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On Saturday we did our third club triathlon. Emma improved her time be about 5 minutes finishing as first ladies vet again and I improved by 2 minutes and finished 2nd mens vet again. So Emma beat me this time.

The was my first event swimming with my wet suit. I think I went out too hard on the swim, swam poorly and wasted a lot of energy. The run up the beach out of the water was not good and I could not get my wetsuit open. Just could not reach the Velcro tab behind my neck to get it open. Had someone help me with that and was okay getting out of it on my own.

Emma left the first transition right after I got there. Got into what I thought was a good start on the bike trying to keep good leg speed, but the first big hill I did not do so well on. Felt pretty good on the bike after the first hill and was able to pass a few people on the flats. When I came to a stop to get off my bike I braked hard and my handlebars rotated in the clamp on me. Will have to fix that.

Got through transition 2 quickly and fell into a a decent run pace right away. Just like last race my run did not feel as good as it really was. As good as I felt on the bike the run felt shitty. Just did not have enough wind which was likely an after effect of my swim. Saw another vet class man ahead of me and thought about trying to catch him but did not feel like I had it in me.  There is a hill at the end of the run and I generally run hills fairly well. So I planned to run the hill as best I could and try catch the guy there. That partially worked as I halved the distance between us on the hill. Then it was down hill to the finish. I let gravity do its thing and ran past the guy down the hill. At the finish I looked back and he was going out for a second lap so he was in the long course event and not in my race. Oh well it was a good mental strength exercise.

Been mostly work, working out as of late but have managed to get back working on the deck again. Bought the decking material on the weekend and am slowly getting it installed.

The first picture below shows my work from tonight. I had to notch the board to fit the post. Takes a while with just basic wood working tools but they get the job done. The next board will be more of a challenge to get the notch cut I think.

When I brought the lumber home I laid it out on the deck structure hoping for it to stay straight. Already have some warping happening. It is pine so is easy to work with and hopefully easy to get flat again. As you can see I have a helper, though she has no thumbs so is not great with power tools and would rather chase after birds than help me.

Last weekend Emma did the Contact Ladies Triathlon in New Plymouth.  She did a fabulous job and came in fifth overall and just 10 seconds behind third place. They started the swim in waves, meaning that they broke the competitors up into groups of about 12 ladies and started the groups at 30 second intervals. Emma was in the second group and was about the 5th or sixth lady out of the water. But that did not reflect her true position because it was not a mass start. Her actual placing in the swim was right about the middle of the pack.  Her slow transition time likely is reflected in that placing.

The swim start was a bit funny in that I could hear someone shout on your mark get set go but the horn did not go off for a good 5 second after go was shouted out.

Emma's the one with the pink swim cap

Emma was a bit slow in the transition to the bike mostly do to trouble with her helmet strap. Because of the lay out for the bike section I could not get pictures of her or see her on the bike. Next time I will have to take my bike so I can get out on course to see her.  She was third fastest on the bike leg so she made up a lot of time there.  As I have noticed in training she is getting fast on the bike.

She was through transition to the run in good order and looked good and was 9th on the run leg. Where I was standing I could see her several times through the run and at the finish line. She looked good on the run and ran well right to the finish.

My leg is much better now, hopefully 100% by next week. Tuesday night I did some intense deep muscle massage and felt better after that. Today we did a 20 km bike ride. I was unsure if I should ride or not but decided to gamble on it. By the end of the ride I could barely feel the soreness in the back of my left leg, and things stayed that way into the evening.

Friday will be our normal rest day and on Saturday I hope to try a short run. Sunday Emma has a ladies only triathlon so I will crew that day.

Did something to the back of my left leg Sunday. Did not feel any issues then, but Monday I had some tightness behind my left knee. Walking would loosen it up and did an easy 20 km bike ride which did not seem to do any harm and did help keep things fairly loose.  Today things are tighter and going up stairs not a good feeling. Took Jazmine for a walk while Emma and Piper went for a run without me. Odd watching them run ahead and disappear while we walked. Twice I tried to run a few meters just to see how things feel and the push back with my left leg is what got me. Can’t tell really where the issue is, hamstring, calf muscle etc as everything it so connected together. Trying lots of stretches and massage to fix things up.

Been a busy week. Wednesday the triathlon club open water swim nights started up again. Was my second swim in a wet suit. With the calmer water I was able to do some decent swimming and put in about 1000 meters. Emma and I got some good feed back on our swimming and have some more things we can work on.  After the swim we biked the same route we did on the race last weekend.  It was the best I have felt on the bike in a while. We were going to be doing the bike ride with some friends but they had to cancel.

Emma wants to work on her running speed so we went out with a plan to do 5 km and do the middle three kilometers at a 6 minutes per kilometer pace. I set my gps to record each kilometer as a lap automatically so we could easily see how we did pace wise. We did really well and felt good after it too.

Emma had some appointments so I got the lawn taken care of. It has been neglected lately as it seems to have rained when ever there was a time to do the yard work. Also got over to Stratford to do some work there too.

Today (Sunday) we did a morning swim at the outdoor pool then drove out to Inglewood to meet up with friends to do a bike ride they told us about. Lots of climbing on the ride and according to my gps we climbed 329 meters. The big climb was about1.7 km long and the first 800 meters was a steady grade of about 7%. I have not ridden on a climb like that in many years.

Part of how I encouraged or enticed Emma into cycling is the idea of stopping for coffee, lunch etc. So when we hit Inglewood we stopped and had a nice lunch. From there is was mostly down hill to the start of the ride.

We did our second club triathlon today. This was at the beach so we did the traditional order of swim bike run.  The day started off raining so we were all wet before ever going in the water. Emma wore her wetsuit and I chose to not wear a wetsuit as I have only worn one for swimming once the other day and did not feel comfortable having to deal with getting the suit off after the swim

When the horn went off I swam with Emma to the first buoy but lost touch with her after that. I got out of the water with only a few people in the water behind me. I got to transition and Emma was still there and was able to head out with my bike just behind Emma. We had to walk/run with our bikes about 100 meters to a parking lot where we could get on our bikes and out on the course. I got out on the road ahead of Emma but she passed me at the start of the first hill. That gave me some incentive to get moving and matched her pace and was soon able to pass her. At the turn around I was only only a few meters ahead of Emma. As I ran with my bike to transition I could see Emma just behind me. Got my shoes on and out on the run. The swim and bike had felt good, the run felt hard. The legs felt pretty good but I thought I was moving slow. Checking the data on my gps shows thatthough my running pace felt slow I was running faster than I have been in training.

Emma finished first in the veteran ladies division and I finished second in the veteran men’s division. The official timing showed me one minute ahead of Emma.

We learned a few things today, especially with the rain. Emma had trouble with slippery handle bars and wants to dry them off before hand in the future. Me I need to be setup better for cleaning sand off my feet after the swim. I was lucky and did not have any issues due to the sand in my cycling shoes and then my running shoes, but if it was a longer event an issue might have happened.

Woke in the night to high winds and rain. Forecast said gale force winds at times.  Wind was not an issue at the outdoor pool this morning as it is pretty sheltered. Lots of debris in the water though. Good swim with some of the technical work I have been working on started to come together.

In the afternoon we went for a run and near the end we were facing pretty much right into the wind and a big gust came up that brought us to a full stop.

The wind has blown at least one bird nest out of the trees behind the house. Found one nest and disposed of it. Jazmine found one chick the wind has blown out of a nest and I found another.

Got a lot done today. By morning tea I had hand mixed 240 Kilograms of cement and poured it in the remaining holes for the deck supports. Then took the trailer to pickup 1/3 cubic meter of 20 mm clean round stone to on the ground under the deck to suppress the growth of weeds. I put a bout half of the stone down after lunch being careful not to cover the fresh cement it needs to cure for a while. Then returned some of the hardware for the deck I bought but did not need.

Emma wanted to go for a bike ride so I put started to put my bike back together only to find that the  new part did not fit. I returned it and after a bit of running around found one that did fit and I was able to get my bike road worthy again.

Emma was back to work today, new year and a new job. She was tired when she got home after spending the day training with the person she is replacing.

I spent the day working on the deck. I got all but one joist installed and will be ready for the final concrete work in the morning. Then I can start bracing the joists and deal with a few other small details then should be able to install the decking.

I had to buy a new compression plug for the forks on my new bike as the original was seized and I could not adjust the slack out of the forks. On my last ride on the new bike every time I used the front brakes I could feel the bearings in the forks rattle. I also finally got around to getting Emma a multi tool to put in her saddle bag on her bike along with an inner tube. She got to use her new tool already installing a bell on her bike.

We went swimming after Emma got home from work. I was not sure how well swimming was going to go for me after a day of hard labour. Surprisingly the swim when well and for the second time in a row I swam a full 1000 meters. We both have gotten some feed back on our swimming technique when at the open water swims. We need some help in that area so we have joined a masters swim club so we can get some instruction in how to improve our swimming.