I am now in rest mode. Yesterday I did a solid 30 minute run. Today I swam round the jetty and have done a 50 minute ride. Tomorrow nothing. The swim was pretty tough as it was ROUGH. At the far point it felt quite scary to be honest. I bobbed around waiting for Russell and when he arrived said “This is an adventure”. The look on his face didn’t disagree. This evening we’re heading to the pool for a small fun gala against some locals !

My prep since Kona has not gone as I’d hoped but for the past couple of weeks it’s got back on track. The hours have not been too bad. My attempt to get back into decent training 3 to 4 weeks after Kona didn’t go well due to illness, even so it wasn’t too bad. Running bizarrely went well – I’ve only been doing two runs a week so that 2.5 hours in week 4 included a 1h40 run. Swimming wasn’t near the volume I’d hoped largely due to coaching the Tri Club on wednesday nights removing 1.5 hours of swimming in each of the first four weeks. Once in Busselton I’ve managed to hit the training hard. Two solid weeks and minimum 8 hours sleep each night together with lots of just hanging out doing nothing have done me the world of good.

Here is my TSB chart (Apols if these aren’t standard training peaks colours):

Blue – chronic training load
Red – acute training load
Yellow – training stress balance.

Pretty clear my fitness is massively off my Kona levels. Not surprising given I probably had the best 3-4 months training leading up to Kona. TSB is currently zero and with more or less just rest left between me and the race it will become positive. Hopefully I’ll be pretty fresh.

So the numbers don’t look great but how do I feel. In the pool I’m ok. Not feeling on fire but when I put my foot down I’ve still got pace – 1.12 for 100m. Todays tough swim round the course was done very easy effort in 65 minutes. So it can’t be that bad. On the bike it’s a similar story. Some days I’m feeling great and others not so good but definitely it’s improving. However whenever I get on the Tri Bars and push I’m feeling good. Most of my sessions since coming here have included a decent spell at Ironman and above effort levels. Running – I’ve felt great. It’s a relative thing though, not sure I’m feeling as good as I did in the good old days but it’s way above what I’ve felt in the run up to Kona. In the gym I felt horribly weak more or less till my last session.

So in conclusion. I’m feeling pretty rested and still have some rest left. I think I’ll have a solid race. With luck a sub 5 hour bike split and an encouraging run. On the run the aim is to run the whole thing and second to get sub 4 hours. With that I think I’ll be a good way towards qualifying at New Zealand.

The last 3 days of last week got me out doing some good long rides. First was with Russell out to Capel and a big loop from there. It was the nicest ride I’ve done here and rolling for a good portion of it. We kept it ticking along getting 140k done at an average of 30km/h.

Saturday Jo and I drove out to Nannup and did an even nicer ride out to Pemberton and back along Sears Road. The picture above is of Jo going over the final (70km/h) decent in to Nannup. That was 176k in just under 7 hours. It was a pretty easy effort level but whatever the effort the legs ache after those hours in the saddle.

Finally Sunday with Russell for a final ride out to Margaret River for more Magic Slice. I certainly felt the previous 4 days in my legs out to Margaret River but kept reminding myself this was the last push before REST REST REST. Some of it was lack of fuel though as I felt a lot better on the way back. I TT’d behind Russell along Mowen road and then on Sues road had a great 40+km/h blast for 15 – 20 minutes. That made me feel good and realise that even if the legs felt trashed they could still crank it. Very encouraging.

To finish…

On that ride we saw a load of Kangaroos in the shade under a tree: