Cairns Ironman

It seemed to take forever for Melbourne Ironman to get here and before you know it Melbourne is done and Cairns is just 2 weeks away. Our training has been less demanding since Melbourne, mainly so we can get to Cairns in as good a condition as possible. Leanne and I sometimes feel we’re underdone but weekends like this restore the faith thanks to some solid rides and runs. Training will start to taper now giving the legs and mind a chance to freshen up.

Leanne’s been doing her Long rides with a friend of ours who gets much pleasure out of squeezing every ounce of energy from her, but the result has been an increase in her average speed and a better frame of mind. Leanne wasn’t that far away in Melbourne and I, like many of our friends, are confident Cairns will be the result she’s looking for. It will certainly be an emotional finishing chute .

For me, a 10k run on Friday , 85 k ride followed by a 7k run on Saturday was confidence building, but it also gave me a chance to try out my new bike fit I had done 3 days before. While I had been reasonably comfortable on my bike there were a few issues that needed to be resolved. You never stop learning about your body and what makes it work efficiently. I wore a short sleeve skin under my cycling jersey to keep me warm . 20k into the ride I was struggling a little with my breathing and put it down to just one of those days. So I ploughed on puffing like a steam train until I made the the 60k mark where I stopped for a toilet break feeling quite warm I removed my skin . I jumped back on my bike to finish the ride, before I knew it the breathlessness I was experiencing had gone. The skin was quite tight and was restricting my breathing , lesson learned.

I received some great feed back during the week in relation to this blog and would like to thank you all for your kind words. In particular Vanessa Smith thanks for your kind words your blog is a must read , informative and full of inspiring stories keep spreading the word.