More Piccies

The official pics are up now, go here: http://www3.marathon-photos.com/scripts/event_entry.py?job=Sports/RSNZ/2008%20Sports/South%20Island%20Half%20Ironman

I have ordered mine as there are heaps and heaps of them!

Pics from the Half IM

Here is the lazy version of the pics, I have uploaded them onto Facebook, they will make it here eventually. In the meantime you can check them out here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=69444&l=72215&id=654229553

Half IM - The longer version

Alrightee, I have now slept and eaten etc so here is the whole day from go to whoa.

The Race Plan:

The goal was 6 hours, this was a pretty big goal as last year I did it in 6 hours 36 so I was banking on being able to carve 36mins off my time which is quite a chunk! Richard and I planned it out earlier in the week, we worked out that if I swam the same time (its hard to know how your swimming is tracking when you can't really measure/time yourself in open water) and managed to maintain hour laps on the bike that would leave me to do 45 min laps on the run and give me 5 mins to spare! Yikes, not a lot of leeway eh! Still, 5mins is 5mins! The other part of the plan was to enjoy myself so I had to smile! And Richard promised to check the race pics for smiles so there was a fair bit of pressure there!

I also met up with Catherine, my nutritionist, earlier in the week and checked that my eating plan was on track and double-checked eating rates for during the race. She had some great carbo-loading ideas including using ice-cream, yum! She also suggested having something small and sweet to eat while in T1 or as soon as I got on the bike.

The Race:

Got there nice and early as I like to do and caught up with a few people before putting my ipod on and zoning out while setting up my gear. Off to be numbered and a quick trip to the loo. Back to transition to quickly check that everything was sorted and how I wanted it then another quick trip to the loo, as I was in the loo this time they announced that race briefing was about to start, blimey I wasn't even in my wetsuit yet! So headed off to the briefing with my wetsuit and baby oil in hand to dress while listening. After briefing a quick sprint back to transition to grab my cap and goggles and barely had enough time to get in the water before we were off, no mucking around this morning!

The swim start was full on! Lots of biffo going on, I was getting punched and hit from all directions and ended up doing some of the same, its a bit difficult not too when you have someone on either side of you and someone almost on top of you! It did settle down a bit not far after the first buoy so that was nice, not sure I could put up with 2kms of biffo! Swim was 2 laps of a triangle, first lap was challenging navigationally but second lap was heaps easier once you had a vague idea where you were heading. Bit of a run into transition, T1 went really smoothly which was nice. I was puffing a bit much too eat my red licorice in T1 so put it in my pocket for on the bike and managed to lose it on the way out of transition. Oh well!

Had a quick look at my watch to see what my swim time was and could only see my HR flashing at me so realised I hadn't pushed it hard enough to start timing so hit the start button again. It stayed on my HR so I figured I had managed to change the way I view my watch or something. I had taped over part of it so I wouldn't look at my HR during the race. At this point I decided not to worry about it too much as I just wouldn't look at it and the splits would be recorded to look at later.

I was feeling quite hungry by now and was a bit annoyed that I had dropped my licorice! Figured best I get stuck into eating pretty quick so I didn't fall behind on the nutrition plan. The previous night I had carefully peeled open my Powerbars a wee bit and placed them in my bento box on my bike, as I tried to get one out I realised that of course they had stuck together now! Grrr! Serious frustration trying to get one out, I started wobbling all over the place on my bike getting really annoyed that I couldn't get one out! This is where my first self-talking effort came in, I had to clam myself down pretty quick, so was telling myself, relax, stay calm, there's plenty of time to eat, let's be sensible the race has just started! After doing that I managed to ease a bar out by lifting it from the non-stuck end, after eating some I shoved it in the pocket of my tri-suit so it was easier to get to (and ewww, I think I still have half a powerbar in my tri-suit pocket!). The cycle went really well, there was a bit of a tailwind on the way out which meant a bit of a headwind on the way back. Not enough to be a huge pain but enough so you could feel it. I had a bike target of 3 hours which meant an hour a lap, or 30mins each way, basically I had to maintain a 30kph average or it meant I likely wouldn't meet my target time. By some fluke my speedo was set to the ride average instead of where I would normally have it on actual speed, I decided this was a good idea as I don't constantly look at my speedo so its hard to tell what speed you really are travelling at. On the way out it was nicely over 30kph so I knew I had a bit to play with in the headwind coming back. Going into the wind I could feel it a little more in my legs than I would have liked so I just smiled as per the race plan and forgot about the pain. It's true, smiling does make everything feel better and I also reminded myself that it takes less muscles to smile which was good, don't want to be wasting energy by frowning! It was a bit cooler than last year so I didn't drink quite as much on the bike, only went through 2 bottles this year. Still managed to eat plenty and stuck to the plan as well as remembering to sit up and stretch regularly this year so I could get off the bike in the best condition possible. One thing I really need to practise is my turn arounds on the bike, I am such a spas and really struggle to turn on those tiny wee country roads! This year the turn around at transition was a narrow one as well, so good old me unclips to get around, I got a lovely round of applause from the crowd so I promised them I would be back twice more for their entertainment!! First lap: 1 hour and 44secs. This time when I hit my HRM it actually started! Great at least it was working now but I had no idea how long I had been going! Second lap was pretty much the same as the first, there was a little more going on with the sprint race out on course as well now so that was interesting. I quite like this course as you get to see everyone when you are near the turn arounds which is nice. It also means you can track if anyone is catching up to you or getting away from you! I seemed to feel the headwind a bit more in my legs on the way back this time so just smiled and told myself that it didn't hurt anymore than the first lap and I would be fine. Second lap: 58mins and 55secs, so a little quicker and still on track. Third lap started well and was fine on the way out, on the return leg though I was starting to feel it in my back from being on my aerobars so long so did a few more sections up on the hoods of my handlebars while I was going into the wind and did more stretching than the previous laps and then dropped onto my aerobars and put the hammer down when I came back into the tailwind. Third lap: 1 hour and 59 secs! So my cycle leg went according to plan, I had no idea if I was on track for my total time tho but figured if I stuck to the plan for the run I should be ok or be pretty damn close!

T2 was pretty smooth, put socks on which is an unusual event for me but figured it was a smart move for that run distance, grabbed a handful of gels and bag of sweets and headed off into the distance.

Here's where things would either go really well or completely fall apart as they did last year. I headed off running fairly comfortably considering I had just spent 3 hours on the bike, the plan was to at least run all of the first lap. This plan changed pretty quickly, for what reason I'm not even sure now. I walked through the first drink station then picked up the pace again, had another bit of a walk then ran to the next drink station. I had been wanting to go to the loo for awhile by now, I tried to pee while swimming but that didn't work out so I figured it would be sensible to stop at the loo on the way past, I worked out that the time spent there would make up for time I would lose while being uncomfortable running. Just so you know, it takes 1 min to pee in a race! Tri-suits are handy, because I wear a sports bra I unzipped my tri-suit and had it down near my hips by the time I was at the loo and pulled it back up to there when I left the loo and pulled it up properly while running along! Heading into the cul-de-sac near the end of the lap Andrew Black caught up with me (he was on his 3rd lap!) and asked how I was tracking, I told him I had no idea and asked how he was going, he was on target for a PB and let me know he had been going for 4 hours and 13mins. Sweet, finally I had some idea of how long I had been going and worked out that I had an hour and 45mins to do 2 and a bit laps of the run which meant that I was tracking really well for my target time. I went through the first lap in about 43mins so right on track! I decided to move onto drinking coke on lap 2 and went with the plan of walking the drink stations with a little walk in between, I was kinda sorted now on landmarks to run and walk too and gave myself some quite strict guidelines to follow which was good and meant I ran considerably more than I walked. Lap 2 was just on 45mins so still tracking well. When I ran past Kalina and Geoff near the end of the lap they were yelling at that I was doing really well, it was really nice to just smile and say 'yep, I know!' Lap 3 started with the same plan of attack, however by now the wind had really picked up and was pretty evil running up along the back of the lake, it was really hard going against a wind that strong which meant an extra walk, mainly cos I could walk faster with less effort that I was running! Once I got of the stop bank and was heading around the road the last time the big self talk moments started, by this stage I had 20mins to run 3km, I told myself there was no wind and that running was easy! I gave myself a target where I was allowed to walk too and had a pre-set target of where I was running too. As I got near my made up run start point I was talking to myself saying, ok here we go, you're a good runner, off you go! And yes this was all out loud, lucky there wasn't really anyone near me at this stage, they would have thought I was stark raving bonkers for sure!! That worked really well, so I did the same thing again, which took me up to the last aid station. Then onto the cul-de-sac for the last time and there was the 20km marker across the road, so I told myself that I was allowed to walk to the end and then I had a tailwind to blow me home and that it was a nice easy 1km to then end and that was a piece of cake, it was going to be easy! And of course I was smiling the whole time! It was a great feeling hitting that boardwalk for the last time, it's great when you can literally smell the finish line!! I was feeling pretty good about making my 6 hour target although I figured I had cut it pretty fine, so wasn't surprised when I got to the finish chute and someone yelled out 'you've got about 30 seconds!' I managed to crank out a good sprint to get me over the line in time and then fell on the grass to catch my breath!

Wicked day out! The weather was fab, not much wind till later and nowhere near as hot as last year! And to come in at 5 hours 55mins which was 5min under my goal was awesome! Turns out I didn't need that spare 5mins which is great!

Bring on Ironman, it's only 14 weeks and 6 days away in case anyone is wondering!

Half IM - I rocked it!!

This is the short version, I think I need sleep so I can blog properly!

I had a goal time of 6 hours and finished it in 5 hours 55mins! That is wicked!

Due to my own inability to push the buttons on my HRM hard enough, the first time I truly knew who I was tracking was about 4 and a quarter hours into the race, near the end of the first lap on the run.

When I went over the race plan with Richard the other day we worked out that I had 5 mins leeway so that tells you how well planned my race was, I came in with that 5mins to spare!

Wicked wicked day, not much wind, the rain stayed away, I stuck to my nutrition plan and race plan and learnt to talk to myself!!

Everyone went really really well today, I'm very impressed with all the girlies :) and the boys who raced it for the first time!

Nearly there!

Phew, its been a long couple of weeks since my last blog. As my training gets longer and harder my blogs seem to get less frequent, while I am out on those long runs/cycles I think of lots of interesting things to say and by the time I get home I am too tired to blog it! Oh well, thems the breaks of playing in the big kids sandpit eh!

Soo, here we are, 2 sleeps out from the Ashburton Half IM, training is done, taper is happening, the carbs are being consumed and the race pack has been picked up! This time last year I was in a huge panic and feeling quite overwhelmed by the whole thing, this year it seems almost just like another race although I am sure once I start packing etc tomorrow it will all kick in!

It's been a funny week, although last weeks training was an easy week it was still pretty full on, apparently easy weeks now consist of 3 1/2 plus hour rides and 90 min runs in the weekend, I remember when that was a hard week! I looked back at last years program out of curiosity and was horrified at the difference, last year the weekend before the Half IM I had 45 min run and a 60 min cycle! Having said that I probably wouldn't have been able to handle this weekends training a year ago, it would have wiped me out! Taper has been entertaining, Carol (my massage lady) was nice and gentle this week, none of that hard deep stuff which was heavenly for a change! Tuesday was a 30 min swim, hard but quick followed up with an hour long cycle that evening. I headed out to Sumner and back around 6pm and it was a nice evening for a ride and I was seconds off beating my fastest ever Sumner and back time, silly head wind coming round the river on the way home! I was a bit worried I had gone too hard on the cycle, I did have a couple of intervals to do in there but I was really trying to crank it to beat my time, I checked my program when I got home and the ride was supposed to have a highish intensity so that was ok! Wednesday was just a 30min run with a few intervals again. I headed off for a lap around the river loop, the weatherman kindly decided it was time to rain just as I headed out the door, story of my life running in the rain! Had a great run last night, ran with my ipod on just for a change and I felt fantastic! Here's hoping that bodes well for Saturday! Now its just rest time, feet up, cup of tea, keep stoking the carbs in! Went to the nutritionist on Monday so am all sorted nutrition wise for carbo loading and on the day so that is good. Plus I am going into the race 6 kilos lighter than I was the same time last year so that is cool! Only thing to not go so well this week has been work, it's been flat out and I have got stuck there till 6pm a couple of nights! Grrr, its wrong that I am losing sleep about annual leave over Xmas! Never mind, its all sorted now! Kalina and I are heading down to Ashburton tomorrow afternoon so I get a nice sleep-in and will pick Kalina up from work before heading down. I have done no packing of any kind so tomorrow will be all about that and taking my bike for a quick spin, Geoff has loaned me his pretty race tyres and super-light tubes so best I have a wee blat on her tomorrow and see how they feel as they are less grippy than what I am used to. May go for a quick dip at Lake Hood tomorrow depending when we get there, it is the final of Top Chef so that may well take priority! Right, nearly time for sleepies for this kid and other than keeping a watchful eye on the weatherman its all over bar the racing! Bring on Saturday I say!! :)

Ohh, hard weekend!

Blimey, the last 2 days before an easy week are always kinda tough and this weekend was no exception! To make it more interesting I had to work on Saturday morning, after finishing at 1pm I headed off home, meandered down to the local school to cast my vote then quickly tried to eat enough food to sustain me for a 4 hour ride. Nadia kindly offered to keep me company for part of my ride which was cool as we don't see much of each other these days with all the training we are both doing. It was after 2 by the time we headed out and the wind had kicked in and it wasn't a warm day out there either so we were pretty well wrapped up on our bikes. We headed off to do the Bridge St ride which heads out through Spencerville, Kainga and round the back of the airport. We came across a fair number of drop-kicks who thought it was amusing to yell stuff at us as they went flying past at great speeds! Little charmers! Not! Nadia headed off home after we looped around the airport and I was cruising along quite nicely until I got to Templeton where the road changed direction just enough for me to get the full benefit of that head/side wind which wasn't nice at all! It was hard work heading out to Halswell and then all along the base of the hills was straight into the wind! Ouch! I decided against heading to Sumner, I decided that the tailwind back along the causeway wasn't going to make up for the sufferfest that it was going to be on the way out there. So I looped back along the base of the hills enjoying the tailwind until I had to turn around and battle it all the way home. Had a great run off the bike today, I was feeling pretty shattered as it had been a hard cycle and I got off feeling like I could barely walk let alone run so I was quite happy to have a good run, everything seemed to fall into place and I felt really good running along.

Sunday dawned with a 2 hour run on the cards, it was a pretty nice morning this morning, good running weather being a little cool. I had decided that I would run the ChCh half marathon course since it runs past home anyway and I needed to do a flat asphalt kind of run. I started off feeling not too bad but it all managed to fall apart and at one point I contemplated sitting in the gutter and having a good cry then calling for a ride home, however I took a hard pill or ten and kept trucking along. It took awhile by the time I kept waiting for traffic lights etc so I detoured home without doing the full lap around the river and I was still over the 2 hours. Then off to Corsair Bay for a swim, I was a bit dubious about this with the snow we had this week, I was expecting the water to be freezing! Let's just say it wasn't warm but I did manage to swim with my face in the water today without getting an ice cream headache so that was good. I didn't swim for the full hour as it was still fairly cold but I did swim constantly today and managed 2 laps around the bay which was good.

Dropped my bike in for a service today, had a good chat to Darryn about all the rattles etc my bike seems to have developed so we had a good play around and noticed that both of my bottle cages are broken! The wee tab at the bottom that holds the bottles in has snapped, that explains why my bike sounded like an old rattler last week when we were on those hard chip roads down in Ashburton. Phew, thats a bit cheaper than a new bottom bracket! Still at $65 each I would have expected them to last a bit longer than they did. So my wee girl is at the bike shop for a few days which will keep the boys happy as they like to play with her, I wonder how many times she gets taken out for a spin while she's there??

Snow?? Really!

So, its November now, that conjures up thoughts of sunshine and warmth. But no, we get snow!! Crazy!

Wednesday night was spin (was sposed to be an outdoor ride but reverted to spin as it was soo cold out) then a run off the bike. Spin was all good, it was inside in the warm! My thighs were feeling it a little after running in the plantation the night before, it's all sandy in there at the moment so I wouldn't recommend it, it was hard yakka! I toughed it out through spin and wasn't really looking forward to the run however Al normally comes with me and we usually have a good time so we got ready to head out after deciding that we would run on the hills behind us rather than heading over to Rapaki like we have been doing recently. So, as we go to leave it starts to rain, so now not only is it really cold out it is raining too! Great! We had managed to convince someone else to join us so we decided to be tough and head out anyway. Well about 15mins in that rain had little white particles in it, it was snow!! By this point we were absolutely frozen and soaked so we called it quits and ran back to Pioneer. Once back there we loaded bikes etc into cars and then the sun came out and it warmed up? WTF?? That's just nuts! We looked at each other and briefly considered heading back out but quickly decided that would just be foolish!

Next morning I had to do a 90min cycle, I was very unimpressed to see that the weather man was trying to tell me that it felt like minus 3 degrees outside! The worst part was that he was right! Blimey it was cold, I kinda wrapped up but not enough, I couldn't find my leg warmers so was wearing unlined knee warmers and had short finger gloves. After about 5mins I thought my fingers were going to fall off! I really wanted to hit red lights for a change so I could try and warm my fingers up by holding them under my armpits! I headed up Mt Pleasant Road, this is only the second time I have attempted this climb, last time was prob 18 months or so ago and I really struggled, I had to stop about 3 times so I decided that if I can make it up Dyers from Governors Bay then it Mt Pleasant should be easy. Not sure that I would say that it is easy, it's a constant climb, there are no flat parts but I did manage to do the whole climb in a gear no bigger than a 21 so I was pretty happy with that. What hurt was getting to the top and seeing snow! Brr!! I had finally warmed up on the climb which was really nice and the view out over the bay from up there was stunning, definitely worth getting out of bed early for!! I froze again on the descent as you would expect on a day like that but the real fun part was getting a flat tire on the causeway, it was more a case of when rather than if I got one as there was heaps and heaps of glass on the roads from Guy Fawkes the night before. So there I was on the causeway at 8am in peak traffic changing my tire, at least I had the good sense not to stick my bum out towards the traffic while I was changing my tire! Haha

Race report for 2nd Womens Tri

Here we are a week later so figured I better write a race report for last weeks race. I got a bit busy doing the boys blog for the 5 Passes.

There's not really a lot to report this time as everything went ok which was really nice. The weather was good, yay! I got there nice and early again, I do like that end spot on the rack, it's just easier to find and less crowded with only one person beside you. The nice/unusual thing about today was the complete lack of nerves, I was a little nervy at the last one, probably just because it was the first one of the season, nothing this time tho which was nice but odd. Possibly even made me a little too casual about the whole thing!

Swim went well, I managed to be first out of the water in my wave again, there were only 3 of us and I dropped the other 2 girls at the end of the first lap and no-one passed me which was nice. Had to battle my way in between a couple of breast-strokers on the last length. Quick sprint to transition and off on my bike. Time for swim and T1: 5.30mins

Cycle was pretty cruisey, not much of a wind which was nice and I got all settled on my aero-bars and was turning over a good cadence without a lot of effort so just took it pretty easy knowing that I had to go for a 2 hour ride later, it is weird to be thinking about doing training after but thats life these days. Played a little bit of cat and mouse with Lynette over the last few kms when I caught her so that was kind of fun. Another nice quick transition and off onto the run. Time for cycle and T2: 32.27mins

Run was interesting, legs were a bit achey from running into that wind at Ashburton the day before but they co-operated and I cranked out the 2 lap, 4km run without any dramas and no walking either which is always my challenge! Total time for run: 21.49mins

Total time of 59.43 which placed my 10th for my age group and 25th overall so definitely happy with that esp as I was both quite tired from the day before and the lack of sleep over the previous few days and knowing I had to train later in the day as well. Time was still a couple of minutes quicker than last year so its nice to continually see the improvements.

Got some nice finish pics for a change, it's amazing what happens when you remember to smile as you cross the line. Go here to check them out: http://www.nzinsure.com/gallery2/2008/?Qwd=./PhysioMed_2_08_Finishing_B4_0938&Qif=EWP_02_11_08_No_166.jpg&Qiv=thumbs&Qis=M

Ride afterwards was a little challenging as the wind had picked up again, luckily not as bad as the day before however I somehow managed to end up biking home into a headwind which wasn't a lot of fun and I managed to improve the state of my tan lines! I'm looking really rather sharp now......not! Oh well, such are the breaks on the warm days!

Ash Vegas

Gee, what a day! Why does the weather never co-operate when you have something planned? And yes I know it's good to train in all weather but I'm telling you now if its that windy at the Half Ironman I am pulling out!

Right, back to the start.

Today's plan was to head off to Ashburton to do a simulation on the Half IM course. Kalina and I loaded bikes in the car and headed off to Ashburton to meet up with Clare and Rachel and family. After a detour via Halswell so I could pick up my HRM strap which I somehow 'lost' at spin the other night we were off with my wee car laden down with bikes and other assorted triathlon gear (triathletes have a lot of stuff!). Pretty uneventful trip down, it seemed pretty windy on the way there but fairly calm in Ashburton which was nice.

It was cold when we got to Lake Hood and all of a sudden the thought of getting in a wetsuit and into cold water was less than appealing but tough gals that we are we quickly suited up and jumped in the water. It was initially pretty chilly but seemed to warm up unlike the sea, or maybe we are just used to being cold now? We swam (mostly swam) for about 30 mins, the water is really clear at the moment and you can see all the weed which is kinda creepy, Clare thought they were triffids and didn't seem very impressed. I kept swimming without sighting and managed to beach myself on the other side of the canal!!

The plan was then to do 2 laps each of the cycle and run course. So after a long transition putting bikes together and loading up pockets etc with food, oh and looking at the 3-eyed fish Graham found on the shore while we were swimming, we headed off with the obligatory girlie stop at the loos on the way out. The cycle was a bit of a challenge as they are doing road works at the first corner and the road was closed, so we headed down to the detour only to discover that the detour went down a gravel road and none of us were keen to go down there on our bikes so we headed further down the road only to come across more gravel roads! We decided to head back and try the other road near the road works, this was a bit less fun as we were now riding into a headwind! We turned left at the corner and had the wind at our side now which presented some interesting challenges where the hedges were stopping and starting! Once the hedges ended it was just crazy, I felt like I was having to lean right over just to try and stay upright and I could feel that I was just going to get blown off and land on the road hurt with a broken bike, it was bloody scary eh! I have been across the causeway at Sumner in some big winds but this was way way worse, I felt like I couldn't even hang onto my bike, I was scared to stop in case I got blown over trying to clip out! I finally got the courage up to stop and the others all stopped as well, we agreed that we were foolish to keep going as falling off and hurting ourselves wasn't going to help any of us achieve our goals so we headed back to Lake Hood.

Packed everything back in the car and on with the runners to head off for a lap around the lake. That was hard work in the wind as well especially as running up the far side of the lake was straight into the headwind. The lake had gotten a lot choppier since we had swum and the wind wasn't showing any sign of letting up. Other than the wind the run went ok which was good. Rachel's daughter, Ella, was running with us as well, I was pacing off her which was good only thing is she was cruising it while I was puffing along behind her, she is a fit wee thing and a pretty good runner! We regrouped back at the cars before heading off for lap 2, it was just Clare and I for round 2 as the others had had enough by then which is fair enough, I figured I may as well get the running in since we couldn't really do the cycle. The second lap was a little harder, mainly wind related as it seemed to be even stronger by now!

Kalina and I then headed for home stopping for some lunch on the way out of town. I am now very tired, too many early mornings for this girl! And another one on the cards for tomorrow!