Riding accross the country
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Tomorrow I head off to join some clients on an adventure, and hopefully find some triathlon fitness in the process.
15 year old Jack Sinclair is riding across Australia for charity.
Jo and I are going to drive down to Port Augusta in South Australia and do most of the riding back up with them. They are averaging 150km per day so it will be a good chance to spend some time in the saddle and clock up the km’s. I plan to definately do some running along the way and where possible I might fit in the odd swim or two.
Keep up do date on the ride by visiting the Perth to Paradise website.
I almost won my first triathlon…..by cheating!
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On Saturday I competed in my first ever triathlon down at Banora Point with the Twin Towns triathlon club.
Now when I say “competed”, I actually mean that I turned up, and was happy to join in the fun and use the morning as a good training run. The race was 500m swim, 14km bike, 4.25 run.
As readers of this site will agree, I have been pretty slack lately with the updates, and I would love to tell you all that it’s because of all the training that I have been doing, but THAT WOULD BE A LIE!!! Apart from a couple of runs and perhaps one ride a week, I haven’t done too much training since the wedding. Time is running out, only 7 weeks till the Port Half IM and at this stage I am pretty underdone.
Anyway…I digress. Saturday morning I turned up to Banora Point Sports club ready to give this triathlon thing a go. It was going to be the first time I had ever put the swim, bike and run together in one hit. I didn’t shave the legs but I did get the big numbers written on my arm…and I felt tough!!! Number 135 was given a 6.15 start time and away I went.
The first 100m in the swim was done in 1.30. I was flying! The problem was that every 50m after that took about 1.40. Lesson 1 - You can’t develop swimming fitness without training! Get in the pool you lazy sack of $%^&*.
Out of the pool and on the bike. I felt strong on the bike and was passing quite a few people as I travelled along. A few hills but nothing too strenuous that I hadn’t done before. A fun descent down Fraser drive on some new bitumen gave me a chance to hit top gear and tuck into my tri bars for maximum speed. Woo hoo ding ding!!!
Off the bike, on with the shoes and time to run. I didn’t feel too bad on the run….it took me a little while to find my legs and I had a tight right hamstring that was a little annoying but other than that it all felt good. Once again I was passing the odd person as I went along but all in all I was taking it easy and feeling strong. When I ran into the finishing shoot I called out my number and realised just how strong I had run. I knew that I had passed a few people but in actual fact I finished in about 5th position. Satisfied, I grabbed a drink and waited for Jo and Amanda to finish.
Drink in hand I started to grow in confidence. I felt like I had gone pretty quick considering the lack of training and I was more than happy with the amount of people that I had reeled in. Jo and Amanda finished shortly after and we all decided that it was a good hit out and a great way to wake up and start the weekend.
Just as we were about to put the bikes back in the car I commented to the girls about how fun the descent down Fraser Drive was. In return I received some puzzled looks.
“You didn’t go all the way down the hill did you? You were supposed to turn left and do that other big loop!”
The girls took me over to the map at the start line, and it was then that I found out that I had skipped out an entire section of the bike leg.
I took it as a sign.
With only 7 weeks to go, I have some work to do. Somehow I don’t think I will be able to “miss” any turn down in Port Macquarie!!!
Thanks fellas!
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Actually, I was just reading the last post that I wrote and realised that it was not entirely true.
This is probably the perfect time for me to mention how kind, considerate, understanding and compassionate that my mates have been in supporting me in my goal to complete an Ironman.
Milk with one sugar please!
You see, as is customary in the lead up to the wedding, my mates took me away on a trip to celebrate my forthcoming wedding.
Most of it was spent sipping cups of tea, reading Time magazine and discussing global economics.
However during the 3 day event a few of the boys realised that they had forgotten to include any physical activity, or more specifically, any triathlon training to pass the time. Eventually I think a few of them realised that the weekend was at risk of being slightly counter productive to my training goals, and hence organised a nice flat training run for me to partake in.
Not wanting to rock up on Nov 9 underdone, I took them up on the offer. I knew my mates are good fellas, but I didn’t quite realise how supportive they were of my Journey to Ironman.
As the bus slowed down I peered down the road and surveyed my training arena. A nice flat road, the gentle rays of sunshine as the day drew to a close…perfect running conditions right?
WRONG!!!!!
As you can see in the photo….I don’t think the boys idea of a run was quite the same as mine.
Thanks boys….you truly are STARS!!!!
Putting a HALT to training
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So there I was…all pumped up and focused on completing a good solid 20 weeks of training in preparation for the Port Macquarie Half Ironman on Nov 9.
Obviously I realised that I had a few other commitments during that time, but generally I thought I would be able to train with minimal disruption
WRONG!!!
Who would have guessed that a wedding celebration would throw such a spanner into the works.
In hindsight I guess I should have known….after all IT WAS MY OWN WEDDING!
So on the 2nd of August (and a couple of weeks either side of that day) my training came to an abrupt halt as I became the very proud husband of Joanne. As this picture shows….she is stunning and it was definitely worth it.
I only hope that I can still muster up those same thoughts on Nov 9, rather than curse at lost time on the bike, in the pool, or pounding the pavement!!!
Training for a break….
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Not much to report on at the moment. I am still plugging away at the training program for now, but I expect to be a bit lax in the coming weeks. You see this weekend is my bucks weekend where I have a feeling diet and training will become a distant priority.
Next weekend is the wedding itself and then it’s off to Adelaide for the honeymoon. I will take my running shoes but have altered the training program to include a fair amount of ‘cross training’.
Hopefully at the end of the next 3 weeks I will be able to pick the program back up and go strong…will keep you posted.
P.S. - weighed myself this morning and am currently 90.7kg. At this rate my race weight will be in the 80’s for sure!!!