Building a base

Had a really great weekend that comprised a 75km ride on Saturday incorporating a lap of Mt Cootha from the 55th - 65th kilometres and then a good solid 15km run at BRRC on Sunday morning. (1:07 - my first run over 12 km in about two months!)

The legs were sore but I put my skins on and they felt great, fine today apart from a little bit of residual tiredness and that was pretty much entirely shaken out by a 5km recovery run this afternoon.

Tomorrow morning is a 40km ride and possibly a swim session in the afternoon if I get time!

Thanks for all the supportive comments RE: the goal statement last week! almost makes me think it might be a bit acheivable!

Recovery ride swim ride

One of the thought I has after Noosa was that I hadn't focussed at all on the transition from swim to bike in the same way I had from bike to run so part of my new program incorporates riding to and from recovery swims in order to be able to cycle better after my swim leg.

Today was the first time I tried that and it went really well but I don't think it's practical for my big full swim sets, only the recoveries and it actually has taken a fairly heavy toll on my legs (although that may just be the result of a very heavy bike week, and starting to up my training again...)

All up the ride was 24 km (12 each way, but I can make this shorter if I continue it) and the swim was 10x 100s...

It was the first swim since Noosa so I was really slow but I'm hopefully going to follow up my new group cycling regime by joining a swim squad next week.

Finally, in answer to Clairie's question about my next big goal (and I can't believe I'm posting this...) but my next BIG goal (dependent on how a couple of other projects I'm involved in shape up date-wise) is...

wait for it...

IM 08.

Yup. Obviously there's a lot of other big goals on the way to that one but I have pretty much planned my races for the next 18 months (Bris Mara, GC Mara, Capricorn, Gold Coast and Port Mac 1/2IMs) and I really want to do my first while I'm still at uni.

Brick sets, bogans and baseball bats...

I headed out for what was meant to be a relatively simple brick set in the heat yesterday to try and build up a bit of an acclimatisation. Apparently however some of brisbane's residents struggle to keep their cool!

I was cycling in a cycle lane down a very steep hill when an absolute moron in his beaten up old commodore overtook me, swerved in front of me, gave me the finger and started to speed off. Convinced I was in the right I promptly returned said finger and the bogan started slowing down.

It being a busy road and him being stopped close to the gutter on the left I couldn't get round his car on either side so I mounted the kerb and stopped in line with his car to blast him through the passenger window. (I figured it was safer to do that than to continue down the road and have him run me down in his car.)

A rather uncivil exchange occurred, which I shan't repeat exactly here (but which involved such intelligent statements as "why don't youse *expletive*s just buy cars?") and then he reached into the backseat of his car and pulled out a baseball bat and began shaking it at me!

At this point it occurred to me that this guy, who was bloodshot to the eyeballs, obviously equipped with only a single-digit IQ and shaking a weapon at me was probably not someone whom I wished to continue to exchange words with and so I spun around and sped off back up the footpath and down the next right hand turn street (thinking it would harder for him to catch me were he to follow). He apparently had lost his train of thought because I wasn't followed.

The rest of the set was comparatively uneventful except for the heat, all up a I did 36 km on the bike and 6 km run and I was pretty exhausted by the end of it.

everything is new!

I've been doing some great new runs from the new location as well as building up my ride. Everything's going well! - hopefully I'll be up to 100km long ride and 30km long run by the new year.

Today I also went for my first bunch ride which was very cool, although probably not fantastic for tri training it's certainly a lot more motivating than riding alone (not to mention a lot more exciting!).

Funniest part was my "twin" was there, yes Tesso, that one, and it was his first bunch ride to!

Creepy no?

Anyway, everything's going splendidly and hopefully I'll start getting mroe consistent with my blogging very soon!

Noosa

Thanks Tesso!