Weeks 16 & 17 September 12-25

Always a few detours

At Cross fit 24 September 2016

The next 2 weeks I was hoping to crank out a big long ride but unfortunately by the end of the week I was down with the flu again and was out of action.The preparation for Kona has been hard simply because of the weather and the fact that I just have had an office full of sick people this winter..Despite that I have done a fair bit of training and whilst not as many long rides as I like I feel comfortable.

The week was off well with a swim session and my pace remains slow and the same but I feel good in the water and hopefully once in Hawaii I will be able to get a lot of swims in the ocean as its just not been possible here .On Tuesday a 2 hour session riding with Exceed on the Birwood loop .I found it harder this week with the chest still feeling weak but managed to keep going. The legs weren't tired just the lungs . In the afternoon a good cross fit session with 105 clean & jerks, push ups and hollow rocks.I also did a 55 minute wind trainer session with 10 x 1 min at threshold and then 10 mins on the treadmill at 5.30 minutes per km.

Wednesday another treadmill session with various gradients and I had to miss the swim session with work

Thursday I did a run and then in the evening a wind trainer session which was hard and so felt I was coming down with the flu.On Friday an easy run which was a struggle and so off to to Doctors and a quiet weekend.

It was another 7days before I could resume training and did a wind trainer session on Thursday with a lot of wheezing and coughing but got through the session .Friday swam a straight 2.5km and felt better .On Saturday a ride down the Freeway bike path with Borisfit crew and then a run off the bike 5km on my own and 2 with Irondog.In the afternoon a cross fit session just focusing on snatches and  cleans. Sunday morning with the rain I ran late and did a slow steady run with about 10 km.

The test will be the weather and the heat but it is what it is and there is a fine line with over training and getting sick and under training and suffering on the course. Ultimately I recall Paula Newby Frasers article from 6 years ago as she recounted taking on a younger Natasha Badmann and Karen Smyers in 1997 she was the consummate athlete and whilst there is no comparison with me a back of the pack triathlete there is a slow realization that in all endeavors you learn to confront your shortcomings and ultimately your fears and accept that sometimes it is that fear of not winning that you must overcome.For me it not winning but doing ones best and that has been difficult with competing pressures which everyone faces and manages  and most possibly the motivation of knowing why you are out there .It has moved more to getting a PB to really just finishing what I started which was 10 years ago just getting to Kona .Interestingly  Natasha has a wildcard entry to Kona where she will retire and finish her illustrious career of more than 20 years and I saw her at Lanzarote in 2011 as she was coming back from injury.

Two notable quotes in the article are (Its not easy ): Most impressively, Newby-Fraser admit­ted, “I was finally free of the ego or the fears that people would say I was a quitter. I was quite comfortable retiring out on the Queen K because that was the place where I had left so many pieces of myself in the past. I didn’t need that again.”

 In 1998, when Newby-Fraser crossed the Kona line in 11th place in a humbling 10:03:44, she was bathed in loving applause. “I real­ized today that people cared about me for who I am and did not care where I finished, only that I was OK and happy,” she said.

(On the way she was named “Greatest All Around Female Endurance Athlete in the World” by ABC Sports and the Los Angeles Times and named as one of the top five professional female athletes in the world from 1972 to 1997 by the United States Sports Academy. Sports Illustrated listed her as number 60 among the greatest female athletes of the twentieth century. Until Wellington broke her course record at Kona in 2008, Newby-Fraser held the top six times in the history of Ironman Hawaii. By 1999 she had won 21 of the 26 Ironman races she entered around the globe.)

 The adventure is about to start .Leaving for Hawaii and in 2 weeks Ironman World Championships ...the blog iwantakonaspot gets realized.