Got up nice and early to hit the pool this morning. Got to the changing rooms to find that I’d forgotten to pack my goggles, so that was the end of that. Postponed the session until lunch so I could buy some new goggles (which I’d been planning to do anyway). As I walked up to the sports store I noticed that the welcome home ticker-tape parade for the Olympic Team was on, though the athletes had yet to arrive. New googles in hand, it was off to the pool.

5 * 200 FS, 30s rest   (Avg: 2:48)
Total: 1000m

Everything felt a bit easier than it has done in the past, so I’m obviously getting some feel back for the water.

B: 10km – S: 2000m

I’ve just been creating a training plan in iCal, based on the training plan I mentioned earlier. It took about 30mins to set everything up, and an instant to publish it on the web.

Check it out here.

Looks pretty good too! As I edit stuff in iCal it automatically updates the online calendar as well. Nice.

I hit the pool at lunch to get my first swim of the week in. It was quite a bit busier than last time I went at lunch-time, and as usual there were people in the fast lane who shouldn’t have been there. If you’re swimming 1:50/100m you are not fast, even by normal standards, let alone ex-swimmer standards. I might try going at different times of the day when it may be a bit quieter.

5 * 200 FS, 30sec rest (Avg: 2:50)

B: 10km – S: 1000m

Now that the 10K is over and done with, I’m going to start a more structured and organised training plan. I found this plan last year, and intended doing it, but I never did. It looked a little daunting at the time, but one year of sporadic exercise later it looks a lot more manageble.

So, I plan to nerd it up using iCal and then I’ll publish the resulting calendar on the web.

In the meantime, the plan for this week requires:

3 * 1000m swims,

4 * 20min runs &

1 * 30min & 1 * 60min bike.

I might miss one of the runs as I have to wait for my calves to stop hurting, but the rest should be doable.

Here it is; my new bike. I picked it up from Cheeky Monkey on the way into work this morning. First impressions? It looks fast, and sure as hell feels fast, but I’ll have to wait until I get a speedo fitted to put a number on how much faster it is than my MTB. I plan to take it out for a blast around Centennial Park tomorrow evening to put it through its paces.

Well, we finished it! Got up at 5:40 this morning, jumped in the car, picked Niall up on the way and parked on Bondi Junction. Got the train to North Sydney, with more and more runners joining at every stop. By the time we arrived at Milson’s Point the marathon and half-marathon had already started, so there was just the people doing the 10K milling about. That was still about 10,000 people apparently.

It was bloody cold in the shadow of the bridge, especially once we’d dropped off our gear at the trucks which would carry it to the finish for us. We stood around shivering and stretching, then Niall headed off to the front as he was going for a time. Met Billy and Lisa briefly, then the gun went. It took us about 7-8mins before we crossed the start line, but once we did all doubts and apprehensions disappeared and we plodded off along the course.

I was obviously caught up in the moment a litte, as I’d forgotten to go to the toilet before the start, and I also forgot to start my stopwatch. I only realised this about 2km into the race, so I had no idea how fast we were going. The run over the Harbour Bridge was quite nice, though there was a biting wind blowing across the course, so I was pretty happy to get onto the Cahill Expressway. Myself and Jacqui had settled into a nice relaxing pace and the kilometres seemed to pass quite easily. Next thing I knew we were heading up Macquarie St. and approaching the 5km drinks station.

They had toilets there as well, but there was a bit of a queue, and I figured I could hang on until the end, so I skipped them. Sure enough, about 1km later I started getting signals from my bladder that I had better stop soon, so I left Jacqui with instructions to keep going, and I ran ahead to find the next toilet, which turned out to be at 7.5km. Thankfully there were no queues at this one, which was a relief in more ways than one!

Jacqui had just passed the toilets as I emerged, so I caught up with her and resumed our normal pace. My left knee was starting to hurt a little, but it was little more than an annoyance at this stage so we kept going to the turn-around beside St. Mary’s Cathedral. We were now on the home stretch with a little more than 1.5km to go, the majority of which was slightly downhill. We had the last of our 5 stretching stops at the 9km mark, and it was plain sailing from there until then finish on the Opera House forecourt. We crossed the line with 1:17 showing on the clock, so allowing for the time we were waiting around at the start, I reckon our official time will turn out to be somewhere in the region of 1:08. Neither of us were remotely tired or out of breath, though my knee was starting to become more than an annoyance so I was glad to finish. Niall managed a very respectable 43:19 by his watch.

All in all, it was a lot easier than I’d expected, but I need to figure out why my knee went all weird. I’d definitely like to try another one and actually make a race of it. It feels good to be an athlete again ;-)

B: 57km – R: 16km – S: 1200m

Just got back from my BRAT beginner’s ride which was a nice warm-up for the race tomorrow. We did a bit of hill work, followed shortly afterwards by a 1 lap individual time trial. I had no intention of busting my arse and draining my legs, so once Olivia came past I drafted off her for the rest of the lap. Racked up 42km in total for my final week on the MTB. Picking up the new bike on Monday, so I should be a good bit faster next week. Looking forward to it.

I’m off into town now with Jacqui to pick up my race pack for tomorrow. I haven’t done much training this week, since Tuesday anyway, so I’m going to call it a taper ;-) Looking forward to tomorrow, but with a bit of trepidation too, as I’m not as prepared as I’d like to be. Still, it’s a great course, so when it starts hurting I can allow the scenery to take my mind of it. Wish me luck!

B: 57km – R: 6km – S: 1200m

Cycled home and went out for a run. There was a little bit of rain, which was actually nice as the temperature was down as well. I did 6K in 34:33, which includes about 3 20sec stops to do a quick stretch of my calves. Ended up with nice even splits of 16:55:30 and 16:55:34 and finished with a pulse of 144, so the run was nice and relaxed. I’m pretty happy with it as it’s the longest run I’ve done which wasn’t on a treadmill, and I now know that I’ll have no worries with the 10K on Sunday. Jacqui has also entered the 10K, so we’ll just plod along together. Should be fun.

B: 15km – R: 6km – S: 1200m

Went down to the pool at lunch to get a swim in. It’s busier than the morning, but there’s less instances of slow people getting into the fast lane, so it went quite well. I even had one guy pass me out, which hasn’t happened in a long time ;-)

100, 200, 300, 300, 200, 100 FS w/ 60s rest (Pace: 1:25)
Total: 1200m

B: 5km – S: 1200m

88.5kg @ 18.6% fat. Lost 1.1kg and 0.5% fat in two weeks.