Haulin' Ass

That's me this week and it's really only the beginning. Not liking my chances at feeling strong for the remainder of the week or even into Week 3 I might add. However, as my friends keep telling me "No pain, no gain".

Monday morning I had my first Personal Training session with coach Jodie. The hope is that she will be able to critique and improve my form not only in my run but in other facets of my Triathlon techniques. However, the Monday just gone was all about going for a run and then finding some hills so she could show me the technique I need to use when doing hill repeats.

We initially warmed up with about a 3km warm up and then it was time to tackle some hill repeats. And believe me, 4 was more than enough. The hill was only about 200m in length but was quite steep and the aim was to keep the same speed and form for all of them. Good in theory. However, come the 4th one and there was absolutely nothing pretty about it. All of a sudden it was like system shutdown. Core off - check, strong arms off - check, legs barely lifting off ground - check, make it to the top and heave - check, Lactic acid threshold reached - check. Wow, talk about being totally knackered. Anyway, making back to the gym wasn't too bad - the legs recuperated and then it was time to do some core work. Thanks for a great hour Jodie - hope I wasn't too painful.

Then Monday night it was back to the Windtrainer session with Eliza for some more strength work. It was much like last week only this time we had to do 3 x 9mins grinding big ring, hardest gear you can hold with a cadence of no more than 65 again. My legs were tired but not too bad, I was still able to talk and giggle through the class. We then cooled down with 3 laps of the oval. Sarah and I paced eachother quite well with the same tempo run and funny enough we wore almost the same clothes too.

Tuesday it was back out on the road for a run with hill repeats. This time my best friend Susan mentioned a stretch of road not far from the oval which has a good incline and is just over 300m in length. I was meant to do 8 but could only hit 6 - my left hip started to feel a bit dodgy and I had had it. In total with warm up and cool down plus hill repeats I ran 10.8km but by looking at my face you would have thought I ran 50km.

Yesterday was fairly ordinary. With totally trashed legs and a restless night's sleep - so much so I totally ripped the bed apart in my sleep, I had to do a 2hr ride with hill repeats. Not happening Jan. I had nothing and if it wasn't for my friends helping me along the way keeping me going - I would have liked to have gone home and back to bed. Thanks so much guys. I think I look a bit better this morning - atleast the luggage which had occupied the space underneath my eyes have disappeared a bit - leaving me only with a few handbags. The best bit about the ride was the coffee afterwards. Gees that hit the spot. I still managed to ride 44km in 1hr 40mins but it could have only been 10km if I had of had my way.

Well today is another day - and it is swim time and I am really looking forward to it. Lets see how this session goes.