A race, my kingdom for a race...

An interesting week. I have been a flat the last week or two - really since I had the viral infection - but I have finally felt back to 'normal' again this week. I have also decided to get (really) disciplined again with my nutrition after I let it slide for a bit after Christmas & have lost 1.1kg in 2 weeks which is a good weight loss for me, especially given that I only wanted to lose 4kgs. 2.9kg to go :-)

Mon: After a late change of plan on Sunday night, for something different I headed off to my happy place on a Monday morning (aka the gym) for a solid strength session. Lots of push-ups & squats left me feeling like I had certainly had a solid workout - not to mention wondering how on earth I was going to make it through swim squad that night :-0

Turns out I didn't have to worry about swim squad as I got home late from work & had some SPARTA business to attend to :-D

Tue & Wed: rest - except for a massage on Tuesday night & a visit to the physio on Wednesday morning which involved some painful massage & some glute torturing pilates.

Thu: my first pre-work bike session in some time (*she blushes*). A late meeting in the city meant that I was lucky enough to sleep-in until 5.30am before doing this session. Spent 45mins on the windtrainer in the garage doing a rather eclectic session which included 2 x 6 mins efforts at race pace with a 4min recovery as well as some short, fast sprints to see if I could find some fast twitch fibres before my race on Saturday. 16.37km

Fri: rest. A day off work, a bit of a sleep-in, a visit to an osteopath for the first time which was absolutely fascinating and a road trip to Huskisson for a weekend of racing :-)

Sat: Mini Mango & I raced the enticer on a beautiful calm & still morning at Huskisson. The race didn't start until the decadent hour of 10am which meant we were able to enjoy a sleep-in. A very popular race; there were 265 women alone, 104 of which were in my age group & lots of newbies (which became very evident on the ride).

The swim was, quite simply, feral. I have never been kicked so many times in any other race. The course was, also, I think a bit long adding to the 'experience'. Touched ground (finally) and then run up the sand & stairs to transition. Mini Mango passed me just after I ran over the timing mat - phew - my record of beating her in the swim remained intact :-)

In T1, I took my time as I was trying to get my HR down & then set out on the bike. To say I was pleased to get off the bike would be an understatement. It was almost dangerous there; people with NFI basically. Overtaking on the inside, overtaking without checking for people behind them, blocking (ie moving to the right to overtake and then sitting there and not actually overtaking), people riding down the middle of the road etc etc.

T2 had another long run so again I took my time to change my shoes in an effort to get my HR down & then set out on the run. For the first time since this my 1,000,000th return to running, I managed to run the whole run leg - a grand total of 2kms - without stopping! Bugger all compared to what others around me are doing but a small victory for me. It's a shame the run was short (I think) - there was no way I was running 6min/kms!

After withdrawing from both the HIM/70.3 race at Port Macquarie as well as the ITU Olympic distance race in Sydney next month, it was nice to finally race.

I do feel better about the race after looking at the results: 44:34 for 300m swim (supposedly) / 8k bike / 2km run (supposedly). I was 29th out of 104 women in my age group & in the top 30% of all 265 women who did the race. Enjoyed a celebratory HUGE ice cream later in the afternoon to celebrate :-)

Sun: rest if you call cheering on a hot day for almost 7 hours, rest. Still it was a good warm up for a certain long day coming up in Port Mac in 7 weeks time.

MTD:
Swim: 300m (!)
Bike: 79.07km