Iron Jack

I had an amazing bike ride today around the stunning countryside of Hawkes Bay - and a great time to boot!

We’re away for the weekend visiting old friends from Rotorua. We used to spend nearly every second evening with Lou and Aaron when we first moved to Rotorua. Our four year old adores them, and their three year old, and Toby has quickly joined the fan club. They left Rotorua in February - just after I became addicted to triathlon.

Aaron has always been a huge cycling fan, often taking off for four hour rides on both days of the weekend, and fitting in a cool three hours after work during the week. We’ve always given him grief for it. That was before I got bitten by the bug. Not only was I gutted when my best girlfriend left our town, I lost a potential riding buddy as well!

So naturally one of the first things that got packed before we left Rotorua was my bike, shoes, gloves and all other accompanying accessories. The first thing Aaron did when we arrived was take the bike to pieces to clean it, grease it, and generally give it the once over that apparently I should be doing every week. Ooops.

We saddled up just after lunch, I was pretty nervous about heading out. Fortunately I had one thing going for me - Aaron is recovering from major knee surgery. He had a serious workplace accident nearly a year ago when he got felled by the tree he was meant to be felling. Twelve months, major physio and eventually knee surgery later, he’s back on the bike and heading for the Round Taupo Cycle Challenge. A huge inspiration.

The other thing I had going for me was the fact that Hawkes Bay is beautifully flat - not dis-similar to the cycle leg of the Tauranga Half Ironman. A good chance to spin my wheels and test my legs after the hard work I’ve done over the past few weeks.

We headed out. Amazing scenery - unbelievable to ride past literally miles of vines - and several historical churches surrounded by old cemetries. The sort of scenery and places you just don’t notice so much when you whizz by in the car.

As I said along the way, now I get it.

Of course I had to pick a few sandflies out of my teeth on the way around, and I had to stop to use the toilet at a tavern in the middle of nowhere, but a fantastic ride. Forty kilometres in 1h46 - a great time for me, giving me a massive boost of confidence for the Half.

Just wanted to finish with this quote from Lance Armstrong that was posted by my dear friend, Lisa Whyte (and fellow cyclist - but again, I caught the bug after she left the country!). Thanks Lise!

“Pain is temporary, it may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year. But eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever” - Lance Armstrong

Forgive me father for I have sinned…its been over two weeks since my last blog post!

But that doesn’t mean that the training has stopped - it just means that our lives are even more manic than usual, and that I may have even broken my own record in my level of busy-ness.

The new job is amazing - I’m in my happy place and I feel like its the job I’ve been waiting my whole life for. I don’t think many people get to say that about their place of work so I do feel very privileged. Its also regularly a manic adrenalin rush, which has taken me closer to my triathlon goals than I ever would have thought - and I mean literally closer, as in right on top of both the Ironman and the Half Ironman course!

With five minutes notice, last week I found myself holed up in the Mt Maunganui police station, overlooking the swim course and transition area for the Tauranga Half Ironman in January. If I squinted my eyes I could just picture the excitement and chaos of race day. And it only scared me a little bit!

The week before, work had taken me to Taupo. Rather than just drive straight down State Highway 5, I decided to drive into town on the Ironman cycle route - I’m still not sure if that was a good idea or not! The turnaround point for the Taupo Ironman cycle stage is Reporoa, a tiny country town that is home to a dairy factory, a school, a general store, veterinary clinic and not much more.

We’ve based ourselves at the turnaround point for two Ironman events so far - the first time to cheer on a close friend (and accountant!), and this year to see the leaders go around for the second time. That’s right. Its not just a long way into town - you have to do it twice!

Now that I’ve spent a bit more time on the bike, I’ve started looking at these roads in a whole new way. The route is certainly a lot flatter than I remembered it being the last time I drove that way. For the most part, its long and straight, with just a few undulating hills - apart from the climb out of Taupo township on the way out. It seemed to take a very long time to drive that day. And this time I’m not afraid to say I was scared just a little bit.

The main training highlights in recent weeks have been on the bike and in the pool. Apparently I’ve made a massive improvement in my swimming stroke, so hopefully that bodes well for improving my times. Swim squad at 6am is going really well. In fact I love it and I really struggle now to swim on my own.

And, the bike has indeed become my friend and I miss it if I don’t get out on it several times a week! Hills are also becoming my friend, and I’m getting much faster. I rode around Lake Rotorua on Sunday - 50km - and I did it 20 minutes faster than the last time, which gave me a huge boost.

The other big highlight has been the people I’ve met and the new friendships I’ve made just in the last couple of weeks. The online triathlon community just keeps getting stronger and is hugely supportive and motivating. At the same time, I’ve met many like-minded people here in Rotorua with similar goals and speeds and we’ve formed new little training groups for swimming and cycling. Its much easier to get out the door when you know you’re due to meet someone at Lane One! I’ve also met new people around New Zealand who are also working towards big goals. Its good to share the good times - and the bad - and it all helps make you feel like you’re not the only one slogging it out every day and weekend to get to the finish line. What a team.

The biggest training challenge of this week?

How to fit in my weekly sessions and leave 48 hours free for my hair to recover from the salon.

Go ahead…laugh. Dozens have.

But this was actually a very strategic training/worklife balance move on my part. I have quite thick, flyaway, and now quite long, hair. Its red, there is lots of it, and it takes forever to get organised in the morning. In addition, it doesn’t like chlorine very much and as a result, its looking even worse than usual.

Solution. Chemical, semi-permanent straightening. I’ve had it done twice before and its bliss. Smooth, silky hair that doesn’t take but a second to do in the morning. You can even leave it wet and it dries straight and professional-looking. Lets not forget that I need to look smart on the job! This means on swim squad mornings (which are a real organisational challenge) I would buy myself an extra 30 minutes. Any solution that is going to achieve that result is a must!

So it had been well over a year, and the finances finally allowed a serious session at the hairdressers. It would also mean three hours peace and quiet away from the boys on a Saturday, so naturally I jumped at the chance.

But, and herein lies the challenge, you can’t wet it, tie it up, put a hat (or helmet) on it, or tuck it behind the ears for 48 hours.

You guessed it, this means: no swimming laps, no riding bike, no running (because to leave it down would drive me insane and get very messy). So part of the challenge this week was managing to fit everything in so that I could have 48 hours without training in order to get my hair sorted. And I did. Who would have thought that a haircut could provide such inspiration!

I had two training highlights last week – the first was going for a run with my husband, and the second was my swim in the Thorndon Pool in Wellington.

One week into the new job and I was off to Wellington to meet the national public affairs team. Back to back meetings over two days, a very early start to catch the red-eye flight, and gale-force winds that were even worse than usual, even for “windy Wellington”, meant that my training sessions down there had been limited. Alright, non-existent.

I got to the end of my second day’s programme and found myself with about and hour spare before I had to head to the airport. I sat there for about ten minutes arguing with myself about going to the pool.

“You know you should,” one half of my brain said.

“Yes, but I’m absolutely shattered and I have spin class tonight anyway,” said the other.

“Yes but you’re already a swim down and you need to make it up now.”

“I can make it up on Friday.”

“Which will mean four early morning starts in a row, you know you won’t do it.”

“Go away.”

“No, you go away!”

I stopped arguing with myself long enough to talk to my new-found colleagues about it. Their view was overwhelmingly in favour of going.

“But you better be quick,” says Lisa. “The pool closes in 30 minutes!”

Aaaaaargh. I finally decide to go and the pool is about to close on me. I hightailed it out the door and ran to the pool. The attendant informed me I could get out of the pool at 2pm, rather than needing to be out of the complex by 2pm. Phew. And their clock was five minutes slower than mind. Fantastic. Thirty seconds later I was in the water – I have never got changed to fast in my life. I stood on the side for about a second and dived into the water.

Bliss.

The Thorndon Pool is an outdoor swimming pool at the Beehive end of Wellington. For those non-kiwis, the Beehive is the political hub of New Zealand, thus the Beehive end is a thriving hub of Government departments. The pool is usually only open over summer, but was opening for just two hours over lunch-times for a short time while another council pool was closed. I lived in Wellington for two years from 1998 to 2000 and I had never swum in the Thorndon Pool – god knows why, it was absolutely amazing.

Yes, even though it was surrounded by a big wall it was still very windy. Yes the pool was full of leaves and twigs as a result of the gale force winds. But it was just fantastic. The sun was shining. And I was swimming. Awesome.

Because I only had less than 30 minutes, I decided to just swim a kilometre as fast as I could. No drills. Just freestyle. I clocked in at 24 minutes, my fastest kilometre ever. I don’t know whether it was the pool, or whether it was the first time I’d “just” swum for a while, but I’m definitely thinking the pool had a lot to do with it.

An hour later I was on the plane on my way home, very pleased I’d managed to fit in my swim.