Ironman Austria Race Report

What an amazing race on a stunning course. It sold out last year in 18 hours, this year, 5 hours and I can totally understand why.

Antoinette and I arrived in Austria Thursday evening having travelled with Nirvana who arranged all our transfers, truck for the bikes and accomodation. We stayed in a place about 15km out of Klagenfurt in an apartment which was very comfortable. I was getting slightly stressed that evening as I hadn't had time to put my bike together and needed to go to bed. For the week before IM I always get up between 4:00 and 4:30 to get used to eating at that time, and don't I eat! For the 2 days pre race I eat 660g of carbs in order to carbo load. Keeping in mind that 2/3 of a cup of cooked rice is 30g of carbs or most meusli bars are around 15-22g carbs it is hard work to eat that much. I physically can't do it so I also use sports drinks such as Lucozade to top up my carbs (33g per 500ml!).

Saturday I got up at 4:15 and put my bike together. I had already done all of my transition bags in London so didn't need to worry about that. We went for breakfast, loaded my bike on the truck and then I jumped on a bus to tour the bike course and onto register. The bus was running late so Antoinette went to the race briefing for me. I wasn't too fussed about missing it, as long as you read the pre race material you don't need to be there. Kat and Geoff came and met us and I went out for a quick 20 min swim. The water was so warm and clear. We then went off for a high carb lunch and then the guys headed into town to leave me to get organised. I went for a run and ran the first and last KM of the run to familiarise myself with it. I then took my bike out for a quick 20 mins just to check it over again and make some final adjustments. Into transition to drop everything off and then the only thing left to do is relax.

I had a prety good nights sleep the night before, we were in bed by8pm and up at 4am. Breakfast and headed up to catch the bus at 5am. There was a girl on the bus who was obviously freaking out so I chatted to her a bit trying to calm her down. I do find it amusing that when ever you get to a sporting event like this that people find it socially acceptable to start telling complete strangers about their bowel movements or lack of in the case of my new friend on the bus. I didn't even know her name by this stage :)

I went into transition, pumped up my tires, got some suncream on, jumped in the wetsuit and headed over to the start really pumped up and ready to go. Gel number 1 of the day went down my throat at 6:50 and the the gun went off dead on 7am for the 2.5 mile (3.8km) swim.

The swim was great fun, it was congested and choppy but I have been doing a lot of work with Terry (my coach) on swimming in a pack, swimming over people and being swum over so it didn't bother me in the slightest being knocked around. The swim went out from the beach, out to a buoy, turn left, out to another buoy, another left and then you swim back to the shore and then up a canal. The atmosphere on the beach was amazing, there was a guy on the mike getting the crowd going, playing music and talking to the athletes. I had a totally different perspective on things this time and was really relaxed and having a little dance. You could tell the people who were doing this for the first time, they were the ones with a look of complete fear on their faces.

It is hard to describe, but there is a real feeling of comraderie at the start of an ironman. Especially a beach start where it is easier to interact with other people than a deep water start. I had this bloke turn to me on the beach and just take my hand without saying a word. He didn't smile, he just looked me in the eyes and squeezed me hand and nodded once. I think it was more about reassurance for himself than for me. I just smiled at him and nodded back, I really wish I had notedhis race number to see how hewent.

The gun going off surprised me a little as I wasn't yet into the water because of all the people, I thought maybe they would wait till people got out to the line. I got on the feet of this woman who was doing the most perfect speed and swimming in an a straight line pretty much from the start. I stopped sighting after a while because she was so dead on course. I am going to assume it was a woman because she had a lovely shade of red polish on her toenails, I resisted the urge to stop her and ask the colour. Unfortunately I lost her at the first turnaround so spent until the next turnaround moving between people trying to find someone else to draft. I got into the last stretch before the canal having not really found someone to draft. I knew I was on for a good swim time when I got to the mouth of the canal at just over 50 minutes and knew I only had to do 800m to the finish.

Swimming up the canal is incredible, there are people on both sides cheering and calling out right next to you! It was a little squashy at the mouth of the canal but I picked up the pace and got into some clear water so didn't draft at all swimming up the canal. I was loving the atmosphere and felt really strong so knew I was going to go under 1:10. I came out of the water in 1:06 and felt great, I sometimes feel a bit dizzy but nothing like that at all.

Into T1 where I had a looooong transition as I was really taking my time to get lots of suncream on. I learnt my lesson well at Hawaii last year about getting burnt and have the scar to prove it. I also choose not to wear a tri suit so got changed into cycling clothes. The transition was huge so there was no way I was going to keep to a 5 min T1, but I wasn't bothered. My bike was right near the pros so I carried my shoes and got out the other side without too much trouble. I had managed to break my Co2 cartridge head so had sent Antoinette on a mad mission to find another one whilst I was in theswim and then hand it to me when I started the bike. The Flying Dutchman had put lovely new tires on my bike so it was unlikely I would puncture but Murphy's Law, if I didn't have anything to fix a flat I would have got one. So Ant passed me a Co2 canister as I went past her 100m from T1 and then out onto the bike course for the 112 miles of fun or 180km!

It was such a beautiful bike course. You head out along the lake on a few ups and downs on these lovely clean smooth roads. There were a lot of people so it was draft central. At one point I was at the back of a group of 24 people going up a hill. I thought the draft busters were very fair, if people looked like they were making an effort not to draft they let it go and just blew a whistle to get people's attention and that generally broke the packs up. I did have 1 guy who would not get off my wheel for ages, I kept looking back at him but he wouldn't budge. I heard the motorbike behind me and still he didn't move and when I looked back again, he was being given a penalty :)

There were a couple of climbs and I wasn't feeling very strong at all. There were a couple of girls who over took me which didn't go down well. I seem to have lost my climbing ability, I obviously forgot to pack it :) The good news is I am much better on the downhill's and flats so was catching the girls and leaving them behind, along with a lot of guys. I never understand why people don't push harder on the downhill's, it is so easy to make up time. I decided to take a kamikaze approach to the hills and put faith in my super grippy new tires (thanks to TFD) and tried not to touch my brakes. I had done a lap of the bike course in a bus on the Saturday so I knew there were only a couple of sharp corners. One I didn't remember and as I was flying down a hill was wondering to myself why they had big crash mats at the bottom of the hill, realisation dawned a split second in time as I realised it was a hairpin turn, I almost scraped the mats as I went round the corner with about an inch to spare :) Rather than slow me down it gave me more confidence so I pushed harder knowing that I had been around the toughest corner. TFD has been tutoring me in not using my brakes on descents. His London bike from his race days is 12 years old and he had never ever changed the brake pads :)

My first bike lap was done in 2:42 and I knew at that point I had been out too hard. It was difficult not to get caught up in the crowds and really cane it. On one of the hills, this guy had set up his DJ decks about 2/3 of the way up. He was ignoring the guys but every time a woman went past he would shout out 'IRON LADY!!'. Totally cracked me up each time. Our names were printed on our race numbers so lots of people would call out 'Supa Carolyn, Supa!' as you went past. I couldn't help but work the crowds, I figure if you are going to be out there you might as well have fun :)

I saw Kat, Geoff and Antoinette on the way down to the first turnaround which got me screaming and hollering like a loon. There were so many people lining the road that they had started to spill onto the road. Lots of signs and balloons and people going crazy. Fantastic atmosphere, makes you feel like you were winning the race rather than just finishing 1 lap of the bike!

Rich caught me on the 2nd lap so we had a chat, I had given myself a talking to and had slowed down slightly. My bike computer wasn't working at all so was working on perceived effort. I was leap frogging between groups using the downhill's to catch the next group. There was still a lot of drafting going on but hey, it wasn't me doing it and really I don't care if other people do it. It is their guilty conscience knowing they are a CHEAT.

It rained really heavily for the lat 30-40 mines of the ride. At one point lightening struck so close to me I actually screamed it scared me so much. The thunderclap after it was deafening. I have never been that close to lightening before, it certainly made me ride a bit faster! It was hard to see but I knew that the last stretch was smooth and straight so I went as hard as I could on the down hill. Coming down that stretch for the 2nd time was a totally different experience. There was absolutely no one out there. Given how crowded and packed it was on the first lap it was almost eerie.

2nd lap was slower in 2:55 but deep down I knew I had over done it. I have never cycled that fast before in training let alone backing it up with a marathon. My total bike time was 5:37 which was 8 mines faster than my plan. I was very determined to go under 11 hours and was feeling great coming off the bike, but wondered how my legs were going to perform. I had got my nutrition bang on target having eaten religiously every 20 mines and consumed 750ml of liquid an hour. My pre race and race nutrition is something I take very seriously and I know exactly how many calories, grams of carbs and mg of sodium I need to consume every hour to maintain consistent output in the race. My friends think I am a tri nerd and I have no idea why :)

T2 was slow but I took my time drying my feet, getting dry socks on and getting Vaseline into the chaffing hot spots. It took a good 7km for me to hit my stride in the marathon (26 miles or 42.2km) on the run but already I was 2 min down on my 1:45 half marathon pace. I started to make it up between 8km and around 15km but the damage had been down and I was losing time. Physically I felt OK but mentally I couldn't pull it together. I pride myself on being very strong mentally and being able to process negative thoughts in a race. In hind sight I hadn't spent enough time mentally preparing because I was so busy in the lead up. I saw Antoinette, Kat and Geoff and stopped for a minute to speak to them at the halfway point. I told them I had a case of the sads and in true tough love style they told me to suck it up and keep running. It worked and I pulled it together enough to keep a consistent pace going. I caught Rich who was walking having just thrown up and walked with him for a little bit. I struggled through the 2nd lap of the part out along the railway line and was freaking myself out knowing that when I hit the 32km mark I had to pick up the pace.

I got back through the crowds to the last turnaround and knew it was now or never and started to push. The rain has stopped and it was heating up but I had been drinking enough and had kept eating every 20 min so knew I could do it. I spotted Stef as I was almost at the last turn around and made him my target. I caught him within about 3km and had to hold it together for another 3km to get home. I couldn't speak to him as I went past, it was taking all of my effort to maintain my pace and form. There were a lot of people fading away at this stage and I kept telling myself to draw strength and push home. I had eaten gel number 20 and what I thought was my last gel at the 37km mark. I almost didn't make it and at the 40km mark all of a sudden my legs were like jelly and I knew I was going to blow or eat another gel. Yummy!! I sucked down half of it and within 2 min was flying again.

I saw Daz who was in the recovery tent which was about a 800m from the finish and he yelled at me to pick it up and get home in under 10:50 so off I went. I flew around the last bit and loved going up the last bit along the lake and into the finishing shoot high five-ing people and waving and smiling. It makes the pain worth it and is just so much fun! I crossed the line in 10:48:40 which is a new personal best for me. I achieved my goal to go under 11 hours and learnt some valuable lessons in plenty of time to fix them before Arizona in November.

Post race massage was excellent, this lovely girl who has seen more of Australia than me spent 45 minutes working on my legs. I think it is why I'm not sore at all :)

I am feeling pretty good today, I lost a little bit of skin off my chest from chaffing but by far the most painful injury is a blister I had from these lovely stiletto sandals I was wearing on the way out to Austria. With all the dirt and grit from the race it has become a little infected. It is so typical of me to have a stiletto related injury rather than a race related one :) I'm back in heels today after cycling into work and will cycle up to Hampstead for tonight's swim session. No rest for the wicked. I had a really good debrief with Terry this morning and we are going to work on mental conditioning to ensure that I am better prepared for Arizona.

So, I now have 2 weeks of easy training and then we hit a strength and conditioning phase and then onto building up my fitness. I realised that I am a lot stronger this year but don't have the fitness I had last year, but I have plenty of time before Arizona to build that up.

What a brilliant day out. Unfortunately my timing chip didn't work so you have to take my word for my splits;
Swim 1:06
T1 9:17
Bike 2:42 1st lap + 2:55 2nd lap total 5:37
T2 7:12
Run 1st half 1:50 + 1:56 2nd half total 3:46
Total time 10:48:40

It placed me 8th in my age group, 42nd woman and 834th overall. Very pleased :) Roll on Arizona!!

Ironman Austria is almost here!

Ironman Austria is almost here!
So Ironman Austria is in a bit over a week. I can't wait!! My race number is 810 which sounds like a speedy number to me! You can track the race at http://www.ironmanlive.com/ If everything goes to plan I will come in just under 10:30. That's a 1.05 swim, 5 min transition 1, 5.45 bike, 3 min T2 and a 3.30 marathon. I think I am either going to get one or the other on the bike and run. If I push for the 5.45, it could slow me down on the run but I don't want to hit the run thinking I could have gone harder on the bike. We will see what happens on the day. The great thing is that the run is completely flat. Whilst I love running the hills and have a real strength doing that, a flat run will enable me to push my run speed up to go for a sub 3.30. I ran a 3.21 on a flat course at the Valencia marathon on very little training (i.e. training on a treadmill in India!) and I am in much better shape now, plus I will be high as a kite on Powerbar caffeinated energy gels!

Austria isn't my main race so anything with 10 hours XX mins will make me happy as that will be a new personal best, beating my 11.04 at Ironman UK last August.

Things with Terry are great. He has been coaching me for 6 weeks now and I am really happy with the sessions and how I am performing. He is working me hard but that fine, I have big targets this year and next so need to put in the hard yards. It is one of the things I enjoy about Ironman is that there is no way you can fake it, you can't show up on the start line without having done the training without serious consequences. I started my visualisation exercises this week where I step through each part of my race thinking about how I am going to feel, what I am going to be focusing on, what I am going to be eating and the negative thought blockers, the things I think about when I start to dip mentally. Those things for me are always thinking about being told I will never run again and how that made me feel, lying in hospital not knowing what waswrong with me, not being able to climb a flight of stairs unassisted. It's those things that make me push harder knowing that I got through those much bigger challenges than this 1 race and that this is a piece of cake in comparison. It's all relative. Of course there is also the sooner you finish the sooner you can have a beer thought too :)

The next week for me is tapering and getting ready to head to Austria, as you can imagine with an Ironman you need so much stuff! Antoinette is flying out with me and Kat and Geoff are meeting us there as they are on the European Tour pre heading back to Australia. It is always such a great thought knowing you have support out there.

The Cast Iron Club was something that I decided to join up to back in March. It was $6 to join with the idea being that you complete the equivalent of 30 Ironman distances in training over the year. The target is 114km's of swimming, 5400km cycling and 1266km's of running.

I track the miles I do each week so it wasn't going to be difficult to log this in every month. It is actually staggering how much time I spend training when the numbers are right there in front of you. Somehow I manage to fit in a full time job, a boyfriend, friends, weekends away, holidays as well as finding time to eat and sleep.

This year, up to today I have spent a total of 223 hours training. That's 55 hours of swimming, 80 hours of riding, 70 hours of running and 17 hours of weights. That's covering 3180km's across the 3 sports, broken down to 101km's swimming, 2209km's of cycling and 870km's of running. Also this year I have spent approximately 8 weeks travelling where I have not had access to my bike, sometimes no swimming pool and occasionally not able to run so training hasn't been at it's optimum which means the weeks I have been in London that the volume of training is much higher than average. I also have Friday's off from training so that is split across 6 days a week.

I'm well ahead of target for the swim and run but need to get those legs pedalling to bring my bike total up. That won't be too hard post Austria where I am not really going away until Ironman Arizona in November except to Nice with The Flying Dutchman where the whole point of us going is to do some quality cycling training. I start going out there once a month starting next month. Great for the legs and the tan!

I have started calling The Flying Dutchman BBE (Best Boyfriend Ever) because he was so sweet and bought me a really thoughtful gift which I LOVE! He got me a pre Ironman Austria gift of a new chain, cassette, tyres and also a pair of wheel bags. It was really thoughtful of him. He said he wanted to make sure my bike was in tip top condition to make sure I have a great race. Unfortunately he isn't going to be in Austria, he has an amazing 10 days cycling in the Pyrenees with 11 others. He has also been training really hard and has been spending a lot of time in Nice recently. We have badly co-ordinated schedules in that the weekends I am away, he is in London. It isn't going to be until August that we will be in the same place at the same time on the weekend and it is a weekend I am racing the London Triathlon. It will be the first time he will see me race and I really don't like Olympic distance. I hate the pain of it!! Pushing that hard for 2 hours 20 is not my idea of fun. The odd Olympic distance race is the only time I ask myself what the hell I am doing out there and am I really having fun :)

I was in Brussels a few weeks ago for Antoinette's birthday which was great fun. Unfortunately I missed a lot of stuff on Saturday (shopping!) as I had to do a run and a swim. It took me an hour to run to the pool and it was lovely to see some different parts of the city, it is really lovely. Brussels isn't exactly the ideal location when I am not drinking alcohol and watching what I eat. I had a blow out the Saturday night and had a gorgeous steak with this amazing cream based mushroom sauce, a small glass of wine and profiteroles in chocolate sauce. I got back off the Eurostar Sunday evening and threw myself around Regents park for an hour on my bike with The Flying Dutchman who certainly lived up to his name. He had already cycled 160km that day and came and did an interval session and was pushing me along! The man is a machine.

The weight loss has not being going well. I am sitting at 60kg and just cannot budge any more weight. My body is used to this level of training and I am eating less. I wanted to be down at 58kg for Austria but it isn't going to happen. I am much more toned but not 2kg of muscle, there is definitely some fat that could go! My body fat was 22% in April and I weighed 62kg. I must be down to around 20% body fat now I think. It is below average for a woman (average is 24-32%), but not for an elite athlete, some of those girls are down around 15% but the trade off is no boobs or curves :)

So, I will try and do another entry pre Austria! Bring it on!!
Cxx

Race Season Has Started!

So 3 races in 4 weeks isn't too bad :) I kicked off the season with the For Goodness Shakes Legs of Steel Olympic distance race out at Dorney Lake. Fabulous facilities out there but of so boring course. I almost fell off my bike with boredom. One guy actually did fall off at one stage but I think it was due to the rain not the boredom :)
The course was 1500m swim in the lake, 40km on the bike which was 8 laps of the lake and then 10km run, or 2 up and back loops.
My cycle computer doesn't work in the rain and it was raining so I took it off my bike. I also left my watch at work so was relying on my ability to count to 8, something I managed to learn as a child in between torturing my younger brothers. Well you would think it would be simple enough. Not so. I got so bored going round and round this stupid lake in the rain I got to lap 8 and wasn't sure if that was it so decided to do another one just to be safe. It wasn't until I got round the corner and saw the women I came out of the water with and was cycling with in transition I realised I was on lap 9 and past the point of return. Round I go again. I got out there and ran a sub 42 10km trying to make up some time so got a 7th place in 2:35. Not bad, would have been a 2:24 or so which I would have been pleased with. I was just making a point that I am not a short course athlete, either that or I am just simple :)
I must say the level of organisation for the race wasn't at it's military precision I usually display.
* Arrived late (got lost cycling there from Slough).
* Spent the time I should have been getting ready talking to a friend I hadn't seen in ages and didn't know was going to be there
* Forgot to get body marked (see point above, she was supposed to body mark me) so when I finally did go to get ready, couldn't get into transition and had to go back to registration
* no race belt, had to go buy one at the last minute
* was putting wetsuit on when they were starting the briefing
* looked like a bag lady with everything in garbage bags in an attempt to keep shoes dry
* Lost timing chip. Very embarrassing when they called out my number in front of everyone for me to collect it (I was still struggling with wetsuit at this point)
* Forgot my watch
* Took my cycle computer off
* Apparently can't count to 8.
* Had this woman who must have been 5'11'' try and over take me at the 5km mark on the run. No way love. See the pictures, I beat her home only just but we fought for the last 5km side by side each one of us surging trying to take the lead. Was actually really fun because we were flying and just eating people up, 1 girl tried to stay with us and we spat her out in roughly 75m, so good!!. I reckon we did a sub 20min 5km on the 2nd half of the run, but who would know with my watch safe on my desk at work!
* I am officially logged as coming 8th but I beat girl above in sprint finish. I think they got us confused at the end because someone chased me down as I was leaving the finishing area asking about the time I finished in.
* Managed to get grit in my eyes on the bike which shredded my right contact lens, so I ran only being able to see out of my left eye. I got 2/3 of it out at the end of the race and had to cycle home with 1/3 of the shredded lens lodged on the back of my eye ball. It didn't come out till Monday morning.

All in all a debacle from start to end. I am pleased I did it, I needed a wake up call on both transition and preparation which carried over well to the 1/2 Ironman distance race I did last week in Weymouth.

The event is called the Wymouth Middle Distance and is a 1900m swim, 90km bike and a 21km run. The water was so so so cold. Maybe around 10 degrees. Too cold. It took me about 10 mins to settle into the swim and stop gasping. Got through the swim OK, would have liked to have been a bit quicker but just couldn't get into the rhythm of it. Out on the bike and was very pleased with my performance, I caught quite a few of the girls and only had 1 go past me. It was reasonable hilly, one of those courses with lots of drags which I hate. I would rather a sharp up and down rather than these slopes that go on and on. It was hot out on the bike and I wasn't eating enough. There seems to be something wrong with me that as soon as the wind picks up I forget to eat. I panicked coming into transition so I ate a gel about 7 - 8 mins out of T2. Big mistake. I paid for that.

Got through T2 and basically got a cramp immediately, hello Mr Gel. I know better than this!!! I had problems with this lat year and found that not eating or drinking for the last 20 mins meant I was fine and could really kick into the run. I had to walk the first 15 mins of the run and was having problems breathing from the pain of the cramp. So frustrating!! This is the part I am supposed to be good at! I knew it would pass and it was only a matter of time and I had to be patient which isn't really a strength of mine. I was getting quite stressed at the number of people going past me, especially the girls I had worked so hard to go past on the bike.

The cramp eventually cleared and I could set into a 8 min mile pace which is a fair bit slower than I would have liked. I had to take it easy because every time I tried to push it started coming back. I started running with this lovely guy, I think his name was Tim. He was wearing all white and was telling me about his Ironman Austria attempt the year before. Things went horribly wrong and he ended up in a coma for 10 days. Fair play to the guy, not only is he out there still doing triathlon, he is doing Ironman Roth in 4 weeks. Amazing. Maybe if we weren't chatting so much we would have been paying more attention to the route signs and wouldn't have got lost! Add a few extra mins there...luckily we only lost around 3 mins.

Anyway, I managed to crank up the pace for the 2nd lap and got home in 5 hours 11 mins. I am very pleased with that given I am not in the shape I would like to be in and it gave me a whole lot of confidence for Ironman Austria that is less than 4 weeks away!

Yesterday I was in Wales doing The Dragon, a 180km sportive through Wales including the Brecon Beacons. There are around 13 climbs and more than 3000m of vertical. I loved it and the atmosphere was very friendly. I had to take my tri bars off so I wasn't always that comfortable on my bike but spent a lot of time on the drops. I also set myself the challenge of not touching the brakes unless I really had to on the descents. I got up to 70km (45miles)an hour going downhill which was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. I can't help but think that if I fall it is game over for Austria as well as a few broken bones thrown in for sure.

The Flting Dutchman is incredible going downhill, the man is faster than gravity so he has been giving me some tips, and it works, you really can make up some places and cover some ground and lets face it, it is so fun! He wasn't out there but was in Germany at a friends wedding.

I met this woman called Chloe out riding. She was on a bright pink Trek and a really cute outfit. It was so nice to finally meet another woman who loves the pink girly side of cycling, but can hold her own. We were matched on speed and spent a couple of hours together, at one stage pulling a bunch of about 8 blokes along behind us! We were really flying along and getting lots of encouragement from the blokes as we breezed past them with our triple chain rings! I lost her on the last climb, I really wanted to nail the last 40km so went for it. I did wonder at the time if I would make it home, for the last 10km I was doing at least 40km (25 miles) an hour on the flats and flying up the hills like a woman possessed. The risk was that I hadn't eaten very much during the ride, just 2 bananas, a small cake, 2 gels and some energy drink across the 9 hours since breakfast. I am really struggling to drop down to my race weight so was deliberately not eating in an attempt to burn some fat yesterday. I made it home in 6.52 which was great, I wanted under 7 hours, It was a lovely feeling to get off my bike and know I didn't have to run a marathon!!

I was a bit short on time, the race started late and it took an hour to get to the start line. I had to get a 16:50 train and had to cycle from Pencoed to Bridgend and didn't know the way. Its about 5 miles so set off with a hand drawn map, the not eating strategy totally came up and bit me. I almost fell off my bike when the dizzy spell hit and I could hardly move my legs. Anyone that has ever 'bonked' as it is called will know what I am talking about. You are totally wiped and out of energy. I knew I wouldn't be able to stand so kept rolling. I had a backup powerbar in my pocket and I absolutely devoured this thing. It takes a few mins for it to work but then I was fine, I only just made the train with a minute to spare. Getting on the train was a complete mess. There were more bookings than bikes and people were getting irate. Everyone was a little tired and grumpy. 112 miles of hills does that to you :)

Everything is going great guns with The Flying Dutchman, I am loving have a boyfriend again, and especially one a great as him. We don't get to spend that much time together but we seem to make it work for us. We are both often away on the weekends and have fallen into this pattern of meeting up Sunday nights when we get back. He is great :)

Training is pretty intense at the moment in the last few weeks before Austria. Terry is working me hard but that's what he is paid to do. The sessions are a challenge but I can just about manage them. It is a big workload and most days I get up at 5:30 - 6:00 so I can train before work. I am now looking forward to Austria, but Arizona is the big one.

Anyway, enjoy the evening!
Cxx

The clock is ticking

The clock is ticking
Well...we are 10 weeks out form Ironman Austria. Am I fit enough to not only finish a 3.8km swim, 180km bike ride and then run a 42km marathon? I can definitely do it, if I can do it in the time I want...well thats a whole other kettle of fish. Time to get serious.
My aim is to finish in under 10.5 hours, hopefully in 1 piece with a smile on my face. My goal is to bag myself a top 3 place but given my current state of fitness that is not achievable. I have started looking around for some alternate ways to step up my training and this week it has involved being caught in the rain 4 days in a row! There are some great developments and I am talking to some different coaches about what I should focus on outside of my regular tri and swim coaches. If you have read any of my entries here you will know how competitive I am and how important it is that I achieve my goals.
Next week is D-Day. That dreaded day each year that I cut booze and give my diet a complete shake down. 10 weeks out from a race I cut any processed foods where possible, alcohol, start weighing my food and focusing on the nutrients, vitamins and balance of carbs V protein that I need to optimise training all in preparation for the upcoming race. Sound boring? It is which is why 10 weeks is enough.
I also start to lose weight. I am sitting at 61kg at the moment having lost a kg over the last 2 weeks so I have another 3-4 to go which will fall off once I invoke diet hell. The only upside is that I do start to eat 4 meals a day following the smaller more frequent approach to eating. I have spoken to a couple of coaches and Dr's who believe that whilst my body fat % is below average for the female population I can safely drop it from the current 22% down to 16-18% which will make racing easier. I just don't want to look like a rake. I am very lucky in that I am toned but am very curvy in that classic hourglass shape.

So there is something VERY exciting going on in my life at the moment...a wonderful man....FINALLY!!! We shall call him The Flying Dutchman here. We got in touch with each other at the beginning of Feb but due to my crazy travelling schedule for the first 3 months of this year we didn't get to meet until the beginning of April. By that stage I was beginning to think he was just going to be a cycling buddy, the emails had gone on for more than 6 weeks! Lucky for me there was more to it. I am constantly amazed that I have met someone who not only do I find immensely attractive with his gorgeous blue eyes and towering height but can also make me laugh, engage with and have a decent conversation but can also ride a bike!! Not only just ride one, but ride well and takes his cycling training seriously. He used to be a pro cyclist :) That part is so important to me date 3 was a cycling date to put him through his paces and see what he was made of :)
I am not sure there are that many women who can say not only were they in lycra but so was the guy on the 3rd date. Maybe in some fetish circles that is the norm!
So, just a little quick update. Training not going so well but personal life is wonderful...pretty much the complete opposite of last year! Maybe I should make that my goal is to strike the balance between the 2. Isn't that a novel idea :)
Take care!
Carolyn x