My first experience at racing in a World Championship event was definitely an eye opening experience for me. You may find this strange but I was reminded of when I first came to Wellington and started University. I had been doing well in events in my age group here in New Zealand but going to Mooloolaba for the Ironman 70.3 World Champs was next level, much like the transition from High School to University. When I arrived on Mooloolaba Beach there were so many focused and fi

I think I am allergic to chocolate! Life is over! I came to this realisation while trying to find out why my hay fever is so bad and affects me all year round. Readers – I warn you, you may find this post a bit gross. Hay fever is not new to me. I have been plagued by it since I was about 11 years old. I have not so fond memories of wanting to scratch my eyeballs out because the itching was so bad. But because my Mum was quite cheap, and we only went to the Dr when things wer

I started out writing this post thinking that it was just going to be a brief recap of my race over the weekend. However, it turns out that there was much more going on just to get to the start line on Sunday. So, on Sunday I ran in the Wellington Half Marathon. It was my first event/race in some time and, to be honest, I was a little bit excited! I wasn’t sure what time I would be able to do, but that didn’t really matter as I had only entered a couple of weeks ago because m

Warning. This post is about chocolate…and then breakfast. At the beginning of the month I had to give myself a good talking to. I was about a month into training and I was acting like I wasn’t going to go overseas in a few months and race an Iroman in ridiculous heat, knowing that no matter what I said out loud I would still secretly want to do well. So why was I then stuffing my face full of chocolate again? I think the answer, as always, was tied up with my mental mind set.

Today I went for a run, but Strava doesn’t know that. So if its not on Strava then did it happen? But the whole point of today’s run was to learn to respond to how my body was feeling and push my comfort zones without relying on technology to tell me how fast I was going and how far I had run. I haven’t always run with a Garmin watch but once I have always wanted to know how long/far my runs were. This was the main reason why I bought my Garmin in the first place. When I brok

I haven’t had much to say or update you all with in the last month. Mainly I have just been eating chocolate. That would make a very short post! For those of you who like me to talk more about my actual training and less about chocolate you will also be disappointed. This time after the New Zealand Ironman I forced myself to have a decent rest. Now normally “rest” to me simply means that I don’t have a programme and I’m not training for a specific event. I instead start to do

Red bikes are fast… As I past the woman in my age group who was previously in 1st place I thought to myself “I can’t believe it! I’m in 1st place! Can I maintain this for the rest of the marathon?” It was only 8km into the marathon part of the Ironman and I was feeling on top of the world. However, my supporters were telling me that I was in 2nd place…and then a woman in my age group past me. Sorry, she flew past me. I was left wondering what I was going to do? Had my Kona dr

The (final) countdown is on – T minus 12 days until Ironman New Zealand in Taupo on 5 March. So how do I feel? 1. Exhausted 2. Ready to race! Last week was my last big training week and now I get to taper (relatively speaking). Last week was a total of 18 training hours. The sessions were starting to get a little shorter in duration but still with some up-tempo parts to them. I am definitely ready to taper and my body was sending me clear signs that it considered that it had

It is almost hard to believe that there is less than 5 weeks now until the New Zealand Ironman in Taupo! At the moment I am still very much focused on getting through training and being a “weekend warrior”. Still only a few more of those before the taper begins. This week has been a fantastic week for me. I have completed over 20 hours of training and have hit all my numbers and training targets. I couldn’t be happier! Just goes to show what happens when the fourth discipline

Taupo 70.3 (Half Ironman) seems so long ago now! I’ve already forgotten all the pain! This has probably been helped by a little indulgence over the Christmas period as well as an opportunity to take a break from work and relax and rest. Yum! However, that did not mean a break from training. In fact, the last three weeks has seen many hours of training. This last week I have done: Over 18 hours of training; 289km in biking; and Over 2500m in elevation. But without the stresses

Hubby’s mountain bike certainly gets around I swear that when you live your life event to event the time just seems to fly by. My race in Taupo came around far too quickly and now it is less than two weeks until 2015 is over. I for one am glad 2015 is almost over. I have achieved so much this year, inducing a number of personal bests. However, I can’t help but feel that I could have achieved more? The Taupo Ironman 70.3 was on 12 December. It was a hard and challenging race f

My worst nightmare and best dream all at the same time Actually my worst nightmare is the zombie apocalypse. But back to chocolate – I seriously can’t believe that there is any chocolate left in this Snowman. What restraint I have shown for 4 days! I even let my husband have the chocolate for day 1. It’s all about small changes. I also recently read an article about someone who lost a lot of weight (about 40kgs) and they were talking about moderation. This is not a new concep

Hello, its been a while. Time for an update! The first race of the session is done and dusted and now it is less than 4 weeks to go until Taupo 70.3!  I admit I am feeling a little nervous now about this race. I raced in the Scorcher Triathlon on Sunday – “long” distance (1km swim, 30km bike, 8km run). My training last week had all been in preparation for this and my coach wrote a note for Sunday’s race to “race hard” and “leave nothing in the tank”. But I was looking forward

Luckily I don’t carry an umbrella on my bike. It is the end of week 5 of IM training. What a week it has been, and I don’t mean that in a good way. I had been thinking a lot this week about whether to write this post as I didn’t want to come across as negative as I am sure people do not want to read rants from me. However, I decided that for my own self-therapy and learning I needed to get a few things off of my chest. After all it is through sharing the hard stuff that we ac

I usually make this comment in jest, however, I have gone through a period of self-reflection recently and realised that it is completely true and not a joke. Let me show you what I mean. For the last two and a bit years I have gotten into triathlon, more specifically Ironman. Here are some photos from ironman Taupo 2015 (March). I normally sit at around 66kg – although this depends on the size of my “chocolate belly”. This term will become more familiar to you soon. I had do