Christmas/New Year Training

Christmas Eve I biked down to Hamilton via Whitford, Clevedon, Kawakawa Bay and the East Coast Bays (lonely!) route then towards Morrinsville, Gordonton and Hamilton. It ended up being 190km, and very warm. A good ride on terrain similar to the Ironman course with a few steeper hills.

Christmas morning I went for a run, but as we went to Midnight Mass I didn't get to bed until 1.30pm then up at 8 it was a bit of a mistake as the legs were still recovering!

Christmas was great, with a cool new digital camera I promise to make this site far more interesting! Plus I got two pairs of Mizuno Wave Nirvanas for the price of one pair in the sale at Smiths Shoes, so that was great. And the pavlova worked wonderfully...

Boxing Day saw me return to Auckland via the Hamilton to Auckland Express route to Pukekohe to Drury then back via the Great South Road. Apart from ending up on a gravel road with the song "We're on the Road to Nowhere" suspiciously appearing on the radio around Pukepuke it was a great 150km.

An easier day followed, then a swim bike run session then fast forwarding to the following Saturday a 3hr run and 1 hr bike needing LOTS of fluid it was so hot.

I'm just coming to the end of an easier week, but have still been running, a few 2hr rides, hill reps of One Tree Hill (the sheep think I'm nuts I'm sure!) and 75 min swims. Tomorrow sees my first Half IM simulation at IM pace which I'm heading out to Maretai for. Then a day off!!! Um...sorry what's that!

It's been hard over Christmas trying not to do too much and stick to my programme. I think a lot of people fall into the trap of going too hard in this silly season and ending up washed out at the end of Jan. The heat has also made training harder at times, but encourages you to drink more water which is always a good thing. My folks came up for New Year which was great fun. We went out to Long Bay on New Year's Day for a lovely picnic, and had some great meals at Soul and NSP. I took my Mum swimming at Parnell baths and felt guilty that I was in a wetsuit and she was braving the cold, so i took off my wetsuit and realised it wasn't that cold after all! Wimp that I am!

Tomorrow is the Tauranga Half IM and part of me really wishes I could do it again and challenge myself to beat last year's time. But this year Ironman is my goal and I need to keep my training at that nice steady pace, so smoking myself would not be good at this stage.

My programme has come through from my coach this week and I quote:

"Obviously training over the next few months is going to be more challenging with work starting. You need to use your common sense with recovery and life will need to become pretty simple for 2mths - there won’t be much time for anything other than training, eating working, recovery and that’s about it...."

So be warned...it's timeto really knuckle down!

My New Year's resolutions are to stretch more and look after myself more/recover properly/better, and a few up my sleeve which only I need to tell myself!

I start work on Monday which I am really looking forward to, so the next two months will be challenging.