Here’s a picture of a dog that came and brought a smile to my face as I flaked out on the grass outside a garage during my ride on Tuesday. My legs had detonated 40km back.

The plan following Epic Camp was to have a week focussed on recovery followed by a week aimed at getting back into the rhythm of training again. The major part of recovery for me is allowing my body to take the sleep it requires. Now I’m full time this means I can start not setting my alarm or ignoring it. 98 hours of sleep in 10 days post Epic is a sure sign I was pretty darn tired. Last night, having stayed up later than planned watching “Day of The Triffids”, my alarm woke me after only 7 hours but I felt fully motivated to get up. One sign of coming out of recovery.

This week started well with swim, gym and run on Monday. I felt OK so decided to do a decent ride on Tuesday but not worry about the pace. I probably should have realised that 10 hours sleep and skipping the squad swim indicated I was still tired but I thought just cruise the ride, you’ll be ok. I headed off on The Gorges route – fairly easy 150km ride. I was planning on keeping the pace down but after an hour or so along the nicest bit of the route I found myself down on the aero bars feeling pretty comfortable at 35 km/h. Just went with that feeling to Oxford. Felt it was best to err on the side of caution so I stopped for a proper lunch  Pie, sausage roll and chips shows I’m not quite in serious training yet … it was lovely.

About an hour after this as I turned on to The Old West Coast Road and into the headwind my legs detonated. Suddenly no juice. I’d find myself going along quite happily at a decent click for a couple of K and then need to freewheel, stand up. It was painful and I had to endure it for over an hour. Roll on Yaldhurst and the garage. 1.5l of diet coke and a King Size Chunky kit kat together with a 20 minute sit on the lawn with a lovely big furry calming white dog for company and I felt a lot more chipper.

Off to Cam’s bike shop I went to get one of my new wheels that I won on Epic Camp. Now, if you follow my twitter feed you’ll have seen I change tyre / tube 10 times here’s how it went

1&2 – switch tyres on both wheels first thing to keep my Epic tyre for best ;o)
3 – puncture 2kms from Cam’s – big staple through tyre
4 – re-puncture 1km from Cams – ride it in flat
5 – fix puncture but it re-punctures – cause unknow
6&7 – remove both tyres from race wheels – one to replace worn out tyre, other to for new wheel
8 – remove tyre from borrowed wheel to get rim tape (thats another story)
9 – put new tyre on new front wheel
10 – replace old tyre on rear wheel (and change cassette)

Chat with Cam for a bit then get bike to leave and find rear FLAT again …. number 11 !!

Yesterday I got out for my long run. Out to Godley Head to run the same route we did on Epic but extended at start and end with some flat running. Felt so much better than on Epic and was pleased with how I was running. As I ran I thought how low a standard what I’m now pleased with is. I ran a hilly 2 hours but thinking back to when I was running consistently well at Ironman that was a standard run back at my mums – a hilly 2hr run. It wasn’t my long run it was just a day to day run and almost always the last 30 minutes would be fast. I would run the second half faster back in those days just because it felt good, it felt right not through any believe in it being the right training regime. Now, however, having spoken to Clas it’s a goal of my long training runs. Yesterday I put it into practise and ran the last few KMs on the flat at a good intensity.

This morning I finally got along to a Rolly Swim Squad. As we approached the pool in the car I so didn’t want to swim, I felt so drained. In the pool it was a revelation. Without much effort I was coming in on 4:05 for 300s. With paddles it was even easier (unusual for me). The memory of the feeling as I approached the pool  has meant I’ve taken the afternoon off. In the pool I had one stroke where my shoulder felt funny. In the gym I could feel it and had to drop a lot of exercises. I be skipping upper body gym till it settles.

From next week I’ll be starting 3-4 weeks of focussed training for Taupo. The length depends on whether I go for a 2 week taper or do the 5 day rest up I did for Busselton. At the moment I’m favouring the latter. My plan is execute the following week each time:

• MONDAY (~6.5 hrs) Squad swim followed by gym. Then 3-4 hour flat ride with intervals
• TUESDAY (~1.5 hrs) Squad swim.
• WEDNESDAY (~3 hrs) Long hilly run in Port Hills. Building to 3 hours (possibly longer).  Optional swim – either squad or easy post run
• THURSDAY (~6.5 hrs) Squad swim followed by gym. Then 3-4 hour hilly ride
• FRIDAY (~9 hrs) Squad swim. Long ride (Gorges, German Road, Cust, Oxford, Old West Coast Road ~180km) followed by tempo 10k run. Intentionally keeping this the same route each week
• SATURDAY (~4 hrs) 1+ hr run. The rest is optional. If I need the rest I will take the rest of the day off. Hoping I will feel like doing either a squad swim or Corsair bay swim first thing. Would like to get a 3rd gym session in. May end up riding to keep Jo company but otherwise not.
• SUNDAY (~5.5 hrs) Long ride. This is to pander to my passion for riding. This training has to be fun. Allows me to go exploring, do a long ride, repeat routes, ride with a group. Imagine this will be a 5+ hour ride each week.

That gives about 36 hours of training. Hoping that will prime me up to bagsy my Kona slot at Taupo.