SWIM
Squads x 3
Solo swim x 2
Sea swim x 2
~11km
Did a couple of sea swims at Cook's Beach, seemed to be some kind of current action going on - it would take me about 18.5mins on the way out and then about 21mins on the way back. Good practice for Tauranga dodging all the boats that were moored.
BIKE
Time: 14hrs32
Distance: 386km
Boyfriends: 3
Had a few solid rides in the Coromandel - Cook's Beach to Tairua and back and then Cook's to a bit beyond Whitianga and back. A few issues with cars and trailers not obeying the 1.5m rule but otherwise it was nice riding somewhere different. Did the usual 5min hill reps during the week which is where I picked up my 3 boyfriends who decided it would be fun to do the effort with me from where I passed them about 2/3 of the way up. Unfortunately they didn't know where the finish line was so we almost had a little pile up. Good one.
RUN
I had an MRI early in the week which showed an oblique fracture of the posterior cortex of the tibia which extends around the medial and lateral cortices. MRI's don't show any new bone which has been laid down (ie. healing) but there is odema within the bone so it seems there is activity going on which is good. If it is no better in a couple of weeks I will get a CT scan which will show if it is healing or not.
I tried to do another little run/walk which was a bit sore so I have made an executive decision not to run again for another two weeks. Then it will be 14 weeks since Kona so surely to god we will be all G. So looks like running at Tauranga and Wanaka are completely out of the question :(
Monday, December 28, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
Weekly Update - 14.12.09 -20.12.09
SWIM
Squads x 3
Solo paddle x 2
~12.5km total
Decided I should put some of my aqua-running time to better use so did a couple of little swims by myself before running. Trying to work on my stroke and my turns a bit in those sessions. I thought my turns were going better but they were definitely slowing me down when we did 12x100m sprints on Friday. I was on a bit of a go slow anyway but they weren't helping. David from Lane 4 even told me that he watched one of my turns and it wasn't very good (thats a direct quote) so obviously more practice is needed.
BIKE
Time: 14hrs08
Distance: 366
A reasonably meaty week on the bike, since I am not running I may as well clock up lots of bike time. Did the waterfront TT on Saturday - 16km of all out pain and suffering - and took 44sec off my PB, I had hoped to go sub-24 (previous best was 24.09) but I smashed it and came in at 23.25. I never thought I would ever go much under 24 so I was pretty pleased with myself. There was a truck that kept getting in the way on the way back so I had to slow up 4x for it, but then would get a little draft off it when it got going so think hopefully that the sitting up and then getting the draft would cancel each other. So I now need to do another 23.25 to know that it was all me.
Whenever I go riding recently I have a habit of picking up random men who like to attach themselves and ride along with me. Jared calls them my boyfriends so I think I will start adding a weekly boyfriend count to my bike summary.
Boyfriends: 3
Two of the boyfriends attached themselves to us when we passed them along the waterfront and even did 1min efforts when we went, they got quite confused though when I started an effort before Jared and they didn't know who to follow. What are these men thinking drafting off a little girl anyway?!?!!
RUN
Same same
Attempted a lamp-post walk/run during the week which only lasted about two lamp-posts when I decided it was a bad idea because my leg hurt straight away. Things were feeling better by the end of the week so I tried it again on Sunday and managed to go for about 25mins which is encouraging. It wasn't entirely pain-free but didn't get worse and didn't feel like I shouldn't be doing it so I think that is a good sign. Probably shouldn't have gone for as long as I did and I got a bit of a telling off (maybe rightly so) but I was just a bit excited. Had an MRI today so will see what the outcome of that is before I do anything more.
Did the usual aqua-running and got the usual funny looks from other pool users.
Squads x 3
Solo paddle x 2
~12.5km total
Decided I should put some of my aqua-running time to better use so did a couple of little swims by myself before running. Trying to work on my stroke and my turns a bit in those sessions. I thought my turns were going better but they were definitely slowing me down when we did 12x100m sprints on Friday. I was on a bit of a go slow anyway but they weren't helping. David from Lane 4 even told me that he watched one of my turns and it wasn't very good (thats a direct quote) so obviously more practice is needed.
BIKE
Time: 14hrs08
Distance: 366
A reasonably meaty week on the bike, since I am not running I may as well clock up lots of bike time. Did the waterfront TT on Saturday - 16km of all out pain and suffering - and took 44sec off my PB, I had hoped to go sub-24 (previous best was 24.09) but I smashed it and came in at 23.25. I never thought I would ever go much under 24 so I was pretty pleased with myself. There was a truck that kept getting in the way on the way back so I had to slow up 4x for it, but then would get a little draft off it when it got going so think hopefully that the sitting up and then getting the draft would cancel each other. So I now need to do another 23.25 to know that it was all me.
Whenever I go riding recently I have a habit of picking up random men who like to attach themselves and ride along with me. Jared calls them my boyfriends so I think I will start adding a weekly boyfriend count to my bike summary.
Boyfriends: 3
Two of the boyfriends attached themselves to us when we passed them along the waterfront and even did 1min efforts when we went, they got quite confused though when I started an effort before Jared and they didn't know who to follow. What are these men thinking drafting off a little girl anyway?!?!!
RUN
Same same
Attempted a lamp-post walk/run during the week which only lasted about two lamp-posts when I decided it was a bad idea because my leg hurt straight away. Things were feeling better by the end of the week so I tried it again on Sunday and managed to go for about 25mins which is encouraging. It wasn't entirely pain-free but didn't get worse and didn't feel like I shouldn't be doing it so I think that is a good sign. Probably shouldn't have gone for as long as I did and I got a bit of a telling off (maybe rightly so) but I was just a bit excited. Had an MRI today so will see what the outcome of that is before I do anything more.
Did the usual aqua-running and got the usual funny looks from other pool users.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Taupo Photos
I don't seem to be very good at getting photos on this so I have to put them on separately...
Jared had the day from hell and was telling me all about it halfway through the run
Good work Jess - 2nd Woman
Good one Meshy - 1st Woman
Jared had the day from hell and was telling me all about it halfway through the run
Good work Jess - 2nd Woman
Good one Meshy - 1st Woman
Monday, December 14, 2009
Taupo Half Ironman Race Report
So pre-Kona I had planned to do this race as an individual but after breaking myself it wasn't a possibility anymore so I decided to do a team since I would be down there anyway. So I roped my buddy from uni Andy into being my runner since he lives in Taupo, he was keen but only had a few weeks notice to train. He's done a few halves and a marathon before so knew what he was getting himself into so I wasn't too worried about him and didn't really care how fast we went anyway because I just wanted to do my bits. A mixed team with a girl cyclist would have to be pretty awesome to be competitive against the men cyclists.
Had a bit of a drama before even leaving Auckland on Friday - I put my wheel cover on and was to be the first time I had used it on the RooRoo. Because the chain stays on the RooRoo are curved in there was one bit on the wheel cover which stuck out a tiny bit and rubbed on the chain stay so wasn't going to work. We had to hightail it to Taupo to get to registration in time so I had to rack my bike minus the rear wheel and take the wheel cover off that night. Lucky I remembered to bring the wheel in the morning (unlike at Rotorua last year...).
Swim was ok, we started 10 minutes after the individuals and it was a pretty peaceful start ie no kicks to the head or being swum over which was nice. I tried to get on feet as much as I could, the water was nice and clear so I could see when I strayed off my chosen feet. Hit the slow individuals after about 600m and managed to dodge them without any collisions.
Came out of the water in a bit over 32mins which is pretty standard for me but I really should swim faster...
Had a good T1 even if I do say so myself, had plenty of space (no bikes on either side of me) so that was all good. Jumped on my bike and off I went.
Started the bike and realized after about 3-4mins that my power was really high, like 280-300w which is just ridiculous, at 5mins my average power was about 290w which I knew was wrong. So I tried to zero the torque but it wouldn't go to zero, the lowest it would go was 45w. So I tried a couple of more times but it still wouldn't work so in the end I gave up and just tried to ignore the crazy high wattage readings.
I had put my Em's Power Cookie-Bar in my pocket with my CO2 before the swim and had a feel around to check all was intact once I had started the ride and was confused to feel what I thought was a gel in my pocket. Turns out Cookie-Bars packets aren't waterproof and had turned to mush, mmmmmmmmmm. It was all I had to eat and didn't actually taste too bad, lucky it wasn't salt water. It was a bit messy though and I suspect it looked a bit like I had a toilet problem from where I had wiped my hand on my bum...
The ride was pretty good, had to concentrate on not slacking off since I wasn't running after. I have never passed so many people in my life, I felt like a superhero and only got passed by about 5 people so that was all g. The weather was a bit poo but not too cold which was a big concern of mine, had a few nasty sidegusts which blew me round quite a bit so maybe lucky I didn't have the disc.
Managed to get back to T2 in just under 2hrs40 with average power of 297w !! As geeky as it sounds I'm pretty disappointed TapTap failed me because I think it was a good effort for me so would have be nice to have an accurate power reading.
Running through T1 and T2 seemed OK on the leggie so I am hopeful about going for a little jog next weekend.
Andy ran about 1hr41 which wasn't bad on no training so we came 9th out of the mixed teams in 4:56:53.
Roll on Tauranga!!
Had a bit of a drama before even leaving Auckland on Friday - I put my wheel cover on and was to be the first time I had used it on the RooRoo. Because the chain stays on the RooRoo are curved in there was one bit on the wheel cover which stuck out a tiny bit and rubbed on the chain stay so wasn't going to work. We had to hightail it to Taupo to get to registration in time so I had to rack my bike minus the rear wheel and take the wheel cover off that night. Lucky I remembered to bring the wheel in the morning (unlike at Rotorua last year...).
Swim was ok, we started 10 minutes after the individuals and it was a pretty peaceful start ie no kicks to the head or being swum over which was nice. I tried to get on feet as much as I could, the water was nice and clear so I could see when I strayed off my chosen feet. Hit the slow individuals after about 600m and managed to dodge them without any collisions.
Came out of the water in a bit over 32mins which is pretty standard for me but I really should swim faster...
Had a good T1 even if I do say so myself, had plenty of space (no bikes on either side of me) so that was all good. Jumped on my bike and off I went.
Started the bike and realized after about 3-4mins that my power was really high, like 280-300w which is just ridiculous, at 5mins my average power was about 290w which I knew was wrong. So I tried to zero the torque but it wouldn't go to zero, the lowest it would go was 45w. So I tried a couple of more times but it still wouldn't work so in the end I gave up and just tried to ignore the crazy high wattage readings.
I had put my Em's Power Cookie-Bar in my pocket with my CO2 before the swim and had a feel around to check all was intact once I had started the ride and was confused to feel what I thought was a gel in my pocket. Turns out Cookie-Bars packets aren't waterproof and had turned to mush, mmmmmmmmmm. It was all I had to eat and didn't actually taste too bad, lucky it wasn't salt water. It was a bit messy though and I suspect it looked a bit like I had a toilet problem from where I had wiped my hand on my bum...
The ride was pretty good, had to concentrate on not slacking off since I wasn't running after. I have never passed so many people in my life, I felt like a superhero and only got passed by about 5 people so that was all g. The weather was a bit poo but not too cold which was a big concern of mine, had a few nasty sidegusts which blew me round quite a bit so maybe lucky I didn't have the disc.
Managed to get back to T2 in just under 2hrs40 with average power of 297w !! As geeky as it sounds I'm pretty disappointed TapTap failed me because I think it was a good effort for me so would have be nice to have an accurate power reading.
Running through T1 and T2 seemed OK on the leggie so I am hopeful about going for a little jog next weekend.
Andy ran about 1hr41 which wasn't bad on no training so we came 9th out of the mixed teams in 4:56:53.
Roll on Tauranga!!
Weekly Update - 07.12.09 -13.12.09
SWIM
3 x squad swims
1 x open water swim
~10,000m total
Missed half of Mondays squad with an alarm malfunction which apparently included 800m of kick so wasn't too sad about that. Wednesday was good with 24x100 leaving on 1.35 so had a bit of work to do there but was pretty sweet once I put my beloved paddles on.
Open water swim was in Taupo at the half ironman, I'll put a little race report on that up soon.
BIKE
Time: 10hrs47
Distance: 305km
Have been having some GREAT weather here so riding in the sun has been all good. Did the usual 5min efforts, about the same as last week so still hitting 200w+ which is good. My PB for this is 214w which was in June when I had a week or two of brilliance which has never come back to me so hopefully I can get back there soon.
RUN
Time:1hr45
Distance: 5.3km
More of the dreaded aqua-running. Managed to go a wee bit further this week in the same time so go me. Hopefully someone will introduce aqua-running as an Olympic/Commonwealth sport because I'm getting pretty good at it and would hate for all this talent to go to waste. *HOPEFULLY* will be able to go for a little jog next weekend, fingers crossed...
3 x squad swims
1 x open water swim
~10,000m total
Missed half of Mondays squad with an alarm malfunction which apparently included 800m of kick so wasn't too sad about that. Wednesday was good with 24x100 leaving on 1.35 so had a bit of work to do there but was pretty sweet once I put my beloved paddles on.
Open water swim was in Taupo at the half ironman, I'll put a little race report on that up soon.
BIKE
Time: 10hrs47
Distance: 305km
Have been having some GREAT weather here so riding in the sun has been all good. Did the usual 5min efforts, about the same as last week so still hitting 200w+ which is good. My PB for this is 214w which was in June when I had a week or two of brilliance which has never come back to me so hopefully I can get back there soon.
RUN
Time:1hr45
Distance: 5.3km
More of the dreaded aqua-running. Managed to go a wee bit further this week in the same time so go me. Hopefully someone will introduce aqua-running as an Olympic/Commonwealth sport because I'm getting pretty good at it and would hate for all this talent to go to waste. *HOPEFULLY* will be able to go for a little jog next weekend, fingers crossed...
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Weekly Update - 30.11.09 - 06.12.09
SWIM
3 x squad swims ~9500m total
A bit too much medley this week for my liking but did my best, had a 1500m TT on Wednesday but was feeling pretty poo so dropped down a lane and swam easy so it wasn't really a TT at all but good for the volume. Did 7x100's sprinting on Friday which was brutal.
I have decided my goal for the next few weeks is to get my tumble turns right as I kind of twist while I'm mid-turn making them not as efficient as they should be.
BIKE
Time: 11hrs38
Distance: 314km
Was supposed to do the waterfront TT on Saturday but punctured before the start and I only had tubes with ridiculously short valves and a munted valve extender so couldn't get it fixed in time to start. So didn't do any efforts but still rode for a bit over 2hrs so all wasn't lost.
Did some good 5min efforts on Thursday and managed to get the power back over 200w on my TT bike which I haven't been able to hit in about 5 months so that was a bit of a success.
Sunday ride was just on 3hrs around Maraetai and Clevedon with 2hrs uptempo. Nice and solid and weather was AWESOME. I even headed out with no arm warmers on, its been a long time since I've backed myself like that.
RUN
Time: 1hr45
Distance: 5.2km...
Am running in the pool - not with an aquajogging belt but like normal running in a waist height (for me it a bit higher...) since this is the closest thing I get to running with a stress fracture. Am getting pretty sick of pool-running so decided to do some 100m intervals which broke things up slightly and I even had quad DOMS after the first session so it must be doing something.
It has been 8 weeks today since I broke myself at Kona and following the general timeframe of 6-8 weeks for a stress fracture to heal I had hoped today would be the day I could go for a little trot. But a short run from the vege garden to the house showed that I still have a wee way to go so back to the pool next week I will go :(
3 x squad swims ~9500m total
A bit too much medley this week for my liking but did my best, had a 1500m TT on Wednesday but was feeling pretty poo so dropped down a lane and swam easy so it wasn't really a TT at all but good for the volume. Did 7x100's sprinting on Friday which was brutal.
I have decided my goal for the next few weeks is to get my tumble turns right as I kind of twist while I'm mid-turn making them not as efficient as they should be.
BIKE
Time: 11hrs38
Distance: 314km
Was supposed to do the waterfront TT on Saturday but punctured before the start and I only had tubes with ridiculously short valves and a munted valve extender so couldn't get it fixed in time to start. So didn't do any efforts but still rode for a bit over 2hrs so all wasn't lost.
Did some good 5min efforts on Thursday and managed to get the power back over 200w on my TT bike which I haven't been able to hit in about 5 months so that was a bit of a success.
Sunday ride was just on 3hrs around Maraetai and Clevedon with 2hrs uptempo. Nice and solid and weather was AWESOME. I even headed out with no arm warmers on, its been a long time since I've backed myself like that.
RUN
Time: 1hr45
Distance: 5.2km...
Am running in the pool - not with an aquajogging belt but like normal running in a waist height (for me it a bit higher...) since this is the closest thing I get to running with a stress fracture. Am getting pretty sick of pool-running so decided to do some 100m intervals which broke things up slightly and I even had quad DOMS after the first session so it must be doing something.
It has been 8 weeks today since I broke myself at Kona and following the general timeframe of 6-8 weeks for a stress fracture to heal I had hoped today would be the day I could go for a little trot. But a short run from the vege garden to the house showed that I still have a wee way to go so back to the pool next week I will go :(
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Welcome to my blog!
Hello and welcome. Here I will be putting updates on my training and racing and any random thoughts I feel like sharing.
I will start by adding a few photos from my 2009 season.
I will start by adding a few photos from my 2009 season.
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