Karen and Kate's journey to Ironman and beyond

I went home on Friday after work and fitted in a short bikeride to clevedon and back, about 45km.  It was alarmingly hot, the tar was making popping noises when I rode over it. I puffed in the still air and wondered if I should have re-applied sunscreen even though the heat of the day was technically over.  I'm ready to ride Taupo I kept telling myself, goodness, I couldn't possibly be worse than I was those first few times we rode round the lake...but then I wouldn't want to be, that was 9-10 hours of TORTURE. As I scooted back along the road towards the coast, there is a narrow tree-lined stretch. I was racing for home at this stage, enjoying the shade, a blue car came up behind me and that was ok, they weren't trying anything silly, they just sat there far enough back for me to feel secure, waiting for a clear stretch that was safe to overtake in.  Good driver. Next thing there was the roaring of a motor, lots of horn tooting and yelling, I didn't look back, I ...

I went to the beach as the sun was going down, I wouldn't normally swim at that hour but I needed a short swim and after a busy afternoon with the daughters at Touch rugby it was the only time I could fit it in. It was hard to leave the comfort of home so I was quite pleased with myself for even getting into my wetsuit (now tight) and into the water, which was choppy and murky after a blustery day. I swam along the beach, as I do. I'm not brave enough to head out into the bay being chronically suspicious of what lurks below, and swimming by myself I like the security blanket of being able to easily get to shore if I hit trouble, like a cramp. Sloshing along, my heart sped up when I saw these intermittent dark shadows underneath me, they were swimming smoothly along, great big things, what were they? I realised that these shadows co-incided with me taking great gulping mouth-fulls of sea water instead of air when I turned my head to breathe. Turned out I was seeing the effec...

As I wrote a bit over a week ago, I have been worrying about my steadily increasing weight so I got some professional sports dietary advice.  That advice, in a nutshell, was to eat more, especially carbohydrates and protein. Now I'm eating every 2-3 hours during the day, some protein, some carb, its hard work. What probably is surprising is that I have been pretty much actually following the advice, notable exceptions were falling off the wagon for birthday cake in the office, and pie and chocolate on Friday's 5 hour bike ride.  I may also admit...perhaps...to some m&m cookies which followed me home for the kids lunchboxes, I had to do a quality control test on them myself first.  I am eating more, ignoring (trying to) the energy in/out calorie approach, and concentrating on quality. I started this process feeling nervous so it wasn't a big surprise to me really that after my sterling efforts to push MORE food in I am steadily putting on weight.  I feel like ...

Last weekend I did something unusual for me. I checked the training programme, it said '2km swim, run 20km', then I ignored it completely.  On Saturday a friend and I took our respective daughters into Auckland city to stay in a hotel on the waterfront for a Sunday event, the Sculpt 6km walk/run.  We had decided we would stay overnight rather than drive in horribly early in the morning and have to worry about parking etc. Anyway, Saturday afternoon was spent firstly with some urgent city road-safety training for our country town girls then checking in at the Queens Wharf registration for race numbers and goodie bags. Then we wandered along the Auckland waterfront. There is the coolest playground at the Viaduct with a sea theme, well worth a look. The girls climbed climbing things, rolled down a fake grass bank, spun on spinning things and had to be retrieved, slightly damp, from the shallow water feature. There are lovely cafes and restaurants on wharf type structures with...

Yes we had a great ride but .... I had a puncture/flat tyre. This is my second flat this year, the last one I had a wobbly bottom lip and cried as I felt hopeless in how to change a tyre, especially the back one. But this time I was convinced that I could manage. I also had GI Jane with me (AKA Karen). We were going up a hill on a very small windy road and I thought the road was a bit Bumpy, but no my back tyre was flat. Off to the side of the road and safety we went. The Back tyre is the hard one as it has gears to contend with. But we got the wheel off and the tyre and put the new inner tube in. But it was not sitting right so after a little time of trying to get it to fit we just put another one in.  All ready to get back on the road. The one casualty though was Karens bar of Chocolate. It had been sitting in the sun and had melted. Very SAD.

I took annual leave on Friday and Kate and I met up at Clevedon for our last big training ride.  Our bikes were loaded down with plenty of food, we had money to stop at one or more of the three shops on the 100+km route to buy more food and drink, and we were prepared for hot weather.  Five hours later we were back.  We had eaten all the food, successfully covered the distance and gotten hot and only slightly bothered in the process. Actually it was a lovely ride, grinding up all of those huge hills heading out towards Hunua, racing along the flats at Kaiaua, and onto more huge hills to get to Kawakawa bay. There were smaller hills back to Clevedon, plenty of boats and trailers to dodge, and everywhere lots of glorious scenery.  I was happy that there were no suspicious mechanical noises from the bike and nothing fell off it, and I made a valiant effort to stick to the new nutrition requirements.  Well, except for the fruit and nut chocolate and bottle of coke...

Sunday was the Herne bay masters swim in Auckland. Yes I can swim 2.2km, I think. You know you can do these things but sometimes you need to be reminded. It was a great day, the sun was shining and hardly any wind, the sea was flattish.  I registered late and had a white cap. They sent us off in waves and the white caps went first. Bit of a shock, no one to follow. Anyway it was not long before I could follow the ones in front. We swam towards the island, but were soon pushed over to a buoy by one of the boats. Now we had been told not to go that way but you do go the way you are told. I had just got  to the buoy and another boat said we were going the wrong way. No need to get upset, I mean we were just out for a swim so off to the island we went. There was a bit of a current and it seemed to take ages but eventually I got there. Another boat was close by. I always wonder do they think I'm not going to make it or am I just the last one in the sea? Still another km to go and t...

The last two weekends have been pretty much spread out half Ironman events.  Big ride on the Friday, swim Saturday, and run Sunday, a lot of hours under my feet or wheels so to speak in a relatively short space of time. Friday just gone I got on my bike for my 2nd 100km in the leadup to Taupo. I headed off, not for the flats of Takanini this time, but the full-on hills towards Whitford and beyond.  I slogged up rise after rise, I ate, slogged and ate. Fortunately on the bike I usually see something to sidetrack me which makes the time go a little quicker, and this time was no different. After I got from Whitford to Alfriston, I did a loop taking me to the outskirts of Manurewa and back via Ardmore.  I found myself fascinated by a trail of shoes on the roadside. Now these weren't pairs of shoes, but countless individual shoes, some left, some right, heels, flat, strappy, all colours, and all looking about the same size. None matched that I saw, it was almost as though so...

Energy in equals energy out. It makes sense, anything you don't burn through activity is stored, so take less in or burn off more if you want to lose weight.  That is what we teach, that is what all the recommendations say, that is also what the research unequivocally shows.  For by far the majority of people this equation is absolutely right, the hard part is offsetting the multitude of complicating factors life throws at them, things that make eating too much of the wrong food and doing too little exercise into the easy option. In the last 6 months the energy equation has not been working for me, I've been putting weight on even though my average energy intake has been way below my energy output. In desperation I even dropped cake AND chocolate to the bottom of my essential food list (notice I said 'bottom' not 'off').  My big energy deficit has often been accidental, for example, to completely replace the energy burned in a 5 hour run or bikeride, about 300...

Wow, back training with a vengeance.  The problem with having a really late (as in 2 months behind where I was last year) start to training is you have to take a risk and hop into a programme at a relatively high level. Last week was the case in point, I did a grueling spin session on Thursday evening, Friday went off to do a 100km bike ride, Saturday 1500m swim (planned on 2km but ran out of energy), and Sunday 17km run. Fortunately the risk seems to have paid off, I didn't injure myself, and while I'm a bit tired today I don't seem to have pushed myself into that state of exhaustion which means I have to take extra time off.   Having said that, 2 days of rest now is probably a good idea so I can be in shape to repeat the effort next weekend. So, the Friday bikeride.  I took a day of annual leave and the morning started with a trip up to the local school to watch the class assembly for oldest daughter, then home to get ready.  What to take?  It had been a whi...