Beautiful weekend....

... For running, not not for me! Saturday was a 45 minute 'Kilimanjaro' climb on the bike. The programme where it gradually gets tougher and tougher as you ride up the imaginary hill... whilst watching the Queensland Reds take on the Waikato Chiefs in the Super 14's :) Here's a random picture of 'Kili' just to speic up the blog!



It starts off all very easy, but to be fair that soon changed as the hill gets harder and the resistance tougher and my God for 20 mins you're sweating like a demon. Anyway's 26kms in 45 mins to round off a 95km week on the bike. Not the thing to set the world alight, but with anything like this where you've never done much of it before, you have to start off nice and easy. I don't want anymore injuries ahead of the MDS.

On Sunday, I organised the inaugural Bondi Beach marathon. It's based around the concept of 'Fatass' where anyone can just set-up a race with no fees, no competition, no winners etc... it's a just turn up and run kind of thing. So with a grand total of 2 starters, I sat on the beach offering water and lap counting given that I couldn't run myself. After the MDS, I'm going to organise another one on Manly Beach me thinks, hopefully with some more starters!

I did then intend to get up this morning, but to be honest I was shattered and thought better of it. I'm not the best in the mornings, and though I'd end up doing 'shit' mileage - so I'm off tonight now instead. Another week of 45mins on the bike and I'll then move up to an hour each day, in addition to the swimming, which I need to up as well.

I was thinking about whether I'm doing enough, and yes, I probably am for now - but for some more endurance style stuff, I need to be doing much longer rides and swims as we get closer. So I'm even considering doing some 3 hour swims, just to make sure that I get some really long ones in.

Anyway, moving on... back to some work now and then 45mins of speed training tonight on the bike, with 20 mins blast on the cross trainer and then some swimming... then perhaps some time for a life? :)

More of the same...

I'm getting better at getting up in the morning now. Although was a little later getting to the gym, plus I forgot my water bottle - and they dont even provide stuff there! Bizarre - anyway, just 30 mins of intervals on the bike. I like doing them, it breaks things up somewhat, and then 20 lengths of the pool.

I may go again tonight I think and do the same.

This could all get quite dull...

... for the next few weeks. so I'll just report on what I've done with the occasional rambling :)
In true Dan style I went back to the gym for the second time last night and hit the cross-trainer for a hard cardio workout. I never realised just how much of a workout you can get on those things. A 20minute blast saw me cover 5kms with heart rate up in the 160's... and it wouldn't be a Dan workout without some form of twinge or injury, so I tweaked my right calf last night for good measure. It's OK, a little sore, so I'll stay off that cross trainer for the next few days :)

Then up again this morning for a 45min cardio workout on the bike, covering 27kms. Quite tough work actually after yesterday I felt, and a little dull when you're indoors in a gym, still some nice ladies to have a perv at every now and again :)

The plan will be to vary the cycling up a little and I'll do:

- 2 x hill training
- 2 x speed training
- 2 x intervals
- 1 x cardio (the long straight boring ride)

Plus I'll do a 20 min session in the cross trainer each day too as my fitness blast, a bit like a tempo run. This combined with 20-30 laps of the pool each day. That should keep me busy for 2-3 hours a day, so it will mean once in the morning and once at night too... that gym is going to see a lot of me in the next two months... wonder how the fiancee will feel about this :)

The new regime...

So it's swimming and cycling now for the next 7 weeks. I meant to start on Monday, but with the parents still here it's difficult to take the time out. So I'm now up at 5:30am each morning to get my lazy behind to the gym. Tuesday was 1.5kms swimming and a planned cycle in the evening, but work has been major crazy for the last 2 weeks and it overtook me last night too, so no cycle. But still, I was up at 5:30am this morning and did 45mins intervals on the bike, knocking off 25kms... a nice little start. I followed that up with 1km in the pool. I plan to go again tonight. I'll be doing the gym twice daily now for seven weeks building up the cycling and swimming to the point hopefully of 2 hours on the bike and 2kms in the pool.

I also want to try and get at least 30 mins in the sauna each day too... Im now so focused on maintaining as much fitness as possible and losing 5kgs before the race. I'm carrying a few extra pounds from the stop start training of the last 6 weeks. Strictly off the naughty food as well now - pure focus for 7 weeks which I'm sure will make me the world's most boring individual, but hey, needs must.

Feck...

So, after all the highs and lows the X-ray has confirmed the worst (well as much as I can read X-rays anyway)... I have a stress fracture. There's a nice long crack about 1cm long on the Fibula, and an obvious bump where it's trying to mend itself. Personally I don't know what to think right now. The physio said that if it shows up on a normal X-ray, then that is bad - I know what he'll say - don't do the race.

The way I look at it, I have 9 weeks to 'manage' the injury. I've just mapped out 7 weeks of swimming and cycling. There will be no more running now until I take that first step out in the desert. 15 sodding months of busting a gut and flying to far-flung places in Australia, of nearly passing out on my first 100kms, of breaking the 3hrs 30mins barrier in a marathon. All in pursuit of smashing the MDS to bits, and what happens - I bugger myself up.

I know where it happened, its all the GNW fault. If I'd finished that I wouldn't have been in such an arse with myself and then gone out for a run around the Bay with such single-mindedness of smashing out 4min 15sec kms and I wouldn't have felt that twinge 4kms into the run as I was going up a slight incline just past the tree and where the boats dock. That's where this happened. I rested for a day though, surely it was a muscle twinge? Then I go for two big trail ultras in 6 days and it gets worse... and well the rest is history really.

The way I see it, you can whinge (which I did for 48 hours), or you can make the best of it. I had real aspirations for the MDS, of a top 150 finish. That was the goal. The goal now is to firstly make it to the race, and secondly... just complete it. It really will be hardcore swimming and cycling and twice a day to the gym. I'm immensely frustrated given the effort I've put in to get my fitness to the place it was at. The fitness is probably shot to bits now. I haven't done any really decent training for 6 weeks now. Bits and pieces here and there and a 'fluked' 91kms. How the hell the leg didn't clean snap on that race I don't know, especially carrying nearly 10kgs for the first 42kms. The mind boggles. The xray isn't even funny given the long crack to the fibula - how it help up I don't know. The key word now is 'manage'. Manage the injury whilst busting a gut swimming and cycling and then hope for the best in Morocco. This is such an arse, but an arse that I have to deal with...

The final run-in

So with the nose-dive that training has taken in the last 6 weeks, I'm now wondering what the final 2 months of training will hold for me. The plan was to have a big February with taper starting first week of March, but as you have to sometimes, plans change. I went for an 8km walk on Saturday, quite a bit on soft sand and that was a hard slog, however the leg felt stronger for it on Sunday. So here I am left wondering. It's obvious that I can just about train through this, albeit as a reduced speed and distance - but that isn't going to help matters and I'll go into the MDS injured. Or, I can still rest (whilst swimming and walking), and hope that come Feb 1st, I can pick things up again and run.

I'm tempted with the latter. I was encouraged by the Narrabeen Ultra, it went better than expected and I felt stronger as the race went on, which is something that tends to happen for me I've noticed in the relatively short time that I've been doing ultra marathons. It's clear that I've not lost the endurance I've built up. I clocked up a grand total of 90kms in December, but still managed to bash out 91kms in one go at Narrabeen. The fitness will be gone slightly I know, but as long as I can maintain the endurance then that's the most important thing for the MDS. So with that I think training is going to be structured around some long runs at the weekend, a mid-week run, with plenty of swimming. That should keep me at around 70kms a week if I can, which is about the best I can hope for right now. The important thing is to 'manage' the injury and not push too hard. I'm tempted to go out tonight for some hill reps - those I can do, and they help towards fitness too if I do them hard enough. They get the heart rate pumping, so I'll include a couple of those sessions as well. It's not the same as tempo, but it will be good hard work for me.

It's disappointing to have trained so hard for 15 months, and then for the final 3 months to be a bit of a mess. But I should be thankful. I've got in a good 3,500kms since October 2007, and that's the ground work and basis for the MDS - I just need to maintain what I can as best I can over the next 6-8 weeks without doing any further damage. Then I'll just flog myself big time on the MDS with a bucket load of Voltarin to manage the pain :)

Recovery...

Not a massive amount to update on since Narrabeen, only to say that recovery has gone surprising OK. I expected to be a bit of a mess, having had so much trouble with my leg for three weeks. Whilst I was limping a little post race, I'm walking very freely now, and whilst the bone is still a little tender, I could run if I wanted to. Still I haven't and I'll rest up a little more, perhaps go for a gentle jog tomorrow or Friday. No pressure - it's about being in a fit state for March.