Karen writes: 5 weeks till Suffer

It's 2023.  How did that happen?   And how did it suddenly turn out that Suffer half Ironman is on again in just under 5 short weeks.

Anyway, it's been a week of history popping up and giving me a poke, hey you, remember this or that?  Except with an exclamation mark or two.  HEY YOU...do you REMEMBER?   One such pop-up was being out doing a fun-run and running across a member of the team who used to do duathlon and fun run events, we'd lost touch over time so it was good to see her still out walking.  

So for some reason I had to dig out the IronmanOurWay blog to just have a look back at what was going on in that distant world called the 'past'.  Oh goodness, did we ever look like that?   And we complained?  How did we DO that?  AND WE COMPLAINED?    

The good news is Kate and myself are both still active, or you could say if you look at things with that slightly dodgy (for some) lens of  'for our age', we're doing very well 'for our ages'.  Kate's just been to a training camp where she's done an unbelievable amount of time cycling, running and swimming. We're both booked in for Taupo 70.3 (half) Ironman next year.  

I've just done Auckland marathon, number something or other.   It was looking like an awful day, it turned out nice.  Then there was a fun-run on the coast the next weekend, it felt like it should be a bit dodgy (after a marathon the week before).  It wasn't, it was 'nice'.  And that's been pretty much the story of the years since regular blog writing occurred...nice, nasty, super nice, super nasty, extra naps, extra protein, bunches of pairs of shoes and Panadol.   And bling.  And icecream.  And an extra 5kg in weight, for me, Kate's done better on that front.

Anyway, we started this blog back in 2011, nearly 13 years ago as of now.  I was tempted to wait till 15 years (or 20) had passed as some sort of anniversary thingy before writing a catch-up,  but nope, nothing like now.

What I'm realising most these days, is that 'now' is pretty darned important.   Like NOW to do the dreaded strength exercises.  Yes, I've acknowledged these as being important and still not done them for a very long time, but, seriously, I just can't ignore the very real loss of muscle mass (and strength it turns out) which starts to get more and more obvious with the years.  As I wrote before, its 13...thirteen...one-three years since we started our Ironman-Our-Way journey, and that time has brought with it a bunch less working muscle...no wonder I'm feeling the impact!

So the strength work has been going on for the last 6 months in the hopes that the 6 hour plus marathons may come back to a more reasonable amount of time...I'd be super happy with 5 hours.   My last full Ironman (number 10) was in 2022.  That was a disaster and I was second to last...which wasn't the disastrous bit, it was more how hard the effort was and how much it took out of me.  I really think it's unlikely that I'll be doing a full IM distance again, but I've surely got a lot more half Ironman efforts in me, and plenty more marathons I hope, but the decline needs to be at the very least arrested if not reversed.

Enter the friendly but mean personal trainer Grant from my very first Ironman effort.  He's now got me over at the beach humiliating myself once a week leaping on and off benches, doing weird crawl exercises, and with shaking arms struggling my way through push ups and planks and...and...and.   I'm also littering the house with kettle bell weights in the hopes that if I fall over them I'll use them, the occasional dog chewed dumbbell lurks under a chair, and rescuing the elastic bands from that same dog must count for something.

So now, I'm actually a tiny bit optimistic that after months of feeling like a loser in the muscle stakes, something is finally, happening.  I did a...yes, one, a single solitary full push up the other day.  Yes, I can knock out a snails pace marathon, a come-in-after-cut-off Half Ironman, but couldn't do that most basic of arm exercises but it seems there's hope for me yet.