Gotta love those Double Days

Well the first 3 days of this week are double days!!! Monday a 2.9k swim in the morning followed by a 4.1k swim late afternoon. My shoulder up until now has been holding up pretty well but sadly didn't like swimming twice in the one day!!! Luckily I won't be swimming now until Friday so can rest it a bit.
The forecast had been for a stormy day and it certainly looked like it was going to comply. While swimming I don't think I've ever seen the sky come over so dark!! But , certainly in the northern suburbs, nothing eventuated.

Tuesday morning was a 14km run with 6 repeats up Hepburn Ave. Lisa, Fiona, Will and I were on the road at 4.30 and as Hep Ave is almost a kilometre long we only did a couple of kms warm up , hit the hill repeats and home for our 14kms. Fiona and Will were running strongly, with Lisa and I bringing up the rear!!! The killer moths were out in full force. I couldn't believe how many there were, with one hitting me in the eye that hard I thought it was something else like a small rock!! But no, just a dangerous moth!!! In the evening it was off to intervals for another session. Main set this week was 5 x 1kms on "I" pace. With our warm ups and cool downs I managed 11.5kms.

This week we finally got our team running shirts . Unfortunately its not a great photo as the discuss nets at the track have cast a shadow but trust me , they look and feel great!!!


Wednesday was our double day ride... Will and I got up to head out at 4am and the southerlies were out and about. Today was a challenge ride. The challenge is up to the individual. I was doing loops so set myself the challenge that every time I turned into the wind that I would push it as hard as I could!!!
In the evening our usual ergo session, this week was for 100mins.

After the 3 days of double sessions I was feeling pretty tired and was not feeling like getting up at 4 again so slept in till 6. Waking up to daylight is not something I am used to at the moment so it was pretty nice. After a really busy day at work I did my recovery ride on the windtrainer ( 1hour). I felt really good and managed to keep my cadence right up there.

Friday morning swim and then hit the hairdressers in the afternoon. I mean its really important for my hair to look good under my helmet and cap!!!!!
I was having a girlie evening with some friends tonight which was lovely. Its just so nice to sit and chill with some yummy food and great conversation with some long time friends.

I was feeling a little anxious about the session tomorrow ..34km run. I know we have done some double days totalling 30kms but really haven't done a single run over 21k's. A few of us were meeting at LeapFrogs Cafe and had decided to do the 3 lakes run... Lake Joondalup , Woodvale and Goolelal Lakes.
Well the run went well. A little slower than I had hoped for but really happy in the end. The morning was just beautiful. 5.30 am and there were few people on the path for the first hour. Will and I even saw the most brilliant blue wren and Marty and Paul had a rather large snake across their path.

Ok ... this part of the blog is going to have its own heading.... it deserves it!!!!
It's called.... "AND THEN THERE WERE 2"

Today the session was 150k bike with minimum of 50kms in the hills.
Will and I woke to an easterly wind howling at 35kms an hour!!! Great , that's the way we were heading with it forecast to change to a NE later. The temperature was forecast for 35 degrees. We had planned to leave early, 5am, due to it being hot. Jenny,June,Lisa,Sarah, Will and myself to meet in the city. When we got there Lisa wasn't there which is unusual as she is usually never late! We texted her to find out the poor thing had a gastro bug and had been up all night! So 5 now became 4.

We headed south , onto Roe Hwy into the wind and then onto Welshpool Rd. I think it was about 35k into the ride and Sarah wasn't feeling well. She was feeling dizzy on the bike and decided to return to the car. The poor thing even fell off her bike about 2k from her car and she doesn't know how or why. I hope she is ok and its something that will pass.

And then we were 4!!

Half way up Welshpool Rd Will was struggling with his back that had been giving him some grief for a couple of days. He made the decision as well to head home...

And then we were 3!!
So it was Jenny , June and I that continued up into Kalamunda and then onto Mundaring Weir Rd. We were doing an out and back today so with a quick stop to refill our water bottles ( I went thru 6 today!) we headed home. It was finally time to have a bit of a tail wind which was great but we were getting tired, our bums were killing us and our legs were fatigued from the hills and the 34k run we had done yesterday. But we had to get back to the car and there was only one way to do that... peddle those little legs and just keep going....up and down, round and round. We hit the freeway bike path turned left and headed south... yay a tail wind. 4 or 5kms along here and June had turned around as she had ridden from home and didn't have as much as us to do.

And then there were 2!!!

Then it was just the 2 of us to do the last 23k back into a direct head wind. I nearly lost it with 10k to go, I had an unusually painful right foot and for just a few minutes thought I wasn't going to make it, lucky for me I had Jenny to pull me thru !!! I think if I was on my own I may have considered calling a taxi.!

It's always at these times you gotta dig deep and find something to keep you going. Hopefully, if and when, this happens to me during the race, I will have something there to get me thru.

In the confrontation

between the stream and the rock,

the stream always wins-

not thru strength

but by perserverance

H. Jackson Brown

American singer-songwriter 1948

How happy was I to finish. When I got home and plugged the Garmin in it said the max temperature while on the bike was 39degrees and I believe it.
Tried to busy myself when I got home because I knew if I sat down that that would be it for the rest of the day. But by about 4.30 I was totally shattered and had to have a little nanna nap.

So a big week all round.
Total hours 19hrs 34mins
Swim 9.5kms...3hrs 30mins
Bike 296kms...10hrs 36mins
Run 59.5kms 5hrs 28mins