A hot weekend

Race day minus 5. Taper weeks is on and the weekend was the last blast before the HIM and the later Xmas break.

I could not avoid the big work Xmas do on the Friday, but I limited myself to a couple of quiet beers. It was a good feed for the solid workouts to come.

Saturday was a hot day out, I biked for 40mins with my mate Gordo, and then we did the usual brick session (40-45min swim, 1hr bike, 25min run), I got home to a great breakfast and a even nicer nap. Such a beautiful day, Saturday. Pity we ended up having to do a little Xmas shopping instead of going to the beach and lie down.

I want a fixie for Xmas

Sunday was a 3 hour ride out to Betthels beach, we didn’t quite make it there, but we were “close enough” to the 3 hours. It was gentleman’s pace, so the legs felt OK for a 20min run off the bike. The rest of the day was out on the beach on the hot Auckland weather. I should have drank more water and I paid it later.

After the night sleep it was the last big swim session, we did about 4km with 400 TT, 200TT and 100m sprints, a real beauty. I have my good sleep assured after the swim only, and the rest of the day will be work and cooper’s test at night. Bring it on!

As I said, I’d pay for my poor hydration on a later stage. Half way through the swim my shoulders locked up, it was sort of a cramp, but a rather painless one. The end result was the same, though, I was unable to swim comfortable. After a few stretches it was all back to semi-normal conditions, but I wonder how much different the last two TT’s would have been.

All in all, a great weekend with solid training, good confidence boosters on the pool and a good outlook for the rest of the week, with the taper programme kicking in after tonight.

This is the last week of what I intended to be a base training period. There is 4 more weeks that will be still mainly aerobic stuff, but with the holiday in the middle, it will be a random pattern. It didn’t turn out as I originally thought in terms of the miles clocked on the bike and run. I should probably use the next 4 weeks to focus on doing some more long slow and hill rep stuff on both disciplines. The swim is OK, and I have to ensure I can keep clocking close to 15km for the week.

Congrats to all the ones sweating it out in the Taupo Half this weekend, great numbers all over the place.

Stay tuned for the RotoVegas race forecast.