I had a day's holiday from work today to do the 2nd of my 3 planned half ironman race simulations. I was hoping to do exactly the same as last time although this option was taken away when I looked at the swimming pool opening times and was somewhat annoyed to see that you are only allowed to swim in the mornings if you are over 60! Not particularly helpful for me.
Found another local pool that was not quite so ageist but being a bit further away decided that I would swim, drive home and then do the bike and a full 21.1km run rather than split in 2 like last time.
Swimming pool was actually much better that they one I have used before, they had 3 lanes roped off and each was nice and wide, I started as the pool opened so there were only 2 other people in the lane and it was easy to overtake so I had an uninterrupted swim, completed the 1.9km in 36.03 without too much bother. I'm quite happy with my swimming at the moment, I swam 36 minutes in Geelong last year and I know that I am faster in the open water with a wetsuit on so doing that sort of time in the pool is a good sign. We also did a split 1500m at the squad session on Tuesday (500, 400, 300, 200, 100 with various different efforts during each set and approx 30 seconds rest in between each block) I did this in 25.30 (excluding the rests), given that my best 1,500m race time is about 29 minutes, I've clearly made some progress.
Anyway, back to today, despite the drive home from the pool, I was out on the bike within 20 minutes of finishing the swim, same course as last time although a bit more traffic to contend with and this time the wind was more of a problem for the second half of the ride. My nutrition plans had to be changed half way round when having just finished one of my bottles of sports drink, the other one was ejected from the seat mounted bottle holder courtesy of a huge pothole. I did stop to see if I could recover it only to see it obliterated by a couple of trucks and a few cars!! SO with no liquid left I didn't really want to eat much more as I need to be able to wash it down with something otherwise stomach troubles are never far away. Apart from that the ride was ok, time was not great but with plenty of traffic etc I'm not too worried, total time was 3.08.57.
I was pretty thirsty when I got home so chucked some water in and took a gel, put the running stuff on, this time with a camelback full of 1.5l of sports rink and 4 gels in my pockets and set out for the run. Run was ok, I kept my HR on track for the first 45 minutes or so but then probably let it go a bit higher than I should of and as a result faded a bit towards the end, although the run home was uphill and into the wind so probably not quite as bad as the time would suggest, Half marathon (ish) completed in 1.56.56 so an overall time of about 5.40 is similar to last time.
Didn't feel too bad afterwards, obviously tired but recovered pretty well after some food and a shower. I'm still not 100% happy with my nutrition, so will keep making changes until it feel right.
Back into my normal training for the rest of the week with a long swim tomorrow and then an easier day on Friday before another big weekend. I expect I will get close to the 100 mile mark on my ride on Saturday which is always a nice milestone.
Have been enjoying watching the cricket for the rest of today and have the champions league semi-final tonight to watch so my legs are getting a good rest!
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