Skies brightening

Today has been a quintessential Summer day. The weather has been perfect, clear blue skies, 29 degrees, lovely. We have spent the day relaxing as a family. A walk in the morning, a swim in the river. It really has been a nice day.

There has been some training too. A session on the trainer followed by a short run off the bike. The session was on the books for this morning, but I actually did it this afternoon instead, which seems to have worked fine.

The bike part of the session went well. I deliberately turned down the wick a notch or two on this session, when compared to the similar session I did on Thursday night. It is very easy to cook your legs on the trainer making it difficult to run afterwards. Since this was going to be my first ride/run session in a few weeks I erred on the conservative side. I still pushed hard, I just wasn't pushing for PBs. The intensity seemed about right because I got off the bike with the legs feeling fine.

The run bit was on the painful side of good. It was always going to be really, so it was good to get it out of the way. The time was okayish. Not as fast as it has been, not as slow as it could be. I got through which is probably the main thing at this point. Somewhere to start I guess, and perhaps not as far to rebuild as I feared. Hopefully...

Yesterday I finished my blog saying that I was heading off for a swim with Swim Smooth and hoping it wouldn't be too painful. In the end the session was probably about medium on a the scale of painful Saturday swims. Certainly a bit of intensity, but it wasn't the whole session. As is often the case with the Saturday swims I felt better than expected once I was there. It was another reassuring session, with swimming is coming along nicely at the moment. Once again, not as quick as it has been, but I was happy that I was able to hold my own a bit and that the session didn't absolutely destroy me. The fact that I got through the session and didn't feel completely buried is a definite sign of progress for me.

Next week and week two of operation 'Get race fit in time for Albany Half Ironman' kicks off. Next week is always an unusual one in the training Calendar, given that there is a bit of an unusual day in the middle of it. Still it is also a week where you tend to have a bit more time at home than you usually do, which can make training just a bit easier to fit in. Plus, you know, seeing the family...