What Not to Wear!

Well I'm sat here after successfully swimming, cycling and running my way through just over 200km today - pretty big day at the office all round! I had been psyching myself up for my 'Big Sunday' since the middle of the week so when my alarm rang out this morning I was ready and focused for the day ahead. After a solid swim down at my local pool I layered up with a couple of thermal polyprops and headed out on my bike to the Eastern hills of Miranda. I pushed out a 6 hour ride broken only by a puncture just before the halfway mark and had a decent paced run off the bike firing up to full speed within a couple of kms! So delirious with my accomplishment for the day I happily posed for the attached picture on my return home only to realise now that I could have done with running the GHD's through the curls first!

It feels good to have finished a solid week with a successful day and to have again got through every session with ticks in all the boxes - all in all training hours this week tipped the scales at 23. Aside from my Super Sunday my other key sessions for the week were a hard bike interval session tagged with the simple instruction from Tony to time trial each effort - nice! I had another key long swim session of 5km and my key run session was short and sharp -descending 800m track reps.

I have just got my programme through for my next block of training - the end of which is race week......eeeekk! Next week is a big run week which can only mean one thing - concrete monster time!!! It also features a 90km cycle time trial on Saturday so I will be looking to break my previous PB of 2hour 24min at that. The time trial will be a good oppertunity to practice race nutrition and also pacing - hopefully simulating an ascending effort and negative split for the second 45km.

Having spent most of the previous week sourcing nutrition for my month in Hawaii this week I focused on race wear! I have deliberately held off on getting this until now as I wanted to be as close to race weight as possible to ensure the best possible fit! I have recieved so much advice over the last few weeks on what not to wear on race day that I was finding it difficult to make any kind of decision on clothing for any part of the day!! Due to the extreme temperatures and humidity in Kona what you wear I have been told can make or break you....dark colours are deemed an absolute No No, tight lycra on the run viewed as risky and the balance between exposed skin versus unexposed skin crucial in balancing sunburn prevention with over heating!! I need to find a swim skin that had been approved by the American Triathlon Federation (USAT) in light of all the controversy surrounding them in recent months and also think about a complete change of clothes from run to bike - I usually race an Ironman in a two piece tri suit and chuck a pair of cycle shorts over the top for the bike so the thought of actually having to get naked in the changing tents is more unnerving at the moment than the thought of taking my place on the start line!! Needless to say this week has mostly comprised of me buying random white stuff that I'm hoping will eventually come together to form the perfect race ensemble! Current plan is to take as many options as I can with me and then spend a couple of weeks trying different combinations until I find what works!!

So it's only 8 days until I get on the plane to Hawaii and I have just 3 days at work left before my leave officially starts! Hard to believe that this time next week I will be 2 sleeps away from starting my 4 week build up to race day in Hawaii!! Aloha!

Bye for now!