Some people had suggested that 2 weeks hiking at high altitude would do wonders for my training - they were wrong. After 3 months break from all Triathlon training, it was a very hard slog back to fitness.
We arrived back in Melbourne Saturday night, 23rd April. Sunday morning I went for an easy 55km ride - unfortunately there was nothing easy about it. This was followed by a very slow 2.9km run (6m45s per km). Everything was stiff.
Monday I ventured for a 4.4km run. This time I managed 6m38s per km, but still stiff.
Tuesday I went for swim. My last swim was at Geelong 70.3 where I posted my best swim time ever, so I entered the pool full of confidence. I nearly drowned. Just making it to the other end of the pool was a matter of life or death. When I first started triathlon I could not swim at all, but even then I don't remember it being this difficult. Determined to claw back my fitness I went for a 6.8km run at lunchtime, this time as a blistering pace of 6m14s per km.
Wednesday was time to drop back to a recovery run. 3km at 6m49s per km - I didn't actually know I could run that slow.
Motivation growing I ran 9.4km on Thursday averaging 6m04s per km. Still not feeling anything like good, but things seem to be heading in the right direction.
Friday, back to the pool. Would I survive? 1600m, felt like I swam the English Channel. Followed up at lunchtime with 3.4km run at 6m50s per km - a new record slowest pace.
Saturday long ride. With a lot of members training for the Cairns Ironman, the club ride was 170km including hill repeats. I managed 72km and got dropped by the girls on my first and only lap (they were doing 3 laps).
Time to get ambitious with the Sunday long run. 13km at 6m24s per km pace. Extremely slow, but happy to get in a long run so soon into my training.
From here it was a slow build. I tried to run 6 times a week (usually managed 5), swam twice and did a long ride on the Saturday.
By the end of the May I had achieved:
- longest ride of 119km to Sorrento
- longest run of 17km (5m59s per km pace)
- biggest weekly run mileage of 48km
- two consecutive training weeks of 11h55m
There was nothing fast, but I was loading up the body with mileage and so far nothing had fallen apart. Only 14 weeks to the 70.3 Worlds in Mooloolaba.
