Karen and Kate's journey to Ironman and beyond

I went for a swim in the Otara pool.  For 2 weeks now I have been setting my alarm early in order to get up for a weekly set of lengths before work, all my good intentions come to nothing though when I repeatedly hit the snooze button thinking "I will do it tomorrow..." I'm not really too worried about the swim, after all, the next important challenge is the 160km round lake Taupo cycle ride in 8 weeks. The event after that is the Rotorua half ironman and I figure I can flounder out a 2km swim without too much preparation if I really have to for that.  That rather slack attitude will obviously have to change early next year to achieve double that swimming distance for the full Ironman. Anyway, I got in the water this morning, adjusted and wet the pair of goggles I had snatched out of the bathroom on the way out the door, and pushed off from the end of the pool.  I pulled up short, what was the matter with my eyes!   They stung and watered, I wrenched the goggles off

The bike went into the bike shop yesterday to be re-setup for tri-bars.  Yes, I succumbed and decided to give them another go, my bike was at last going to lose her near unique status as one of a handful of triathlon steeds not bearing the torture implements.  I turned up at the workshop in my work tights and a tunic, and was asked where my bike clothes were.  Um, these?  I did bring my bike shoes though, and with them clear evidence that I sometimes walked in them...cant deny dried mud on the carpet. Complicated video cameras were set up, red lasery looking lines bisected the walls and the poor old Scott was installed in a windtrainer.  I was instructed to get on and ride, yep, my favourite thing, riding no-where indoors, at least there was a nice landscape covering the whole wall, hang on, there was also ME on a big TV screen, oh bleep, do I really look like that on my bike? Anyway, after coming to terms with that bit of trauma, I watched with interest all measuring of angles, sh

I'm sorry its been a little while since I last wrote. Life has been a little busy and I'm trying to train! I have a new plan with my coach and it started last Monday, unfortunately I did not look at it until Tuesday so missed a swim. But the rest of the week I have almost been good. I have done everything that was written in the plan but not necessarily the right amount of time. I mean to say I was out riding today and the rain clouds came over and it started to rain, so the decision was shall I ride for another 10 k or go to the cafe.  Well it did not take long to get back to Nick's cafe and I was sitting warmly inside when the rain came. Good decision. Now I might have talked about this before but there are some strange places around. As I was riding down the road today I saw this man fishing. Strange as I was miles from the sea. He had in his hand a cross bow, you know like the ones Robin Hood used. Lying next to him was a large fish that he had got out of the creek. I

It was my dad's birthday, well not quite, but the presence of the Whangarei running festival on this weekend made it convenient to move the birthday celebration forwards.   Birthday cake, decorated by loving grandchildren with copious quantities of chocolate fish, pineapple lumps and gummy lollies, is hard to resist at the best of times, but running a half marathon is a good way of ensuring there is no guilt for indulging. And I did my best time ever, a PB or Personal Best as the jargon goes.  2 hours 8 minutes and 49 seconds put me actually in the top half of the field!  It must have been that cake, or possibly the fact that the field looked like it had been reduced by at least a quarter, probably the rainy weather and predicted winds. Still running uphill in Onerahi It was a lovely run actually, worth getting out of bed for.  We went along the waterside heading towards the Whangarei heads, a diversion along bush trails around the Onerahi peninsular and then back by the ma

I am no longer primarily a 'runner'.  The bike came out of the shed on Saturday.  It was dirty, the tyres were flat, and the old oil on the chain had soaked up the dust and it made a thick coating on the links.  Yuck, sad case of equipment neglect.  A couple of km up the road I realised I had forgotten…gloves, arm coverings, speedometer, leg-warmers, and how to change gears without thinking about it.  This last was probably a good thing, by practicing changing the chain from big to small front cog and back again I figured out a way of making it work most of the time, which hadn’t been the case before I put the bike away (or at Taupo Ironman), when I had big problems getting from low to high gears. There were a heap of runners out with their fuel-belts, camelpaks and terribly serious expressions, that reminded me that the Auckland marathon is only five weeks away.  I saw a man and a woman running together when I rode towards Clevedon, then when I came back they were sti

My coach Gerrard Smith had organised a weekend camp to jump start our Ironman campaign. It was only 10 days since my marathon and my last run had ended with sore knees, but I had booked and paid my money so off to Taupo I went. Friday I arrived at the house to find 10 other mad ironman athletes. We went off for an 8k run from the AC Baths to Huka    falls. It was a lovely run along the river climbing up high with great views of the river. The knees felt fine so I was happy with that. Saturday we were up early and at the pools by 7am.   Gerrard forgot to tell us that the main pool was closed and we were in the outside pool. Luckily it was heated and as long as my shoulders were under water it was OK. We did some work on drafting and sighting. Back to the house for breakfast and then out on the bike.   The weather was looking to be a problem with wind and rain forecast. We found a flat straight road and were shown some spin routines with high cadence. Then off to a large hill and s

Kate is off at Ironman camp, its time for me to start getting ready too.  I decided to do a stocktake of what I have to do, what I've got and where I am in the process. I started by looking at the 2011-2012 training plan.  According to when I started last year, my full-on 6 month triathlon training programme kicks in on the 17 th of this month.  This is straight after the Whangarei half marathon next weekend, so the first two days of the first week of the programme I automatically ignore instructions and will probably rest instead.  That's a good start. I counted up the weeks to go to Ironman, there just doesn’t seem to be enough.  But then, would there ever be? I looked at the increasing number of sessions on the plan, often twice a day, more swim, spin, cycle, oh, and those dratted strength training sessions.  I counted up the hours I am doing at the moment….hmmm…roughly 4 hours a week, oh great, training will get to around four times the current amount.  Where did I

We ran a marathon in Queensland Australia a week ago.  Sounds strange to say that, because life feels exactly the same as it was beforehand except for a little piece of the mind still trying to argue "but it was a marathon". There is no evidence we ran that overheated 42km apart from a few pictures, some memories, and a bit more wear on the latest pair of shoes.  I look at those relatively new shoes and rather wistfully think that I will probably go through another two pairs before Ironman. So I rested from training all last week apart from walking, I walked up and down Surfers Paradise beaches and to and from the ADS/ADEA diabetes conference.  I must have been still sufficiently endorphined-up and the Thursday presentation came and went without too much stress. The crowd of Australian health professionals got a taste of kiwi-style community gardening as a suggested way of helping prevent some of the lifestyle factors associated with type 2 diabetes, they seemed to cope wi

Its Sunday morning and I should be out on my bike! The wind is blowing a gale so it is unsafe to go out. I went to see my friend Norma instead. As you can see from the picture I now have red toe nails. All my nails survived the marathon. I bought larger shoes and now wear a 43.5. It made such a difference. Roll on summer and I can show off my nails again. Training will start tomorrow I promise!

Its Saturday morning and I'm back home. Another Marathon under my belt. I had a look at my sports band calculations and see that I got slower over the run. But saying that I did 21k in 2hours 20 and the second in 2hours 30. Not bad considering it was so hot. No aches or pains now, but I am looking at my training calender and thinking do I really need to go out for a bike ride tomorrow? maybe another day off is what I need. I will start again on Monday! I have a training camp coming up next week end so that should be fun! It is a strange feeling after an event as I have lost motivation, I think that's why its good to have a coach to kick me back into doing my training.