6 weeks and counting...3+3

Another week and that much closer to race day... This week for argument sake was the start of the big push. Not that the previous weeks were easy, these few weeks are the ones where you're constantly going out feeling somewhat tired and it takes that much more mental strength to get the job done. It's actually scary thinking that we have 3 weeks of intense training and then we start our taper. I just started training for this Ironman thingy it seems.

To give you an example of how tough it's getting, this past Saturday/Sunday was a big one. Saturday was a 40 minute ocean swim, a 3 hour ride and a 60 minute run. While this doesn't sound like much, throw a 5 hour bike ride on top the next day. Throw the other training that I had for the week and it was close to 21 hours for the week. I only missed one session and that was on Thursday when I skipped out on my second run of the day. I had absolutely nothing left when it came to the evening. I did my 100 minute run through the trails of Mount Coot-tha earlier in the day, but I struggled for the rest of the day.

I know things are going well, but I'm constantly trying to get more out of each session. I'm thinking that if I can get that little bit extra, I can be that much stronger. Too bad I'm still in the lightweight division. One day, maybe one day.......

Back to reality, I've been really focusing on my recovery as of late and it seems now that I live in my Skins, and try and get a good stretching session in everyday. Apparently, according to Colleen, my new fashion sense is not going to catch on. It's a good thing I'm already married ;-)

If I can keep this up for three more weeks, I've done the hardest part of Ironman, the training. The race is the bonus part to show off what one has done over the past year and I look forward to running across the finish line with both the kids. I hope that they don't mind, that Colleen will be giving me a piggy back.

Monthly totals look like this:

Distance Totals

Cycling: 736 km

Swimming: 21.50 km

Running: 89.30 km

Pilates: 0 m

Time Totals:

Cycling: 28:0-15

Swimming: 8:22

Running: 9:12

Pilates: 1:30

A big congrats goes out to the squad members who have raced lately. There have been a number of people trying to represent Australia at the World Championships and are doing quite well. When the dust settles, there should be a number of BTS people donning the green and gold togs later this year.

Also a big congrats to Scott, who went down into NSW this weekend and won his age group at the Long Course Championships (that's a 2km swim/80km bike/20km run). Way to go everyone!!! If you don't mind I'm going to feed off your achievements and use it to get me through the following weeks.

That's about it for me, this week. Just keep the positive vibes headed this way as I'm going to need them to make it through these next three weeks.

Cheers
Richard