Hmm I seem to get too busy to update my blog, I imagine that is going to get worse and not better as I train more. Maybe I need to get uber-geeky and send myself an appointment or something so I remember....

Anyway, an update is why we are here! Last time I posted it was IMNZ day! Woohoo! Lots and lots of watching the net seeing everyone finish, it was a late night but worth it to see Ginni beaming from ear to ear as she crossed that finish line :) Well done Ginni! I am impressed!!

The next morning I had my last tri of the season out in Rangiora, this was always going to be an interesting day as I had been for an 80min run the day before, the plan being to race tired so I would know how it felt.... Hmmm it felt interesting....My legs and glutes were pretty achey, they have been since those hill runs and spin. The swim went ok, I was in a wave with all the quickies (I may have lied about my est swim time) and got bashed around a fair bit at the start, its an honest 750m swim so I wasn't superfast but survived. The bike was ok to start with cos we had a tailwind at that point, I could feel my legs hurting, mainly quads and glutes and knew I was in for a tough time and when I hit the headwind I was a bit over it. By then my legs just felt dead and they didn't wanna play anymore! Bonus is I spent a huge amount of time on my aerobars which was cool and I felt fine on them. I was pretty worried about how ugly the run might get given how I was feeling but figured I would just try and tough it out as long as I could. So after about 200m I wanted to walk.....not good, so I convinced myself that I would try and run the first lap and then re-evaluate. Well by then I had run half of it so decided I could keep going, plus other people were walking and I didn't want to be one of them! About half way thru the second lap I had a who cares moment and slowed to walk but pulled myself into line before I walked and just hung in there. I started lining people up to pass and that helped heaps. I managed to turn out another PB which is pretty cool! Yay, and managed to be quicker than a couple of folk who normally whip my butt! So thats it for triathlons for awhile, the wetsuit has been soaked and dried and about to be put away for winter!

Still plenty of training going on tho which is heaps of fun. I am really enjoying my running at the moment, it seems to be coming along in leaps and bounds which is cool. Have been doing some fun random things like running home from work, am quite stoked that I managed to run home about 5-6 mins quicker than previously (yes I ran the same route home!). I think all that running up the Capt. Thomas walkway has helped, I never used to do hills before but they are fun, I need to get that booklet that has all the Port Hills runs and walks so I can vary my runs a bit. Have been having fun doing the swim sessions of swimplan.org, heaps of variety to keep me motivated in the pool, might have a go at a 3.8km timetrial this weekend just for fun!

Not long now till Graperide, I'm looking forward to that, it was an awesome event last year and should be good again this year esp as we get a bottle of vino as returning riders. Then Around Brunner the week after so it should be all fun and games in April!!

Eeek, entries open for IMNZ in April, thats not far away! Best I find those $$ pretty quick to guarantee my place on that startline, am all fired up now after watching the SKY coverage of IMNZ 08!!

Quote for the Day:

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it's called the present.

- Unknown

Well what better time to update my blog than while listening to and watching ironmanlive!! So for those not in the know, the first weekend of March is Ironman weekend in NZ so that means it is just a year away, that's a lot closer than it was in November when I decided to start this journey! Tis all good, I am fully inspired now, am waiting up to watch Ginni finish and then it will be off to bed to try and get some sleep cos I have a race in the morning. Tomorrow's race is the North Canterbury Women's Tri and it better stop raining or I really don't think I wanna do it! Yeah I know I should just take some hard pills and get out and race in the rain but I ran for 80mins in the rain this morning and it was ok but not something you want to do everyday. Anyway I guess I will be there and will race no matter what the weather is doing, the poor Wilier tho she will look rather disgusting after going out in that nasty weather!

Its been a fun week training this week. Headed up the Capt. Thomas walkway again on Tues evening, had a really good run, managed to run a lot more of the uphills than I have previously so that was cool and I literally flew along the downhills which was heaps of fun!! Back to spin on Wednesday evening, funny I never used to like spin classes and I have really missed going to spin so am pleased its kicked off again! It was stinking hot on Weds so the shot runs outside were a blessing in disguise. Thursday seems to have become my day to bus to work and run home which I am really enjoying so that's cool and something different to do, it makes me practice running with my camel back which is good cos I need to use that for my longer runs. Might look at getting a fuel belt at some stage as well. Ran for what seemed like miles and miles today, I ran all along the river and estuary and got as far as Bridge St so was pretty impressed with that esp as I really didn't want to get out there to start with, but had heaps of fun once I got into it!

And yay my new speedo arrived for my bike! It is very flash, now I just need to find out how much I owe the bike shop...... hmmmm never a cheap experience but always a good one :)

Gosh I have been a bit slack at updating my blog haven't I? Things have been a bit busy with work, going support crew for the Coast to Coast as well as racing mid-week with the Surf'n'Turf series.

Surf'n'Turf's have been fun, I have just been doing the long distance swims as well as cycling out to Sumner for the race and then home again. Generally I've been pretty happy with my swim times esp as the water has usually been a reasonable level of choppy/wavy! I even managed to carry on my tinny luck of winning spot prizes by winning a pair of asics running shoes the other night. All good, I have been into the shop and my shoes are on the way! Yes I have been and bought a lotto ticket after my recent run of luck! Power ball is apparently $8 mill this week, wouldn't that be nice!!!

Hmmm trying to remember what else I have done since Timaru and its a bit of a blur really! Lots of training hard and getting older! It was my birthday last Friday so as usual I took the day off work, why work on your birthday if you don't have too! Geoff gave me his credit card for the day so I could buy clothes that fit! At last I no longer look like I am dressing out of the rag bin! Its nice to try on size 10's and 12's at the shop and discover that the 10's fit really nicely! I have no idea when I would have last bought a size 10 item of clothing, it would have been many years ago, maybe when I was half the age I am now...... Tried out the BBQ the next day by inviting lots of the girlies etc over for a BBQ, it was bucketing with rain so we BBQ'ed in the carport butheyit was still fun. The Oceanswim was cancelled that morning, the weather was foul. Big nasty southerly swells out in Corsair Bay. Kalina and I momentarily thought about going for a swim anyway and then decided that going for coffee would be a far nicer way to spend the morning! So a bit gutted that I didn't get to do the 2.8km swim but better safe than sorry I spose!

Sunday morning was the Canterbury Classic Triathlon at Corsair Bay. The water was flat as glass!! You wouldn't believe how flat it was after having seen it the previous day. The water was freezing cold tho after all that rain, huge ice-cream head-ache level of cold! Had a good race tho. Swim went well, T1 wasn't bad considering I had difficulty putting my shoes on cos my feet were frozen. Had a pretty good cycle, managed to pass a few folk and held Jazz and Tanya off for a reasonable distance, I knew I would beat them out of the swim but that they would catch me on the cycle. T2 again was fine except for the cold foot syndrome still hapening! I had a blimmin' great run for me! I started off running out of the carpark but that carpark is just nasty so I walked the last half and then ran the whole thing apart from that other nasty little steep part near Magazine Bay. Overall I was pretty stoked with my time, I was approx 9mins quicker than last year and 5mins of that was on the run! All those running technique classes must have paid off! Oh and won another spot prize at prize giving, a huge tub of Leppin this time and Tanya finally won her first ever spot prize!

I have started a new trend of running home from work about once a week. Its kinda fun, I hop on the bus in the morning with my camel back etc, leave most of my gear at work and run home. The best part is I am home by the time I would have got there on the bus and I don't have to turn around and head abck out cos I have already been for my run. Its real pretty running home along by the river.

Had a good ride up to the Kiwi and back yesterday morning, I left home around 6am, its still dark then by the way! It was gorgeous cycling thru town and up the hill while the city was waking up. By the time I was at the Kiwi, all the street lights were out and there were quite a few people out and about running and cycling etc, not much traffic tho which was really nice.

It will be up early-ish tomorrow to get in a nice 3 hour training session before we go to the cricket and sit in the sun and drink beer!

Quote of the Day:

Time is not measured by the passing of the years, but by what one does, what one feels, and what one achieves.

- Jawaharlal Nehru

Tribute to Merlin

RIP Merlin 16-09-1997 - 02-02-2008

My wee buddy of 10 years passed away this weekend. Merlin was the coolest dog, a big gentle giant and my old man! He loved nothing more than spending time with his family. He would happily come for a ride in the car, go for a walk and even a run although he would try and trip you up when he had had enough of running along! He would come for a drive when I would go swimming in the morning and would wait patiently in the car for me to come back so we could go home and have breakfast. He was great for having a nap on the couch with when you were tired from training or just tired, he would even let you use him as a pillow. He was very much a food loving dog and if you ever got the cheese out of the fridge he would hear you even if he was sound asleep at the far end of the house! He also knew that the last piece of toast was his and would patiently wait while you ate your breakfast knowing that I would save him a wee corner. My wee boy was also quite the couch potato loving nothing more than curling up on the couch for a cuddle while you watched telly, if he was human I reckon beer and motorsport would have been pretty high on his list of favourite things! He was such a sweetie, he would give you a kiss when you did stuff for him even if it was just filling his water bowl or giving him his breakfast.
We took Merlin to the vet a few weeks ago as he seemed to have a bit of a sore back and they put him on a course of steroids and he improved fairly quickly so after a few visits to the vet over a couple of weeks he seemed to be doing ok so he came off the steroids to see how he was. Two days later he was quite sore, he yelped when he was patted on his back, my boy never yelps he is a pretty tolerant boy, so he must have been pretty sore. Geoff took him down to the vet as I was still at work, I headed down there when I got home so I could find out what was going on. It appeared Merlin had regressed fairly quickly so back onto the steroids and he seemed to be doing ok over the weekend, he wasn't moving around quite as much but he still seemed ok. That was Friday, Monday when I got home he was quite sore, he was sitting up on the couch and didn't want to get down cos he knew it would hurt. So I decided to take him into the vet in the morning, I couldn't get an appointment at a time when I could make it so I dropped him off for the day. They took a few x-rays of his spine and the vet diagnosed him as having spondylosis which is a fusing of the spine. They recommended I leave him there overnight so that he could rest, something which is a little difficult for a dog to do in a house that has stairs everywhere! I went in to visit him the next day and he was having some trouble walking around. The vet ran some tests the next day as he thought he may have an infection which he did so onto antibiotics as well. His condition just didn't get any better and the next day he couldn't walk on his own, it was like his wee back just couldn't do what it was sposed to do anymore. you could see in his eyes that he was keen as anything to see you and he desperately wanted to stand up but just couldn't. So it was with much sadness that Merlin crossed over to the Rainbow Bridge on Saturday afternoon. He can now run around and hang out with his big sister Tara and the kitties that he has befriended over the years.

For those of you who don't know about Rainbow Bridge follow this link: http://petloss.com/

Timaru Triathlon

Packed up my wee car with bike and gear etc as well as Geoff and Pete who were racing as a team and headed off to Timaru on Saturday afternoon. Stopped on the way thru Timaru to register for the morning, I'm a bit intrigued about the race t-shirts looking very Wellingtonian in colour! All quite flash tho since it is one of the Contact Energy races this year, you get a rather nifty sheet of stickers with a sticker for just about everything including one for your supporter to wear so everyone knows who they are supporting! A little unimpressed about having to put a sticker on my bike, at least it only had to go on the seat pillar tho! Headed off to the camping ground where we discovered that our kitchen cabin was the tiniest thing ever and the six of us got to sleep in bunks for the night, that brings back memories of school camp! Drove off to check over the cycle course for those who hadn't raced it before, it was interesting to see Geoff go a little pale when he realised just how tough that cycle course is! I never said it was easy! It is a toughie thats for sure!! Checked out the run course and run to transition from the swim as well so Jazz knew where things were at for the morning.

Race day was pretty nice weather wise, was good to get to transition and start getting ready. Was funny that I hardly felt nervous whereas last year I just felt ill at the thought of how far I was going to have to swim and how long I was going to be racing.

Swim was a beach start with a short run into the water which is a little different to a lot of races I have done. Swim was 2 laps (1500m), the guys had started 5mins before us and the quick ones passed me when I was about 3/4 of the way thru my first lap! They were flying! I had a pretty good swim and came out feeling ok. That run up the beach to transition is huge, its about 400-500m, never mind, plenty of time to get of your wetsuit when you have to run that far!

T1 went pretty well, headed off on the bike feeling ok. My legs were kinda achey tho and had been the day before as well (maybe I went a bit too hard in that 5km run the other night?), the cycle leg seemed harder than last year for some reason. It didn't seem to matter what gear I picked it either felt too easy or too hard so I felt like I wasn't going as well as I could have. Silly speedo stopped going after about 3kms so that was kinda frustrating cos I had no idea how far thru the cycle leg I was.

T2 again was pretty smooth, headed off on the run feeling not too bad but not great either. Plodded along nicely to the first hill and then walked the hill, hills hurt and it was stinking hot! So decided to go with last years plan of attack and walk the up-hills and run everything else. Nadia caught up with me about 2/3 of the way thru the first lap and walked along beside me and then we just kinda stuck together doing my plan of walking the up-hills. Was kinda nice to have company and made me feel a bit better about walking parts, although I'm sure she was just humouring me by staying with me. Was funny at the finish, we sprinted in together which was kinda cool.

I went a bit quicker than last year so that is awesome, I have a nice tri-suit tanline all over again as well!

Times:

Swim + T1 - 35.20, Cycle - 1.27.44, Run + T2 - 1.02.06 - Overall Time: 3.05.10

Compared to last years times:

Swim + T1 - 42.33, Cycle - 1.29.16, Run + T2 - 1.06.12 - Overall Time: 3.18.03

Oh and big news for the day was that I won a major spot prize of a very very flash BBQ!!! Nice eh! Its worth about $1500 from Placemakers Timaru. Hmmm bit of a challenge to figure out how to get it home, they were going to freight it up to me but Andrew Moon kindly offered to put it in his van and drive it home for me so that was pretty cool! There will be lots of BBQ's for awhile I think!!

Quote for the Day:

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

OK, first of all a bit of an update on training etc this week then I will do a separate post as a race report for Timaru.

It was a pretty busy week this week with something on every night after work so most days I was leaving home at 8am and getting back home at 8pm, that doesn't leave a lot of time to get everything done that you kinda need to do in a day.

Wednesday evening was the Surf'n'Turf at Sumner, I was just doing the long distance swim (800m) as well as cycling there and back. It was nice weather/water for swimming, the tide was in and it was relatively calm at Sumner for a change. It was nice only swimming for a change so I went pretty hard which was fun and was very pleasantly surprised to see that I did the swim in 6mins 40!! hahaha that is crazy, there is no way I swim that fast!! Turns out the course was pretty short (no kidding!) and Dave has bought a GPS so that the rest of the series are more accurate!

Thursday I cycled to work again, I have been a bit of a bike geek this week and have cycled every day! Had running drills/class again after work, these seem to be going ok, I don't get corrected too much which means I must actually be listening and doing what I am told for a change :)

Friday was a well deserved rest day! Phew, needed one of those!

Saturday morning I met up with Nadia to go over transitions and what we need to do for Coast to Coast so that hopefully I don't let her down on her big race! Blimey, multi-sporters have a lot of gear, no wonder they need 3 people to help them race!

Quote for the Day:

Feelings change - memories don't.

- Joel Alexander

Woohoo!!! A PB run today! I think I can almost run fastish now! Well fast for me anyway :)

Did the 5km Shoe Clinic run at Hagley Park tonight. Ewwww the weather was so foul! It was freezing cold and pissing with rain! Seriously not a lot of fun!! I'd cycled to work so also cycled to the park, hmmm not nice getting a wet butt in the first 10 seconds on my bike, but there you go! Was mighty pleased Mel had driven down (she was working so got to stand around in the cold!) cos then I had somewhere to put my bike and gear and best bonus was a warm dry ride home. It was real windy tonight so I figured I would be lucky if I managed to do the 5km in 30mins. My previous best time was 29.30 so wasn't really hoping for much tonight. I started off feeling pretty good, they call out the times at every kilometre and at the 1km mark I had done 5.20 and I worried a bit that I had gone out a little too hard but figured I felt good so just worked on maintaining my pace, did the second km in the same time. Slowed down a little for the 3rd and maintained my pace to the end and was super stoked to finish in 27.10!! Thats a PB by about 2 and a half minutes! Thats huge, gosh I may turn into a runner if I keep this up! I think running class is paying off, I don't think I ran like a shuffler even once today, I focused on lifting my knees and just generally thinking about my running.

Yesterday was a bit of a busy day, into work at 7.30! Eek! Very early but first day in the new building and all. It is so nice to be back in town and we have such a stunning view of the Port Hills from the 7th floor, it even looks nice when the weather is grotty! Off to the vet with Merlin when I got home, he is doing well and we are going to see how he goes being drug-free for a couple of weeks. He has managed to lose a couple of kilos which has also helped him no doubt! Finally got to the pool for a swim at around 6.30pm. Its so busy there at night, I'm pleased I don't swim in the evenings very often. Still had a good workout and thats what its all about!

Quote for the Day:

To me, fair friend, you never can be old

For as you were when first your eye I eyed,

Such seems your beauty still.

- William Shakespeare