I've toyed with the idea of missing out Rotorua this year, or doing it in a team or even doing the Half Half but I've finally decided to do the Rotorua Half again as per normal. The Tauranga Half will have to wait another year. I watched it Saturday and I didn't have the 'jealous' feeling. Maybe cos I felt so unfit and fat. I killed myself trying to run to get in front of Phil for this shot and he'd already done the swim, bike and most of the run.
I had about 2 weeks off from training over Christmas and New Year and I ate like an English pig! I enjoyed it to the full but it's now time to get back on track.
I managed to stay below 190lbs but it was close! (189.8!) ... I've dropped a few since then (187.8 this morning) but it's gonna be a mission (again) to get down to 182 (or lower). Totally worth it though. That's the good thing about Rotorua. It's all done and dusted just before Christmas and there's no need to train over Christmas. I've got the UCAN2's coming up so at least that stops the rot soon enough.
Current Situation
I'm back to loving swimming. I've been going with Jo and the kids and although I haven't done any long sets I've been working on changing my stroke. I've finally broken away from TI :( and embraced the swimming technique videos on youtube. It seems to be working. I'm slowly getting the 'pointing the fingers towards the bottom of the pool' at the start of the catch and 'bending the lower arm at 90 degress' and then pulling. Well on the left hand side anyway. The right is still learning but it's getting there. My shoulder is definitely more flexible on my left side.
I'm doing some stretching exercises to try to balance this out. Hopefully see some progress over the year. It's definitely easier to keep my elbow high on the left side. I did some stretching in the pool between 'drills'. Going to continue with that.
My fastest 50m today was 44 sec (full out, can't breathe at the end), while I could do a fairly relaxed 50m concentrating on the stroke and do it in 50 sec. Even 50m with fists was only 55 sec. My longest distance was 250m in 4:25. Although it was only one set and I couldn't have continued at that pace for much longer it's still my fastest 250m by about 15 seconds. I also played around with bi-lateral breathing and although it felt strange, it wasn't as bad as I remember it being in the past. I will continue to play with this.
The UCAN2 swim is 600m and so I think I'll do a 600m TT tomorrow. Would love to break 11 minutes. My UCAN2 swim last year was 12:14 so I'm hoping for some improvement. Can't let Tui beat me out of the swim this year ;)
The Bike
I still haven't been out on my bike since the race. Sunday was my first planned long ride of the year and it was p!$$in down so I decided to do 2hr Spinervals. I lowered the intensity to 2 which kept my HR low so it wasn't a hard workout but longest of year. Sweated buckets.
I'm continuing with Tuesday Night Intervals ... 30seconds on, 30 off x 12. Loving them.
Bike time for last year's UCAN2 was about 32 minutes but that included 2 stops for train crossings! Riding time was 28:52 for 16.5k which is an average of 34.3km/hr (21.4mph). Hopefully I'll be able to take a few seconds off that.
I've also done other windtrainer sessions and I feel like I'm back to where I was on the bike before Rotorua. Not so on the run ...
The Run
It's been much harder to get back into running than the swim and bike. I feel really slow and my legs feel heavy. I'm hoping it's the effects of too much Christmas food and lack of running and that dropping a few pounds will get me back to where I was. Time will tell.
I have done a few run:walks and then on Friday I decided to run a 5k. I had no plan to go all out so I knew it wasn't going to be fast but I was at least hoping for a comfortable run under 30 minutes. I did it in 29:20 but it felt so hard and I had nothing left afterwards. I couldn't pick up the pace at all. I'm hoping it was just fatigue from the windtrainer, swimming and gardening. Got a run planned for tonight so I'll soon know.
My big thing for the year is going to be flexibility. I want to get on top of the problem that is my calf. I need to get it (and the other muscles in my leg) more flexible and try to go a full year without it 'going'. I'm still 'heel striking' on the run and although it protects my calf to a certain extent I'm not sure what other damage it's doing to my knees. If I can get some flexibility and strength in my calfs maybe I can get the footstrike a little bit forward.
