The weekend that was so busy with dirt duathlon and kick-boxing fight watching

 Hi,

Okay - so this weekend was absolutely jam packed with activity.  Friday night saw me and Mike head to Master Kong with Callan and his mates.  Angie joined us as they left.  Celia, Nicky and Joycie also appeared there as they had dinner plans ahead of karaoke night!  Then off to karaoke with Khemry, Joycie, Yosan, Sreejith, Celia, Mike, Angie and me.

Khemry and me in a blur!

Awww - they are dressed the same

KZone!

Hey there Celia!

 

We sang for about 1.5 hours.  Mike nailed it!  Hahah.  It was such fun.  At the end, my bus was coming so I took off for it and left Mike and Yosan and Sreejith wandering around Courtney place.  Celia was sensible enough to head home.

Moonrise

Up for boot camp Saturday morning.  Then back home to get my gear ready for dirt duathlon.  Mike headed to Epuni to meet Sally and Andrew and finish the car port.  Done!  Legends!  It is ready for roofing iron now.

So ready

I headed to Porirua for Theresa's kick boxing fight.  AJ, Callan and Stacey were there to support her too.  We watched many fights.  It is brutal.  Theresa was on around 6.30pm and fighting some bouncy 20 something year old.  I think it was close (not that I really know much about scoring in this) but it ended up with a unanimous decision for the blue corner and not the red visiting corner.  Next time Theresa is going to own it!

She managed to avoid getting truly broken.  Big lump on her shin and her foot didn't really want to work correctly.  OMG!

We're ready

There she is!

Headed home and slept for an hour before I got up to watch the Football Ferns take on USA in the Olympics.  That was awesome.  For a team that has not played together for 18 months and has some non professional players, they really out up a great fight.  6-1 does not reflect that.  NZ had two own goals and the USA got 3 in the last 10 mins.

Start of the day

Up early for brekkie and getting ready for Dirt Duathlon.  Theresa arrived at 8am and we threw her gear in the van and we were off.

Oakleigh St park in Belmont regional park for the race day.  Gorgeous weather.  Ground still soggy after huge amounts of rain.  But not too bad.

Bike is ready

First loop was A and a run loop on relatively flat terrain.  Except for the grunt back up to the car park.  I managed to run for 75% of this loop.  6 km.  An hour or just over.  

Belmont trig

But after that an 8 min transition to the bike loop saw me under the hammer as soon as we started up the track to the trig.  It was so high and so steep.  I pushed my bike probably 75% of this loop I reckon.  And I depleted any energy reserves I might have had.  I was exhausted.

The team were full of beans.  How does Theresa manage this level of sustained effort after her fight the night before?  Machine.  Chris is like a pedal monster.  And Callan is lovely and waited for me.  The other competitors looked out for me too.  One woman even walked back to see if I was okay as I sucked down water and dried apricots at one point.

Okay - this is a great view

The view from the top was superb.  A light wind which was a little cool.  But given how hard it was to slog up - I enjoyed it.

Finished!

The downhill from here would have been okay if it was a tad less greasy.  Or 80 other riders hadn't been down there already.

Let's go!

Belmont trig

Stupid amount of heart rate activity for hours and hours!

Where we went

Yeah - we went up there!  With bikes!

When we eventually got back, I was so worried I had made us DNF because it was already 3pm and loop C was beckoning.  But no.  The organisers had called it at 1pm a two-loop race.  So we finished!  Phew!

The idea of having to do loop C after that slog was so hard.  Instead, we packed up and headed home.

Theresa drove home to her pasta dinner - she has a week off the intense regime before she is back into it.

I got home and got into the bath.  Watched the Olympics surfing and saw Ella Williams (kiwi surfer) make it through to the next round!

Fell into bed and watched the women's 137km road cycling race.  OMG.  Grueling. The peloton got it all wrong and let a wee breakaway pack of 3 women get a 10 min lead and they kept it.  Then the Austrian woman broke away from them and I don't think the peloton actually knew she was there.  They hauled in the two other breakaway women and I think the Dutch team thought that was it.  But no.  Austria took it out!

Huge!

Meanwhile I had no energy at all.  Mike gave me dinner and pretty much after the cycling race finished on TV I was asleep.

I could not get ready for work or wash my clothes.

Sapped.

But this morning I got up.  Sorted my life out.  Did deadlifts with Quentin.  And at work only feeling slightly tired in the body.

A month to the next one.

Hope your week ahead is good fun.

Love,

Angela

The weekend with a dirt duathlon event

 Hi,

What an unusual start to the weekend.  No boot camp.  Mike and I hardly ever get the chance to stay in bed late on Saturday mornings.  So that is what we did.  And the weather was yuck - so it made it extra specially nice to stay lounging around in pyjamas.

Mike made me an iced latte after brekkie (I made the brekkie).  Mmmm.  He absolutely nailed it.

Saturday morning home made iced latte

Mike nailed it

Looks like the surface of Jupiter

Smudge claims my lap

The rest of the day was lazy.  We did go to the supermarket to get provisions for the race day on Sunday.  And after we had tea, we packed for the race too.  Car and bags were ready.

The Forester's drivers side front indicator failed as we pulled up to the house late Saturday with our groceries.  Stink!

Anyway - up at 5.30am to get ready for the race.  Last minute things and brekkie.  All good.  We were packed into the car by 6.35 am or so and off to collect Callan, only a tad behind schedule.

At his house just after 7am.  Shuffle of the bikes to use his bike rack.  Piled into the car and we were at Z Mana to meet Chris at 7.21am.  Almost back on schedule.  Woot!

At Theresa's house by 7.45am and she piled into Chris's car and then we drove to Waiterere Beach for the Dirt Duathlon.

The farmer had lent a paddock, handily cropped recently by cows.  Full of evidence they had been there.  Chris noticed a plover nest with 4 eggs in the middle of the paddock where everyone walked and drove.  So we protected the nest and the angry parents squawked at us from time to time through the day.

Theresa got our registration.  Team 038.  And Theresa got a spot prize - yay!  Team:  Straight off the couch.

Me, Theresa, Callan and Chris - all supported by Mike.  Mike pitched the tent which was lovely to use at the end of the race as it was raining fairly heavily by then.

10am start.  We were green which meant we did the course backwards.  C - B - A.  B was a bike leg through the forest.  C was a short race on foot with map and compass.  And A was a bit longer (5km maybe) through the forest on foot.

We get ready for the race

Plover nest with eggs

Finished 3 hours and 9 mins later

Hot soup in the tent

It took us 3 hours and 9 mins.  We were one of the last to finish.  The fastest team did it in 1 hour 57.  I need to do more cardio and running to keep up that sort of speed.

Happy bunch

But it was great fun.  Chris and Callan navigated like a boss - we made no mistakes (which was lucky as missing a gate meant a 1 hour penalty), Chris was awesome on the bike.  Theresa can run all day.  Callan was looking out for me.  It was such fun.

The campground across from the car park paddock let us use their toilet block - that was a huge help.  I thought we would have portaloos.  :-)  Flush toilets - so good.

Finished just after 1pm and fell into the tent and enjoyed hot chocolate and soup from Mike (who had the camp stove fired up in the tent porch).  Eventually packed everything up and headed home in the Sunday traffic.

Home to shower and dry things out and a quick turnaround to have dinner at Sally and Andrew's place.  Caught up with everyone's news.  Malcolm and Marion are moving to Blenheim very soon.  Malcolm has work there starting August 1.  Wow!

On our way there we stopped for petrol at Z Hutt Rd and Mike took the opportunity to replace the indicator light on the forecourt.  Did it (and fueled the car) in 5 minutes!  Wow.

Back home and fell into bed and slept like a log.  Hahah.  My alarm at 5.30am woke me with a huge start.  Funny.

The week stretches before us.  Shortest day today.  And Wellington is turning on the cold, wintry weather.  Rain.  Bit of wind.  Yep - winter.

Here at work the heating system is also blowing out cold air for some reason. It's actually colder inside than outside! So I am feeling a little chilly here at my desk.  :-o

Have a great week.  Last week of exams for Toby.  Good luck, Toby!

Love,

Angela