What a week!

jeez, as I am typing I am in a phone queue, waiting to lodge a support request with VM because we have had more issues at work. I have had to deal with so many issues this week, it has been tougher mentally just trying to find the time and focus to actually complete the training at hand.....and tonight...more...due to external factors....and the worst thing is, the business does not see or care about that, they just know that we have had down time....and that we are responsible....being in IT is not much fun at times that I can tell you!

So, its a wonder I trained at all these week. I have had barely any sleep (I have a sick child as well - the poor thing up all night coughing), cars with loud alarms outside our house at 2am, and then still getting up at 4am each morning to bike, swim or run!



Well, get up and train I did, and I still feel I got quality sessions in towards the end of the week. Mondays 3.5km swim was really good, I felt strong throughout the set. I ran 17km on Wednesday mornig at 4am, got home and had frost on my beanie it was that cold....but it was a good run. Fridays swim set with Vlad was pretty tough but we got through it at lunchtime.

Saturday, i was at work at 5am to power off all our systems due to a building outage, and then back home. I then rode in from Gosford to work in Sydney, met Vlad along the way and we rode together for about 20mins which was great. he then went on to meet Jo at the top of Kariong Hill, and I soldiered on. Got to the office in a touch over 3 hours, (85km) but needed to do more, so rode a few laps around Centennial Park to finish off with a grand total of 110km for the day...my longest ride and I was well chuft with the effort.

Sunday morning I was up at 5am and on my way up to the Hunter Valley Half Marathon. I got there, must have been I think the 2nd one there, and man was there a cold wind blowing :-(.
I met up with Vlad and some of his mates who were running the 1okm race. My legs were a touch tired from the ride before, and I had a goal of 95mins or under for this race. Vlad wanted to win the thing and smash the record.
Well....we both achieved our goals. I finished in a solid 90mins, came 23rd overall (out of 400 odd) and Vlad the animal won it, in 73mins. He was 8mins clear of 2nd place, who incidently was only 9mins ahead of me.....so I think we were both chuft. I was pretty tired to be honest, but having done that ride, and followed it up with a hard and hilly run has given me some confidence about the half marathon in November.

So, in summery :

Swim - 8.5kms (3hours)
Run - 50km
Ride - 2.5hours on Turbo trainer + 4.5hours (110km)

So all up, I did about 14hours of training this week, and thats on top of probably close to 80hours of work all up.....i did miss my family this week that much I can tell you. I really had to push myself to train on the tuesday morning because of the issues at work, but I was able to get around that which is I suppose a good thing.

3 Weeks to the city to surf, I have a goal of about 56mins for that......tough ask, but you have to set tough goals....thats the whole point! Iron Man is probably one of the toughest things I will ever do in my life, which is why I am working so hard to prepare myself for it, so I can do it to the best I can...why esle would I want to participate in something so demanding and taxing on the body....the good thing is, I was able to push myself really far this weekend, with a tough swim, ride and run, all of which build the confidence I need.

Last thing....juat another congrats to the Vladinator for that awesome run...it was a tough course and he hammered all and sundry.....wonderful to watch!!!