For the second time in a row I've managed to catch a cold in summer so I've had a bit of a forced break from training.
I'd been looking forward to some decent weather after the start of our summer seemed to be delayed, so to come down with a cold just as the weather is finally coming right was a bit frustrating.
It's always disappointing to have to take time off, but the body feels a lot better after a week of rest. I've been training through minor niggly injuries for the past several months so I'm not going to complain too loudly as the legs felt a lot better at the end.
The pox didn't hit me too badly so I wasn't suffering too much, and I managed to work my way through a couple of good books. The timing worked out well for the family stuff - my wife got over her cold just in time for Xmas day, while I came down just after and was mostly recovered in time for New Years.
On Saturday I felt good enough to do some training, and the plan for that day had a good 3-hour brick session. It was nice to do one the way I'd always wanted to: a longish ride followed by a longish run. In the past my bricks have involved several reps of short rides and short runs but I like to focus on the mental aspect so I like the idea of doing T2 while tired and needing to push a bit at the end of the run. It's much closer to a real race situation. As usual I ran too fast - I run far too easily off the bike and if I sustain that kind of pace I'll kill my legs so I need to be careful to try and hold back. A nice problem to have, I keep telling myself. Sadly I think it set me up for another injury.
Then on Sunday I followed up with an 80km ride with a couple of 200m climbs. The weather was actually fairly warm for once, nudging 30°C. I don't tend to notice the heat as much while training but I was very careful to hydrate well. Being a bit tired from the brick session I was completely cooked by the end but recovered well afterwards.
I got a bit sore in one of my feet during the ride, and both feet seemed a bit tense at the time so I started paying a bit more attention to my pedalling technique. I had a swim yesterday so no foot-related issues there but todays run has brought it out, yet another injury, so I'll probably be off to the podiatrist soon to have it looked at. I think both my running and bike technique both need some work. The trouble is, now is not a good time to need rest. I just hope it's not going to derail my race.
A couple of weeks ago I finally managed to get some accommodation for Wanaka. With Chinese New Year on Feb 19th (race day is the 22nd) the town was pretty much booked out. My first choice was to rent a holiday house as we did last year, but nothing was available (and I learned not to trust the booking calendars, what a bloody farce). The motel situation looked pretty bad as well, all the websites I checked were booked out. In the end I simply zoomed into a Google map of Wanaka and clicked on each of the motels that showed. I finally found one with a room available and they were in a great location for a fairly good price.
I've also been thinking about my plans for what to do after Wanaka. The idea at the moment is to take a couple of months off, a few weeks of absolute rest at first followed by some light training so I can put the injuries behind me. Then I'll be focusing on getting my running legs back, and I think the best way to do that is to simply do the work and build mileage. I especially want to get back on the hills to build run-specific strength at a lower intensity than the gym work I've been doing this year, which I think has caused too much damage. If I'm feeling confident with the mileage I might even consider doing another marathon but the Chch one seems a bit too soon. And I'll be putting my coach on hold until I'm confident in my run strength again.
Tri-wise I am almost wondering about doing three half-distance events next season; the Rolf Prima Half Ironman in Ashburton, then the Marlborough Sounds Half in Picton followed a couple of weeks later by the half in Wanaka. Training for two closely-spaced events means I can use the season as a stepping-stone towards going full-distance the following year, In theory.
