Making the most of the Public Holiday

Today is a Public Holiday in South Africa and it gave me the chance to sleep way past 4am as I don't need to go to work. It also gave me the opportunity to spend some quality time with DJ and Kim.

I went for my run mid morning and really struggled. I had 1h05 on the schedule and battled for most of it. My legs was dead from yesterday's run and bike session and I just got not get going. I had to keep my heart rate below 143bpm according to my training schedule and walked most of the hills to keep it there.

At one stage I thought these hills must grow during the summer as I had no problem running to the top of all of them during winter. Getting back in shape is so hard after an off season.

Forgot to post this picture yesterday but this is what it look like on Monday when I started my training, not the best weather to start a new season. Luckily today is such a sunny and lovely day with the temperature at 29c.

After my run I enjoyed a nice breakfast and relaxed for some time just to get my energy levels back. Dejone wanted us to finish our Monopoly game we started Sunday but I decided to first do my swim. If we first start playing it so easy to call the swim off.

I was at the pool and with today being a holiday it was so empty. I was the only one in the pool for most of the time. A 4km session waited for me and I knew it was going to be hard as it included 20x100m. After my warm up and drills I tackled the 100s and this is where I saw my fitness is way off.

The first four were all below 1:34, then my time dropped to 1:38 up to the 10th one. For the next five I really struggled and was doing them between 1:42 and 1:45. My friend Bryan Payne has a saying "Suck it up" and I decided I need to complete the set and will not go slower than 1:45, just suck it up. The last four were back in the 1:38 to 1:42 range but boy did I feel it.

The session ended with 300 meter kicks and 300m easy swim. After the 100s and the run this morning my legs were really burning doing the kicks.

Back at home Dejone was so happy to see me and we continued our Monopoly game. It was so nice not watching TV or being on the Internet and just chat and play the whole afternoon. The only thing with Monopoly is it can go on forever and we decided to make 6pm the cut off time.

Emmah our maid brought Judith, her daughter to work on Monday and Tuesday to help her mother but I think DJ was more happy to have a friend to play with during the school holiday. I don't think DJ gave Judith a chance to help her mother.

Judith is finishing high school next year and wants to become a nurse. I have so much respect for Emmah as she is putting Judith through high school as a single mother and safe everything she earns to pay for her studies comes 2011.

Kim takes Judith every December to a local clothing store and let her choose some clothing. Kim started doing this when Emmah started working for us 6 years ago. Judith is so thankful for this but it's the least we can do.

Mr. Busy Body, Eddy has learned to jump on the couch and it wasn't long before he learned to get up onto the backrest. He thinks he is a patrol dog and walk up and down on the backrest while we watch TV.

My training schedule for the next two days is not very hard before the long weekend hours but the only problem is I won't burn that many calories and would really need to look at what I eat during the two days to keep the consumed vs burned ratio in tact.

Yesterday's Training:

Run(Tempo): 50min, 9.4km, 141bpm ave, 805kcal, 86 cadence ave.

Bike(Recovery): 1hr, 29km, 122bpm, 769kcal, 212 watts

Calories consumed vs burned: 2369 vs 3494 (1125 in the bank)

Ratio: C/P/F %: 54/16/30. Carbs down, still too little Protein and too much Fat:-(

Today's Training:

Run(Moderate): 1h05, 11.2km, 1014kcal, 136bpm, 83 cadence.

Swim(Moderate): 1h24, 4km, 700kcal,

Calories burned: 3584.

Calories consumed: 2236

Ratio C/P/F: 50/15/35