, we are busy changing it all to grass and fruit trees. Teresa is going to start her vegetable garden and I am planting five more fruit trees. We had the bobcat pull out the old apricot tree and old mandarin tree. The apricot tree was in the way disease and only produced fruit every 3 years and the mandarin tree's fruit was just too small.

Monday 8 January 2007

Conflicting coaching advice

I spend time reading articles about training in magazines and websites and sometimes I am amazed how different the advice can be. For example: I read one article on why you shouldn't do an off-season marathon and a few weeks later I read an article saying why you should run an off season marathon.

For what it's worth I don't think a marathon (on its own) is a good idea at anytime unless your are just a runner

Bloke free triathlon

Yesterday I volunteered at a race put on by the club for women only, it is one of three or four races I commit to each year. The range of abilities is so varied, women and girls of all shapes and sizes and I never fail to be motivated. The distances are 300m (in the local open air 50m pool) 10km bike and 3km run. For some of these women this is like the ironman and for some it is the start of the addiction known as triathlon.

Before the race a group of club members usually stand by transition to answer any questions i.e. Where do I go? What do I do with my bike? , etc When not answering questions we watch the new bikes, commenting on the quality and value for money of some of the entry level bikes. We also discuss recent races and training, I enjoy these moments because doing so much training on my own these days I miss the camaraderie of a training group. Although I do enjoy being able to do my own training and not have it hijacked by somebody else.


On a training note I had a windtrainer session planned for 7pm and I was motivated and had a blast. I have been taking it a bit easy on the intensity side of things this year without really meaning to. Subconciously I was trying to make it to the end of the season. Starting to up the intensity now as I have only three races left, (21Jan, 11 Feb and 26 Mar) and I am enjoying it. I always did enjoy the feeling in the legs after a hard ride, but previously I feel I always went too hard too soon.