9 days to go

And it was another one full of surprises.  

I woke up fresh from a good nitght sleep. The previous couple of nights I had my sleep interrupted by many thoughts, all related to the trip and the race. At one point it was 3am and I was doing the maths of how much I'd allocate to meals in Budapest, and what what attractions I'd allow myself to visit. Later on it all drew to organizing a "team meeting" with other guys from the same age group to do a bit of a "swimming train" on the race. And so on with other bits and pieces. 

I guess is good to be a bit anxious, but i'm not great at managing anxiety. One of the nights I got up and ate half a slice of coconut cake.

So, I was saying. It was a day full of surprises. I had pictured an easy swim and a hard run set. It was the other way around!. Managed to get my head around it through the 600m warmup and when I read the board I thought to myself "this is gonna hurt". It was nothing serious and there was plenty of rest in between, basically we did 4 blocks of 400 as 400-2x200-4x100-8x50 all of them at maximum pace. I got a good PB for 400m and the rest was in the good marks as well. It was a good confidence booster, because I was seriously worried about my swim about a month ago, and I know now I am as ready as I could be and back to levels I was swimming before triathlon came to me.

The second surprise was a little farewell the rest of the people @ the pool did for us. Coach gather us around and some of the girls read a poem they've written for us which was both funny and humbling. I am not used to the attention, and getting some was strange. This continued @ work with more good vibes from colleagues and strangers, there was a morning tea to wish me luck and ask me questions about distances, times, weight, etc. 

I also managed to so some work in the middle and later do the last SUPERSET of the campaign. The SUPERSET has been the star player in my building. I'm feeling a stronger runner than I was for the Nationals, I still have 5 or 10 bits to spare for full on runs and I have bounced back stronger from the lil' injury I got in mid-July. Today was 5 milers but only 2 of those were on a high gear. The excercises in the middle were long and boring and didn't help recovery a lot, but they're good to improve running form. 

The evening was gone with more work, packing and getting things ready for my last training session in kiwi soil. Next reports will come from foreign land, nicer warmer weathers and (hopefully) technicolor. 

Keep working hard out there, and stay tuned, this is going to get hotter

Date: 3 Sept

Sport: swimming/running

Time: 60min/60min

Dist: 3km/8km

Comment: season's PB 400m in 5.11