Toil, sweat and wedding dresses...

Week two on the Road to Kona and I have trained my little socks off AND gone in search of a wedding dress (do you think Tom would mind if I modelled myself on Jordan and her lovely design???).

With last week being a recovery week it was time to let the dog see the rabbit and unleash the start of what is going to be a hard and rocky road to Germany. I started Monday off with my usual 5km techinque swim with Tom. This week I changed my drills after spending time having my stroke analysed. It's so hard to change something that feels comfortable but over time it will just happen I'm sure I just have to keep focused when I'm in the pool and make the changes happen gradually. Tom and I were talking about times for Germany & although I don't really think about it as much as the statitician in Tom does I guess I'd actually really like to get under the hour for the swim. I did an hour exactly in Austria and I'm swimming better now than I was then, so maybe this is a possibility! I managed to kill myself in the pool on Tuesday doing 20 x 150's off 2.5mins. I averaged about 2.19/2.20 for them so I was having a tiny amount of rest. Very hard set both mentally and physicaly and afterwards when myself, Tom and AKJ were doing our regular weights session I truly did think someone had stolen my arms, they were useless! These were the best sets of this week, Thursday and Friday's were good but not as intense or goal orientated.

I've also had a good week on the bike, although the weather being so windy this weekend put paid to getting out today (that and I was cream crackered) so today I had a rest day, lovely. On Wednesday though I got out and rode a 100 hard and hilly miles in the Dales. Not the same route that Tom did (I think I'd still be out there if I'd done that.) It was also a mental challenge as the wind on Wednesday wasn't very kind and I had a strong headwind for the first 60 miles and boy did it wear me down. I got home raced into the garage, got my trainers on and bimbled out of the door for a slow 2mile run. This was my first real brick session (where you run straight off a bike ride) and my legs certainly knew it. It takes a couple of sessions to get into the flow of running off the bike. I'd been on my bike for just over 7hrs and my legs would have preferred a hot bath and some junk tv, instead I ran up a long hill and then back down it, great day in the saddle (albeit tough) and great to be running off the bike again. Yesterday because of time constraints and my mum & Tom's mum were visiting I did my session early in the morning. I did a hard 2hr turbo and then ran 8 miles off that and I ran well and really enjoyed the session.

My running is still ticking along. I'm not setting the world on fire or setting any ground breaking personal bests but I'm happy to say that I'm still running without irritating 'the tendon' and that's everything I could hope for. I ran 20 miles on Thursday and was pleased to keep it together. It was good to run the day after my 100 miler too just to get used to having that fatigue in my legs (not something I'll do every week, but it's definitely good to run on tired legs) and that felt like an iron session. When I get through the hard days it helps my mental strength.

A hard week of training, a great week of training and then at the weekend I was training in between wearing about 20 different wedding dresses! Tom's mum Yve came up and my mum came down and we went off to our two appointments to see whether I look good in a merangue or not!! We all had a great time and it was an eye opening experience, one I certainly couldn't have done without my two mums (so thank you to you both for such great advice, help and amusement.) I have to say trying on wedding dresses felt very peculiar, especially when I'm always in sports gear but I soon got the hang of wandering around in silly dresses playing at being a girl for the afternoon and it's made me look forward to the day when I get to be a girl for the whole day then too. (Just have to win the lottery to buy the dress we found ;)

A great end to a great week and it was lovely to spend time with mum, Yve and Ray. Happy Mother's Day to the mummy's, love you both lots.

Here's to week three...

H. x