Chistmas in July

A bit of a new gear fest at our place this weekend. A whole bunch of stuff seemed to all arrive at the same time. Firstly, Break Your Limits has designed some new cycling kit, which arrived on Friday.

Spiffy

And then some shoes that I ordered a little while ago arrived as well.

Colourful

 

Like the old BYL cycling gear, this new stuff is Hincapie as well. Once again very impressive, really nice quality and a good fit. If anything it is actually slightly more comfortable than the older stuff. I have a bit of Hincapie gear now and every time I have been impressed by the it.

The shoes are a couple of new pairs of Mizunos. The shoe on the left is actually just another pair of Wave Inspire 10s, which is my normal training shoe. However, this pair in a funky dark blue rather than the white of my older pairs. I have been really impressed by the Inspire 10s as a training shoe. I need a bit of support when I run, and the Inspire 10s have just enough, and still manage to be reasonably light. I am on my second pair at the moment and they haven't missed a beat. The shoe on the right is the new Mizuno Sayonara. I have heard nothing but praise for this shoe. They call it a lightweight trainer. Enough support for training, light enough for racing. At the moment I am not sure what I will use it for, possibly both. I am quite excited to give it a go though. I think it would probably make a very good Ironman race shoe and probably suitable for Half Ironman as well. At the moment I race in a pair of lightweight Mizuno Mushas, these are fine for short races, and I have worn them in a Half Ironman, but I wouldn't want to use them in anything longer. I think the Sayonara might fill that gap. Plus it just looks awesome.

Training wise today I had the usual long Saturday ride, plus a swim this afternoon. The ride was a funny one, I was feeling pretty flat at the start and it took me quite a while to get going. I had my doubts that I would be able to hit my targets when it came time for my intervals. But once I got going, and got my head into gear, the intervals went okay. The ride was still hard work, and I was hurting by the end, but I got through.

Heading into the ride I was a bit concerned because the weather was looking a lot like it was on a Saturday ride a few weeks ago when I finished up absolutely hurting. Recent rain with wet roads and a head wind in the second half of the ride. I was mindful of avoiding a similar experience to that previous ride, so this time I took the first half a bit easier. The bike ended up filthy again from the wet roads, but I think I felt a bit better in the second half of the ride this time. I wasn't totally hitting the wall by the end.

One downside to the ride was that my hip was quite sore during it and by the time I finished it was causing a fair bit of pain. I did manage to have a joggy/walky type session yesterday afternoon, and whilst I was reassured that running still felt okay, I also ended up quite sore by the end. Some of that soreness was still lingering when is started the ride, and several hours on the bike didn't help it. Some food for thought there. The hip is improving, but I think it still needs some work/time.

The swim session this afternoon felt a bit better than this mornings ride. Once I got down to the pool I found that I was feeling surprisingly okay and I ended up having a nice solid session. Good finish to the training day.

I have running on the program in the morning. However, given how I ended up feeling after the 'run' session yesterday afternoon I think I might make it a water running session. Not perfect, but it means I will be able to get some work in and it shouldn't make the hip any worse. Hopefully it buys me the time it needs.