Icy Waters

This morning when I drove to the Pool to do my Sunday morning swim it was 5c outside and when I got to the pool the water was 16c. Luckily I took my wetsuit along as the water was 17c on Wednesday and I knew it won't be much warmer today. I would rather wash the wetsuit to make sure all the chlorine is gone than to freeze in the pool.

Rewind two days and I had this wonderful swim in my work town pool at 29c.

For those who don't know I live in a town called Witbank but work in a town called Springs. The distance between the two is 105km and yes I waste just over 2 hours a day getting to work and back. If you follow my blog you will know that me and Jacques( who is training for IM South Africa 2010) have huge issues with the gym and the temperature of the pool. During winter the pool's temperature dropped from 24c to 16c and the gym can't give any reason why( and it is a heated pool so they say). The reason this morning when I asked the receptionist was and I quote " It's winter that's why it is 16c".

To cut a long story short this is why I then decided to join the Gym in my work town. I went there on Friday night and the water was 29c, a little bit hot but I prefer swimming in 29c water than in 16c water. Going to a different pool and with the warmer water it made such a difference to my swim session. I've decided now that I will do my Monday, Wednesday and Friday swim session at the "work" pool and do my Sunday session at the "home" pool. Because of the home town gym not sorting their pool out I now need to pay two gyms just to get my swimming done.

On more than one occasion this morning during the swim I thought about this statement on a T-Shirt I once saw Bryan Payne( www.trainingpayne.blogspot.com) wore which said "Suck it up". I realized that if I want to improve my swimming I need to work hard at it and just suck it up. Even with the wetsuit it was freezing.

Later today I did my Brick session which was a 4 hour ride with a 30 minute run. Johann de Klerk joined me for the first 1h30 and then I was on my own. The wind was wicked and it was really a mental issue doing the bike. Yet again I just reminded myself to suck it up. After my run I looked at my "new" Newtons and could not believe that I've already done 150 km's with them, I just got them the other day.

When I finished my training, Gerhard my sisters friend volunteered to do the barbecue and I could just relax and watch him do everything, thanks Gerhard.

Must say I am over my mid winter over indulgence and are back on track with my nutrition and training. This week can be a real good one or a bummer as I am suppose to get my P4. Will see how it turns out.

Yesterday's Training
Gym: 1h03 547 kcal
Run: 2h00, 24.4 km, 4:55 min/km, 143 bpm, 1888 kcal

Today's Training
Swim: 56:44, 3 km
Brick:
Bike: 3h58, 116.2 km, 29.3 k/h, 134 bpm, 3398 kcal, 229 watts ave.
Run: 27:27, 5.5 km, 4:59min/km, 142 bpm, 425 kcal

Weeks Totals:
Swim: 7.5 km
Bike: 194.2 km
Run: 46 km
Gym: 2 sessions
Total: 15h02, 247.7 km, 11672 kcal.

Mid Winter Food Festival

During winter it is not easy to train but so tempting to eat more than I should. After last weeks training I was feeling a bit tame on Monday and decided to skip training for the day, after all I am here to enjoy doing Ironmans and I've learned from the past that if I don't feel like training I give it a break and train when I enjoy it. That way I get more out of my training.

I guess this time it was a mistake and the beginning of my mid winter "eat as much as you can" day, which became two days. I don't know why but I just let go and ate more than I was suppose to on Monday. Tuesday morning I felt better and did my morning tempo run but that's where it ended, training wise. I continued with my eating spree and even had two doughnuts on Tuesday.

There is a guy that comes to the dealership every morning with a trolley full of any food(unhealthy) that you can think of. I think he was so surprise to see me buying from him for two days as I NEVER buy from him. Come Wednesday you could see that he was disappointed that I didn't buy from him. As of this morning he didn't even bother to come to my office. If I have to list all the food I consumed on Monday and Tuesday this post will be a very long one.

On Wednesday I was back on schedule with my eating and training or so I thought. Luckily I stuck to my eating plans but the training was not 100% on schedule. As I got to the gym after work to do my swimming the water was only 17c. With the outside temperature at 10c this is not fun. I really tried to push through the workout of 4.5km swim but the water was so cold and after 1km I was shivering while I was swimming. I just could not relax in the water and decided to get out.

Since Thursday I am back on schedule and tried to catch up on some sessions lost during the week. I won't be able to catch up on all the lost sessions but I made up some. Tonight I must swim again and I've decided to go to the gym in the town where I work. The water is 26c, maybe a bit warm but I rather swim in 26c water than in 17c water and struggle to complete the session.

Why is it that when you do something wrong or didn't achieve what you aimed for you always look for something to make you feel better or justify that, that you didn't do. On Thursday I looked at the 20 weeks prior to Ironman South Africa and compared that with Kona. I've made a chart comparing time and km's training between the two and that made me feel a bit better.

For the first 4 weeks of the 20 week block I've done 605 km's more than IMSA and 39 hours more (Sounds a lot but the third week of IMSA had no training as I was sick). At least that made me feel better but now I just need to stick to my training program. When I did the comparison I saw some big training weeks during my IMSA schedule with virtually no down time.

Thanks to Kimberley Schwartz (http://canadianironwoman.blogspot.com/) who directed me to the right place to get a countdown timer for Kona. I did have the one you download from the Ironman website with Powerbar articles but the date is wrong. They have it as the 11th of October and not the 10th. This irritated the crap out of me to see the wrong date every time I go to my blog.

Ah, almost forgot. Got an email from Marco at the bike shop yesterday saying that my Cervelo P4 has been shipped to them and I will have it definitely next week. Wow, can this be true? Waited more than 9 months since I paid the deposit.

Thursday's training:
Gym: 1h11, 427 kcal
Bike: 1h19, 44 km, 33.2 km/h, 1210 kcal, 140 bpm.

Friday's training:
Run: 30:31, 5.7 km, 129 bpm, 408 kcal,
Bike: 1h00, 31 km, 122 bpm, 725 kcal

Fathers Day Celebrations

Fathers Day is always a special day in our family since I can remember and even when my father was still alive we always made the day a special one. It is almost a bigger event than birthdays. From early this morning I was treated with coffee in the bed and I got a small gift and a card from Kim and Dejone.
But before the real celebrations could begin I first had to do my recovery swim session and my Long run. I did my swim session before Church and was just in time to go to church with the family.


After Church I did my long run and I don't know if I am just getting fitter and stronger or if it is the new shoes but I had a super run. I did not feel tired and my legs felt super strong even after yesterday's gym session and 4 hours plus on the bike.


When I finished the run we were of to my favourite restaurant, Piato's.

Dejone enjoy a glass of water and pretending it is wine, Not yet girl. For the whole week I am having this graving for a beer. Kim suggested I might as well enjoy a beer as the graving won't go away. For the whole training block when I prepared for Ironman South Africa I didn't have any beer or wine. I believed my recovery was better and my weight kept coming done. Well I am now 4 weeks into my 20 week training program but I just had to enjoy a beer. Hopefully that is now the end of that until October.

I also enjoyed my favorite starter, Oysters and I must say they were awesome.

When we drove back home we were going past the new Gym that is opening soon and Kim wanted to have a look at it. The swimming pool is already full of water and all the decor is done. Apparently all the equipment is coming this week. I said to Kim I wonder if they fixed the entrance where I left some Newton shoe imprints when the cement was still wet when I did my morning run.

Well I think they are going to lay tiles at the entrance because they didn't bother fixing it. Four nice shoe imprints are currently welcoming everybody at the entrance.

When we got back home Dejone begged me to take her cycling. She is writing exams this week and Kim said she can go but only for half an hour because she needs to study. We took the mountain bikes and did an easy 25 minutes.

The week was a real good week and I managed to keep to my schedule apart from one easy bike recovery session that I missed due to work, but the 25 minute with Dejone almost made up for it.

Today's Workouts:

Swim: 52:31, 2.5km
Run: 1h40, 20.5km, 142 bpm, 1567 kcal, 4:54 min/km, 88 rpm, 115cm stride.


Weeks Totals:
Swim: 12.5 km
Bike: 259 km
Run: 49.2 km
Gym: 2 sessions
Total: 19h43, 320.6 km, 15166 kcal.

Unscheduled Tempo Run

Yesterday morning was suppose to be my easy recovery run before the long and hard weekend workouts but instead it became a Tempo/Time Trial Run. As I went for my run at 4am on Friday morning and I came round the one corner towards the new Suburb they are busy building I ran into what I suspect to be two Burglars. There was some sort of eye contact, if you can have eye contact at 4am in the dark and then they suddenly turned around and run like hell.

I think me wearing a yellow reflective jacket and the runners headlight for visibility made me look like a cop. For a moment I didn't know what to do, I just reduce my pace to a shuffle and continue running without thinking. Then they looked back at me while running down the street and something in me just said run after them. I chased them for, I guess 200 meters before they swerved into the field with me still about 20 meters behind them shouting and yelling anything that came up in my mind, including some swear word( sorry Warren).

I quickly realized Newton running shoes are not made for Trail running and I stopped the chase. Then it struck me how stupid I am. Here I am chasing two guys in the dark without me having any sort of protection and ending up running after them in a pitch black field. I quickly turned around and made a sprint to the tar road. Neatless to say my heart rate was now at about 170bpm where it was suppose to be at 137 max for the workout. I decided to carry on with my running but was now sooo scared with me running in the new suburb with limited street lights.

About 2 kilometers further down my route I came across a neighbourhood watch vehicle and I stopped the man and explained to him what happened. He asked me for directions as to where it happened but as I looked back he turned left into the street where I said right. Guess he wasn't very clued up with directions or willing to look for them. Only positive thing of the morning was that I had no problem getting my heart rate up for my Tempo bike session after the run.

I was suppose to do the bike on Thursday night but with Tuesday being a holiday my week was cramped with meetings on Wednesday and Thursday evening. I could manage my swim on Wednesday evening as the meeting finished early but Thursday's meeting was going on until late and I had to postpone my bike session to Friday.

It feels like my swimming is really improving and I can see it in the times and I don't feel as tired as before. On Friday I did 12 x 100m with 5sec rest in between and where it ranged in the past between 1:47 and 1:53 it was between 1:39 and 1:45 for all of the sets. I still need to improve on my new swim style but I am working hard on the drills and new technique. Although I am not fast yet I swam 4km on Wednesday and 3km on Friday and I am still feeling good afterwards.

This morning I decided not to go to work and slept a little bit late as I had two nights where I only manage 5 hours. One can feel it immediately in your workouts when you don't get enough sleep. I did my gym session in the morning and then it was a 4.5 hour bike over mid day. I thought that doing my bike from 11h00 to 15h30 will expose me to some heat but even with two sweaters on it was freezing out there and the wind was really strong and icy.

With my last post being Sunday due to my heavy week hereby a summary of the weeks training.

Monday:

Swim: 1h05, 3km

Tuesday:

Bike: 2h33, 68km, 119 bpm, 1764 kcal

Run: 50min, 10.3km, 143 bpm, 794 kcal

Wednesday:

Run: 1h05, 12.8km, 134 bpm, 925 kcal

Swim: 1h25, 4km

Thursday:

Gym: 1h08, 500 kcal

Friday:

Run: 30min, 5.6km, 129 bpm, 400kcal.

Bike: 1h30, 50km, 141 bpm, 1397 kcal.

Swim: 1h00, 3km

Saturday:

Gym: 1h06, 734 kcal

Bike: 4h30, 137km, 133 bpm, 3785 kcal,

Sooner than Expected

Don't know if it was just this weekend but I had two great days of training over the weekend and I can't believe how my fitness level has improved over the last two weeks. It's been now ten weeks since Ironman South Africa and of those ten I had three weeks of almost no training and then four weeks of very light training, basically just keeping the muscles moving. Then I got sick and had no training for a week, but the last two weeks I am back on schedule and last week was a 11 hour training week and this week a 17 hour week. My resting heart is also done to 45 bpm this morning and only the week before last it was at 54.

Yesterday's gym session felt much better than the one Thursday and I am getting used to the two sets of each exercise after doing one sets since IM.

After the gym session I went to work and the mist was really bad, much worst than Friday. The highway was again closed for traffic and the alternative route was not much better. At some stage I was doing 10km/h and could see nothing in front of me. It is really dangerous going too work in the winter with all the mist. When I finished work there was a 4 hour bike session waiting for me.

I wanted to go outside and do it on the open road as the sun was shining after a week of raining.
The only problem was that I would finish in the dark so I got onto the Computrainer. With these long sessions on the Computrainer I think it is more demanding on the mind than on the legs. When I started I didn't think or feel that I will stick to 4 hours but doing the Real DVD course of Hawaii made it a bit easier by watching a "movie" while cycling.

This mornings swim session also felt good and I think I am getting the hang of the Total Immersion way of swimming. I am much more relaxed in the pool and I did the 2.5km and wasn't as tired as in the past. The speed is not there yet but I am only concentrating on my technique for the moment. This afternoon was my long run and I really enjoyed it.

It's a good thing I didn't test drive the Newton shoes before I bought them, as I wouldn't have if I had one run in them. After the first run I wasn't impressed and with the second run they felt better but still nothing special. I wasn't sure today if I should use them for my 2 hr long run but I'm glad I did. They were so comfortable and my legs weren't as tired as in the past and I am only now in the beginning of my training block. I think the laces were a bit loose on the first three runs and I tightened them a bit before I went out and the shoes felt much more stable.

Jakkals( www.trijackal.blogspot.com ) send me a message after I finished my run to say that when he went for a run this afternoon and he ran into a shootout at the shopping mall. He had to hide as bullets were flying all over the place. I am so glad he is OK. I ran past the same shopping mall less than two hours before this incident and it makes one really scared at what can happen to you even if you are just minding your own thing and do what you love, training for IM's.

Yesterday's Workouts:
Gym: 54 min, 515 kcal.
Bike: 4h01, 122 km, 133 bpm, 3391 kcal, 30.4 km/h

Today's Workouts:
Swim: 50:06, 2.5km.
Run: 2h01, 23 km, 140 bpm, 1834 kcal, 5:13 min/km, 87 rpm(cadence).

A Day Full of Surprises

Yesterday was a day full of surprises. As I got home there were two parcels from the Post Office.
When I opened the first one it was a DVD of last years Ironman World Championship in Kona. This was a real pleasant surprise and nice gift. I did not order it but I think it was send too me after I registered for Kona. Just a pity I could not watch it last night as I was at Dejone's school for the election of a new school governing body. Will definatly watch it tonight.

The second parcel I opened was this number plate holder from Triathlete magazine. I renewed my subscription for another year about a month ago and it said that you get a free number plate holder if you renew. I thought this was only applicable to US citizens so I was really happy to receive this gift although it is small, it makes you feel special and that some companies still cares about their clients by giving small gifts even in these tough economy.

Another surprise was that I got elected to serve on the school governing body. I've been serving on the body for six years now and three of those years as chairman. One can not just think you will be automatically re-elected because you've been part of the governing body for six years. The parents need to believe in you and especially if you are chairman. If they don't see progress or are not happy with the way things are going at the school, they will show it with their votes.
I am glad that the parents still believe that I can contribute towards the school.

This morning the freeway was closed due to heavy mist and I had to use an alternative route. Part of this route is a 20km gravel/ dirt road. Take a dirt road add a weeks constant rain and you have a VERY muddy road. As I knew I would be late for work it was one of those mornings were I just decided to have some fun(safe). When I tackled the muddy road I just went for every water hole and anything that looked muddy. When you have such a full schedule than what I have, there is not always time to just have fun. Training 20+ hours a week, working long hours at the dealership and spending any spare time with the family, I just don't have a lot of time to do useless things. I must admit that I was having a blast. When I got at the dealership I had to take a picture as you could not even see the number plates.

Luckily I could just park the car and give the key to the cleaners, a bit nasty but I did said to them I buy them some drinks. That's the advantage if you have someone who cleans your car for you.

Yesterday was my first gym session were I had to do two set of each exercise. For the past few weeks I've been doing 1 set of each and I am feeling it this morning. Because last nights meeting at the school ended very late I decided to do my bike session this morning. Will see how my swim goes tonight after my run and tempo bike this morning.

Yesterday's workout:

Gym: 1hr, 535 kcal.

Today's workouts:

Run: 31:35, 6 km, 421 kcal, 129 bpm.

Bike: 1h15, 39 km, 1172 kcal, 142 bpm.

Mind Games

I don't want to sound negative but my first run with the Newton shoes on Tuesday morning was nothing special. With all the fuss being made about the shoes I maybe was expecting some miracle run, which didn't happen. No super run but also no serious muscle strains as some runners report after their first run. I did my 50 minute tempo run and after the run I compared my run data with that of last weeks tempo run. According to my Polar RS800CX watch, which is very accurate I did 200 meters more than last week but apart from that my heart rate, cadence, stride length and running index was the same.

I could not believed that and thought that maybe the Polar was giving me inaccurate data. This morning I took my Garmin Forerunner 305 along to see how accurate the Polar is. Well I must say it is very accurate. I did a 1h15 run and the Polar was out by 5 meters. The data was also very close to last week's run. Last week I did a 1h05 run but cadence, stride length and running index was the same as with my Zoot shoes.

This mornings run felt more comfortable than yesterday's and I think if one can get used to the Newtons it won't make you faster but at least you will have a more comfortable run. I experienced some slight stiffness in my calves later during the day but nothing serious. I'll guess I will need to spend more time with the Newtons before I will know if they are the shoes for IM.

When I came back from my run I took this photo to see how visible I am to motorist. As I am running at 4am in the morning it is pitch dark especially now during winter. I had three incidents where motorist just drive straight at me and it seems that they want to see how close they can get too me. One person even swerved towards me, I am sure it must be people that are either not mentally sound or they are jealous at me for running. I thought maybe they can't see me but from the photo I think I am very visible.

On my running route this morning I ran past the new Gym that is opening soon. I wanted to have a closer look at the inside and when I ran up to the entrance, new concrete was laid and I left some nice Newton sole imprints. There was no barriers to warn me. I thought it was really funny to see these nice shoes prints at the gym's entrance and when I left for work later I took the camera to take a picture. When I got there a guy from the construction company was looking at this mess someone made to his entrance and he was in a serious discussion with I presume the night watch man. I decided to rather just drive slowly past the gym and not get out and say to the guy , Hey it's my prints can I just take a picture.

I am still "struggling" with my "new" swim technique and it is quit frustrating to do so many drills and not doing the distance. I must just be patient but that's not something I am good at.

Yesterday was my late mother in laws birthday and today it's been 3 years since my father passed away, so things are a bit emotional right now at the Stemmet household.

Monday's Workout:
Bike: 1h00, 27 km. 128 bpm, 804 kcal
Swim: 40 min, drills

Tuesday's Workouts:
Run: 50 min, 10 km, 142 bpm, 783 kcal, 5:01min/km
Bike: 2h15, 70km, 131 bpm, 1898 kcal, 30.3 km/h( first 70 km of IM Kona on Computrainer)

Today's Workout:
Run: 1h15, 14.1 km, 136 bpm, 1096 kcal, 5:20 min/km

Now let's try Newtons

Everybody has been going on about Newton running shoes and there has been so many positives and negatives. Some people love them and others can't run with them. Newton's are designed for forefoot running and if you are a heel striker they say the shoe gives you some injuries, especially your calves and Achilles tendons.

Luckily I am a forefoot running and also a neutral runner so I will see how I will run with them and if it is as good as many people claim.

It wasn't my intention to buy a new pair of shoes but since Ironman South Africa I've been looking at other shoes. I've been running with Asics Nimbus shoes now for the past three years and it is a great shoe. I don't have any injuries due to the shoes. The only reason I am looking at changing shoes, or actually three reasons are the following. It is a heavy shoe, and at the end of a marathon they become real heavy. Another reason is with an Ironman I sweat a lot and the shoes get so wet, especially if I drench myself with water at the aid stations. I can't run barefoot and with the socks getting so wet it starts to give me blisters. The last reason is these shoes has become really expenses. I can buy two pairs of Zoot trainers for the price of one pair of Asics.

My racing pair of shoes is Zoot racers and I love them for races up to half marathons. They are light and I can run with them barefoot. After IM I bought myself the Zoot Trainers that has a little bit more cushioning than the racers and thought that they will be the ones for Kona. You can run without socks, they are light and they have more cushioning than the racers.

But since I started running with them it wasn't very comfortable. First it started chafing me and I got "blisters" on the top of my feet. I had to switch back to my Asics for the blisters to heal but as soon as I start using them again it chafed me again, and that was even with socks. I also started to develop a pain underneath my right foot.

When I bought the Newtons the shop manager told me that the Zoot trainer shoes tend to do that if they are a bit too small. Apparently the trainers are the same upper dimensions than the racers but with the sole being more padded it creates a smaller upper part of the shoe. He suggested that I need to take the trainers one size bigger than the races. That's if I want to go back to Zoots.

In South Africa it is basically Asics, Nike, New Balance and Adidas running shoes that is freely available at shops. Zoot, Brooks and Saucony are available at running stores only and only in a limited number. One Triathlon store has now started importing Newtons. Another problem is we don't have the luxury as many US athletes have whereby you can "test run" a pair of shoes, as someone suggested to be via twitter.

Here it is basically you buy them and you're on your own.

I just wasn't feeling up to it to start experimenting with all these different makes and decided to try the Newtons as a lot of people rave about them. If they don't work for me I think I will go back to Asics as they've been great apart from the one or two little issues during an IM.

I've read a lot about K-Swiss shoes that is a mid foot striking shoes and it's specially designed for IM races. They aren't available in South Africa but maybe I can "test run" them in Kona.

One thing I also confirmed again last night is that if you miss a workout you miss a workout. With my sister graduation and me missing my swim session on Wednesday and doing it on Thursday and by that missing my bike workout I tried to catch up on that on Friday. I managed to do my run workout very early on Friday and followed it with the bike session that I missed on Thursday. But with a busy day at work and two workouts in the morning, and the bike being a tempo session I had little energy left for my Friday evening swim workout.

I could only manage 1km of the 3km I was suppose to do. With the swim session also being a tempo pace session I just bonked. After I got out of the pool I thought of it and realize maybe I should have stick to a normal 3km endurance session and by that I would have got the mileage in instead of going at a high tempo and not completing the session.

After I recovered somewhat, I spend ten minutes in the steam room. I wanted to spend more time but this guy in the steam room had me exhausted only by looking at what he was doing. I thought I could handle the heat but this guy was walking up and down in the steam room and every second minute he will run on one spot for 30 seconds. He was doing this as I walked into the steam room and when I left at ten minutes he was still going on. Eventually he came out 5 minutes later and didn't even looked exhausted.

I am now on my way to Pretoria to attend a two day swimming clinic. I found this swimming school on the Internet and the coach has been giving swim lessons for over 30 years. She's also been rewarded many awards by Swimming South Africa. She recons she can help me improve my technique after the two days and with some follow up lessons she is confident that I can improve my time when going to Kona.

Yesterday's workouts:

Run 30:41 min, 4.6 km, 134 bpm, 443 kcal

Bike 1h05, 36 km, 141 bpm, 1005 kcal,

Swim 26 min, 1 km.

Today's workout:

Gym 38:35 min, 333 kcal, 104 bpm.

Congratulations Wiesa

It was my younger(by 10 years) sisters graduation on Wednesday night and it was a real highlight for her. She obtained a B Ed degree, and although she's been teaching for a while she can now get a job from the Department of Education. Currently she is employed by the schools governing body.

The graduation was in Pretoria, about a hours drive from Witbank and it was me(photo above with my sis), my mother and my sisters boyfriend that went with her. It started at 6pm and they first had the welcoming and opening and then awarded four people their doctor's degrees and this carried on for more than half an hour. While this was happening I counted the names on the program and it came to 332.
To be honest I was a little bit worried, if it takes them almost an hour to open the proceedings and honour four guys, when are we going to finish?

Luckily the program had all the names of the graduates but it was spread over a few graduation evenings for the different types of degrees. When they got going with the normal graduation proceedings it didn't take too long and it eventually finished just after 8pm and we were back in Witbank at half past nine.

I am very proud of Heloise(Wiesa) as she push through with her studies even when she experienced some difficulties. My Father's suffering due to Alzheimer's started when she began her studies and it was also half way through her studies that my father passed away. Although she lost focus and her studies suffered she still continued and finished her degree.

Because I didn't know when will we be back I did my bike workout before we left and I'm glad I did.

I was suppose to swim last night but my sister wanted to celebrate and I skipped the swim but did it tonight. We went to a restaurant last night and we had a great time. Kim just said I am a party pooper as I stopped drinking alcohol again for the 20 weeks preparing for Kona. They were all having some drinks and I was having some cool drinks and coffee.
Luckily I only missed 1 bike workout due to the graduation and the celebration last night but will catch it up tomorrow. I will just do my 1 hour bike session and 30 minute run tomorrow morning and will do my swim session tomorrow night. Then I'll be 100% on track before the weekends long ride and run.

Just some feedback regarding my Cervelo P4. It looks like we are now getting somewhere. Someone at Cervelo HQ has now taken ownership of my problem and apparently they are shipping the frame via Air to South Africa and it will be here soon. Hopefully I will ride my P4 soon.

Tuesday's Workouts:
Run: 50min, 9.8 km, 144 bpm, 795 kcal
Bike: 51 min, 26 km, 132 bpm, 701 kcal

Wednesday's Workout:
Run: 1h03, 12 km, 132 bpm, 881 kcal

Today's Workouts:
Gym: 40 min, 366 kcal
Swim: 1h07, 3 km

What a Lazy Month

With the start of June it was interesting to see what I've done during May, training wise. I knew it was my "recovery" month and the training went out the doorway but was I surprised to see how "little" did I train.

I managed a whole 16 km swimming, 124 km Biking and a whopping 61 km running. It was only the gym sessions of 8 that was on schedule. I know I can't compare it with February when I was putting in the long and hard hours but then I swam 53 km, biked over 1000km and run 236 km. One can really call this a LAZY month when it comes to training.

Luckily I'm not sick anymore, I am well rested and got my motivation back to start preparing for Kona. Today was a great day training wise. I cycled 60km on the Computrainer this morning, doing the Hawaii course. Heart rate was a bit high but I kept it in the zones and didn't go above the 142 bpm maximum. This evening I did my swim session, and was really surprised that I swam at the same pace that I normally do even with my last swim session last week Tuesday.

I guess that is the "advantage" if you are not a strong swimmer and don't have a proper technique, you just carry on at the same pace no matter what.

I've done more than 10% of my Swim and Bike mileage today than what I've done the whole month of May, what a shock.

Today's summary:
Bike 1h50, 60 km, 136 bpm 1187 kcal
Swim 1h07, 3km.