Its been a long time since I posted on this blog and much has happened between then and now, but finally after over two years the end is nigh. Yes I am within spitting distance of the start line and two and a half years of training is finally going to be put to use.
When I first started this journey/madness I really didn’t understand the huge commitment in time and energy it would be to train to compete in a race like the Coast to Coast or how the training would change my body and my world view. There have been some tough times, I broke both physically and mentally along the way, but I have also fixed myself with the help of my family, coach, and friends. I no longer thing that going for a run is a strange thing to do. I ride to work and enjoy it, a 60k round trip that actually only adds 40 minutes to my daily commute. Not that I do that everyday, but at least once or twice a week.
Just Back in 2016 I tore my calf muscle which put me out of the race for 2017, mentally this was really hard to handle as all the hard work felt like it was for nothing. Some heart surgery early in 2017 meant that I didn’t start training again until May of that year but I am now ready to line up on the start line and run/ride/paddle across the South Island of NZ.
Even though I am probably fitter than I have ever been I still don’t feel like an athlete, I haven’t really lost much weight, although I have changed shape and gone down at least one size in Jeans and really do need a new belt… I’ve worn out two pairs of running shoes, worn through a pair of running shorts and found some really good winter running and cycling gear.
Sitting here in Christchurch two days before the event though, I do feel ready for race, my training has been good and I’m sure I’m able to get over the line, all that needs to happen now is for me to actually do it.
I’ve arranged a GPS tracker for the event so people can follow my progress (I’ll be the slow one at the back) using this link – https://coasttocoast2018.maprogress.com/?id=13162 or from the Coast to Coast homepage – my number is 2021.
Thanks to everyone who has supported me over the past two years, especially Jane, Jessica and Matthew who have put up with tired, hungry me on more than one occasion.
Yes its been a year since I began this journey! I have trained for over 220 hours, in sunshine, rain, fog, cloud, extreme wind and darkness. It’s been incredibly tough at times and occasionally even tougher than tough. I broke once, I almost broke several times but I got back on track generally after a decent nights sleep and a quiet pep talk to myself.
The strange thing is I’ve enjoyed most of those hours, I’ve learned to not only tolerate the weather, I’ve learned to enjoy it. Yes, when you look out the window and its raining, or dark or even just windy it seems really easy to tell yourself that you’ll make the miles up later, tomorrow, another day, but we all know that it won’t happen and when I do make the effort I find that I really enjoy being out in the elements.
There have had to be a number of changes though, the silly looking clothes that you see cyclists and runners wear, they work! There is a reason people wear Lycra on bikes and synthetic shirts and shorts for running, they keep you cool or warm depending on the weather. Winter kit is especially important, I have an Ultimate Direction ultra jacket for running – it was expensive, but it keeps the worst of the weather at bay in the driving rain and keeps me warm when its windy or cold.
Getting up early is still a hassle, and as I’ve been traveling a fair bit for work I have had the luxury of being able to do my session after work. The Taranaki has been great for my hill sessions on the bike and running, not so good for riding on the flat however.
Sleep is really important, more important than I ever thought possible. Its doubly so when you’re getting up at 5 to fit a 2 hour ride in before work. The one time I melted down, was because I was just dog tired and pulled the pin on my run after about 20 minutes, followed by a slow walk back home, even though there was not enough time to go back to sleep, the 20 minute spa before I got ready for work was pretty good for the soul.
Losing weight is more difficult than I would have thought – after the initial quick loss of 6kg I’ve plateaued and cant seem to move any more, not helped by restaurant meals when working away and the fact that I’m pretty much always hungry. Snacking has become a thing, finding good snacks that aren’t all sugar is more difficult than it should be.
I’ve also learned a lot about myself over the past year. I, like most of us can overestimate my own abilities – most notably with the purchase of a really cheap, really fast, really impossible multi sport kayak – a real Dunning Kruger moment. Sometimes however these overestimates have just been times where I was forced to push myself more than I would potentially have done if I had truly understood the ramifications of my choices, can you say 400+ meters climbing in the dark on a 90 minute ride. I have also learned that where I think I will break is a lot less than where I will break, in fact I don’t actually break, I just get a bit slower and keep going.
There have been some truly fantastic moments though, my first sub 30 minute 5k was pretty good and my first sub 60minute 10k was even better – the fact that these were in the same week was pretty awesome. Getting up French Pass was awesome, then seeing Jane’s and Chickens times on Strava was humbling. Paddling my kayak for 3 hours (24k) was a bit of a milestone, hitting 8k in my sea kayak was also pretty good. Going over 50k downhill was a rush, sitting at 40k on the flat was even more so.
Training for endurance sports is quite a selfish pursuit, its impossible to spend 3-4 hours a day on the weekend without impacting those around you, not to mention the fact that I’ve been tired for a year, distracted and hangry at times.
All in all its been a tough but rewarding year, having put in the hours I truly appreciate the efforts that Jane and Chicken put in when they are training for their events and am as always a little in awe of their tenacity and drive. I am really appreciative of all the sacrifices that Jane, Chicken and Buddy have made so far and the support that they have given me to date, its been as much a journey for them as it has been for me.
So what do you do when you find yourself lacking in motivation and drive? The option that I was going with to start off with was to go with it and enjoy my sleep-ins, except that I wouldn’t actually enjoy them, I would lie there beating myself up for not getting out of bed all the while staying in bed… some might label that a little on the stupid side, the least I could have done was skip a workout and enjoy the experience. Clearly this work avoidance scheme wasn’t working for me any more than trying to train without a plan was working for me. In fact it was beginning to feel like the photo above – well and truly out of control and in danger of crashing down.
Clearly it was time to bring some structure back to my training and to this end I have engaged the services of local coach Mark Sutherland. For those of you who have been paying attention to sport in NZ over the past 20 years you may have come across his name before, making his name coaching Ian Ferguson & Paul MacDonald back in 1987, Mark has continued to coach a number of international athletes to world acclaim. needless to say I am far from the dizzying heights of olympic gold, but the skills and rigor that Mark has provided over the past couple of weeks have already shown me that I made the right decision to enlist his aid.
Having a plan laid out each week has made getting up in the dark that little bit easier, and having someone other than myself to explain why I chose the duvet rather than the pavement to is definitely a great motivator. The plan Mark presented me with has added some much needed variety to my training while not increasing the volume overall.
After my first full week on the new programme I am already feeling the effects, I’m definitely working harder than I was before and I am seeing some improvement already, some of this is possibly due to having a bit of a break and then getting back into it with renewed vigor but I can already feel myself getting a little bit faster and stronger.
That’s not to say I haven’t been riding and running, I have, I have just struggled with putting in the effort necessary to improve my performance, its too easy when its cold and dark and you’re riding/running on your own to just go along in cruise control, putting in good times but not great times, and even at times just putting in times, neither good nor great.
All this wasn’t helped by a trip to the hospital last week for another reboot, which leaves me feeling a little gun shy and a little knocked back. After these episodes I tend to have a bit of a quiet couple of days and keep well within my aerobic HR to ensure (probably falsely) that the heart is going to stay in rhythm. There is no evidence that this actually makes a difference, but its good for my mind if nothing else.
I’ve also been a bit poor at planning my week in advance. I’ve found over the past months that its a lot easier to get out of bed if I know what I’m going to be doing once I get up. If I dont have anything planned, it is really easy to choose something a bit easier than I would have planned, or just flag it and have a sleep in.
So something needs to change, I’ve started by planning my week a bit better which seems to be helping a little. I’ve also started changing some of my runs to do intervals which should help with speed (or the couch to 5k for going faster as I like to think of it) these have the added benefit of not taking as long as a 10k. I’ve also experimented with intervals on the bike, these aren’t quite as easy as running, but I did seem to enjoy my ride a bit better and actually got my first PR in quite a while.
I also got hold of an old rowing machine over the weekend. It had been stored in a barn for some time and was full of a birds nest, but after a good clean out and a wash its now working as good as new. I put in my first session on the trainer on the weekend and now have some sore paddling muscles, which is a nice change, plus I get the opportunity to watch some TV while I’m at it.
It’s not all bad, I’m booked in for the Maungatautari Mission in about 4 weeks, which would be my first race with transitions, and my first foray into true multisport. Whether or not I take part will depend on how the next few weeks of training go. But hopefully with some more planning and some focus on improving again I can get myself into shape enough to tackle the race.
A couple of weeks have gone by since my last post, then I felt like I had lost my running Mojo and was a little despondent about the couple of steps backwards that I felt that I had taken. Well there is nothing like a couple of short weeks and a trip to the beach camping to turn your head around and reset yourself.
Jane and I had decided that we were going to go camping for the Easter holiday this year as we hadn’t had a chance to go camping during the Christmas holidays, so we packed the kids and the tent up and headed to Hahei in the Coromandel for 5 days of relaxation and running. Well that was running for me, Chicken had some serious K’s to put in on the bike for her training and Jane and Buddy decided to get some walking in as well.
The weekend was looking pretty rubbish as far as the weather went, and on Thursday morning I woke up to the sound of torrential rain and power outages, thought to myself sod this and rolled over and went back to sleep. I had already done a session on the bike and a couple of hill run/walks on the first three days of the week so having an unscheduled rest day wasn’t the worst thing in the world and my tired legs were certainly going to appreciate it.
We arrived to the beach early Friday morning and had a relaxing day settling into the camping lifestyle. For us that generally means going for walks on the beach, a good book or 10 and a beer or wine in the afternoon. There is of course no escape from the rigors of training and on Saturday I went for an exploratory run around Hahei, a town I know pretty well, but have never run in. The run went really well and I clocked up 7k for the first time in a while without feeling like I was going to die. A couple of days rest and a change of scenery had definitely pulled me out of my funk.
On the Monday I decided that I would try for a 10k and if I felt good then I could add a few kilometers without too much hassle. Rather than running later in the morning, I got up as the sun was rising and headed out of town on the route that I had planned the day before. For anyone who has never been to the Coromandel, it’s hilly… Like REALLY hilly. I had planned my route to be as flat as possible but there were still a couple of hills to be tackled, and the flat road I thought I found was actually just a long steady hill for about 3k… but the morning was beautiful and the scenery fantastic, so I stuck at it walking up some of the hills but running the rest and I felt good, really good so I kept going. I ran through the first hour of my playlist, 8k’s down and feeling strong, so I kept going until I had run through the second hour as well. There were a couple of stops to take photos and I really needed some more water with me, but I completed 15k in under two hours and felt really great for the rest of the day and the next. Legs were tired but no injuries or pain.
So it appears that I found my mojo again, silly really it was at the beach, which is where I fell in love with paddling all those years ago, which is why I’m training for the Coast to Coast, because it has a paddling leg.
The rest of the week was pretty good for training as well, a run on the shores of Lake Tarawera while I was away for work was pretty cool and my fastest ever 5k on Sunday was the icing on the cake. Legs feeling tired but not sore, cycling distance getting up and speed increasing slowly as well. All in all its going OK at the moment and the end of daylight savings means that my training runs and rides finish in the light.