Week THREE - 21st to 27th December [CHRISTMAS]

Run:
Tuesday AM - BMMC usual, 10km
Thursday AM - BMMC usual, 10km
Friday Midday - 15km, Home - Winmalee - Long Angle - Sun Valley - Railway Pde - Spurwood - Mum and Dads - Christmas Lunch
Saturday AM - <10km, off the bike around Blaxland

Total Run: 45km

Ride:
Wednesday AM - Mtn Bike, Anderson's Fire Trail - The Oaks Fire Trail (~50km)
Friday AM #1 - 35km out-and-back H'bury Hill with 2 reps of the hill
Friday AM #2 - 40km 'playing on hills' modified for the bike - Mt Riverview hills followed by Lappo and home.
Saturday AM - 110km Box Hill - M7 loop with The Animal (read more below)
Sunday AM - 160km Bells Line of Rd Loop with The Animal and WXS (read more below)

Total Ride: 395km (mtn bike kms are equivalent to about 1.33km on the roady in my opinion)

Swim:
Saturday PM - 3km wetsuit swim Bridge to Bridge, Nepean River
Sunday PM - 3km in the pool, 500m warm up, 20 x 100m on the 1:40 with paddles and pull buoy, 500m steady to finish up

Total Swim: 6km

Week Three started slowly again with nothing on the Monday. A pretty easy lead up till Christmas Day, some late nights at work made it difficult to get in any PM training.
Wednesday was a long hot day on the fire trails with the Bro, Sis, Bro-in-Law and a friend. Some cross training was the order of the day with the mountain bike. Took a little longer than I would have thought, but was fun nonetheless.
Felt strong on the Thursday AM usual up Old Bathurst, a pleasant change to the usual fatigue and lethargy on this run. Decided to make an early start to the hill, so I put in a bit of a head start on the others. Had ST breathing down my neck as he powered up the hill behind me, passing me towards the top. Happy that I kept the legs turning over all the way up.
Friday, Christmas Day, started well with a short ride down to the bottom of H'bury Hill, 2 reps of the hill and back home. Woke up the Kids and the Wife and cooked some breakfast. Back out again on the bike, this time with my Bro, for some hills down in Mt Riverview (there are 3-4 decent hills that all head partially down the escarpment, we linked them all). Finished up with Lappo and back home. Had a good hit out up Lappo on the road bike, which climbs very nicely in comparison to the TT bike. Just over 8:05min between speed sign and fire sign. Back home for present opening time.
Wanted to time how long it took to get from my place to STs via Winmalee and Sun Valley. Took it easy and felt very good running at my own pace. Ended up getting to STs in 90min on my way through to Mum and Dads. Estimate the distance is about 15km. The plan is to get this run in before the Tuesday usual Sun Valley loop before heading back home up the top of Sun Valley. This would make the run over 2:30hr, and would mean I would have to leave home before 4:30am, so I may have to find a quicker more direct route down to STs. I have a few more options to explore over the next few weeks.
Saturday AM was a post Christmas recovery ride with The Animal. This ride shall be referred to as the Box Hill - M7 loop. Clocked up just over 110km going pretty easy. But this did include about 5km of heading along the M7 in the wrong direction, completely unaware that we were heading North-East instead of South. We only realised as we saw the signs for the M2 and the North Coast. How we managed this is completely beyond me!
Got a steady run off the bike around Blaxland as I chased The Animal around for just under 10km. Felt good on the run, with a few surges, but mainly trying to run this as if it was the start of a 42km marathon in the Ironman. That afternoon, The Animal, The Welsh Exchange Student and I jumped in the Nepean for a wetsuit swim from the Rowing Club up to the Boat Ramp at Tench Reserve. This is right on 3km. Was good to get in a wetsuit swim, trying on a full westuit as I'm keen to get rid of the sleeveless one I've been using. Felt pretty good as I snaked along behind The Animal, running into him on more than one occasion. I found this amusing, and thought that any onlooker would also find it amusing, as two swimmers kept running into each other with more than 50m-wide of river to swim in. Needless to say, some work is needed on this aspect of the open water swimming. A good pair of goggles that don't fog up, would also assist in this regard.
Sunday AM headed out for a long slow loop around Bells Line of Rd. Baz joined up for about 12km until he got a flat tyre. The animal and I assisted with the tyre change, only to blow out the only spare we had that would fit his wheels. A long walk back to the car for Baz, and The Animal and I headed on our way. The weather was wet for most of the ride up Bells and down the Hwy. An afternoon shopping at Anaconda before getting in a swim that afternoon. Felt good in the pool considering the long ride that morning.
A solid end to the week. Not bad considering the time commitments at this time of year. A good start to the 'real' training for Port.