I’m typing this on a very British day in Port Macquarie. A nasty drizzle has descended and the skies are grey. My intentions of a 2 hour bike with a run off it have kind of gone out the window as it doesn’t look like a good day to be out there. Especially when in your packing you’ve neglected any kind of rain jacket. This pretty much sums up my week!
Training has not gone quite to schedule this week there have been a few lows both on a personal level and a physical level. The personal stuff won’t make it here I’m sorry to say, but it’s not that interesting anyway. However if I learnt anything from it it’s how even as a full-time athlete life can impact training. To be honest if I stick to my principles of training as my ‘job’ I shouldn’t have let things affect me as they did. I could go further than that and say I shouldn’t let a bit of damp stop me getting out there on my bike! Putting those issues aside, I’ll just add they are pretty rapidly coming to a very positive resolution.
Physically the week really has been up and down. Monday I struggled through workouts clearly fatigued from my effort at Noosa (still no results up for me!) Tuesday I had a fantastic day with a really solid long ride, run and swim combination. Wednesday it all went to pot, fatigue was heavy in my system and the other issues had cropped up. Then Thursday I was back on form again and had a respectable if unremarkable training day. Finally yesterday was largely lost to travel, it takes a long time to get here from the Gold Coast and driving all day takes its toll. In my case the toll is mainly knots in my glutes!
So it’s the day before the race, my training this week hasn’t gone to plan and today looks to be following that pattern. It’s too late to worry about the past though, just got to take what I can from it. There are positives amongst all this, from the very trivial fact I got a good long sleep last night through to feeling like fatigue is finally shifting. I can go into Sunday’s race a little fresher than I perhaps intended and finish the week really strongly. Sure I missed one or two key workouts this week, primarily my long run, but a solid Half-Ironman is worth more to me right now. If we went purely on hours then I am still within that target area for a basic weeks training anyway. I’m not losing condition that’s for sure.
The drizzle gets worse! My plan for today, roughly anyway, is to wander over to the race expo and sort out a few bits and pieces I need for race day. After that it’s back here and rain or shine an hours run, I figure a run in the rain is easier than a bike. After that it’s time to register and drop the bike into transition. I’ve opted to stick with the training set-up for this race too. With the weather not looking fantastic for race day I don’t really want to have all my best gear out there for a B race. Also it’s another opportunity to get some power data over a slightly more relevant distance. Sure the lesser aerodynamics might cut into my bike time a little, but I can cope with that.
I’ll try and find the local pool on my run as I want to get a swim in later today. Swimming has suffered a little this week in terms of volume, I’ll at least try and keep regularity up. Then with all that done it’s just a case of chilling out and relaxing till race morning. With a short walk to transition I shouldn’t need such an early start to get things ready this time.
That’s the end of this rambling post. The week has gone a bit off track, things have been missed out on and problems have been encountered. But I’ve dealt with them, moved things along and hopefully will be better for all this shortly. I’m less fatigued than I expected to be and can give a bit more to my race tomorrow. I’ve missed a workout or two, but put in some solid efforts in the week and still done some decent hours. I’ll go out there tomorrow and have a great race and that’ll be ample compensation for a few missed sessions. Then next week is my big week and I promise to be back on track because I know when it’s over it’s time to recover and taper!
