It's persisting down

Saturday started well for me. Some slight drizzle on the way to the pool, a good swim coaching session, then straight over the road to the gym for my 1.5 hours of weights, bike, run and pilates. I finished up about 10.15am and headed off down to the village for coffee and fresh bread.  

At some point during swim coaching the rain stopped, but since lunchtime it's been coming down gently and steadily. We've been threatened with a month's worth of rain in 24 hours, so I guess it will still be hosing down tomorrow too. I did want to get out and do a few things, but I just can't be bothered in this weather. I'm having a quiet day at home instead, enjoying the serenity of the Indian neighbours having a screaming argument...again, and the schizophrenic French guy neighbour's random loud world music.

There are plenty of indoor things for me to do - for example, I have to make my new range of Christmas Cards (I may hate Christmas with a vengeance due to blatant over-commercialism, but that won't stop me from cashing in on it and using the cards to help pay for my triathlon habit). I also have Wog Boy 2 - Kings of Mykonos on DVD to watch tonight, now that I've completed all my training sessions this week I have certainly earned it!  I have stacks of Foxtel to watch on my iQ box, and the Ironman New Zealand 2010 DVD may just end up playing again too. I have photos to sort, muffins to bake and books to read. Life is good.

Training today was hard yakka (that's hard work for all you non-Aussies reading this), but well worth it.  Pulled an extra five minutes above my program specs on the bike and the run, did extra ab work despite having been tortured at yoga last night (more on that shortly), and all my weights. I skipped the 1km rowing warm up as by the time I left swim coaching and got to the gym my heart rate was over 120 and I'd just done 500m in the pool working on technique.

Yoga last night was interesting. I got there early again, which meant Tom had an extra 15 minutes to help me torture myself. First stop was the ropes on the wall (yes, those ones from last week). I got to criss cross them, climb into them with my back to the wall, pull them up to my hip flexors, walk out about two small steps and bend forward at the hips until my hips couldn't take it anymore and I was almost bent in half. Then I got to hang in that position for five sets of one minute each. Just when I thought my hamstrings were going to burst, Tom had me walk my hands forward as far as I could go. Now my calves wanted to burst, along with my hammies, quads and glutes. Owie. 

After climbing back out it was time for back bends over a wooden barrel. Ouch, ouch, ouch. I did however manage to roll backwards to the point of a correct back bend, with my shoulders on the floor. As I rolled out and back in the first time, my spine cracked one vertebrae at a time and felt fantastic. By this point it was time for class to start, so we did sun salutations. Tom and the other lady in my class did 54 in 35 minutes, I got to 19 and piked. Not bad for my second week, apparently. I was given a myriad of other poses while they completed their sets of sun salutations. After another 30 minutes of poses including Warrior 2 and a bunch of stuff on one leg, it was what I like to call blankie time. Bliss. I left feeling awesome again. It was good to sweat and pose and hurt the week away.

So, three hard days of hard out training in a row and I have certainly earned a day of chill time and a nice choccie milk. I've had second breakfast, lunch and a nap on the sofa, but might head to bed and nap for an hour or so. 

Four weeks until Race 1. Bring it on, I know that I will be ready for it.

Motivate me...I wanna get myself out of this bed

My motivation has flagged a bit this week and it's been hard to drag myself out of bed. I'm still using bribery to motivate myself to do my sessions. It's not a lack of desire, it is the fact that Ironman is still so far away and  my head keeps telling me I have heaps of time. Evil head!

House dramas haven't helped this week - the sink wouldn't drain all weekend and the plumber couldn't fix it until Monday. Sunday night was spent bailing it out with a bucket every time the guy upstairs ran his sink tap. Awesome. The plumber came on Monday and threw some acid down my sink which sorted everything out.

Monday was tainted by some pushy house valuer calling to demand I come home and let her in because the landlord's bank wants a valuation. I basically told her to get stuffed and to talk to the real estate agent, who I called and went slightly postal at. The agent was meant to call me and warn me but hadn't got around to it. Judging by her lack of care, urgency and basic communication since I was offered the house five months ago, I wasn't at all surprised by this.  

I got home that night and discovered that the lock I thought was keeping my bedroom window secure for all these months, doesn't even work. And last night I arrived home to find a death threat from the water company because the landlord hasn't paid the water bill for about six months. So, yes, I have been slightly distracted this week.

I've had a reasonable training week. Monday's swim session was good, as was last night's - well, aside from the noodles in the pool who were mucking around with pool noodles in the lanes, not in the recreation area of the pool. They wouldn't move and were quite nasty when my friend the water walker suggested they might have more fun in the half of the pool dedicated to mucking around. Some people just don't get (or want to get) pool etiquette.

I did almost all of Monday's swim session with flippers on. I did half of last night's with flippers on, and let me tell you, it makes a heck of a difference to your speed. My warm up is four laps with kickboard and flippers (about 100m), and my cool down is much the same. Last night I thought I'd do the cool down without the flippers, and it was so slow that it felt like dragging the Queen Mary through custard! I came home and had the makings of foot cramps, so I made sure I took my magnesium last night.

Tuesday's gym session was skipped as it was my Mum's 22nd anniversary and I just wasn't in a good head space. I did however go and get some new yoga clothes (on sale, two complete outfits for $49!), which will be great for Friday night Iyengar. I wasn't comfy in last week's class and had a wardrobe malfunction (not good when your teacher is a bloke) so I spent part of the class constantly readjusting my outfit - not so good for the concentration.

Tonight it's gym night.  I've decided to do two resistance sessions a week, but give myself the freedom to do them on a choice of three days. This way I can have a night off if I need to and not feel super guilty for it. I figure that the Yoga class is so intense that it basically compensates for a third session anyway, plus gives me time to work on my flexibility - especially my lack of foot and ankle flexibility. If I skip a night during the week, I have to do it straight after swim coaching on Saturday, which is okay because the gym is across the road from the coaching pool. Literally!

Bring on Yoga this week, I need some Zen time.

Fat floats

Fat does indeed float. Most days I am thankful for the extra buoyancy that the fat provides, and of course the warmth in winter. But on Friday, in 28.6 degree heat, I was reminded that fat + heat is not a good combination.  Fortunately, the gallstone has some rather strict ideas about my diet, and with the new eating plan and ramping up the training, my buoyancy should be on the decline.  Then it will be cries from my swim coach of "keep your hips up" in the water when I'm swimming...LOL!

There's five more weeks until the season starts, and four more weeks until the season launch.  In the past  week I have managed to complete most of my training sessions.  This week would have been a 6/6 if I hadn't had a techie fail at work which resulted in my staying back for a couple of extra hours to try and sort something out. I missed a gym session, so have tried to make up for it with lots of walking and housework - but who am I trying to kid, it's so not the same thing!

So, I decided on the basis that I had done a great job with almost all my training this week, that I'd buy myself the reward I promised myself anyway.  It's Wog Boy 2: Kings of Mykonos on DVD.  Whether I watch it this week or save it for next week when I've done every single training session is still up for negotiation.  I think I'll save it for next week.  It's still shrink wrapped so I'll put it on my dressing table and look at it like five times a day as motivation!

My new training schedule is as follows:

Monday - swim

Tuesday - weights, bike, run, core

Wednesday - swim

Thursday - weights, bike, run, core

Friday - Iyengar Lotus Yoga (1.5 hours)

Saturday - Swim coaching, bike, run and core.

Sunday - sit on butt.  

Lotus Yoga sounds relaxing but it's hardcore Iyengar which includes hanging from the wall on ropes for one minute at a time, into a squat while still hanging on the ropes for another minute and then pulling yourself back up with all your muscles.  And stacks of poses that involve wrist, hand, foot and leg strength.  My ankle and foot flexibility will improve with this class, and the best part is probably the 15 mins at the end where we are lying on mats on the floor with blankies and eye bags.  LOL!

I pickup up my new club hoodie today and it's fantastic!  Wow, wow, wow.  I'm already wearing it with pride and look forward to wearing it more often.  It's super light, super warm and super awesome, so will be a regular part of my wardrobe until it dies.  All good - I'm not THAT hard on my clothes, but it's going to see some serious wear from now on.

Until later, rock on with your bad selves.

Jetlag, time differences and narcolepsy

I arrived home from Kota Kinabalu, Malaysian Borneo yesterday morning and despite a lot of sleep and even napping on the plane, I'm still buggered.  Oh yeah, and I have a kidney infection to boot.  Woohoo!

I had a wonderful time in KK.  I adore Malaysia, and my second trip did nothing to reduce the adoration.  I've decided to spend at least one week a year in Malaysia, as it is such a wonderful place to explore. 

I swam in crystal clear water on a private beach on an Island in the South China Sea, drank mocktails under the spectacular sunsets over Dalit Bay, got a bit of a tan and two henna tattoos, watched Orang-utans from just a few feet away, and worked my butt off - but still had time for some minor shopping (two pairs of shoes, two sarongs, some coasters, a couple of batik fans, a pair of 'PRADA' sunglasses, some lovely bamboo placemats, some triathlon mags and some candy).

I managed to lose my precious noise-reducing Sennheiser headphones at Melbourne airport before jumping on two flights totalling 10 hours.  Feck.  Then, on day two in KK, my precious Canon A430 decided to have lens issues.  The message 'lens error, restart camera' is still haunting my dreams. 

Fortunately, I took my iPhone so was able to get most of the shots I wanted thanks to the great iPhone camera.  Not having a flash in the 3GS camera is a pain in the posterior though, but I struggled through and managed to get a good couple of hundred photos.  Here's a selection of the best:

More to follow when I'm less jetlagged and tired and grumpy!