Expect the unexpected..

...should be the motto of triathlons. Last Sunday certainly lived up to that. R had a fantastic swim - taking 10mins off his swim split from his debut race 2 years ago - but unfortunately crashed on the first lap of the bike. We were in town waiting outside a cafe for him to come past at the end of his first lap, when another member of PIS member (Penrith Institute of Sport) saw us & called out to us that he had come down. It was about 10mins - the longest of my life - until I received a call from the medic team to let me know that he was ok. About 30min later I was in the medical tent to collect him. He's lost skin, is very bruised, swollen & battered but thankfully nothing is broken. He is also already thinking about next year's race so he's in a good place mentally.

Aside from his crash & concern for him, I had a really enjoyable day. Team PIS (which is an informal training group consisting of members of the Panthers Tri Club), with about 50-60 members competing, dominated the day; with one of our AGers finishing 3rd overall & about 12 others finishing under 10 hours! It was great to be a part of a team with a sense of community & team spirit, something the Panthers Tri Club sadly lacks. So if you see R or myself in some in clothing with PIS written on it, don't be offended ;-)

Anyhoo, back to the training (or resting as the case may be)-

Mon: rest & recovery from IM - ie spent the day chained to my laptop working :-(

Tue: more rest (work, driving home from Port Mac & more work)

Wed: a return to the office & finally some more training! Forced myself out of the office at lunch for a swim. Only 1.5km but no signs of the (slight) niggle I experienced in my right shoulder last week :-) 15mins of pilates PM.

Of course this brought March to an end. Can't say that I was sad to see the back of it. My lowest month of training since I think I was off travelling around the world in late 2008 - early 2009. Hopefully now that I have some idea of what my work pressures are likely to be for the next 8 or so months (ie feral), I can get into something resembling a routine. My ride in Port Mac on Saturday - in which I overcame some mental demons/blocks I had associated with that course & my ability to climb hills on the bike - has also given me a much-needed confidence boost :-)

March:
Swim - 7k
Bike - 157.2k

Thu: a touch of sekrit training and 30mins pilates. Not to mention being excited at the prospect of doing no work over the (long) weekend; my first weekend without doing any work since I don't remember when. Yippee!

Fri: 71mins easy ride with R. His first since his crash last Sunday. Nice easy conversational ride from home out & back along the Northern Road. Great way to start a long weekend - not to mention the coffee & chocolate chip hot cross buns which followed :-D 25.5k 21.8k/h av (lost about 4mins stopped at traffic lights along the way)

Sat: a(nother) sleep-in (loving the long weekend sans-work!) followed by a lazy morning at home before a visit to the gym for a solid strength session. I haven't done a complete, hard session in several weeks now which is something I have really missed. Straight afterwards, I headed for a facial - nice way to spend a Saturday morning!

Sun: another (long) ride :-) Was supposed to be 2hrs but a few impulsive detours (including for a coffee + banana bread stop) saw that blow out to 2:37. Headed out along the Northern Road with a detour via Chain-O-Ponds road - which only re-affirmed why the PIS boys are so strong on the bike :-O. Then an out & back along Northern Rd before taking a 'short cut' to Mulgoa Rd which saw us ride past my pre-school! I don't think I've seen it since I left. And it hasn't changed in the 3x years since then!

This led us onto Mulgoa Rd & an incident which will probably result in another driver hating cyclists. The car behind me slowed, rather than squeeze past me on the narrow road, and got rear-ended by the car behind him! I was as far left as I could go so there was nothing more I could have done without ending up in the ditch on the side of the road. I don't think the impact was too hard - judging by the sound - but still, it was a not a nice sound to hear behind me. Good ride though for some reason my butt was really feeling it today :-O 58.79k. Av. 22.4k/h

MTD:
Bike - 84.2k