James Hill

Yep… I found a swarm of them on Friday.

One of the hazards of training in the ocean, occasionally you come across some of the nastier creatures of the sea.

Just as I was getting closer to Fairy Bower it struck… it felt like a razor blade cutting across my arm. I knew exactly what it was and I back tracked pretty quickly, pulled the tenticals off my arm and then set about swimming again. It is not the first time I have been ‘attacked’ on the swim to Shelley… the first time I was able to just brushed it off and kept going.

This time, 2 more strokes and I had collect some more of the little blighters around my arms. Not the most fun place to be in. It was lucky I was wearing a rash vest and it was only my arms which were stung.

Though, the real problem I found myself in was I managed to swim in to the middle of the swarm before I hit one. Now it didn’t matter which way I turned I kept hitting blue bottle stingers. Not impressed… and just a little bit sore.

I decided to go back out the way I came, namely to warn 2 swimmers I’d noticed swimming in behind me… though I was too slow. By the time I swam to the first one he had already entangled himself in one.

After 30 secs or so of removing the stingers which had wrapped itself around his neck I decided to swim him back into sure. I was little concerned he might have some bad side effects due to it being wrapped all the way around his neck. He was OK though and everyone go to shore safely.

Just another day training… 😉

Finally bit the bullet today and bought a new wheel… but this is not where the story ends. It is but just the beginning.

I met Rhys down at Favourite Cycles in Manly and had a great chat to him about bikes. Any small business out there who want to learn a thing about customer service, you should see Rhys in action.

This is probably the point I should tell you I am a Small Business Marketing Strategist… a fancy way of saying I help small business be ultra successful through better marketing.

I digress…

I was in there for a new wheel… and to start looking at the prospect of getting a new bike for the half Ironman. My Trek 1000 has served me well over the last 7 or so years… but it’s time to take advantage of some new technology (and lets face it a sexy new bike) to help me blaze across the finish line in June.

Rhys gave me the full run down on the constructs of the aluminium frames, dispelled some rumours I had heard about durability of carbon fibre (it is not until you see someone hit some carbon fibre with a hammer you realise it is not as brittle as you think – thanks Rhys) as well as the top to tail on the componentry… basically what you are getting for your money.

Favourite Cycles has some new EMC’s coming in during the next week or so which I am quite interested in taking a look at… the 2.2 and a new Carbon Fibre model. Can’t wait! 🙂

Now to test out this new wheel…

Finished working for the day on Tuesday and jumped on the bike… 500m up the road and that all to familiar (lately) sound of a spoke going twang!!

Not impressed! (time for a new wheel)

So now with a broken spoke and buckled wheel I raced down to the catch the ferry as it would not be fun riding home with a wheel which catches on the brakes every half turn. I was suppose to be meeting a friend in an hour for a swim at Manly beach and I was going to be pushing it.

The water was gorgeous! 6:15pm – still a few hours of daylight left (I love summer time) and a little bit of surf. Nothing like the raging 9ft waves which were pounding in a few days ago.

So it turns out my friend is a bit of a super fish and was toying with me as we swam around the 1km trek that I have. (so much for her “you wont swim off and leave me” comment… Jaws would have been hard pressed keeping up with her). I love this swim… from the moment you put your head in the water you see wild life. There was a nice table size whiting swimming just underneath us. We passed over a few small stingrays and a plethora of other fish-ies along the way.

Woke up yesterday morning and it felt like someone had been using my brain as a stress ball. Very Ordinary… let work know I was not going to make it and went back to sleep for 5 hours.

I dont know what it was, but I bounced out of bed feeling much better. A egg, cheese and bacon sandwich later and I was pretty much back to normal (well as normal as someone who signs up for a half Ironman gets…)

Hit the water for a 1.5km swim and it was rough. I was getting air as I was going through some of the waves on the way out. I thoroughly enjoyed it though. On the way back from Shelley I was about 20om from the beach and came across a penguin chasing a school of Garfish. Very cool… watching the little fella fly – and they literally fly as in flapping their wings – through the water was breath taking (I had to remember I wasn’t a fish and eventually I would have to surface for air). It stopped me in my tracks though.

With the road bike out of action (broken spokes, there was 2 of them)… I was on the mountain bike into work.

… apparently there are 2 other events?!!?

Ok, so most of the first 2 weeks of my training program has been on the bike riding to and from work with a short 10km run on Monday. But this wasn’t going to get me across the line in June.

I now feel like I can say I have started my run and swim training with a 10km road run on Friday and then another 6km of soft sand running and 3km of hard sand running on Monday. Sunday started the swimming with a 1.5 km swim from Manly Beach to Shelley via Fairy Bower then a loop from Shelley back to Fairy Bower.

But hitting the pavement is pretty easy… what about all the other stuff, like clothes, shoes and nutrition?

Well… I stopped in a Northside Runners in Manly on Friday to have a chat to the guys in there about what was likely to be needed. (word on the street is they know what they’re talking about… they do). They took me through the basics of what was going to be required as far as clothing, pros and cons of one piece vs two piece suits, training strategies which some people use verse race day and what to eat when you are on the run…

Because I am going to be exercising for a good 6 hours by my guesstimates… I recon I am going to get a bit hungry along the way! This is something which is going to require a lot more research and testing over a casual chat.

I’ve just been playing with this online tool called MapMyRun.com… very cool. Turns out my jogs have been 14km. 🙂

Still riding into work… though it was a little daunting at 6am as it was raining! Going to hit the water for a swim afterwork today.