Bad Sign

You know you are in for an interesting session when you get down to the pool and your coach is in bathers. Interesting and painful.

Some coaches really know their stuff, but aren't actually that good at the sport that they are coaching themselves. Paul isn't one of those coaches. That guy can swim. Swimming with him and trying to swim to his pace was an certainly a challenging experience.

The session that we did this morning is one that if you had given it to me a year ago I would have laughed at you and then walked away. In that way the session this morning was amazing, I am still a little buzzed by the times we were swimming. In other ways though the session was so painful that at times it made me want to cry.

We got through though and I as a result I have been able to spend the rest of the day enjoying the natural high that comes with from a good session.

 Last night I was on the bike and it was another enjoyable session. I mentioned yesterday that part of the session was hill repeats in King's Park, which I was looking forward to. I was hoping that my eagerness wasn't due to rose tinted memories and happily for me it wasn't. I had a great time in there. Part of the reason for my enjoyment may also have been that more recently I have been doing my hill repeats on a cruel bastard of a hill near my house. In comparison the King's Park hills were a bit of a pleasant stroll. Still, interestingly, with the hill not as steep I was able to spin up it more and I think I was sustaining a higher average power output going up. Hmmm. Might be something to think about there. I know that steeper isn't always better and this might be an example of that.

The second part of the ride was a long sustained effort, which once I got into was also really fun. These pieces are funny because for the first few minutes you think that you might die. But then you find your rhythm and you stop panicking and they suddenly become a lot more enjoyable.

The only issue with the ride was that it was blowing a gale, which meant some of it was a bit less than fun. But still it was warm and dry, so it wasn' t so bad.

Looking ahead, there won't be a blog entry tomorrow. Tonight I am packing up some stuff and heading down to Harvey (rural WA) for a Break Your Limits training camp. I am really looking forward to it. You don't often get to spend a couple of days thinking about nothing but training, but that is what is on the cards for this weekend. Plus I get to do it with a bunch of good folk. Should be exhausting, but awesome.