Karen writes: Nearly finished the toughest week of training!

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Took Annual leave today to do my longest ever training ride…160km on what seemed to be our first real summer day this season.  The cicadas were out in full force singing in the hedges, and after lunch I wondered what the popping noises were and it turned out to be the tyres running over little bubbles of melted tar.   It was nearly 7 hours on the road, then there was a 50 minute run afterwards.

Because I go round and round large blocks on the bike I got to see the same roadworkers more than once, the stop-go people were getting quite friendly by the 4th time through the same stretch.  After I had ridden past a few time I got some suspicious looks from groups (flocks, herds?) of police in their cars down various sideroads in Takanini as they waited for something.  I kept both hands on the handlebars when I passed them, they looked far too serious to worry about my high speed one and no handed sandwich extraction and eating contortions but I wasn't taking any chances.

Food for the ride – rice porridge with yogurt and fruit for early breakfast, 1 x gel with caffeine before leaving.    During the ride I ate 7 slices of bread with honey, another caffeinated gel, a packet of solid gels, a banana, and drank 4 bottles of electrolyte drink.  Thanks heaps to Gemma of Gu Energy for your kind donation of  some product towards our efforts!

Food for the run – screwed up here, didn’t even think of that, or water, so the last 20 minutes was a bit miserable in the heat, especially since I was still wearing the bike shirt and arm covers.

The bike has started talking to me again, not sure what the noise is, but it hasn’t self destructed yet.   Just been reading the IM manual and the extra rules on the website... my bike and helmet have to be inspected and get stickers on them so will have to take them in next week for that.  There are lots of interesting rules in the manual, like crawling is not an acceptable form of locomotion in the run, and no hanging on to fences, poles or other objects for maneuvering?  Will have to study it in more detail, wouldn’t want to accidentally break any rules like having illegal items on the bike like glass (I only drink my electrolyte drink out of champagne flutes), using 'depressants' (why?), or drafting off a motorcycle or other vehicle (tell me how!).

Swim tomorrow (if I can move), and 30km run on Sunday (ditto).

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