Shock Weekend

I like to shock my system into training. I like to start a training season with a bang, basically trying to kill myself in one weekend to prepare myself for all the training in the next 6 months. I'm trying to cram fitness for the National Duathlon Championships in two weeks but really I'm preparing for the first target races in 2007 - The HK Half-Marathon and the National Triathlon Championship. After that it's SubIT, OSIM and the Singapore Half Ironman. I get tired just thinking about all that racing.

So this weekend it was a short but difficult 85K on the bike on Saturday, followed by an easy 15k on the run on Sunday. Sounds like a lot but that's really much - deep in training, we do a minimum of a 100k on the bike, peaking near a hundred miles. On the run, the 25k last week was just baby steps towards 50k weeks. I haven't even started swimming yet. Good luck with that. I'm going to be swimming through December. And I love the cold! Not.

Today, I've got the sniffles but nothing a little Airborne can't cure.

The weekend is a test more than anything, to see where my paltry training over the last two months has left me. I've been basically just training when I want to - and that was not a lot. And after last weekend's bitch of a ride with 25k uphill non-stop, it's a surprise I managed to run 15k the next day without wanting to kill my run partner. That's a good sign.

Shock weekend is also an inspiration for the rest of the season - if I can do it coming off from virtually nothing, I can do anything they throw my way.

And with shock weekend, comes my favorite part - where doctors prick and prod me for tests I don't even know what for. Yes, despite my thyroid condition and 17-degree scoliosis, I am a triathlete.

Let the season begin.