Weekly Consolidation: 12/13 weeks

Monday: Rest

Tuesday: Run - 3x2km

Wednesday: Cycle -41km easy

Thursday: Run - 16km long run
Friday: Swim - 1 hr

Saturday: Brick (Cycle - 93km solo, Run - 5km)
Sunday: Cycle - 80km group

The start of the taper. Not too many hard workouts, and had a good confidence booster with the brick on Saturday.

Tuesday's track session went really well. Completed the sets in 8:18, 8:14 and 8:05, which was equivalent to 4:09, 4:07 and 4:02 pace. I was pretty surprised with the time that I put in for the last set.

Thursday's long run was a little slower than I expected at a 4:54 pace, but still good nonetheless to have put in the miles alone. I negative splitted the run (8km out and back route) as I wanted to train my legs to run fast even when they are tired.

At first I didn't have anything planned for Saturday and during my swim on Friday I just decided to do a long ride and a fast brick run to see how fast I could go off a ride. Instead of riding really hard I just replaced it with distance, hoping to mimic the fatigue I would feel on race day. The 90km went pretty easily, and I put in a solid pace of 34.1kmh with no breaks or draft. My "transition" took a little more than 5 minutes or so, so not really ideal. For the run I just focused on going out as fast as I could especially in the opening km because during the race I did not want to have to "warm up" for the first half of it. Rather I wanted to be ready to go fast right off the bike.

I was rather surprised to be doing ~4:15 pace, and when I finished in 21:02 I couldn't believe that I had almost set a 5k PB on a pretty tough route after a 90km bike. With this performance I'm quite sure that a 45 minute 10k is certainly possible, and I may even break 20min in an open 5k (or at the MR25 TT!)

Ideally I would have loved to do 1 more swim this week, but it was not to be. I have reduced my expectations of the swim to within 35 minutes, which should be possible. If I go below 30 it would be a pleasant surprise. No expectations at all for the swim, just hoping to come out of the water alive and ready to own the other 2 disciplines.

On Saturday I also collected my race pack. Bib number 6004. All those whose bib number starts with 6, watch out cos I will be looking out for you! There are about 35 competitors in my age group; a little more than I thought there would be, but I still remain optimistic about my chances!