Then the good, the bad and the downright dirty!

So yesterday was the good! Considering that my day called for a 2hour 20 run and a 45 min swim there was a lot of potential for this to be a nasty day! After talking with Richard earlier in the week about the fact that I didn't really pay a lot of attention to my HRM other than look at the data afterwards.... This is mainly because at this stage of the game for me I have found it more beneficial to just try and keep running no matter what rather than put to much focus on my training zones, so now that my running has come into line and progressing quite well I have decided that I need to keep an eye on my zones (apart from those Tuesday hill runs cos they are just hard out!). After spending some considerable time playing round with my HRM on Sat am, I even had to get the manual out, I finally managed to correctly program in my Ownzone for my run. Add to that a quick detour to the Palms to get some nutrition cos I had forgot to go out and buy some gels at lunchtime on Friday (prob cos it was stink weather out and I had an evil headache that was refusing to leave home, ie me) then the dog and I headed off to his favourite place! He is so excited when he pull into the carpark at the plantation! Its funny! We got all loaded up with fuelbelt, water bottles, gels and even some treats for the dog. I decided I would be a bit boring and do 2 laps of the blue track again (once clockwise and once anti-clockwise) followed up by a final blast through the middle and back to bring it up to the 2 hours 20. Hmm quite a daunting length of time to be running, its the longest training run I have done to date and will be the last long run before the half marathon in 2 weeks time. I have gone longer on race days as my half marathon times are nothing to write home about, however these have involved a reasonable amount of walking. Today was good, other than stopping twice to try and find the blimmin' dog, why he thinks its funny to disappear into the really dense parts of the forest is beyond me! Then he bounces out looking all cute and looks at me as if to say why are you calling me, I've been right here all along! Grrr!!! So yay, cool that I can run that far now! Back to the HRM thing, I was a bit worried that I was going to hear 'beep beep' for the whole run but managed to stay within my zone fairly accurately most of the time, often when I was beeping I would look down and I would be one beat above my zone and it was pretty easy to pull it back. I hit the lap timer after each lap of the track so I could see what happened to my HR as I got more tired, I was pleased to see that between lap 1 and 2 my ave HR was only about 2 beats different, it was slightly higher on the second lap. But for the last wee blast to make up the time I was beeping flat out and was about 5 - 10 beats above where I should have been and just couldn't drop it back, so definitely more challenging to stay in the zone when you are tired. Still, I'm pretty happy with the overall effort. Swimming was fun as well, the pool was quite empty at QE2 which was nice. I did a fair amount of swimming with the pull buoy since my legs were sore from running also its good for working on my position in the water which I need to focus on so I swim better. Sat in the spa for a bit afterwards as well, I think I quite like this Saturday swim thing where I don't have to rush off anywhere afterwards. Managed to get quite a nice back massage from the spa jet, then did my legs as well, now this part may have looked to others as if I was pleasuring myself given the way I was propping myself on the edge of the spa so the jet could massage my leg, but tough, needs must and I sure as hell felt a lot better afterwards! heheee

Now for the bad, damn weather! Today was sposed to be a nice 4 hour cycle. Well, I headed off with Geoff and we met up with Boonen at Coffee Culture Cashmere as planned. We changed our plan from our original ride tho cos the hills were going to be nasty in that weather. We headed off over the Halswell Downs and I was soo cold and miserable by this stage that I piked out and came home! It was just gross out and it was cold and I was cold and it really wasn't fun. Yeah I know it could be like that on race day too, but hey I have done a helluva lot of training in the rain and crap so I think I'll be ok with that if it happens on race day! Got a flat tyre about 3kms from home, that really pissed me off cos my tyres were muddy and gross so I got absolutely filthy changing that and managed to break the end of the valve off in my pump. Had to waste a CO2 cartridge cos I wasn't carrying my normal pump for a change. Still the hot shower was nice when I got home, then walked the dog to the dairy for the Sunday paper and sat down with the paper for the afternoon.

The downright dirty was my bike after todays ride! I only cleaned her last week too but now she was filthy! Poor girl, so I spent a good hour or so cleaning her this afternoon and changing the rear tyre again since I stuffed the valve on the one I put in.

Quote for the Day:

The only time success comes before work is in the dictionary.

- Unknown