Filling in the gaps....part1

Aaaaagh ......despite the best of intentions yet again, it has been ages since my last blog post. I must aim to keep the blogs a little shorter but more frequent - consistency is the key, right??  As with all things training.

Anyway, to fill in since my last post I was getting back into some good training again before the weather really turned to pants; my focus being on rebuilding some strength in the gym and in the pool  plenty aerobic steady state sessions. With no locum jobs in Edinburgh on the horizon I was at a bit of a loss as to how to structure the months leading up to IM Canada. I wasn't too comfortable with the idea of just not working for 4 months given that earthquakes and recession had affected our business quite a bit.

So, I took a locum job down in Invercargill  for 5 weeks. I left at Queens birthday weekend and split the journey up by spending a night in Dunedin, which was great as gave me the chance to catch up with Helen while there. Next day i drove the 200km to Invercargill and managed to find the house I was to live in relatively easily. I didn't have a key or a contact number of the person that would be there but luckily Hannah was home. I was somewhat alarmed when she answered the door though and I could see her breath in the hallway!! Oh ****** another freezing, damp kiwi house. I was assured that the house had coal fired central heating and was usually warm but they had missed the coal delivery on Friday and wouldnt have any until the following day.
Anyhow, the house was pretty warm ( especially my room which had 2 radiators and was above the boiler!!) and the 4 twenty somethings that live there were all great people. 2 lawyers ( Kathryn and Charlie) Hannah ( who was the pa of one of the practice owners) and Simon ( who worked for Venture Southland).

The practice I was working in , Reekie+Harris, was a long established practice in central Invercargill. I was covering for Alistair (Reekie) who had had back surgery and was unable to be back at work til the surgeon gave the OK. I had chosen to work only 4 days with the intention that having an extra day midweek to get a decent ride in should the weather turn to pants at the weekend - and also so that I wasn't doing all my rides on the wind trainer.

I thoroughly enjoyed it there; totally different type of clientele from Linwood ( I saw only one beneficiary the entire 5 weeks of working there!!) and the staff were great too. The equipment was pretty old - no fibre optics or ultrasonic scalers etc and I found that a little frustrating at times but hey, nothing's perfect?!!

So rather than waffling on ( as am wont to do.......and struggling with brevity...) I've listed highlights+lowlights of my placement in Invercargill:-

Highlights:-

Living approx 500m from Splash Palace aquatic centre ( 50m pool).

Masters sessions at said pool were excellent (5.30am starts!) coach gave plenty tech feedback and Monday morning sessions were a big redline/hammerfest for me to keep up. Great!!

Being within walking distance of everything-10 min walk to work, to the supermarket, town, pool

Locals in the Catlins

Found new roads to ride on that were pretty quiet traffic wise and some very scenic.Refreshing to not be looking at the same tarmac!

Still able to get a decent coffee ( Rain espresso round the corner from work, Zookeepers cafe)

Despite being a smaller place, Invercargill has excellent facilities  funded for mostly by the Invercargill licensing trust. This means you can't buy wine or beer in the supermarket. Didnt bother me too much though :)

Mrs Clarks cafe in Riverton. Yummy date scone, great coffee.

Next stop Antarctica...!!

Being blown to bits and horizontal rain then getting shelter running in and out of all the tracks on Bluff Hill.

Sandy Point running tracks. My favourite place to run, followed by a coffee by the fire at ziffs.

No earthquakes or aftershocks or piles of bricks/rubble/road craters/orange cones

I was lucky with the weather while I was there. Pretty freezing and a few windy wet days but I left before the real winter snap hit, which no doubt would have affected my training.

Southland tri club 's winter duathlon at Teretonga raceway. Fun blow out the cobwebs on a Sunday morning and a friendly bunch of people. They seem to have a pretty active tri + multisport club there and the subs to join and race entries are very reasonable. Lots of events on the spring/summer race calendar there which would make it a great training spot....you also get more daylight!!

Was not too windy during my rides.

Lowlights:-

Rain was only open Mon-Fri !    

No wireless internet at home so I had to get a Vodem stick from Vodafone. Crap, overpriced and slow and seems to have made any current wireless connections on my laptop rather erratic.We dont get free wireless at Starbucks in NZ.

Alberto got very dirty with all the winter riding!

Lack of decent hills in Invercargill itself. Plenty rollers if you head inland or toward the Catlins and gentle rollers on the coastal route.

The looooooong drive home - 7 hours behind the wheel.

I think it could blow like buggery in Spring and summer - when you ride the Tuatapere road, the trees are all bent by the prevailing SW wind.


So after a fruitful 5 weeks on the work and training front (little else for me to do really!!!) I headed back to Chch for a week before departing for my USA/Canada trip. Next exciting installment will be from Boulder, Colorado.