It's supposedly Summer but I haven't seen it yet. We've only had a couple of good warm days so far and I'm hoping it's not the beginning of crappy weather for the whole season.
After our trip to Australia it's been a real disappointment. Considering I was showering comfortably from the cold tap in Darwin, then we had 33° in Sydney the day we flew home. They've had a couple of proper heatwaves since then and we've had none of it. The way it's going I hope it won't be hot in Wanaka because I won't be prepared for it.
 Grey is the colour of the season, it seems |
At the other end of the thermal spectrum, I have restarted my cold-water conditioning process. I wasn't going to shower fully cold through winter... my rule of thumb is that if the water is too cold to wash my hands comfortably then I'm not going to shower in it. This works quite well because my hands are less sensitive than the rest of my body.
Because of the travel and the cooler weather through spring I have left the conditioning process a bit late. I've only had two swims out at Pegasus so far. For the first one I left my thermometer at home but the water was warm enough that I didn't have any major issues, just a bit of shortness of breath at the beginning so I breathed every 2nd stroke instead of every 3rd for a while.
For the second swim, a week later, the water felt a bit colder. I measured the temperature off some of the rocks to avoid the effect of the shallows; it was 19° and was enough to cause a bit of a breathing response when I got in so I needed to spend a few minutes warming up. 19° isn't that cold so I still have a way to go with my conditioning.
That was last Saturday, and tomorrow I have the Swim Lake Hood race where I've entered for the 2.5km distance. My coach thinks I'm doing 1.5km but I decided not to change as 1500m isn't much of a challenge. The lack of time has spurred me into cranking up the cold-water conditioning process a bit. For the past few weeks I've been a bit of a wimp by only showering fully cold if the weather was warm(ish). Now I'm going cold regardless of the weather, and also getting in a lot faster, which actually seems to be a bit easier.
Despite the temperature issues I've found the two sessions at Pegasus to be invaluable. Swimming in murky water is a bit of a mental challenge after the pool, more so if the breathing is being troublesome, and it gave me a good opportunity to practice my sighting, plus synchronising my sighting and breathing which is something I'd been having some trouble with. I'm feeling quite confident about the sighting now; at first I was pulling my head up a bit too far, and I'm not tending to hold my breath while sighting anymore.
I've also been doing some swimming at the 50m outdoor pool at Jellie Park. It's so much better than 25m because you're not turning as often, but this does affect my times. Psychologically it's a bit closer to the longer stretches of open-water swimming. And being outdoors I've noticed temperature changes along the length. I just wish it wasn't heated so warm, and it'd be nicer if it was a little deeper at the shallow end as I don't feel confident doing tumble-turns out there.
I had a time trial in the 50m pool where I was annoyed with my time compared to my usual 25m pool but it turned out to be a minute faster than one I'd done out there a year ago (to the day, as it happens). That's good considering I don't do enough swimming so it'll mostly be down to technique improvements.
Because the weather has been fairly crap all week I'm expecting Lake Hood to be a bit cold tomorrow so I'm hoping I have a decent chance to warm up before the start of the race. I've even considered jumping in for a few minutes before putting my wetsuit on. By the time I got the suit on I'd be hypothermic enough that the water would feel warm.
If that's not enough, there's the Christmas Cracker triathlon (Olympic distance) on the 20th. The extended forecast indicates rain but warmer temperatures. We'll see. I'd rather not have a cold lake and I really don't want rain on the bike.
On the training front, it feels like the injuries are mostly clearing up. I had a run interval session yesterday and was able to run at a faster pace than usual and do it quite easily, although I was still holding back to prevent injury. My calves were pretty sore during the evening but I'm not regretting it today so hopefully the recovery will provide another stepping stone towards being able to actually push myself.
My only other worry now is trying to find accommodation for Challenge Wanaka. It's the same weekend as Chinese New Year, and I saw a news article about a couple who are going to get married during the race... and are bringing 100 guests with them. So the panic is slowly starting to rise as I try and find somewhere that's available for the full 5 nights I'm planning to stay.
