Sneaking a little crack

The 4:30am Wednesday wake up followed by an up-tempo 85km left me comatose and hungry all day yesterday – concentration span of nat. I tried to alleviate the problem with chips and gravy, but that only exaggerated the sense of sluggishness. Won’t make that mistake again.

I trying to make one last effort to ramp my training hours now, but t comes at a cost in terms of guilt towards the family, and in work time allocation. I am trying to align my boss’s expectations to affect a little leeway on time spent at the desk over the next month or so. To-date I’ve adopted the “hint, hint” approach but anyone who has ever met him will attest that his manic disposition impedes many of life’s subtleties from landing in that disco swirl of a brain he relies on. So manic that even in his quieter moments one suspects he has dropped a wee-chip of crack cocaine in the mens room. I’m going to have to adopt a more direct approach I suspect.

Jindi weekend just a week away, and I suspect this is my make or break point. Also very keen to stick some really solid training this weekend, as Monday and Tuesday next week are a two-day pyjama party with the Westlink Board, and not much in the way of exercise will take place there. That said, my boss has organised a tai-chi session on Tuesday morning, much to the chargrin of the Directors. His original plan was to organise a bike ride along the shared path, but they weren’t going there.

Achilles still rooted, but still boxing on.

I hate being Mr Bean

Did the late night dash to NAC last night to slip in a quick 2k after Brett came around for the weekly elbow to the sensitive bits.

All went well enough, until I got out of the pool and realized I hadn’t brought a towel. Damn I hate that. Didn’t want to get into the car wet, so I snuck into the mens and used the hand dryer to dry off. It’s a bad-weird look, crouching and wiggling into various poses in nothing but a pair of budgies, trying to angle the blasting hot air onto the various body-bits by a machine mounted not more than 3 foot off the ground. Clearly the designers only had hands in mind for its use, otherwise it would have been mounted significantly higher. Thankfully the only person to come in was wearing thongs and had whinging kids, and so I got sufficient warning to to quickly switch to hand drying – though I’m sure I looked sufficiently sheepish that he knew something was wrong – in any event he certainly kept his kids well clear.

Still no Achilles, but what can you do.

Will clock 370k on the treadley this week, so OK on that front. Enough swimming to keep it rolling along, and some “walking”.

Low Mileage, a Little Spaniard and 5 Bells

A relatively poor week for mileage in each of the legs. Due primarily to a combination of wanting to get in and see Picasso, missing the Saturday session last week with the heavy rains, and a few medical appointments to try and get some repair to this %‘king leg. No big deal, and just treating it as an easy week. 4 Weeks of ramping to come, so probably quite beneficial in the long run.

Swim 4:30

Bike 160

Run 2.5

Gym 2 sessions

Walk 2 x 8km

Total training time 13:01

Weight still coming down. Average for this week was 79.8. Was 84.4 on 1^st January when I started this diary 12 weeks ago = 0.45kg per week. Not really IM style weight loss, but nice and consistent. Don’t want to lose any weight 2 weeks out, som I have 4 weeks now to shed a bit more. 0.5kg per week would land me at just under 78k and that would be a pretty decent race weight for me I suspect.

A dent in confidence and a rooted leg the only problems at the moment, aside from that all is good.

In spite of the hype, the Picasso exhibition was ordinary, bordering on rubbish. Actually it was rubbish. The guy churned out so much work over a lifetime that exhibitions can be curated with the stuff he doodled on the back of a coaster waiting for his buddies to show up for Saturday morning coffee. “Dora” the showpiece, but she ain’t no Gurnica, and I suspect that if anyone wants to see why he is a “master”, they’ll need to make a trip to either the Sofia Reina or MoMA. If there was an overall benefit from the exhibition, it’s that it gets people into the NSW, which is still brilliant for its own permanent collection, and was a more interesting on a 100^th (free) re-run for mine than the Little Spaniard for which we shelled out $50. Five Bells in the foyer, still a diamond in any company.

W

I think I'm becoming Maid Marion

Regardless of your preferences in Robin Hood movies (personally I liked Errol), it remains the case that Maid Marion consistently chooses to live in a forest in Middle-England with an unemployed, unwashed, ethically-dodgy, hermit, rather than a full-on Prince with a Palace and (presumably) a running water dunny. I think she’s an idiot, and the appearance of Cate Blanchett going lip to lip with Russell Crowe does nothing to ease that general sense of discord. Maybe the legend has just gotten way too long, and if you really traced it back to the source you’d find that Marion and Robin have been outrageously glorified with time, and that really they were nothing more than a pair of fringe dwelling bogans from the burbs.

And so it is with my running. I just keep wanting to get back to running, but it ain’t going to happen, not consistently anyway. I see Old Keith occasionally shuffling around the River. He looks terrible, and there isn’t even the faintest trace of his past. Even in his age group he gets rolled these days by blokes in Dunlop Volleys and walk-shorts who wouldn’t have finished on the same lap as him 10 years ago. But I suspect he is too bound to the one source of release - running. Injuries have rumbled him and taken the bounce out of his stride, but he keeps coming back to it – like Marion – he keeps hangin with grubby dude in the forest. At some point I have to learn that lesson, and avoid becoming Marion. Time to get this IM thing nailed and move on.

The Koppenburg awaits.

W

The Tiger has VERY firm thumbs

The Tiger took up the cause on my troubled Achilles yesterday. Seriously, how does someone who weighs in at 67kg work up so much force. Poor old Tubby was sweating so much that I felt like a sardine bathing in its own brine. The Panthers were on the TV copping a pasting from the Rabbits also, which was exacerbating the overall level of discomfort. But I have woken up feeling significantly looser in the calf region, so I am feeling very optimistic, bordering on confident, about the prospect of tippy toeing into the Mizuno’s on Tuesday morning.

Fairly inactive weekend really. It rained heavily on Saturday, so I dissed the normal ride. There is the perennial harden-up attitude etc, but there’s nothing hard about a fall or the like on slippery pot-holed roads. Happy to take an easy weekend and ensure that fatigue doesn’t blow something other than the Achilles out the door.

Saturday – 3k continuous swim = 58:32. Happy with that. 30 second improvement on 2 weeks ago. Would very much like to find another 2:30 somewhere over the next 7 weeks – though not sure if that is possible.

Sunday – Faulco and return. Solid pace – can remember when this was my weekend “long ride”. Still love it though – just a super way to spend something close to 2 hours.

RJ on camp this week, so will look to go a little bit harder than normal.

Working towards:

1.       Having a monster solo tilt at the 5 laps of the Coffee club first week in April

2.       Considering doing the 2k swim/ 120k bike of the Batemans Bay race and then pulling the pin. This would ensure I don’t fatigue out or place run legs under any risky pressure – but still get some race practice in…. maybe

W

High performing virgins

Some of the virgins are starting to travel well. Ride quality especially is getting strong, and everyone seems to be fitted than I have ever seen them. Hopefully some good days ahead.

This week will see me rack up:

Ø  400 bike kms – most at quality also

Ø  6k of swimming across 3 sessions – including the Sydney Harbour Classic

Ø  21k of walking

Ø  1 x gym session

Ø  Hopefully!!!! dip under 80kg for the first time since Savage Garden cleaned up at the Aria awards

Has there ever been a musical act in history less “savage” than Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones. OR less “backstreet” than the Backstreet Boys.

T minus 52 - Achilles still just as rooted as they were at last post. I would pull the pin, except that I am quite convinced I don’t have another one of these things in me.

A little bit of (amateur) swim science

What’s a wetsuit worth in time savings.

I did a 2k time trial in the pool on Wednesday and 2k in the lake on Friday. Given both swims happened at similar stages of my fitness, and both on accurately measured courses, it is possible to estimate the value of the wetsuit (and the time cost to me of turns). The only minor difference being a 54sec recovery at the 1km turn around in the lake. I’ll discount this for the moment, as my inability to swim straight probably contras some/all of this advantage

Soooo!

In summary

Ø  In the pool 38:32

Ø  In the lake 35:20

It would be easy to simply assume that the difference / 2 = 1m:36s per km.

But!

The difference isn’t even across the fatigue spectrum. Garmin tells me that:

Ø  At 1k in the pool I was 18:54 (Lake 17:34) = 1:21 advantage

Ø  For 2^nd 1k in the pool 19:38 (Lake 17:50 (including a 15sec stop to deal with goggle issues) = 1:45 advantage (potentially even 2:00)

Conclusion:

Even though my arms were about to fall off on the return 1k in the lake this morning, my time didn’t diminish all that much. The suit becomes increasingly beneficial as fatigue sets in (I assume by holding you higher in the water).

W

Can Scotty-mate save me from rooted achilles

First “long walk” last night. 8km. RJ was keen to join in and he boxed on well enough for the first 6k. Started whinging like a bastard for the last two though – to the point where I considered trying-out the achilles to see if I could run ahead and lose him. Was like walking with a thorn in your sock.

With 48 days until original planned taper, I am reconing I will simply not taper more then 4-5 days now. I won’t have the volume or accumulated fatigue to warrant anything longer. So now I have 55 days until taper, I can relax a little more. It’s a bit like when (unemployed) George Costanza tells Jerry that he is stressed and needs a holiday.

Weight – “Scotty-mate” at the gym did the range of weights and measures on me yesterday. 22% body fat shows just how much is available for losing. Even to get down to 10% would yield up 9.6kg. While my weight has not started to climb again, the consistent losses I had going have stopped in concert with the ceasation of running. I may have to go back to being a bit conscious of how much and what goes in my mouth – which is a tad depressing to be honest – I was enjoying the freedom.

Scotty-mate, (at least that’s how he introduced himself. “Yeah, g’day, yeah, I’m Scotty-mate”) is a big dude (about 6’3 in the old money) and fitter than your average pit-bull, though only a marginally more interesting conversationalist. I recon he is only about 22yo, but in the space of our 20 minutes together, recounted a barrage of stories about his time playing for the Panthers. But he was super friendly, enthusiastic and polite. Sure, he says “fuck” a lot, but its so well buried amongst the “yeah”s, “mate”s, and “yeah-mate-absolutely”s, that you don’t really notice. Scotty-mate wants to do me a program, which I tried to resist, but it’s either compulsory or Scotty-mate wasn’t listening “you gotta be LEAN mate. Fuck-yeah, get the L-E-A-N up mate….. metabolism mate….. yadda yadda..” he was losing me.

First endurance swim – done. The Garmin shows a significant fall away in speed (can’t think of a better term than speed, but it certainly wasn’t “speedy” in the normal sense of the word) after 2.2km, so this is something to keep working on. But in the end, I am going to make the swim. It’s just a question now of how long it takes, and what state I’m in at the end of it. Will have another go on Monday 12^th (day off) and dove-tail it into a long practice ride.

Riding – Nothing special last few weeks, but it’s still solid. Did the TT solo this morning and sat between 34.1 and 34.6 average for each lap. Breezy and a bit cool also, and head wasn;t really in the game – so a decent outcome really. Just need a very long continuous ride at decent tempo now to top up the confidence.

Run – Is a disaster. Achilles are rooted at the moment – From Rob Standen’s detailed description, I understand the issue to be that the elastic collagens that make up the tendon, when they’re damaged, are replaced in the body of the tendon by inelastic material. So when the tendon is stretched violently the inelastic materials are coming un-bonded (tearing). Rob even asked if it was too late to get my money back, which is hardly a vote of confidence. So at the moment it's strapped up, and my “run training” is to get in as many long walks as possible for a month or so.

Still chuggin