The week of training had a bit of a rocky start. I rested on Monday as I had a early morning meeting. I had a 2 hour run scheduled in on Tuesday morning, and with fresh legs, I was looking forward to a good one. Unfortunately, that did not happen. I was clocking 4:30 per km pace for the first hour, but my legs soon tightened up and I slowed down to a jog. In the end, I only clocked 25.5km, with an overall average of 4:42 per km.
Wednesday and Thursday had me riding in King's Park and Shelley loop respectively. It was very windy, and I stayed low on the aerobars, and kept it as tight as possible. I'm very happy with how this new bike performs on windy days like these. On Friday I had an hour's run in King's Park. It was like a redemption run for me, given the mediocre one on Tuesday. I pushed myself pretty hard and was glad with the result. Clocked 13.2km with a 4:33 per km average, quicker than the last time I ran in King's Park. In the evening, I had a swim session with a main set of 10 x 400m. Repetitive and long, but I much prefer these than doing pace work.
I swapped my rides on the weekend, as the weather was forecasted to be really wet and wild on Sunday. So I did my long ride on Saturday instead and followed the BYL group to the hills. We rode through Death Valley, Mundaring, Mundaring Weir and Zig Zag hill. It only started getting windy as we got back to Perth and it showered in the last 5 minutes of my ride back to home. Still, happy to clock another 180km ride and riding in a group makes it a whole lot more enjoyable and the kms go by a lot quicker, thanks boys and girls!
On Sunday, I rode laps on Sorrento to Burns Beach. The skies were black with ominous clouds and I kept my fingers crossed so that the weather will hold up for that 2.5 hours or so. Some parts of the road were crowded with parked cars, as it is abalone catching season again. There were occassional gusts of wind from the coast, which had me clutching tightly onto the handlebars. It was only until the last 10 minutes when it really poured and even hailed for a couple of minutes. I was soaking wet at the end of the ride and decided to skip my 45 minute run and headed home for a warm shower.
It rained and hailed a few more times that day. Pretty unusual for this time of the year. I was still keen to make up my run but wasn't sure whether I would have a chance to. In the end, I sneaked in a run at about 6pm, and it stayed dry for most of it.
This week wasn't ideal but sometimes it's not about how fast we go but more about how we persevere in less than ideal conditions. I think that goes a long a way in preparing for a big race. Another 5 weeks to go to Ironman WA, with 2-3 weeks of big sessions before the taper.
No comments:
Post a Comment