Race 2

and this one will be a chilly one! 13 degrees sunny and cold forecast for saturday's womens only bike race in wanaka. Im slightly scared as it may be a fast-fest but im still on my do all the races you can and dont be scared by them......so here's to Race 22k's of slight uphill and then turn around and do 22k's of slight downhill.

I am fearless!!

race1

Race one is over and although it was a short duathlon 3k/20k/3k it was a good indication of where im at at the moment.
Freezing day which didnt really heat up, but it wasnt too windy out on the bike (although a nice tailwind on the way back).

Run started off fine and as usual my heart rate was through the roof. I dont train with HR as ive never been able to control it. My resting is normal 59 but can shoot up to 150/ 160 walking upstairs.....! So i usually work on RPE for most work outs.

I kept just behind some fast ladies and then onto the bike. It was an out and back with a bit of a headwind and always a slight uphill with some big climbs on the first 10k. I felt awful but just concentrated on keeping my legs spinning and not pushing too hard and trying to bring my breathing down.

I honestly thought id got lost as i saw noone on the lap...until near the turnaround when i finally saw the leaders. The turnaround was great as a tailwind greeted us and we could push home on the, now, slight downhill :)

The final 3k run was fine and i pushed the last 500 metres to the finishline.

Still lots of work to do on the bike though!!
results:14.25/48.57/15.38

(running with eyes closed is probably why i always get lost :)

Race number 1

its the first race of the season on saturday. A nice 3k run/ 20k bike/ 3k run duathlon in sunny (we hope) cromwell and a nice $10 to boot!! (thats how race should be!)

A group of us women are going over to eat cakes and buy plants   race as hard as we can for the first race in hopefully many this season.

Cant wait!! :)

If anyone fancies it, start is 10am on Butchers Drive, Cromwell.
Cake will be from random cafes around the area

back to back

After a hard long weekend of training i was scared to learn about my back to back run intervals on the programme. Is my coach mad, trying to kill me or just plain mean.
But no, his idea is to run up a mountain on smashed legs, then go up another mountain to really get to the top, thus having the legs to thrash a race because you've done it all in training.
Try it!

Monday:
natural pace 40 mins
10 situps run fast 6 mins
10 push ups run fast 6 mins
10 sit ups
10 push ups
run fast 40 secs, 20 secs very slow x10
warm down easy 10 mins


tue:
warm up 25 mins steady
on grad/ steep hill approx 200 mts run up from bottom to the 200 mts hard out, very easy down x10

natural pace 15 mins

do hill set again x10
easy 15 mins

enjoy :-S

3 !

Today my niece is 3! :) A great age. Just thinking about how lucky she is to have the world infront of her and all the things she has yet to discover- Nirvana's 'Nevermind', her first ride on a bike without stabilisers, swimming far out in the ocean and running up her first mountain.

Happy birthday Mae you are very loved :) xxx

sunshine

woooo hoooo we made it my friends! The winter is over, and apart from a few frosty mornings and some rain the sunshine has appeared and the bike is outta the garage! :) I am like a kid in a candy store again....until i pulled my neck out and went from loadsa training to none :(

Anyway back out this weekend and a short sharp swim, bike, run is on the cards to see how the legs have held up and have some friends along for the ride.

see you out there !

holiday time

Its been a good month for training...get some decent run mileage in and even making myself sit on a windtrainer is making for feeling fit and healthy!

I have recently left meat out of my diet and have discovered that the sore tummy has gone away!!! No sign for 3 weeks now yipeeee. We shall see what happens in the coming months.

Off back to the UK on thursday for 4 weeks and am slightly worried about the lack of cycling that is going to be happening. Cycling is my weakest discipline and when i finally feel like im getting some fitness in it will disappear with the lack of bikes and gyms that are around my parents place. Any hints/ tips for biking while away would be much appreciated!! (ie sitting on my mums with a basket will probably be the nearest thing to it ha ha)

I hope everyone's keeping warm over the winter months, i know how hard it is to keep motivated and not to be shovelling large quantities of cake down my neck at any given moment so keep at it!! The summer will be here before we know it (and the races eeek!)

Also i got these bad boys in for interval training/ running on the road. Now im not the first one to buy pink but im getting used to them and they're really comfy. The light weight is a joy when dragging my ass around  the track  running as fast as Paula Radcliffe and the colour keeps pink hating maniacs at bay. (which of course we dont have here in Queenstown, only posh people allowed in) ;)

Happy training!! ;)