Waitakere Half Marathon, 2012

My impromptu HM on the weekend went surprisingly well (by my standards). The lead in would have to be close to the worst possible I could have devised. Nothing resembling tapering or peaking for this one. The only allowance I made was moving my long bike ride from Saturday morning, to Friday evening. And then Saturday, the night before, was a BBQ for my girlfriends birthday, so late night and a few beers/rums consumed... (carbo loading right?)

Anyway, on race day I started too far back in the field, so lost a bit of time weaving through the traffic. After a few kms was able to get into my rythem. I continued with the walk break, calf protection, strategy I've been using and it went ok. I took a short walk break, about a minute, ever 3km. Until I started to fade in the last 5k where I switched to ever 1.5km. 

Anyway, I ran at a 'higher than LSR' pace, but not an 'all out race' pace, and ended up finishing in 2:03:09. which gives me a new PB of just over 7 minutes. (i think that shows how soft my previous best was, as opposed to how well I went this time tho)

I finished, 127/226 over all, 98/145 males and 17/29 in the M18-29 age group. GPS can be found here

All and all, I'm quite pleased with things, I'm definitely running as well as I ever have, and this was a good milestone on the way to the HIM in January. 

September Training Log

A good solid month of training. Despite missing the first week and a bit of the months runs (due to the calf twinge from the end of August) this was my 2nd highest volume month ever. About 36 hours for the month. Up slightly from 35 in August.

After the short running break I've changed my strategy  and returned to the run/walk idea I was using earlier in the year. And it seems to work ok. I've been doing runs, at average paces that I'm very happy with. It's not ideal, and I would rather run non stop, but I think run/walk might be the best way to get the the start line of Ironman Auckland injury free.

Biking has gone ok, after a relatively light august I'm back up to the sort of volume that I should be doing. And swimming is the same story as normal... I need to do more of it. I'm not loosing any swim fitness, but I'm not improving either. Which I need to do before January 20th.

For next month I'm looking for a bit of an increase. Aiming to be back above 40 hours for October as I continue to build towards the HIM.

A mid month update

Well so far so good for the month of September.

As I said last post I twinged my calf towards the end of August, so had a few weeks off. But I am now back into running (admittedly using a run/walk technique) regularly. And hitting the right sort of numbers. I have found however I have been going surprisingly well using the run/walk thing. So as I'm training for a HIM, where in all likelihood I'll be doing some walking I've decided to play around with the run/walk thing (especially on my long runs) with a plan of using it in the HIM. 

Swimming and biking are going well. I'm still seemingly unable to get myself to the pool 3 times a week, which is something that I need to address. But I'm still heading towards the most swimming for the year. Biking is going very well. Getting in all my workouts (not all as fast as I'd like) but this is also likely to be a years highest.

So bring on the next 10 days of workouts, and lets see if I can carry on with the good work I've started.

August Training Log

Overall its been a pretty good month. Much better than what I did in July, definitely back on track. I said that I wanted to hit 30-35 hours for the month, and I did 35 hours total, so very happy with that.

Again I did the most running I've done in 2012, however that may have come at a cost with my calf starting to play up towards the end of the month. So I'm on 2 weeks of no running, and hoping for the best.

Biking and swimming, are not highest for the year, but both up on July. And I'm feeling that I'm preforming better in both disciplines.

Its now 20 weeks until Ironman Auckland 70.3 and I'm feeling that my training is where it needs to be. Now begins a slow increase in volume across all 3 sports (injury dependent) over the next 3-4 months.

Training Program in 20 Words

• Lose Weight.
• Swim lots, Sometimes easy, mostly hard.
• Bike lots. Some easy, some hard.
• Run lots. Mostly easy, sometimes hard.

July, Not the greatest

July Training Log

Well, after my biggest ever month training in June, July has been a let down. Only managing 25 hours training time. This has been due to real life, in the form of work getting in the way of training. I had 2 weeks where I was out of Auckland for a reasonable period of time (You can see the 6, and 2 day gaps at the start and end of the month) This loss of training time really impacted on my ability to reach the goals I've set for myself.

The plus side of the month, is that somehow I was able to record my highest mileage running for the year. Which I'm quite happy with, I have noticed in the last few weeks that I feel like I'm starting to run well again. We will find out for sure in October, when I aim to compete in a Half Marathon for the first time in over a year.

What this means tho, is that most of my missing workouts were biking, which was well down, and by far the least I've done for the year. I've also been slipping on my diet, and my weight has been creeping back up. So this month, the negatives out weigh the positives.

For August, I want to get back to where I was a few months ago, weight going down, and sitting at 30-35 hours of the month.

And the winner is:

Ironman Auckland 70.3.

Today I officially entered Ironman Auckland 70.3. At the end of the day, having a race like this, based in the viaduct and on that course was too good for me to pass up.

I've modified my training program to take me through to the 20th of January. And as for Taupo, well in all honesty that's highly unlikely to happen. The provisional plan will be to run the people's tri event at mission bay that weekend instead. And possibly the round Taupo cycle in build up, if finances allow.

So for now, its back into training, after a July which has been a bit disappointing in terms of what I have achieved. 6 months till kick off.