6 down, 6 to go....

Easter Sunday we were not only treated to some time off our pins, a leisurely coffee with friends Bryn, Zsu and the main man, their little man Levente but the Easter Bunny visited too. This Easter Bunny must know Ben and I very well!!!! Amongst our hidden treats were dark chocolate eggs, his favorite and some figs my favorite when I am craving a sweet hit. Ben and I did an egg hunt for Russ and Marg, true to form we made them work for it, i.e. burn some calories but they were rewarded. Clues and small teaser eggs lead them inside, outside, upstairs and downstairs until they found their heist chocolate Easter bunnies, blue for boy and gold for girl!!

Monday we were in the pool early for a swim analysis session where the video camera reveals warts and all. By that I mean there is no hiding from it, we do not have warts! This technology is fantastic, allowing the swimmer to see exactly what you are doing right but more to the point wrong. The underwater camera films your every move then you watch the recording on the laptop right there and then, there is no hiding from Big Brother!! This session was great for both Ben and I in our quest to become “fish” in the pool. The remaining 2 disciplines that make up a triathlon monopolized our time for the remainder of the day.

The working week, Tues to Fri I was bombarded with long training days, 6 to 7 hours of training per day is no longer classed as a one off or two off!! Exhausted and bed by 8.30pm are going hand in hand with our l l o o o n n n n g g g g g days!! If you are wondering what the h**l we do to fill a day with up to 7 hours of training, grab a pen and paper and get scribbling!!!:

Run 1 hour, Swim 5k up to 2 hours in the pool, Bike hilly 4 hour ride
Or
6 hour brick session: Bike 5 hours, 150k which include above race pace 15k time trial efforts, which means moving my leg as fast as they can turn, teeth start to show, indicative of the effort!! Followed by an hour run of efforts, yes you have guessed it, they too are at an elevated heart rate level. 1 hour swim.

There was little let up over the weekend training kept testing me. 5k swim, 4 hour hilly ride, 10x1mile repeats up and down the beach, just shy of panting pace were amongst the treats Ben had in store for us! Monday we were very lucky to have a willing, accommodating and very punctual taxi service available to us, Ben’s mum and dad. We hit the road at 6.30am on our bikes, destination Yamba about 150k’s away on a very beautiful route which included a short ferry crossing. What a way to celebrate being away for 6months hey!?!?

Parents were left with a handwritten note detailing a time and meeting point for T2. Literally as the clock would be striking 12.30pm our ETA, we rode up Yamba high street to be greeted by Russ and Marg. No prizes for guessing what we did here, quick change (on the road side!) into another lycra strip trainers on and we were off for a 40 min trot. That’s another day with nearly 7 hours of training done. Bikes packed, few calories consumed, we were back with our chauffeurs being whisked home for yet needed more calories. A quick coffee / caffeine pit stop was made to the delight of driver and passengers.







This week we put some final touches to our next big road trip, the one North to Cairns for our BIG day out!! On route from Coff’s to Cairns we will be stopping at Yeppoon and Bowen to break the journey up and keep the training ticking over. A 4 night stay in cabins have been booked for Yeppoon, they look so cute and a 3 night stay in Bowen, Garden View apartment this time.

In the last blog I talked of wall to wall sunshine, it has been somewhat more disrupted this week with some heavy down pours and cooler temperatures, notably overnight. The cooler air temperatures mean swimming in the outside pool is sorting the men from the boys!! Not sure which camp we fall into, I will leave that up to you!? For reference, we have either been in the inside, heated 25m pool or outside, in the 50m pool with our wetsuits on! For what it is worth the “sensible” camp is what I earnestly believe we should be pigeon holed in to!

I have been dipping in and out of the blog over the past few days, rest day today which means some energy to tap away and get this complete. Although a rest day we did sneak in over an hour of conditioning (no hair treatments!!), bottom, ab's and so on strengthening exercises, push, squeeze, clench got the picture, as i am not putting a picture up!!!

Ben looks like he is about to grab 40 winks, before he does i must strike with the WD40 our bikes need a clean and some TLC. We will be back with another update once we have smashed ourselves again, eaten enough food to feed a small army and hopefully taken the locals down in the last of the season Coff's tri club race!