It’s been a pretty lazy last few days. I think I did a bit too much last week and I think my body is encouraging my mind to make excuses to skip sessions this week. I’m not that tired, it’s just that I have no interest. Well, no interest at 7am which is when I make the decision to cycle into work or not. About 9, when I’m fully awake, then I regret taking the easy way out. Oh well. Will power never was my strong suit. Tried to go for a run last night, but just as I was about to leave the apartment, a massive lightning storm kicked off, so I took the hint.

Hopped into the pool for an easy session this afternoon.

3 * {
    200 Hypoxic 4/6, 10s rest
    25 K/25 FS, 10s rest
    25 4L4R/ 25 FS}
3 * {
    200 Bands on 3:40 (3:05)
    150 Build on 2:40 (2:05)
    100 IM on 2:00 (1:30)
    50 Easy (39) } 1min rest
100 easy
Total: 2500m

S: 5300m – R: 2.8km

    

We’ve been sailing for John’s birthday and mountain biking for the hell of it recently, and on both occasions I’ve forgotten to bring my camera. Tom remembered his thankfully, so click above for some photos from the days out. I’m sur eyou can figure out which is which…

I finally got my arse in gear today and did my driver’s knowledge test, so I am now the proud holder of a learner licence…. at 32 years of age ;-) Given the way that the system works here I will finally get a full licence in 3.5 years time. I’ll be taking Jacqui’s car out to do a few donuts this evening!

Looks like my plan of doing another big week of training is rapidly going out the window. I have to stay at home tomorrow as the plumber is coming around to do some repairs, so that means missing my lunch-time swim session. It’s Dave’s birthday on Friday, so that’s drinks after work, scuppering my run and also the big ride on Saturday morning, then Micky is having his engagement party on Saturday afternoon meaning I can’t do the ocean swim race I had planned.

Got the usual run in last night, this time with the HR working perfectly. Got run into by a growling dog, though I think it was only protecting its elderly lady owner as once I stopped it became very friendly and docile. She was teaching it to fetch a ball and was very apologetic. It was some sort of sheepdog-type breed, so it was fairly obvious that it wasn’t dangerous. Other than that the run was uneventful and fairly easy.

S: 2800m – R: 2.8km

200 FS
3 * {
    50 Drag/ 50FS,
    75 Fist/ 25 FS,
    100 4/6 Hypoxic } on 1:50
6 * 25 FS K Sprint on 60
3 * {
    200 FS Effort on 3:45 (2:36)
    300 Paddles (4:01) }
50 FS
Total: 2800m

S: 2800m

Now I’m officially exhausted. Just got back from the Blue Mountains after going mountain biking with Kevin, Tom & Niall. We did the Narrowneck Ride near Katoomba. It’s 27km out and back fire trail, with the best scenery of any ride we’ve done so far. There’s a pretty steep hill straight after the start of the ride which myself and Tom got off and walked up. He got a bit dizzy, which he thought might have been altitude sickness, since we were over 1000m above sea level. This was the first MTB ride we’d done in about 6 months and was easily the highest – the other ones in the Blue Mountains were in the lower ranges – and with the hard hill sending all the blood rushing to the legs, dizziness is not that surprising. We took things a bit easy for a while, which suited me down to the ground after yesterday’s ride.

At the end of the ithmus were the most amazing views: 270 degrees of wilderness with the Warragamba Dam (Sydney’s main water supply) off in the distance. A real feeling of being in the middle of nowhere, spoilt slightly by the high-voltage power lines running through the valley! We sat around for a little while, soaking up the “at one with nature” feeling ;-) before getting back on the bikes for the homeward leg.

There are a couple of REALLY steep hills on this ride, so I ended up walking a few times though I’m not sure that made it any easier! Still, for every uphill there’s a downhill and we made the most of those. One long final climb back to the car park and we were done, then it was off to Leura for some lunch and a pit stop in the best sweet shop in Australia (as far as I’m concerned anyway). I definitely want to do that ride again and the next time I’m bringing my video camera as the views are too big to capture properly in a still frame. Tom got a few shots, so I’ll get a few from him and stick them up here.

Tom’s bike computer read 26.99km at the end of the ride, so I managed to just top 200km of riding for the week. I also managed my goal of 200+ aerobic points so I’m pretty pleased with that. Early to bed tonight as I have (want) to do a similar amount of work next week too.

S: 8300m – B: 200.5km – R: 8.4km

Crawled out of bed at 5:45 on Saturday morning to go on the Cheeky Monkey ride to Kurnell and back. Made it down to the shop at about 6:25, just before they left. The pacee was quite a bit quicker than the beginners’ ride I’d been doing, which was hardl surprising as two of the girls had just got back from Hawaii Ironman and a couple of others had been doing the half-Ironman at Forster last weekend. I’d left my HR monitor strap at home and for some reason that meant the watch wouldn’t show speed, but it would show cadence? Not sure why that is, but I reckon we were averaging 35kmh or so.

The ride itself wasn’t too hard, but I was looking forward to the stop at Kurnell so I could stretch a bit. Ate a few jellies too, which is apparently a great way of getting some fast energy on the bike, before hitting the road for the return journey. It seemed to go a lot quicker on teh way back, probably because I knew what was coming up next. I did my turn at the front and didn’t slow anyone down, which was a bit of a relief, then finished up at the shop for a total of 76km. Add 12.3 to that for getting to/from home and some messing about in Centennial Park and it was a grand total of 88.3km. I was pretty exhausted when I got home!

S: 8300m – B: 173.5km – R: 8.4km

Got another good run in this evening. Figured out the issues with my HR monitor, so it’s working almost perfectly now. The runs are feelign nice and easy which is good, with no muscle soreness the following day. I plan on doing the same again next week, then up it to 4 run/walk reps from the week after that if all is still going well.

Weather forecast lookks good for the rest of the weekend, so it looks like I’ll be riding to Kurnell tomorrow and then mountain biking on Sunday after all.

S: 8300m – B: 85.2km – R: 8.4km

Good session in the pool at lunch. Felt pretty good considering I’d been out for a few beers last night and wasn’t feelign great this morning.

500 as 50 FS, 50 (4L,4R,8Full)
3 * {
    200 Pull on 3:40 (2:50)
    2 * 50 Sprint on 60 (33)
    300 as 25easy/25hard } 60s rest
400 as 75 easy/25 hard
200 easy
Total: 2900m

S: 8300m – B: 85.2km – R: 5.6km