Another busy week is coming to an end! I had my swim analyzed/assessed/whatever you want to call it the other day which was interesting. I was at Aquagym along with Tim who Richard also coaches and just to increase the audience size Richard was there as well. It wasn't really too bad, it's just never fun being critiqued is it even when you know damn well that there is heaps you can do to improve what you are doing. The major 2 things I have to work on (so far) are relaxing my neck, do you have any idea how hard it is to relax when someone is standing there telling you to relax?? And the other is lifting my hands higher on my recovery, I need to pretend those wee flags run the length of the pool and try and touch them for the whole length, thats quite challenging and I can really feel that my left arm is less co-operative than my right, oh and of course I need to try and relax my neck while doing this! Went for a swim on Thursday and tried to put all this into practise, phew I got tired a lot quicker thats for sure, all that thinking while swimming is hard work!
Went and did my normal good deed yesterday and donated plasma, for those who want to know what is involved go and check out the NZBlood website. I used to donate blood but cos I have lowish Ferritin levels it would take me awhile to recover so I started donating plasma which is better as I get to keep my red blood cells and I can give more regularly about every 4-5 weeks which is cool. It takes a bit longer, it can take up to an hour so I just make sure I have a good book and plan it for my rest days. And yay my iron levels were actually better than just borderline for a change! And I have been a bit slack about remembering to take my iron tablets so that is really good that my iron levels have increased!
Had the best run today! I thought I was sposed to run for 2 hours so was quite happy to notice that it was really only an hour 40. Took the dog to the plantation again, he just loves it there! Bless him, he has such a good time and it takes ages to wear him out! He is currently crashed out on the couch and I don't think he will be moving for the rest of the night! We zipped around the blue track again and once back at the carpark headed back into the plantation along the purple track for about 20mins before turning round to head back. I was trying out PowerBar gels today to see what they are like, FYI the Banana/Strawberry one is gross! Who the hell thought up that flavour combo? Ick! Honestly it was that icky that I had to stop so I could get it down, once I downed a few mouthfuls of fluid as well it was a bit better, I tried a chocolate one a bit later and it was a bit better but not near as nice as GU's. Guess I better get used to them though cos thats what's on course at IM. So other than stopping for my two fuel stops there was no walking at all today which is a huge improvement over last weeks effort where those little undulations on the track felt like mountains! Maybe it was the donating of plasma, maybe it has side effects like EPO, heheee.
Right, off for dinner with work folk at the Fox and Ferret so that will be nice and then fingers crossed that the weather holds for a nice 4 hour hill ride tomorrow! Yeah, bring it on!!
Quote for the Day:
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
- Ann Landers
2 comments:
I wondered if you might be out running in the forest. I kept an eye out for you both.
Good luck for the ride tomorrow. I'm almost jealous.
Aah don't be jealous, 4 hours on the hills with the boys? They are already whining cos I told them its not a coffee ride so there will be no stopping! I was sposed to do the run for Yvonne but it never turned up in my program and I haven't really been able to get any decent rides in lately so that takes priority at the moment.
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