Week 6 - Week in Review

"I learned that if you want to make it bad enough, no matter how bad it is, you can make it." - Gale Sawers

This week has been one of the most challenging to date. The motivation 'left the building' for a couple of days. The motivational trip during this IM campaign has been quite consistent until this week. In reflecting as to what has created this slight 'detour' in the the motivational journey of this IM campaign I think it has come down to 2 things:

The first is the incident I had on Sunday.....failing to stay upright on my bike. It is amazing that just a slight altercation throws the working of the body out slightly. When the normal mechanics of the body are compromised and things aren't working the way they should and you are 5 weeks out from IM there is some reason for concern and the motivation wanes a little.

I had some bruising and swelling on the right knee, lower left shin (which had no visible signs) and a bit of the right forearm. It made quite a difference to how I ran on Tuesday morning. It was the non visible injury that caused the most bit of concern. Until my massage on the Wednesday evening I was not aware of this injury. I had feared the worse....a shin splint or something along those lines. Based on this fear a trip to the physio was arranged. The Physio trip also confirmed that this was the issues was in fact that had arisen.

The week of training looked like this:

Monday:
Core work as per usual.

Tuesday:
Out on my long run again today. This is where the shin issues raised it's ugly head. About 7km is my lower shin began to ache.....kept trying to run but as I continued I began to aggravate it further and the level of pain started to increase....time to cut it short. Ended up with a 18km run in about 1h50min.

Massage in the evening...lots a squirming on the table....but it's all in the name of success.

Wednesday:

Injury Day - Rest and recovery.

Thursday:
Short run in the morning just to test the leg out. Not to bad but not perfect yet.

In the afternoon, embarked on a BTS strength set. Good work out the swimming is certainly solid at the moment. 3.5km in 1h5min

Friday:

Taper begins for Mooloolaba Triathlon on Sunday.
Day of rest and preparation.

Saturday:

This morning was a easy 3hr ride. Out at 5am for 90min spin before joining the rest of the squad. Rode with the squad for 60min with a total ride time of just over 2.5hrs.

Sunday:

Mooloolaba OD Race....the final hit out before IM Australia.....here's my thoughts and reflections after the race....

The race today, whilst not an 'A' race was going to be a good indicator as to where I am at 5 weeks out from IM.
The plan for the race was to go as hard as I can and see what happens. There were a number components of this plan.....
1. Work really hard in the swim....
2. Not go too hard/crazy on the bike leaving enough in the tank for a good run.
3. Push it hard out there on the run.

The swim conditions were good. The course was a M shape. The course felt long and it seemed I was in the water forever but getting to the timing pads on the beach the time was telling me that I had completed the 1.5km swim in 26m31s. I was happy with this and then was my way up the stairs and into T1.

Onto the bike......the first thing was to get over the hills on my way to the motorway, not the most enjoyable way to start the bike leg but at least it gets those lets working early.
Onto the motorway......a tail wind.....got up to speed and the legs just began to turn over in a comfortable rhythm. Arrived at the turn and I had just under 30m on the clock.....round I went and it was like hitting a brick wall....the head wind was relentless....worked hard..trying to stay aero as much as possible and it was a relief to get off the motorway and cruise back to the esplanade...the question I was asking myself...had I spent too much energy on the return leg of the bike to have a good run.....I was about to find out.....

Bike time - 1h07m on the bike clock (1h11m with T1 and T2)

It was a swift transition onto the run leg.....the plan was just to ease into the run, at least until to the top of the hill then push it hard for the 9 remaining km. The other thing that I used to my advantage was the 2 times the run went down the northern hill. Both decents were about using the momentum of my body moving down the hill....go with the gravity....both decents were around the 3:45m pace. Once on the flat it was back into a nice rhythm around the 4:10m pace.
I had to work hard up the hills but these are good just to break the run up. I finally got to the top of the last hill and pushed it hard back into transition...it was looking like a good time and the time was getting very tight to go under 2h20m so I was working hard to get there but in the end I just ran out of legs and my final time was 2h20m56s.....but with a great run time of 43m03s...this was what I was really happy with. In fact the whole race was a good result and had shown me that the hard work had definitely paid off.