Over and out

As you can tell I haven't blogged a lot lately, 3 months since the last post in fact!

I did think about writing a race report for Graperide but didn't. All I will say is go and do the Magnum, its an amazing event, its worth doing just for the sunrise as you bike into Picton on the first lap.

So this is me signing out of blogland. I started the blog initially to track my journey through to IMNZ 09 and I've done that. I've also done Wanaka and been back to Taupo to watch this year. Watching was an amazing experience, if you ever get the opportunity to watch an Ironman race please do so, it was phenomenal being there at the start line at 7am and then being at the finish line at midnight watching the last athletes come in.

Where to from here for me? Well, I have some big goals and plans but I won't be blogging them. If you want to know what I am up to then you will have to come for a swim, bike, run or coffee to find out. There is of course always good old facebook as well as email, text/phone etc. I'm not disappearing, just ending a chapter so that I can begin the next one.

Yes there is a new bike in the pipeline, Buttercup will be along soon, just need to sort her paint job and gather up the last of the parts that I need so I can build her and go for a ride.

Thank you to everyone who has read my blog and posted thoughtful comments over the past couple of years, best wishes to you all in your training and other endeavours and please stay in touch.

See you on a start line somewhere :)

Nades

Challenge Wanaka - The Race Report

Here it is, the race report. Sorry it took awhile, I kinda needed to digest the race that was Wanaka, the build up was interesting to say the least but this is about the race so here goes......

Deep down I was hoping that I could go around 13 hours, 13 and a half was my outside goal depending on what the wind was doing out on the cycle course.
Pre-race on the morning was interesting as I wasn't really feeling nervous, maybe cos I was still feeling a bit flat from my gastro bug the day before or maybe because I was remembering just exactly how much an Ironman race hurts!! Swim start was a beach start which was good cos that water was cold and I didn't really fancy hanging around in it any longer than I needed to! I think it was about 13.2 degrees when we got there earlier in the week and it wasn't a whole lot warmer on Sat am but with my swim booties, neoprene swim cap and some Vaseline on my cheeks to prevent my face freezing I was feeling ready for the cold. The first leg of the swim out to the far-away bouy seemed to take forever!! I had to focus on just swimming from one 50m bouy to the next otherwise I think I would have gone crazy wondering if I was ever going to get to the first turning bouy! The group seemed to spread out quite a bit after that first turning bouy and with a field of only about 200 individual athletes I felt like I was swimming on my own from then on. Turns out I had 2 dudes hanging on my feet the whole way round tho. Felt like I had my own personal kayaker as this one kayaker followed me the whole way round, I even stopped to check and see if I was last I one stage even though I knew I couldn't be! Swim was 1.20 which was my outside goal time, given that I pretty much TT'd the whole swim I'm pleased with my swim time.
Running to T1 I had a wee panic when I couldn't find my transition bag, I thought it was gone!! Turns out I had my number wrong and my bag was right there where it should have been the whole time!! I feel a bit bad for the poor girl near the bags who witnessed the wee meltdown I had while trying to find my bag!! Mental notes, race number is on your arm for a reason!
Out onto the bike, weather was perfect for riding, not hot, not cold, not windy! Yuss!! Had a great ride out to Hospital Flat and back, made sure I did my own thing and didn't smash it out on the wee rollers although lots of people seemed to be! Was feeling really good on the bike once I thawed out a little. Was fun coming back through town, some of the guys in the half started passing me around this stage which was cool as was able to cheer some of the lads on. Heading out of Wanaka the wind had started to pick up and I was pretty pleased to notice that it was a head wind as that meant there would be a tailwind up the far side of the lake where the going is certainly tougher! Had a good cruise down to Cromwell, watched my ave speed drop and drop tho which I wasn't very happy about! Didn't stop to pick up my special needs bag as I didn't need anything from it, turned at Cromwell to head up the other side of the lake and make the most of that tailwind. I really wasn't looking forward to this section of the ride as this was the part of the ride I struggled with the most when we tried on the course a month earlier. The tailwind and the fact that I was racing made the kms seem to just drop away, I had a quick stop at the aid station at the 103km mark to take some Panadeine as my back was feeling quite sore and I knew that it would slow me up over the next 80km if I didn't do something about it. I knew 2 folk at that aid station so I got great service while I was stopped there which was nice :) At about the 112km mark I was riding comfortably down on my aerobars going quite fast when a rocket ship passed by me by the name of Rhodesy! Bryan Rhodes was doing the swim/bike as a team so with a 2 hour head start I was only able to hold him off for that long! He is a machine!! We saw him out riding when we drove home on the Monday and wondered if he was riding back to ChCh. The turn-off to Tarras seemed to turn up quite quickly which was good and the wind kept behaving although that wee downhill into Hawea Flat was still a bit hairy! I was pretty surprised going through Hawea that there was hardly anyone out and about to cheer us on, I thought there would have been quite a few folk out but no, there was just 2 ladies out cheering all the riders through their town. Hmmm, nice head wind from Hawea back to Wanaka! Plus a few grunty wee hills which probably aren't that bad if you haven't already ridden 150km. I let my attention lapse for about half a second and nearly rode myself into a gutter and cliff on a descent so had to remind myself to focus and not do daft stuff just cos I was getting tired. I didn't mind the wee ride up and back down the road at 160km as it was a nice chance to see some other folk and say hi to a few others, esp as we were all at the same point of suffering by then. All in all I am pretty happy with my ride, I was just over my outside goal time of 7 hours and given the wind (although it wasn't too bad really) and the terrain I'm ok with that. The interesting thing is that I never noticed how bad the chip was at all during the ride yet when we trained down there it was energy sapping! The power of race day eh!
T2 was weird, although I knew we had to rack our own bikes which was challenging enough due to lack of function in the brain and what appeared to be a very bizarre numbering system on the racks, I did however expect there to actually be a volunteer in the tent. Not that I really needed a hand but I did want some water so I could take some panadol before hitting the run course and it's just kinda nice to see a friendly face at that point and have someone to say hi to. Start of the run was pretty good, the male pro's were finishing as I headed off, Richard Ussher won the race breaking the course record while I was racking my bike! I was struggling a bit to find my running legs and found myself breaking my run walk plan very early on which likely wasn't going to bode well. It was hot out there and seemed to get hotter and hotter, given that I started running at 3.30 I wasn't really planning on it being scorching hot! But scorching hot it was so I walk/jogged my way from aid station to aid station chugging in fluids and gels along the way. I timed myself over a couple of kms and didn't really like what I saw but didn't see how I could do much about it as I just didn't seem to be able to do anymore than I was already doing! Oh well, back to the 'as long as I am moving forward' theory! Loved the folk who had sprinklers out for us on lap 1, I did a wee dance under one near the bottom of Gunn Rd! Rest of the first lap was ok, I pretty much ran as much as I could and walked the uphills of which there seemed to be many! Who knew Wanaka was so hilly? Back down to the finish area to start lap 2 and everyone was out and about cheering me along which was cool. Was feeling pretty good at this stage and although I had worked out that I was going to miss my goal time I was still pretty confident that I could maintain my current pace and keep ticking along steadily to the end. Hmmm, 3km later everything went bad!! I felt really sick, like I wanted to throw up but I forced myself to take in some more electrolytes etc cos I knew that I needed them so I could keep going. Aah keeping going, it sounds so easy doesn't it? But no, not this day! It was still scorching hot out, by now it was after 6pm and it wasn't any cooler than it had been at 4pm! But now I was freezing, I had huge goosebumps up my arms and I was walking along shivering and rubbing my arms trying to warm up. I literally dawdled up to the aid stations quietly asking for water, whereas earlier I had been real perky and chatty at the aid stations jogging up and calling out what I needed. Hmm, this was bad. I had a wee chat to the guy at the aid station at the end of the Outlet Track and he asked me if I thought I was ok to keep going which was nice, by this stage there was only about 10km to go so I told the guy I reckoned I could suffer through 10km! Haha, had no idea how bad that 10km was going to be! I had walked the previous 4km as my legs were in agony from the sunburn that I had acquired while on the bike! So a 10km walk it was to be, this time avoiding all those sprinklers as I was still going hot and cold and being wet as well certainly didn't help. It was water only as well, anything else just made me feel well ill! It seemed we were all in a similar boat by this stage of the game tho and we had ourselves a nice wee walking group at the back end of the field, we exchanged looks of pain and sympathy with one another when we did the out and back up Rata St. Kinda made me feel better that others were in the same dark place at that stage! There were still heaps of people out cheering us on and they really wanted us to run, umm sorry guys there was no run left, it had gone! Finally I tackled the last hill and went through the last aid station, from there it was just a hop, skip and a jump to the finish line, well it was about 2km but I could see and hear it from where I was!! I'm heading down alongside the park and I could see someone walking towards me, even better, it was someone I knew! Kim had worked out that something bad had happened and knew I should have been finished awhile ago so bless her she came looking for me, I think only someone who has been there done that can know how low you are feeling at that point!! It was awesome to see her and we had a hug and a cry on the side of the road before she turned around and walked me into the finish! With just under a km to go Aynsley joined us to walk me in as well, that was pretty cool as Ayns had raced the Half IM that day as well. As I got to the last corner I summoned up those few dregs of strength I needed to run the finish chute (OMG that is the longest finish chute)!! The finish chute was kinda cool tho with lots of kids and those clapper things forming a guard of honour for you to run through.
Yay for knowing the timing guys, young Richard Brewer saw what a state I was in and ducked through the VIP area to get Geoff and sneak him through to see me at the finish line which was a really lovely thing to do! Overall time is something like 14 hours and 37 mins, so a very very long day at the office but I finished where others didn't.
In hindsight I think I could have eaten more on the bike, I felt like I was eating a lot but when I looked at the empty wrappers in my pocket I think I could have eaten a lot more, and I think that would have helped as would have being able to eat properly the day before.
Would I do it again? Full distance in Wanaka, no. I would do the half however. The full distance there is a very tough race, I'm pleased I have done it and I don't regret deciding to do it and I would certainly never discourage anyone else from doing it. For me it didn't have the excitement and the specialness that Taupo has. I have been thinking about it quite a bit since race day and I realised that in Taupo all the volunteers and everyone involved with the event made you feel really special the whole time whereas in Wanaka I felt like I was just a number. Some of that I think is due to a lesser amount of volunteers as well as less history with the event and these things may change in years to come as the event builds. I'd like to think they would do anyway.
What now? Kim and I are going to trip up to Taupo and watch IM this March, neither of us have ever watched an Ironman race and since neither of us are racing we figured we may as well do it this year! From there I will decide whether or not I will race Taupo again in 2011, at this stage I'm about 99% sure that I want to but won't commit until after I have been and watched.

All the things that can and do go wrong

The days leading up to Challenge Wanaka were so full of random things going wrong that I thought I would share these first so that my RR is just that!
The drive down was interesting to say the least. First mini-drama was plugging the iPod into the device that plugs into the cigarette lighter so the iPod can play through the stereo, this managed to blow a fuse and the electrics in the stereo and the clock blew out. Quick stop at the garage in Mayfield to replace a fuse and buy a spare. Headed off and although the clock was now going and the stereo clock worked the stereo itself won't go, so on it was with separate iPods and headphones grooving away to ourselves and having to tap each other on the arm if we wanted to talk to each other. Geoff had spent a fair bit of time in the garden in the days before we headed away and it seems he was bitten or had an allergic reaction to something and his hand was swelling up quite a lot and was very sore so we stopped in Geraldine to have lunch and to pop into the pharmacy to see if we could get something to relieve the pain he was in. The pharmacist was really helpful but couldn't recommend anything over the counter which would help and suggested a visit to the doc would be in order. Hmm, fun times! We headed off to good old Subway and had lunch before wandering back to the car. I went to unlock the car only to discover we had left it unlocked the whole time!! Real sharp we are, iPods, cellphones etc all sitting on the dashboard, keys to the bike racks right there as well, luckily people seem to be honest in Geraldine and everything was just as we left it!! I drove from Geraldine so Geoff could rest his hand a bit and ice it using the slicker pads from the chilly bags. This was a good idea until I missed the turn-off and headed to Winchester and Temuka rather than direct to Fairlie which resulted in a detour that added about an hour to our journey!! Lucky we weren't in a hurry! To top things off we had a rather large random spider cruising around inside the car and we both took rather unsuccessful turns at trying to end his life! Both of us are pretty scared of spiders so this wasn't a lot of fun! Finally arrived in Wanaka and I headed out for a 40min ride with a 20min run off the bike, this went well and I had a good ride and a really good run so was feeling pretty happy at this stage.
Next day went to head off to get bikes checked etc and discovered that I had gotten a flat on my race tyres, again!! I had to get my tweezers out to pull out a rather stubborn piece of metal, pateched my tube, put it back in and headed off. Going through bike check I discover that my newly patched tyre was slowly deflating, uhoh! The bike mechanic passed it although he was a tad concerned about the nick in my tyre from my previous flat but let it go through, phew! Turns out the bit of metal had pierced right through my tyre so patched that one again and it became my 'only if I'm desparate spare' and I put a new tube in!
Wake up Friday morning and I have a gastro bug, hmmm, that is not fun! Quite a few unpleasant visits to the loo before finally managing to eat a tiny amount of breakfast before heading down to swim with the tri club folk at 8am. That was exciting, I managed to leave my breakfast in the lake which certainly isn't the most fun I have ever had! Shane kindly brought some Immodium to race briefing for me which seemed to work a treat. It seems the majority of people I knew racing were either paramedics, nurses, pharmacists or dentists so lots of good advice on offer about what to try and eat and what to do! Took a quick trip to the pharmacy to get some more Immodium just in case and some Gastrolyte, thanks Zarnia they seemed to do the trick. I struggled to eat much all day due to the delicate way my stomach was feeling so my pre-race dinner consisted of hot salty chips (hey they are carbs and the stayed in!!) along with a couple of mini Cadbury flakes that one of Kim's friends was feeding me while I was watching the elite Contact races.
Race morning I get down to transition and realise I have forgotten to put my goggles in my bag, Geoff had my phone by this stage so quickly borrowed a phone and called him to ask him to please get my goggles from the house (jeepers, amateur mistake!!) he was nice and quick so that was good! Everything else was ticking along well until the next morning when I realised I couldn't find my wallet anywhere, backtrack through when I had last seen it to work out that I had put it in my bag so I could leave it in the car so it would be handy post-race if I needed money for anything, turns out I throw it into a wheelie bin with my half empty Powerade bottle and other left-over pre-race food when I left transition! F*ck what a dick!! Went down there the next morning to see if I could try and find out, hahaha, that was going to be impossible. Oh well, at least I didn't have any money in it but I have had an entertaining day today trying to replace all my cards and even trying to remember which ones I have!
One final wee moment of fun which proves I shouldn't be allowed to navigate/drive.... I took us on another detour, yes out of Geraldine again! A bit quicker this time as I drove us home via Rangitata and Ashburton rather than thru Mayfield!
I think that must just about be my quota of things going wrong for the year! :)

Suck it up Buttercup!!

That is my new mantra, 'suck it up Buttercup' will help you through when the going gets tough! But we'll get to that, lets start at the start of the day for what was Half Ironman number 3 in my race repertoire!

Did things a little bit different this year and drove down to Ashburton on race morning which meant a 4.30am wake up call. I'm ok at that hour of the day but Geoff was also racing, him and his 2 brothers had entered the half as a team, that meant getting Mr I'm not so good in the Mornings out of bed as well...... He did really well actually, it did help that I planned a 15min leeway into the morning plan so that I wouldn't need to stress! Worked perfectly and we arrived in Ashburton on time. It was a slightly nervous drive down tho as its the first time I have taken the bikes out on the open road on my flash new roof racks but all went well!

I got the necessary stuff (registration, body numbering) out of the way quickly so I could potter about setting my stuff up in transition while eating my breakfast, this worked well and I seemed to have stuff everywhere before managing to create some sort of semblance out of it all.

The plan for the swim was to give it a good nudge and see what I could do, I have been swimming quite well in the pool lately and I have always done the swim at the half at a steady/comfortable pace and I figured it was time to see what I could do if I put some effort in. I got myself nearish to the front alongside Geoff's brother Roger who was doing the team swim, I figured that was a good place to start as it was likely that Roger would beat me out of the water. It was a bit bedlam at the start but nothing too crazy, after all a bit of biffo in the swim is just part of the day really. I was swimming quite hard and felt good until I got to the second orange bouy where I had to swim quite a few polo strokes while trying not to throw up! Hmmm, thats not good, here's hoping that feeling goes away! It was gross, I would put my head in the water and then couldn't breathe out for fear of puking and there was no way I could swim polo for the next 1200m! Quick refocus, told myself I was ok and just got on with it! Had a similar but shorter episode again but quickly got on with it and just swam!!! Out of the water and running to transition I snuck a look at my watch once I got my arms out of my wetsuit sleeves and was stoked to see that I had swum 35mins!! Woohoo, my quickest half IM swim ever and right on target!! Was really surprised running into transition to hear Geoff cheering me on as I expected him to be out on the bike already, turns out Roger had a wee panic just after the first bouy, he hadn't realised quite what he was letting himself in for with that swim start! He came right tho and ran into transition as I left on my bike, I then managed to hold Geoff off for a massive 900m!!! haha!

On the bike I was pleased that I had decided to wear a long sleeve top cos it wasn't warm at all!! The knob helmet was good to wear today tho cos it meant my head and ears were nice and toasty :) Start of the first lap was busy! People everywhere while everyone settled into their groove and spaced themselves out, I was getting passed by quite a few people but consoled myself with the fact that I had swum quicker than them and it was a long day where anything could happen. It took me awhile to get onto my aerobars, I have a mild paranoia about them since crashing off my bike when on them last year. Its esp nervy when its wet out as it was when I crashed. After the first wee turn around a few kms into the race I told myself to stop pissing about and get on my aerobars, telling myself that everyone else was using them and I needed to just get on with it. And get on with it I did and was cruising along pretty nicely feeling fine! First lap went ok except for the fact that it seemed like every female rider who went past me seemed to have an E on her calf indicating that she was in my age group, it felt like my whole age group was passing me! Back into transition for the half-way turn around I saw Geoff heading out for his second lap and I was feeling good that he hadn't gapped me by too much given his superior bike strength and the fact that he didn't have to run afterward I didn't really expect to see him again on the ride. Heading back out for lap 2 it was as if someone had flicked a switch, all of a sudden I was miserably uncomfortable on my bike, it ached to sit on my saddle, my back was sore, my stomach was feeling ick and I wanted out and I wanted out now! Had a wee chat to myself and made myself stretch more on my bike thinking that I would come right once I turned the corner off the main road. Hmmm, I didn't come right, I got worse! Turns out it was hideous period cramps! I knew it was due, only figured this out early that week and there wasn't anything I could do about it except hope that it didn't come on race day as the first day is the only day that I usually feel like crap, every other day is fine. So there I am out on the bike feeling hideous and every turn of the pedals makes me ache but I need to keep turning the pedals or I'm not going to be going anywhere! All I want at this stage is some panadol or something to take the edge off the pain but I don't have any on me, I had some in transition but that was 30kms away! At this point, 60km into the ride, I start to bawl my eyes out, great big ugly shoulder shaking sobs!! And I can't stop, I ride like this for about 3km and this is where the suck it up buttercup starts kicking in! I've heard this saying before when people when about stuff (it seems to be one of John Ellis's favourites!) and it got stuck in my head so I'm biking along telling myself to 'suck it up buttercup' and occasionally telling myself to 'suck it the f**k up buttercup!!' I said it out loud more than once and I feel sorry for anyone who passed me in this dark dark part of the race. This seemed to sort me out and everytime I slipped back into wallowing in the pain it was straight back into 'suck it up buttercup!!' With 15km left to go I had to give myself a virtual slap and tell myself that 15km was easy, for crying out loud its only a ride to Sumner, thats easy, anyone can ride that far!!! That bollocking got me through the next 10km, then with 5km left I just wanted off my bike, lucky I'm a slow runner or I think I would have got off and run my bike in! Instead I berated myself yet again and told myself that 5km wasn't even as far as biking to work and that if I couldn't bike that far I had some serious issues!! It hadn't helped that I was passed by 1 or 2 more girls in my age group in that last 15-20km, either that or I was hallucinating F's on everyone's calves.....

Finally after what seemed like hours and hours and hours I arrived back at transition and could get off my bike at last, I racked it thinking that I would be quite happy to never see it again! I sat on the ground and the first thing I did was reach for the panadol and slugged them down hoping that they would work some magic cos I could barely move at that stage, my back, stomach, thighs were all aching and quite frankly all I wanted to do was curl up on my towel in transition and have a sleep until I felt better. But no, I was good and I pulled on my shoes and socks. Geoff came over to talk to me cos he was loitering around in transition, I told him what had happened and started having another cry, he gave me a big hug and wouldn't let me stay in transition so I headed off with everyone cheering and telling me to run. Hmmm, lets see you lot try and run when you're in that kind of pain! Honestly, it was hideous, if I had been at home I would have been in bed with a hotty! Having said that if I had been at home I would have had better access to pain relief and probably would never have felt that bad! I headed off at a very slow pathetic pace just hoping that I would come right cos I didn't fancy a 21km sufferfest as well. Just after I started the run the boys (Paulie Davies and Andrew Black) ran past and cheered me on telling me I looked good, I guess I did from behind, I cheered them on as they were on their last lap and were sitting in 2nd and 3rd overall which was cool then figured I better summon up the effort to run or it was going to be a much much longer day than it needed to be. I trundled off and started the 'suck it up' mantra again, it really works by the way! A lady ran past me and started walking... hmmm, walking..... hmmm, that looks nice.... quickly reminded myself that my race plan was to only walk the aid stations, that is the aid stations and nothing else! So I kept running, yay! Headed round the back of that lake to discover that first aid station was a bit further away than it was last year...... suck it up, keep running! So I did, then I grabbed myself a nice cup of coke and had a lovely wee walk while I drank it. By this stage I was starting to feel heaps better! It must only take 10-15 mins for panadol to kick in, that and the relief to be off my bike I guess. From then on I stuck to the plan and ran from aid station to aid station only walking to suck down my gels and to drink. It felt good too I must say, only thing is, people need to have respect for your race plan and know that its ok for you to walk just after you pass the finish area cos thats an aid station and its ok to walk that part if its in the plan! Managed to kick it up an extra notch or two in the last 4kms and passed a few folk, to be fair not all of them were on their last lap but I still passed them so mentally that helped me along the way.

Overall I was about 15mins slower than last year and that can pretty much all be attributed to the crappy bike ride I had. And it turns out that I was passed by pretty much my whole age group cos I had the fastest swim time in my age group!! Woohoo, not bad for someone who not that long ago couldn't swim 50m without stopping! Run time was almost the same as last years at 2.15, so while its a minute slower than last years run time its the most I've ever run in the run part of a half Ironman so I'm still happy with it. I think I'm running better than I ever have, must be those flash Newton running shoes!! Overall time was 6.10, so 15mins slower than last year but tougher conditions with the weather and being a girl. Can't win em'all, but am pleased that I was able to put the cycle leg behind me and stick to my run plan as well as focus on sticking to my nutrition plan throughout the day even tho I felt like crap.

7 more weeks of 'suck it up Buttercup' and Wanaka will be done and dusted! Bring it on!!

Ohh and I love my bike again now, I forced myself to go for a wee 20min spin on her this morning, I was worried I would really want to sell her otherwise! A wee spin in shiny new kit and all is forgiven!

And, the boys did good in their team, they were 3rd male team so are pretty happy with that for their first foray into triathlon. Geoff had the 4th fastest cycle time in the teams so he is quite stoked with that.

Aarghh, scary wind!!

Yikes, that was a ride and a half today. Headed out nice and early to do hilly long bays again, this is probably one of my favourite rides, nice hard climb up to the Kiwi, cruise along the Summit Rd to Coopers and then done Gebbies around the bays up Evans and then home. Last week was great, I cranked out a PB to the Kiwi, that hurt a lot! Spent about 5mins at the Kiwi trying not to throw up while waiting for my legs to stop wobbling before cruising round the rest of the ride. No PB today, my legs were a bit fried and there was a head wind for a good amount of the climb as well plus I figured I was going to need some oomph left in my legs for the rest of the ride today with the wind kicking in. And boy did it kick in!! Heading along the Summit Rd it started to get very cold and foggy, ick! I never even saw Coopers Knob today thats how foggy it was. Other than that I was having quite a nice ride until I got to the Sign of the Bellbird where the wind really started to whistle along the top of the hill! Aargh, tis ok I figured, this end of the Summit Rd is less exposed than the Sumner end. Umm, no its not and its blimmin' scary up there! I think I pretty much screamed, cried, whimpered my way from the Bellbird to Gebbies!! I did think about turning back but was so far along the road I figured it was quicker to keep going forward and get off the hill. Coopers to Gebbies was just plain frightening, I was either yelling 'Nooooo' or whimpering out 'help' while clinging to my bike for dear life!! The wind just about biffed me across the road many many times, I think the only thing that would have made it worse/scarier would have been if it started to rain! I was hugely relieved to see the top of Gebbies Pass so that I could stop for a breather. There were a few guys there umming and aahing about whether to go up to Coopers or not, after I told them how hairy it was up there today they still headed on up so hopefully they had fun! One of the guys is Andrew who Jo from Complete Performance coaches, he is also training for Wanaka so that was cool to meet someone else heading to Wanaka. The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful luckily cos I was pretty much over the wind by this stage! Yay for an easy week this coming week :)

Palmy North Half Marathon and the injury

So I headed off to Palmerston North again last weekend to do the Palmy Half again. I quite like this course, its quite pretty and runs along the river for most of it and given that I did a PB there last year I was pretty keen to go back and give it another nudge to see what I could do, esp as I had been running well recently.

Saturday afternoon was fun, Pete has a choc lab, Cadbury and his birthday coincides with the Palmy Half so for the second year in a row I got to help take Cadbury to Animates to pick out his birthday presents! Did all the normal race pack pick up stuff that afternoon as well. Al's friend Helen from spin, was doing the 10km with some friends from Massey so kept bumping into her at the airport and at Shoe Clinic when picking up race packs, never saw her on race day tho.

Let's cut the long story short, the half didn't go well. Even in the morning while having breakky I didn't think things were going to go to plan, my legs felt sore and tired and we hadn't even started!! I figured they might come right tho and since I had travelled that far I was definitely going to give it a nudge. The first 5km went fairly well, although I missed the 4km marker so it felt like a really really long km till I realised it was 2km! Was feeling pretty shite by this point so decided to walk the aid station and see how I felt after that. Hmm, things went downhill from there, I didn't seem to have any oomph in my legs and every time I looked at my HRM my HR was in the 170's which is ridiculously high for me and definitely not possible to maintain for anything much longer than 5mins or so. The 10km turn around looked mighty nice and I thought about turning there and just doing 10km but I am a glutton for punishment so I plodded on. By the time I reached 11km I could feel my right calf start to niggle. It had niggled a few times over the last few weeks but a bit of anti-flamme and it was always right as rain the next day. I was wearing my compression socks for the race just in case it flared up (and I wasn't the only one in compression socks, Palmy folk know about the socks as well!) So flare up it did and by km 13 I was hobbling and in a lot of pain and really not enjoying myself, I was one step away from sitting in the gutter and having a good cry! I hobbled on hoping that I would see a St Johns van, but no! I had seen them all morning but when I wanted one there was none around, had I been running with my phone I could have called Pete to come and get me cos he ran an impressive 1.32!! So I was kinda stuck with having to finish, I was quite worried about doing more damage to myself by running funny trying to compensate for my calf but I seem to have come away with just a pulled calf muscle.

So the verdict so far is no running for a minimum of 2 weeks and I am one week into that. Lots of visits to the physio and doing as I am told, which includes aqua-jogging! Blah, 90mins of it yesterday! If I can survive that I can do anything I reckon!!

Ohh and my embarrassingly slow finish time? 2 hours 20, I was quicker than that for the run in the half Ironman last year!! Oh well, I have learnt from this race which is good, sometimes you need a race to go badly so you can learn for next time! What did I learn? Don't mess with routine, have caffeine before the race. Plan, plan, plan, I had no race plan for this race, I looked at it more as a long training run than a race and I need to look at all races as races even if they are just small stepping stones on the way to the big race!!

So, whats been happening?

Right, I haven't quite fallen off the face of the planet but have been taking some time out from blogging etc for a number of reasons. Partly cos I couldn't be bothered, it seemed almost like it was a bit of a chore and it has been nice to tell people what I have been up to without them saying, 'yeah I read that on your blog' also partly I have been in a bit of a funk. Yes, me, really! It was bad but not bad at the same time, I did some learning while I was funking, did a bit of analysing about all sorts of stuff. Realised that I quite like myself so that's good and knew it was all turning round for the better when I actually googled to see whether or not extroverts get depressed! I'd never really been in a funk before so didn't know what that was about eh! I am just very pleased that it was relatively short lived, well compared to some other stories I have heard anyway. One of the guys told me it took him till August to get excited about IM again after doing his first one, yikes!! We had this conversation in May so it scared me some! Turns out having another big goal lined up doesn't make things easier, just so you know if you have similar plans/thoughts when entering that big race! I took a few days annual leave in late June and basically bunked nearly all of my training that week cos I was enjoying sleeping in and not going out in the cold cos I didn't have too for any other reason, then I realised how quickly that next race was sneaking up and realised that I needed to get off my chuff and basically harden the f__k up and just do my training! I have less time this time around as I am racing in January so it does mean I have to train a bit more on wintry days but I guess unlike some others who are over this winter thing I have generally been finding it ok, I seem to find enough parts of the week that aren't too cold and wet to get my training done in, this was probably helped by the fact that I haven't done a lot of cycling over winter as it has been all about the run! Now it is 6 months exactly till race day and I am into it, my training plan is challenging yet do-able which is good and I keep tweaking it with Richard in order to try and get the very best out of each session and that is good, its keeping me interested and excited and I seem to have a new idea every week or so which is keeping me fresh and alert.

So where to from here? I am off to do the Palmerston North Half Marathon again in mid-August, I really enjoyed this race last year so will be fun to test myself over the same course as it was where I set my PB half marathon time. Then South Island Half IM in November followed up by Challenge Wanaka in January.

There won't be so much blogging this time round, mainly cos the journey will be quite different I think. I know that I can physically and mentally complete an IM so that takes away a lot of the uncertainty that I had last time around. And I want it to be more about me than just about my training but a lot of that 'me stuff' I don't necessarily want or need to express in blog form. What I am doing is a lot of reading about goal setting, commitment to your goals and achieving your dreams. So all in all its looking to be quite a philosophical journey this time round, some of it I will share on here, some of it I won't, but I'll be around and I'll be training hard now that I have remembered where I hid those hard pills!!

See you out there training, at the pool, on the road or doing a bit of Bikram!