Hashers And Mashers - Part 3 - Open (Page 19)

That's a great resource Mike! I've actually been spending a bit of time on the one you posted back in the last group, rejigging it to work for me for the next 5 months, but I might have to have a closer look at the newer plans you've put on.

I've had a very lazy time over the past week, just doing all that life stuff we don't do when we spend the time on training. Chores, idly surfing the internet (non triathlon related), eating...oh, then eating some more. Starting to feel the pull of needing to get moving again soon and also starting to come back to the forum. So hello again everyone! Now to spend a bit of time catching up on posts I've missed...

Mike - I love your spreadsheet.  The plans in the book are great but your spreadsheet is so much easier to follow.

I had trouble logging in yesterday and today but finally managed to get in and update my training log.  Today, I did a bike/run brick aiming for an hour of each.  The bike was great a bit cool at the start but really felt fast but then I got home and transitioned to my run gear and took off again.  I was pleased to be able to run the whole time except for a couple traffic lights.  The part I really appreciated though was that I was able to run slightly faster today - off the bike - than I was able to run the same route on Wednesday.

I can't believe how fast our summer has disappeared.  Our days are getting shorter fast and the temperature has dropped dramatically in only two days.  Plus, we can see evidence of the leaves changing colour.  I'm hoping we'll get 6 more open water swims in before the lake cools down too much and we have to move back into the pool.

Carlo--when you put it like that, a week off is certainly justified! I'm starting to get twitchy now so I'll start up again tomorrow (Monday, 1st September, 1st day of spring for us southerners...a good day to start!).

George--sounds like you had a ball volunteering. A very long, but very rewarding day!

Gary, great to hear the healing is going well and you're racing Sunday. That would be today? (Time difference gets me every time...) Good luck and have fun! Oh, and happy birthday too .

Nicole--great news on the Baltimore Tri, and Marilyn--I hope the treadmill/trail running's going ok for you now.  So frustrating when you're injured and want to get moving!

Miche, I hope you're through the slump, that post was a while ago, is it getting any better? Hang in there!

And Mike, great little snippets of advice and encouragement, as usual. 

Just for something else to think about, has anyone heard of the Arch to Arc ultra triathlon? 483km in total: 140km run from London to Dover, then swim the English channel, then 291km bike ride to Paris. This year's winner made it in to Paris on Friday in 61 hours 21 minutes. Absolutely amazing.

 http://www.smh.com.au/sport/swimming/australian-john-van-wisse-breaks-world-record-in-arch-to-arc-triathlon-from-london-to-paris-20140829-109tal.html

Great race! You must be absolutely stoked with the result, that's a great finish. Congratulations!

Anna - Your race with the channel swim is a bit out of my league.  A few of the ladies that swim the same days we do have been training to do a relay swim of the channel.  I think I like our local lake better.

Nicole - Swim instructor could be fun.  Hopefully you'll get some newbies.

A lady we know from volunteering at Challenge (& Ironman before that) sent us a link to this Challenge Penticton video.  I thought it might be of interest to anyone curious about what the Penticton area looks like for training.  Just ignore the advertising at the beginning and the end.  The whole video is about 8min.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2KGRxuZjOY

I hope this will connect.  I was never able to get any of my photos to open in the past.

Great link George, it's interesting to see where other people live. The mountains look very dry, and certainly challenging. Your road surfaces look excellent, with a nice wide shoulder to ride on, although being on the right hand side seems completely out of kilter for me.

Just in comparison, here's the video for the Gold Coast Challenge

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqTMrmIdyWE&feature=youtu.be 

Our area is pretty dry.  We get very little snow and only a few days of rain a year. 

Your video was great to see as well.  Not like I would've guessed.  The area looks very lush & similar to our Vancouver which gets a lot more rain than we do.  I didn't notice anyone using the left hand side in the video.  I'll have to watch it again.

I went down to the lake for a swim today but the wind was up and the waves were too rough so I postponed the swim to Friday. 

Sounding pretty focussed there Mike! Still just pottering around here with no real purpose. I had a nice run yesterday morning in the trails near home, found some steep rocky paths and some lovely views of the surrounding bush from the small cliffs at the top, once I transfer pics from phone to PC I'll post them. Apart from that I'm starting to feel a little antsy, I need to find a goal race and work towards it, but I'm not sure what I want to do at this stage. Maybe stick to the trails, dust off my mtb and get back to nature...