Into 2010 we go!

A new decade has started, but there has been no change to the normal in terms of the focus on preparing for March 28th. We as a family welcomed in the New Year watching the fireworks display in Gosford, it kicked off at 9pm, and I must say it was pretty good! It reminded me of the fireworks display we used to get on the last day of the Harare Agricultural Show......short, sharp and sweet! never the less, the kids all loved it, we did not have Put that in your pipe and smoke it! How good is it living up the coast...we really are lucky in a lot of ways. So, I was in bed at around 11.30pm on NYE, staying up to watch the clock tick over does nothign for me anyway, never really has. I was going to get up at 4am anyway to go to the office as I had some work left over to complete before monday! So, up and out the house at 5am (dosed for 40mins but it felt like 10secs), into the office and then onto my long ride for the week on New Years Day as Sunday I was having off as it was michelle's birthday. I rode 105km pretty much in the hills for the whole time, and the heart rate was pretty much where rollo wanted it, I cooked it in the hills. Its really hard not to push hard up hills, but its something I am going to work on this month.
On Thursday morning (yes NYE) jase and I had a long slow run with 7 hill repeats in the middle. We ran from my office on the City to Surf route, and did the repeats up 'heart break hill'. It was sensational. It was raining a bit, but very humid. The views from some of those houses would be awesome on NYE, I would hate to think of the mortgage on those properties....one had a tennis court with probably one of the best views in Sydney...what a waste, and what an expensive tennis court! We ended up running 21kms that morning which was a good effort.
Jase and I ran again on Saturday morning together, this time from his place heading north towards Tuggerah. On the way back we picked up a new friend, a staffy...he followed us all the way back to Jase's place which was about 8km! The poor bugga was shot. I chucked him in the car and took him back home, and even then he chased the car all the way down the road....must have liked our company!

Anyway, into a new year, less than 3months to go until the race, still loving the training, and I am looking forward to the next 8weeks or training....I think Rollo has got some good sets coming up!

On Monday night, I did a bike test with Rollo to see how the training had gone since the last one back in July. In July I was able to get to 340watts, this time round 400watts! Not that that means so much, but its the differance between the heart rate output to power output which is where the differance is seen, and overall it looks like a 20% improvement in 4 months. To put that into context, 4 months ago, to hold 240watts, my heart rate would have been 150 - 160bpm, but this time round it was 130ish, which is great!


This week in short:

Swim : 7km (2.5hours)
Run : 48kms (4 hoursish)
Ride : 155km (5.5hours) + 1hour TT
Total : 12.5hours

The total number of hours spent actually adds up to a lot less than what the training volume felt like to be honest, but every set was really good quality, in terms of what Rollo set, and the effort put in (with Jase). I enjoyed every one of them (okay, maybe the swim was not much fun, and I am finding it hard to get motivated to swim as well at the moment, but thats only if the swim is at lunchtime).

Until next week.....