What a weekend

All of a sudden I feel strong again!

Despite the ongoing tendonitis in my right ankle, things took a huge upward swing this weekend. I feel awesome (albeit a bit sore) after a simulation half ironman weekend. On Friday morning Geoff had me complete a 2km set in the pool after a 20 min/700m warm up. The 2km included only short rests (no more than 10sec) and took me 44 minutes.

On Saturday I did the bottom half of the Challenge bike course around Lake Dunstan. At just over 91km in 3:17 (plus a rest at 40km where I met Geoff), I was stoked with that time given that I wasn't exactly over doing it. There was a moderate southerly and the temperature was in the low 20s so the 40km from Luggate to Cromwell was a bit slow, but the 50km back was wind assisted and we were flying. I did draft behind Geoff for about 15km, but even when I was on my own I was able to get into a nice rhythm at about 34km/hour.

Then on Sunday, I entered the Cromwell Half Marathon (my 3rd time doing this event), even though I wasn't sure that my foot would last the distance. It was warm and there was a very strong northerly wind (as usual for this race). At the start line I set my strategy as a slower than usual start and remain steady. I also remember thinking that a PB wasn't on the cards so just go with the flow and at that point I resigned myself to the fact that I would be unlikely to ever break my magic figure of 1:45 for the half marathon.

How wrong I was! I smashed my previous year's Cromwell time by 6 minutes 50 seconds and my PB (set at Wanaka) by 4:06 and most importantly I broke 1:45 by almost 2:30 minutes. Even if you correct for the 350 metres or so that the course is short I was comfortably under 1:45 (approx 1:44:14 at my average pace). I averaged under 5 minutes per km (4:56) for the first time ever in a half and only the 3 kilometres into the howling wind and the second to last kilometre were significantly over 5 minute pace. I was placed 26th overall (up from 42nd last year and 95th the year before) and my time on this course has improved by more than 16 minutes in two years. I am absolutely stoked!

So my simulation times (albeit not all in one day and definitely not all in race conditions) are as follows:
2km swim 0:44
91km bike 3:17
20.75km run 1:43
Total 5:44

That all bodes well for the South Island Half Ironman in a few weeks and hopefully has me on track for Challenge Wanaka in January.

I also managed to christen my wet suit this morning (Labour Day) in Lake Hawea with a half hour play around (about 10 -15 minutes to get used to the freezing cold water plus 5 x 80-100m reps). Very refreshing on a beautifully clear and calm Hawea day. Absolutely out of this world!