Wow, so much has changed since I last updated on here. I thought it was time to start regulary updating again as training is getting back into swing now!
So since my last race of the season (London Triathlon) I took a few weeks off, which was really nice, spent lots of time with family and friends!
Then i had to get organised for University, I moved to Loughborough so that i could access the High Performance center but I am at Uni in Nottingham. Serious time managment skills needed for that one!
Literally as soon as i had arrived in Loughborough i was out on a long run when i got chased by a dog and ended up pulling one of my quad muscles!! pretty painful. So I was out of running for 8 weeks... I started last week doing some really short runs and now I am up to 30mins, which is a vast improvement on barely being able to walk.
I have been doing a fair amount of riding, allthough i fell pretty unfit on the bike at the moment.
Swimming is tough as i am in the process of changing my stoke..... hard to remember at 6am!! lol
It's getting there though.... just need to keep at it!
I now have a new coach at Loughborough and up untill Christmas i am focusing on strengh, conditioning and running dills.

It took me longer to recover from my heat exhaustion that I first anticipated, I did a few sessions early on in the week on Monday and Tuesday but they just made me sick so I took a few days off, did a really long and painful ride on friday but then felt sick again so I started a fresh on Monday.
Swimming club is on holiday for 2 weeks so I haven’t been swimming, but on a positive it has given me more time to focus on bike/run.
Monday I got up early and did a 60min treadmill session, I put the incline on 1.5 for the first 30mins and then put it up to 2 for the second half. I feel that running at around a 2.0 incline is most like running outdoors. I started on a steady speed but increased it every 10mins until the last set was pretty much max effort.
Later that afternoon I did 3 x 15km loop on my bike as 1 x Mod, 1 x Hard, 1 x Mod, there were strong winds over the second half of the loop and I really had to put my head down and power through, I felt good though so after my 3rd loop I did a quick transition and ran for 20mins off the bike. The 1st 10mins as max sustainable pace and the 2nd half as easy home. I felt really smooth and light which was reassuring after how I felt racing last weekend. Then I iced which felt soooo good!

Tuesday I had a brick race in Belchford, I decided to ride there and back which was just less than 20km each way and it poured down with rain the whole time! The race was 19km bike with a few big hills thrown in followed by a 4km run up a very steep hill and back down. My legs were slightly sore from yesterday but generally I felt good, coming off the bike I felt really light and smooth again, I actually ran pretty fast for me! I won the race, even beat all the guys! and I took away the female record. Riding home sucked because it was 9pm, dark and raining, but it did my legs good to spin them out after the race.

Yesterday I had massive withdrawal symptoms from not swimming so I went down to the pool in a public session, bad decision, it was full of children and babies and I couldn’t get much swimming in. I managed to swim a broken up 3km of various things before I gave up and headed home for lunch.
That afternoon I went to the gym and did another 60min treadmill session, I did the same session as Monday, just increasing the tempo, focusing on leg speed. At one point I went to fast for the machine and ran into the front of the treadmill, giving myself a dead leg! Just my luck that the gym was full of people.
Then I did some core work and weights, followed by 10mins on the bike to cool down.

Today I am heading out on a long ride with my riding partner…..

Michelob London Triathlon

I did my first drafting Olympic distance race on Sunday, it was such a fantastic experience to race in a senior elite field.
The swim was fast, very fast. There were 3 leaders that i managed to hang on to for about 700m then i got dropped, i was suffering so bad after that buti kept pushing as i knew i had a good minute lead over the next pack of swimmers. I had a clean transition becasue there was noone around and just as i was mounting my bike i heard the commentator shout "here comes Dillon, Whitcombe and Cave" I couldn't beieve i had beaten them out the water by so far!!
I decided that it wasn't worth me chasing down the 2 girls thats were leading as they were to far away so i sat up and waited for the chase pack to come through.
It was awesome to be in a bike pack with athletes who i admire, who i used to watch on TV several years ago and wish i could one day be like them.
As soon as i got on the run i knew there was something wrong.... i had nothing... i didn't know if it was the heat or nutrition so i tried to drink as much as i could and took a gel. It didn't help, i trotted along at an agonsing pace, 4mins off my usual pace. I kept pushing as i knew i was in 7th place.
I don't remeber much after i crossed the line, i collapsed and was taken to the hospital tent on a stretcher. When i came round i was coverd in ice, had an IV and oxygen. My temp was 41.8!!!
After a few hours and a few bags of fluid i was good enough to leave and my temp was back down.
Im ok today, took a day off to get over the heat exhaustion. I went for a 60min run yesterday, nice and easy.

Back in England

At the finish of the Busselton Half Iron man, i ran the 21km, was exhausted at this point.

This one was taken at the start of the half marathon.... all smiles at this point.

I landed back in the UK on Monday after training for 6months in Australia, i had such an amazing experience and i can't wait until i head back to Perth to train with UWA again.

In general training has been going well, my running has been the most consistent and i have seen a great improvment in speed. Over the past few weeks we have increased our running volume and added hill repeats. I have been doing more 5/10/21km races which are really good training workouts. I feel like im in the best running shape of my life.

My riding has been a bit hit and miss recently, i usualy like to ride around 200-250km per week, with 2 of the rides quality, but i have only been doing 150km with stockbrokers as my 1 quality ride. Despite this i shocked myself a few weeks ago when i did a 2min PB in a 36km hills TT, so i guess its hard for me to tell where i am at with my cycling.

Swimming is always a tough one for me, i have been swimming the same speed for the past 5 years....which isnt bad, im usually one of the 1st out of the water but during my time in Australia swimming took a back seat, our club only swims 3 times per week with an average of 5km per session, so i doubt i will see any improvement there. Hopefully once i get to uni next month and start training with Jack and can get some more time in the pool and start to notice an improvement.

Allthough i feel in good shape i feel like i have so much further to go, like i can be so much better...all i need is to get back into a routine or structured programme.

Back into the swing....

Training has officialy begun again with everyone appart from Dr Drake, Coco and myelf nice and fresh from 4 weeks off.
I was prepared for a spanking first week back and i was right. We had a 1km swim TT which didn't bother me because i felt that my swimming with Suzette had been going well. I didn't get a Pb but it was only 15secs or so off.
I had a 5km running race in Freo on Sunday where i won and ran a Pb which was great because the course was pretty undulating and I know that i can go faster than that becasue there were no other girls around so i didn't push it. The rest of the day i just slept and went out for dinner with friends.
Monday swim was great, has to be the easiest swim session Grant had ever given us! Great recovery session. In The afternoon we did a 12km run along the City to Surf route.
Tuesday morining i did a 40km group ride followed by track in the afternoon where we did 8x800m as 400m max 400m mod. I found it hard and was feeling sick by about the last 2 repeats.
Wednesday morining swim was hard and long. We swam 5km and the main set was 12X100m coming i at 1:10 - 1:15. I was so drained afterward but still headed out for Stockbrokers ride which is around 65km, as usual i red lined for about 90mins until i got dropped and had to ride the remainder on my own into headwind! :(
Thursday morning i dont know how i managed to get out of bed.... i was so sore from the day before... and to make matters worse i turned up to the 6am track session only to find we had to do 9x1km at your 5km pace! I definatley lost my sence of humor that morning! :)
Then we hopped into the pool for a recovery swim which was great. All day my legs ached... the same painful ache you get after a race!! In the afternoon we had an easy spin on the Windtrainer whilst we sorted out or goals for ther season.
Friday morning was supposed to be a hard swim but i slept through my alarm! I was so mad at myslef when i woke up..... i hate it when i unintentionally miss a session.... now i have been feeling guilty all day!
Tomorrow we have the 36km TT in the Hills and it is going to kill me... literally......so maybe it's a good thing that i had today off.

The past month or so has flown by and i have been so busy training, working and sorting out University that i have neglected this blog.
It is now the end of the season in Australia so our club is having a month off. However I am still training hard for some upcomnig races in Europe.
A few weeks ago i ran my first hlaf marathon at the Busselton Half Ironman Triathlon, and i can honestly say i have never experienced pain like i did that day! The first 7km i went too fast, i was running around my 10km pace and so by the last 7km i had nothing left, my legs had cramped and i felt like crawling on my hands and knees. I ran 1 hr 32 mins, but plan to beat that by around 5mins when i do the Fremantle half marathon in a few weeks time.
While our Tri club is on a break i have been swimming with another swim squad, the session are awesome becasue they are always around 6km and they are so much harder than the ones i usually do. Last Monday the main set was 15 x 400m!! We have been doing lots of hypoxic work with is working really well with me because it is benificial in triathlon, espacially in open water starts. I have been running track once a week and doing losts of longer runs with races at the weekends. As for riding i have been doing my usual group rides, which includes the testosterone filled Stockbrokers ride in which i red line for the whole 65km.
Training with UWA starts again in just over a week and i can't wait, i need Grant to crack his whip with me and i am looking forward to getting back into a routine with set sessions.
I am sick at the moment, i have a chest infection and have lost my voice so i am not training for the next few days. I will post again next week with what training i have been doing each day.

Training.

We have eased off the heavy training over the past week becasue we are racing this Sunday. It feels great to have a little more energy than usual.
On Monday we swam around 4km, the main set was 3x 15x50m fartlek work, we also encorporated some drafing into the final set. I felt good and worked pretty hard.
Then in the afternoon we had an hour gym session foloowed by a short run of 6km, the first 3km was easy pace keeping the group together and the second 3km was hard. I was tired but pushed hard as it was only 3km.
Tuesday morining i rode a 40km group ride, it was a really varied pace ride, some bits were really tough and other bits were comfortable. I flet sore on the hills.
Tuesday afternoon we have track, Tuesday is usually a solid workout but becasue of the race it was easier. We did a 5km warm up followed by 2x5x400m target pace below 1:20 for me and a 2km cool down.
Wednesday morning swim was a great session the main set was 6x250m pull 6x150m hard and 6x50m hard. Felt really smooth in the pull and fast in the 50's.
Wednesday afternoon we had another gym session, i only did arm and body weights as my legs were fatigued from track. Then we had 90mins of windtrainer, where we did mostly fast cadence work.
Thursday morining we had track, i was sore from windtrainer so i found it hard. We did 3km warm up followed by drills and 6x200m. Then the main set was 10 x 400m continus as 1 max 1 recovery followed by 10x100m max. Then we headed to the pool were we did a few km's of drills and tech work.
Thursday afternoon we did an easy 30km group ride down the freeway path, me and a few of the guys decided to push the last 3km as hard as we could so the whole ride wasn't as easy as our coach had planned. Plus we had a near pile up when a few riders decided to check themeselves out in the reflective glass of the brewery! haha.
The Plan from here is to swim on friday, ride to the race course on Saturday to check it out which will be about 40km with a short swim in the river to check out the temp beofre the race on sunday!