Saturday 30 June 2012

The (cold) road to Kona...

So winter has finally hit!  Good for chilly evenings infront of a movie with the heatpump on full blast; not so good for heading out for long ride or run sessions with rain clouds looming and air so cold your face feels about ready to fall off.

The beginning of May saw me getting back into training with a few run miles under my belt in the form of the Rotorua Marathon.  I learnt a couple of valuable lessons here: 1).  Love the wind in training - it gives you physical strength and mental toughness; and 2). Coach Keegan's pacing plan is a lot better than my usual haphazard plan of "run fast until you can't".  Despite having a pretty good headwind to run into for the final 12km of the race I still managed to scrape in with a 2hr59 marathon time.  Fourth place overall, a podium finish in my age group, and a new PB saw a very happy runner!

A couple of easy days after this then it was back into the training routine.  Now anyone who knows me knows how much I hate the cold.  I just never seem to warm up in winter.  Even in summer, after bigger or harder races or sessions my body temperature seems to plummet.  It is not abnormal to see me after a half Ironman wandering around in a big puffy jacket, clutching the hottest coffee I can find while other athletes cool off in the ocean.  So winter and I never get on.
I have been turning up for ride sessions dressed like an eskimo.  I try to fob off my cycling buddies mockery by claiming I am doing a bit of heat acclimation for Kona; the reality is my countless layers are barely keeping me warm enough!!  Unfortunately my blue, chattering lips tend to give me away.  The down time on the couch directly under the heat pump afterward is priceless!

I always tend to struggle a little through winter as well as racing is pretty minimal aside from the odd marathon.  Racing always feels like my reward for training; I love it.  Not racing much tends to leave me feeling a little bored.  After the initial excitement of Kona wore off I took the time to really evaluate what I want out of this race.  In racing, as in training, I will feel like I have failed if I haven't given 110%.  So I have used the winter months to really try put myself in the hurt box when training; and developing a pretty good head space for it.  As Chris McCormack says - the pain in racing is inevitable.  You can either dread it or welcome it. 

So the countdown is on!  Just over three months to go, with a wedding in between before we hit the warm sunny shores of Hawaii!  The body and the mind are getting in to great race shape; I just hope that shape still fits into my wedding dress...