The snowball effect

I'm feeling shattered tonight. In a good way. I think.

Friday was a weird day. An early start to drive into work, 2 x visits to the gym to do my stretching/strengthening regime, a bollocking via email, a really frustrating day at work, a trip out to Concord to see Saint Andrew after work, dinner in Leichardt & then driving home to Penriff left me feeling physically & mentally tired. Got home about 10.30pm I think. It was lovely to catch up with Mr & Mrs Miners , Gnomy, Go Girl & Owly over dinner but I'm sorry I wasn't the best company.

Saturday the alarm went off at 4.30am so I could do an interval session on the bike before leaving for Canberra at 7am. Fark.

5mins warm up
6 x 5mins efforts/2mins recovery
5 mint cool down
Total: 52mins

followed by another 30mins of stretching. I watched What It Takes (a doco on a couple of triathletes) while doing this which was fascinating. I actually felt really strong during the session but had an overwhelming urge to sleep the minute I got off the bike. I had asked Mum to drive to Canberra so I could get some sleep in the car. I even brought my pillow. But could I sleep? Nope. Not even a single 5mins doze. At least I got to sit on my arse & do nothing for 3 hours for the first time all week I suppose....

One of the highlights of my weekend was (unsurprisingly) when I met up with CJ, Strewth and Ewen for lunch (*waves*). Given that 3 of us are doing Six Foot, it was not hard to guess what the main topic of conversation was ;-) Oh that & the decoration on CJ's right knee ;-)

Today I had planned a reserve brick - a short run followed by a long ride. Alarm went off at the decadent time of 5.30am so that it would be light by the time I headed out on the bike.

After Thursday I decided this time I would do a 5k out & back from the hotel and then, if my glute was ok, to tack on an extra block or 2 to bring it up to 7k so (unlike Thursday) I wouldn't get stuck a long way from home with a grumpy glute. It was a beautiful run - the sky was relatively clear after a huge thunderstorm on Saturday night & the War Memorial & Parliament House were all lit up. Noice. I made a strategic withdrawal at 6km as my glute was just starting to niggle - which was a big improvement on Thursday's run. I was really pleased with this run. On Saturday afternoon I was bitching to mum about all the boring stretching I'm doing at the moment (3 x per day) but clearly its paying off. Reminds me of an article that Susie Power wrote in R4YL last year I think about snowball building. Finished with 6.07k in 39:49mins (aver 6:33min/k).

Back at the hotel & I had to make a decision about where to ride. The roads were still wet after a thunderstorm. Not being confident on wet roads (both of my own abilities & those of Canberra drivers), I decided to avoid the Federal Highway which was plan A and go for plan B - the bike path around Lake Burley Griffin. Ewen had kindly offered to come for a ride with me but my indecision about where to ride meant I was running out of time to ride, stretch, eat, shower, check out & get to the Art Gallery before the hoards. Thanks anyway Ewen - hopefully next time!

So I set out on the bike path and, let's just say, I took the road less travelled. It was certainly scenic (well, except for the industrial estate I rode through) but thanks to my natural sense of direction (good thing too cause I didn't have a map) I made it back to the War Memorial. Eventually. 3 hill reps near the War Memorial to finish off & I was back at the hotel 1:37 later. My scenic ride left me with a total of 2:17 for the day. I would have preferred a total of 3 hours for the day but ran out of time.

I had thought about getting back on the bike tonight for 40mins (to round out the day to 3 hours) - but that was until I spent 3+ hours on my feet at the Art Gallery & then drove home (largely) in torrential rain. But I can't sleep yet, I've got more snowball building to do...