Raindrops on road bikes and blisters and kittens

After my mammoth swim effort on Saturday, I woke Sunday feeling more stiff and sore than I do after a tri. Given that my toe blisters came from my bike shoes and had popped somewhere between getting out of the pool and changing, I elected not to ride on Sunday.  I got the blisters after riding in the rain without moisture wicking socks, in my new bike shoes, on the day of the recent crash.  No more riding in the rain for now, or at least until I get a couple of pairs of Thorlo socks and neoprene bike shoe covers.

My blisters deserved a break, and the weather was threatening rain.   I did not need a repeat performance of the blisters.   I also need the blisters gone by next Sunday so I can scream through the 393 at Takapuna.  Word of warning – do not bother with blister-specific plasters if your blisters are on the underside your toes. Not only do they not stay on and require taping down, they are bloody expensive!

Instead of riding, I went out with my friend Ariel from Melbourne who was here overnight and picked up a few bike bits.  I now have a Topeak aero wedge saddle bag, Topeak TriBag (like a bento box for your top tube) and a new Cat Eye Velo 8 bike computer.  Sorted!  As much as I initially loved the cheap and nasty computer I had on my bike, I got sick of it constantly misreporting my speed and the instructions were only in Chinese (no use to me at all!) so I couldn’t reset anything.  Ariel is working on sponsors for me, Woohoo!

Sunday night we had all kinds of feline fun.  My flatmates went out for dinner and found a pair of very cute kittens, but sadly couldn’t catch them and bring them home.  Their cat Cleo brought in a dead sparrow which she proceeded to throw around in their clean washing for around an hour.  I’d only just taken it outside and dispose of it when Cleo brought in something small, dark and fast moving.  She dropped it, it ran under the couch and thinking it was a lizard, I left it for my flatmates to deal with while I watched the amazing race.

The flatmates arrived home and on lifting up the couch, we discovered it was a mouse, not a lizard!  It was faster than Craig Alexander at Ironman, and promptly disappeared after a few laps of the lounge.  My female flatmate and I jumped up on the couch as the rodent zoomed around the room (she screamed, I didn’t), at which point my male flatmate pointed at me and laughed while saying “you do triathlons and you’re scared of a bloody mouse?” 

Oh dear – he had a point.  I was terrified of triathlons six months ago, and now I would rather do a tri than have a mouse run across my feet.  We sent my cat Sydney after the mouse, but she was only interested in searching where it had been three minutes earlier.  Cleo had vanished off outside, and it was 10pm so I went to bed and left them to it.  I had to get up at 5.30am to swim on Monday morning and I was dog tired.

The alarm went off on Monday morning and I shot out of bed.  Fortunately, I was organised and had packed everything on Sunday night.  I was in the water at the pool by 6.03am and swam for half an hour, dodging a kickboard woman and a very slow woman in the medium speed lane.  Ugh… people, please learn pool etiquette and get in the correct lane for your swim speed (or lack thereof), or at least swim up the correct side of the damn lane!  I wanted to do 100m laps but due to the aforementioned human obstacles (which I could not even draft off), I could only manage 50m laps.  So damn annoying!

I hit the gym Monday night energetically too.  I had a great resistance training session, working so hard that my heart rate was over 170 at times.  I did my 3x15 of everything, and then went to grab a treadmill to run on.  However, my plan was foiled by people who had booked the treadmills out right up until 9pm and weren’t even using them!  Yes, yet another annoying situation caused by inconsiderate people. 

I gave up on the run idea, as it was already dark outside, and did my core work for a cool down.  I stretched, went home, had protein and carbs, watched a bit of TV and went out like a light.

Today I had a PT session with a client to check her form with her resistance plan.  She’s doing well – a few minor tweaks and she’ll be getting some great results in a couple of weeks.  Well done her, and well done me!

As far as my training is going, I think “pretty well now that I’m cleared for normal activity” would be a good description.  My training plan is as follows:

Monday

Swim AM

Gym + Core + Interval run PM

Tuesday

Bike + short run off bike PM

Wednesday

Swim AM

Interval run PM

Thursday

Spin Class AM

Gym + Core PM

Friday

Rest day

Saturday

Swim coaching + Core + Short bike + Long Run brick PM

Sunday

Long Bike AM

Of course, if there is a tri on the weekend, I have modified the plan slightly to fit in a rest day and the race day.  I have mapped out the next 16 weeks so there are no excuses for not knowing what I need to be doing and when.  I am organised! Training is so much easier when you have everything scheduled and ready to go.  Packing and laying stuff out the night before helps when you have a crack of dawn session.  Watching the sun rise from the indoor heated pool is nice, watching the sun set when you’re out for a run or out on the bike is nice too – but not having to run around like a banshee at 5.30am trying to pack breakfast and lunch and snacks and gear, is just awesome!

I am starting to think this triathlon thing is 80% perspiration and 20% organisation. Experience tells me I’m right.