Week minus 4: Encouraging

Another big week of training and I feel pretty good at the end of it. Though I had another episode which nearly saw me not here at all. It was at the end of my Wednesday ride, where I was doing my good citizen bit and waiting for a green light, which when eventually got, I was nearly taken out by some stupid blond bimbo who must have gone through the red light from about 20 metres back. I was just lucky that I heard the swerve of the tyres and was able to kick the breaks and twist my wheel, without that the only Ironman I might have been doing might have been that bolting my body back together.

Fortunately I survived and was able to head out the next morning for my long run - which I have now stretched out to 3 hours. Probably felt the best I have yet on these long runs, and even included a couple of hills into the run for good measure. My dilemma now is whether to extend the long run...longer. I have read advise that you don't need to run more than 3 hours in training, as the benefits for your fitness probably isn't worth the strain you put on your body. However, when I trained for the Edinburgh Marathon I included a 3hr 30min training run and I am tempted to do the same now. I've got a shorter long run planned for this week, so I've got a week or so to think about that one.

Saturday I had to go out for the combo training session early as the tides were against me. But that made for a beautiful swim at around 7am with the sea was near dead flat. Just a shorter combo session this week, with a 40min swim, 1hr 30min bike, and 45min run. But encouragingly, the whole session felt really comfortable and I could have easily kept going at the end of it.

Sunday was another long ride - this time I planned on riding the full 180kms. My second 6am wake up of the weekend and I was out on the bike before 7am. I was also using this ride to trial my eating plan for the Ironman. The bike is considered a "rolling buffet", where you try to get into your body as much carbohydrates as possible. Based upon my weight, that's suppose to be around 450 grams, which I have tried to fill with the following menu:

4 x bottles of carbo/hydration sports drink
2 x bottles of water (minimum)
3 x powerbar gels
2 x powerbars (resemble chewing cardboard - yum!)
2 x muesli bars
1 x banana
2 x vegemite sandwichs (which might sound strange, but the vegemite is a good source of sodium - for hydration - and the savoury flavour is great amongst all the sweetness)

It works out that I have to eat something every 30 minutes and it is quite a stomachful. A few times I didn't really feel like eating, but it will be important that I load up for the marathon that will follow. The drink is the difficult part to replicate in training, as I have to find somewhere to refill my bottles. I am now pretty well educated on the proportion of properties that have taps at the front of their houses (not enough), and when they do, the proportion that have hoses attached (too many).

Along with battling the "rolling buffet" bulging out of my pockets, I also had my first run-in with the weather. Incredibly, for the first time in all this training - and this harks all the way back to November - I was rained on. It was probably only for an hour, but it did make the point to me that I will need to be prepared if this eventuates at Taupo, as it won't be as warm as it is in Auckland. I also found out that my bike computer doesn't seem to like the rain any more, as it went a little haywire. At first, it shut off completely, though after five minutes or so the speed reading started again - though jumped around from time to time. More concerning was that my cadence reading (my pedal revolutions) didn't work for around an hour. The cadence reading is quite important to me as I use it to help me select the appropriate gearing (especially on hills) and to monitor the effort I am putting in. I was worried that my computer was broken completely, so it was with relief that speeding down a steep hill at a clip under 80kph must have either dried it out or jolted it back into work. But I'm going to get a new battery for it anyway, just in case.

Apart from all these distractions, I ended up completing my big ride - though I can't say comfortably, the body was again pretty sore at the end. But I racked up 185km, and when I got home I quickly popped on the running shoes for 15 minute jog. I was surprised that my legs coped with this reasonably well and, except for a nasty steep street, I again felt pretty good.

So onwards and upwards for the last 4 weeks of training. This week again has another test at the end of it - I am entered in a 3.5km ocean swim, which I am going to use as a quasi Half Ironman, by going for a 90km ride and a half marathon run straight after it. I'll let you know how it went next week.