Back to normality and Loving it!

After 2 weeks of disrupted weeks, having travelled to our remote offices in Melbourne & Perth, which disturbed my weekly routine (I am a man of routine...dont bugger it up because I get upset :-( (which by the way is weird, because outside of work I am a very relaxed person) but I guess that having the program from Rollo to follow means I can plan my week in advance and know what I was doing and when I could do it. Traveling made it difficult, and of course I was not able to do long rides either, which I really need! Remember, that bloody Iron Man ride is 180km....lets say that again....(in one of those darts commentators voices) ONE HUNDRED AND EEEEEEEIGHTY! kilometers!! Then, never mind the knackered legs, we are to get off that bike, rump bloody sore, legs buggered, hot, tired, thirsty, and run a measly marathon (42km). Having my week cut short to accommodate traveling really gave me the shits because I know what lies ahead, and it aint pretty!

Ah well, its my choice, and despite how the above sounds, I am so excited, nervous and looking forward to competing in the Iron Man. Not many people will do this in their life span, take on such a goal which requires such commitment from the person participating and their family (as in my case and most of the guys I know doing triathlon). I think my wife is over the early morning wake ups she gets every day now, I dont blame her, it must be annoying getting woken up at 4am Mon to Fri and at least 5am on weekends....she has been pretty patient. We must have double the amount of fabric washing liquid because everyday I have towels, cozzies, running and or cylcing gear, and sometimes 3 sets of the stuff from one day (brick session + recovery run)! The increase in expenditure to provide the fuel needed to keep me going means that any reduction in the money spent on beer previously is not being realised either....instead, I now scoff protien powder and other suppliments to keep my temple well oiled and rearing to go each day! My favourite though has to be No-Xplode! Its a pre exersice concoction which I have before my runs and swims. Not sure exactly what is in it, what it does, but it gets the consumer fired up and ready to rumble. A by product of this concoction is the almost instant bowel cleansing process one goes through within 30mins of drinking it. Its bloody funny being a seasoned user of it, to give Jase a dose on Thursday morning, and watch the reaction! I had a bloody good laugh at him, and even when we ran this morning, I was close to tears at his recollection of this rather woeful by product. Bugger eating deworming tablets, this stuff will clear your arse pipes with haste and vigor....and once done, you will emerge like a little jack Russel with that 'spring' in your step, ready to go, 2kgs lighter and grateful for having made it to the loo!!

Anyway, back to this weeks training. Rollo again provided a quality program. This time focused on the cycling as I had not done as much in the past 2 weeks because of my travels. I had the usual brick session on Wednesday morning which I love doing. Friday I had a straight 3.8km swim down at Andrew Boy Charlton pool. I have never swum that far in one go...thats 72laps of a 50m pool! I was excited about doing it, but also knew I would be pretty bored after 10mins of going up and down the lane. well, the swim lived up to expectations. I loved the fact that I did it, hating being in there, hated the salt water, and emerged about 54mins later. Not bad, given that would be a great time for me during the Iron Man! The 2XU V1 wetsuit was comfortable throughout, whcih was another test, so all in all, great fun...all done before 7am to!

On Saturday I went to work on the 4am train, the building was having a power outage, so I needed to be there. I dropped my bike off friday because I decided to ride home once done. Jase was to meet me at some point, him leaving home at 7.45am, me about 8.15 from the office. It meant we would meet about half way. I left a little late, and boy, that is the toughest ride I think I have done. Its pretty much uphill all the way, the first 48kms with a head wind. We actually did meet about halfway, and headed back to Gosford together. Finished the ride, and I must say, it was bloody good fun, but hard work!

Up again this morning at 5am, and off with Jase to do 2 hours of hill running. We chose to run offroad in the hills in Ourimbah for a change, which was good. 21kms later, just under 2hours of constant running we were done. It was good to run with jase as well. He has done a few Iron Man races himself, and will be there again in March! Its good to have good company, and the guys I have trained with have made it so so much easier and better for me. Vlad, Andrew, Andrew, Tim, Jase, Allen, Adrian & Rollo have all really made the journey so far great fun, kept me going with encouragement, advice and tips, and to these blokes I am most grateful! Its now realy 3months only left to prepare, which aint long......

So the week was as follows :

Swim : 7.2km (3hours)
Cycle : 100kms + 3.5hrs on TT (7.5hours)
Run : 35kms (4hours)
Total : 14.5hours (or there abouts)

You can see the low volume in the run for the past week. Its probably not a bad thing as my shin has been niggling me again. I will be applying deep heat etc to it and giving it a good working.

Lastly, Andrew and Jeff competed in the Canberra Half Iron Man today. I dont know all the details, but it was another hot and tough day out there apparently, but both came through in similar unofficial times. well done to them both, great efforts to be out there doing that.

until next week.....and more reports on No-Xplode!!