I'm Tired......

WARNING: May contain some typos and the odd grammatical error.

As the title suggests, I am a bit knackered. All in a good way though, I have that nicely whole body latent muscle ache and permanent mild hunger that goes hand in hand with the build period pre Ironman. Am not as fatigued as previous years however as the car doesn't need to go to the panel beaters. (yet).

Brett+Betty

After a kick up the butt from coach marilyn reminding me that I had put in a lot of work over the past year and to let a little disruption get in the way of my goals would be very dissappointing, I have swung back into action and cranking out some decent hours of training. Had a couple of good weeks of training after my weekend in Taupo; the  Sunday after my big Monday ride I headed out for a 4 hour flat ride with Brett. Quite exciting as we hadn't had a ride together in AGES! Anyhow, with the help of his Garmin 705, Brett planned out a route for us to ride, taking in some different roads. I couldn't face riding out to Little River and back..... the flies, the Easterly headwind on the way home, magpies, boring scenery. In fact- its a great Ironman training ride:))
I digress;   we rode out round the back of the airport and round Maclean's Island then turned onto Old West Coast Rd for a bit and then cut up another road to Main West Coast Road and a right turn through a network of roads that took us to Burnham Army base where we crossed the State Highway 1 and grovelled all the way through Lincoln to Tai Tapu and then home. This felt like a really arduous 4 hour ride. Although the ride was broken up with some long TT efforts, I came to the realisation while riding that long flat rides are far harder than long rides in the hills.

-You never get to freewheel
-No change in position as no change in terrain
-Mentally harder as landscape tends to be less exciting
-More exposed to direct effects of the wind

Of course, it didn't help that  the first half of the ride was on a 1-2% gradient - and the second half was into a headwind. We arrived at Zeroes for post-ride coffee feeling rather spent. My new catchphrase ( purged from Mike C on endurance corner's forum ) is "Flat Hills"- attributed to riding around Christchurch where one has to combat rough chip seal as well as wind -I LOVE it!!!

Alberto+I- bright eyed and bushy tailed

In other exciting news, Wharenui Pool opened on the 14th of March so I no longer have to traipse out to Rangiora for a swim. Hope I haven't lost too much strength in the water. I was about to add speed, but that's not really an issue for me- I only have one !!!!

Off to Sydney on the 18th March for the weekend as Mum is over there so am really looking forward to that. Hopefully work on my tan in the outdoor 50m  pool at Bondi and get some good sets in.