Strewth's Training Blog

Back to Monday
I did forget to record the fact that I swam on Monday morning before the prerequisite brekkie with Mr B and CJ at RBB. I swam 3 x 300m with a 100m warm down making up my 1km just to start the day right.

Tuesday - Disastrous Cross Country Run
Activity: Run 6pm!!
Distance: 5.11km
Time: 30mins :(
Location: Weston Park

Comments: I had a dreadful run. I felt hot, tired and leaden. My stomach was decidedly dodgy and I took 3 imodeum to get me through the race. During the run I threw my heart rate monitor to a friend on duty at the side of the course. Unfortunately he didn't realise it came apart and when I collected it later he had dropped the actual monitor. He went back and checked the course several times and after the race speedygeoff and I checked as well - no luck - disappointing as it's part of my Garmin 301. Never mind, I will email the place I bought it and hopefully will be able to purchase a replacement. I was at the stage of tearing everything off that felt the least bit tight but on hindsight it was a silly mistake to throw my heart rate monitor and expect someone to look after it for me. It was not a good run. However, after some recovery and a good drink speedygeoff accompanied me on a 6km recovery run at a very slow pace so that I could complete the kilometres on my program.

Total kilometres including cross country: 11.11km
Calories burned: 659
Fastest km: 5:05 (shame I couldn't keep that up!)

This was a race best forgotten!! However, good things always come out of bad and it was a pleasant run with speedygeoff later. We talked about all sorts of things and he has shown me how to link people in my blog. Woo hoo and it works!

Wednesday - an early start!

Activity: Run 5.45am
Distance: 16:11km
Time taken: 1 hour 40mins 38secs
Location: To and round Lake G and home via Giralang

Comments: Although I went to bed after midnight and set the alarm at 5am I woke feeling quite rested and was ready for a run. It was a much better time of day for running. It was cool and I felt comfortable - not fast by any means but comfortable and considering it was back to back with Tuesday night, that was a big plus. It also meant that it freed up my afternoon and I gave myself a rare treat of dining with a friend at a restaurant in town then we walked down to the casino where we won $150 in half an hour - not too bad at all for my night off!

Thursday - Aquathlon #2

Activity: Swim 300m; Run 2.5km
Location: The Boat House by the lake
Total time: 21:42 (TBC)

Comments: It was fantastic to catch up with FD and Aki at the start and again at the end. Mr B cycled over from work to watch the race before heading off for his squash game. It was quite a different sort of lake swim to last time. On the plus side there were no reeds and on the minus side there were lots of nasty sharp stones at the start and near the finish of the swim so it was a case of "ouch, ouch, ouch" as we ran out of the water to transition. My approximate splits were 7:45 for the swim (a minute slower than last week but the swim felt a bit longer too) and just over 13mins for the run but the official results will confirm my times later in the week. I was comfortable and I think I may have been the only one in my age group - that needs to be confirmed too. There are benefits in being "older". I refuse to say "old"!! The swim to the first buoy was good, the water was reasonably flat although there was a bit of cross current swimming to the second buoy and it was difficult to sight the finish. However I was NOT the last out of the water in my wave and I enjoyed the coolness of the water - very refreshing. I just did the short course aquathlon and I enjoyed it. My first intention was to go on to do a 7km run when the race finished but there is always a lot of hanging round afterwards chatting at these events and by the time the barrel drawer had been finished (no luck for any of us again) it was quite late and I was very hungry so the lasagne that I had prepared the night before seemed far too inviting and my rumbling tummy led me home instead!