Right, I’ve decided to restart the whole running issue and take it very gradually since it’s by far the easiest way to injure myself out of the three disciplines. I bought and read Jeff Galloway’s Book On Running which talk about the benefits of a run/walk approach. The basic idea is that you start taking short walk breaks right from the start of your run, which leaves you fresher towards the end. He has documented cases of people using this method to run sub-2:30 marathons, so it should be adequate for my purposes!

Anyway, I’m adopting the run/walk method for the forseeable future, specifically 5mins running at approx. 10kmh followed by 1min walking at 6kmh. This results in 933m every 6mins. Last night I hit the hotel gym and started off with 3 reps of that and felt pretty good. All is still well this morning, so I’ll give it another shot tonight. I’ll stick to 3 reps for a couple of weeks until I can get used to running outside again, then gradually add more and more reps.

Got up this morning and went for a swim. Didn’t really feel like it though, so only did 400m.

R: 2.8km – S: 400m

His new video is massively anti-Bush and exhorts viewers to get out and vote to get rid of Bush. Very good video and the lyrics almost advocate an uprising.

5 * {
    50 Hypoxic 4/6, 50 Pull, 10sec
    50 Hypoxic 4/6, 50 Drag, 10sec
}
6 * 50 as 25 IM order/25 FS on 60 (43)
300 Paddles on 5:45
300 Effort on 5:45 (4:13)
300 Pull on 5:45 (4:30)
300 Efffort on 5:45 (4:15)
6 * 50 as 25 IM order/25 FS on 60 (43)
Total: 2800

Just finished a pretty good session in the pool. I’d suspected over the last week that my cruising speed was only slightly slower than my ‘making an effort’ speed, so I decided to check it out today. The plan was to do the whole session at a nice, relaxed pace and see what sort of times I got. I thought it would be around 1:30/100, but the 4:13 and 4:15 on the 300s translate to a 1:25/100 or so, which I’m pretty pleased with. Last week I only managed 4:05 on a 300 in which I put in a fair bit of effort.

However, the sessions are dropping below 3000m so I might have to add in at least one more session per week, as I’d like to be doing at least 10,000m/week, maybe up to 12,000.

S: 8500

Felt a bit tired in the swim this afternoon. The 6 100’s on 1:30 were quite tough, but I was pretty happy to average 1:19. I’m getting faster, slowly but surely.

100 K, 100 FS, 200 Form
3 * {
    100 P, 15s
    100 Fist, 15s
    100 Fast on 1:45}
6 * 100 FS on 1:30 (1:19)
6 * 50 FS Easy on 1:10 (42)
4 * 50 Hypoxic 3/5/7, 20s (42)
2 * 200 Easy FS
Total: 2800

S: 5700

Here’s an article in the New York Times magazine which basically says that Bush thinks he’s on a mission from God. Funny how God’s missions always involve killing shitloads of other people.

Well, the official results of the sea swim have just been published. My official time was 16:25, I came 11th overall, and 4th in my age group. So that guy who I beat out of the water but who out-sprinted me to the line came third and got a prize. If only I’d known I was going that well. Still, I’m pretty happy with that ;-)

John was listed as last in 27:50, but that’s crap, since we went back to the car, got changed into civvies and walked back down to the beach to witness someone finishing. Also, I timed my swim at 17:14, so there’s no way I’m suddenly a minute faster.

Update: Turns out they’d forgotten to put quite a few people up on the web site, so there’s now about 25 people behind John, some by over to 10mins.

200 FS Hypoxic 3/5
25 K/25 S * 2
25 L/25 S/25 R/25 S
25 K/25 S * 2
25 L/25 S/25 R/25 S
3 * {
    4 * 50 Sprint on 55 (35)
    300 Pull on 5:15 (4:32) }
4 * {
    50 Form/50 FS} on 1:50 (1:30)
Total: 2900

S: 2900

Got a call from Tom last night to say that they were going for a ride this morning form Hornsby to Brooklyn and back and did I want to come. I said yes and I’ve jsut returned. Total distance was around 48km, but the hill up from the bridge at Brooklyn was the main focus of the ride. It’s a 4km long 6% grade and the last time I did it I maintained a 14kmh pace and found it quite tough. This time it was a whole different story. It was quite easy and my average pace was just under 19kmh, so a 5kmh an hour improvement which is partly due to being fitter and partly due to the bike. It’s quite a nice ride, with most of the uphill work in the first half, which works out nicely when you’re a bit tired on the way home, so I think we’ll be doing it a few more times. Next time I’ll have my speedo on the bike, so I’ll be able to get an accurate figure rather than calculating it from Tom’s speed and a time differential. It also put me up over 100kms on the bike for the week which was an added bonus.

B: 136.2km – S: 9850m

Well, I had my first swim race in about 7 years today, and my first ever swim in open water. Myself and John entered the first race of the Men’s Health Ocean Racing Series in Watsons Bay this morning. 1.4km, starting at Camp Cove and swimming around the headland to Watsons Bay itself.

It was quite funny waking up this morning and feeling all nervous, wondering what it would be like. Would the water be freezing? What’s it like swimming with nothing below you? What’s it like swimming amongst a crowd of people? What time would I do? Hell, even what’s it like swimming a race longer than 200m! So many unknowns.

John had a dodgy shoulder yesterday, but he was determined to swim anyway. Kevin had planned on entering, but as he hadn’t done any training, and he had a work function last night, he decided it would probably be pointless. John picked me up around 9am and we headed down, paid our entry fee, had our race numbers scrawled on our arms in black magic marker, and got a nice yellow cap to signify we were in the 31-40 age group, along with our timing chip. Went back to the car and changed into our speedos, then walked the 5mins to the start at Camp Cove.

Had a quick dip to make sure my body was aware of the water temperature and wouldn’t seize with the shock when I jumped in. It turned out to be a couple of degrees warmer than it had been last weekend, which is probably down to the fact that we were in the Harbour and not the ocean. The 21-30 age group went off first, then we were next. Wished John good luck then we got started, heading straight out to the first buoy about 80m offshore. Got a good start, out in front of the crowd until I got to the turn when everyone converged at the same point. It was starting to get a bit crowded, and since there are no niceties in the middle of a race, I administered a few swift kicks to random punters trying to swim over me. Once around the buoy it improved quite a lot and I started to swim my own race.

We started catching the slow people in the previous wave which was great as it meant that I didn’t have to look up as often to make sure I wasn’t drifting off track. I got a few cuts on my hand from swimming too close to the rocks as I rounded the headland but I thought I was doing OK as I hadn’t seen a yellow hat since the first turn. Once around the point I had a few look ups to sight the next buoy and started swimming again. I was now at the front of a group, with about a 50m gap to the next bunch, and my compass started veering around a bit as I had no-one to sight off. It was then I noticed a yellow hat slighty behind and to my right, so I figured I’d better get my act together so he wouldn’t pass me. He was right beside me the whole way, then as we appraoched the final buoy he picked up the pace trying to get there first. I was having none of that, so I matched him and we went around the turn neck and neck. We were now down to the final leg, a straight 150m swim to the flags where we coul stand and run ashore. I picked up the pace and got ahead of him, but only by a metre or so. Kept the lead up to the flags, stood up and immediately had some wobbly legs since my upper body had been doing all the work. He came out of the water right behind me and sprinted up the beach to beat my by a couple of seconds. I crossed the line, stopped my watch and looked at the time: 17:14.40! I was pretty pleased with that as I’d expected to be around 20mins.

I watched the rest of the swimmers come in and cheered John home. The guy I’d raced to the end came over and mentioned that he thought we’d done quite well and wanted to know if I’d any idea where we’d placed. I hadn’t even thought of it so I couldn’t help him, but at the same time I hadn’t noticed any other yellow hats when I’d finished. Got changed, got a beer and went along to the presentation just in case I had won something. Alas, it was not to be, though I did win a spot prize which consisted largely of hair styling products which went to John. The results aren’t up on the site yet, so I’ll have to wait a bit longer to see where I placed. Hopefully Top 10. Anyway, it was good fun which is the main thing, so I reckon I’ll do a few more this year.

B: 88.2km – S: 9850m

Lunchtime squad session today. Quite a tough session, in that there was very little which was not supposed to be done at a quick pace. It also seems to be the case that there’s a different fast guy each day. Friday last week was quite tough, but Wednesday was quite easy. This week there were fast guys there on Monday, Wednesday and today, though never the same one on two days. I guess I’ll have to wait a fee weeks to build up some speed. At the moment my technique feels reasonably good, but I have no endurance.

4 * {
    50 DPS,
    25 R arm, 25 Swim,
    25 L arm, 25 Swim} continuous
400 Pull
400 Effort
4 * 50 Sprint on 55 (36)
300 Hypoxic 3/5
300 Effort
4 * 50 Sprint on 55 (36)
200 Build
200 Effort
3 * 50 Sprint on 55 (36)
4 * 50 Choice Easy
Total: 3150

B: 88.2km – S: 8450m