Can she blog? Yes she can!

Yeah yeah I know, its been ages! I've been busy! These last few weeks of IM training have been tough, fun but tough! 2 more biggish days tho and then its taper time! Blimey, this time in 2 weeks I will hopefully be asleep getting a good rest before race day!!

So what has been happening? There was another of those fun 180km rides! This time it wasn't roasting hot out tho which was nice, in fact it was pretty chilly and I wore my leg warmers, arm warmers and jacket for the whole 180km, just over 6 and a half hours on the bike, even got rained on a few times. I wore my knob (aero) helmet for this ride just to check out what it would be like to wear it for so long. It was ok actually cos it was cooler out, in fact it kept my ears and head nice and warm which was good. So decision is now made about the helmet, I will wear it at IM unless it is going to be a stinking hot day. Ohh and when you cycle round town wearing it its a little like the compression sock thing, after awhile you just stop noticing the funny looks. One thing that made me decide to wear it for a long practise ride was when someone said 'gosh when I see a cyclist wearing a helmet I just think thank goodness they are wearing one and being safe, I don't think about what kind of helmet it is' Well that was good enough for me! haha

Last week was also the Canterbury Tri Club Classic Tri, a 'nice' Olympic distance on the hilly country roads at Motanau Beach, hmmm not the most fun you could have after a 180km ride the day before. Let's just say that even the swim was hilly, it was hot and hard out there and I can think of far more fun things to do on my birthday!! It was a kinda momentous occasion tho in that it was 5 years to the day that I did my first ever triathlon, yep I did my first ever tri on my birthday, in the rain even!! And here I am 5 years later and only a few weeks away from my first IM. Thats pretty cool I reckon!

Tomorrow is the Corsair Bay Oceanswim, currently the weather outside is nasty so this doesn't bode particularly well for tomorrow but I guess we just go out and do it anyway cos it could be shite on race day! I will however being doing a windtrainer ride tomorrow if it is still raining, it would just be daft to go out and risk sliding off my bike in the wet this close to race day.

I think I have easy weeks sorted now and they just aren't easy, they are still all about pain! Mainly cos you are so buggered from the last 2 weeks that doing what should be easy stuff requires almost as much effort as on a hard week. Also I noticed that on easy weeks I am less careful about what I eat and didn't always eat a proper dinner which wouldn't help for sure. I also noticed that on easy weeks I tend to not set myself goals in my training program which means I have less of a focus on what I am doing which again makes things harder. Things to learn from I guess although that will be the last easy week in a while!

Right, its well past my bedtime now! 11pm!! Yikes! Lucky its a Friday and the Oceanswim doesn't start early! I will be gooder and try and post a little more often! Promise!