Kona Video Diary 4

Three hours on the Queen K (+ a puncture + losing half my fluid when while I was repairing the aforementioned puncture) meant this ice bath was soooo sweet. BTW, I'm wearing shorts.

Kona Video Diary 3

Morning all! Had a great start to the day, although everyday is great! Ocean swim at 7am, course still isn't marked so did 1.2miles with a pack in about 3omins and then another 1/4mile with a local guy called Todd who was really helpful. The went to Lava Java with him and his family for an amazing breakfast. Pretty easy day today so heading out with Todd again for an hours run at the Energy Lab.

Kona Video Diary 2

I'm here!

Kona Video Diary 1

It's not quite "aloha" yet, more "howdy". I've landed in San Fran and am currently utilising the potent combination of coffee, endorphins, Twitter and blogging to try to stay awake for another 4 hours by which time my body will think it's 6am and the actual time will be about 10pm. Enjoy the first of many videos leading up to and immediately following the race itself. Apologies for the God-awful gurning before you press play, I ain't exactly an oil painting but it certainly doesn't reflect me in a positive light!

Today was my last BIG training session before Kona. All three disciplines would get a look in but by far the most daunting was the 4 hours turbo @IM pacing. I decided to document the session with a small photo diary, partly to look back on in future but mostly to break the monotony of working your arse off for 4 hours and going nowhere!Will it be enough?
The calm before the sweaty, sweaty storm.

Half way, looking quite fresh all things considered.

DONE! Now just a 10k run to do.

And, as an extra special treat to say sorry for not blogging for AGES, here is a short video of me just going through 2 hours... it managed to kill about 3 minutes so was totally worth it!

Bitter Sweet

I've been incommunicado for a while on the blogging front (at least compared to my normal prolific blogging rate) and, for once, quite allot has happened. I'm fit! Unfortunately that's fit in the sense of being able to run rather than the type of "fit" I would hope to be a measly 20 days from what was supposed to be the crowing jewel of my tri career thus far. It's all a little bit bitter-sweet to be honest. Going from planning to hit my best race, to beginning to deal mentally with starting knowing I couldn't finish, to my present state of being elated that I will be able to "race", but having to accept that in terms of AG plaudits I won't be able to "race".

My bike and run are the strongest they have ever been and the numbers I've been seeing are very encouraging but my run just isn't there, as you would expect from 6 weeks of no running. I don't really know what to expect on the day so we'll just have to wait and see. I suppose I'll be getting a clearer idea of what is possible in the coming days especially when I land in Kona in under a week!!! Where does the time go?

It's a huge juxtaposition to IMSA where everything had gone with militaristic precision for the previous 6 months. Since coming back from South Africa in April I have had to deal with three injuries (two of them minor but taking out about a week and my most recent effort) and one stomach bug. Also, I'd be lying if I said I'd dealt with the injury well and, as a found myself doing as a younger, fatter lad, solace was found in food. As a result of this I am not quite as svelt as I was 4 months ago. What sort of difference this makes remains to be seen.

Last big training day is tomorrow and it's a quite frankly masochistic 4hours on the turbo @IM pace with a 10k run off. Hopefully I'll have some pictures so you can get a feel for just how sweaty the last 30 minutes were... time to hydrate me thinks!