Monday 9 February 2009

Brain transplant required

A pretty eventful weekend this weekend, despite it being my recovery week in training. I had a very easy 4 hour ride scheduled for Saturday, the snow had pretty much cleared from last week so I had it in my head that I would go out for as long as I could bear the cold and then come back and finish off any time remaining on the indoor trainer, rather than trying to spend 4 hours n the trainer again.


We had another sprinkling of snow n Friday night but when I go up on Saturday morning the roads looked clear so I put all the layers on I could find and got ready to head out. For some reason the weather forecast saying very cold with icy roads didn't quite register, I clearly thought I was invincible and headed out.


I was actually quite enjoying the ride, taking it pretty steady but wasn't too cold, was sticking to the main roads and riding in the wheel tracks of the cars as there was no frost in there. I probably should have started to worry when my computer was reading -2 at the top of a hill but clearly I had switched the brain off, turned onto another road and started heading down hill. SO, going downhill on a side road, -2 yet somehow I still carry on. I'm sure you can guess the next bit....


The first I knew of the ice was as I was sliding down the road on my belly, absolutely no warning but the tyres just lost all grip and I hit the road pretty hard, due to the ice I didn't stop and probably skidded about 50m down the road. Looking back at my computer data it seems I was doing about 28km/h when I came off. As I started to slow down I think my brain re-engaged and I realised just how stupid I had been. Luckily I was not too badly injured, managed to ruin one of my gloves and whacked my right wrist and hip pretty hard but due to the amount of layers I had on and the ice there was not too much road rash to report.


It really dawned on me how stupid I had been when I tried to pick myself up off the floor, I couldn't even stand up it was that icy, quite how I thought I would be able to ride on that I don't know. I was abut 20km from home though so I walked back up to the top of the hill and then rode home very gingerly, luckily no further incident although my confidence was obviously in pieces so it took a while.


I was then angry with myself for risking all of the training that I have been doing, so punishment was to spend the next 2.5 hours on the wind-trainer, luckily no ice in the kitchen so that was pretty uneventful!


The wrist got worse on Saturday and I was thinking that I may go and get it x-rayed but as I write this it seems to be easing a little so I'm fairly sure its just a bit of bruising. Hopefully lessons have been learned though.


On Sunday, both Erika and I were taking part in a 10k event at the Triathlon, Running and Cycling show at Sandown racecourse. Another cold morning greeted us but after the good 4k race last week I was quite looking forward to trying to set a good time. Coach Rob had put this into Erika's training program as she builds back up towards the half marathon at the end of March.


The race was 3 laps and it was much more undulating that I thought it would be so was really tough going. My aim was to set out at the same pace that I had done the 4k race in and see if I could hold it for the longer distance. Jenson Button was running the event which was pretty cool, he's quite fast though, even without the car and he managed to beat me by 3 minutes which was a shame! I started pretty well, managed to get to 5km in 20.09 (an new pb!) but I could tell that I was struggling a bit, the rest of the second lap was tough going, and I could tell that I was slowing but the heart rate was still up around the 180 mark which is pretty much full tilt for me so I knew that I was giving it as much as I had. I was happy to get to the 8km mark and had 1 k down hill and the final k back up hill. Felt a bit stronger over the last part and pulled a few places back on the last uphill section, finishing in 50th place (274 starters) in a new 10km pb of 41.20 which overall I was happy with. Here's the elevation (lover line) and hear rate profile from the run, you can see why it was pretty hard work:

My body (apart from the wrist and the hip) feels pretty good after the recovery week. Work is going to be very busy over the next few weeks so it will largely be a case of trying to keep it ticking over during that time, more snow forecast for Tuesday so that may also affect things.

We also enjoyed watching the live athlete tracker from the Geelong Half Ironman on Saturday night, it was a year since I did the race and most of the guys that I did it with last year were dong it again. Everyone seemed to have a great race and I was very jealous, would loved to have been there rather than sliding down and icy road!

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