Week 11 Update - My Busselton 70.3 Training Log

Week 11 didn't start so well and had various ups & downs but by the end I'd completed 10hrs 47 of training, with 1 full rest day. 3 running sessions, 2 swims and 3 rides.

The knees are just not getting any better and my Monday run which was meant to be "long" was cut short so I only covered 9km, and it took just over an hour with all the stop/starts. I decided at that point that I should give the Deep Water Running a try so got my self sorted on Wednesday and did one hour DWR at Craigie and found it rather more than I expected so will consider replacing 1 land-run per week with 1 Deep Water Run and see how that goes.

The highlight of the week was joining the club for the "alternative" ride on Saturday. It was my longest ride of the season being 98km and because it was a ride through the 'burbs (Hillarys - Sorrento - Ocean Reef - Wangara - Darch - Ballajura - Ellenbrook - The Vines - Middle Swan and back to Hillarys) I decided to take my road bike instead of my TT bike (better control for cornering, braking, negotiating traffic etc). In hindsight (a few weeks later) I now realise that was not the right decision. In fact, I never do long rides on my road bike and now I am learning that it is not right for me on long rides (more about that later).

The ride was fabulous - interesting, great group of people, we all stuck together well, and the pace was perfect. I felt strong for the majority of the ride but I pushed myself for too long at too high a pace along Great Northern Highway (we averaged 36km/hr for a 15km stretch) and I didn't back off or take extra nutrition when I could feel myself getting depleted. I sometimes think my testosterone levels must be too high for a girl - I get carried away sometimes on these rides with the boys!! LOL We turned right at a major intersection with the Reid Highway and I managed to chug down a gel thinking that would sort me out - but it was too late, I'd hit the proverbial wall. Lucky for me Steve dropped his phone and although I didn't stay with him, I was in the middle of the pack and we hung back and took it easy waiting for him to catch back up. My Garmin log shows only a slight drop in tempo though so we must have got going again fairly soon but I never regained my full energy and had about 10km of feeling as if I'd never make it. At the end of the ride, my Garmin showed an average of 32km/hr for the full 98km so even with the bonk, it was a fair wash up.

The worst of it was that I only had about 15 minutes at home to get showered, eat, and get the kids out the door for our usual hectic Saturday routine of dropping one child at dance lessons, another at a Pokemon TGC tournament whilst we do a massive fruit/veg purcahse at the markets, plus the wholesale butcher, collect one kid, go back home and unpack, go back to collect the other kid and then because it was the weekend of the Joondalup festival we also had to add in getting the dancing kid to the parade where she was performing for the evening and of course stand around all night watching the floats and cheering etc! All that on tired legs was hard work but our day wasn't over yet - we then bundled off to a party to congratulate Helen on her Kona qualification! We all faded rather quickly and so made it an early departure. But then it was up again at 3.30am (kids included) for work at the Fremantle Corporate Teams triathlon! (here's a separate blog detailing what we did there). A huge week - but none of us have got sick so we're doing ok!