Inspirational motivation

Not much has changed for me in the past few weeks, just the same ol routine of work, work and more work. But it hasn't been all that bad I guess.

Last week a number of my friends were over in Taupo, NZ competing in Ironman New Zealand. All of them had been working very hard over the past few months basically living everything IM as the last 12 weeks of training typically does leading into a major event. My day was spent hovering around the computer, watching the live feed checking in on how people were doing. Nothing gets you motivated more, than to watch an Ironman event, whether in person or via live streaming IMHO.

The more I watched, the more excited I was for them and the more I wished I was actually there, competing. I found myself watching peoples splits and doing the calculations on what they would need to break a certain time (yes I was doing a masterful job of armchair coaching). Seeing them crossing the finish line was amazing, the smiles, the fist pumps, the look of complete happiness as their names were called out "you are an IRONMAN". Before I forget, I must congratulate my fellow Ironmates on a job well done.

Tim O, aka "the turtle" came into Taupo for his 3rd IM and due to injury had a very short amount of time to train. A masterful job mate, coming just off his PB time, with a fantastic time.

Faye "gunner" was injured with only 6-7 weeks of running before the event. Not only did she nail a great time, her Marathon time was the fastest age grouper and she even beat most of the Pro women posting a 3.26 marathon. Massive effort Faye, well done.

Ironcouple Emma, Craig had a great time out there. Craig was with me last year at Port and even though his work schedule had him racking up the frequent flyer points, he still managed to set a new PB. Emma had a great race and if you look at the photos, I have yet to find one without a smile. Well done Em, you were great.

Bec, was always worried about her bike for some reason, but on the day had a great race and now she's completed one, the adventure junkie will be back, I'm sure of that.

Tim F, Galen, Michael and Sophie were the remaining IM virgins and belted out great results. From the stories and Facebook posts, we still believe Tim F. is making up for 3 months of no booze and partying all in one go. Tim, if you're out there, well done mate on the solid effort!!

All of this IM watching has gotten me into the mindset for another big race. I'm more focused, learned allot over the past year and really want to 'race' an Ironman. I have some time goals in mind this time and want to smash them, knowing full well, it'll mean some serious training on my part. Going into it too, I'm going to change things up a bit and change some of the focus I had over my last training journey, more suited to my available time frames rather than a specific 'team' approach.

Now with work getting in the way, most of my training has been the odd run at lunch and a couple of runs on the weekend. I've managed the past few weeks to clock up between 20-25km running on the weekend which has been slowly improving.

Last Thursday I did manage to make my way back into the pool over the lunch hour and all I can say is it hurts. Remind me not to be away from the pool for that long again. My 1500m swim was painful after getting out and if felt like my arms were going to fall off as my shoulders were so sore.

With the BRW triathlon coming up at the end of April, I need to get out there and do some token training. (the BRW is a corporate Tri, only 400m/10km/4km done in teams of 3, where each person does the whole race, before passing on the timing chip to the next person on your team)

I'm really going to work hard on this training thing and hopefully things go well for me. Now that I'm getting in 30-40km of running in a week, it's time to start working on some strength and play in the hills. I want to be a strong runner again and hope to do well and some running races in the near future.

Catch you all soon.