Tan lines and sore unmentionables...

Well, Cycle Challenge is done and dusted and I am one event closer to my Cameron Brown award. Bit sore - 7:47:00 on a bike will do that to you, and I won't tell you where!  Most people added half an hour to their usual Taupo time because of the conditions, but I took half an hour off last year's time so that is a small positive after a hard day!

It was a pretty brutal day.  It was a howling westerly gale that always seemed to be trying to knock me off my bike, but I do think it helped me up the Kuratau hill.  Grant helped me up the Hatepe hill.  It was hard for him to pedal slow enough to keep pace with me but it was pretty funny to have such an talented cyclist chatting away as wheezed myself to the top.  For reference, Grant did 40kms of the Huka Challenge mountain bike race (before it got cancelled due to the high winds), then popped home, picked up his road bike, popped around the lake and caught me at Hatepe....all in more or less the same time it took me to get to Hatepe!  And he didn't even look a little bit tired.

I've been swimming and running today and feeling not too bad at all, so I think some of this training is starting to pay off.

I have two-tone legs like a car from the 70s, my jersey tan lines are more pronounced than ever, and as my campaign manager pointed out yesterday, such white feet that I look like I am wearing white socks.  But never mind.  I had my first ever professional massage - quite a revelation.  Just my shoulders though, in case you were wondering which body parts I had decided were in most of attention.

I have to add spur-winged plovers and black billed gulls to the list of birds that hate me.

Smooth gear changes until next time!

love
Ironmaiden

Goggles and speed wobbles...

I invested in some new goggles this week.  This was because at open water swimming on Friday night some poor lady decided to draft me, and I got quite lost, and we both ended swimming in the wrong direction, and possibly swam a little further than I needed to.  My old goggles were a very comfy fit but years of use and abuse had rendered them virtually opaque.  No problem for pool swimming, after all, I don't really want to see the crusty detail of the myriad of floaties in the pool (what on earth has happened to technological advances in pool filtration?  Did they give up?), but a bit of an issue for spotting buoys (or boys) across a windswept lake.

So I have new goggles.  They smoosh my face a bit, and make me look like this:

but they kept out the water and hopefully I will be a better navigator from now on.  I am still tempted to get a bumper sticker for my wetsuit that says "Don't follow me, I'm lost...." .

I had the speed wobbles out riding this afternoon-  the combination of a steep decent and slightly offset head wind. Apparently Giants of that vintage are prone to speed wobbles.  Now, Giant is not an obscure self-reference (although those who know me will acknowledge I am fairly susceptible to speed wobbles), it is my bike.  And although we've had happy times, I do tink the time has come for a bit of an upgrade.  That's what mortgages are for.  Right?

Only 10 days until I bike around Lake Taupo, and only two and half weeks until Half Iron.  It can't be that hard eh! 

Until next time, be really careful what you type into Google Image Search,


love
Ironmaiden

The birds, the birds!!!

Is this some kind of Hitchcockian nightmare?  First magpies (three brutal assaults on Saturday), and now black swans, Canada geese and those funny looking duck things? 

Seriously?  What on earth have I done to offend my avifaunal co-habitants of the planet?  The waterfowl seem to have taken offence at my wheezy-shuffling along the lake front (to be fair, the sight of me running is fairly offensive) and have started chasing me.  Swans are really scary!  I am starting to wonder if perhaps I was a fox in a past life.  I do have a few vixen-like tendencies in my present life...

But aside from my ornithological issues, the Ironmaiden Campaign is going especially well at the moment.  I am healthy and uninjured and seem to be getting a bit fitter and a bit faster. 

I did an open water swim last Friday, which was scary and cold, but all the bits worked and I swam a good time for me in comparison to my pool times.  Next one is tomorrow night, the lake is getting a little bit warmer so hopefully it will be a bit less painful!

Oh, and that duathlon last week?  I may have been fourth-to-last but I won my grade!   There were only three of us in the grade, and the other two were walking and chatting, but I'll take it!

Until next week, keep working on your designs for some kind of converted dishwasher for cleaning bikes!

love
Ironmaiden

Seriously? November already?

Well time sure is flying by. I wish the magpies would. Christmas next month!  Not to mention half-Iron.  Can't be that hard.  Right?   So four months to go.  Six months gone.  Is any one else feeling a little jittery?  I did a short duathlon on Monday night.  I was puffed!  I must be fit, I am doing a fair bit of training.  Perhaps it is just secret fitness that hides away and just comes out when I need it?

I used my wetsuit in anger on Sunday.  It was a splendid hot day...and the lake was absolutely fricken freezing Mr Bigglesworth.   The bits under the wetsuit were warm as, but the ice cream headache was frankly debilitating.  Plus I seem to be well and truly programmed to stop every 25m and look for a wall to turn around at.  I didn't find too many in the lake but I kept stopping to check if there were any just in case.  I guess I'll need to work on that.

My triathlon idols Marie and Josh are representing NZ in their age groups at the World Long Distance Champs this weekend in Las Vegas - what legends! 

So until next time, run down those magpies and give cyclists 1.5m breathing space!

love
Ironmaiden