Ready, Set, Go

Yesterday would probably have been more auspicious, but oh well. Today is the day I start my blog and my official journey towards Ironman Australia. I guess the journey really started a long time ago, like when I first started riding my bike to work in 2001, then started swimming 10 laps to get a bit fit, then started running around the block, then did a triathlon novice program in 2002 ... and so on. But today I entered, paid and started training in earnest after 3 weeks off.

My alarm was set for 5.15am to go for a ride, but I woke to the sound of the pouring rain. Good news for the farmers, bad news for Zoe. My morning at work was spent dealing with 230 emails(!) and soon it was time for Pain in the Domain. Only 12 people turned up and none of the usual leaders were there, so we formed 2 groups of 6, a fast and a slow. As I usually run with the 6th and slowest group I was not sure this would work for me, but it was good and we stayed together well. It is always a really good hard run, and I feel great afterwards. I felt slow, but my legs were fresh and I really sprinted the last interval, neck a neck with the bloke next to me. Our time was 31.20.

I don’t know whether I am going to be able to keep going to PITD with IM training. When I was training for the marathon last year I felt I couldn’t do it, I was always too tired from my longer runs. I would like to keep going though because its FUN.

After work I went for a quick swim. I took it very easy because I have not swum for 3 weeks. I did 2k in about 42 minutes. I got an Ipod for Christmas and my first podcast last week was an episode from Ironman Talk. They interviewed an NZ swim coach and one of his tips was to focus on decreasing your stroke count as all good swimmers have a low stroke count. So I tried to focus on that today. The podcast also had some good tips on peeing on the bike, but thats a topic for another day. :) Home for dinner and Tom had cooked our favourite lentil bolongaise with spaghetti. Yum.