Next week is the start of a new school term, so it will be back to cycle training for a couple of mornings per week, which will make swimming harder again, and increase cycling by 1 or 2 rides per week. So I will have to be a little more diligent in getting the non-squad swims done, and ramp up the time management a little more.
Swimming has been in "maintenance mode" prior to going away, then had a couple of weeks off. Needless to say my swim fitness was at a fair reflection to the effort than had been put in! Not that good! The swim sessions I was doing were good, there just were not enough of them! So with school holidays - swimming went up to four times per week. It was a shock to the system and quite a struggle, certainly for the first two weeks. This week at least some form is showing signs of re-appearing - not there yet, but there is some hope! Everything pretty much aches, shoulders are very niggly, and I just feel like hitting the alarm in the morning and going back to sleep - but that is the easy option... I think that if I don't give the swimming a kick in the pants, I would be a broken man at swim squad very soon! That may still happen, but at least I will go down with some resistance, rather than just a whimper in the corner of the lane...
The running had a solid week a few weeks ago. A good volume of running (almost cracked 6 hours for the week), included a cross country race on the Saturday and then ran the waitak's on the Sunday. So ended up with run intervals on Friday, 4 runs on Saturday (total of 50 minutes, with Saturday training, warm-up for cross country, cross country and a warm-down), and a mega hill run at a solid tempo on the Sunday. The long run was a bit over 2 hours 10min, and it is around 28km. The cross country was a flat and fast 4km, a little short for me, although about perfect for terrain and footing - at least as far as cross country goes! For the long run, the up hills were far better than the downs, and it was pretty much the sore leg city on the first major down. It did not help that is was almost 40 minutes longer and a fair amount steadier, and hillier than any other long run I have done for a long time, but it was good to knock off, and kick my ass into gear.
The waitaks loop has a good hill in it..Cycling form was certainly a little off after my short trip away. There was a bit less power on the hard, and a bit higher HR for the normal easy and moderate efforts. All of which was a bit more than I thought would be the case after 1 ride in two weeks - not really a big break, but perhaps enough to start a bit of a slide after more maintenance training than hard out "improving fitness" training. It has come back through the lower end efforts, and I think the upper end efforts are now a bit more affected by what has been done in the previous 24-36 hours. I have had a good hard ride after an easy day, and a couple of pretty average interval rides after a moderate day the previous day.
A couple of weeks ago we were away for the secondary schools north island cycling champs. Liz and I were there as the designated team coaches. I thought that this would be a fairly relaxed weekend, with a lot of standing around, and not much "doing", perhaps a 2 minute talk before the team time trial and then just standing around for moral support. It did not quite end up that way! The days were a bit longer than expected (plenty of divisions to race), and a lot more running around and nervous tension than I expected. The Saturday was team time trials and Sunday was individual road races. Dio cycling has a lot of pressure to perform, and the A teams (junior and senior) are expected to bring home the trophies! Not a bad thing in an overly politically correct world.
Both the junior and senior A teams were a rider short, with the last rider not really at the same level as the others (not really their fault). So this added to the pressure a little more, as the other teams were certainly gunning for a Dio scalp - and not bashful about telling everyone. So a little different game plan was required, with the weaker rider required to just sit-on the back and hold on, try and save themselves, and if they can - help on the way home. Checking everyone knew what their job was and settling some very frayed nerves took a fair amount of energy I have to say! Added to that, I was the team "mechanic" as well. This adds a little more stress too - as the bike checks are done as you go to the start line, so if any bikes fail - you only have a couple of minutes at the most to sort it. School gears are limited, and this is what is the focus of the check - so if you fail the "roll-out" (your bike goes too far per pedal stroke), there is not-so-minor panic. We check these before, but we have still previously had a fail, so it is a nervous wait. My anticipated casual weekend of watching cycling was definitely becoming a little more stress filled than I had anticipated! But the girls rode well - almost exactly to plan. The juniors were third, then second after a DQ. My rough timing gave the seniors a win by a couple of seconds, so it was a very anxious wait for the official results - in the end a win by 5 seconds. Whew. The big day out of the way with one trophy and one podium...
Those blurs that are approaching are team time trial riders - in the "good" weather the weekend gave...
For the individual races - the weather was a shocker - cold and wet! School racing is pretty hazardous under ideal conditions, add water and wind, and the recipe for disaster just got moved a bit closer to the front of the book. I naively thought that most girls would have their own ideas for the individual races, as many have their own coaches. Let's just say there were many discussions on race plans for many girls in the morning, and a bit more settling of nerves. Some were quite basic - like stay out of trouble and don't crash. For the seniors - I made more of a team plan - one attacks on the hills until she gets in a break, one covers breaks on the flat, and one sits in the bunch and looks after the designated sprinter - who just had to stay in the main bunch. I was pretty stoked when the designated break-away person won from her break-away partner, and the designated sprinter won the bunch sprint for 3rd. Watching and running around was definitely far more stressful and tiring than racing myself! The only training in the weekend was a 45min "tempo" run with Ant's. In the wet, dark cold of Hamilton, I quickly discovered Ant's preferred pace was almost the exact pace that really aggravated my tender ITB's. So it was either run faster or slower - and unfortunately it was faster for about 40 out of 45min... Oh well - good to catch up with old mates anyway :-)
This is as good as my photography gets with a cell phone while running to the finish line (Bex with a great ride to hang in the front bunch)
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