A watery weekend of training

This weekend's been a pretty intense little exercise in pushing the boundaries of training.

I originally had a 32km bike ride planned with a friend, but with that cancelled at the last minute we instead headed off to a nearby aquatic centre - primarily for the sake of the kids. But amidst turns on the water-slide, plays in the wave pool and general shenanigans both myself and the Mrs. fitted in a few laps of the pool...

...May I say, I'm glad the swim legs aren't that long!! At this stage I reckon I can manage the 40m expected of me but that's about it! After one short lap of the pool (just over 40m) the heart was pounding and the head spinning and the lungs screaming for air. I'd forgotten just how strenuous swimming is - Which encourages me to find some more time to do as much as I can - both for the swim legs and just for general fitness. So we'll be trying to head back to the pool every fortnight or so and fit in a bit more between now and then.

Then on Sunday I got up at dawn for the first group training session. The wind was blowing and the rain was pretty heavy as I drove down there, so I wasn't totally surprised on arrival to find I was the only one who'd shown up!! So after waiting a while I decided I might as well make the most of it, and headed off regardless. The first part had me worried - A steady downhill followed by a long, trudging uphill through the rain right to the highest point of the park had me feeling lethargic and useless... No way I can do this!! Despondently I headed off along the ridge track and managed to stumble myself into a slow jog... But then something strange happened. The track continued, gently meandering through the forest for many kms - And amazingly, so did I! Still jogging!! It was almost an out-of-body experience as I continued jogging along for several kms, still feeling ok and wondering how I was doing this. I can only assume that the training is paying off....

When I eventually stopped and looked back I felt remarkably proud of myself - Something which does not happen much! So with that pride I then took some detours from my planned route to pick up some geocaches in the park, making the trip a bit more worthwhile and finishing up with a 12km total. I also discovered my planned route got me a bit lost so I'll be revisiting the track route before our next outing here (which hopefully will be in greater numbers!) The rainy morning also gave me the experience of running in mud and soggy shoes, which is something I better get used to.

And then this morning was my first morning of the TM workout/cycle to work combination. Worked pretty well actually, although managing to stomach food at that hour and amidst that exercise is going to be my greatest challenge I think.