Palmerston North

Jade's first update

Well, it’s official…I’ve committed myself to attending Spin classes at my gym, Configure Express in The Square. So on Tuesday mornings, at 6:15am, I will be sweating, cursing and burning for a whole 45 minutes, every week. I don’t know about anyone else, but I can never keep up with the instructor…no matter how much my brain wills my legs to move faster, they just don’t seem to do anything! I also struggle to keep up with the beats in the song which is REALLY annoying for me because I automatically move to the beat of any song I’m listening to. So, not only am I going slower than anyone else in the Spin classes, I’m also out of sync with my internal rhythm…why am I doing this again?

Because I have to get better at biking! During the bike leg of the last Woman’s Triathlon, SOOOOO many ladies passed me. It was so discouraging! Bridie, the manager at my gym, told me today that biking is about leg strength, not weight. That explains why I can run for 10kms but struggle to bike for 5kms – while I can carry my slowly-reducing weight well enough, my legs obviously aren’t very strong.

So, my goal for October: make it through a whole 45 minute Spin class without stopping. Setting goals is so important when undertaking a challenge like this triathlon…you need something to work towards every single month. Start small – even if it’s attending one Spin class a week to start your training off, that’s enough. The point is, don’t leave it until next month. Last year, I didn’t really start training hard until a month before the event, which wasn’t nearly enough time. You have to give your body a chance to get used to endurance training…trust me, it will! But you really have to start small – walk before you run, run before you leap, leap before you fly… to the finish line on March 18th 2012!

12/12/11

3 months to go until the triathlon…so little time. I must confess that training hasn’t gone as well as I’d planned last month. I’ve been coping with my first runners injury (sore hip) on top of issues with my feet going numb, so inspiration for getting out there and training has been on the slim side. I did however go for my first swim last week which was fantastic – I’d forgotten how much I’d missed it! While I have attended a few spin classes, I really don’t enjoy them, so have opted to go on the stationary bike at the gym instead. Now that the weather is nice after work, I can foresee my fiancée bullying me to go for a bike rides…while I loathe biking, it really isn’t as bad when you have someone to do it with. That got me to thinking – maybe I need to find a buddy to train with! That way, I will HAVE to go, otherwise I will be letting them down, which isn’t fair. So, if any Palmy girls out there are looking for a training buddy, I’m in!

Christmas is a hard time to get motivated to exercise, especially after you’ve eaten three times your daily allowance of calories in one sitting.  However, if you can find the time to get some training in, a) you won’t feel so guilty, b) you might work off a tiny portion of what you just ate, and c) your body won’t hate you as much when you get into serious training again in February. Merry Christmas everyone!

08/02/2012

Well, there’s a little over 5 weeks to go, so serious training has begun. My fiancée Iahas taken charge of my bike training and has been forcing me to go out for a ride nearly every night. After being taught how to start and stop the bike without going splat on the road, (this actually happened to me at a busy intersection in Palmy – really not fun falling off your bike in front of everyone!) and subsequently being able to have my seat at the right height to get the full power of my little legs, my feelings toward bike riding have warmed from “hate” to “extreme dislike”…progress!! If you, like me, didn’t know how to start and stop safely, I suggest you find someone who does and practice, practice, practice! This is the key to riding that I have been missing! It is SOOOO much easier to ride a bike when the seat is at hip height – trust me, you won’t know yourself when you do!

As for the running, I have had a break from it for about 6 weeks due to being sick over Christmas and simply not getting in the groove again. I did however go for a 5km run on Sunday, so hopefully I will get back into it quickly. Swimming training is a bit non-existent for me I have to admit – I figure there are so many people in the pool at once that it really doesn’t matter how fast you go because you can’t pass anyone anyway (sounds like a good excuse, right?) I will however force myself to go to the pool at least a few times before the event – though my focus this year is on improving my bike time by at least 5 minutes. For those of you new to the event, try to make a goal for yourself – it helps to motivate you on the day. My goal was to finish in less than an hour, and I think I was only 1 hour and 2 minutes, so I wasn’t far off. Don’t be disheartened if you have a really weak area of the triathlon – most people do. Just try to focus on that one in your training, so you can be more confident on the day.

Happy training everyone!