5 weeks to go!! Weekend wrap up.

This weekend seen many out and about training together. The weekend started with the usual group hitting the dam for their Friday afternoon splash around the buoys. G and Mark are still locked in a battle of “who can swim smoother”. After they finished their swim they found they had been done over by a bird, who stole their cheese and bacon bread rolls. This framed the G’s mindset for the weekend. Mr and Mrs Chip continued on with squad training on Friday night, punching out 3.8k.

Saturday morning was planned to be a big bike session, Mark “it’s too cold for me” Ruthenberg pulled out (fear is creeping in) and did his own 100k ride later in the warmth. Muz and Chip headed off from Gladstone at 5am (in the cold) to meet Tim, Ben and Zuuer at Tannum around 6am. The group put in a solid ride working on heart rates only. The Tannum boys clocked up about 3.5hours and Muz and Chip 5 hours. This ride seen Ben cruising along looking a little to comfortable (watch him). Zuuer was like a caged beast, he need more pace and more hurt.

Mrs Chip (I’m not training for anything) did a 2 hr bike just to keep in touch with everything.

Sunday morning started off a bit of a shambles with mixed messages and Chinese whispers stuffing up the intended plans. Muz and Chip rode out from Gladstone to meet up with Zuuer, Tim and Mark who were supposed to be riding into Gladstone to meet us along the way but somehow ended up riding out to the dam. Muz took a gel 15 minutes before the end of the 2 hour bike ride and 5 minutes later got a flat, that gel really helped him do a super fast tyre change! Not a happy camper! Then who was to turn up during the tyre change but the “Lost boys”. We all headed down the beach front together to start our 6 x 2k repeats. Tim and Mark set their own pace and executed them well, Tim looked like he could have run all day (watch him). Mark “I can’t run because of my hip” Ruthenberg punched out an impressive 8 x 2k repeats at a reasonable pace. Muz, Zuuer and Chip all stuck together for some quality time in the hurt locker, some were in there longer than other but they still muscled through it. Its swings and roundabouts men, some days are good and some days are bad. Then comes the best bit, breakfast! The lovely wives and partners headed down and cooked up a storm of bacon, eggs and hash browns, we were all in heaven. We all stood around talking it up and decided to head to the coffee club for a well earned brew. All I can say is it doesn’t get much better than this!

Ben had his own training plan to follow on Sunday and not too much has be divulged about it. Word to the wise, this guy has hidden talent, when he learns to hurt we are all in trouble!

G and Ironvastava did a gruelling 4.5 hour ride with efforts thrown in for good measure and backed it up with 5 x 2k repeats, the guys fell short of the intended 10 repeats they had planned. Word on the street is the G has seen the dark side and loved it; will his goal time of 5:14:58 stand up with the race counsel? The workout couldn’t have been that bad Ironvastava went home and registered for Challenge Wanaka Full.

Stevie, well who really knows what he is up to, one thing for sure he won’t go down without a fight!!! Rumour has it he now runs around the house instead of walking just to get those few extra seconds of training in!!

DVD has been doing some burning into the muscle memory over the weekend, riding 120k on the Saturday and backing up with a 45 minute open water swim. I’m sure there’s more than we know going on with this snappy trainer.

Keep strong guys and remember Chip’s motto “When it is obvious that your goal cannot be reached, don’t adjust your goal adjust your action steps”