Ups and downs

I've had a couple of good days after Sunday's race. I'm really pleased with my recovery. After a recovery run on Monday morning I did a solid 1k time trial in the pool after work (17:35- which isn't actually as fast as last time, BUT this time I know it was 1k not 950m, and I was nowhere near as stuffed).

This morning was back to hill repeats up Mt Vic. I was feeling grumpy after last week's session, as I didn't improve at all, and P improved heaps AGAIN (to be fair I was incredibly congested and spent the rest of the day snuffling and feeling pathetic...) My man agreed to stick with me for one rep so I could push myself a little better, and I was happy to come under 9 mins for the first time, and even happier when I took a minute off my descent time!

After the hill reps (I really do need to work on attacking the hills- my second rep I just couldn't get my HR up again), we went down Alexandra Rd which I haven't done since my stupid wee crash two years ago! The ride down wasn't great fun- bumpy as heck, but I got to the bottom and round the awful corner at the bottom a lot more happily than last time (I'm having trouble linking to the post, but it was October 2006...) That's a demon conquered anyway!

I've also rather rashly signed up for the Contact Energy Event this weekend. It will be entirely a recon race (its in the same area as the half)- or else I won't be able to handle the very real possibility of being DFL! I had a looksie at the times from last year, and the TOP female bike times for the 40k ride are in the mid 1:20s (incl T2) and the top male time was 1:10. The course is 5 loops of an 8k circuit, which includes a sharp 1k climb with up to about a 14% grade. All up, there's 150ish metres of ascent per loop. EEK!