Glue ear...

That's what the problem is. I took Cameron for his second visit to the doctor, he was very well behaved. Dr Rosario confirmed glue ear for him and checked my ears and confirmed glue ear for me as well, very unsual in adults I'm told. So we are both on anti-biotics and things seem to be getting better.

Getting back into the swing of things training wise. Two weeks is a very long time.

I have decided that I really want to save up for some Zipp 808 wheels and eventually a new bike. The problem is we don't have any surplus cash so what I've decided to is forgo my weekly 2 beers (they are the expensive imported ones) and save the money towards these goals. I have never been a drinker, I sometimes get stuck into habits. There are other positive side effects : no longer feel dehydrated and hungover (they were very strong beers , sometimes as much as 12% alcohol) and the bit of flab on my stomach should go (I am skinny but even I could lose a few kgs(lbs). The leaner I get the easier training will get the faster I can race.

Return to light training

I ran 1mile yesterday and swam 900m. Session 200m as a mix of zipper skate drills - 200m overswitch - 200m overswitch with breathing all these drills with fins and fistgloves then 300 overswitch with breathing with just fistgloves no fins , this is my swimming and it feels strange - legs have a feeling of weightlessness (they are floating) just the prescribed two beat kick with all my propulsion coming from the momentum of the hand entering the water and angling steeply down and my body rotation, remember I use fistgloves so my hands aren't helping me float or propel.

It feels very good. I do feel like I am improving its just how do I translate it to open water wetsuit swimming (with a rubbish wetsuit). This year I am going to race st least one race sans wetsuit see how it goes. For next season I will have a De Soto two piece T1 wetsuit.

I was really sick, according to the doctor I had gunk in my left lung, gunk in the right side of my head and that was/is producing a sucking effect in the rightside of my head which is producing a blocked humming sensation in my right ear. At swimming last night I was apologising to people because I didn't now if I was talking loud or quiet.


The plan is to get back into training this week and then have two normal weeks of training and then hopefully the next club race as I missed the race on Sunday. The positive is I was probably sickening before the first race of the season so I know why things went wrong.

It has been quite frustrating the last two weeks, it helped knowing that my target race is the olympic distance race in February so missing a small race now isn't so bad.

Keeping the faith with TI

It has been difficult since the last race being positive about my swimming telling people it isn't important because I am learning to swim from scratch. When I read a posting by ace in his blog made me feel I wasn't alone. I have been using TI for 12months, people no longer make comments or though I do feel isolated not being in 'no pain' group. I know it is a long term committment and when I watch swimming lessons when I take Emily to her class,I relate a lot of what they do to what I am doing. Years ago when I started concentrating on technique it was always panic of the race season that made me revert back because I had got to a reasonable standard. What is different this time is that since my return to the sport the urgency has gone, I feel I have the time. Although it doesn't stop the self doubt, especially when all the races I do are local and have a lot of the same people and because of my slower swimming people who normally wouldn't beat me are beating me.

I have to believe long term improve my stroke I will get faster. The evidence has always been there. Those skinny 12yr old girls who leave me for dead in the pool. This time I feel I've gone too far down the road, I'm enjoying swimming, I am aware of what I am doing, I understand and as Terry Laughlin says it is like practicing a martial art. And in addition I'm not exhausted at the end of it.

Making use of not training positively

Despite my grumpiness brought on by being sick which stopped me getting my daily fix of energy (training) we had a relaxing weekend getting things done in the garden. We normally have time in the garden every weekend it's kind of relaxing and the children enjoy help plant seeds and pull things up.

Picture of Cameron taken by Emily.

I had some old herb seeds left over from a previous herb garden which got too hard to maintain because it was before we had all the junk cleared. So I with help from the children planted those and they helped Teresa plant some peas and pick some radishes, the only thing we have been able to eat yet. This is our first real serious attempt at a proper veg garden so it is all about learning this year. I finished making some tripods for the beans to climb, they are made from prunings from one of the trees and string.

weekly beer

I forgot to do last weeks so this week I am posting a photo. Old Peculiar is an old favourite the 6x I can't remember if I've had it before.

I have a cold and a I can't train rant

I have come to the realisation that after running yesterday and then feeling lousy all day that I have succumbed to the cold that the rest of the family has. I missed swimming last night and will have to skip training on the bike this weekend and see how I am Monday.

If I can start training Tuesday on the bike I will race next weekend. I am wondering whether I was starting to sicken ay last weeks race. It's hard not to get sick when you have small children, an almost 3year old needs cuddling when sick and feeling miserable. I am getting better at handling this sort of disappointment. I was tempted to train but I know there are lots of races.

Although I still get grumpy when I can't train and I seem to get short tempered especially when I see obeses people, obese people smoking or driving around in large cars with seats reclined back to make room for their stomachs. I also get extra annoyed with people on mobile phones whilst driving, staring at it whilst walking down the street or whilst supposedly out with friends or family.
My personal opinion is that I don't want to contacted all the time, when I am talking to someone whether it is a client, friend or family I want to give them my undivided attention and I expect the same. There are very things in this world so important that I need to be contacted by mobile.
I also enjoy training without music whether on the indoor trainer , open road or running. I just love being left to think, enjoy the quiet , the sound of my tyres on the road. And then there is the safety issue.

One of the best things about blogging for me is that I can empty all this stuff out of my head its like therapy only much cheaper. And it doesn't matter if anybody reads it , I don't have to carry it around, Teresa doesn't have to listen (shes heard it all before) and now I feel all relaxed.

Day at home

No teaching today thank goodness and I've decided not to take Cameron to music group. He is still full of cold and has been into the childminder three times this week. Joan (the childminder) is a lady in her sixties and she is great but this last week she has been making veiled comments about parents who leave their children in childcare when they are sick. Surely she can't mean me. This year he will have been in childcare between 45 and 50 days, the days I have been in school - thats not many.

The problem with me going into school a lot during a week means that the housework especially the laundry gets backed up. I can get it washed but not dried (we refuse to have a tumble drier for financial and environmental reasons). Luckily Emily has not wet the bed for the last 2 nights and Cameron hasn't poohed and wet himself a lot. I also get the chance to get some website work done and a picture sorted for the school yearbook. St Mary's school have sent me yet more photos of their new principal to put on the website but they are finding it really hard the principal Liz just can't looked relaxed.

I've also got the repair man for the dishwasher coming this afternoon. We wouldn't buy a dishwasher for years until somebody told us that it is more environmentally friendly because it heats its own water rather than drawing it from the hot water cylinder.

I didn't want to get up at five this morning but I did, out the door by 5.11am. I wanted to run a new 7mile run using roads I haven't used before. I went out for about 28min 3.5 miles @ 8min mile because I know I return on an out and back run faster. It took me 51.57 min I will measure it in the car tonight on the way to swimming. My legs were very tired but other than that it was good. I think the famous Arthur Lydiard was a fan of out and back runs as opposed to loops because he thought you could judge effort better. I plan to get one of the new polar running heart rate monitors that has the capacity for measuring your distance / speed , etc But that is way down on the list of things to save up for.

I must be getting old/or wise

I pulled out of my interval session on the bike early tonight. I have been feeling tired since Tuesday's session where I went really hard to make up for Sunday's none race. I don't normally train Monday or Tuesday after even a sprint race (except for swimmming) it is my treat. Although I didn't put in a race effort on Sunday I still put in some effort. Add to this I've been teaching 3days each of the last 2 weeks and keeping in touch with business clients and helping out on the school yearbook and looking after the children, yes I was tired. And I think forcing my heart rate up to night would have put me into to much debt physically. A previous me would definitely pushed thru it - I also want to enjoy my 7mile run tomorrow. 7miles will be be my longest run since 2002 and I am starting to enjoy running again. I'm still not running with my heartrate monitior and it is progressing nicely.

I finally think I am getting wiser. Practicing recovery was definitely on my to do list and a limiting factor in performance. Now I feel once I learn to swim there will be no stopping me. Forty is the new 30 and I feel 20 and I plan to race when I'm a 100 so time is definitely on my side. Better stop now the verbal ramblings are starting.

Emily isn't a spoilt brat

I take it all back, Emily isn't a spoilt brat, I was tired and grumpy. We just had to remind how we expected her to behave. She is the beautiful, bubbly , happy five year old that now and again likes to push the boundaries. And she makes my heart crumble when she says "I love you daddy".

3.30am wide awake

For some reason I woke up at 2.30am and couldn't get back to sleep. As always lots on my mind (mostly exciting things). I am surprised Cameron slept during the night as he has a bad cold, we had to get him up just before we went to bed to change his nappy (his room stunk) and give him more medicine, He looked so little we relented and gave him his barnie back (we were weaning him off Barnie as they were inseperable).

Had a great turbo session last night confirming in my mind that on Sunday I had just forgotten how to race, not for the first time, I'm going to run at 5am. I got to thinking last night and I've realised that re-learning to swim (properly) is rapidly becoming the ultimate challenge to me. I know I can run and cycle to a resonable standard and have completed distances from sprints up to and including the Ironman and a wide variety in between but I won't be happy (in the triathlon side of my life) until I can swim.

We are making a greater effort to be sociable, we are both attending the school's (Napier Central) Christmas function on the 23Nov (very early) it is a progressive dinner starters at one restaurant,etc Although we will miss desserts, these will be at 9pm (we are usually in bed for 9.30). Teresa and I both love being at home and enjoy our activities during the daytime (and of course there is training) we have always been the same. When we started dating back at college we would plan to go to parties but almost always decide to stay at home with our wine and enjoy each others company. Not sure it is healthy or it might just be love.

Teresa thinks I have blog problem especially as I keep referring back to blogs in conversations, yet another reason to get out more.

Worst race confirmed

First I must apologise for my last post, so many mistakes and spellings errors, I blame post race disappointment. Saw the results on the website and it was officially my worst race ever and I mean the worst since my novice race in 1990. In a nutshell I didn't turn up to race. I think I had convinced myself that because this was the first race it was going to be rubbish and therefore it didn't matter. So I got a disaster.

As there are always positives that come out of negatives here are my 5 positives.
1. It can't get any worse.
2. There are plenty more races. Next one in 2 weeks time and after a bad race I usually get fired up for the next.
3. Comfort on bike- much better the cleat wedges seemed to have worked - no more lobsidedness on the bike.
4. I was cycling at about 20mph, slow for me in a sprint but I could have gone at that speed for a long time that is how comfortable I was. That is my ideal Ironman speed.
5. Running legs seemed really good

I need to change my profile photo.

First raceitis

It was the Icebuster yesterday and it/I was rubbish. I don't have the times yet but I think the swim was my worst ever, I can never see the first buoy or landmarks at the far end and I get disorientated and lose huge amounts of time. But once around the first buoy (which is just under half way) I could relax and let my new stroke takeover. It was my first time in the old panther wetsuit (bought from my friend Barry) I don't get to practice in it because of the extra time it would take to get there and I don't want to do an extra because it would take time away from family.

Although I train on my race bike on the indoor trainer it isn't the sames as a race and I forget how to race. I forget how get in a bigger gear and work hard get used to it in a race situation even though I do hard stuff in training. I tried convincing myself that I was pacing myself and decided to run hard from the off. The run being my strongest discipline and even despite lack of run miles I went out faster than usual and my legs felt good. Compared to the people around me I was running as opposed to jogging. But then the wheels came off it wasn't my legs, it started with a tightness in my stomach and then chest, I couldn't breathe, I stopped and sat down (I have only 2dnf in 17years). Gillie shouted at me not to give up and when my friend Julie came by (she was just running for her husband) I joined her at a very sedate pace but it got me home and I hope she didn't mind my verbal ramblings.

So all in all a pretty poor race. Although a part from the run (I think I have just breathed a bit and then carried instead of pulling the plug) I have a history of first raceitis and tend to race myself into the season and that is why I like to race alot.




After I finsihed the race we were going to a school picnic but because of my delay Teresa and the children had gone looking for me which delayed us even more. The picnic was nice, weather was hot , although it highlighted to us that Emily is starting to behave like a spoilt brat. This partly because Teresa and I work at the school everybody knows her and makes a fuss and she is becoming a bit of a princess. We are going to start a behaviour chart, I have to stop raising my voice and pointing the finger and Teresa has to adopt a firmer tone and be more strict.