So the idea this week was to ease off and get recovered for Epic Camp. Well, I’ve kind of eased of but not much. I think this rather gives an insight into what often motivates me to train and why I don’t really need races to focus me on training.

Firstly there is part of me that thinks if I’m going to try and get a big weeks training in whilst tired (ie a week after several big weeks) then the best environment for that is something like Epic Camp where you’ve loads of company to encourage you to complete stuff. As such there’s this part of my mind encouraging me to do more.

Secondly is this idea I have stuck in my head that I should do more hours of running in a week than swimming. This is fine as I tend to only swim 4 days, however I like for a given week that the running hours so far that week are always more. So in a normal Christchurch week this is tough for Monday and Tuesday but come Wednesday when I don’t swim I get some run time in the bank. All hunky dory. Bear with me here and try and follow ! Now…. at Epic Camp I will do 8 days of swim bike and run everyday (something I track in my diary). It suddenly dawned on me that since Epic started on Sunday if I managed to swim wednesday and saturday this week I would get 14 consecutive days of swim, bike and running everyday ! Cool thats a target. That of course makes the keeping the running ahead of the swimming more tricky. To top if Roly (the swim coach here) is making the sessions hard – I’ve been swimming 1hr40 minutes at least at each session… that makes for alot of running.

So… what easing up has there been ? I’ve reduced my bike mileage but this week is on target to be certainly my biggest week of swim and run this year. Having a big run week leading into Epic is definitely not easing off. It will be interesting to see what happens.

So in the 4 days of this week so far I have done the following: 19.9km swim, 265 miles bike, 56 miles run, 31 hours, 3 brick sessions.

There may be a definition out there that would have that as easing off.

For those that are interested here’s how the week has gone:

MONDAY

Run to and from swimming, 5.8k session in the pool. Hilly ride out over the Summit road from Gebbies pass – thats about a 40+ minute climb. Ran 50 minutes off the bike. The photos above are views from the summit road

TUESDAY

Run to and from swimming but added a 2.5 mile additional loop to the run home (in an effort to keep running ahead of swimming). Easy ride !! Sticking to my easing off guns for this ride. Did 43 mile flat ride in the pouring rain, 50 minute run off the bike.

WEDNESDAY

Ran to and from the pool did a pretty relaxed 3.4k set. Phil pulled out of our planned ride because of the weather though it proved to be a nice day. I decided to tag along with Jo’s ride – we met Scott, Chris, Marilyn and Tara and rode up to the summit road and along to Gebbies pass (ie the opposite way to what I did on Monday). Flat ride home. Scott hit the front and absolutely hammered along the flat road back to town. We were belting along at 24+ mph – good fun but hard work. 64 mile 4 hour ride. Got home, went to bed and flaked out for 90 minutes – awesome sleep. Then ran for 70 minutes.

THURSDAY

Run to and from swimming with the additional 2.5m again. Really tough 5.4k session. Decided to head out and repeat yesterdays ride. Awesome again, tagged on an additional 20 miles by heading into the Banks Peninsula down a valley John Ellis had recommended. Coming back along the long straight flat road that Scott hammered along confirmed what Jo and I had guessed – if you ride these alot you end up hammering them to make it interesting. I decided to see what a sub 5 hour bike split at Busselton would feel like, so I got down on the aero bars and cruised at 23+ mph. I could see this cyclist ahead (way ahead) and decided to  try and track him down, I measured the gap when I could and I was slowly clawing him in. It took a last couple of k at 25 mph to get him. Ended up an 45 minute Ironman / Above effort. Finished with 85 miles in 5.25 hours. Straight out for a run, encouraged to get a cushion over swimming so I can ease off I ran for 80 minutes. I felt great, ran hard and visualised completing a low 3 hours marathon at Taupo. How good would that be.

Two days till Epic and I will do my best to ease off (fingers crossed). Will try and post as much as I can whilst on the camp. Going in to this quite different from Epic Italy. For that I’d had a solid winters training, done an Ultra and eased off alot the week before. This time I’m at the height of a big block of training. I feel good at the moment be interesting to see how that translates to performance at Epic.