Monster Cycle Week!

I am now just 3 weeks out from race day and have just finished my first week of training in the heat of the Big Island sun! The sunburn stripes from the first few days out here are beginning to fade and the heat seems moderately more bearable out training although I'm far from fully acclimatised just yet - by the middle of next week I should be getting there! I have been downing iced slushies and freezing most of my drinks for training although they are usually defrosted in around 30 minutes once out in the heat! I had a small moment of weakness at 3am this morning and blasted myself with the air con unit for an hour in my room but other than that I have been air con free!

So this week has been a cycling monster......507km spent out on my bike....thank goodness for decent cycle shorts, 14km swimming which is a little down on the usual volume probably because the majority has been in the sea and 60km running my way along Alii Drive and the Queen K highway.

It feels good to actually be out here and training on the course and in the conditions! I struck a bit of bad luck with the day I cycled the full Ironman course as it was pretty wild and windy which made for a slow pace. For the other cycles I've done the wind has been less brutal so I'm now itching to get out and have another crack at the full course...hopefully minus the angry winds...although that makes for good training if your brain can handle the slow pace....it may well be that wild on race day and at least I will have a tough ride in the winds under my belt if it is!! My bike is booked in for a new chain fitting tomorrow as my current one is all saggy.....I think the kms this week on it has pretty much sealed it's fate with the bin! I think having a new chain will make things a bit easier out on the hills and particularly on the big climb up to Hawi!

Swimming back in the lovely clear ocean waters out here has been lush and it's hard not to get distracted by the brightly coloured fishes! I seem to have a habit of swimming back into shore and ending up on the wrong side of the roped area for swimmers i.e amongst the boats....I'm not sure what is magnetising me to the no go area so perhaps a little more attention to detail and sighting of large objects such as boats might be good!!

My running seems to be the least affected by the change in temperature and the one thing that I am holding both pace and form on consistently. I have been using frozen fuel belt bottles as a cooling system as well as the shower block at the swim start.....this does tend to attract a few curious looks running into the shower fully clothed and I must remember to remove my ipod next time!!!

Blood wise I am still waiting to grow some more haemoglobin! My last results showed that I'm up to 100.....only 20 more to go! I seem to have some really good days of training and then a couple of average days which tend to frustrate me more than anything else! Patience has never really been my strong point but I'm slowly learning that on the average days it is about doing the best I can and making the most out of the sessions. Getting frustrated simply wastes energy as does trying to explain or make sense of why one day I feel like a rock star and the next day I feel trapped in the body of a 90 year old! Some days my body is applying the handbrake for self preservation and there is no way to release it - on the outside I might look fine but on the inside there is some funny stuff happening and no amount of mind over matter or harden up pills can overcome. So ultimately I need to learn to roll with it, be more patient and then relish the mornings I wake up feeling like a rock star and I'm sure eventually the rock star days will out number the Nana days!

Next week looks like another meaty week - the last of the big ones before it starts to ease off a little! Now it's time for an ice slushy before bed :)