Over and out

As you can tell I haven't blogged a lot lately, 3 months since the last post in fact!

I did think about writing a race report for Graperide but didn't. All I will say is go and do the Magnum, its an amazing event, its worth doing just for the sunrise as you bike into Picton on the first lap.

So this is me signing out of blogland. I started the blog initially to track my journey through to IMNZ 09 and I've done that. I've also done Wanaka and been back to Taupo to watch this year. Watching was an amazing experience, if you ever get the opportunity to watch an Ironman race please do so, it was phenomenal being there at the start line at 7am and then being at the finish line at midnight watching the last athletes come in.

Where to from here for me? Well, I have some big goals and plans but I won't be blogging them. If you want to know what I am up to then you will have to come for a swim, bike, run or coffee to find out. There is of course always good old facebook as well as email, text/phone etc. I'm not disappearing, just ending a chapter so that I can begin the next one.

Yes there is a new bike in the pipeline, Buttercup will be along soon, just need to sort her paint job and gather up the last of the parts that I need so I can build her and go for a ride.

Thank you to everyone who has read my blog and posted thoughtful comments over the past couple of years, best wishes to you all in your training and other endeavours and please stay in touch.

See you on a start line somewhere :)

Nades

Challenge Wanaka - The Race Report

Here it is, the race report. Sorry it took awhile, I kinda needed to digest the race that was Wanaka, the build up was interesting to say the least but this is about the race so here goes......

Deep down I was hoping that I could go around 13 hours, 13 and a half was my outside goal depending on what the wind was doing out on the cycle course.
Pre-race on the morning was interesting as I wasn't really feeling nervous, maybe cos I was still feeling a bit flat from my gastro bug the day before or maybe because I was remembering just exactly how much an Ironman race hurts!! Swim start was a beach start which was good cos that water was cold and I didn't really fancy hanging around in it any longer than I needed to! I think it was about 13.2 degrees when we got there earlier in the week and it wasn't a whole lot warmer on Sat am but with my swim booties, neoprene swim cap and some Vaseline on my cheeks to prevent my face freezing I was feeling ready for the cold. The first leg of the swim out to the far-away bouy seemed to take forever!! I had to focus on just swimming from one 50m bouy to the next otherwise I think I would have gone crazy wondering if I was ever going to get to the first turning bouy! The group seemed to spread out quite a bit after that first turning bouy and with a field of only about 200 individual athletes I felt like I was swimming on my own from then on. Turns out I had 2 dudes hanging on my feet the whole way round tho. Felt like I had my own personal kayaker as this one kayaker followed me the whole way round, I even stopped to check and see if I was last I one stage even though I knew I couldn't be! Swim was 1.20 which was my outside goal time, given that I pretty much TT'd the whole swim I'm pleased with my swim time.
Running to T1 I had a wee panic when I couldn't find my transition bag, I thought it was gone!! Turns out I had my number wrong and my bag was right there where it should have been the whole time!! I feel a bit bad for the poor girl near the bags who witnessed the wee meltdown I had while trying to find my bag!! Mental notes, race number is on your arm for a reason!
Out onto the bike, weather was perfect for riding, not hot, not cold, not windy! Yuss!! Had a great ride out to Hospital Flat and back, made sure I did my own thing and didn't smash it out on the wee rollers although lots of people seemed to be! Was feeling really good on the bike once I thawed out a little. Was fun coming back through town, some of the guys in the half started passing me around this stage which was cool as was able to cheer some of the lads on. Heading out of Wanaka the wind had started to pick up and I was pretty pleased to notice that it was a head wind as that meant there would be a tailwind up the far side of the lake where the going is certainly tougher! Had a good cruise down to Cromwell, watched my ave speed drop and drop tho which I wasn't very happy about! Didn't stop to pick up my special needs bag as I didn't need anything from it, turned at Cromwell to head up the other side of the lake and make the most of that tailwind. I really wasn't looking forward to this section of the ride as this was the part of the ride I struggled with the most when we tried on the course a month earlier. The tailwind and the fact that I was racing made the kms seem to just drop away, I had a quick stop at the aid station at the 103km mark to take some Panadeine as my back was feeling quite sore and I knew that it would slow me up over the next 80km if I didn't do something about it. I knew 2 folk at that aid station so I got great service while I was stopped there which was nice :) At about the 112km mark I was riding comfortably down on my aerobars going quite fast when a rocket ship passed by me by the name of Rhodesy! Bryan Rhodes was doing the swim/bike as a team so with a 2 hour head start I was only able to hold him off for that long! He is a machine!! We saw him out riding when we drove home on the Monday and wondered if he was riding back to ChCh. The turn-off to Tarras seemed to turn up quite quickly which was good and the wind kept behaving although that wee downhill into Hawea Flat was still a bit hairy! I was pretty surprised going through Hawea that there was hardly anyone out and about to cheer us on, I thought there would have been quite a few folk out but no, there was just 2 ladies out cheering all the riders through their town. Hmmm, nice head wind from Hawea back to Wanaka! Plus a few grunty wee hills which probably aren't that bad if you haven't already ridden 150km. I let my attention lapse for about half a second and nearly rode myself into a gutter and cliff on a descent so had to remind myself to focus and not do daft stuff just cos I was getting tired. I didn't mind the wee ride up and back down the road at 160km as it was a nice chance to see some other folk and say hi to a few others, esp as we were all at the same point of suffering by then. All in all I am pretty happy with my ride, I was just over my outside goal time of 7 hours and given the wind (although it wasn't too bad really) and the terrain I'm ok with that. The interesting thing is that I never noticed how bad the chip was at all during the ride yet when we trained down there it was energy sapping! The power of race day eh!
T2 was weird, although I knew we had to rack our own bikes which was challenging enough due to lack of function in the brain and what appeared to be a very bizarre numbering system on the racks, I did however expect there to actually be a volunteer in the tent. Not that I really needed a hand but I did want some water so I could take some panadol before hitting the run course and it's just kinda nice to see a friendly face at that point and have someone to say hi to. Start of the run was pretty good, the male pro's were finishing as I headed off, Richard Ussher won the race breaking the course record while I was racking my bike! I was struggling a bit to find my running legs and found myself breaking my run walk plan very early on which likely wasn't going to bode well. It was hot out there and seemed to get hotter and hotter, given that I started running at 3.30 I wasn't really planning on it being scorching hot! But scorching hot it was so I walk/jogged my way from aid station to aid station chugging in fluids and gels along the way. I timed myself over a couple of kms and didn't really like what I saw but didn't see how I could do much about it as I just didn't seem to be able to do anymore than I was already doing! Oh well, back to the 'as long as I am moving forward' theory! Loved the folk who had sprinklers out for us on lap 1, I did a wee dance under one near the bottom of Gunn Rd! Rest of the first lap was ok, I pretty much ran as much as I could and walked the uphills of which there seemed to be many! Who knew Wanaka was so hilly? Back down to the finish area to start lap 2 and everyone was out and about cheering me along which was cool. Was feeling pretty good at this stage and although I had worked out that I was going to miss my goal time I was still pretty confident that I could maintain my current pace and keep ticking along steadily to the end. Hmmm, 3km later everything went bad!! I felt really sick, like I wanted to throw up but I forced myself to take in some more electrolytes etc cos I knew that I needed them so I could keep going. Aah keeping going, it sounds so easy doesn't it? But no, not this day! It was still scorching hot out, by now it was after 6pm and it wasn't any cooler than it had been at 4pm! But now I was freezing, I had huge goosebumps up my arms and I was walking along shivering and rubbing my arms trying to warm up. I literally dawdled up to the aid stations quietly asking for water, whereas earlier I had been real perky and chatty at the aid stations jogging up and calling out what I needed. Hmm, this was bad. I had a wee chat to the guy at the aid station at the end of the Outlet Track and he asked me if I thought I was ok to keep going which was nice, by this stage there was only about 10km to go so I told the guy I reckoned I could suffer through 10km! Haha, had no idea how bad that 10km was going to be! I had walked the previous 4km as my legs were in agony from the sunburn that I had acquired while on the bike! So a 10km walk it was to be, this time avoiding all those sprinklers as I was still going hot and cold and being wet as well certainly didn't help. It was water only as well, anything else just made me feel well ill! It seemed we were all in a similar boat by this stage of the game tho and we had ourselves a nice wee walking group at the back end of the field, we exchanged looks of pain and sympathy with one another when we did the out and back up Rata St. Kinda made me feel better that others were in the same dark place at that stage! There were still heaps of people out cheering us on and they really wanted us to run, umm sorry guys there was no run left, it had gone! Finally I tackled the last hill and went through the last aid station, from there it was just a hop, skip and a jump to the finish line, well it was about 2km but I could see and hear it from where I was!! I'm heading down alongside the park and I could see someone walking towards me, even better, it was someone I knew! Kim had worked out that something bad had happened and knew I should have been finished awhile ago so bless her she came looking for me, I think only someone who has been there done that can know how low you are feeling at that point!! It was awesome to see her and we had a hug and a cry on the side of the road before she turned around and walked me into the finish! With just under a km to go Aynsley joined us to walk me in as well, that was pretty cool as Ayns had raced the Half IM that day as well. As I got to the last corner I summoned up those few dregs of strength I needed to run the finish chute (OMG that is the longest finish chute)!! The finish chute was kinda cool tho with lots of kids and those clapper things forming a guard of honour for you to run through.
Yay for knowing the timing guys, young Richard Brewer saw what a state I was in and ducked through the VIP area to get Geoff and sneak him through to see me at the finish line which was a really lovely thing to do! Overall time is something like 14 hours and 37 mins, so a very very long day at the office but I finished where others didn't.
In hindsight I think I could have eaten more on the bike, I felt like I was eating a lot but when I looked at the empty wrappers in my pocket I think I could have eaten a lot more, and I think that would have helped as would have being able to eat properly the day before.
Would I do it again? Full distance in Wanaka, no. I would do the half however. The full distance there is a very tough race, I'm pleased I have done it and I don't regret deciding to do it and I would certainly never discourage anyone else from doing it. For me it didn't have the excitement and the specialness that Taupo has. I have been thinking about it quite a bit since race day and I realised that in Taupo all the volunteers and everyone involved with the event made you feel really special the whole time whereas in Wanaka I felt like I was just a number. Some of that I think is due to a lesser amount of volunteers as well as less history with the event and these things may change in years to come as the event builds. I'd like to think they would do anyway.
What now? Kim and I are going to trip up to Taupo and watch IM this March, neither of us have ever watched an Ironman race and since neither of us are racing we figured we may as well do it this year! From there I will decide whether or not I will race Taupo again in 2011, at this stage I'm about 99% sure that I want to but won't commit until after I have been and watched.

All the things that can and do go wrong

The days leading up to Challenge Wanaka were so full of random things going wrong that I thought I would share these first so that my RR is just that!
The drive down was interesting to say the least. First mini-drama was plugging the iPod into the device that plugs into the cigarette lighter so the iPod can play through the stereo, this managed to blow a fuse and the electrics in the stereo and the clock blew out. Quick stop at the garage in Mayfield to replace a fuse and buy a spare. Headed off and although the clock was now going and the stereo clock worked the stereo itself won't go, so on it was with separate iPods and headphones grooving away to ourselves and having to tap each other on the arm if we wanted to talk to each other. Geoff had spent a fair bit of time in the garden in the days before we headed away and it seems he was bitten or had an allergic reaction to something and his hand was swelling up quite a lot and was very sore so we stopped in Geraldine to have lunch and to pop into the pharmacy to see if we could get something to relieve the pain he was in. The pharmacist was really helpful but couldn't recommend anything over the counter which would help and suggested a visit to the doc would be in order. Hmm, fun times! We headed off to good old Subway and had lunch before wandering back to the car. I went to unlock the car only to discover we had left it unlocked the whole time!! Real sharp we are, iPods, cellphones etc all sitting on the dashboard, keys to the bike racks right there as well, luckily people seem to be honest in Geraldine and everything was just as we left it!! I drove from Geraldine so Geoff could rest his hand a bit and ice it using the slicker pads from the chilly bags. This was a good idea until I missed the turn-off and headed to Winchester and Temuka rather than direct to Fairlie which resulted in a detour that added about an hour to our journey!! Lucky we weren't in a hurry! To top things off we had a rather large random spider cruising around inside the car and we both took rather unsuccessful turns at trying to end his life! Both of us are pretty scared of spiders so this wasn't a lot of fun! Finally arrived in Wanaka and I headed out for a 40min ride with a 20min run off the bike, this went well and I had a good ride and a really good run so was feeling pretty happy at this stage.
Next day went to head off to get bikes checked etc and discovered that I had gotten a flat on my race tyres, again!! I had to get my tweezers out to pull out a rather stubborn piece of metal, pateched my tube, put it back in and headed off. Going through bike check I discover that my newly patched tyre was slowly deflating, uhoh! The bike mechanic passed it although he was a tad concerned about the nick in my tyre from my previous flat but let it go through, phew! Turns out the bit of metal had pierced right through my tyre so patched that one again and it became my 'only if I'm desparate spare' and I put a new tube in!
Wake up Friday morning and I have a gastro bug, hmmm, that is not fun! Quite a few unpleasant visits to the loo before finally managing to eat a tiny amount of breakfast before heading down to swim with the tri club folk at 8am. That was exciting, I managed to leave my breakfast in the lake which certainly isn't the most fun I have ever had! Shane kindly brought some Immodium to race briefing for me which seemed to work a treat. It seems the majority of people I knew racing were either paramedics, nurses, pharmacists or dentists so lots of good advice on offer about what to try and eat and what to do! Took a quick trip to the pharmacy to get some more Immodium just in case and some Gastrolyte, thanks Zarnia they seemed to do the trick. I struggled to eat much all day due to the delicate way my stomach was feeling so my pre-race dinner consisted of hot salty chips (hey they are carbs and the stayed in!!) along with a couple of mini Cadbury flakes that one of Kim's friends was feeding me while I was watching the elite Contact races.
Race morning I get down to transition and realise I have forgotten to put my goggles in my bag, Geoff had my phone by this stage so quickly borrowed a phone and called him to ask him to please get my goggles from the house (jeepers, amateur mistake!!) he was nice and quick so that was good! Everything else was ticking along well until the next morning when I realised I couldn't find my wallet anywhere, backtrack through when I had last seen it to work out that I had put it in my bag so I could leave it in the car so it would be handy post-race if I needed money for anything, turns out I throw it into a wheelie bin with my half empty Powerade bottle and other left-over pre-race food when I left transition! F*ck what a dick!! Went down there the next morning to see if I could try and find out, hahaha, that was going to be impossible. Oh well, at least I didn't have any money in it but I have had an entertaining day today trying to replace all my cards and even trying to remember which ones I have!
One final wee moment of fun which proves I shouldn't be allowed to navigate/drive.... I took us on another detour, yes out of Geraldine again! A bit quicker this time as I drove us home via Rangitata and Ashburton rather than thru Mayfield!
I think that must just about be my quota of things going wrong for the year! :)

Suck it up Buttercup!!

That is my new mantra, 'suck it up Buttercup' will help you through when the going gets tough! But we'll get to that, lets start at the start of the day for what was Half Ironman number 3 in my race repertoire!

Did things a little bit different this year and drove down to Ashburton on race morning which meant a 4.30am wake up call. I'm ok at that hour of the day but Geoff was also racing, him and his 2 brothers had entered the half as a team, that meant getting Mr I'm not so good in the Mornings out of bed as well...... He did really well actually, it did help that I planned a 15min leeway into the morning plan so that I wouldn't need to stress! Worked perfectly and we arrived in Ashburton on time. It was a slightly nervous drive down tho as its the first time I have taken the bikes out on the open road on my flash new roof racks but all went well!

I got the necessary stuff (registration, body numbering) out of the way quickly so I could potter about setting my stuff up in transition while eating my breakfast, this worked well and I seemed to have stuff everywhere before managing to create some sort of semblance out of it all.

The plan for the swim was to give it a good nudge and see what I could do, I have been swimming quite well in the pool lately and I have always done the swim at the half at a steady/comfortable pace and I figured it was time to see what I could do if I put some effort in. I got myself nearish to the front alongside Geoff's brother Roger who was doing the team swim, I figured that was a good place to start as it was likely that Roger would beat me out of the water. It was a bit bedlam at the start but nothing too crazy, after all a bit of biffo in the swim is just part of the day really. I was swimming quite hard and felt good until I got to the second orange bouy where I had to swim quite a few polo strokes while trying not to throw up! Hmmm, thats not good, here's hoping that feeling goes away! It was gross, I would put my head in the water and then couldn't breathe out for fear of puking and there was no way I could swim polo for the next 1200m! Quick refocus, told myself I was ok and just got on with it! Had a similar but shorter episode again but quickly got on with it and just swam!!! Out of the water and running to transition I snuck a look at my watch once I got my arms out of my wetsuit sleeves and was stoked to see that I had swum 35mins!! Woohoo, my quickest half IM swim ever and right on target!! Was really surprised running into transition to hear Geoff cheering me on as I expected him to be out on the bike already, turns out Roger had a wee panic just after the first bouy, he hadn't realised quite what he was letting himself in for with that swim start! He came right tho and ran into transition as I left on my bike, I then managed to hold Geoff off for a massive 900m!!! haha!

On the bike I was pleased that I had decided to wear a long sleeve top cos it wasn't warm at all!! The knob helmet was good to wear today tho cos it meant my head and ears were nice and toasty :) Start of the first lap was busy! People everywhere while everyone settled into their groove and spaced themselves out, I was getting passed by quite a few people but consoled myself with the fact that I had swum quicker than them and it was a long day where anything could happen. It took me awhile to get onto my aerobars, I have a mild paranoia about them since crashing off my bike when on them last year. Its esp nervy when its wet out as it was when I crashed. After the first wee turn around a few kms into the race I told myself to stop pissing about and get on my aerobars, telling myself that everyone else was using them and I needed to just get on with it. And get on with it I did and was cruising along pretty nicely feeling fine! First lap went ok except for the fact that it seemed like every female rider who went past me seemed to have an E on her calf indicating that she was in my age group, it felt like my whole age group was passing me! Back into transition for the half-way turn around I saw Geoff heading out for his second lap and I was feeling good that he hadn't gapped me by too much given his superior bike strength and the fact that he didn't have to run afterward I didn't really expect to see him again on the ride. Heading back out for lap 2 it was as if someone had flicked a switch, all of a sudden I was miserably uncomfortable on my bike, it ached to sit on my saddle, my back was sore, my stomach was feeling ick and I wanted out and I wanted out now! Had a wee chat to myself and made myself stretch more on my bike thinking that I would come right once I turned the corner off the main road. Hmmm, I didn't come right, I got worse! Turns out it was hideous period cramps! I knew it was due, only figured this out early that week and there wasn't anything I could do about it except hope that it didn't come on race day as the first day is the only day that I usually feel like crap, every other day is fine. So there I am out on the bike feeling hideous and every turn of the pedals makes me ache but I need to keep turning the pedals or I'm not going to be going anywhere! All I want at this stage is some panadol or something to take the edge off the pain but I don't have any on me, I had some in transition but that was 30kms away! At this point, 60km into the ride, I start to bawl my eyes out, great big ugly shoulder shaking sobs!! And I can't stop, I ride like this for about 3km and this is where the suck it up buttercup starts kicking in! I've heard this saying before when people when about stuff (it seems to be one of John Ellis's favourites!) and it got stuck in my head so I'm biking along telling myself to 'suck it up buttercup' and occasionally telling myself to 'suck it the f**k up buttercup!!' I said it out loud more than once and I feel sorry for anyone who passed me in this dark dark part of the race. This seemed to sort me out and everytime I slipped back into wallowing in the pain it was straight back into 'suck it up buttercup!!' With 15km left to go I had to give myself a virtual slap and tell myself that 15km was easy, for crying out loud its only a ride to Sumner, thats easy, anyone can ride that far!!! That bollocking got me through the next 10km, then with 5km left I just wanted off my bike, lucky I'm a slow runner or I think I would have got off and run my bike in! Instead I berated myself yet again and told myself that 5km wasn't even as far as biking to work and that if I couldn't bike that far I had some serious issues!! It hadn't helped that I was passed by 1 or 2 more girls in my age group in that last 15-20km, either that or I was hallucinating F's on everyone's calves.....

Finally after what seemed like hours and hours and hours I arrived back at transition and could get off my bike at last, I racked it thinking that I would be quite happy to never see it again! I sat on the ground and the first thing I did was reach for the panadol and slugged them down hoping that they would work some magic cos I could barely move at that stage, my back, stomach, thighs were all aching and quite frankly all I wanted to do was curl up on my towel in transition and have a sleep until I felt better. But no, I was good and I pulled on my shoes and socks. Geoff came over to talk to me cos he was loitering around in transition, I told him what had happened and started having another cry, he gave me a big hug and wouldn't let me stay in transition so I headed off with everyone cheering and telling me to run. Hmmm, lets see you lot try and run when you're in that kind of pain! Honestly, it was hideous, if I had been at home I would have been in bed with a hotty! Having said that if I had been at home I would have had better access to pain relief and probably would never have felt that bad! I headed off at a very slow pathetic pace just hoping that I would come right cos I didn't fancy a 21km sufferfest as well. Just after I started the run the boys (Paulie Davies and Andrew Black) ran past and cheered me on telling me I looked good, I guess I did from behind, I cheered them on as they were on their last lap and were sitting in 2nd and 3rd overall which was cool then figured I better summon up the effort to run or it was going to be a much much longer day than it needed to be. I trundled off and started the 'suck it up' mantra again, it really works by the way! A lady ran past me and started walking... hmmm, walking..... hmmm, that looks nice.... quickly reminded myself that my race plan was to only walk the aid stations, that is the aid stations and nothing else! So I kept running, yay! Headed round the back of that lake to discover that first aid station was a bit further away than it was last year...... suck it up, keep running! So I did, then I grabbed myself a nice cup of coke and had a lovely wee walk while I drank it. By this stage I was starting to feel heaps better! It must only take 10-15 mins for panadol to kick in, that and the relief to be off my bike I guess. From then on I stuck to the plan and ran from aid station to aid station only walking to suck down my gels and to drink. It felt good too I must say, only thing is, people need to have respect for your race plan and know that its ok for you to walk just after you pass the finish area cos thats an aid station and its ok to walk that part if its in the plan! Managed to kick it up an extra notch or two in the last 4kms and passed a few folk, to be fair not all of them were on their last lap but I still passed them so mentally that helped me along the way.

Overall I was about 15mins slower than last year and that can pretty much all be attributed to the crappy bike ride I had. And it turns out that I was passed by pretty much my whole age group cos I had the fastest swim time in my age group!! Woohoo, not bad for someone who not that long ago couldn't swim 50m without stopping! Run time was almost the same as last years at 2.15, so while its a minute slower than last years run time its the most I've ever run in the run part of a half Ironman so I'm still happy with it. I think I'm running better than I ever have, must be those flash Newton running shoes!! Overall time was 6.10, so 15mins slower than last year but tougher conditions with the weather and being a girl. Can't win em'all, but am pleased that I was able to put the cycle leg behind me and stick to my run plan as well as focus on sticking to my nutrition plan throughout the day even tho I felt like crap.

7 more weeks of 'suck it up Buttercup' and Wanaka will be done and dusted! Bring it on!!

Ohh and I love my bike again now, I forced myself to go for a wee 20min spin on her this morning, I was worried I would really want to sell her otherwise! A wee spin in shiny new kit and all is forgiven!

And, the boys did good in their team, they were 3rd male team so are pretty happy with that for their first foray into triathlon. Geoff had the 4th fastest cycle time in the teams so he is quite stoked with that.

Aarghh, scary wind!!

Yikes, that was a ride and a half today. Headed out nice and early to do hilly long bays again, this is probably one of my favourite rides, nice hard climb up to the Kiwi, cruise along the Summit Rd to Coopers and then done Gebbies around the bays up Evans and then home. Last week was great, I cranked out a PB to the Kiwi, that hurt a lot! Spent about 5mins at the Kiwi trying not to throw up while waiting for my legs to stop wobbling before cruising round the rest of the ride. No PB today, my legs were a bit fried and there was a head wind for a good amount of the climb as well plus I figured I was going to need some oomph left in my legs for the rest of the ride today with the wind kicking in. And boy did it kick in!! Heading along the Summit Rd it started to get very cold and foggy, ick! I never even saw Coopers Knob today thats how foggy it was. Other than that I was having quite a nice ride until I got to the Sign of the Bellbird where the wind really started to whistle along the top of the hill! Aargh, tis ok I figured, this end of the Summit Rd is less exposed than the Sumner end. Umm, no its not and its blimmin' scary up there! I think I pretty much screamed, cried, whimpered my way from the Bellbird to Gebbies!! I did think about turning back but was so far along the road I figured it was quicker to keep going forward and get off the hill. Coopers to Gebbies was just plain frightening, I was either yelling 'Nooooo' or whimpering out 'help' while clinging to my bike for dear life!! The wind just about biffed me across the road many many times, I think the only thing that would have made it worse/scarier would have been if it started to rain! I was hugely relieved to see the top of Gebbies Pass so that I could stop for a breather. There were a few guys there umming and aahing about whether to go up to Coopers or not, after I told them how hairy it was up there today they still headed on up so hopefully they had fun! One of the guys is Andrew who Jo from Complete Performance coaches, he is also training for Wanaka so that was cool to meet someone else heading to Wanaka. The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful luckily cos I was pretty much over the wind by this stage! Yay for an easy week this coming week :)

Palmy North Half Marathon and the injury

So I headed off to Palmerston North again last weekend to do the Palmy Half again. I quite like this course, its quite pretty and runs along the river for most of it and given that I did a PB there last year I was pretty keen to go back and give it another nudge to see what I could do, esp as I had been running well recently.

Saturday afternoon was fun, Pete has a choc lab, Cadbury and his birthday coincides with the Palmy Half so for the second year in a row I got to help take Cadbury to Animates to pick out his birthday presents! Did all the normal race pack pick up stuff that afternoon as well. Al's friend Helen from spin, was doing the 10km with some friends from Massey so kept bumping into her at the airport and at Shoe Clinic when picking up race packs, never saw her on race day tho.

Let's cut the long story short, the half didn't go well. Even in the morning while having breakky I didn't think things were going to go to plan, my legs felt sore and tired and we hadn't even started!! I figured they might come right tho and since I had travelled that far I was definitely going to give it a nudge. The first 5km went fairly well, although I missed the 4km marker so it felt like a really really long km till I realised it was 2km! Was feeling pretty shite by this point so decided to walk the aid station and see how I felt after that. Hmm, things went downhill from there, I didn't seem to have any oomph in my legs and every time I looked at my HRM my HR was in the 170's which is ridiculously high for me and definitely not possible to maintain for anything much longer than 5mins or so. The 10km turn around looked mighty nice and I thought about turning there and just doing 10km but I am a glutton for punishment so I plodded on. By the time I reached 11km I could feel my right calf start to niggle. It had niggled a few times over the last few weeks but a bit of anti-flamme and it was always right as rain the next day. I was wearing my compression socks for the race just in case it flared up (and I wasn't the only one in compression socks, Palmy folk know about the socks as well!) So flare up it did and by km 13 I was hobbling and in a lot of pain and really not enjoying myself, I was one step away from sitting in the gutter and having a good cry! I hobbled on hoping that I would see a St Johns van, but no! I had seen them all morning but when I wanted one there was none around, had I been running with my phone I could have called Pete to come and get me cos he ran an impressive 1.32!! So I was kinda stuck with having to finish, I was quite worried about doing more damage to myself by running funny trying to compensate for my calf but I seem to have come away with just a pulled calf muscle.

So the verdict so far is no running for a minimum of 2 weeks and I am one week into that. Lots of visits to the physio and doing as I am told, which includes aqua-jogging! Blah, 90mins of it yesterday! If I can survive that I can do anything I reckon!!

Ohh and my embarrassingly slow finish time? 2 hours 20, I was quicker than that for the run in the half Ironman last year!! Oh well, I have learnt from this race which is good, sometimes you need a race to go badly so you can learn for next time! What did I learn? Don't mess with routine, have caffeine before the race. Plan, plan, plan, I had no race plan for this race, I looked at it more as a long training run than a race and I need to look at all races as races even if they are just small stepping stones on the way to the big race!!

So, whats been happening?

Right, I haven't quite fallen off the face of the planet but have been taking some time out from blogging etc for a number of reasons. Partly cos I couldn't be bothered, it seemed almost like it was a bit of a chore and it has been nice to tell people what I have been up to without them saying, 'yeah I read that on your blog' also partly I have been in a bit of a funk. Yes, me, really! It was bad but not bad at the same time, I did some learning while I was funking, did a bit of analysing about all sorts of stuff. Realised that I quite like myself so that's good and knew it was all turning round for the better when I actually googled to see whether or not extroverts get depressed! I'd never really been in a funk before so didn't know what that was about eh! I am just very pleased that it was relatively short lived, well compared to some other stories I have heard anyway. One of the guys told me it took him till August to get excited about IM again after doing his first one, yikes!! We had this conversation in May so it scared me some! Turns out having another big goal lined up doesn't make things easier, just so you know if you have similar plans/thoughts when entering that big race! I took a few days annual leave in late June and basically bunked nearly all of my training that week cos I was enjoying sleeping in and not going out in the cold cos I didn't have too for any other reason, then I realised how quickly that next race was sneaking up and realised that I needed to get off my chuff and basically harden the f__k up and just do my training! I have less time this time around as I am racing in January so it does mean I have to train a bit more on wintry days but I guess unlike some others who are over this winter thing I have generally been finding it ok, I seem to find enough parts of the week that aren't too cold and wet to get my training done in, this was probably helped by the fact that I haven't done a lot of cycling over winter as it has been all about the run! Now it is 6 months exactly till race day and I am into it, my training plan is challenging yet do-able which is good and I keep tweaking it with Richard in order to try and get the very best out of each session and that is good, its keeping me interested and excited and I seem to have a new idea every week or so which is keeping me fresh and alert.

So where to from here? I am off to do the Palmerston North Half Marathon again in mid-August, I really enjoyed this race last year so will be fun to test myself over the same course as it was where I set my PB half marathon time. Then South Island Half IM in November followed up by Challenge Wanaka in January.

There won't be so much blogging this time round, mainly cos the journey will be quite different I think. I know that I can physically and mentally complete an IM so that takes away a lot of the uncertainty that I had last time around. And I want it to be more about me than just about my training but a lot of that 'me stuff' I don't necessarily want or need to express in blog form. What I am doing is a lot of reading about goal setting, commitment to your goals and achieving your dreams. So all in all its looking to be quite a philosophical journey this time round, some of it I will share on here, some of it I won't, but I'll be around and I'll be training hard now that I have remembered where I hid those hard pills!!

See you out there training, at the pool, on the road or doing a bit of Bikram!

Some inspiration

Some amazing things can happen when you walk the dog on a cold and windy beach...

Have you ever been told you can't do something or think maybe you're physically not capable of doing something that you would like to do? Then this is for you:

Believe in yourself; chase the seagulls!

At least once a week I take the dog to the beach so he can have a big hoon around, usually I spend the whole time laughing at him and his antics cos watching a dog hoon around at the beach is quite entertaining. Last week when we were at the beach it was low tide and there were quite a few seagulls hovering around the tideline. Zac thinks its great fun to chase them, little does he know that he has very little chance of ever catching one. Everytime he would race towards them they would just fly away. He would cruise back to me and then race off again after the next seagull. I got to thinking and realised that as far as he is concerned it is possible to catch one of those seagulls, you see he doesn't understand 'can't' or 'why' as far as he is concerned he believes that one day he will catch a seagull. I got to thinking about how often people tell us we can't do something eg Ironman, C2C, that we can't finish a race within a certain time etc and figure that if we believe in ourselves enough we can do those things, achieve those goals and dreams, so believe in yourself and keep chasing those seagulls, one day you'll catch one!

Athlete 536 - The Race Report

First up here are my goal times heading into race:

Swim 1 hour 20, Bike 6 hours 30, Run 5 hours - total time of 13 hours allowing about 10mins for transitions!

Pre-race

Alarm was set for 4.30am but I didn't need it as I had been awake for awhile, it's fair to say I was pretty excited that race day was here! Up and ate breakfast which was challenging, even though it was food I eat everyday it didn't taste or feel good going in but it stayed in and thats what counts! Geoff and his brother dropped us off at the race start just after 5am as we wanted to allow plenty of time to check bikes and get numbered. You should have seen Geoff's jaw hit the ground when he 1300 stunning race bikes all lined up! Geoff and Pete came through to watch me get numbered and take some pics, I'm looking rather nervous there! Then off to check my bike, walking in there was awesome and the first tears of the day happened there as reality kicked in again! Off down to the swim start to get wetsuit on and into the water for a bit of a swim before the start. It was still quite dark at this stage, the pro's actually started swimming while it was still dark but by 7am it was fairly light for us. It was pretty daunting being in the water and looking up to see all the crowds lining the road and lake front! I placed myself somewhere mid-pack for the swim start, I treaded water to find my own quietish spot so I didn't start off bumping shoulders and colliding with someone else.

Swim - time 1:15:14 (741st place)

The cannon went off and I just relaxed into the swim, I wanted to take it fairly easy as its a long day out there! I got into a nice comfortable rhythm and tried to stay on peoples feet for a bit of a draft. I started to get a bit knocked around after a few hundred metres after having had a surprisingly smooth start, nothing too serious tho other than a bit of a foot to the goggle which made my goggles suction on a little bit more. The swim honestly seemed to take forever!! I started to get tired heading down the back straight so focused on thinking about keeping my stroke long and smooth to conserve energy and keep my pace up. Finally turned around the last buoy and headed to shore, I started kicking a bit harder here to get the blood flow moving in my legs before having to run up to T1. I was certain that my swim time was going to be about an hour 30 so was telling myself to just forget about it and get on with the rest of the day. Imagine my surprise when I run under the swim exit and see the clock saying 1.15!!! Wow!! That meant I had 5mins up my sleeve for later in the day!

T1 - time 5:46

IMNZ has a huge run up to T1, they reckon its about 450m and a fair amount of it is uphill! The run took over 3mins! It's a bit like running a gauntlet, there are huge crowds of people on other side as you run through and they are all screaming and cheering, I actually found this part really overwhelming and almost started crying which then made me start to hyperventilate a bit. I was quite pleased to get to the top and to the relative quiet of T1. I shot through line of bags grabbing mine on the way through, I stopped just inside the tent and started to strip my wetsuit off, Aynsley saw me and came running over to help. She tipped my gear out and started sorting all that for me. Shoes on, vest on, food in pockets and after giving Aynsley a quick hug to say thanks I was gone. I grabbed a Powerbar on the way out to eat on the way to my bike. Paula and Tanya were cheering from across T1 which was cool. On with the helmet, bike in hand and I was off onto the bike leg.

Cycle - time 6:37:54 (909th place)

The roads were still really wet after the rain from the previous night so I was being cautious heading out through town on the cycle leg. My legs were feeling really good which was great, I stuck to the plan though which was to just spin up the hills, the first of which is very early on in the race. Heaps of people passed me going up here, surprisingly some folk who I thought would have already been way up the road. Not to worry tho, I had my race plan and I knew I would pay for it later if I didn't stick to it. I got settled into eating and drinking fairly quickly, I was feeling hungry after that long swim and wanted to keep on top of my nutrition. I wasn't drinking as much as I should to start with as I needed to pee, now I have tried to pee on my bike and I haven't been able to do it so I stopped at an aid station about 30kms in to use the loo. Of course both loos were in use when I stopped but I used that time to adjust my Bento box and rearrange the food in my pockets as they were bugging me. Back onto the bike feeling much comfier and able to drink at a better rate which was good. Through the turn around at Reporoa at about the 45km mark, Geoff and co were there cheering me on and taking photos so that was cool. I hadn't expected to see them there so that was a nice bonus to see familiar faces! Back into town, by this stage it had started to rain, luckily it wasn't cold but it was bucketing down at times! At this stage I decided to use my aero bars less than I would have liked to. I had managed to crash off my bike using my aero bars in the rain prior to Xmas and had my first DNF, I was wary of this happening again and decided that although not using them would make me slower, I would rather be a few minutes slower and be able to finish the race. So I used them when it was dry and not when it was wet. By the time we headed back into town I was starting to feel a little bit flat after having been out on quiet country roads for such a long time, coming into town was fantastic, its all downhill and I was fair flying! I heard Mike Reilly call out my name as I came hooning past the finish area. Saw the girls cheering me on and then went through the main part of the course where there were huge crowds shouting out which was great and give me a good lift heading back out for the second lap. The best parts were hearing the voices that you recognised although you couldn't really see them in the huge crowds. Back up that wee hill which was a little tougher this time round but I just kept spinning away. Special needs was at the top here so they were calling through your number as you came up so your bag would be ready. I decided I didn't need mine, I knew what was in it and although I was after something sweet by then as I mainly fuelled on my cheese/marmite toasted sammies for the first lap (I was worried they would get soggy in my Bento box with the rain) but knew I had Powerbars for the sweetness factor so I would be fine which I was. Second lap was more of the same really, a bit more rain and I slowed down a little as I was getting tired, was still tracking ok tho so was happy with where I was at. Bottle pick-ups etc went ok, I stopped for the first one as it was really wet and I didn't want to slip but all the rest went fine and I got what I needed everytime. Those support station folk just rocked! They were so good! Coming back through town knowing that I just had to do the run was an awesome feeling, I couldn't stop smiling even tho I hurt a bit by then! Managed to remember to get off my shoes on the bike so I didn't have to do the cycle cleat hobble to transition.

T2 - 5:23

I love that these guys take your bike from you so you can just head off, they call your number as you come in on the bike so that someone has your bag held out ready and waiting for you. I grabbed that and shot into the tent and sat down on the chair! A lovely lady came over and started sorting out my stuff as I took off my helmet and vest. Compression socks on, shoes on, cap on, sunnies back on my head and stuffed gels etc into my pockets. The lady spotted that I had panadol in my bag and asked if I wanted it now which I did as my back was quite sore from the ride. She went and grabbed me a cup of water so I could down those, then I headed off to the loo before heading off onto the run. Paula and Tanya were right by the exit from T2 and gave me a big cheer as I headed off on my way.

Run - 5:01:24 (861st place)

My plan was always to walk/run the run as my running still has room for improvement. I didn't have any set ratio for the run/walk, plan was to just keeping moving forward as quickly as I could! If there was one part of the day that I didn't enjoy much it was this very first part of the run, the streets were packed with people, Cam Brown had just finished and Terrenzo was heading towards the finish so it was all pretty hyper out there. The cool part was hearing Terrenzo called over the line as he completed his very first Ironman!! It was overwhelming running through all those people calling out your name (it was on our race number) and they are being really nice and encouraging you along and all I could think was I'm in agony, I just got off my bike and I have to run a marathon and I have no idea how long thats going to take! It was at this point I put my sunnies back on and decided they would be staying there even if it got dark! I was nearly crying and figured life would be easier if people couldn't see my eyes! I was very pleased to get around the corner and find that it was nice and quiet and I could have some me time!! That was good as it gave me a chance to get my head together and focus on blocking out the distractions. It was good heading out along the lake front towards the airport, I started seeing people I knew heading in to finish their first lap and then later some finishing their second lap! That was cool and it was nice to encourage and be encouraged along by other athletes, it was more meaningful then being cheered along by the crowd. Geoff and his family kept driving up and down the course so I saw a lot of them which meant I had to keep running so I didn't have walking photos!! I would run past them and then walk tho so not sure if it helped my run too much!! They were great tho, they had a huge day and sent heaps of text updates to the girls who couldn't be there along with keeping Richard informed of my progress. The run course was fun once you headed out of town, Rainbow Drive was probably my favourite part, there seemed to be something different going on there every time I went past and you go past 4 times. I got told off on my first lap, apparently Rainbow Drive is a non-walking zone so that was pretty funny and I promised to run it on my way back! There were heaps of folk out partying around that area, stereos blaring, BBQ's going (they smelt great!), funniest part was on the way back for the last time and some of the lads had started rating us, not sure whether to be happy or concerned that I got rated a 10/10 after slogging it out for over 12 hours, I was pretty sweaty and disgusting by then!! It made me laugh tho!! I was checking my times every 3km for the first lap and I was averaging around 20mins every 3km so figured if I could keep that up I would be fine. I lost track of kms tho around the half way mark, I was distracted by picking up special needs bag which I did use this time as I had some treats in there which I wanted as a reward by this stage. Also was heading back round the finish line so was very focused on the road in front of me and stopped looking for km markers. Round the back and picked up that last arm band which meant I was on the final lap!! That was a highlight, that meant the finish wasn't very far away. I had started to get quite jealous of the people I was seeing with 2 armbands on as it meant they were on the way home and now I had that coveted band as well! I have to be honest and say I really really enjoyed the second lap, just knowing that I was going to make it seemed to spur me on and helped me keep the momentum going, also knowing exactly where the turn around was and the aid stations were made it easier for pacing yourself. I was starting to get pretty tired and sore but I just kept ticking out the kms!! Caught up with Di from Ontri on the way back into town, she was still on her first lap and was worried she wasn't going to make the cut-off. I chatted with her and did some quick maths and worked out that even if it took her half an hour to get back into town from where we were she would still have over 3 and a half hours for her second lap. I felt a bit bad leaving her when I ran off towards the finish but was stoked to see that she finished around 11.15pm!! Well before the cut-off time!! Nice work Di!! Saw Bec out on the run course as well, she was looking good considering how little run training she had got in due to her shin splints etc! Thought I saw Selina and shouted out a hi, realised after that it was a different Selina! Oops! It was awesome running into the finish, everyone was shouting out 'Go Kiwi', 'Go 536', 'You're nearly there', 'Well done', 'Awesome work' etc etc. I think I ran the last 5kms pretty much saying 'thank you' the whole way!! As I passed people heading towards the chute I was checking how many armbands people had on as I didn't want to do a sprint finish and race someone to the finish line, I just wanted to enjoy it, after all you only finish your first Ironman once!! I managed to get the finish chute to myself which was awesome!!

Wow what a buzz turning up that finish chute, there were a couple of marshalls there pointing the way and almost ushering you into the chute and they were so excited to see you which was amazing as they had already helped a lot of people finish! I gave them a huge thumbs up, lifted my sunnies back onto my head and headed up that chute, I could hear Mike Reilly saying 'we've got 3 in a row, 3 first-timers, lets bring them on in!!' I heard him call out my name and say 'Nadine Voice, you are an Ironman!!' That was amazing, its hard to describe how awesome that felt. I had a wee cry coming up the finish chute, its huge that culmination of all those hours of training and the sacrifices along the way all coming to end as you become an Ironman!!

Total time - 13:05:43

Am I upset I didn't come in under 13 hours? No.

Would I change anything if I did it all again tomorrow? No, I'm happy with the decisions I made out there on the course at the time.

Would I do it again? Hell yes!! In a heartbeat! I loved every minute of it!

I did get a bit of a hard time about the fact that I smiled all day, that was in my race plan tho! Richard always says to me keep smiling no matter what and it will make it easier, well it does make it easier and there were times when I was running and smiling and people were saying 'wow, you look really strong' what they couldn't see was the pain and the hurt cos I was smiling it away. The one time I forgot to smile was at the end, so in my finish photos I look shattered not smiley but thats ok, I have finish photos!! :)

Friday - the day before race day!

Friday was a bit interesting weather wise, I got up early to go for a quick swim as I was going to the women's breakfast to listen to Paula Newby-Fraser speak. It was raining fairly steadily while we were swimming, there were lots of folk heading off for a quick ride etc but I had already decided I was just going to swim rather than risk sliding off my bike in the wet.

The breakfast was really interesting (the food wasn't quite normal brekky fare for me, Zarnia and I were disappointed that there was no cereal!!). Paula Newby-Fraser is certainly an interesting person and she talked about how she got into Ironman and then offered up some advice for us for race day. It was all pretty sensible stuff but nice to be reminded of so close to race day, she mainly talked about the fact that we had done the training and to focus on getting to that finish line on race day.

After that it was off to race briefing. That was pretty full on as there was lots to go over by the time you had course briefing, race rules (I was way to scared to be close to another bike after that in case they thought I was drafting!!), medical briefing, support station briefing and the list goes on. But it was good as they made sure you knew everything that you could possibly need to know for race day.

It was still raining as we headed off home to get our gear bags and go down to rack our bikes. When you drop your bike and helmet off you get your own helper who shows you to where you rack your bike then walks you through transition showing you where the swim entry is and where to pick up your T1 bag etc. This was pretty cool as it means you have one less thing to worry about on race day. I had a wee teary moment as I left my bike there. That was making things a little bit real, there's no going back once you hand over the bike! Then off to drop transition bags at the other tent so they could be taken to the correct places for the next day. Picked up special needs bags to get ready for the next day then I headed off to the Jon Acland seminar on 'How to do your best Ironman'. I mainly went along as he has written some interesting articles on Sportzhub and I figured I may pick up a pearl or two of wisdom from him, which I did. Some of the key things I picked up were, start the race as you want to finish, focus on just 50m at a time, 'am I doing the best I can over this 50m?' eg whats my form like, am I feeling good, what do I need to change? He had some good tips about when the race would go pear shaped, he said the first time would be the swim start as everyone charges off, then along the back of the swim when you start to get tired, other times are when you come through town on the bike and the run as the crowd lift you and you forget your race plan and go hard in front of the crowd. Very wise words that all helped the next day and reinforced everything Richard has told me as well. It's nice to have those reminders so close to race day.

Then I headed off to the Orca shop to do a little more shopping, hey I needed running gear that fits and my old stuff will be going on Trademe very soon!

Had a wee nap in the afternoon, Paula and Tanya arrived in town and popped round to say hi. It was lovely to see a couple of friendly faces who weren't race nervous!!

Then time to eat, mmmm lots of yummy mashed potato and chicken followed up by a bowl of ice-cream!!

Geoff and his family arrived a little after 10, so after settling them in I headed off to bed to try and sleep but I was way too excited!! I think I managed about 3-4 hours! Oh well, I have plenty of time to sleep now!!

First the Accolades

Before I get stuck into writing my race report there is something a little more important to do and that is to thank everyone who helped along the way, I got the easy part, I got to sod off for hours at a time to train and then on race day I had people running round after me helping me change and handing me food etc.

Huge thanks to....

Geoff - for putting up with me for the past year when I have been tired and grumpy. For making the garden look absolutely stunning while I was out riding my bike and napping on the couch. For taking time off in the middle of term to come up and watch me race, for spending the whole day zooming out to Reporoa and back, up and down along the run course to cheer me on and take heaps of pics. For getting up at very stoopid o'clock to take us down to the race start when mornings aren't really his thing!! And for all the other things that would take me forever to try and capture on here! Punkin, you know I love you much, thanks heaps for everything :) Oh and for saying that I can do it again!

Richard - for being the best coach I could have asked for. It was an amazing feeling going into a race this huge just knowing that I had done the training and that I had the race plan to back it up. Mentally and physically I was ready for race day! I'm not sure how you coped with all my hyper excited phone conversations over the last wee while!! Thank you for everything, you keep saying I do all the work but I only do as I'm told and its the plan that made it all come together so thank you again!

Zac, the dog - for being understanding when I was too tired to take him for a walk every morning. For being good company on some of those long runs, he takes longer than me to wear out thats for sure!!

Pete and Jill (Geoff's brother and fiancee) - for putting me up for the night in Hotel Palmy and lending me a car for the week. Pete also did most of the text updates to the folk back home, apparently Geoff got most of the credit for this which was funny. Also for running around the course all day and hanging in there taking pics etc in the rain.

Mumble (Geoff's mum) - for also coming up to Taupo to watch us crazy folk running around in the rain!

Zarnia - for answering all my questions about IM! Having you there with the knowledge made things a lot easier for me, thanks for giving me some of your time and for suggesting ice blocks in Oxford!!

Turps - for taking my bike to Taupo and back, that made life so much easier not having to worry about flying with my bike.

Tanya and Paula - for making the time and spending the money to come up and watch, it was awesome to have you guys out there on course and to see you afterwards.

All the other girlies - for the company on some of those rides, the encouragement and support you have given, for just being there through the whole journey. You know who you are and if I try and list everyone I will forget someone. Thank you so much! It's certainly an easier journey when you're not alone!

The boys at Chain Reaction - for looking after my bike and keeping stocks of Powerbars and Powerbar gels so that I could train on race fuel! Special thanks to Dave for lending me his own HRM when my battery went flat 2 weeks before race day!!

Catherine from eatfit - for all your nutrition expertise, both pre-race and for race day.

Work - for being flexible and letting me take Wednesday afternoons off to train!

The folk who were at the tri club swims on a Sat am and helped out with tips and encouragement.

Everyone who sent texts wishing me luck and congratulating me after! That was cool!

The other CP athletes from spin who encouraged me along and came for the occasional run after spin with me.

Final thanks is to everyone else who was interested in what I was doing and followed my blog as well as letting me chat away merrily about IM!!

Over and out

Well I am briefed and just need to drop my bike etc off. Met up with Deb N and Di C before from Ontri so that was very very cool :) Nice to meet a couple of faces I have 'talked' to for awhile and will have more folk to see and say hi to on race day which is now tomorrow!!! Yeehaa!

Next time I post I will be an Ironman all going according to plan and it will go according to plan!

Weather here is a bit iffy at the moment but is supposed to be ok for race day and if its not well its not I spose. Oh and I have decided to definitely decided to wear the knob for the ride!!

See you all on the other side!!

Registered!

Wow that was a long long registration line! It did move pretty quick so that was cool. I am now officially tagged, weighed and have an awful lot of Ironman stuff! Yes Rachel I spread it all out on the table and took piccies before attaching stickers etc to bikes.

Had a wee stress moment this morning when my bike didn't pass the bike check!! Aargh!! Had a slightly loose headset so $15 later it was all sorted! Phew! Got both helmets checked as I am still not 100% sure which one I will wear on race day. Bought some wee flouro stickies for the back off my tri-suit in case I am out there in the dark. Had fun sticking them all over the back of my suit earlier!!

Saw Cam Brown and Jo Lawn earlier today, wow she is tiny!!!

It is very cool here, lots of awesome awesome bikes etc! Although we have started calling Cervelos common as there are so many of them around!!

Right off to meet up with the other ChCh folk at the cafe before heading to the carbo party and then time for sleep as I am heading off to the womens breakfast tomorrow.

Made It!

Well here we all are in Taupo! Me and my bike made it here safely!! It's a gorgeous drive from Palmy to Taupo. Have found our house and settled in (which means bike parts and gear everywhere!!) and have checked out the expo etc. Already done some shopping, Orca running shorts for $20!!! Have scoped out the merchandise area and will be back to buy some very soon! Just had my wetsuit didymo dipped and will prob go for a wee dip this evening after my bike ride which I need to do.

Have discovered that our house is one block from T2 so that will be very handy for going to get our bikes on Sunday morning!

There are lots of people out and about cruising round in their knob helmets so I'm thinking I will look quite normal in mine!!

Ohh its lots of fun here!! This is cool!! Yay :)

Ohh and nice free internet on flash very fast laptops is great!!

It's time to go

Well, here we go it's time to leave to catch the plane for Palmy North, then I'm heading to Taupo tomorrow morning.

Not sure if I will get to blog or Facebook again before race day, so thank you all for your good luck wishes and support and help over the journey. It's had its ups and downs and now I am just excited about race day and actually doing it!

For those who don't know, you can track me (and others) online all day at www.ironman.co.nz I think on race day it defaults to www.ironmanlive.com and you can enter either race number (536) or name to track folk you know. There is also live streaming all day and you can literally watch everyone finish! I'll be one of the ones in the nice white knee length socks!!

If you want/need text updates as well please text me and let me know as Geoff or his brother will have my phone and I'm sure they will need something to do to fill in the day :)

See you all on the other side!!

Cheers, Nades :)

It's this month now!!

Freaky eh!! It's nearly time! I want to say that its scary that the countdown is in single digits and in the final week but its not, its exciting!! I am looking forward to getting to Taupo and doing all that pre-race stuff that we need to do and by golly there is a lot of it to do!!

I am however finally quite sick of cycling around ChCh, this time last year I had never done that round around the back of the airport now I have done it more times than I can count and will be quite happy to not do it for quite sometime. I think doing it twice in one day was what tipped me over the edge! It was really nice this week to have some shorter rides and just blast out to Sumner and back.

Last week I did the rather controversial 5 hour run. Never before has a run been discussed so much! Haha, I think nearly everyone knew that I had to do a 5 hour run and all had varying thoughts on it which made for some interesting conversations, some of these were weekly with Richard for the past however many weeks since he put it in my program. I was a little challenged when deciding where to go so I was very boring and ran the ChCh marathon course. I did this for a few reasons, I live on it so it is nice and easy to get to (just walk down the drive!), its 2 laps which is similar to Taupo and after several chats with Richard he was keen for me to do the distance and although I have read lots of info to the contrary I did agree with him a bit on this one. Plus I think you have to trust the coach sometimes and he has never put me wrong before and there is no way he would put me wrong 2 weeks before the event I have been training more than 12 months for, so I just followed the plan. I loaded up my fuel belt and after loading some water bottles and extra gels into the letterbox I headed out on the only warm day we had all week. The plan was to just take it easy, the run after all was only planned with an RPE of 3 so its not as if I had to smash it out. The first lap went ok, at the start of lap 2 I started to feel a bit 'can't be arsed' so decided to just lap around the river and head home. Then I remembered that saying I had read the day before 'its always to soon to quit' so figured I better suck it up and get on with it. By this time I really wanted coke and something salty so I told myself I could stop at the dairy on Colombo St as I would only have about 9km to go then. And yes I stopped and bought potato chips and coke and its highly likely I was seen hot-footing it down Kilmore St in my running kit complete with compression socks and fuel-belt scoffing chippies while holding a bottle of coke in my other hand! hahaha! It worked a treat tho and I feel pretty positive about the run now that I have the full marathon distance under my belt. I'm also pretty pleased at how quick I recovered. I was feeling normal by Wednesday, had my first run on Friday and that went really well so the plan seems to have worked!

Now all thats left to do is start packing! My bike and transition bag complete with helmet, shoes, wetsuit etc are loaded into Turps' car for their journey north. My girl is in good company with Zarnia's pretty new baby and Iain's flash bike! She had her service the other day and I took her for a spin today and she is running beautifully smoothly!! She's like new again :)

So far I'm still feeling quite calm about the whole thing, the nerves haven't kicked in yet which I'm thinking is a good thing as I still have heaps to do and it will be easier to get things done while I am still able to focus on the tasks at hand.

Bring on race day I say!! Woohoo!!

Oceanswim

Well it all looked a little like it was going to be a washout just like last year! Friday saw us with torrential rain, it pretty much poured down all day! I very dubiously headed off to registration to pick up my race pack and Nad'ya's as she was out of town. Briefly thought about trying to change Nad-ya into the non wetsuit swim category!! hehe! Decided that would be a bit mean and didn't do it!

Saturday morning was grey and drizzling but no howling southerly which was good and hey you get wet swimming anyway so it wasn't near as bad as it could have been.

Hard to say much about a swimming race really other that I turned up, I swam and I completed the distance. Its weird, lately I don't seem to get nervous before an event, perhaps because everything seems pretty minor in comparison to IM! Saturday was a little bit like turning up for a sea swim with several hundred of your closest friends! The water was lovely and calm which was great, temperature was a little fresh but you get that in the sea so no big deal. I was in the 2nd wave of 3 which were based on our estimated swim times, it was fairly crowded on the way out to the first bouy and thinned out a little from there, I found there was a reasonable amount of biffo and swimming over people on that first stretch but this eased as we covered the distance. And blimey what a distance!! It seemed ages and ages between each bouy and I felt like I was going pretty slowly and was pretty disappointed to see a time of an hour and 5mins when I finished as I had set a goal time of an hour. I was in the process of reworking through my estimated time for the IM swim and rethinking my whole race plan in my head when I very happily found out that the swim distance was long thanks to the organisers placing the bouys the night before. One would have thought you would double check these in the morning eh? The ocean has these interesting things called tides.... Oh well, at least we all had to swim the same distance and I feel better now knowing that I swam further in that time!

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!