Go Cadel

The Tour has started and for the first time in 3 years we are not away on holidays and can watch every stage. I am excited.

It has been a fairly good week for me, training wise. Fortunate, otherwise I would have been miserable thinking about everyone running up at Gold Coast. I would have loved to be there but am commited to doing local stuff at the moment.

Monday
2k continuous easy swim at ITAC and 20 mins in the sauna, 10 in the steam room. Ahhhhhhhhh.

Tuesday
Pain in the Domain. I went with group 5, my legs were a little bit sore but not too bad considering W2G. I got around in 29.45 and it felt (almost) easy.

Wednesday
I had a real mental battle about running today. I wasn't sure what the plan was until I started running, but I felt quite good and did my 14k with 10k "tempo" at well under 5 min pace. I don't seem to be able to run 5min pace very well, I either go "hard" and its faster, or "easy" and its slower. I guess that’s the idea of practicing.

Thursday
Ride with LACC. I went with Group 4 and felt a bit wimpy, but I think that was a good call. Group 4 pace felt quite quick and I was really pushing on the last lap. Also a couple of the regular Group 3 girls seemed to get dropped. I'd like to get back to doing this 2x a week and Group 3 feeling easy. One day.

Friday
Morning squad at LPAC. I was pretty much "alone" again. Its still better than trying to swim 4k on your own, but I would so love to find a squad with lots of other swimmers at my speed and a dedicated coach. Still, 2 swims this week is good. And its winter.

Saturday - Striders 10k at Homebush. I had a reasonable run, doing 42.56. I actually thought I was going a bit faster than that and could get a PB, but nope. I was happy enough though, under 43 for the second time and that is where I need to be. I was pushed by a couple of other girls near me which was really good.

Sunday - I planned to do the STAR at Dee Why but the temptation of staying up last night and watching the first stage of the Tour was too strong. So I slept in instead and did a long run from home. The first 20k was a gentle pace with Tom and then I did another 10k by myself. I aimed to run the 10k at 5min pace (NOT faster). For the first 7k this was easy and felt quite slow, but then a started to struggle and I actually had to dig pretty deep mentally to keep it going. I tried to think of all the runners at Gold Coast and how they would be hurting but not giving up. I was quite pleased with myself for this run, but rather exhausted for the rest of the day.

Total running for the week: 65k. But it felt like more.

So this week Triathlon Australia announced the dates for the new National Series, now dubbed the Challenge Series, which will be the qualifying races for Olympic Distance Worlds at the Gold Coast next year. I was disappointed that there is no Nowra race, which has been a good race for me the past 2 years and lightly attended. All the races except one are in Jan-April 2009, with only Adelaide in late November 2008. The Sydney race is the day after the BMC Mountains to Beach, which I really really want to do. Perth, which is double points, is the day after 6ft. So some very tough decisions are going to have to be made.