First the week...

Gosh I've been a wee slacker! No blog updates for a week now! I'll give you the weekly stuff then do the weekend separately! At the moment I am tapping away on my blog while soaking my feet in the foot spa, ahhh feels good!

Week was good, all the normal stuff happening. Swim on Monday, thats usually when I do a 1km TT to see how I am going as its my long swim of the week. TT time was about normal give or take a few secs so I'm pretty happy with that esp as I am working on my technique at the moment. I must say it is sometimes a bit hard to get exciting about swimming 40 lengths, esp as once that's done I still have more than half my swim session left to do! Can't wait till its warm enough to open water swim again, no more black lines on the bottom of the pool and turning every 25m.

Tuesday at the marathon clinic was hard! Eeek, I think I felt a little ill when we got the email about the run! Imagine this if you will...... run up Barrington St, up Hackthorne to the Takahe, down via Kidson Terrace, Dyers Pass Rd then hill repeats x 3 up Merlewood, down Dyers. If you have ever been anywhere near Merlewood you will know that this is evil! I was quite relieved when they said we had the option of doing 1, 2 or 3 repeats up Merlewood. I didn't want to be a sook so figured I would aim to do 2. Well getting to the Takahe was harder than normal for some reason, I had a goal to run non-stop to the Cup, well that was a goal that wasn't achieved. Can't win em'all I guess. So was thinking maybe just once up Merlewood would be the go. Started running with one of the guys and we managed the first trip up Merlewood after having a nice chat on the way down Dyers. Neither of us was feeling particularly excited about doing another repeat. We looked at each other and said well do you wanna go again? I said that it didn't feel that bad now we had been up there so I would do another lap if he was keen, he agreed that if I was in he would join me so that was nice. We headed back down Dyers for another lap, it hurt a little more this time but I was feeling pretty good after not piking out after one lap. Had to work hard on the way back running with him tho! When we were chatting earlier he told me his slowest 1/2 marathon time was 2.06, eek I would be happy if that was my quickest time, needless to say I had to put in a fair bit of effort to stay with him on the way back down Barrington, conversation from my side was reduced to the occasional grunt! hehee

Hmm spin on Wednesday, poor Graham is always pushing me to go harder at spin, what he didn't understand was how hard that Tuesday run is and how mean it is to go to spin the next night and expect to put out a similar level of effort. I emailled him my program after this weeks effort and he now believes that Richard must be punishing me for something since my program is so much harder than his! I guess thats the difference between cycling only and training for IM!

Thursday I was going running with Kalina, the weather was nasty as out and about! The Avon just about flooded its banks and threatened to cross the road and head up the drive yet when I texted Kalina to ask if she was still keen for a run she said yep, I'll just get changed and I'll be right over! Man was I impressed! It was a night when most people would want to stay indoors but Kalina has been taking some serious hard pills lately and she turned up all ready to go and never complained about the weather or how hard it was!! We took the dog with us and headed off round the river from home which is just over a 5km loop. Zac had his first off lead run near traffic and he did really well, I had one of my wee flashy bike lights attached to his collar so the cars and I could see him in the dark. Kalina was awesome as well, she ran non-stop for the whole run and even managed a sprint finish to the end!! We were soaked but had heaps of fun out and about on a stormy night!

Quote for the Day:
Don't take life too serious. You'll never escape it alive anyway.

- Elbert Hubbard