And it begins...

The first week of October is always the hardest. It is the beginning of the few weeks (usually 5 to 6) where we rack up some mega miles, getting sun kissed tan and spending the remaining hours of our days in zombie like expressions. But looking at my training plan for the next couple of weeks, the weekly hours have still been kept to a manageable load of just over 16 hours. Then again... I may be wrong, as I have yet to receive the plans for the weeks after that.

I turned 28 on Friday, only 2 more years before I reach the big THREE-OH. That also means moving up to the next age group in triathlon-speak. As I clearly enjoy my meat, Li-Ann and I had my birthday dinner at Fibber McGee's Leederville - Irish dry aged steak with Guiness, of course.

What's a birthday without a cake? As there were only two of us, and we were pretty full from dinner, a slice of honeycrunch mousse cake from Exomod Mount Lawley was to be shared between us, along with a cup of coffee for Li-Ann and white hot chocolate for me.

My ride on Saturday started unusually late at 9.30am. I joined Sam and Dennis for a 5 hour ride, and they had a special program which includes a 1 hour swim before and 2 hour run after! I just did the ride. I wasn't sure how I would pull up as my longest ride this year was 4.5 hours before Desaru and that seemed so long ago. But it turns out, I managed alright - 154.2km, average pace 31kph, which is my best training effort so far for a long ride.

It was nice seeing some familiar faces on the freeway south shared paths, they were all on their way back whereas we just started! Though, the magpie attack on the way back from Mandurah wasn't much fun. Thank god for helmets! And I found out later that this has been quite a regular occurrence. Looks like inconsiderate vehicle drivers aren't the only ones who do not welcome us on their roads.

Sunday morning, I tuned into the live streaming of the Kona Ironman World Championships the moment I woke up. I watched Craig Crowie Alexander dominated the field to his 3rd win (which I won a A$10 bet with Li-Ann for hehe) and breaking the course record. There wasn't the excitement of a duel between 1st and 2nd like last year, but breaking the course record by such a narrow margin - a race against the clock made up for it. Chrissie Wellington had to fight off Mirinda Rinnie Carfrae breathing down her neck towards the last mile before claiming her 4th win.

I then set off for my long run, feeling a bit motivated from all the adrenaline of the World Champs coverage. Perhaps too motivated, and probably started off a bit too quickly. I was maintaining a 4:20 pace for about 40 minutes and then I started to fade. I slowed down to a 4:30 and eventually a 4:50 pace. Did 21.8km in 1 hour 40 minutes, an overall average of 4:35 pace. Oh well, we all have our off days and I was just glad to get the mileage in.