Crunch Time

Week 8 has come to an end, and what a week it was.

Over and above the weekly crunch, the hours are creeping up and the miles are accumulating. The big highlights for the week were Wednesday's swim time trial and Saturday's 200km ride.

I've been swimming well as of late, but without a race or time trial for a couple of months, I had no way of judging how I'm coming along. Sure you can have the feeling of swimming good, but without any measures, it really means little. So, with my last TT being in October, I've been eager to see where I'm at. A good warm up and the words I've been waiting for were said. 400M TT folks, self seed and we're off on the blue top.

My plan was to swim strong and even. I was 3rd of 3 in my lane, fine by me. As I headed off, I felt like I was sitting high in the water and the pulls were full. Each lap I kept the same pace, feeling strong, I resisted the urge to go faster, I've learned the hard way that form is faster then strength. I went quickly and as I headed into the last 25M, I raised my kick up to a six beat kick and raised the stroke rate. A touch of the wall, raised my head and heard the time. 6:34 was the time, less 10 seconds for starting 3rd position (5 seconds apart) and 6:24 was my time. A big yell and a fist pump on the water. Incredible! I'd taken basically a minute off my previous time and there's room for more time to come off. This was a great way to head into the 12 weeks of hell.

Then Saturday, the IMNZ crew were doing their 200km ride, through the mountains and along the coast, the last big ride before taper. So, most of the IMA group, was keen to join them, just to see where we're currently in our training.

We headed out and my plan was to ride strong, but smart, and keep the aid station fill ups as short as I could.

As we went out, the group stayed together to just past Petrie and then the speedsters took off. Up over mount Mee, and out into the rollers before climbing onto the range. I wanted to stick to my nutrition plan and stuck to gels and sports drink. The worst part was the climb onto the top of the range. It starts with a 4km slog of 10% grade, then another 3ish kms of around 5-8%. Even with a 27 cog on the rear cluster, it was tough to keep momentum going and that 4km section, it was tough to go higher than 10-12km/hr. Up on top finally, I'd consumed an entire bottle of sports drink on the climb. My heart rate went back down and onto the rollers/climbs on the ridge. You think you're done when you climb, but once up on top, you have a couple of 10% grades to climb and a couple of 12% grades to climb. Tough slog but I was feeling good. Done on top, the rain started to pelt down and we were heading down one of the worst stretches of road on the ride. Water was running across the road and you would hit the brakes and you'd have a 4-5 second delay before they'd start to work, starting slowly and then finally enough to slow you down. Once on the bottom, a tough ride in the rain and head wind to the coast. I was feeling good and was happy to be in the home stretch. I made the turn to head south along the coast and a beautiful ride it was. Mostly a tail wind we were pushed in the final 30ish kms down to the finish. Being done, I was extremely happy. I'd stuck to my plan, had energy in reserve and best yet, my nutrition was perfect. 10 gels, a can of coke, 6 litres of sports drink and a couple litres of water.

It sounds weird to be saying this, but this ride at 12 weeks out was better mentally and physically when compared to my 200km ride completed at 4 weeks out when I did IMA in 2009. There must be something to say for experience, age and smart training.

As I head into the real guts of IM training, 12 weeks out, I'm feeling good and ready for the challenges ahead. Even today, my 90 minute run was a bit tough at first, but I got it done and I feel good for doing it.

So for those of you wonder how far I've gone here's the stats:

24 hours of swimming for 68.2kms
51.5 hours of riding for 1525kms
21.5 hours of running for 236kms
12 hours of core

all up 109 hours and 1,829kms traveled thus far.

Train smart and see you out there.
Rich