Recovery Week

Well ... this was a week to recover and enjoy because the next block of 4 weeks is a killer!! So that's what I have tried to do.




Monday morning in the pool. The mornings are so light now and warm , its not hard at all getting up . 5am is certainly a reasonable time of the morning and there are alot of people out walking , running at that time. I was very much looking forward to my massage this afternoon so you can understand how devastated I felt when the lady rang and cancelled on me due to illness. Terrible for her I know but I really , really , really wanted that massage!!!! Then, to add further "pain to the wound" the Mr Whippy van came around in the afternoon but she had run out of icecream. I mean really...... In the afternoon met up with Sarah down at Dome for a quick catch up. We don't get to talk alot while out training so it was nice to have the down time to touch base and see how each other was getting along.




Tuesday morning up early again for an 80k ride. There was an amazing full moon. I can't believe how much light there is in a full moon!!!. We had a strong southerly again. At least when you do laps you get a little reprieve from the wind . In the afternoon I was back on the Athletics track for intervals. Now that I have my pace that was set for me from last weeks 3km time trial , I now have a way of truly pacing myself throughout the session. I've never trained quite like this before so it was initially a little foreign to me. Normally I would set out quite strong but towards the end of the session fade considerably. Now my goal is to keep the pace consistent through the whole session. I have broken my time down into 100m lengths which is easy to measure on the track. After the session we headed off to a "different" burger joint down at Hillarys Marina. With any luck this could become a Tuesday night habit. I love not having to cook and the burger was delicious!!!!




At the pool today I had someone tell me (you know who you are!!!), that they have enjoyed reading my blog. I was really stoked to hear that people are actually reading it and find it interesting and not too boring and same same. In alot of ways it has become my reflection time. I sit at the end of the week and go over the past 7days. Assess what I've done, how I've felt. I have found it quite cathartic really.... and besides all that , I will have a record to maybe look back on in the future. The tricky bit is being honest with myself in print. Putting it out there can sometimes be a little scary but I believe the benefits outweigh the negative side effects from all that. Well back to the pool.... I'm still hanging in there, thank goodness. Today was a good session of 3.1k. In the afternoon it was the 3 girls again ( myself , Anna and Sarah) on the wind trainer for a 75min session.



Wednesday night saw me getting little if not any sleep. My poor husband was in agony from a tooth ache. He had just spent the past 2 weeks getting a whole lot of work done to his teeth and for some reason one of them was giving him some major grief. From midnight to 3am I was awake and knew that if I didn't get even a couple of hours sleep I wasn't going to be much good to anyone. So I did a quick mental change of my program in my head, messaged Nat to let her know I wasn't going to make our planned 60k ride and tried to get a little shut eye. My plan was to do my ride on the windtrainer in the afternoon ( which by the way I did ) then move my 15k run to the following afternoon.



So let's jump to Friday. I did get my swim in but not my run. My dad had got out of hospital the day before after having a hernia operation and by the time I went out to see him, have a chat and a cuppa, get home, it was 6 0'clock. Then it was get everything ready for the ride the following morning. It was the first time I didn't beat myself up over missing a session ... and it felt good!!!! Yay, I'm learning.



Can you believe it, I was excited today about only having to do a 120k ride. Who would have thought. Four weeks ago I would have been stressed about that but today it was more of a relief. As per usual there was a strong wind so the return trip home was tough. But I felt really good, kept up with the group and finished off managing not to lose too much pace on the way back.With an 8km run to finish off the day I headed home to hit the kitchen to make some salads. My sister-in-law was having all the family over ( ours and her husbands). It was a great night. My brother-in-laws family are very musical and after dinner and dishes were done, out came the guitars, tambourines and shakers. And yes I love to get into the thick of it all. A little Chicago, a little Neil Young!!! Ah I just love it!!! But as per usual I was the first to leave. They all kicked on till after 1am but by 10 I was snuggled up in bed as I had a swim and 20k run to do.







The water was pretty choppy and not too clear, but it certainly wasn't cold so that was good. I mean have a look at the picture..what magnificent beaches we have..We did a 40min swim , from the surf club up to the MAC club return which I've been told is about 2kms. A quick ( well kinda quick) transition and Sarah and I headed north for our run. I was feeling a little sick in the stomach before I started but it was really just minor. I had cereal with yoghurt before I left home instead of my usual muffin banana and honey. Maybe it was that or it could have been all the sea water I swallowed!! But something kept repeating on me. I made it to just before the 19km mark and had to stop and I felt like I was going to be sick. The feeling passed pretty quickly, with only just over 1km to go I finished in 1hr 49. While we were running we had talked about jumping back in the ocean after our run . Unfortunately by the time we got back to the surf club , the wind had really picked up so we just headed straight home.

Anna, Sarah,Nat and Jamie. Jamie is new to the club after moving here from Dubai...welcome

Remember me telling you about Will's tooth?? Well it just got worse and today he had to go to the doctors. It looks like a rather large abscess has formed and he's in quite alot of pain. He's now on antibiotics and will head back tomorrow when the dentist reopens.



This afternoon I met Sue and we went to see the movie "Eat,Pray,Love". It's a true story of a writer who leaves her life in New York and travels for a year to find herself (in a nutshell). I did think she was being rather self indulgent really. And then it made me think about my Ironman journey. It's also pretty self indulgent as well!!! You know I have no complaints. I feel very blessed to live the life I live but I think for myself, getting up and doing the same thing day after day can sometimes leave you a little empty. All that monotomy.. I think that's why I wanted to give Ironman a go. Shake my life up abit. Get the emotions going again. Get excited, scared, nervous, happy again!!!



Thanks for dropping by this week. If you read the blog why not drop me a comment and let me know what you "really" think.. Cheers







Ride.... 297.5kms....9hrs 54mins
Run...37kms........3hrs 17mins
Swim....10.5kms.....3hrs 40mins

Total of 16hrs 51mins



I haven't logged my weight for awhile because It seems to be fairly stagnant...maybe next week

Challenges are what makes life interesting, overcoming them is what makes life meaningful...

Mark Twain