Race week (70.3)

The week of the 70.3. Not a bad week at all. Still only one rest day but all sessions have reduced in time and effort. Sure its not like I am walking around town as training. It still has some pain but nothing like it was. The body is recovering nicely. Kind of a shame as my excuses are dwindling. I am trying to do as much stretching and rolling as I can. I want to get as much of the tightness out of my body as I can.

Tomorrow is registration day and then its the race. I know my start time and have confirmed my name is on the list...

Race number and name confirmed.

I have my bike setup and bags packed. First thing tomorrow I have a 30min ride and 10 min run brick session so it will be a good last chance to make sure the bike is still running smooth with the race wheels on. Nutrition is sorted so there is not much more to do but have some good dinners and sleep.

I think everyone has been watching the weather. Its been a little strange this week. Started out very hot last weekend. Since then we have had rain, winds and colder days but they are saying it will be hot again on Sunday. Not going to be a pleasant run if it is but then again I don't expect by that time in the race that I will be enjoying it anyway. :)

I believe that anyone can track me during the race by going to ironman.com or ironmanlive.com. We will see on the day. I guess my next post will be a post race recap.

Taper time. :)

Something I have been looking forward to is the taper. After some tough weeks its nice to see the plan have a few shorter sessions. Sure they still have some intensity in them but now they only hurt for a short period of time.

Last weekend I tested some new nutrition ideas during my long bike ride. Vegemite sandwich, snakes and chicos. The sandwich was ok. I decided I need to cut the crust off to make for less chewing. Sure its only bread but its harder than you think when you are breathing a little heavier than normal. The snakes are fine but you have to hold it and bite as you go. Not that bad but if its hot I think I might get sticky fingers after a while. The chicos seem to be good. They are bite sized and they are not sweet so with all the other sweet gels etc they are a good change.

I think that I am ready to tackle the half ironman on the weekend but the usual thoughts go through my head wondering if I will make it. How hard will it be. But I know I have done the training so I should be ok. I started packing the tri bag last night. Checked off most of the items I knew I would not use between now and the race. Put it all aside. I will prep the bike one night this week ready for a short 30min ride on Saturday morning. Just to make sure it is running smooth as silk.

After my test ride I will be heading to the course to check the bike in and do all the registration and mandatory tasks. Hopefully get some time in the expo to look around and check out the items in the ironman store. I am not fast enough to finish the race and shop on the Sunday so I will get my shopping done early. That way Sunday is just a relaxed race day.

Lets hope the weather will not be 45degC like it was yesterday.

Injury and recovery

So we are getting into the final stages of training before the ironman 70.3. I am looking forward to it in a way. I was into the final hard build week trying to make the most of it. They say the better you train the easier the race will be. So not wanting to interrupt my training I decided to skip the club race, train like I should and marshal during the club event.

The week had been hard but nothing that I had not expected. Saturday came and I got up early for my run. I had a 110min run to do. I assumed that I would get close to the 21km mark. Everything started off well. My heart rate was sitting nice in zone 2. I was running faster than I thought I was going to but I was happy with how I was feeling. About 50min in I started to feel a bit of a pain down near the achilles  or lower part of the calf. At first it wasn't too bad so I thought it would go away. Another 5min in and I knew something wasn't right. I started to walk and run when I felt better. I soon realised that wasn't going to work so I made a call and got picked up. How disappointing. Only three weeks from a major event and I can't run.

Back home I waited for the physio to open and called to get an appointment asap. Luckily my usual physio was available that morning. She said it was good I stopped as it was only a small tear. The only issue I had was she wasn't sure if it was the achilles or calf. She hoped for the calf as it would mend faster. Knowing I had a 110km ride tomorrow she said do a test ride that night to see if I had pain. If I did I was not allowed to ride and if not then I was good to go on Sunday. She also strapped it and recommended using a calf support. I was told that if all goes well I should be ready for the next race. Lucky for me there was no pain on the test ride.

Sunday I went out for the long ride. No pain so that was good. Well no pain apart from the usual pain from the ride itself. That night I told the coach about the injury and my recovery week got even easier since I was not allowed to run. My usual runs became walks. While that's good I felt like I wasn't doing enough.

At the second physio appointment on Wednesday my leg was feeling better which probably means it was the calf. I had been resting it as much as I could so while it felt better I still did not know. The physio checked me out and was happy with the progress. I was told that I was allowed to test run but not too much. Basically doing some easy strides during my walking sessions. Also I was given some exercises to do. Thursday would be my first opportunity to test it out. The walk / run started out ok. Nothing special and reasonably slow. I don't know if it was in my head or not but I kept thinking is that pain I am feeling? Hmm I was obviously worried about it. All that afternoon I was testing it and checking for pain.

 Saturday Adam and I did a special trip to ride the 70.3 bike course for one lap. The real thing is going to be a two lap event but as it was an easy week one lap fit in well. Its a reasonably flat course with only really one small hill. I think its going to be a fast paced ride. I am so glad I don't have to navigate during the race. The night before I had taken note of a few turns that we need to do. The far end of the ride course which I did know is kind of a Y shape. You head out to the left before coming half way back and going out to the right. I don't know if that was well explained but anyway. Riding along looking for the first turnaround point and well all I can say is I missed it. We ended up getting to a town we didn't think we should see so we stopped and checked Google maps. Sure enough we were 5km past the first point. Well done Stefan. Well we did find the turn point on the way back. The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful really. We did see a bunch of people riding the course.

Today was the longer run day. Well this time it was a 60min walk / run. I did think about just making it a slow run and found it hard to convince myself to do what the physio said. Lucky for me I stuck to the plan. I just thought that if I screw this up I am an idiot. Well when I say plan I guess there was nothing set in stone apart from take it easy. In the end I decided to run for 1km and then walk till I get to the 10min mark. So I knew I would do 6km plus whatever I walked. All I can say is walking when you feel you should be running is so hard to do. I got through it and felt good that I had no pain.

So two weeks to go..