The New Year .......

.....this time

Looking back on January the training has gone pretty much to plan. After the Christmas break I took two weeks off work and spent that time training and getting some work done at home around the orchard. I scheduled some big miles - long runs, bricks and rides. The great summer in Northland has made some of the runs during the middle of the day a challenge. The first run back after the Christmas break turned into a bit of a nightmare, with not enough attention to hydration. It came on the back of a 3 hour ride and by the three quarter mark I was fried - not enough attention to hydration and nutrition. The solution has been to find more taps on the run (not so easy in the rural areas), and to increase the intake of hammer e-caps.

So the past couple of weeks have seen some good volume and quality miles with about 25 hours each week.

Since being back at work I’ve had to maximise the time available so have been giving the indoor trainer bit of a workout and squeezing in a swim during the day at lunchtime. The indoor trainer sessions have been focused entirely on strength - with last nights main set being 20 x one leg in the big chain ring. I have been working on the core strength using an 8 minute workout made up of 5 individual exercises. This is a brutal little session and the gaol is to do it 3 or 4 times each session. No where near it yet. This stuff is gut busting – sitting in the chair position has got to be my favourite out of this lot - yeah right.

This weekend is a swim 2km, bike 90 km, run 20 km session on Saturday, backed up with a long ride on Sunday (6 hours plus).

With 4 weeks to go the plan is to gradually reduce the volume but maintain the quality across all three disciplines. It includes a detailed plan for the last 10 days leading into IM to ensure that I’m well rested and raring to go.