Halft Ironman

This weekend was the Half Ironman Triathlon, which took place in Vanderbijlpark. It was a very wet day, with some wind but nothing to bad.

The swim started very well (or bad depends how you look at it), I led to the first bouy, about 200-300m, then went a bit pair shaped, but managed to hold onto the back of the lead group. Great transition and left the park with Piers and Patrick. The pace was fast and Patrick managed to zoom off into the distance. I lost contact with Piers when Phillip and Stephen caught up with us, but started to close the gap by the 70km mark. Was in about 8, 9 or 10 place when I picked up a puncture. After going through 3 tubes to fix it - I was back on the road and chaced hard - I think that I lost about 10 minutes on the bike.
The run went damn well - I was aiming for a 5 min/km run but managed to hold 4h30/km - came in at 1h38 on the run, which I am very happy about.

Note to Future-Self - 1h38 will be the slowest you ever run a competitive 21km.

Ended up at 4h47 - 25th place. (Dam bloody punctures!!)

All looks good for Ironman - I CAN'T WAIT.

Colds and Flu

Crap!!!! It's 2 days away from the Half Ironman race, which I was hoping to race hard, and there is a cold going around. I have a sore, tight chest - I hope it goes away by Sunday. My problem is that I am going to race no matter how I feel - this could cause problems.

Perpetually Tired

If there is one thing that I have learnt in the past few months of Ironman training it is that I am perpetually tired. I think that I could fall asleep anywhere at anytime. I base all of this on the following training schedule - times are when the alarm goes off.

Sunday (Long Run or Race) @ 05h00
Monday (yahoo, rest day) @06h30
Tuesday (Cycle) @ 04h10
Wednesday (Swim) @ 04h50
Thursday (Cycle) @04h10
Friday (Swim) @04h50
Saturday (Cycle) @04h30

This all requires that I go to bed before 20h00.